Do you need a sales record to be considered an artist?

My sister is a beautiful artist. She, however, does not think she has talent and will not show or sell her work. We, her family BEG her for paintings as gifts and she will not accept a penny. I have even commissioned specific ideas to decorate my home. There is nothing we can say to make her realize that people would PAY for her work because she is far too shy and self-conscious about it, so we present her with gifts of art materials. I know she loves it. Funny how she can't see past what she perceives as flaws.
Oh and I don't rave about her work just because she is my favorite sister ... I am not that type. If it was crap I'd have no problem telling her!

Maybe some art classes woud help her gain her confidence?

Maybe it's the idea of painting to sell that has her backing away. Why not veiw her work after it's finished and then ask her if you may see if it's saleable? That takes the pressure off of her.

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Heeven, have you asked her why she does not want to offer her work for sale? Could it possibly be because she's afraid that no-one will want them and that that might take the wind out of her artistic sails? I got this notion because of your earlier reference to her shyness. But keep in mind that if she likes her work that is what counts most.

She has taken art classes and did extremely well - continuing to take others. My mother has asked for some of her pieces and suggested she investigate the market for her but she will not hear of it. I think that she sees the doing as the enjoyment, the end result as the success, and is not interested in going further than that.
I have seen my mother proudly display her work and my sister shrug it off when people make a fuss over it. Although she is shy, she is aware that the work is good but says that if she can do it anyone can do it. This is not true in my opinion but she doesn't want a fuss made of it and so we snap up whatever art work she creates. She is just not interested in showing or selling her art and we certainly can't force her to. All this aside, I definitely consider her an artist.

I think making art is a generalized human capacity, and way too many people dismiss the possibility of doing it by saying I am not artistic, so I see in a way what your sister is saying about anybody can do it. But... when people do express themselves by producing art, it is a fine thing of great worth, monetary value notwithstanding.

Your sister has low self esteem and probably feels bad charging people for or making a fuss over her work. I see selling as a way of supporting my habit. Yes, my painting habit. I had been in the closet for years but now I paint in a studio . How does she support her habit? Is she of working age? Does she have a super excellent job? Aside from art supplies from your family (btw, if you want an recommendations on art supplies it's a subject I know well) how does she cover the cost of supplies?

She runs the accounting and IT departments of a successful food processing company. Art is a sideline for her and meant mainly for her pleasure and to de-stress from a very demanding job. While she is shy, she does not have low self esteem. She is pleased that we love her work, she is simply not interested in promoting it. As for supplies, well we buy her stuff she wouldn't ordinarily buy for herself, but she has plenty of money (her job pays very well) to buy any basic supplies she needs. She lives in Ireland so I am sure she has her own favorite places to shop for supplies.

Great discussion!!!

Uh, I used to be shy, I can still remember it. Hard for people to believe now, but yes, yes I was. I had plenty of self esteem, which I admit was a little awry. I did and I didn't. Let's say I had selfesteem as myself.

Somewhere around age nineteen or so, or maybe incrementally before, I became less socially shy, having had a certain talk with myself about what I saw as selfinvolvement when there is this great big world with all this stuff going on.

Which I still notice, that the world is not about me. I converse, many years later, very easily in person and can talk - if not without any qualm at all, without the flimflams of my youth - in front of a few hundred people. Ok, a few flimflams, but I can do it.

All this by way of saying that Heeven's sister may be fine re self esteem. I think her art making is a kind of grace, hmmm, another word not always taken as I meant it.

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Yes, I'm beginning to feel that sister artist is alright. Selling pictures is not the point of painting, if you're not a commercial artist or have not taken up the craft to make a living. Her art seems to be her special place, her grace, as Osso might put it. What I cannot understand--and this simply reflects my own place--is why she has no urge to show, to exhibit, them--assuming that is so. I have no need or desire to sell my works, but I do have a need to show them. Painting has become my special grace, and , as such, I feel I might understand sister's perspective. Perhaps.
By the way, Osso, in a sense the world IS about you, and it's about me and everyone else. When I empathize with others, it's ultimately about me. When I do good for others, it's ultimately for me. :wink:

And then, me, what do you think about me when I talk about you, eh? And me, as I am thoughtful about the situation in wheresits? Well, yes, jl, I do not deny interest in always reconnoitering about my own view and some interest in how it plays, those being two different things. Complicated by actual interest in others' view, plus their impact on mine, and differences from, and how to describe them, plus, isn't it time for lunch?

So, sure, most of us are solipsists of a sort, but not entirely.
And yes, grace, if not the sacramental kind.

Right now I am doing deeply pathological avoidance routines, knowingly. Way behind on painting. I suppose I dance with the Axe.

Your sister does have an audience, a very select one. Harry Chapin's song "The Tailor" comes to mind. The paintings she gave to you and your family will mean more to her and you in the next 20 years than anything she sold to others. Bravo for her. I have been criticized for not having sense of ownership. Ownership of what? The market? The people with their check books whose taste change with the wind? Gallery owners who need to sell to make the rent? I think your sister has the right idea. "Got Zen?"

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The artist I am referring to (damn, I have forgotten
his name) was given a small grant. They
wanted him to remit 10% of his earnings so he sent them $2.00 per month. They complained and asked him for a bigger cheque. He then took his $2.00 cheque to a photocopy shop and had them enlarge it....Oh I love artists!

Kayla, excellent response.....I am trying to figure
out what I was paid per hour after my last sale painting......sob! Possibly its a self-esteem thing
to ask for too little!

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Shepaints, the few paintings that I've sold brought in a very small amount because I couldn't bring myself to ask for what seemed to me to be an appropriate amount. My next chance I will ask for much more. But that's because I don't need to sell work, except to make room for others. In both cases it is no doubt a self-esteem issue.

In some cases it is a case of self esteem, but then again look at the market, the amount of work that's out there and the artist's public response. Last week a good friend of mine was admiring a painting I'd done awhile back. It was unframed and just there in my studio. This good friend had given my a really great black, leather jacket a year before because she said it fit my personality better than hers. I signed the back of the painting and gave it to her. I think I got a pretty good deal. Sometimes sales blur an artist's objectivity, making him/her walk into the arrogant trap. I've seen artist friends make a couple of sales, get a big head and then boom down they go. No sales for a year. They get very depressed and can't paint. The public is fickle. Most of them will go with what they think is hot. Galleries make big bucks pushing this. Me, I paint. I put a price on the peice if I want to. If someone comes in and can't meet that price, I lower it. People yell at me and tell me I could have gotten twice the price for the painting and I tell them that the painting would probably still be sitting here in my studio and not on somebody's wall. I don't think that's low self-esteem. To me it's reality and good inventory control. I don't want my kids getting all my paintings when I kick off.

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GREAT perspective, Kayla. Yeah, the important thing is to show one's works; that's the exhibitionist side of painting, a healthy narcissism if you ask me. I'm willing to hang works in coffee houses, book stores, homes (on loan or as gifts) whereever, just so that they are seen. And if I wrote music I would want it performed and heard for the same reason.

I have never sold my work through a coffee house or bookstore. So I don't put mine up in those sort of places anymore. I'll probably try a 24-hour medium class food place next, maybe somthing will sell there.

If possible, it's better to sell direct than through a gallery, as galleries take 50%.

The gallery absorbs the overhead including hiring qualified sales staff who are generally on commission. Coffee houses, bookstores and restaurants don't hire anyone to sell the art. Art doesn't leap off the wall into the collector's hands -- it's even more imperative that the gallery looks good, has a great location and has someone selling the art who has a consumate knowledge of art. Generally, this almost always means the gallery doesn't "take" 50%, they are able to buy it from the artist at a price they were willing to sell it for and then double it.