In this video I discuss creating this Hope painting and also selling it at a local art auction. Take a little peek at my thought process before, during and after creating a painting. Please subscribe to my channel to help support my career as an artist.
Transcript of this video:
Hi! Welcome back. I’m Susan Clifton. If you haven’t been here before, I’m a Pompano Beach artist here in South Florida and my studio is in an art center called BaCA the Bailey Contemporary Art Center. Today I’m going to talk about a painting I did a few years ago called “Hope” and it’s a hand symbol and it includes positive thoughts on wishing and hoping.
Here we go stay tuned. This painting sold at auction a few years ago at a Make-a-Wish Foundation Gala in Miami so I no longer have it but let’s see if we can get this on screen properly.
This is a print of that artwork and it has a colorful grid pattern on the bottom that’s kind of mid-century modern, i think, and on the prints I run the thoughts that are included on the hand around kind of like almost framing it, so that people understand why the word “hope” is cut off at the top. That’s not a mistake, it’s part of the artwork.
So the idea came out of our our hopes and dreams really, what is it that we want for ourselves in our lives, what are we wishing for or hoping for and how does fear sort of get in the way sometimes.
Sometimes we have to be patient because things don’t always happen right away. We make all these plans, we get the education that we need, we learn the skills that we need and we start a new business. Or we have to start sometimes three or four businesses before we’re successful. But we have no patience and then when things don’t go our way we we kind of give up.
The thoughts in this painting are all about you know how we need to stay hopeful and not let fear interfere.
So yeah we have to just kind of believe that this is going to eventually happen and just keep that hopeful spirit going.
Of course this whole idea originated because I was looking for hand symbols to do another painting of a hand and of course this one’s a great one, I think and I could have just used the word wish and I might still do that one someday, but I thought hope was really more inspirational and so I came up with this idea and then I really loved the sort of mid-century modern grid thing that I saw one day.
I sort of copied it a little or you know, all artists steal a little bit or I should say I was influenced by something that I saw and it was actually a graphic piece it was not a fine art piece but I decided to you know use that at the bottom around the arm in this grid. I tried to stretch my palette a little bit because i’m always criticized for using the same palette.
I thought I’d try a to do something a little bit different. Some of those colors in there are still my palette and some of them are not but it was a way of experimenting and I really enjoyed this process and I really loved the way it came out.
The Art Auction Experience
So a local auctioneer who does a lot of charity stuff was putting together an auction for Make-a-Wish Foundation in Miami and she saw my hope painting and so she asked me to include it in her auction. I still get paid, it’s not a donation.
For those of you who don’t know, artists don’t benefit from donating their artwork to charity.We cannot use it as a tax deduction. We just are pretty much giving away our time and money when we give away a painting.
I always ask for at least what I would have gotten if it’s sold in a gallery and then whatever they sell it beyond that 50 percent the charity keeps. From what I understand the Make-a-Wish Gala is an annual thing in the fall is quite spectacular. I didn’t get to go. We were not invited. It was just a silent auction which kind of worried me. If there’s an original piece in a silent auction, how is that going to sell?
When there’s nobody there to sort of tell you a little bit about it but it did sell so I’m very happy. That was a couple of years ago and it’s why I don’t have it here in the studio to show you, but I do have … before I forget this painting behind me still in the works so this is a sort of a peek into what I’m currently working on which is called “Calm”. Something that we all kind of need in 2020.
Words used in this Hope painting
Anyway let’s get back to this so here are the words that are in the fabric mosaic of the hand:
“Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future. Don’t lose hope, you never know what tomorrow may bring. Stay patient and trust your journey. Learn from yesterday, Live for today, hope for tomorrow. The only thing stronger than fear is hope. Be strong, there is always hope. ”
This being the end of November what do you hope for in 2021? Dare we even try to hope for a better future. We’re all getting very negative in this uh week after week it just goes up it goes down (coronavirus) that doesn’t seem to be an end in sight, but there’s got to be an end in sight. Someday. At some point. So what do we want for 2021? Maybe we should sit down and write a list of things that we would do, people we would see. Who would we go out to dinner with? What what large party would we throw if we could?
Anyway if it’s not 2021 maybe 2022. But anyway what would you do in 2021? If you could.
I’ll see you next time. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel and like this video. See you next time
Bye, Bye!
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