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...and so it will always go. Before Kinkade there was duck art, and cowboy art, and...
Go to any framing/reproduction/limited edition store and you will find the latest in "collectable art". Wildlife art, duck stamps, camouflaged Indians? Collector plates? Painted quarters? September 11th medallions?
Hey, I have no quarrel with novice collectors laying out their hard-earned money for Kinkade. It is just this movement of purchasing wildlife and cowboy reproductions that helped to fuel the demise of the abstract movement. The buyer votes with his pocketbook? Well, he wants realistic art. He wants homey, nurturing, comfortable, non-edgy, non-threatening, non-ugly art. And the big galleries are responding to that. Not by giving shows to Kinkade, but by showing representational art in numbers not seen in the last 60 years. Why? Because that is what people want to buy!
I have my own sacrifices - instead of commissioning me to paint a portrait in honor of a deceased benefactor who donated a large sum of money to our local hospital, the committee determined that an original (this was an original, and extremely pricey...) Kinkade be placed on the wall instead. So there it goes. I have lost a heavy commission to Kinkade, but there is still enough work for all of us.
Don't worry about it. Really. This is the best advice I can give. Run your own race. Set your own goals. It doesn't matter what everyone or anyone else is doing. My greatest advantage (...this harkens back to another thread....) has been to live in a backwater area where there are no other artistic influences around me. I am isolated, and therefore am learning in a cocoon where my friends and teachers are Kramskoy, and Van Dyke, and Sargent.
Kinkade? Who's Kinkade?
Peggy
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