Post #152283 by Tiki-bot on Mon, Apr 11, 2005 2:50 PM

I agree that it's probably friends/relatives buying up the HS kids' stuff.

But I disagree that artists don't have to "pay their dues". Few artists are so gifted that they simply "start at the top" (I'm talkin to you, Monkeyman!). Perhaps you mean there's no preset amount of struggling you must do and then automatically graduate to successful selling artist. That may be true. The professional artists I know are always proving and re-proving and re-establishing themselves through their work. It's rare that it ever gets much easier, especially if you rely on selling your work directly to the fickle, art-buying public.

Professional art schools or degrees have little to do with success, either. All they can do is help improve your skills, build contacts, and help to toughen you against the level of competition you'll experience in the real world. Anyone can learn the technical aspects of drawing, sculpting or painting, but it takes a naturally gifted eye and mindset toward the aesthetics of applying those disciplines to succeed grandly (unless you're Thomas Kinkade and you choose to whore your mediocre talent to take money from "collectors" with no taste. Man, I wish I'd thought of that!).

Perhaps the carvers and mug-makers here who sell their wares are not the best examples of successful commercial artists. Sure, their stuff is awesome and sells well and we'd all buy everything if we had the money, but it seems like a fairly limited market. Until tiki carvings and mugs become the next Beanie Babies, I don't see anyone striking it really rich in this area (some may say "what about Shag?", but he's not strictly tiki and has big crossover appeal).