Growing, and a New Poster Print

This week I reached outside my comfort zone to create something new. I stretched myself to use some different brushes in Procreate to create some new effects, and I really had fun doing it. I got to rely upon some old standbys, and still try tools I’d not really explored. And I’m really happy with the result.

This was a big leap for me. Because until this week, something happened that made me contemplate what I was doing and why, and enabled me to have a new perspective on my endeavors.

I local man who had purchased greeting cards from me before decided to purchase some prints. And this was a big deal for me, because whether he intended to or not, he signaled to me that he was purchasing my work not because it was practical or had a function, but because he genuinely liked the artwork itself.

And this prompted me to look back on this last year and come to some realizations.

See, I’d always told myself that I couldn’t just straight-up “sell prints”. I had to put my art on something functional. Something that had a use. Something that had a practical purpose on which I put my art to make it pretty and more desirable. 

Because I could never be good enough to actually just sell my art, not in the vast ocean of contemporary artists out there, especially those doing digital work.

I was playing it smart. I was trying to have my cake and eat it, too. I would make pretty art, and then I would put it on something so people had more reason to buy it. I told myself that they’d never buy something of mine just because they liked the art. I really tried to hedge my bets by approaching the selling of my art in a realistic way.

This whole thing also made me realize, I’d done that with my theatre career, too. I told myself I could never make it as a theatre-making professional, and if I wanted to do it I had to be a teacher instead. I told myself that I’d never be able to support myself if I became a professional costume designer. I had to approach my education and career with the long term goal of becoming a teacher so I could pay off my loans and put food on the table. It was the smart and practical approach to doing what I loved.

And when this man bought my work simply because he liked it—and I actually internalized it for the first time—I realized that other folks had been doing that all year since I moved to Humboldt County in northern California. I’d sold greeting cards, yes, but the other things I’d put my art upon (like loose leaf paper packs and notepads) didn’t really sell. However, when I started making 11x17” prints, people bought them. And people both them in our local member-run gallery, too, right off the walls in frames.

And all of this added up to me having an epiphany of sorts this last week: I can make art for the sake of making art.

Yeah, I know. “DUH”, you say.

But, see, I’d always thought of it the other way around. Practicality first, aesthetics second. It needed to look good for a reason, not simply because it could just look good.

And so this week, I made a piece simply because I wanted to, out of pure “art-ness”, purely with the intention of making it a poster print and not a card, or to put it on a water bottle, or a pillow, or a sticker. For the first time, I gave myself permission to make art that would look best simply as a print.

And I made something in an Art Nouveau style that spoke to the strong women in my life that influenced me and taught me my skills. Because all my life, I’ve worked in environments dominated by women, and mostly managed by women. I’ve worked with a lot of female directors, and collaborators, and supervisors. I decided my first piece out of the gate would be something that hearkens to the magical, strong, visionary women in my life. 

And Alphonse Mucha did a lot of female subjects. They were ethereal, poised, almost artificially stilted in their packaged beauty. But when I looked at them, I saw powerful women like Sarah Bernhardt, and feminine icons like the seasons and flowers. When I look at Mucha’s work, I don’t see pretty women used as a tool to sell products. I see powerful women owning their femininity.

And I have no idea if Mucha intended that.

I don’t really care.

That’s what his work inspired me to see, whether he intended it that way or not. His Art Nouveau posters and ads seem, to me, to be strong feminine statements. And the women in my life were strong. And I respect them.

So. My piece is called Solitude Moon. And it’s “packaged” as a poster print, complete with text, which is another side of Art Nouveau that I like. Since so much of the Art Nouveau style was used for posters and ads, I think my piece fits right in. And as the first piece I’ve done specifically as a stand-alone piece of art, I think it’s awesome. I think she's magical, she's ethereal, and she's strong.

It’s available here.