The NEW #SmallWins by Art Storefronts!
Artist

How many finished pieces before you started putting work out there?

I have maybe twelve carved pieces I feel good about, mostly small limestone and alabaster forms, and another shelf of work that cracked or went somewhere unexpected. I keep thinking I need more before I can seriously offer anything for sale, but then I wonder if I'm just stalling.

When I was drawing I had hundreds of pieces to choose from. Stone is so much slower. A single form can take weeks, and some of those weeks end with a fracture that sends the whole thing in a new direction.

Did anyone else work in a slow medium and still manage to start selling with a small body of work? How many pieces did you actually have when you first put them out into the world?

Posted in The NEW #SmallWins by Art Storefronts!
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Sean Andrew 4d ago

With my Java Jo's Coffee house art show, I displayed 8 & with my Borders Books & music Cafe art show I displayed 13.

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Tomasz Birra4d ago

Twelve carved pieces is more than I had when I first let someone outside my studio see my work. I think I had maybe four or five small torsos that survived the kiln, and honestly a couple of those were held together by stubbornness more than skill. What got me unstuck was just putting one piece in front of a stranger and watching their reaction. Not a friend who's going to be polite, but someone with no reason to spare my feelings. That feedback taught me more than another month alone in the studio would have. I kept telling myself I needed a bigger body of work first, but that was just me hiding. The slow medium makes it feel like you need more runway, but even one finished limestone form is enough to start learning what people respond to.

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