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  Connie Mettler May 18, 2015 at 3:09pm

  Nice addition, Wesley. Last night in a need for some escape I turned on the DIY network's "Garage Gold." These guys go in and clean out someone's garage and get it in shape in exchange for keeping whatever they find.

  They found stacks of framed "art." The appraiser said most of it was worth $20-$40. There was an original (real saccharine to my eye) that could be worth as much as $400. BUT -- there was a triptych, limited edition prints by someone I know from the art fairs -- A.E. London. They raved about them, edition of 300, and acted like it was the greatest find, valued at $1000. Well, it was. Anne London does wonderful work and can be found at the top art fairs. More here.

  Wayfair and everyone else has good eye candy, great prices, we just need to find the folks who want the real stuff.
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  Wesley C. Honeycutt May 18, 2015 at 2:07pm

  I'm a jewelry artist in my 40th year. But this interests me because I love Art and really enjoy checking it out when I'm working a show. What this all points to for me is that "our world is changing!" After reading this thread a bit, I opened an email from Wayfair with a ad for "Wall Art under $50.00" I took a look and there were a lot of nice reproductions printed on canvas. Giclee has now been around for over 20 years. It certainly has had it's effect of offering the look of an oringinal at a reasonable price. And we just went through a rather mean recession which I believe did effect the shows and us as artists. And if people still needed nice wall art cheap, that need has been fulfilled and that's the way the world works.

  The shows are an extremely dynamic way to connect with people and see what they think. It's a rich exchange....and it certainly can't be compared to shopping online. So, bottom line, I hope painters keep painting beautiful, original work and do keep coming to the shows....and the shows work hard to make sure they have an experience that makes them want to come back.
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  Mark V. Turner May 18, 2015 at 12:47pm

  Connie,

  Please have your correspondent get in touch with me. I am an award-winning painter. I do nothing but originals and am reasonably priced. I am self-taught - which means all my bad habits are of my own development. I lived in Nashville before I began painting; so I understand the territory. I accept commissions and work in styles from abstract to realistic.

  To the rest of the thread commenters: go ahead and keep arguing.

  The show promoters who you'd like to change the balance of artists and artisans for their events are busy filling booth slots. They have lots of applicants - many of them selling women's wearables. And that's because the main art show customer is a woman... If browsing and not on a décor-hunting mission, they will spend money on something to wear before they buy something for the walls or an open space. 

  The holy grail shows have their own grandiose dynamic and have come to believe in themselves as penultimate arbiters of fine taste. They have no need of you, and have convinced the public and artists that they are the be-all and end-all of art experiences - with booth pricing to match. I no longer waste the 40 dollar and up application fees.  And these folks continue to jury and accept entries which use staged booth shots - then fail to match the jury image with the shanty town actuality of the show set-up.

  And I guess I am becoming more OK with NOT getting into the top rated shows. I have often found that truly original work with any innovation that sets it aside from other exhibitors is ignored by the masses anyway. Plus, many have been brought up thinking that art is prints you find in a retail store, or screen shots of their fav first person shooter game

  And...surprise surprise... if you are one of the few painters at many of these 'second-rate shows', you can sell paintings... but not with the ambition of making 5-10k in a weekend....

  And with apologies to all classically trained photographers: with all the software out there to manipulate images, a person with software skills can easily become a show going vendor of 'images'. I think we forget that technology continues to advance constantly. Degas and Eakins both incorporated photography into their painting careers - though remained painters. If you can work the software, we all know that the sow's ear image can be manipulated and cropped into something resembling an imported imitation silk purse with a value price. Place it in a nice mat and frame it tastefully, and that software user might be a budding photographer - though often the work could be argued to be more digital than original.

  Yes you must be able to understand what a good photo is - or at least imitate a photographer who does.

  As for not everyone can be a photographer and be successful: once or twice a year, we read of the photographic work of a now-dead person (who had a camera and shot thousands of street scene images of their own milieu, but never sought to take them to market) whose hoard of images are discovered during an estate clean-out and make headlines as brilliant (but dead) artists who faithfully recorded their world in a personal way that a 'professional' photographer could not have or was not interested in doing so... If you faithfully record your world in images, your work will have monetary worth to someone some day.... but usually as an archive, not image by image - unless the archive becomes 'celebrated'.

  Meanwhile, I'm painting on deadline and have to run... Hate On!
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  Charles T. Dana May 18, 2015 at 10:20am

  As a photographer, I would like to see the writer just take and frame a few photographs and get accepted into a show.  Some things are not as easy as they appear.  
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  Larry Berman May 18, 2015 at 9:52am

  Don't know how I missed this thread. Maybe because I've had an extremely busy week photographing good artwork so good artists have a better chance of getting into some quality shows.

  Here's the thing. As I started reading this thread, I was ready to say, why is it always the photographers who take the blame when a show goes downhill or when people can't find the higher end things they are looking for. Thanks to Jim for saying what I would have said but not so eloquently.

  Back to the original question. Most shows in Nashville are known to be more crafts so few painters even apply to those shows.

  And to reiterate, there are good artists in every medium but the best only apply to the shows with the best reputations.

  Main Street Fort Worth had a solution for the woman who wrote the initial letter. When I attended the open jury there a few years ago, Jay invited a woman to sit in who complained that there wasn't anything to buy at the previous year's show. After the jury, she left with a new understanding of how the shows choose the artists and that there is a lot of high quality artwork, just not her particular taste the year she attended the show.

  Larry Berman
  http://BermanGraphics.com
  412-401-8100
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  Robert Wallis May 16, 2015 at 9:37pm

  That's a reasonable approach and one that I followed when working on an MA in art. I took 12 hours of drawing classes and that was enough for me to recognize that wasn't my calling. It was done at the behest of my advisor and not something I would have willingly tackled. I was told it would be helpful for my composition and perspective. That was a crock as I had a handle on that already and my instructors fussed about my unusual perspectives and composition. I was also the oldest student amd the age of their parents ;-) What it did do was give a good handle on line quality and a controlled looseness. The techniques stuck and I've had more than one person comment of the "painterly" quality of my photography. I may have been unwilling to spend that many hours in drawing classes, which also covered watercolor, ink wash, pastels, and colored pencils, but in the end it was time well spent.
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  Peter Grimord May 16, 2015 at 9:15pm

  Somehow a lack of painters turned into a discussion about photography, its voracity as legitimate artistic expression, and its corrosive effect on art shows.  Since this isn't a private fight I wish to very briefly weigh in on this topic: In my estimation, any tutored artist should be at least minimally proficient in drawing and photography.  In the modern era these have somehow become the twin pistons of starting a foundation for art, or maybe to use another metaphor, drawing and photography is the dock off of which artists must jump to begin to swim.  And these two skills, even if practiced little through an artist's tenure, are a sort of hard wiring that we all pull from to complete our art.  Drawing is wired directly to our bodies via our hand and is the source of the artwork's "interior" content.  Photography, through the lens, is how we gather information from the exterior world which can be very grounding thus making a wider audience for our art possible. To practice both can't hurt but aren't necessary for making good art in any medium.   
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  Robert Wallis May 16, 2015 at 9:11pm

  I picked up that little tidbit from a gallery owner in Louisville where I had several pieces in a regional show back a few years ago. Merton spent a fair amount of time in Louisville and stories of him are legendary ;-)
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  Connie Mettler May 16, 2015 at 9:41am

  Okay, you made my day, Robert -- referring to Thomas Merton on AFI. Love it. 
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  Robert Wallis May 15, 2015 at 9:16pm

  Thomas Merton, a poet, priest, and photographer made a very astute observation in 1956 that is still relevant today and is germane to this discussion;
  "Photography is the most democratic of all the art media. As such, this is a dual blessing and a curse. It is blessed that anyone can pick up a camera and create something. It is equally cursed that anyone can pick up a camera and create something. And entirely too many people do so."
  
  There are entirely too many folks out there who have technical skills and a good eye for mimicry where they can spot a good nugget of photographic gold on line or in print and replicate the idea that has worked well for someone else. I don't call someone like that a real artist, but rather a skilled copyist. I've sat through enough jury selections to see how many photographers are just copyists. The number of applications with mountain sunrises, boats tied up at the end of a pier or dock, bees hovering off of a flower, relaxing tigers, and so on is enough to make someone realize that there is a buttload of mediocre images out there. The truly talented photographers are few and far between.
  
  Having been critical of my fellow photographers, and I don't exempt myself either, attention needs to be pointed at other media. All media have their own share of marginal performers and workmanlike pedestrian artists. If these folks are getting into shows and diluting the gene pool, as it were, then the finger has to be pointed at the promoters and judges who select these people. No one holds a gun to the head of the jury panel and says, "Let this artist in your show." Hardly. Show promoters and organizers trying to fill all the spaces to make a buck or two extra, and never mind the consequences, are the culprits at setting the bar too low.
  
  Kodak and the camera manufacturers are responsible for making their customers believe that buying their products will turn you into a professional photographer overnignt. The reality is that getting a well focused and properly exposed image is far easier and with a much higher probability than it ever has been. It still doesn't guarantee that your content shines through and that your images have visceral punch. The average image taker gets far better results than they did in the film days, so the average quality is elevated but that doesn't really improve the proficient and insightful practitioner. Lumping these folks in with the talented artist/photographers does a terrible injustice to those who are busting their butts to do quality work with distinctive aesthetics. Any fool can push a button and take a photo. It takes a real artist to know what they are doing, how to get it done, and know what emotions are at play in their work. That applies to any media and not just photography.