Yesterday I was visited by door to door art peddlers. A young man and a young woman rang my doorbell to see if I was interested in purchasing a hand painted, oil on canvas, genuine imitation.
They weren’t convincing salespeople, but maybe that was part of the ‘proof’ that they were artists. A couple of the paintings were of nice settings, but I didn’t feel like I could trust them that these were original works and didn’t want to drop $100 for something so unoriginal.
I’m not an artist. I can hardly draw stick people and I’m pretty sure my 5 year old daughter can draw a better landscape than me. I’m not criticizing art, but I just don’t think this was art. To me art is more than just being able to draw, it’s being able to make connections. The art peddlers could have delivered a compelling story about how they were immigrants whose love for freedom of expression led them from their Eastern European home to the New World and that they sold their art door to door to reach people and touch their lives. They didn’t. They said, in a hushed voice, ‘we’re selling some oil paintings.’ Thanks.
Sometimes if you create something amazing just the fact that it exists will ensure success, but usually you need to be able to tell a story and explain why it’s amazing before people will let down their guard and embrace the new item/piece of art/software, etc.
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