Aah!!!! It's done...taken the full week to complete but "Petunia Philbrook's Posie Emporium" is completed and ready to go up on the auction block. Sometimes its depressing when I look at how prolific some of the folk art painters on Ebay are. They just churn out painting after painting and get an amazing number of bids and huge prices for them. To me they are cookie cutter paintings..all the same with a few different figures painted in. I guess its a great business model but to me it isn't really folk art. For me, a folk art painting should tell a story and have enough details in the painting that the story is credible. I look at the work of Grandma Moses, Charles Wysocki, Kathy Jakobesen, Rosebee, Barbara Appleyard, Will Moses, Sally Caldwell Fisher ... lots of detail so you can involve yourself in the picture. That's what folk art is to me! Although the "cookie cutter" approach is tempting from a monetary standpoint, I just can't "pimp" my paintings. I may be able to only produce one or two paintings a week (and that's a real good week) and they may only get one or two bids and end up selling for $35.00 but I am proud of what I paint and I feel that I am remaining true to my art. That is more important than all the money in the world. My Dad always told me, "Take the time to do it right, or don't do it at all." Those have been the words I have lived by all my life and every time I am tempted do something a little less than my very best, I hear a little voice inside my head repeating that refrain. Scarey but I guess we are our parents!
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