I finished cooking breakfast this morning, sat down on the couch and turn on the Roku. The Bob Ross Channel started playing, and while I was listening to him talk while he’s painting I realized two things:
1. I feel like the reason that generations of people younger than me are so angry is because they didn’t have Bob Ross or a Bob Ross equivalent to watch/listen to and teach them calmness. That’s just my personal opinion.
2. We’ve really devalued art over the past 25 years.
Today, I’d like to talk about number two.
I did a quick Google to see how much a Bob Ross painting costs. $800,000. I know that’s more than likely a posthumous price and probably not what Mr. Ross would have asked for a piece of his, but it made me realize, from my experience in talking with people about it, that kind of value is gone.
I’ve both printed photographs, framed photographs, replicas of paintings, and more from people over the years and neither of them has crossed the $80 mark. I get it. Things are easier, faster, and cheaper to reproduce/product in bulk, and the quick money feels better in the moment. But that’s my point. Your art has no value if this is how you present it to the world.
I’ve had people tell me that my $100 prints are too expensive. The same people (artists) have also said that selling their art isn’t worth it because no one is buying physical art anymore, yet have never tried to sell their art because they THINK no one is going to buy it. Also claiming that its too much work to make their art available; can’t be bothered to spend a few dollars on a test print, go to the post office to ship something, etc.
From the side of the viewer of the art, the price being to high is often the argument. Because they know that a photograph can be printed at CVS for $2, they think that’s all that they’re paying for when they pay for a piece of art. So they would never look at a $800,000 piece, even if they had the money to spend on it. “You don’t have digital copies?” is the thing that I’ve heard too many times and it infuriates me. You want to have access to 30+ photographs or a book that took me weeks or months to create for $20? For you to submit to your favorite blog or post on Twitter without acknowledging who created it?
How did we get here? Why are people afraid to hang art in their homes? Art from artists, not a mass produced image that you bought from Target and have no idea who drew, painted, or captured it. Everyone complains about A.I. taking over everything and previously the crypto art stuff, but you can’t complain about nothing being real if you won’t support the people creating the real things. The quickest way to know if something is A.I. or not is to buy it from a human and hang it on your wall.