Selling & Making Art on the Streets

‘Chez Caty’

aquarelle
24 x 32 cm
© adam cope

Clowns & fire-jugglers aren’t the only ‘artistes de la rue’ in tourist hot-spot Sarlat working the summer crowds.

There’s other kinds of artists who ‘faire le trottoir’ (work the pavements), painters who paint on the streets & try to sell on the streets.

Hoping to please the passing trade. I’m not sure if exhibiting in a gallery saves oneself from such agonies & abuses, certainly there’s the pleasures of meeting & conversing with people in the hope of selling a painting. Making a spectacle of oneself… demands a thick skin, an acceptance that everyone has the right to like or dislike your paintings. The context of a gallery is safer & confers more prestige than the pavements & the railings.

There’s something beautifully ‘zen’ about exhibiting & painting on the streets. No gallerists, no gallery rituals, just the rough & the smooth. Very difficult to sell at more than 100 euros. One collides very quickly & very brutally with Andy Warhol’s bon mot “GOOD ART IS WHAT SELLS.”

I admire the courage of my fellow artists & friends.

Thierry CARRIER makes excellent ‘painting-a-day’ type of small format oils, a a pop/photo realism/IKEA style (not shown on his web site but see the above photos). His powers of concentration are incredible… to paint in the middle of thousands of people milling around is just… astounding. He explains as entering in a ‘boule’ (bubble).

In the mid-day heat…

and in the cold shadow of the cathedral…

Thierry is a real dude ‘à la Française’. Flip-flops are in this year. He is also very talented. Go see the paintings he does for ‘off street’ consumption…Thierry CARRIER

Mohammed’s portraits are great!

These sun umbrellas are onmi-present in market places in the south of France.

Cathy DECRESSAC tent is nicknamed ‘ le meduse’, with artworks that hang down on chains from the sun umbrella.

Notan study for a watercolour by Adam Cope – Chinese Ink

I imagine that flipping through their stands for a small orginal painting would be a far more awarding & pleasant experience than trawling through the relentless thousands of ‘a-painting-a-day’ blogs. More of spectacle, that’s for sure.