Re: LES WALKER - All NEW Custom Works 2009
Thanks Ray. You others also.
I just went and ate with my Dad, and we were talking about the last few days. He helped me to see more clearly a lot of things going on here. And to appreciate the feelings of others. And to consider when I have tried and am doing my best, and that that is the best I can do. I can live with that.
Anything about my art, affects me, and now especially, that I am trying so hard to make up the time loss. Imagine doing a year's worth of work in a month. Yeah. Seriously, imagine it. I am not. I am DOING just that.
That is the penance I have to, and need to, pay for having a year so bad, that it made me not able to paint, even when I desperately had to.
I felt for a while there, during the worst of it, between April and October, that every day, that "tomorrow", things would get better, and I would be able to catch up, so what was one more commssion. That's the trap. You think you can take ONE MORE COMMISSION because THIS HELL CANNOT LAST. Then it does.
In a way, I can see it from a black and white perspective, take the job, do the work, return it. End of that job, take another. What happened was, I just couldn't think straight. EVERY day was hell. Ma putting us through stuff we had never been through as a family before, and I would see my own stuff, bills and all, and go, oops!
Better take this offer. So I did.
NOW, I can see what I did wrong. Clearly.
Also, I have only been taking such volume of art commissions for about two and a half years. Can any of you imagine how heady it is, when you are just some guy, a no name at that point, a random guy that loves to paint, "doing what you do", and then so many people like it, and want it, and are willing PAY YOU TO DO IT, and then, when demand for YOU is getting so high, things start to go bad at home, and your mind sort of goes into a blind alley. You want something to keep you emotionally bouyed, but what you end up doing is ultimately not the thing to do.
So, admitting I am a right brained artist, and not a professional businessman, and all that, is something I think I have made pretty clear already. Over and over it seems.
I am proud of what I have learned though. I have lists of my customers, and lists of my work, so I can keep up with it. I have learned to pay my bills on time with it, and try to keep myself a viable help to my family and not a drag on them, all with my abilities. So I have learned. And I have learned, DON'T TAKE WHAT YOU CAN'T GET DONE! But learning is a process.
I learned my art over 40 plus years. I have only learned this business angle, alone, with no help, for about maybe 3. I also did so at a terrible time. That's it.
I can't go on apologizing to those that just cannot understand. I mean, I AM SORRY, but I can't keep on slumming my soul in the gutter to make someone else feel better about it. Besides, if I have learned anything, I can't make some people happy no matter what I do.
One more thing. And this one hurts. I have ALWAYS had someone out there, that hated me. Since I was a kid. I just did art. I don't even know why I make some people so angry. I just do what I do. I am
not the best there is. There is no best. But I am for sure not the best in this figure world. I am a hand painter, not an airbrush artist, I am nearly 50, my eyes are not those of a 20 year old, and my paintwork more often than not shows paint strokes. For me, that was always the case. Actually, I despise the new "500+ magnification perfection movement", as I call it, where you strive to do anatomically perfect reproductions of something, that the naked eye cannot see without a jewelers glass anyway! That is fine for those that love it I guess. Not putting it down, just don't understand it.
I am an artist. What I do, is MY INTERPRETATION of something, a person or whatever.
I will NEVER change my way of seeing the world, nor will I ever become another kind of artist (And I have had offers, which I declined, due to compromises I just couldn't or wouldn't do. Yes...offers...). So the art I do is MY WAY and no other. In this I am just like Howard Roark of book The Fountainhead. If you don't like the way I do it, don't buy it. That sort of thing.
But, I also spend time trying to find the soul of a character, within the strokes of my brush. And in this, I give myself. EVERY TIME.
You get ME. Not some mechanical level of exactitude that defies creative interpretation.
All that to say, if you magnify my work, be prepared for some creative licence. I am an impressionist rather than a realist. Note that all ye who may consider me in future.
Anyway, I digress. I appreciate the many here who like what I do, and either want some of it, or want to follow suit themselves. To you I say,
YOU TOO CAN DO THIS! It is not hard. Simple tricks and nonsense! Smoke and mirrors! Learned method. And thought and observation. It takes time, and enjoyment, and finding the joy in it.
If mechanical exactitude is your joy, then watch out world! You will be a super artist to be reckoned with for sure! But if loose and interpreted paintwork is your thing, then go for it also, and with the blessings of any creative soul alive. You too will succeed!
Make yourself happy first! Screw the rest!
Seriously. If you can't enjoy this stuff, then it is over.
I hope I can continue doing art. I hope I can continue doing this kind of art. Will I screw up again, sure. Will I not satisfy someone, sure. Will I be able to live with myself for trying to do my best, YOU BETCHA!
So, to those that just can't let me catch it up fast enough, and to those that this year is just too long, again, I am sorry. NO ONE hates this more than I do. No one. No way you guys do. You may think you do, but nope. Not possible.
I wish some out there knew that I wanted to get the work out, and to them, and share in what they did, and just have fun with all this. I really do. I wish no one ill will at this or any other board. I am an artist, and with that comes a price. I can never satisfy everyone, nor should I try. It just hurts when I do try, and fail. It always will hurt.
So, no more comment on this. You know my ideas and philosophy about my work. I hope you can know that I admire each and every one of you in some way, especially you other creative souls, or those that yearn to be.
I see great work every day here that I not only want, but envy. Every day. There is great comraderie here, and great creative and collecting drive. It is a good place, with great people. And a few that follow their own roads. We may not all agree, but we are all interested in basically the same things. And that is more important that what we like. It's the fact that
We like it together, and that is something to be proud of.
I hope I can live up to the expectations of most. That is all I can do. Don't put me on too high a pedestal, because all I can do is fall. As I have to more than one here already.
Simply see me as your friend and co-enthusiast. And let me help if and when I can, to help you have a better or more fun collecting experience.
And remember I am human. And make mistakes.
And again, to those of you that DO understand, THANK YOU SO MUCH! To you I owe all.
Now, I GOT TO PAINT! Catch up, make things right. And hopefully, ENJOY THIS AGAIN!
Werkin!
And thanks about Ma.
)... I so want to have one... Do you only offer them with added hair or is it also possible to get one just with painted hair? And if it is possible how would it look?
