Great improvement in the art market

Well Dermot, on the whole things are fairly stable I guess but there is no indication of any surge generally, that of course is my area, others may be finding it a different matter. The Manhattan project sounds interesting, I am green with envy, I was negotiating with a gallery in the States, a friend of my sister, it was called Robin B Gallery in Chicago and all was under way but the owner folded up which was a great disappointment, Google still shows the gallery as trading but it ain't.

No, not now Dermot, just a small local craft shop at present, I have tried to make inroads into a few of the better galleries in the area but have been rejected, they don't give a reason of course, many of them don't have space for new artist's and are happy to continue with their existing suppliers, or maybe they just don't think my work is commercially viable, who knows or indeed who cares, that's how it is.i'm afraid. Being retired now I don't rely on sales of course, painting for me is pure pleasure (well most of the time), and it makes the days tick by and keeps me sane, I probably have more than a couple of thousand paintings of one sort or another in folders and in cupboards, and adding around 250 to these each year, so my daughter's can sort them all out eventually and sell them all off. I did look at Etsy and good luck with it, my online experience is not great, I was with Artfinder for 6 months, sold about 20 or so in that time (mainly to USA) but not worth the effort after all the commissions and waiting 4 weeks for your money.

My experience mirrors Alan's - I don't have a gallery representing me; I'd like one, because I'm just not interested in doing all the promotional stuff any more; I've thought about online representation, but again .... it still involves all the work, it's just that they get your name known: well obviously that can be helpful, but while I'd like to clear some stuff out of the way and make a bit of space, I don't really want to go negotiating with couriers and packaging up paintings to send across the Atlantic (which is where the art market seems fairly buoyant). I've got paintings all over Britain, and a couple in France - but I don't live on sales (I'd starve if I did). Even so - I ought to chase up a few galleries and wake my ideas up; ought to, but will I? When I hear the trouble good artists are having shifting their work, I think this country never really came out of recession, and exiting the EU (whatever one thinks of that institution) isn't likely to help. http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk