Second Day

Yesterday morning I took this painting up to the Royal Academy for yet another attempt at the Summer Show. How many of us try hopefully each year, knowing that the odds are not favourable? I hurried through the Burlington Arcade, with its gleaming shop windows and neat little boxes of sparkling jewellery, pastel knitwear, expensive shoes in a variety of striking colours, and an aura of hushed exclusivity. I wondered where the other artists were, why no one was struggling with large paintings through the narrow walkway filled with shoppers.

It was the Second Day. I realised with a shot of panic that possibly most people deliver their work on the first delivery date. Do people believe that you have more chance if your painting passes along in the line of thousands on that First Day, while the selectors' eyes are still fresh and open to excitement? It's something I've always believed, but this year I was forced into the Second Day. As I reached the end of the arcade, and turned towards the Royal Academy back entrance, I noted the empty street. First Day delivery ensures a long wait in an ever-growing queue which frequently disappears out of view. Each foot of forward motion is wedged between interminable bands of non-movement. A sense of triumph follows the handing over of your work, and a quick exit passes the still-growing queue.

Yesterday I breezed down the long, narrow entrance to the Royal Academy, and unwrapped my small painting. Television cameras were there, filming an artist who was unwrapping a large canvas of purple flowers. As I left, small groups of artists were arriving, but the atmosphere was very different to First Day. The long queues seemed to emanate a sense of urgency and energy.

Afterwards I reasoned with myself that if one's chances are so small anyway, First or Second Day probably makes almost zero difference!

('One Among Many,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 41cm x 51cm )

Goats and Celery

October 14th Thursday.

The Frieze Art Fair takes place over 5 days in October and features over 170 galleries from around the world. This year it was on my calendar as a must-see. A queue of shivering, cloaked forms stretched beyond the huge tents in Regents Park towards a hazy infinity. Yellow and gold foliage flickered in the breezes, and someone shouted out, 'There's the Mayor of London arriving on his motorcycle!' The art critic Matthew Collings drifted by as I wondered if I'd ever reach the entrance.

Once inside the biggest tent I'd ever seen, the sense of excitement was infectious. Galleries had carved the massive space into pristine white cubicles. Each space had its own identity and I struggled against determined spectators to see the wares on display. The gallery representatives all looked so young and model-like and were worthy of being exhibits themselves. I checked around for the artists. These were the Sacred Ones, the cream of gallery artists, and I thought if I looked hard I might learn their secrets. Is there a gallery Circuit you can get on, how do you get on it, and once there, how hard is it to keep your footing?

I saw some wonderful Picasso drawings, some work by famous artists (Chris Ofili, Damien Hirst) and a fair amount of what I felt was rather cliched, sensation-grabbing stuff (a line of pornographic magazines laid across a table top). A couple of large paintings took my breath away. I handed out a few postcards of my own paintings just for the hell of it. And then reached overload, when it all spun in my mind and suddenly had no meaning!

There's so much media attention around Frieze, and the accompanying parties and bright young stars. It's like the Oscars of the Art World. But under it all, of course, is money and money-making on a huge scale. It's all about marketing - smart, relentless, fastidiouslessly planned marketing. That stark aspect stayed with me after the images faded.

So much of it comes down to fitting the current trends, and having something extra that allows you to be marketed as a brand. I used to think it was only to do with quality, but it's far more complex than that. It seems to me that artists now have to plan their careers like a game of chess. And what if your work is simply not marketable? Sometimes there is no reason why one thing sells over another, though names can be made by the big galleries. And broken.

I have a wide circle of artist friends. Some make a living from their work, some sell intermittently. One said to me recently, 'See your work as a commodity, like goats and celery at the market. You have to detach yourself emotionally when you finish a painting, and if it doesn't sell, just make another!'

('Chances.' Oil and acrylic. 70cm x 49cm)

Other Artist's Successes

When I began this blog my aim was to describe my experiences without any sugar coatings! I'd read many artist's blogs and most of them sparkled with glowing reports of this and that success, each one creating a picture of a logically developing career, with step by step success. I know of artists whose careers do in fact progress from one success to another, and of course success tends to snowball, as people start to see your name repeated at different venues. I've often wondered if my own struggles were a rarity, and it crossed my mind that maybe my work wasn't good enough. Over the years I've been to numerous exhibitions to see what is actually accepted, and I've come to believe that there are many artists who don't get noticed simply because they don't fit the bill of what is wanted, or the selectors' tastes. The narrow band of acceptance will always be defined by these things, which can sometimes be at odds with artistic merit or aesthetic merit, and certainly it's not an even playing field. And so we go onwards.

Today I received yet another rejection notice, this time from the Discerning Eye Exhibition (a prestigious annual show which takes place at the Mall Galleries each November). I don't want this blog to degenerate into a bitter and twisted tirade along the lines of 'I never get work accepted for anything, I'm one of life's unrecognised artists!' So I tried to keep a balanced outlook as I opened this notice. Then I saw the dreaded and heavily written R in front of each of the 6 works I'd submitted. I felt a sharp pang of disappointment followed by disbelief. I squinted to see if perhaps one of these R's was really an A, but no such luck! I was drinking coffee in my favourite cafe, a new ploy to prepare myself for the inevitable jolt, and my mind stumbled for a few moments, seeking some kind of explanation or reassurance. Then I remembered something. An artist friend told me recently how she'd seen a painting that was rejected from a famous show one year, but went on to be accepted the following year, and won the top prize. There is no rhyme or reason, it comes down to the tastes of the selectors.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

I delivered my painting, 'Waiting,' to the Royal Academy on April 7th. I didn't think I could manage to do it, being in the throes of a vicious form of Gastric Flu. What made it even worse was that the queue to the Academy was the longest I've ever seen! Normally when you go through the Burlington Arcade to get to the back of the Academy, you turn right and the entrance is only a few steps along, and usually you wait no longer than 15 minutes to step inside. On this day - the one day I didn't want to be stuck in a queue far from a toilet - I stepped out of the Arcade onto a pavement so congested that I couldn't see the cars on the road, or even where the queue ended. I had to walk right down a fat line of people holding canvases of all shapes and sizes, to where the queue fizzled out onto the next street. As pedestrians jostled to find a way between painters and huge canvases, someone came along and told us we were blocking the pavement and were a safety hazzard.
I waited at least an hour. I spent it listening to painters discussing the abnormal length of the queue, whilst trying to ignore my heaving intestines. There was a man who had travelled all the way up from a Museum in Plymouth to deliver a large, bubblewrapped canvas. He chatted away amicably with another artist who was selling paintings in a London gallery. This interesting fact prompted me to turn and try to view his unwrapped large painting, to see if it was any good. But it was wedged in the queue in such a way that I only had a glimpse of yellow and black.
I tried to work out how many artists were in front of me. If there were 80, and each took 5 minutes to drop off his or her work, how many hours would it take me to get there? In the meantime, as I neared the entrance point - which was much further along than one we previously used - I noticed a huge red canvas with a woman playing a guitar painted across it. It was quite impressive, but the voices behind me echoed my own sentiments, namely that large paintings don't stand a chance when space is so limited. Unless of course, you have a name!
Finally, I followed the now single line down a very narrow alleway, with brick walls that were black and smelled of soot. At the end was a doorway and we were allowed in 3 at a time. There were 3 tables and I hurriedly unwrapped my small canvas and a young woman disappeared with it.
My hopes are not high but it's one of those things you feel you have to take a chance on. It's my 8th or 9th attempt, and inevitably my fingers will be shaking as I tear open the envelope at the end of May. The only thing I can say this time with certainty is that my painting was good and deserved to get in - but that's not always enough!