With the economy being the way it is, I recently had an idea of something I could do that would benefit both myself and my viewers. I decided to do a raffle. This is how it works:

Tickets are $10   (or 3 for $20)
The prize is a $500 gift certificate for any of my paintings, up to a value of $500.
I will sell only enough tickets to raise $500, which will pay for the prize.
I have given myself 3 months to sell the necessary tickets. The prize will be drawn when I have raised the $500, or on July 31st, whichever comes first.
I will post the name of the winner on my website once the draw has taken place.

I introduced this during my recent open studio weekend with some degree of success. Many visitors thought it a great idea and happily bought a ticket. Some did not.

It is an interesting experiment. There is a small element of risk in there for me in that if I am unable to sell all the tickets by the deadline, I may suffer a bit of a loss. But that was a risk I was willing to take.

Of course, this raffle idea would only be of interest to people who really like my work, otherwise what would be the point of winning art work that you’re not really fond of.

So time will tell how well this will work. The funny thing is, I’ve already discovered one drawback: I actually have to sell these tickets, by that I mean I have to mention them to people and ask them if they’d like one. Strangely enough, that’s the part of the whole plan I hadn’t thought of.

Could this be an idea that will spread among other artists?

Suzette

PS: If you would like to purchase a ticket, please email me. Payment can be made by Paypal, or cheque in the mail. I will be happy to enter your name in the draw.

"Succeeding takes more than technical skill, inspiration or simple forbearance. It incorporates your state of mind, your powers of thought and expression, your self-discipline and your strength of character." (Irwin Greenberg)

One of the most difficult things to do for an artist is walking the difficult path of trying to be true to yourself and your vision versus listening to what others say and think in order to improve your work.

This leads me to talk about the value of critiques and juries. I’ve talked about Juried Shows in a previous blog, so today I’m talking about critiques. How valuable is it to have your work critiqued by your peers, or by a superior artist or teacher?

To be effective, a critique should at the very least point out some good points before launching into what’s wrong with the work, and even then, I believe a critique should take into consideration who the artist is, ie how experienced the artist is and where he or she is in their journey. A good critique should address only a few important points with suggestions on how to make then better, not go into a diatribe of everything that’s wrong with the work. That only serves to destroy the artist’s feelings and confidence and achieves nothing. Because in the end, I believe that everyone sees things differently, and the list of what’s wrong can be very different from one person to the next, confirming my opinion that IT’S ALL SUBJECTIVE anyway and only one person’s opinion. And that is how we need to take it. If we can learn something from it, fine, otherwise, it’s meaningless, and useless.

The only value of critiques for me is to see how others perceive my work. Their ideas on what could be done differently usually reflect their personal bias based on their own work, and seldom match my vision for the work. And there’s always the danger of a serious critique session resulting in shaking your confidence in your own work, sending you back to making some changes which you may well regret later (spoken from experience).

So yes, I like to hear how others (artists AND the public) respond to my work. There are sometimes some surprises there for me and that may lead me to re-evaluate things from time to time, but I try not to put too much importance on the opinions of others. It is after all what I think that matters.

Suzette

"As all evaluation systems are suspect, there’s another way for creative people to approach the game. Pay no attention to what anybody thinks. Set your own standards. Paddle your own canoe. This includes not putting yourself at the mercy of kangaroo courts. Simply become your own jury and prize-giver. The real prize comes to the artist when the work is made, and if it’s truly worthy and anyone wants to vote for it down the line, maybe they’ll track you down."   (Robert Genn)