Artists Passion

I recently read at bookstore from by collection of short stories, Keeper of Secrets…Translations of an Incident. When the question and answer period opened an audience member asked each of us to discuss the kinds of publicity in which we had and were engaging in an effort to sell our books. The first to answer, I spoke of how along with doing the standard readings at bookstores and other venues that each author needs to, I was also educating myself in the ways of the internet.

The two authors sitting down from me, both women, stated they had focused on the traditional methods of seeking placement in print media to draw attention to their works. The fourth author at the end, a gentleman, shared that he had been lucky enough to gain numerous radio interviews along with doing the standard readings. What was interesting was that he prefaced all this with, “Shameless self-promotion,� adding, “Is there any other kind [of promotion?]�

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine why perhaps, it was the male author who broke the ice and stated what we all four knew. The world has long given men permission to be aggressively assertively about achieving their goals and projecting themselves onto the word.

Yet and still many male artists grapple with what all artists and business people (women and men) know it takes to sell a product—the ability to parlay your skill at creating into the artistry of conveying to a potential consumer the uniqueness of what your hands and heart have brought into form, and then having purchased your product, they will not only return for more, but tell others about their new discovery—your product—and you.

People are searching for ways to access their own truths, their internal selves, the authenticity they have buried within themselves as protection from a culture that is full of shaming and defeatist thinking projected onto others in the form of judgment couched in constructive criticism, and all done in the name of capitalism.

Every newspaper, television and radio advertisement is laced with the subtle and unspoken notion that, “You, [the consumer,] are not enough within your own right. You do not have within you all it takes to survive. Therefore you must buy what I/we have to sell.� Ultimately the consumer makes the purchase, but remains the same, if not slips into a deadening space of having been ripped off. Never mind how they feel when seeing the same product in the hands of another consumer who may have acquired it for a cheaper price.

As artists, our job is to leave our consumers not only feeling more aware of who they are, but hopeful about themselves even as they realize there is room for improvement for their own happiness. Whether they buy our painting or not, we wish it will stir their souls. Perhaps when seeing it on a postcard or in a book at a cheaper price, and from which we receive proceeds, they will be affected once more and purchase it.

And then there is just the beneficent act of having encouraged someone along the oft times lonely journey of life. Every person who hears my stories will and cannot purchase them. But if my writing and/or paintings move them in a positive way, I will receive my rewards from other avenues.