The Selling Process
As I found myself having a lot of free time over the course of this break, I decided to dive out of my comfort zone and try to put my work out for people to see. I started off with creating an account that I would dedicate to my art and posting some of my older pieces, as well as current works. Through social media and developing connections with individuals who may be interested in my work, I found myself narrowing my options and working with a few people to sell pieces and validate my efforts as an artist. With that, I noticed through selling works, that the pieces sought out were still-life and traditional works.
Conversely, a lot of my really creative works that are more personal, and experimental in subject matter and style did not resonate with the audience that my art had reached. However, despite the more traditional appeal, I still had managed to sell a few of my favorite pieces. These works collectively embodied a lot of my experimentation of media and delving into greater levels of efforts in regard to technique and detail. Therefore, I found it being rather difficult to part ways with these works that comprised a great deal of time. Nonetheless, the gratitude of knowing that there are people who reciprocate my passion towards my work and were kind enough to invest in my pieces made it worthwhile and still continues to blow my mind.
Commissioned Works
With that being said, even though much of this break revolved around selling works, I was also given the opportunity to challenge my creativity and engage in a commissioned tattoo design for someone I had recently met. This individual was a huge fan of horror and requested a black and white design that would resemble that of a fallen angel. The person wanted the work to convey a sense of deterioration to the figure as well, where there would be prominent cracks, deformities and spilling of the body in different areas. Prior to this, I had never been given the chance to make commissioned work, so the idea of extensive constraints and having to readjust a piece to fit another person’s vision was a challenge. Human anatomy is something I continue to struggle with and I found myself using classical marble sculptures as a reference. The work forced me to look at art from a perspective that fits someone else’s vision, rather than my own. Despite it being tedious and quite challenging, I feel as if the opportunity helped me grow as an artist and allowed me to achieve more versatility.
