The greatest philosophies about art

The greatest philosophies about art I’ve heard

My friend Dave is a really successful artist and one of the most uplifting, good hearted, straight up luminous people I know. He looks on the bright side of everything, or at least has the ability to tell you about a rose colored side you didn’t even know existed.  It goes a step beyond “ohh well it can only go up from here”, like so far beyond that, that when I think about having said that or thought that, it sounds like I’m at a funeral.  This little nugget of positivity came when he called me last night at 2:30 am my time, whereas he’s on the west coast so he was about to go to bed, and he’s great to talk to on the phone so when the call woke me up, I took it.  But anyways, to the philosophy, he’s all around a little ball of love to everyone he meets and everyone who buys his stuff he tells them that he loves them, which is so funny to imagine just any old person doing that, but with him I can envision it perfectly. I don’t think I could pull that off, I think I would sound like a weirdo and also give off an impression to some people that I don’t want to.  But it’s natural for him, and these buyers and collectors are really the difference between a dream coming true or not. So for those who collect art, you’re not just buying something pretty to hang on your wall or sit on your table the case of his glass waves, you’re keeping a dream alive.  You are the difference between me having to get a job and not, and I’m not as over the top as Dave is, but you are SOOOOOOOOOO appreciated.  This isn’t possible without you.  We make art that we love to make hoping to one day meet you: the person who will love it too and want to take it home.  That part of what he said was brilliantly similar to what another artist friend of mine who , I don’t know if it was the Senegalese accent or what, just had this aura of mystique and experience and a calm to go with it that made you want to hear everything he could possibly have to say ever.  My favorite thing probably that he said about art which could totally be true about relationships too was that there is only one of each piece of art work, so there has to only be one person who needs to have it.  So you can’t get discouraged when you’ve been toting around a particular painting for a year or whatever and people don’t seem interested in it, there is  
And what if you have a bad show? Well you can’t judge shows based on how much money you make according to Dave, which is basically how everyone judges every show.  But if you don’t sell anything, sure you were there and made connections, but also all of those people who weren’t buying from you this show, that means they’re still out there, really excited to buy from you when they finally do see you. So you should be even more excited about what’s to come in a much more infectiously positive outlook than simply “it can only go up from here”. So my response was after having dealt with some weather at shows, every show where nothing gets destroyed is a good one and he even had a great rebuttal for that.  How often do you get the chance to donate all of your art to the universe/god/whatever at the same time? (say if a tornado hits it) He blows glass and says glass will break, that’s just the reality, it might break tomorrow, it might break in a year, it might break in a century, but when it does, remember that shatter and how spectacular it was as glass shards shot across your floor and the loss of that piece/those pieces will force you to focus on how much you absolutely adored it during its time with you.  

only one of that piece, and it needs to go home with the one person on the planet it was meant for. So if you haven’t sold it yet, you obviously haven’t met them yet and when you do, they’ll be thankful you’ve been carrying that piece around waiting to meet them.

So anyways, I like to start my day off with listening to something positive, but this was great since I got to start my day of recalling something amazing and sharing it with anyone else who wants to read it!
Aloha