Narratives

Dear Art Lover,

Since the summer, I’d been making a point to repeatedly paint from a specific overlooking dock right by the walking / biking path on Westlake Avenue.  Many pedestrians saw me to and from their way to work in the tech hub neighborhoods of South Lake Union and Fremont. I would hand out cards to the interested, and keep working.  Occasionally the pedestrians would follow up by sending me a message - always appreciated - and the first step towards one of them buying art.

One woman reached out to say she had seen me working on a painting, and bought it.  What’s more, she works for one of the biggest tech companies in town.  To me, this was a massive win, not just for the sake of a sale, but for what it represented, and the non-useful narrative that it proved wrong.  In addition, her company has just recently made a massive investment into the art school where I cut my teeth, Gage Academy of Art.

Narratives and their creation are how we make sense of our world, but a non-useful narrative is one that by definition isn’t helping to improve the scenario we may find ourselves in. Examples of non-useful narratives might be “I’m so bad at this, I should give up” or “the world is against me”.

If I find myself clinging to a non-useful narrative, no matter how “true” it feels, I try to discard it.  Instead of narratives, I enjoy posing open questions like “is this possible? Let’s find out by trying”, or “I’m curious about this, time to find out all I can…” or “How many of these can I make in an hour?” I find such questions very useful.

Here is a non-useful narrative about a pattern that I’d found over the last several years. Moving back to Seattle in 2021, painting and advertising a fair amount, to my knowledge I’d not had someone working in tech in Seattle buy my original art.  It made me wonder- why is this?  It seemed unusual.  Usually, in my experiences making artwork in other cities, and in Seattle, populations making the most money in any city or society invest proportionately in the fine arts.  I figured by sheer chance that someone must have… but it hadn’t happened, at least not to my knowledge.  Perhaps there had been exceptions I was not aware of - but the pattern was clear.  This wasn’t cynicism - just a pattern.

At the same time… I thought - ok - if this is the pattern, what can I do to move it?  Do the tech workers just rarely see original art?  Do they buy art, but not the kind that I make?  Do they have any awareness that there exists among them in Seattle artists and original artwork?  Can I be a demonstration of art-making in public spaces, and can I (modestly) change the culture myself?  Maybe, but one thing was certain - time to move on and get to work.

I’m sharing this story, just as I shared it with the client, as well as some friends who work for her company, to encourage anyone who is clinging to non-useful narratives to ask themselves instead, what am I going to do about it?

Cheers,

David