I’VE had the unique experience of selling artworks at ManilArt17 last week, and realized, I can.
It was a liberating feeling to realize that all those communication skills you have honed can be directed at making a sale. That… and the product. Communication skills honed through years of journalism plus superior product honed through years of creating makes for an easy sale with promise of a return buyer. It’s a tandem that makes for a sure win.
Being a tandem, one cannot exist without the other to deliver the best deal. Yes, you can sell anything, even con some. But this will not bring goodwill, repeated sale, and happy people who would want to link up with you some more.
The product may be perfect and can sell itself, but when not explained to the interested to supply the details that will bring out the awesomeness, then it can just be there, appreciated by all but bought by none.
I moved on to look around in a gallery and was awed by the featured artist. Big canvases, colors, and cute critters made into something else, like a manta raw with the face of a bald cat, it was what dreams are made of, you can drown in the images… you just have to walk away.
Somehow, the message was not right. Pulled in by the colors and the cute critters in the details, the colors would later on grab you by the neck and choke you. I walked out feeling nauseous, wondering, what state of mind was the artist in when he made his works to generate such reaction in my unconscious? I will never know because the artist wasn’t there and the person in the gallery only knows the drill and not the insights.
Two days hence, the elation and the nausea remains, two lessons reinforced: In everything you do, put your heart into it, and the better heart will always be the one that is pure.
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”— Eleanor Roosevelt
Morning of the third day is spent staring at the garden and listening to the noise of traffic just across the fence. There you learn to appreciate the sanctuary provided amid the chaos of the world outside. Yes, the noise can be overpowering, but when you quiet your mind by appreciating the flowers and the plants and the breeze as it rustles past, then the state of chaos that comes with the sound of heavy traffic become an ambient sound not much louder than the chirps of the birds.
“Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart.” It's a quote often repeated but no one can attribute to.
We can go on and one about creating with the heart and connecting, we can read on about peace and the soul. But all these will not bring in the graces when not brought into practice from where it all should come from: the heart.
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saestremera@gmail.com