Gallery people keep telling me to make "what sells." Has anyone here refused, and what happened?
Namaste to all. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, and I am fairly new to this online talking.
My question is this. In my work there is the traditional thing. Fish, peacock, the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, kohbar for the marriage chamber. This is what my mother taught me and her mother before. Then there is the simpler work. Small fish, plain border, bright, easy to carry home, and this sells faster. So the galleries and the middlemen, they say to me, make more of the simple one, this is what the customer will buy.
I have done it sometimes. Money is money and the house is running. But each time I feel some heaviness inside. So I want to ask the artists here, not the gallery people. Have you ever told a gallery no when they asked you to change your work for the market? What did you say, and did they drop you or not? And if you did change, was it worth it or you regret.
One more small thing. I told one gallery in Delhi I will not remove the kohbar line from the border because that line is not decoration, it is for the marriage blessing. He laughed. I still did not remove it. That is my answer, kindly give yours.
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Ramesh, the kohbar is the one I would fight for. Not because gallery people are wrong about what sells, they usually are not wrong about that at all. But the simple fish pays the bills and the kohbar is the reason anyone knows what Mithila painting is. If you only ever make the easy one, in ten years there is nothing left but a market for small bright fish and no memory of why.
I do mosaic here in Thessaloniki, old technique, and I have taken the small commissions that keep the studio open, I am not romantic about it. But I keep at least one big slow piece going on the floor no matter what, because the hands learn things on the hard piece that the quick one never teaches. Maybe the trick is not refusing, it is refusing to let the simple work eat everything. Pick the traditional pieces you care most about and protect those hours like they are rent.
Money is money, yes. But you are also the only one who can pass the kohbar on. The middlemen cannot.
Ramesh, I quilt, and I know the small bright fish. Mine's the baby quilt that sells three to one over the big story quilt that took me a year. I don't begrudge it. But I'll tell you what my grandmother told me: the easy piece buys the thread, the hard piece is the thread. Meaning the one nobody's buying is the one still teaching you.
That kohbar for the wedding, that's not a product. That's a blessing somebody's gonna sleep under. Keep making it. Make the fish too, the Lord knows groceries don't wait. But don't let the market decide what your hands remember.
"The easy piece buys the thread, the hard piece is the thread." Ji, I have read this line four times now. I am going to write it on the wall near where I sit, in Hindi also. Your grandmother was a wise woman.
You are right that the kohbar is not a product. When I paint it, I am not painting for a customer, I am painting for that bride and that marriage bed and the long life of the house. The lines are learned from my mother's hand, not from any shop. That is why it takes so long, the hand must remember slowly, it cannot be hurried.
And yes, the groceries do not wait, so the fish will continue also. No shame in that. The fish is honest too.
Only one thing I will add for you, sister. You say the big quilt took one year and nobody is buying. Keep showing it. Somewhere a person exists who needs that one. That is what I am learning slowly, that we must make the hard piece and also find the one soul who understands it. Both work are needed.
Thank you for this. My pranam to your grandmother.
You have said it better than I could, ji. One big slow piece on the floor, that is the whole thing. I have done the same without giving it such a good name. The kohbar I am doing now for a wedding order here has taken four months and the woman's family keeps asking when, and I keep saying the lines are not straight in the right way yet.
The fish pays for the colours, that is true. But you are right that the kohbar is the reason the world even knows our name. If my mother had only painted what was quick, I would be sitting here painting nothing at all, because there would be nothing to hand down to me.
Four months for one panel is not slow. The old ones took longer. Kamal ji, this is the standard and not laziness, tell them this from me.