I just read an art marketing post titled The Original Sin of Art Marketing by Clint Watson from Fine Art Views. Then it said... "In business, the customer comes first. In art, the customer comes last."
That was a new one on me! I've always been told "the customer comes first", and/or... "the customer is always right." Haven't you?
With commissioned work, the artist does have to consider and please a particular client, who is paying them to make a work of art specific to their desires and needs. I think most artists hate commissions, especially if they get a client that keeps changing their mind, or wants the artist to make changes here and there.
But when an artist is starting out to make a work of art that is NOT a commission piece, they are in essence, birthing or creating something entirely unique and new. I know I get very attached to my work, which I painstakingly spend many hours brooding over and making. Although I love to make a sale, sometimes it is hard to give up my "baby", and I want to make sure it is going to a loving home. They better love that baby, or I will want to rescue it. The buyer is more like an adopted parent and needs to be screened, just like an adoption agency is supposed to screen people. That's how artists may look at potential buyers. It's crazy, I know.
Buying art is not like buying any other product. Art is not made, it is birthed. It is the tangible expression coming from the artist's spirit and soul. How do you price that? It has to touch the heart somehow, making some sort of connection with the soul and spirit, or it is meaningless. Art is one of the ways humans communicate. It is the language of the spirit and soul. Drawing and painting were the forerunners of the written alphabet. Well, those are my musings for today. Until then, Keep looking up!
-Nancy
Ideas are birthed but many are not expressed in any form to others. God bless the painter artists, sculptures and photographers who are serious about expression(s).