http://faso.com/forum/discussion/?id=8078 here is the original discussion…I’m only putting my own comments here, because they are mine & I can…
While making a giant Ferrocement sculpture, I made small samples of my custom concrete mix, then froze them, cooked them, dropped them, hammered them…This helped me to know if the concrete was cured, and how it was going to hold up and if maybe I should alter the recipe slightly…
While designing artificial Trumpeter swan nests woven out of rope, I put the prototypes online and got alot of angry feedback about how the loops were tripping hazards…Changed the design 8 times because of that good feedback…Before anything went out…
I like “before”…Check the new process out before it goes out…
Put one in your mother’s garden for a winter to see if it falls apart…”Before” is really useful to subscribe to…
If you have something you hadn’t planned happen, and the work is already out there, then by all means do everything you can to fix that, apologize, offer discounts, replacements…Good word of mouth and standing by your work, is almost everything…
| Sari | 12/30/2012 2:14:13 PM | |
| Well Brian(editor’s note: I was answering Brian Sherwin, who is really getting to be a good source for art information online & discusses important issues that others might shy away from), as you know, each human has a different temperament…I am of the overly nice bend over backward way too polite friendly maybe overly friendly chatty sort…My husband who is also a Vase (Visual artist self-employed) is of the difficult, brusque, fiery tempered, overly budgeting, critical type…
So, I tell everything absolutely everything I can think of, including my negative emotions about how the piece turned out, which is something most people would consider stupid…Anything I can possibly think of I tell, including possible down the road events…I will lower a price if I find a problem myself…I have provided replacement works, have sold works at prices commensurate with the time the first work was purchased (despite my new prices being much higher)…*I noticed that an experimental series using acrylics (I mainly have used oils) turned darker over time…(I don’t use acrylics for that reason)… The yellow factor I have found is a varnish issue…However, I still only use eco-friendly dammar varnish instead of the newer more clear chemical formulations…My dammar uses no turpentine, which is the thing that causes problems for artist health-in fact I use no turps at all for oil paintings…The eco-friendly one I use (from Eco-House if anyone is listening) uses extract from oranges, which also smells nice…I lean towards eco-friendly materials when I have a choice, though down the road they may not look as perfect as the less eco choices…My oil paint is walnut oil which has less smell than traditional linseed oil paints-plus it is made in Quebec which is closer than the schmincke stuff I used to use from Dusseldorf…I don’t paint using animal hair brushes, instead learned to work with a knife…I won’t use rabbit skin glue as a size…(I just don’t like the name, though I am told it is not really rabbits anymore they use for it)…I don’t use any lead whites…All of these choices make for perhaps maybe less long term life of the work of art…Which comes to the philosophy of Wabi Sabi, or loosely translated, Rust and ephemerality…Wabi Sabi sort of tells you that things will decay and that is ok and to let that happen…Does anyone really need that giclee print to last over 50 years? There is something quite beautiful in degradation…Biodegradability…My first artificial nest for a trumpeter swan prototype was made of Biodegradable sisal rope…My bengal cats loved sitting on it when it was still in the studio…Later, my 8th try, I made a nest using water-resistant polypropylene rope that would not rot and might last forever almost…Funny thing, my cats didn’t sit on it at all…The archival rope was a turn-off…It made the thing useless because if my cats didn’t like it I figured the swans wouldn’t either…I realised the rope that molds, the Sisal, my first try, was the best choice…The most natural…This is important…Archival choices are not always the most friendly to your body…Which means they might last forever but might hurt your body or your environment…Like the new natural clothing dyes that run…They are better for the environment and by assumption, for your body…But the colours fade faster…This is an important new philosophy…Though we can make things last we are now making choices that are more complicated, for our environment and our health…I think everything you use and do should be much more transparent than it is now…Why you chose this company’s paint…How you did the work… Now my husband is a different sort…Which is why he brings in more money and saves more money too…He is a meanie…But a good foil for my sycophantic nature… So both kinds of artists are integral…Good to know which one you are…I have provided deals on new works as well just because when I looked at a photo of the work 10 years later, I saw a penis or something that I hadn’t noticed at sale time…Even though the customer didn’t see the visual Freudian slip…(I’m not big on accidental sexual stuff sliding into an expressionistic work that I wasn’t aware of)… Long story short I think medium tags should be much more comprehensive than “oil on linen”…I also think that when people add drying agents to oil paints, that an oil that dries in 6 months dries in 3 days, well that is a significant chemical change to the oil that is turning it into an acrylic-is it still really an oil painting at that point of chemical manipulation? Not sure…If a painting has been traced from a photo I think it should say so on the tag as well…Big difference between taking a photo and tracing and doing the hard part yourself…(pet peeves)… |
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Sari Grove (sarigrove.com)An artist innovating in the Medical Arts... 