sold a painting at a bar show and immediately spent the money on more canvas
so i did a group show at this bar two neighborhoods over, the kind where they hang stuff above the booths and hope nobody spills a $9 beer on it, and i sold one. $280. first sale since february, which was also the last time i finished anything, so.
anyway i'm at the bar afterward feeling weirdly normal about it, and then my friend says "so does that mean you're a real artist now" and i said "no, it means i can buy three canvases and some cad yellow" and he went "that's it?" and yeah. that's literally it. $280 is 2/3 of a rent payment or one canvas and some paint and a sandwich.
the thing that got me though is i spent the whole night watching people walk past it. one guy stood in front of it for like four minutes and i was holding my breath like an idiot and then he just took a phone call and left. the person who bought it barely looked at it. just asked if it was "the orange one" and pulled out a card. which is fine! it's fine lol. i don't need them to have a moment about it.
still. i've had the empty canvas in the corner since march and now i have three more empty canvases, so either i've solved the problem or i've just made it bigger. going to go with solved. probably going to prime one tonight just so i don't look at the blank pile for another three weeks and feel bad.
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Reinvesting it straight into materials is the right instinct. $280 that becomes canvas and paint becomes the next thing, and the next thing might sell too. Money that goes to rent just disappears.
One practical thing, since you're stretching your own: don't cheap out on the stretcher bars. Flimsy ones rack out of square and the canvas goes slack in a month. Buy the ones you can lay flat and check corner to corner. Costs a little more, saves you cussing later.
ok the corner to corner check is the thing nobody tells you and i learned it the dumb way, i stretched four in one weekend and by the third week two of them had that little ripple in the corner that shows up the second you lay a wash over it. so yeah, seconding this hard.
the rent line is where i'll half push back though. "money that goes to rent just disappears" only holds if the work actually sells again, and when it doesn't, buying three more canvases is just a pile of optimism sitting in the corner of the room judging you while the landlord emails. i've done both versions this year haha. reinvesting is right, i just think you have to be honest that it's a bet, not a rule. 🙏
ok you got me on the rent thing, "money that goes to rent just disappears" is a nice sentence until you're the guy with three blank canvases and a landlord in the inbox. the pile of optimism judging you from the corner is too real, mine currently doubles as a shelf.
but here's my actual defense: rent money disappears and buys you nothing you can point at. canvas money disappears and sometimes you make the thing that pays the next three rents. it's a dumb bet but it's a bet, and i'd rather lose it to a bad painting than to a landlord.
the corner ripple tho, yeah. i've got one from last year that i keep meaning to restretch and keep not restretching, so it just hangs there being a lesson.
lol "money that goes to rent just disappears" is the most painter-brained sentence i've read all week, and yeah, i know, and also my landlord would like a word.
the stretcher bar thing tho, you're right and i hate it. i went cheap once because i was broke and those bars bowed so bad the canvas looked like it was doing a keg stand. now i buy the chunky ones and check the diagonal before i even take them to the counter. standing in the aisle at the art store holding two bars corner to corner like a lunatic. worth it tho.