At last years’s Tierra Del Mar art fair, I met someone who is a big wig with Nestucca Valley Artisans - Rosie Perez. She invited me to come see all of them at the annual show they have in the senior center in Pacific City. I thought that would be interesting because I don’t see much of the local artists. I live in the middle of nowhere but my work ends up in the big cities for some reason.
The day arrived, so I grabbed my little digital camera and headed into the public building. I’ve always been wondering what the locals were up to. But before I got one foot inside the door, some goon yelled, “Put the camera away!”
“huh?”
“No photography. Pictures aren’t allowed.”
“How nice for you,” I said as I turned around and left. I might have had more to say and I probably SHOULD have said more, but was just too taken aback by the whole thing. I got pissed off later.
Think about this group of artists you almost certainly have never heard of, protecting their enormously valuable work (faces?) from predatory visitors who might be out to steal their immortal art objects (souls?) by taking fuzzy digital pictures of the public event.
Do they really believe that someone could or would use such pictures to… what? Make prints of their art and sell it??? Hah! They should be so lucky!! If you are that good, you must be making six figures on your prints, right? You’d have to be that good for someone to bother stealing your work. And if that were the case, they would just buy a print (you must be selling tens of thousands of them) and use THAT to produce a hi-res copy. Cuz you are soooo good. *smirk* …NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
Even this amount of time later, I’m still dumbfounded at the level of ego and possibly paranoia displayed. I doubt that Picasso or Pollock ever acted like this. Of course, Picasso wasn’t scraping by on food stamps and generous relatives, either. It certainly came across as self-importance bordering on something pathological. I’m sure that not all of the Nestucca Valley artisans are like that, perhaps only the person who was charged with keeping the gate at this public event? Who knows, obviously some of these people have some serious psychological problems. Even if they were the superstars that they seem to think they are, only really jerky superstars are so arrogant.
Maybe they think - incorrectly - that this is how successful commercial artists are supposed to act. I guarantee that they are mistaken in this. There are a few self-deluded folks out there, but the rest of us steer clear of them.
Perhaps there is something about the nature of being an artist that lends itself to this sort of thing. Like maybe artists need to see themselves as too important to be photographed - it makes up for the fact that current American society places no value on their contribution to life.
So it isn’t their fault, not completely anyway … but it still makes me very upset whenever I think about this.. It also isn’t a very good excuse for rude behavior, and I think some in this group need to get a grip on reality. ..and if you have to be lectured by ME about getting a grip, you’re in VERY bad shape.
Oh and feel free to take pictures of every show I’m at - I always allow it. The more the merrier! If you think there is money in stealing my work and trying to reproduce it, at least be good enough to buy a good print first so you can have a real shot at it! It’s not really worth the illegality, though: the print market is mediocre at best and you’ll never make enough to pay for your bail and court costs. Thanks for the flattery, though.
