Art for Sale

It is that time of year again. I got my flu shot this afternoon. I figured that I had to do it. Now more than ever I must take care of myself. With all the changes occurring in the world, I rationalized that the only way I can be a successful artist and a successful small businessman (all artists are small businesses) I will need to work smarter, maybe a little harder or longer hours, and definitely work to a higher level of quality. That means I want to avoid being sick or run down.

I had one of my inspiring afternoons in the process. I walked to the pharmacy that was selling the flu shots. I walked for the exercise, because it is a beautiful autumn day in Chicago (and winter is around the corner), and to be more green. It was a 25 minute walk to the pharmacy. All the way there, the current economic crisis was going through my head. In addition, and what I thought was more important, I was thinking about how I am going to "survive" the crisis. Questions like "how much money will I lose?" or "who will buy my paintings?" or "should I get a second job?" I try not to worry about things I can't control, like the economy and once I reminded myself of that, the answers to my questions became clear. Yes, I will lose a lot of money. Someone will buy my buy my paintings eventually. And probably, I will get a second job to put my mind at ease. Seemed easy. Worry was gone.

I got the shot. It hurt more than usual. I stopped off for a coffee for the walk home. I got a medium and I'm still drinking it. I'm not use to this amount of caffeine. I decided to take a different route home. A bit longer. I found it odd that I decided to take a longer route home since I had a number of things I wanted to accomplish yet today. I was feeling motivated by the fact I no long have to worry about the economy. I'm sure there are millions of people out there willing to do that for me. With the sun in my face and a cool breeze periodically blowing across the street, I began to receive images again. I didn't only receive one or two. I saw complete series. Two of them in fact. Both building on my current series but completely different at the same time. The images came quietly and remained in my thoughts until the next one arrived. I continued this process the entire walk home. I was a bit of a zombie. I walked home on autopilot while image after image became mine.

As cool of an experience it was, it was also frustrating. I have yet to set up my space or processes sufficiently to take on this number of pieces that I now what to do. Part of me fears that I will sink all this time, energy and money into creating all this art for it to pile up in the already full closet. It may be time for me to shrug off these fears, work on my craft, create these images that were so graciously given to me, and be an artist. After all, there will be someone out there who will buy my art, no matter what the stock market is doing.