You Just Never Know
This is a story of a painting. In the photo below, if you squint closely, you can see this painting. It’s on the closest display grid on the upper left corner.
It is a painting called Sea Stacks. It was painted on a basswood board with a live edge. I painted it out of home sickness. We had just recently moved to Missouri. I was remembering a beautiful vacation that my son Isaac and I took when he was sixteen. I liked it. But I didn’t love it. I took it to a couple of art shows, put it on my Web site, put it on Etsy, promoted it on Instagram, reduced the price…nothing. I held on to it for a few years to less than stellar reviews. I was not very surprised. It was not my best work. And no one in Missouri really has ever seen a sea stack. Maybe doesn’t even know what they are.
So this year, as I was preparing for Heritage days, I left it on the wall. Behind a couple of house plants. I had no plans to include it in the show. I was thinking of throwing it away. I wouldn’t even donate it to charity, because I just didn’t really want it out there with my name on it. I didn’t even have a good picture of it. Thus the small photo below. But my Mom insisted that I include it. She said “ Well, no one will buy it for sure, if you don’t bring it.” So. Into the show it went.
Then during Heritage days, a young couple walked by my booth, and stopped dead in their tracks and stared at the painting. The young man looked at me and asked me, “Is that Cannon beach?” “Yes!” I said. “Have you been there?” His face filled with nostalgia, and he and his wife talked about the Northwest. About how Seattle used to be such a beautiful city, and how there is nothing on earth like the Oregon coast. But it is super expensive there, and it became impossible to stay. So they had recently moved to Missouri. They liked it, but man were they homesick.
His wife reached out to look for the price tag on the painting. She looked at him and sadly shook her head. I could see that they could not even afford the 20.00 price that I had reduced it to. They thanked me, and started to walk away. And I realized the reason this painting had not sold in three years. Because it was meant for these young, homesick kids.
I jumped up, and told them that I felt sure that Sea Stacks was meant for them, and I wanted to just give it to them. “Really?!!” the wife asked, astonished, and her eyes filled up with tears. I gave them a hug and put it in a bag for them, and they walked away with her clutching it to her chest like a teddy bear.
See…this is why I paint. Sometimes it’s easy to get distracted by the business side of art. But I paint so that folks can walk away with something that speaks to them, that they love, and that they can afford. What good does it do to have a bunch of art on the wall, priced “appropriately”, that no one can buy?
So… Prices will be going south in the near future. As soon as I have enough stuff to sell again. I lowered my prices for the art show, and I sold most of what I have. And there were several stories like this one, that really touched my heart and got me back in touch with the reason that I do what I do.
Art as a way to love people. Who knew?
