ART & the LAW. A word from the wise.

"When Law Dulls the Edge of Chance," by C. M. Russell

Howdy fellow artist. Perhaps you found this blog because you are having some questions about the art business. I am no attorney, and no expert on the LAW, but I do have forty years of experience in the art business, as an artist. And I can sum it all up in one word. BEWARE.

But it is not the law that is your enemy. When it comes to commissions, publications, representation, public interviews… BEWARE! Although the laws supposedly protect you, they only work if you first protect yourself.

Beware of contracts.  Whenever somebody sticks one of these between you and a so-called opportunity, pay close attention to it. They are not all bad, but there are a lot of bad ones and they can really put you in a world of hurt.  Most contracts are written by corporate attorneys whose job it is to put everything in the corporation’s favor. They are very professional and RUTHLESS. They write each contract as if it will be read and negotiated by an equal, and more tellingly, by an adversary. The minute you hold that contract, you are in over your head.

Beware of “handshake deals.”  While it is true that these are far more comfortable, and thus attractive, they can be much worse because of what was not said before the handshake. The best solution is to hear out a proposal and then write down your interpretation of it, including many of your assumptions about what you think was implied, and verify these impressions with your client. The back and forth dialogue will be healthy and revealing. Then shake hands-  and may God be with you.

Beware of wonderful deals, “big opportunities” and apparent windfalls. They hardly ever are. Publishers will promise to make you famous, knowing you will receive proportionally and embarrassingly very little for the art they publish. Charity auctions solicit donated art for popular causes, offering you huge “exposure.” They are unaware that your donation is not even tax deductible, (except for the cost of materials) and that few artists ever hear from anyone “exposed" to their art at the auction. Galleries may promise to put your work in the window, and talk it up, but soon grow bored and adopt a new flavor of the day. If you stay away for awhile, and return unexpectedly, you might find your work out of sight and in storage.

Beware of galleries. Especially new ones.  Most will be out of business in a few years or less. And when they go, they often take your work with them. People closing a business or mired in financial trouble do not have time to worry about you. Easy come, easy go. Watch your galleries closely at first to know their business ethics, their prospects for survival, and what to expect out of them.  Many art galleries start out as a second business for a wealthy couple looking for “something fun to do.” They might also need a tax write-off and not necessarily care about profitability. They love the atmosphere and the glamour and often underestimate their responsibility to earn their commissions. And they often forget to send you your money. They do not set out to be crooks, but few galleries are run by responsible, business-minded individuals. Many art galleries are going out of business these days... only a few will be missed.

Think about it, what other kind of store can you open and not have any previous experience and not have to invest in a single bit of inventory? This only helps to produce a cavalier attitude.  Selling art is serious business. It is about one third public relations, one third retail cunning and one third dogged resourcefulness. Most galleries have only one of these, if any.

Beware of yourself, as you are the only defender you have. The bottom line is that little has changed since the early 1900’s, when musicians sold their songs for a few bucks and forsook all deserved royalties and never lived to see any appreciable wealth earned from their intellectual property. And why?  Because they just handed it over. They trusted "the man."  And artists today are being asked, even required by egregious contracts to do this very thing.  So Beware of your own humility and magnanimity. Artists often undervalue their talent and what it can do, and more importantly, what it and their products are worth.

Sometimes (often!) artists get financially desperate and from a position of weakness, make strategic compromises. But almost every deal that comes along has unseen pitfalls, and often your compromise turns into bitter regret.  If you are going to manage yourself, you have to lose several things: Quick decisions, benefit of the doubt, trust in mankind, and unwillingness to take responsibility. You cannot ignore these things and "just make art." Make yourself read and scrutinize the fine print.  Yes you are an artist… but you are also in business! And that means you are supposed to survive and show a profit. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Beware of smiling, well-intended benefactors. Promoters often start out praising you and smiling big while they think ahead, begging for slack and special treatment, with promises of worthy returns down the road. Their visions usually never materialize. The life of an artist is tough and unpredictable. You are destined to pay plenty of dues without someone asking you to. As an old mentor of mine once told me, “your knowledge is your stock and trade!” I cannot, and you cannot afford to give your knowledge, your products, and especially your royalties away, or sell them cheap. Things are tough enough for an artist anyway. When a deal is offered that has some thorns on the rose… Understand that with every opportunity, you will have to pay for it in some way. Watch for those thorns! For instance:

A land developer might appreciate an artist’s touch and ask you to design or even develop marketing materials, even amenities to sell his vision- which may be a delusion, using your talent as a cloak to cover his poor business plan. I have been through this a couple of times. A bad or suspicious business plan almost guarantees you will be the first casualty!

A business might ask you to design a billboard- advertising something you find objectionable, even immoral. You might be asked to paint something that would bother your peace of mind. Be careful what you agree to without sufficient background details.

An art studio might ask you to teach art lessons- and require you to provide valuable additional art for teaching materials, on the side for cheap-  if you want the job. This is the latest "get rich off of trusting artists" scheme.

A gallery might ask you to consign your work- and demand as much as 60% commission- and pay you on a 90 day cycle. A lot can happen in 90 days.

A popular annual charity auction might ask for free art to sell, to raise money and provide you “advertising”- year after year. And never even give you a chair at their banquet!

An author or publisher might ask you to provide illustrations for a magazine or a book, or a website- or to make reproductions of your works to sell and offer you a very small percentage- or nothing except good public relations!

A school or museum might ask you to paint murals in its halls- but require you to sign a burdensome contract.

All of these things have happened to me. Each opportunity had some critical issues, some of them legal, which could affect me and my future. I’m sure you can learn from my experiences.

The failure to plan is just a plan to fail. Know what your personal and professional policies are and stick to them. I have wasted a great deal of my life giving some moron the “benefit of the doubt,” against my better judgment, only to regret it… and I have paid for it. Most of the time I failed to plan for such “opportunities” and tried to wing it without legal counsel. I could write a book about my failures, especially on the business end!

You may not need to run out and hire a lawyer yet, but you need to be ready for these and other traps in the art business minefield. I’m going to share a few stories that will help illustrate the need for you to be ready to protect yourself. And I will give you some hints about when it is time to put your dukes up. Because after that, you are on your own. 

You need to know right now, as best as I can tell, we are headed into a veritable dark age when it comes to art and the art business and our cultural environment. It is getting very litigious and hostile. Lawyers will soon run the Universe. And most of them do not have a conscience. And everyone you will be working for has the pockets to afford these hired guns that make a living scheming your disadvantage.

So you are broke and you need a gig and somebody approaches you with what sounds like a real career boost. You are willing to almost agree to anything to get a paying job, to get your work out there… What should you do if they hand you a contract and ask you to sign it and “get on with it…”?

We’ll talk about that next time. If this is information you need, from another artist’s perspective, please leave a note and let me know your specific concerns. I want to encourage and warn you at the same time!

Next time…

Art makes a difference!

My good friend and patron Faber McMullen has assembled a charming list of weekend get-aways and remodelled them to perfection... now available to rent.

As the finishing touch, he decorated them with my art... and the results have been very pleasing... to us anyway!

The 1900 farmhouse known as Pleasant Hill sits a good 150 yards off of a country road in southern Grimes County.

It has been completely overhauled... The exterior appears much as it did when the German farmers who lived there called it home...

 

But the inside has been freshly remodeled and beautifully decorated. Still, visitors can enjoy the old- fashioned Texas farm life, with lots of WOOD, wood floors, wood burning stove for heat in the winter, and board and batten wooden walls, just like everybody used in times past.

The spacious kitchen is well equipped, and has modern amenities such as coffee-maker and micro-wave oven.

Surrounded by quiet and the sounds of nature, the cute, intimate dining room is perfect for conversation.

The bedrooms are comfortable and yet filled with light and austere country life. There will be curtains installed here, but I enjoyed not having any, as the sun can wake you up in the morning. This bedroom sleeps three.

The east bedroom faces the rising sun, and sleeps two. One on the bed, one on the floor... just kidding. These beds are primo- very comfortable, and provide for excellent sleeping, even through a thunderstorm!

Still, my favorite part of the old place is the porch, which must have fifty foot of breezeway which wraps around three sides of the house.

Pretty cool huh? Let me know if you ever need the place, I'll try to get you a deal, my "Blogger's Discount"!

 

One man's version of Heaven on Earth

 

photo by Stephen Williamson

 

The LINK below will take you to Stephen's website... where he has done several great studies of this photograph.

 

http://funwithacrylics.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/palo-duro-painting-studio-work-russell-in-plein-air-heaven/

 

What is "Plein Air"?

 

A dry gully empties into the creek in the belly of Palo Duro Canyon.

Plein air painters can be kind of like reformed smokers or alcoholics... they seem to take a superior, all-knowing stance and make other artists miserable with their quasi-scientific, technical talk about "edges" and "transitions" and "values." Suddenly they assert confidently how they understand art, nature, artists, YOU, everything... annoyingly so. I have been one of those smug "outdoor painters" for a long time... as I taught or chased off all of my disciples. What could possibly make an artist so insufferable?

It's a French term, so that fits. It comes from the French Impressionists who thought they had invented something... painting from life, in the OPEN AIR, out in the fields of France. But a simple definition will not do. It was, more importantly, what happened to these pigment slinging iconoclasts, as they began to paint in the sunshine... and the dust... and even the fog and the rain.

About 90 minutes of intense study... produces an 8" x 12" field sketch on Masonite panel done "Plein Air" at Palo Duro Canyon. The details and colors and values were swiftly and yet carefully recorded.

 

A photograph taken at the same time. Cameras exaggerate light and shadow and miss the true colors of things. Digital cameras have serious blind spots to certain colors.

 

Rendering a landscape became an experience;  A souvenir from real life; with glimpses of real life; the sheen from the sun, the haze from the dust... and it became a real life struggle to capture a particular moment in nature. It was not enough anymore to paint contrived counterfeits of earth and sky. Artists began to speak of mass, form, atmosphere and temperature.  And landscapes would never be the same.

Sure artists have always depended on their imaginations to create their works as well, but artists ever since Monet and Pissaro and Van Gogh have found spectacular effects while studying nature; while painting what they see, or trying to, as opposed to their own pre-conceived, if not ill-conceived notions.

John Cogan and Stephen Williamson discuss "transitions."

If you are not an artist, it is hard to quantify the difference. But most plein air painters would agree that the difference in their work would be the same as the difference between a day on the beach and a snapshot of it.

I have often told my students that the difference between my work now than before is the difference between a color and a black & white photograph. We all carry snapshots in our memory, and these were re-enforced for artists through photography... but there will never be a substitute for an immediate, hands on experience. The difference for the art audience is more exciting art, greater passion, greater authenticity, and most importantly, an artistic statement with just one step between them and the great wide open. Like a gardener handing you a handful of fresh vegetables, or a hunter handing you a day's kill.

And for most plein air painters, it does get to be more like hunting or harvesting than the tedium of artwork at a desk or an easel.  They become restless with studio work as they suffer through it, longing to make another plein air trip. They become more at home, more creative, more artistically satisfied, anywhere out of doors, where they mine for images in the wealth of God's Creation. I soon began to realize that plein air painting was also, for me, another form of worship of God.

So you can see, it is a big deal to those that partake. When they appear a little distant or opinionated, as if they have someplace else they need to be. They do. It is the call of the wild and making a living and worship all rolled into one. And maybe that will help you understand why they seem bored with just hanging out. There is nothing plain about plein air.

When you look at it, realize there were numerous thoughts that went into each and every stroke... done by human hands, in a very limited space of time, a Divine mystery on canvas... and you could even own such a thing!

 

The Untold Story

 

This is not a painting of a flock of birds flying across Palo Duro Canyon... it was right at sunset and there was time for one more quickie...

This is the number of buffalo gnats that stuck to my painting while I tried capture the moment. There were thousands of them in a nasty swarm and the rest of them were on me.  This may have been the quickest field sketch I ever did. Little suckers bite like hell and the bites itch for a week.

After I took refuge inside John Cogan's truck, they began to feast on the other two artists. They said that the smell of my bath soap attracted them... and once I was unreachable, they went after the others who had been camping several days... and had not been exposed to soap very recently... I guess the gnats prefer clean humans.

 

Deep Inspiration: Palo Duro

"Just me, Willie and the angels"

 

About twenty five years ago I pulled into Palo Duro Canyon at sunrise, listening to Willie Nelson and staring misty-eyed at the legendary canyon where Quanah hid the last of the wild Comanches from civilization, and later where Charlie Goodnight built his cattle empire. I'll never forget the song playing, as I stared at its awesome beauty: "Pancho was a bandit boy..." needless to say Pancho and Lefty has been one of my favorite songs since.

A view from the north rim of Palo Duro Canyon

Anyway I did several paintings from that early morning visit, so the canyon has put some serious meat on my table as well. One of them was named "Just me, Willie and the angels." So FINALLY I got to go out there again to meet up with Willie and the angels, and do some painting with my old Texas Wild Bunch friend John Cogan, now a premier painter of American canyons. John is something of a fixture in Southwestern plein air circles, having won the first prize at the Grand Canyon Plein Air Competition, and is one of the most popular Grand Canyon artists around.

John Cogan is known on You Tube for his "One Minute Art lessons." And there is a reason for their brevity...

Here is where I must confess, the recent announcements of the City of Navasota to support the arts... and/or artists, has already begun to pay-off for me personally. I would never have made this trip, and had such a great time, had I not contacted John about his views on the current state of the art business... to double check my own instincts about City affairs... and learned in the process he had over the years picked up "plein air" painting ( painting out of doors, from life ) and was even teaching it to a lucky few. His student on this excursion was Stephen Williamson, a very promising landscape painter from Temple, Texas. I shamelessly horned in on the deal and I owe the City of Navasota for stimulating the whole process!

Steve Williamson tackles painting water on his fourth day of instruction... and did a very nice field sketch.

Moreover THANK YOU to John and Steve for allowing me to tag along. It was wonderful to reconnect with John and to meet this excellent young talent who sure made a liar out of me. (It's a good thing!)  I had warned a couple of City Councilmen that a bunch of young rent-free artists would only tear up the place they plan to customize for them... and then... I met... one of the finest and most talented young men I have met in a long time... So anyway Art and the canyon and even the Navasota City Council inadvertently brought this article together. I still contend that Williamson is ONE OF A KIND.

Signs of weather extremes common to west Texas... luxurious rains have made the grass and wildflowers lush in time for "Indian Summer," as southern winds fill the canyon with dust.

I remember arguing with John when he told me he planned to move to Arizona, so he could be closer to his favorite subject, the Grand Canyon. "You don't have to leave Texas," I whined, "you can move to Austin and go paint PALO DURO!"

John explained in his typical gracious manner that Palo Duro was no Grand Canyon.

I agreed BUT, "The Grand Canyon is like Miss America... she is beautiful, but you could never get to meet her... OR DATE HER... only stand back in awe of her... Palo Duro on the other hand was beautiful... and accessible, like the girl next door"

Don't know what this cave is actually called... I call it the Georgia O'Keaffe Aperture... Don't ask me to explain that... just look at her work... still a very accessible girl-next-door climb for most people.

Of course John Cogan did not buy that for a minute... and packed up his family and left Texas for good. And that was what he should have done when you consider his success doing what he was born to do. I just hated to lose another artist friend- to...

 Texas retARTation... a syndrome I have grown immune to but am always reminded of...

If more people would get OUT of the house and see places like this, and get connected to our wonderful American landscape, artists could still make a living bringing these kinds of experiences into their living rooms...

Hell, we're going to to paint these places ANYWAY! Which gives me an idea... an INSPIRATION!


 

Return to Palo Duro Canyon! With John Cogan!

I had foolishly scurried through this marvelous landscape a few times before, always in too big of a hurry to do it right, always promising myself to return sometime "down the road" and do it justice. Sometime has taken way too long...

Finally an old friend of mine, John Cogan of Farmington, New Mexico, told of his plans to meet a student there for five days of plein air painting. I decided to hang out with them some and make good on my long ignored best intentions.

John Cogan teachs his outdoor painting methods to an eager young student.

 

For year-round inspiration, there is no place in Texas that offers the depth, color and diversity like Palo Duro Canyon.

 

I will be sharing my photos and thoughts about the trip in the coming week. It was a glorious experience... on that "magic carpet ride" I often refer to (where only God could be the driver!). Can't wait to tell you about it!