August 2020:
Hastings Open 2020 is now open
As of August 27th Hastings Open 2020 is open to the public at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, and will be until 3rd January 2021. Having visited it last weekend I was very proud to have ‘Let go’ picked for this show. This piece sits in the main room of the exhibition and rests in excellent company. The range of art being exhibited is wide and exciting.
Plenty of well-known local names are among the exhibitors, plus many from further afield. Most artworks are for sale and to be honest there are a lot of bargains there. The website for this exhibition is here.
Me and ‘Let go’ (top) at Hastings Open 2020
Hastings Museum and Gallery is worth a visit in its own right, and not just for its collection - the building is stunning too.
Mailing list
I thought I would establish an email mailing list to share details of new shows, new work, new news every month or so. When there is news. If you would like to receive these updates you can sign up from the form on my About Me page, or right here:
‘A new normal‘ - Pricing artwork and the race to the bottom
It is sadly endemic that artists seem to constantly undervalue their work. For whatever reason. I have often been guilty of that as well. This is not the reason why ‘Let go’ is priced quite highly for the Hastings Open, I should add, because I have priced it steeply.
I don’t want art to be out of reach of modest budgets, and I’m obviously not in this for the megabucks, but I do think that low prices can mask the effort that goes into creating any art. Unless you are already an ‘emerging artist’ we can too easily end up with a race to the bottom and a climate where art is seen as mass-produced, consumable, and ultimately little more than a disposable wall covering.
The artist support pledge that arose during the Covid lockdown was an invaluable way for creatives to pool cheaper work and try to create a circular economy of mutual support - globally. The £200 / $200 / €200 maximum price tag made a lot of decent art very affordable but there were far too many instances where pricier art was reduced to well under that maximum to fit that structure and remain competitive. It is distressing to know that so many artists had little option but to have a fire sale when the normal economy collapsed.
Continuing to depress our art prices now that we strive to head towards some semblance of new normality seems like we are opting into a continuation of the old ways. We all need to be clear that it is not acceptable to allow that to be the case. We need to think carefully about making our work valued and valuable. After all, my point of view is that there is little better for boosting creativity than the ability to buy new materials, canvases, frames, books, gallery tickets. To be able to experiment. To be able to use our income to explore and expand. It boggles me when you see artwork priced so cheaply that it can’t even cover the materials used. But this is not uncommon!
Yes, continue to open up some work to as ‘affordable’ a price bracket as possible but be wary of dropping the prices of work that we wouldn’t ordinarily discount. As ever; looking at what goes on around you and keeping up with the Joneses will only end up in distress and regret. Keeping faith in your best work goes hand in hand with demanding the price point that you believe it is worth.
Seaford studies
At the start of August I was lucky enough to spend the morning strolling around the cliffs above Seaford in East Sussex. The vivid turquoise Channel and the the warm sun pushed me towards creating a series of palette knife paintings, in oil, of Cuckmere Haven, Hope Gap, and the surrounding scenery.
These are all visible on my Instagram page and they are for sale but I will have them framed by next week. After that they will be available in my shop.
I enjoy palette knife painting a lot. The experimentation, the accidents, the textures - all make the whole process exciting. I plan to create a lot more but these few were a great excuse to get started.
‘Cuckmere Haven’, 2020, oil on paper, 8x10 inches