What's So Bad About The Box?

Let me be clear.

I want to sell my art to you. Mostly because I love making art and I like getting attention for it. I also need to buy supplies and not feel guilty about spending my family's money.  It would be nice to be rich and famous for it but not really. I would make it anyway and what little I know of being rich and famous doesn't seem that great.

I also want people to buy art even if it isn't mine. I write about my process so people don't feel intimidated by talking to artists or asking to understand their work; my work. I hope my writing makes you think about any piece of art. Maybe the next time you are at a craft fair and something strikes you, you'll ask the artist about their work knowing you have a friend who is one. I promise, it will make their day that you are truly interested even if you can't afford it.

I have been going to some SEO/facebook marketing/social networking monetization/blog optimization meetings and I'm not sure how that fits in with what I do. I'm not moving mass inventory. I couldn't meet the demand of the optimization even if I felt like doing it. All those tricks make me feel lonely and far away from anyone who might make an investment in my work. Because my work is part of my life, I don't want to feel far away from it. 

Which brings me back to the box. Why is everyone working so hard to get away from the box, to think outside of it? We need a box to push against, to open, to protect the precious , to tell us where we have been and reveal something special to us. A trip to the circus a few times is nice but remember who you always came back to Christmas morning.

So here it is.

I am me and just me.

I make art.

I would love for you to buy my art, ask about it, share it with others or comment on it.

I'll see you on internet. I'll be the one building the cool as shit clubhouse with the Whirlpool Refrigerator logo.

You're all invited.

I think I might be done with this but I'm not quite ready to call it done.

An updated version based on Clair's inspiration in the comments below. I wanted a graphic element to pull the birds into the composition. Going to leave it here for a while and take my dog for a walk. Thank you all for your kind comments! As you can see, I really enjoy reading them.

Comments

[Clair]

It's interesting that people take the metaphor of "inside/outside the box" so literally, and you've made me see that taking it that way can be very useful.

But it actually comes from one of those mind-bender puzzles, the one that gives you nine dots in a box, like this:

. . .

. . .

. . .

and asks you to connect all nine dots using only three lines.

The only way to do it, of course, is to take the lines "outside the box" -- the point of the exercise being not to make assumptions about the rules of a game when no one tells you what they are.

[Vesuvius At Home]

My dad is an artist. I grew up going to galleries and don't think I've ever taken a vacation without visiting at least one. In out family we really don't understand how people can visit a new place and not see the art there. Can you kickstart an art project? Amanda Palmer is having huge success with kickstarting her new album and I'm wondering how the rest of us creatives can use the same model.

In this piece I am curious about the messiness of the clouds. They leave the box, but they seem to also leave a wake. An inky one. For me it adds a somewhat ominous undertone to an otherwise cheery idea--black clouds floating away.

[Sheila Cameron]

Thank you! I love knowing the exact origin of the saying. To be honest, the painting started with arguments I have with the girls about boxes they want for play and I need for packing, also boxes I keep with no purpose and then I was looking at pandora's box images, and thinking about boxes and drew a box and I'm like..."what is in the box?" I need to be creative and think outside it but as I was drawing I really liked the box. So painting about boxes is different than thinking about boxes but it is all boxes and I love that I have a puzzler on my blog. You also gave me an inspiration on how to finish it! Yay, for boxes! EVERYONE, BACK IN THE BOX!

[Sheila Cameron]

@Vesuvius you are right. I did want to capture the ominous and the sparkles. The freedom, the splatter, the blood, the sun and trees. Basically, in order to live life, I have to take it all; the pain and the joy. A common theme but I wanted to go a little deeper. One of my biggest fears is being boring or irrelevant. Sitting around worrying about what might happen or doing it perfectly only jacks me up. Life is happening, the good, the bad, the boring and mundane. Strumming my fingers waiting for something juicy to inspire me is stupid, even the boring is juicy if you tell it right. Besides when I had a "juicy" life it was boring to me, so I was living my life in order to have a good story...just for other people. There is still that pull to want to name drop or earn money or show my power like a man. Now I have to look at what I really want and know it can be crafted out of whatever materials life brings. Don't wait for someone else to say my life is interesting. It is all interesting, even the box. As moms, how many toys vetted by focus groups have we seen gather dust while a box, a stick a roll of tape gets played with constantly? I'm allowed to learn something about the world from being a mother. I shouldn't let society tell me that mother's can't emerge or that themes about family are for sit coms or that you can't sell REAL art on the internet. The chatter chatter chatter of my own rules, other people's rules...they come in the form of "tips" but I need to be very careful with myself and my specific triggers. I was saying yesterday that I'm like an addict. If I get a taste of measuring myself in terms of money or power I want to take it all the way. That would cannibalize what I really want. I'm a housewife first and it was strange to admit that out loud but that was the deal our family made. Raising my girls is #1 job and that makes me happy but I couldn't believe I said it in a "business" meeting. In a strange way my freedom comes from the box. Okay I'm rambling but I think you get it.

[Vesuvius At Home]

Yeah, I get that. I wanted a glamorous writer life, had kids too early and feared they'd ruined that forever, but the tension between what I wanted and what I had, when I had infants, was what pushed me to actually start writing. If I hadn't had children, I might never have started writing at all. If I wasn't married, I would have to work long hours and might come home too exhausted to write. My freedom comes from the very things I feared would stifle me.

I know what you mean about the addiction, as well. Even blog comments can be a slippery slope for me sometimes. Although I wouldn't say no to the chance to wield ten million dollars so I could prove myself wrong.

[Sheila Cameron]

Exactly. I feel like so many people can relate to this but don't know how to talk about it in the face of the "aspirational" marketing machine. I'm not ashamed of the life I worked very hard to put together but sometimes I look out and feel like people want me to be. I need to remember they only want me to feel that way so I'll buy something to make me feel better.

[Elizabeth]

I love The Box. And I'm here, on record, to state that the art I've bought from you gives me so much pleasure.

Do you hear that, fellow Readers?

[Sheila Cameron]

Thank you! I also love hearing from satisfied customers.

[erin]

I hear you on the do I really want my art to be mass produced and commerically viable? Or do I just want to ticker and buy new goodies w/o feeling guilty... blog love is a great way to get the feel good vibes.