So, I’ve been getting my water brushes moving doing simple ink drawings this week. I have a pile of source work waiting and ready for more intensive oil work. But the immediate impetus has been quickly recording what lingers on my retinal memory from some recent travel. I found a new gallery in Minnesota and will be sending him images of these drawings because we both want to test/have an expectation that these will sell. So, the natural question is “am I cheapening my aim by spending time making locale work just to try and sell?”

Here’s my answer to myself (and you): Maybe the most significant progress I have seen in my studio this year has been a change in my inner conversations as I work. I am checking the judging of myself in harsh ways. I look and evaluate, change and adapt for sure. All that takes critical judgment. But the self-critical part has been tamped down with an observed kindness which is freeing me to fail, to explore, to not care what happens as long as I keep at it. There’s something big about this that a short blog won’t be adequate to explain.

But, back to this “bread and butter” idea. I learned several years ago when hearing some other artists talk about their serious “out there” work that their quick saleable work is vital also because it keeps them fueled. Easily this tactic can be cheapened, I am sure. Bread and butter type work can become a numbing assembly line distraction. But there has to be something valid about making work which is accessible to a broader audience. For artists, this is often simpler, faster work which still has the genuine voice of the artist. And this avenue sustains and keeps fluid the more ponderous, ‘meaty’ idea-based work. And so, I simply enjoyed this week.

In fact, I am not making any work just to sell; my inner motivation ‘to make’ is not monetarily based. That alone is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because the dollar is not my driver, a curse because too easily I can excuse myself from getting going. I know artists who need to sell and they work a whole lot harder than I do. But I sometimes wonder about the integrity of the outcome when money has such a high place. The hunger that drives me, to express with brushes, is not for the bread and the butter. But if I make some bread and butter work, some healthy bread and butter work, with the same personal respect, I think observers will sense it. And I expect I am going to see ultimately more of what I am working for. So, I’m letting both be. And that’s pretty good.