Wednesday, May 24, 2017

The Art of Failing

Ever since I stumbled onto the fantastic blog, Muddy Colors, about a year ago, I started reading their articles from the beginning.   I’m on August of 2011.  I got a while to go to be current. 

Today I read an article “Why dumb ideas can be great ideas”, by Dan dos Santos.  There are several good quotes about experimenting and failing.  I’m at the stage where I’m pretty much experimenting with whatever I do.  I’ve sort of found the process I like doing, but I’m afraid others won't like it.  Thus I’m not really concentrating on it.  When I do explore this process, it is joyful to me because it is all emotional based, and so everything I do is an experiment.  Every piece is evolving from something new.  So my process is really a non-process.  I always thought that to be a great artist, one must get to a point where one does A, B, C then D and a little of E and …voila … a great piece of artwork emerges. 


I’m slowly learning this is not always the case.  Great artwork can emerge from chaos, experiments gone wrong, and many many failings.  However, it is hard to travel down a path you think is wrong.  It is much easier to follow everyone else.  Where am I going with this?  I don’t know.  Maybe I should continue down that unknown path and take Greg Manchess’ challenge to take more risks and fail more often.

Monday, May 1, 2017

My First Convention

A week ago I attended my first convention, Spectrum Fantastic Art Live, as a seller.  I am so glad I made the leap and decided to take my artwork to conventions.  I met so many great artists, both seasoned convention veterans and new to the convention scene like myself.

A few great things happened while I was at Spectrum.  A couple of my originals that were displayed at the Artomatic show in Crystal City, Va, were sold.  After a few email exchanges, the buyer wanted to purchase both originals.  These are my first original artwork sales to the public.  

The other thing that happened was I met John Parise, the Dragon Con Art Show Director, at Spectrum, who thought my art would fair well at Dragon Con.  He encouraged me to apply for the 2018 art show.  I had thought about applying to Dragon Con this year but changed my mind, thinking my art is not yet at that level.  John Parise said I was wrong. That warms my heart to know that someone who is mostly surrounded by great art thinks my art is on that level.


I am very excited but I need to generate more artwork before next March.