REALITY?: Chain Reaction of Art

I am in a unique position as picture framer and wannabe writer:  Surrounded by talent, visual and text, I can praise, inform, build up the confidence in those who need to go further, cajol them into taking those steps.

An artist whose work I am currently framing for a show had been pushed to explore avenues of reproduction of her work, and now she’s come back with the resources that I share with another.  He’s a bit shy about his work and he shouldn’t be.  I send him off to explore, armed with what has been shared by she with the show; he goes, comes back beaming.  Signed, numbered, limited editions from original work–high quality stuff.  I suggest starting the circuit this summer with a couple shows on the green, then we’ll set him up with a website or weblog for winter.  This morning, I’ll do the same with another reluctant, unsure-of-herself fine artist.

In writing as well I can spot, suggest, and gently push those I note, both local and spread on the giant net of the web, to carry it further, to share.  I flatter discriminately, for it wouldn’t be fair.  The road is too hard for the artist to travel, the cost is great in money and time to feed passion and passion alone.  I am no expert, but I do have an eye and some little knowing, and those with the right combination of love and of skill get more than encouragement; they get a firm push.

In a world of myriad talent of language and color, where the artist ego is often too fragile for the flow, I can help.  Hints and experience come back from some that I can pass on to another. Visual artists are more apt to get paid when their work is accepted, are wary, and all I need do is remind them how many more canvases or tubes of paint they buy now to continue their work.  Justification they can accept.

I go to the mailbox, sort through the mail and a postcard catches my eye.  An invitation to a showing.  I can’t help but smile in some small satisfaction as a link in the chain of events.