Realization on selling work

The snow is still falling, and I'm still at my computer, finishing up some of the career-related projects I started yesterday.

One of my computer projects, just completed, was to create a chart listing all the paintings that have left my studio since I finished graduate school, where and under what circumstances they went. In compiling this chart, I noticed that I gave a lot of paintings away as gifts over the years.

Not that I begrudge any of these gifts (such as wedding gifts when dear friends were getting married). But I have to be honest: in general, I don't like giving away my work.

Now that I think of it, I realize that, as soon as I resolved to stop giving away my paintings and charging fair but firm prices for them, I began selling more and more work. This year, almost half of my income was made from selling paintings. Not that I have a particularly impressive income, but still I am proud of this fact.

So I guess the moral is, if you want to be thought of as a professional artist, you must think of YOURSELF as one.

The painting at the head of this blog entry was one of the first paintings I ever sold, back in 2000. Apparently the buyer, a well-known collector from the Boston area, liked the image of this painting so much when he saw it pictured on an exhibit invitation, that he came straightaway to the gallery to purchase the painting!