Life Lessons
I am not sure if it's just age, or perhaps I am just plain becoming too emotional about my own paintings. One thing is for sure, I am not parting with them easily. I never have. watching them go has never been an easy thing but the fact remains that if I don"t sell them I might just as well go get a job because I won't be able to eat, much less support my family.
I love being full time as an artist. I wouldn't have it any other way, so, I have to sell.
That being said, I recently read a great e-mail from the owner of that painting in that picture up there on the left, "The Georgian Bay". I can't say her name here but suffice to say her first initial is K, so I will refer to her as "K".
K told me about an experience of her's where she received an old painting from a garage sale that she just fell in love with. Here, I will let K tell it in her own words:
"I have an oil painting that my mom found at a garage sale. I fell in love with it and had it beautifully framed. It was given a beautiful second life! I often think of the artist and wish he knew how much I cherish it and enjoy it. It speaks volumes to me. I have Googled the artists name and still have no idea who this person was and what he was all about. I can see how you see your paintings as “long lost children” and your connection to them forever." K
I too have had such an experience. I have many times been in my local Value Village hunting down that characteristic old frame and seen many hand painted gems sitting inside most of the frames on the shelf. Who are those artists? Where did they come from? What was the story behind that painting?
Then I wonder, of course, if my own paintings might one day end up in such a sad state? Ohhhh, that hurts!
It's funny to me how life teaches us things. Through chains of events we discover new concepts and ideas we never before contemplated. All these years I have been painting away and just setting my paintings off into the clue beyond, most never to see again and never once considered that perhaps some, just a select few should be kept with me.
So I have begun to enact this new principle. To retain and hold in a private collection some of my most prized (and still around me) paintings. This does not mean my most powerful, or colourful, or accomplished works. Sure there are some of those in there. But actually a cross section of work from my beginnings as a watercolourist to the present as an oil landscape artist.
I am not sure if it's just age, or perhaps I am just plain becoming too emotional about my own paintings. One thing is for sure, I am not parting with them easily. I never have. watching them go has never been an easy thing but the fact remains that if I don"t sell them I might just as well go get a job because I won't be able to eat, much less support my family.
I love being full time as an artist. I wouldn't have it any other way, so, I have to sell.
That being said, I recently read a great e-mail from the owner of that painting in that picture up there on the left, "The Georgian Bay". I can't say her name here but suffice to say her first initial is K, so I will refer to her as "K".
K told me about an experience of her's where she received an old painting from a garage sale that she just fell in love with. Here, I will let K tell it in her own words:
"I have an oil painting that my mom found at a garage sale. I fell in love with it and had it beautifully framed. It was given a beautiful second life! I often think of the artist and wish he knew how much I cherish it and enjoy it. It speaks volumes to me. I have Googled the artists name and still have no idea who this person was and what he was all about. I can see how you see your paintings as “long lost children” and your connection to them forever." K
I too have had such an experience. I have many times been in my local Value Village hunting down that characteristic old frame and seen many hand painted gems sitting inside most of the frames on the shelf. Who are those artists? Where did they come from? What was the story behind that painting?
Then I wonder, of course, if my own paintings might one day end up in such a sad state? Ohhhh, that hurts!
It's funny to me how life teaches us things. Through chains of events we discover new concepts and ideas we never before contemplated. All these years I have been painting away and just setting my paintings off into the clue beyond, most never to see again and never once considered that perhaps some, just a select few should be kept with me.
So I have begun to enact this new principle. To retain and hold in a private collection some of my most prized (and still around me) paintings. This does not mean my most powerful, or colourful, or accomplished works. Sure there are some of those in there. But actually a cross section of work from my beginnings as a watercolourist to the present as an oil landscape artist.
So now when you look at the "Currently Available" page or www.robertmcaffee.com, and through the other pages such as Forest and Trees, Water, etc, you will see a significantly paired down inventory. And now you know where those that have gone have go to.
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