College is done for the summer! Just one more year to go. By this time next year... who knows? My summer looks very relaxed. Working a part time job and lots of plans to make lots of art. Thanks again everyone for all the support, I can't say how much I appreciate it. We artists need to be told very frequently that we aren't wasting our time.

My rant of the month is about the painter population.
There are SO MANY PAINTERS. Too many painters.

My boyfriend is a sculptor. Since working with him for over a year now, it's become clear to me how very different the sculpting and painting communities are (I'm making general statements here, there are always exceptions). There are just so many people painting that you have to be ridiculously lucky or insanely talented to get any notoriety. We fight with each other for attention, not in a physical or nasty way, but we do. Just because there is SO much competition it becomes a battle to get anything you make noticed. And sometimes your skills could be excellent, your ideas original, but if you don't get that bit of luck, you are lost in a sea of other artists.

Because we fight for attention and struggle so hard to be unique, we start hoarding secrets. We don't reveal our methods, not all the way. We are unwilling to share. And we get bitter, too. We just post and post and expect others to pay attention to what we make and shower it with praise--- but we don't GIVE attention to others, so we don't GET it. Then the painting community becomes a painting horde instead of a community.

This is not true of the sculpting folks.
They're all nice and give each other positive, constructive feedback. There are less of them and they're a heck of a lot nicer. Arend has had top level sculptors "stoop" to grace him with kind compliments and great suggestions. It amazes me.

My point is that I try very hard not to be that painting zombie. I take time every once in a while to seek out other artists. Not ones in the Most Popular category, but in the Recently Added stuff. I go through until I find one piece I really like and one piece I have something to say about. I want to reach out to people, somewhat to bring people to me but also so that I can meet other artists! GIVING as well as GETTING.

I'd like to ask that everyone who took the time to read this, takes the time to be nice. Because if they do, then there aren't too many painters.

ra