Fully realized

[Marcus Lim]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

I wonder if I could get some help understanding a style of painting that I see and like, and to some extent have done myself...
My question is not so much about the above kind of art speak, but mostly about my own ignorance and desire to be able to communicate intelligently with the people that may view my paintings...
When an intelligent, albeit not in the arts, person says to you:

* when will you finish it?
* why have you already framed it?
* did you just get bored with it and quit?
* were you pressed to start another?
* I would want mine to be finished with paint everywhere.
* you would charge less for this, right?

When i hear similar comments like this, i'm suddenly reminded about how things are in Singapore art market. Literally, people don't understand the notion that "the art market is not a mass market", as Michele have put it. Worse when one gallery owner defines good art as one which "looks sharp, not blurred"!
So nowadays i came up with an informal "client screening" process, which includes educating them about painting styles; not just mine but a few artists' styles that i know and understand.

Originally Posted by Chris Saper

...I actually feel it IS my job to educate clients insofar as different styles, artists, and prices. I need to know right away if they are looking for a painter like Dean Paules...and if I am not going to be the right painter for them, I want to know right away...

I agree with Chris that it is imperative to reach out to clients with our works and prices, and allow them to react to it.

Then comes the second part where either at the start of in the middle of the process, clients ask list of questions that Mike has faced before here. I'm not good at artspeak, or business-speak for the matter, but i explain to them about my purpose being an artist (somewhat artist statement in SIMPLE ENGLISH), and that my work represents the ESSENCE of what i understand of who they represent in their own lives - and what they mean to the people around them.

Most of all, the so-called "incompleteness" in our paintings was not because we are scrimping on oil materials (yes, we get those comments too...) or we got bored with it, but simply that any more work on it, kills that ESSENCE. Like the best chefs in the world, any extra pinch of salt kills the flavor of their culinary creations. If you really want a fine work, i think we jolly well can recommend a couple of photoshops that does great photo portraits.

At this point, i suddenly remember an oath that one artist jokingly puts it to her clients, to swear that "this is a painting, not a photograph"!...errr, was it from you, Chris?

So to end mike, what is important is not about spouting technicalities to people who query about the finished work, i mean after all they pay hefty sums for it. But to continue to affirm ourselves, and with them with who we are as artists, our missions with them, and fufilling that mission to the point that the people around our clients identify with the artists. At least, that's what i learnt from watching the DVD on Norman Rockwell, when they interviewed his relatives and neighbours at Stockbridge.