Painter Man, Boney M (MP3) · Prime Movie (AVI)

Since I am an artist, I am too considered crazy by many and is laughed at behind my back by few. And at times (about 99% of the time) it hurts like hell. Van Gough must have been crazy too to have cut his ear, and he has not sold but a single painting... yet look at what his canvases fetch now! When compared to Van Gough I must be doing pretty good since I have managed to sell more than one painting. But finding the right moment to die is difficult given the uncertainties of becoming famous posthumously... So at this point life sounds like a reasonable option, especially since I do not have to go through trash boxes in Panera looking for half-eaten bagels much too often.

So why do we choose to be artists given the non-stop ridicule and all imaginable difficulties? Frankly, in my case there was not much of a choice. I can never be confined to a cubicle. Nor I can work with other people, not with my 'difficult' and sociophobic character. The only thing I can do is draw and paint, and even that I cannot do good enough for the opinions of my works vary, rejections are abundant, and in the end I derive about as much disappointment and frustration from my artistic activities as I do satisfaction. And the worst part of it is that art ain't cheap (to study and to practice, I mean). In this context it is particularly infuriating when upon learning that I am an artist people say with a smirk: 'Artist, huh? So, what does your husband do?'

Art Ain't Cheap
Art ain't cheap. $30k for grad school that did not teach me painting techniques that I needed nor offered any tangible employment opportunities (there are about 800 applications for each college-level instructor opening). Each blank canvas is about $100. A tube of paint runs $20/each, and a colored pencil is $2/stick. And you need a lot of tubes, brushes and pencils and they vanish fast. Thank God for those Sunday 50% off coupons for Michaels stores that I frantically collect from all my friends and acquaintances for replenishing my supplies. Thus a typical painting will easily run up $150-$200 in supplies... and yes, models need to be paid too...

Art Ain't Easy
So, besides being 'ain't cheap' art is ain't easy. I have been studying for almost ten years now and still remain far from complete mastery (antagonist sinisterly remark that this might be due to the lack of talent). Old masters spent lives studying while starting their apprenticeship as children in another master's studio. These days apprenticeship is hard to come by and those masters that do teach charge $5,000 per workshop. So what comes out of it is a lifetime of study, frustration and experimentation. One now-established artist with biography similar to mine was asked why his paintings costs so much if he spends only a few days working on each canvas. His laconic reply was this: "Few days and all my life". On a rare occasion a work of art does take just a few days to complete. However, most realistic paintings take weeks and months to paint. Large colored pencil drawings the longest time, while graphite and watercolor sketches are the fastest and usually can be finished in one day. So once you subtract the cost of supplies and divide the remaining amount by the hours directly spent on painting most artists make well below minimal wage for all the hard labor (aside for popular kitsch-makers like Kincaid, who has his paintings crafted by technicians in his workshop and who barely signs the finished canvases, or venerable masters like John Currin that charge exorbitant amounts because their style and subject matter is in fashion). Yet we keep at it, despite the ridicule, misunderstanding and complaints on high prices because we, artists, cannot be happy doing anything else!.. In fact a happy artist is an oxymoron kind of 'military intelligence'. Few artists are truly happy, and most artists I know drink. But some of the best art is created in the moments of severe emotional distress, so unhappiness and moodiness are probably necessary traits of any creative profession... But I have no regrets, except for perhaps being born in the first place, and perhaps for the exception that I dropped out of junior art school in my adolescent years due to lack of determination and focus, could have saved myself years... Oh well, I am not going to cry over spilled milk now. And I hope that you will enjoy my work and appreciate it a little more since you now know what it takes to be an artist and what it costs to create a work of art. -- Veronica