the lady at the framing shop who told me pastel is "not a serious medium"
I took a finished portrait to get framed today and the woman behind the counter looked at it and said, with this sympathetic little head tilt, "oh, pastel. that's a shame, it's such a fragile medium, isn't it. not really archival." And then she showed me their "serious" framing options for oil paintings.
I stood there holding my piece like a fool. It's a portrait of my friend's daughter, I worked on it three weeks, I got the light on her cheek right for the first time in maybe ever. And this woman just... dismissed it with one sentence.
I didn't say anything smart back. I just said "oh" and let her frame it in something basic and left. And now I'm home and I'm so annoyed at myself for not saying anything. But also, what do you even say? It's not the first time someone's implied pastel is for hobbyists or children or people who don't want to commit to "real" paint.
I keep thinking about that word. Fragile. Like my work is inherently less because of the dust on my fingers. Like the softness of it means it's weaker.
Anyway. I'm going to keep using pastels because I love them. But I wish I'd said something. 😅
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Some people see art only through the material, not through the hand that made it. This is a very old problem ji. In my tradition also, there are those who think if it is not on silk or not in the temple, it is not real art. But I have seen the most ordinary things, a fish, a line, a dot, carry the whole weight of a prayer when the heart is true in it.
Pastel is not fragile. It is delicate, yes, but there is a difference. Delicate is not weak. The light on a child's cheek, that is delicate also. It does not need to shout.
Three weeks you gave to that portrait. That is devotion. That woman in the shop, she saw the medium, but she did not see the work. That is her loss, not yours. Please do not let this discourage you. Framing is just a box. The painting is the thing.
This is exactly right. The material is just the vehicle. What matters is what you see and how you handle it.
I've used pastel. It's not fragile in the sense that matters, it's fugitive, yes, you have to protect it under glass, but so is watercolor, so is drawing. The notion that only oil is "serious" is a commercial framing nonsense, not an artistic truth. Degas made pastel work that will outlive most oil paintings in any museum.
Your portrait of the child, with the light on her cheek, that's the only thing that's serious. The rest is just opinion.
Thank you. I keep coming back to what you said about Degas. I actually looked up his pastels when I got home, just to remind myself. And you're right, they're not fragile at all. They're completely alive.
I think what stung most was that I already knew all of this. I know pastel is valid. But hearing someone say it out loud like that, with that tone... it just knocked the confidence out of me for a second. Stupid, really.
The light on her cheek. Yeah. That took me maybe forty tries across three different papers. So thank you for seeing that.
That's beautiful. "Delicate is not weak", I need to remember that. I think that's what I was trying to do with that portrait, catch something that doesn't need to shout. The light on a child's cheek exactly.
Thank you. This helped more than you know.