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AIBU?

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Original poster

Is she really 'an artist', or is she just crap?

226 replies

Nandocushion · 17/12/2011 06:32

I met my friend a few years ago and she told me, early on, that she was an artist. She didn't talk much more about it, and she was always short of money (if not in fact 'starving'), so I didn't really question it.

More recently, she's told me the rather sad history of her art career, and it was as follows: went to art school, had approximately 15 shows, never sold anything. Not. A. Thing.

She is now 30 years out of art school and has never sold a piece of art. She feels that critics have been biased.

I haven't seen her art. I have no idea what it is like, but I do assume that over the course of THIRTY YEARS, if she was good, someone would have noticed. And I also think, that if you have never ever ever made any sort of money, not even pennies, off being an artist, then maybe it's time you stopped calling yourself "an artist". Am I BU?

OP posts:
tethersjinglebellend · 17/12/2011 22:45

After three years at a top London art school and a subsequent career as an art teacher (natch), I came to a few conclusions which you will be fascinated to read:

  1. Art can be crap. It can even be shit. In fact, it often is. It is however, still art.
  1. Most artists are utter tossers. Even the talented ones.
  1. Art is not a meritocracy. Talent does not win out. Relentless self-promotion helps (see (2)), but is no guarantee of success.
  1. You can smoke out of a window for three years and get a 2:1
  1. Anything can be art if it was made with that intention. Ergo, anyone can be an artist. They do not have to be any good to be considered as such, in the same way someone who bangs coconut shells together for hours on end can legitimately call themselves a musician. They are just a very, very bad musician.
  1. Banging coconut shells together for hours on end can also be art.
AnotherMincepie · 17/12/2011 22:56

"What do you do?" is harmless on one level as a rather unimaginative conversation-starter. But it can also be a horrid, nosy question. It can mean "How can I categorise you? How much do you earn? Can I consider myself better than you? Do I need to bring you down a peg or two?"

ninah · 17/12/2011 22:58

are you really 'a friend' or are you just crap?

yellowraincoat · 17/12/2011 23:10

Just cos something is "commercial", rockinhippy, doesn't mean it's good.

Talent doesn't always win out. Self-promotion tends to, though.

SolidGoldStockingFilla · 17/12/2011 23:13

Hardgoing: I share your pain there. At the risk of sidetracking the thread, I hold a particularly deep and personal grudge against the vanity publishing industry (and am so happy to see how the likes of Lulu have decimated it) as a vanity publisher ate a fairly enjoyable relationship of mine once.
Me (at the time) published and (usually) paid writer. Bloke, when I met him, had just had his novel 'accepted' by a vanity publisher. In the course of my very first conversation with him I remember saying 'Can you get out of the contract? I would if I were you...' Anyway, we got distracted by the prospect of shagging each other's brains out, and only now and again would he refer to the progress of his masterpiece on its way to 'publication'. And then he got his copies of the book, and gave one to me to read.

And that was the end of that. Not because I was honest about his shitty book, but because I knew he'd been thoroughly conned, and he knew that I knew, and he knew that I'd warned him and he hadn't listened.

kipperandtiger · 17/12/2011 23:17

As long as she's not sharing her woes with you in the hope that she might get you to buy her work out of pity!
I guess sometimes we'll know people who are not good at their job - this is just one example. Some will change their occupation, some won't. Such is life.

tethersjinglebellend · 17/12/2011 23:21

Hitler, now there was a painter.

He could paint a whole house in an afternoon.

Hardgoing · 17/12/2011 23:28

Ooh, SGB, I am cringing for you, please tell me it wasn't a hardback edition too.

Not reading anything written by friends is a principle that has served me well, no doing translations, no reading first chapters, no reading poetry. Not for friends, not ever. It's just not worth the embarrassment.

I do read other people's academic writing as part of my job. But then I am very critical, as people are of my work. So that's fair.

Jellykat · 17/12/2011 23:28

Well said tethers, i couldn't agree more.. and i've got a 2:1 BA too Grin

rockinhippy · 18/12/2011 00:18

Just cos something is "commercial", rockinhippy, doesn't mean it's good

yellow I didn't say that it did - I meant that some talented artists are also good business people, so can cash in on their talent & yet still stay true themselves & produce good works -

OR they may just get lucky, in that their chosen style just so happens to be in vogue, so becomes commercial without them trying -

& yes commercial can often mean utter tat - I should know - I have at times knocked it out by the hundreds of thousands - whilst quietly laughing to myself that it was utter shite - but then I suppose when it comes to commercial fashion, there is art in producing utter shite too ;)

Talent doesn't always win out. Self-promotion tends to, though.

I didn't say otherwise - but surely the OPs friends 15 exhibitions & 30yr career would have her sell SOMETHING if she were any good

tethersjinglebellend · 18/12/2011 00:26

She may not be any good- but this doesn't stop her being an artist.

rockinhippy · 18/12/2011 00:27

perhaps not - but maybe it ought too

rockinhippy · 18/12/2011 00:28

Confused lost half my sentence there ?? - should have read - but maybe it ought to stop her defining herself as such

tethersjinglebellend · 18/12/2011 00:31

I disagree- I mean, she makes art; she is an artist. Whether that art sells or not is academic.

SolidGoldStockingFilla · 18/12/2011 00:43

Hardgoing, no, paperback. Of hopelessly bad, derivative, clunky sci-fi. Urk. The sequel is, however, that about two years later I ran into him again and he said he was going to sue the vanity publishers and would I be a witness to their dishonesty if necessary? I said, of course (and it was dishonesty, they claimed to offer a 'full editing service' and not only had they left in his spelling errors but they had also ignored a couple of really really obvious plot fuckups) - they just gave him the money back after the first threat of legal action.

rockinhippy · 18/12/2011 01:13

I disagree- I mean, she makes art; she is an artist. Whether that art sells or not is academic.

Confused I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one - or as I can produce half decent pastries - I might take it upon myself to start telling people I'm a pâtissière Grin

tethersjinglebellend · 18/12/2011 01:19

The only thing that makes art art is the intention behind it.

It doesn't make it any good. It is possible to make shit art. It is still art.

You could be a patissiere if you made pastries all day long. You just might not be a very good one.

Original poster
Nandocushion · 18/12/2011 01:27

I agree, tethers, and have concluded that I was BU. It occurred to me today that a builder could build a row of houses and then not be able to sell any of them, but he'd still be a builder and I wouldn't question it. DP says that's a false analogy, but it's late and I don't care.

OP posts:
jasper · 18/12/2011 01:47

DP is right. It's a false analogy. But having a kind viewpoint is a good thing

claig · 18/12/2011 04:46

That's not a bad analogy Nandocushion.
An inventor may create an invention that nobody else wishes to develop and commercialise. They are still an inventor.

Who decides what art is? Who decides what is valid art? What censor draws the line?

Does the jazz artist look down on three-chord skiffle and say it is not art? Is punk rock not art?

I don't like "Waiting For Godot" or some modern art in the Tate, but it is still art and artists have created it.

Deciding what is and is not art is being a bit tart and can definitely smart, almost like putting the horse before the cart, saying which, I shall depart because I have to make an early start and carry on with my 30 year work of art.

claig · 18/12/2011 05:10

Art comes from the heart, the product of Eros's dart, and it and its creators should not be lightly dismissed by the philistine fart, for then the country will go to hell in a handcart.

CalmDownDearItsOnlyALikeButton · 18/12/2011 06:22

If you go to medical school and finish you're a doctor.. Even if you never enter a hospital.

She went to art school to become an artist.

CheerfulYank · 18/12/2011 06:59

The thing I dislike about people like the man I described above is that he puts his artistry on a different level of work or importance than other peoples'. Even if he were Van Gogh, which trust me he ain't, he wouldn't be more important of a person than someone who is an excellent nurse, or a really good woodworker.

Our friend's mother, who owns the gallery, had a display of birdhouses a few months ago. Some were really intricate and beautiful, and one was oddly shaped and painted orange. He went on and on about " that one must have been done by an artist." They were all art; he just liked that one because not everyone did and so it was "artistic."

Look, I love writing. Always have. It's always what I've wanted to do and sometimes I do it well. In my soul I feel like a writer, but I don't refer to myself as one or think that I'm somehow beyond other people who do things like carpentry or accounting. Everyone's got their thing, don't they?

Sorry, it's very late here and I'm tired. Xmas Blush I'll come back and make more sense later.

claig · 18/12/2011 07:14

You're right, some people are up their own fundament and they are not more important than others.

'Some were really intricate and beautiful, and one was oddly shaped and painted orange. He went on and on about " that one must have been done by an artist."

On this, I think he is onto something, and I don't mean on something. The oddly shaped orange one is a unique different perspective. As Picasso said

'I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.'

He sounds like a student of the arts and his heart is in the right place, even if he sometimes seems off his face.

Original poster
Nandocushion · 18/12/2011 07:42

Claig, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to stop rhyming now.

OP posts:
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