Do Not Fear Original Art (and Why it is the PERFECT Gift for Gift-giving Occasions)

It may be counter-intuitive, but I am NOT trying to sell my paintings to you. On the other hand, I am delighted by each sale for two major reasons, and one not so major.  First, because it takes a burden away from the executors of my estate who, given my age, must soon fall upon them: how to dispose of my unsold art. That’s a very personal reason that will not affect you, so let’s move on.

The second reason is because it fulfills one of my greatest desires: I have always wanted to make actual original art that, if not great, is not terrible, and is available to that demographic identified as the middle class, defined for purposes of this discussion as people who are not impoverished, but not necessarily rich, either. Only a tiny fraction of people will ever own an original painting, but what they own will be unique, one hopes it will be valued, and with proper care will be around for at least a few centuries to come.

Of course, the third, more minor reason is that it’s always nice to earn a few bucks and be able to justify art supply costs when paying income tax.

Precisely because of my advanced age I think I have learned a thing or two about why people do or do not buy original art (but, I will argue here, should consider doing so; this is about as close to a sales pitch as I can muster).  We live in a sound-bite era of short attention spans, and this is a complex issue, so please try to read at least a few pages of the following if you like the subjects I choose (mainly wild birds), or art, or both.  If there is a “rule” to buying original or reproduced art, buy what you enjoy having around, what you enjoy seeing, or what will bring pleasure to whomever receives it as a gift.

First to explain my first sentence. When in my teens one of my mentors, T.M. Shortt, in my opinion the best artist specializing in the portrayal of birds Canada has ever produced, urged me NOT to seek to earn a living as an artist. It took me years to learn the wisdom of his words. Almost by definition artists are not motivated by market demands but seek to be true to their own interests, muses, urges, explorations, passions – whatever – that are therefore inherently personal and subjective, thus not necessarily widely, if at all, shared.

Elsewhere I elaborate on what I think is “art” vs “Illustration” and various graphic art categories. I explain why I think so-called “wildlife art” is generally ghettoized by the fine art community.  Simply put, as a general rule an artist driven to portray natural history subjects can at best hope to earn a living only or mostly via “illustration”, very broadly defined as drawing and painting to the needs of the marketplace.

That does not prevent the production of “fine art” that has served as “illustration”; much of the greatest (and most monetarily and otherwise valued) art ever done, was done in response to rigidly constrained market demand. There would be none of Michelangelo’s contribution to the Sistine Chapel but for commissions from the Vatican. Seeking financial independence from family wealth Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec illustrated advertising posters now worth vast fortunes as art, and, I might add, immensely profound cultural icons. There is nothing inherently non-artistic in economic incentive or commercial illustration.

In fact, generally, to earn a living as a painter of pictures, whatever the “genre”, one must paint to market demand. If the artists’ passions and buyers’ demands overlap the confluence can create a very happy artist, to be sure, but taste (demand) is fickle and changeable in response to multiple factors not least being the skill of the artists’ (or artists’ agents) at marketing. This produces something of a Catch-22 situation as one of the major contemporary marketing tools of “wildlife art” is the production and large-scale marketing of “prints” – both real artists’ prints, manually produced in inherently limited numbers and individualistic, and, far more often, mechanically reproduced prints made possible by current technology.

Here, for me, is the dilemma I try to avoid: to cover the overhead involved in the manufacture and marketing of prints the image must have widespread appeal. In the case of representational art, specifically “realism” (see discussion – Link) that includes both subject and treatment.  The degree of success can, usually does, influence the value of the original piece of art (unless it is computer art, which leaves no “original” as such and which I will never, ever, do), as does the degree of failure to achieve the popularity required to cover costs.  Which brings us to the reasons both why original art can simultaneously be an excellent purchase, and yet people are afraid to make it.

Simply put, if the art is “any good”, it is assumed that the price of it will be far beyond the reach of most people. If, on the other hand, art is affordable, it must be that it is not very good and buying it, even at bargain rates, can mark the buyer as a being ignorant, unable to properly judge the merit of art.  And to be sure, there is far more “bad art” out there than good.

But how to tell the good from the bad? The art of an artist (Vincent Van Gogh being a most obvious example) that is deemed by potential buyers to be bad, can become great art in time.  Some extremely cherished “folk” art is valued for many reasons having little to do with artistic skill but everything to do with the artists and their passions and motivations. You cannot compare a deer painted by Maud Lewis to one by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Carl Rungius or Robert Bateman, but all are justifiably of value and all reveal enormous passion and commitment, if not necessarily similar degrees of technical skill, of which only the first three are masters.  If the art is highly priced, yet sells, it probably means it was deemed “good” by those in the fine art community as described here (link) who determine such things. Such art is often deemed an investment and at times its investment value (the expectation that demand for it will continue to rise) seems more important than its function as art, be it decorative, social, inspirational, thought provoking – whatever of the numerous functions that art serves.

Okay.  If you got this far, here’s the pitch.  The reason I urge the purchase of original art (mine or not) and/or crafts (the border between the two is broad, soft, indistinct, and permeable) is because it IS original, one of a kind, individualistic. 

You may of course find copies of any given original but there is, and only can be, one actual original.  It is the obvious choice for the legendary person who has everything, since such people don’t have what exists as a single object, unless or until they have that single object.  And not just a single object in the sense that every stone, pinecone, or dried leaf is singular, but single as a product of combinations of skill, experience, and individuality specific to a single human being, the artist (albeit assisted to varying degrees by everyone from the manufacturers, distributors and sellers of materials used to studio assistants – a vanishingly rare breed more common to the Great Masters than to contemporary artists). 

What if the recipient does not “like” the gift?  It certainly can happen, and I am always somewhat intrigued at how a painting loved by one person is rejected by the next.  I have had paintings enthusiastically purchased that I considered throwing away, while some of what I think of as my very best (and most reasonably priced, I might add) paintings languish unsold.  My answer is that cold, indeed, would be the recipient of any original piece – art or craft – who would not be touched by the thought, the idea behind the gift, and such gifts can always be re-gifted, passed on to those whose taste they match. 

Common sense is required.  A collector of paintings for which hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, were paid would not likely be remotely impressed by anything I might do, for sure, any more than such a collector would have looked favorably upon receiving an original Van Gogh in 1889.  And no, as I address elsewhere I have no illusions that “wildlife” art will ever fully emerge from its ghetto.  But art, if nothing else, inevitably accrues a representational value of the cultural matrix in which it was created. All such creations are to varying degrees (the Great Pyramid less so than a paper flower) ephemeral in the cosmic scheme of things, but value is added as time inexorably separates us from the time of their production.

To put it as simply as I can, art that is good, however defined, and exists in good condition, may not achieve enormous monetary value, but its value, however much or little, will not diminish, if, and this is key, the original price is fair. 

That brings us back full circle to why I do my best to keep my prices just that, affordable, thus, I hope, making it the perfect gift where originality is likely to be most valued by the recipient – birthdays, holiday gifts, retirement gifts, awards and incentives, and, most obviously, self-gifting, and where the purchase of art validated as being of greatest value exists far outside of budgetary limitations. 

Sales pitch ended.