Friday’s Submerging Artist Series

Secret Lair of the Submerging Artist 2026. Oil on paper, 18 x 24"

Last night Rose and I went out to dinner with friends after playing a non-paid gig at a local nature center. We ran into a friend of ours who also paints and she began to complain about an “emerging artists” show at the local art association. She thinks she is “emerging” and should have been asked to put pieces in the show. She’s older than me, and as far as I know has been painting for at least 15 years. So no, she is not emerging. What she is though, is a denizen of a small town with close to zero opportunity for an artist to exhibit and sell work within the established circles. She’s just sour grapes because wall space is rare. I get it, though I think she would do better to take the selling out of her art and invite all and sundry to her studio. She’ll have to pay for the wine and cheese, but will save on frame costs. People will see the work and might even like it enough to buy it. But it will never be enough to make financial ends meet. Edgeworth Johnstone @jompiy has the right idea. The artist needs to take it to the people. Get on the street to break out of the hopelessness of the gallery tradition. You can keep trying to sell, but it won’t work. Continue to query the gallery, and its crickets for you. The mass majority of artists cannot succeed in a capitalist system without becoming capitalists, which cannot happen without access to capital. And no bank is gonna lend the artist a couple hundred grand to begin work on a life of art.
Do the Stuckist thing. Open up your home or studio and invite the world in. Display your work for free in the park. If you advertise all over the painting, then give it away, and you might get a call back someday. Do this too. Use the Internet to beg for loose change.
Anyway, at the table while listening to our friend define “emerging artist”, I laughed and said, “Well, I am a submerging artist! Where does that put me in the gallery show?”
Well, it got a laugh, and also a subject for today’s paintings.

Bust of the Submerging Artist 2026. Oil on paper, 18 x 24"

Nontitled 2026. Oil on paper, 18 x 24"

The Submerging Artist Shoos Man-faced Cat Off Table 2026. Oil on paper, 18 x 24"

Portrait of a Submerging Artist as an Old-aged Alien 2026. Oil on paper, 18 x 24"