Gratitude 67

I am very grateful for my art, especially for all my paintings.  They are truly mine now and for one simple reason.  I have decided that my art is too good and too precious for a snooty art world that eats its own for breakfast then shits out their bones before lunch is served.  I wasted ten years trying to please those bastards.  Nothing I turned out was pleasing to them.  Was my painting really that bad?  Well, I have sold more than one hundred paintings and have clandestinely observed many strangers praise my art.  Only twice has it been dissed, to my ears only: by a loutish boy who said, "it's just birds", but then his girlfriend retorted, "But they're so pretty."  I said thank you.  You should have seen the look on her boyfriend's face!  Then there was the really miserable, and ugly (maybe because she was miserable?  She wasn't just miserable because she was ugly?) woman who muttered to her friend that my paintings were "badly done.  Just badly done".  This was in a café.  I looked up and smiled and said to her.  "Well, you can't please anyone, I guess."  The look on her puss.  Her friend, by the way, seemed to like my art.

However, the incredibly snotty and insular art world is full of ugly bitches such as Ms. Mub, or Miserable Ugly Bitch, and their criteria for what is acceptable in art is every bit as obscure as it is strict and inaccessible.  In the meantime, Gentle Reader, let me treat you to some images of my work, and you yourselves can be the judge:

   

I know that birds are popular these days.  However, none of the birds I paint are local.  This of course brings on the judgment of tropical kitsch concerning my art. And the local art establishment seems to believe that only local and regional are appropriate to be shown on their walls.  Something about being geographically correct?  But I don't want to paint local birds.  The tropical ones are far lovelier and more interesting.  Oh, sorry, that's all about aesthetics.  Another dirty word in the art world.


 

I favour bright colours.  But the West Coast palette is supposed to be subdued, sombre, and dull, just like our weather here ten months of the year.  Aesthetically incorrect, I suppose.  But I intentionally paint bright colours as a counterbalance to the dreary hues of Vancouver, as a counter against the depression and resulting dysphoria this brings on.  Of course, this implies escapism and exoticism, or, shall I say...Kitsch?

 


I am not interested in painting to a post-modernist beat of a politically-correct and culturally informed drum if it means turning out aesthetically inferior garbage.  One famous Canadian artist really damned me with faint praise when she recommended a gallery that promotes "Nice" art.  Her name is Gathie Falk.  (so sue me, Gathie.  And never piss off a blogger!)

 

 

I have come to the conclusion that my paintings are exactly that.  They are MINE.  I love my art.  There are others who appear to as well...

 

But until I meet a good, well-connected agent, who really appreciates and respects my paintings, and who equally appreciates and respects me, the person who made them, my art is staying at home, with me....



At least I'll know where they are, and they will be loved and appreciated...



All the rest of you can go to hell, and stay there, until you have figured out that by your intransigence you are disabling me from making my contribution to the world and you are depriving the world of the unique beauty of my paintings...



I have recently come to understand that I am in the middle of a very quiet, prolonged meltdown over my rage and wrath at the art community, which has betrayed and screwed me around in more ways than I can recount on this page...



I am going to reserve my pearls for worthier swine...



There is still room for repentance, if anyone is willing to step up and help me move my art forward.  I cannot do this alone.  I lack the time and energy, because of my work demands and the importance of stewarding my emotional wellbeing.  I also lack connections.  Unlike almost every artist who has made it, I do not have back up: no family, no partner to pay the bills, no space for a studio, nor the funds to pay for one, and no available time or energy to be my own agent.

I am not interested in advice.  I need people who will step up and help.  If you're not prepared to do that then please do me the favour of shutting up about it.

I am writing this blogpost in honour of my late mother, Joyce Greenlaw.  Here is her posthumous portrait that I painted in 2008.  And here are some of the most important words she ever said to me.

"Don't ever let anyone shit on you."  


Thanks, Mom!