We are Rafi and Klee, award-winning artists who talk about living an artist life, being creative, being a rogue, and making the most of our time on this blue dot. Support this channel by joining our awesome Rogues on Patreon:)
I have a camp a few miles north of Oil City in Tionesta since 1955 I love it up there it's like my second home Drive North on Route 62 for about 20 minutes and you will see Tionesta it's right along the river and it is extremely beautiful
Sometimes I feel like an artist because I create things but then I see painters and I feel like they are artist and I am just a crafter. I feel like in our society artist are measured by how good the piece is. I mean I like what I create so I would feel like an artist but feel like it is presumptuous to call myself that because it is not fine art like a painting or a sculpture.
Well thank you very much for this vedio actually today i received a msg sayin "I love your art work and want to buy them as nfts" Over Instagram That individual also offered me like 3 Ethereum for each art ( the two that that individual choose) now I don't know much about nfts and as soon came to RU-vid to gather some knowledge about how nfts and selling arts as nfts works your vedio popped up ig I'm saved 😅
I really needed this video.. I've also been dealing with family drama in life right now. It's really has made havoc on my everyday life and has also affected my creativity as an artist and as a person.
Now the repetitive strain injury is improving im just looking at all my art and thinking I only have dusty old art, I have nothing new 7:39 to show! Have three that have never been shown; so going to show those soon! 🥰
Strangely lots of people I’ve met in person say Van Gogh. I never understand because I don’t think it looks anything alike but I just say thank you at this point because honestly I feel like that’s what they’re going for anyway lol.
I dont usually comment but I had to comment for this one. What really helps me as well is looking up interviews and biographies of artists that I appreciate. We see the amazing turn out for certain people, but we don't take the time to understand how much they had to FIGHT for what they wanted. That general sentiment goes across the board for many career paths (musicians, restaurant owners, performers). With such knowledge I learned not to listen to the doubters, haters, and low self-confidence.
I’ve had issues with this for years. I’ve made lots of different things over the years and I’ve had artist friends offer advice on how to price things. The one thing that I always end up arguing with my artist friends is this…I’m not, how do I put this, greedy. That might not be the right word, but in 25,000 words or less 🙄 I’d rather appeal to the masses and not just the elite. I had one artist friend tell me to charge an insane amount for one of my macrame hangers. First of all, it wasn’t worth that amount. It bordered on extortion (lol). Second, I’d rather more people be able to afford my work so that more of my work gets out there. I’m now doing acrylic prints with the gel plate. I’ve made some beautiful prints. But for me, it’s about more people being able to afford and enjoy my work. I’d rather sell ten prints at $30 than one person buying a print for $300. I want people to be able to afford my stuff. Not only will they come back for more, they might refer me to others, which, if we’re talking money, would ultimately mean more. A good example of this is something I once heard Sarah McLachlan say. She said, “no matter how big I get in the industry, I will never charge more than $85 for a concert ticket because I believe everyone deserves the right to see a concert live if the music moves them.” No ego. I loved that.
I can’t believe this. I texted my friend a long message about the doubts of my art and said that if I get rejected again, I’m just going to quit…and I kid you not, without even searching, your video magically appeared on my newsfeed. So strange, and omg! You made me smile and everything. Thank you. Maybe that was the universe wanting me to see this! ❤️
This was interesting that lady that mentioned about the Squarespace shipping calculations. You need to pay extra for the e-commerce version. I had a Squarespace site as that's what most people seem to recommend. I do like the way the sites look, they are goo I think for more visual sites like putting up a portfolio or a blog or something like that. But I have now signed up to Shopify as it seems much more geared towards e-commerce than Squarespace to me and they have some nice free templates to use now.
Inertia is property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest until that state is changed by an external force. In other words, you will stay where you are, unless you push yourself forward!
How !.. .arghh man, that cracked me up. I needed that, haha. Maybe it's your ears people are referring to when they say you are a shining beacon of the community.
I used to work an art school gallery where we showed student work. A person came in and said "why are people still painting when we have photography now?" And I was so caught off guard that I didn't really have an articulate answer. So that night I worked out about a dozen good reasons, but no one ever asked that question again😮
This was a very helpful listen, so thanks to you both. I am in the process of reestablishing myself after having moved 700 miles away for work. A new regional culture, a new set of series to paint and plenty of new faces to meet. There's quite a mountain for me yet to climb but this video provided me a wonderful amount of inspiration on how to approach this whole new situation that I am facing. Next year is going to be an exciting one , that's for sure!
love your podcasts. always very interesting and love that interaction aspect witj your rouges. I want to add my thoughts to one topic that was brought up "should you remove older pieces from your website" and I personally think it depends what you want. I hear that advice most often aimed at illustrators that habe their website to show their skill and style to get illustration jobs for books etc. and i think for that it totally makes sense to chose the best and newest art because its like a job application and you want to show them the "best you". But if you want to sell your individual pieces as is, i totally agree with you and would show everything! (and no, i dont think one art form is more worth than the other! I only chose the terms I used to make clear what I mean. I totally think art is art - the world would be so boring without people making art for packaging, furniture, docoration etc!)
As a 25 year old, your suggestions about making social connections would've terrified me! But for many years I fought against my timidity and was able to develop social skills. I now love talking and connecting to others. Introverted shyness ISN'T written in stone- every person has the ability to learn those skills, if you want it.❤
When trying to relearn portrait/drawing after having putting it aside for a looooong time will it take as long to get back to the level I was at when I taught myself the first time, ? Funny how you can lose it if you don’t use it. What’s your opinion?
I most always do an impressionist landscape along side of my abstract expressionism to keep me balanced. Impressionism is old hat relaxing for me, while abstract is fairly intense study. Folks are quick to make nice comments on liking my impressionists and I get "undecided" from their remarks about my abstracts. I'm always breaking rules and flirting with disaster with my abstract work, picking subjects like "homeless camps" and the "peregrine falcon" that no one really thinks about abstracting. For me, the undecided remarks are a good sign it is working. Folks use previous life experiences and experiences with previous arts in attempts to understand art pieces. Opening their minds to new concepts and new world thinking is very difficult. To stay in old world art thinking is not justifiable. Discovery is what drives artist, not the old adage "creative" Humans love to discover new. Love your new studio look. That is an massive amount of large drain pipes for that size 2story. Ha Ha I'm glad you left them exposed instead of trying to cover them up. They fit right in. Even wearing the color on your wrist bracelet, cool as hell!
Cricut is a major scam in itself.. DO NOT buy any of their machines.. even the sillhouhet isnt the best deal either.. its better to save up for a proffesional machine like the Graftec CE7000 plotter. I actually bought a cricut maker 3 and returned it 3 weeks later.. it sucked.. I even made a rant video about it a few months ago. again, its NOT worth you money!
Omgggg Heyyyy Seeing you for the first time I kid you not I really thought how did Scott Christian Sava's eye color change 😅 He too is an artist You both look so alike 😮
Bats and asbestos were minor compared to plumbing and foundation. The choice to move north was a smart move in consideration of future global warming weather changing predictions. The taller ceiling height of the older home is what artist need. Also the steam radiant heat is much better than forced air blowing dust on everything all winter, much healthier for the lungs also. The steps can seem cumbersome at times but better for one's overall health. All one needs to do is maintain the roof gutters, proper water drainage away and these old historic homes will continue to last forever. Electrical fires are fairly common only because modern people tend to overload old wiring circuits. Maintaining fire alarms moves to a much higher level in the old homes.
I'm also a fan of experiments, how it's made and failures. Had an artist suggest I not explain how a piece evolved or what I really thought. That's inspiring me to do the opposite.
I wish I could get over my social anxiety to approach local businesses. I feel it every month that I'm missing opportunities for people to see my work, but when the moment comes to talk to another human about it, my anxiety is absolutely paralyzing.
So I painted a shirtless ghost face piece, and I had a young boy yell out loud "eww gross", but then the mom passed by and was like "mmMMMMmm" - clear indication of how critiques don't matter.....and I learned that mothers may be my new demographic. 😂
I too love the idea about also selling your artistic experiments. I'm still in the process of setting up my online shop. But, I think often these experiments are looser and more expressive. When we are just experimenting and not over-analytical, I think often you can see that energy in the paint strokes and marks etc. I call mine "explorations" and am putting them in a website section called that. Also I found when I was selling t-shirts, I would make a t-shirt that I spent a while making, thought was cool and would sell well. Then it was often the ones I made quickly that people bought the most of. So you never can tell what people are going to like.
The one I get most is: "You're not contemporary enough" - a lot of gallieries say that to me and when I asked them what they meant, they got rude. After looking up the word, I realized they didn't know what it meant - it was just a term retailers learned to hide the fact that they didn't know much either, that they are just looking for art from established artists that sell easily because they are to lazy to sell anything that soesn't sell itself, and they were just buying and selling stuff, which happened to be art at the time. Some say I try too hard, or put too much into it, which ruins the sponta-blah-blah... Then there are those who get technical: measuring to see if I got the "rule of thirds" right, or the colour right, or the light. I think people who try to turn art into science don't understand it, and try to understand it by quantifying everything, which isn't art. The one I hate most is: "May I see the photo you painted it from?" I use any reference material I can get my hands on, and sometimes it is a photo, and I can save everyone a lot of time by just saying: "it is very different from the photo, whether is be lack of detail, my poor skills, or just me deciding to change the picture, so if you want the exact photo, then go google it, download it, print it, and stick that on your wall". One art store owner (I don't see them as curators of proper galleries) took a painting of mine next door to a hair salon and asked the first hair dresser inside if she'd buy it. She said "no", then he turned to me and said: "see: no one will buy this!" - his "gallery" closed a month later.
