THE ART WORLD MY YEAR ONE IMPRESSIONS

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THE ART WORLD

MY YEAR ONE IMPRESSIONS

I must admit confusion.

NONE OF IT SEEMS TO MAKE ANY SENSE!

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Other artists,

Successful ones

Keep telling me my prices are too far low...

Recommending instead, what I would consider "silly money prices".

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The market

The people who, actually, offer to hand me their money for products

Say my prices are too high.

(Even though I am charging, after expenses, far less minimum wage already.)

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I thought I might make bread and butter money from cute standard "nice" landscapes and beach scenes.

BUT - because that market is already saturated with those.

Only the weird themes, like "tentacles eating brains", sell!

So, even though I am perfectly capable of "nice" art I am now getting known as the "weird violent artist".

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I have experts saying I am good, have a voice, and that I am talented.

While at the same time getting over twenty, badly spelt, rants a week from total strangers saying I am shit.

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I have a degree in print media and know more than average about marketing,

YET - in THIS world... NONE of the normal rules, such as basic 101 supply and demand, seem to ever apply.

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Because apparently in this bizarro world.

Unpopular and low demand art means “good”.

Making the sort of stuff most people want is “Selling out”

Having a voice of an average commonplace person means I should generate “Elitist prices”

Telling a visual truth is somehow “Sick and Twisted”

Telling a visual lie is somehow “Creative”

Both “Sick and Twisted” and “Creative” Adds value by making the art far less popular rather than more so,

Because popular somehow means also “debase, cheap and common”

And through all this, I am wondering.

“Is anyone actually looking at the picture?”

“Or is it just all about how this picture can be used in various social manoeuvrers and tactics to achieve something else?”

“Because at the end of the day, I want to sell my pictures to someone who likes them,”

“Not be a factory making figurative tools in some sort of social tool shop”

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NOW

I don’t know whether to

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1)

Try and keep guessing what people want,

Offering to make personalized Art, on a per order basis.

Though they clearly do not know the answer to that themselves.

Even though wanting to make people happy, is what everyone else says is, “selling out” and becoming a mere “Illustrator” instead of an “Artist”

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2)

Keep trying to make original art but for a price that someone in a bedsit might still be able to afford.

So, Original art is still for everyone.

But this sort of average person won’t touch my art because, (and get this) BECAUSE they CAN afford it.

While if they could not afford it, Only THEN does it have value to them?

How, the actual, FUCK is THAT supposed to work?

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3)

Charge the “silly prices” and start giving other artists the same advice.

So only “Better Off” people can get original art.

But to me, THIS is what it means to sell out.

(as opposed to their version in point ‘ 1 ’ above)

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I can almost predict someone out there answering with a question,

“Well? What are you wanting to achieve”?

And

“What do You want?”

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I’ll tell you what I do NOT want!

I do Not want fame and fortune

I never have!

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I’ll tell you what I DO want!

I just want to stay at home, making art for roughly minimum wage, maybe a bit less, so I can come off social the sickness benefits, that I currently collect due to mental illness.

I just want to make enough to cover materials and then be able to post affordable art to people that actually want to have that art for its own sake alone, not for some other reason!

I just want financially independent enough to be a “Shut-in”

Ironically, I wanted to do this to be able to isolate myself and avoid an outside world that I cannot and will never be able to understand

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But to do THIS

I must face a slightly skewed version of the same confusing world but with added layers of hidden meaning and extra layers of nonsensical nuanced stuff.

If I cannot handle the normal world?

How then can I handle an “Advanced variant 2.x version” with even weirder rules that are even better hidden!

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So, how can I sum up my first YEAR 1, in the art world?

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“While the normal world, as a whole, is far weirder than I am”

“The art world is weirder still,”

“It is almost like the normal world, but with extra added thick layers of icing, Ice cream, cream, and some sprinkles!”

“And someone or something wearing a human shape, smiling ear from to ear with spiteful evil, gleaming eyed glee…”

“…has just handed ME, this obscenely obesely fat, unhealthy, wheezing man, with a slowly creeping pain in his left arm….”

“… An oversized large silver spoon!”

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