January 17, 2011

Why I'm not painting

I have three paintings waiting to be finished. All three have been sorted, copied and gelled and the gel of at least one of them is dry enough to work with. But instead of spending the day in my studio I've been sitting behind my computer struggling with this press release.

Unfortunately being an artist isn't just about painting and creating work, it should be, but it isn't. At least not when you're just starting out and don't have the money to hire a PR person or have an agent. A lot of the time it's about promotion which isn't something I have a whole lot of knowledge about. I mean, off course you could just lock yourself in your studio and just paint but that would be a bit pointless because I create my work to be seen by other people. The problem with that is that people will need to know about it first and that's where the whole PR thing comes in.

I find it quite hard to find a balance, especially now, when I'm preparing for my solo show in April. this should ideally be a time to create a lot of work for the show. But this PR stuff keeps cropping up and getting in the way. Now I know that this is probably more so now because this is my first solo show and all these things take a lot more time doing them the first time. I have to admit that I'm very, very lucky. I have several very intelligent and professional people who are helping me out with this, reading over my material and giving me tips and tricks and I'm very grateful for that. But sometimes I wish I could just be an artist and paint without worrying about the PR part of it all.

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