A Purpose Driven Life... A Purpose Driven Love

I spent most of yesterday doing two things:

1. Trying to get the “Blogger” website to accept my post.
2. Preparing slides and filling-out prospectus for fall exhibitions with summer deadlines.

I’m usually not big on participating in the “Juried Show” circuit, because I don’t care for the hassle of shipping only one or two pieces at a time and the act of paying small fees to be judged. Every once in a while, though, I find listings for Juried Exhibitions that boast purchase awards for museums or respectable gallery directors as guest jurors. When that happens, it just seems like a waste to not make an attempt at possible success.

Anything can happen to inspire a patron or gallery director to take a chance on just another one-in-a-million artist. If we give-up on ourselves others may step-in and help with the marketing aspects of giving us success in our past works; but no one is there to make new work for us.

In my earlier career as a gallery director, I am most proud of “finding” an 80-year-old artist named Lou Varro. His figure drawings were remarkably poignant, despite the fact that he drew them fifty years earlier. Despite his talent, he gave-up his career while in still in his thirties; he stopped his “life” to raise a family via employment in the aeronautical industry, producing technical plans and blueprints. Eventually, I served as curator for an exhibit within the Smithsonian that featured a handful of his works from his youth. He garnered a bit of local fame and even began to paint again after a fifty year absence – but no matter what I or anyone else had done for him, we couldn’t give him back the fifty years of missed masterpieces. Missed opportunities to experience the rush of being “in the process” of creating.

I’ve learned that the art world is a fickle lover and we never really know the true way to its heart. If we choose to love it unconditionally, it may or may not come around to rewarding our efforts. As a generalization in life, do we ever really care for something simply to feel loved in return, or do we do it because it makes us feel complete somewhere inside, despite the overwhelming odds of rejection? –DN