Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Sometimes, I Do Consider Money as a Motivator...

Lately, I’ve been considering a change in my preferred mediums. A painter at heart I could never easily abandon my palette mixing and kung-fu action painter moves. There is a simple majesty to being able to build flawless compositions with only a myriad of colors and image defining contour sumi-e ink lines.

Yet, I’m also interested in returning to sculpture, most specifically figurative work in clay; a medium I haven’t done much with, professionally, in a decade. Remember an earlier post of my newly acquired kiln… well the guilt of neglect is beginning to set-in… so I’ve been sketching figures for a new series of clay forms. Maybe nothing will come of these small designs, then again maybe I need to review the commission standards for sculptors versus painters in commercial galleries. I know a few of you may be scratching your heads at this point, wondering what commissions have to do with anything, well the industry standard is 50/50 for paintings and 60(artist)/40(gallery) for sculpture. Not huge differences but definitely something to consider for all those little college art students unsure of choosing a 2D or 3D major in Art. – DN

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. North. Chely here! So you're saying if you sculpt you get 10% more money from the indusrty than paintings??? >-< I'm confused. I know I'm young but sculpting is fun and if you get a little more money for it than painting it would'nt hurt for me to learn how to do now, right? And what about drawings??? I love to draw it's the main thing i do!!!

danielnorth.com said...

Majority of the time, yes. Sculpting pays a higher ppercentage to the artist, because the materials (or artist investment) is much higher. Drawings, watercolors, or anything on paper is typically 10% lower than works on canvas and 20% lower than sculpture.