Opportunities come from unexpected places

Title: All things Flowing
Media: Acrylic on Canvas - black, wqhite and grey handpainted dots on a red background.
Artist: Sophia Elise
For Sale sophia@sophiaelise.co.nz

Recession - that's all we seem to hear about these days and as much as we can argue that the media is actually perpetuating the recession the reality is still that people are holding onto their money. For the first time ever an NZ Art Guild exhibition had no sales - this has never happened. However, as I keep telling the artists in the guild they need to keep their profiles up during a recession, keep on creating, exhibiting etc - you never know what other opportunities may come from that - and at least you ensure that your name doesn't disappear and you are then faced with the struggle to break back into the art market when the recession is over.

Yesterday morning was the take down of the NZ Art Guild Life Exhibition and Tony, the owner of Helena Bay Gallery, came to collect one of the artworks he bought. While he was there some other artworks caught his eye - emerging artist Linda Paul's fabulous abstract, geometric, graffiti art style almost artwork, Jennifer Christiansen kiwiana artwork and my dot art.

Often as artists we exhibit with the primary focus being sales and we forget that that isn't the only reason to exhibit - With this exhibition we may not have had any sales - but three artists got picked up by a gallery which they may not have had the opportunity for. That in itself is a huge success in my books esp for the artists concerned.

On the flip side.... Life really can be rather ironic - only 3 days before I had made the decision to enter the Royal Easter Show Art Awards and committed the three artworks from the exhibition to that - so now those three are up at Helena Bay Gallery and I had better start painting three more to replace them at the show!

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent. – Sophia Loren