Sold my first painting off the wall of a real show (and immediately cried in the parking garage)
OK so. There was a tiny group show at this coffee shop/gallery hybrid in the neighborhood, like 9 of us, mostly because a friend runs the place and had a cancellation. I almost didn't hang anything because the deadline was three days out and I was mid-way through a commission and honestly I felt like the work wasn't ready.
I hung two pieces. One was the window one, the corner with the bad afternoon light that I've painted probably eleven times now, this time at like 4pm when it goes that gross-yellow before it turns gold. 11x14, Arches cold press, mostly burnt sienna and a little quin gold.
A woman came back to it three times during the opening. Third time she asked if it was for sale. I said yes and quoted her a number and immediately regretted the number and then she just said ok. She paid with venmo, in the middle of the show, holding a plastic cup of the bad pinot.
I went out to the parking garage after and sat in my car and sobbed for a solid four minutes. Not like a graceful tear situation. Full face crying.
I think because eight months ago I was wiping down a milk steamer at 6am wondering if this was a huge mistake, and today somebody handed me actual money for a specific Tuesday afternoon in my apartment. That's all it is. It's just a Tuesday I had.
Anyway I'm not posting this to be like look at me, I'm posting it because I've seen a bunch of you post wins in here that are the "scary email" kind and the "it didn't break" kind and I think I needed to see that before I could let this count as one. So. It counts.
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Crying in the parking garage makes complete sense. The work was never just the painting, it was the eleven versions of that corner before this one.
I have something a little like it with the sea, printing the same stretch of shore over and over until the paper finally holds the thing I keep failing to say. That gross-yellow before the gold is a hard light to love. Good that you let it be itself instead of fixing it.
Also, hanging work when you feel it is not ready and having that be the one that sells, there is a small lesson in there I keep refusing to learn.
The eleven versions are the actual work, I think. The one that sold is almost the receipt for them.
But I want to push a little on "let it be itself instead of fixing it." I print the same plate over and over too, and I've noticed the version that lands is never the one where I was most faithful to the subject. It's the one where the printing itself left a mark I couldn't have planned. So maybe what sold wasn't the corner at 4pm. Maybe it was the eleven times you looked at it and got slightly less precious about it.
The part I keep refusing to learn is the other one, though. Hanging it when it isn't ready. I have lost more work to over-finishing than to anything else.
ok the "receipt" line got me, I've been thinking about it all morning. and you're right that the eleven versions ARE the work, I think that's exactly why the first few felt so precious, I was still trying to get the corner itself and not what my hand did to it. by version nine I stopped caring about being correct and just let the burnt sienna do its thing and THAT'S the one people keep pointing at. so yeah. the printing leaving a mark it couldn't have planned is exactly it, I don't know why that's so hard to trust.
and then you cut yourself off about the other part and now I have to know. hanging it when what? because the hanging part is where I nearly bailed too, I sat in my car for twenty minutes before I walked in with the frames.
ok see the sea thing is going to keep me up tonight. that's a way harder subject than a window honestly, water moves, a window just sits there and lets you fail at it slowly. and printing the same stretch over and over is a completely different kind of stubborn than painting the same corner.
the gross-yellow, god. I spent two years trying to warm it up and it just went muddy every time, and the version that finally worked was the one where I stopped adding anything and let the sienna sit there being sickly. which felt like cheating at the time and now I think it's just the actual answer.
that last part though. I'm still not learning it either, I have a piece drying in my closet that I've been "finishing" for a month because I keep deciding it's not ready to show anyone. so we can both refuse to learn it together I guess haha