The Van Gogh formula, 2007

My friend who is a real artist said to me last time I saw him "why did you quit art?" I replied "no I haven't I am just drawing for my website."

When I was an art student I majored in printmaking, reproducing an image from relief carvings on wood. I made them big and intricate which secured me a high mark when I graduated. Everybody loved them and people commented how much they admired me for doing such detailed work. So my friend said he is sad that I had quit doing them after I graduated. And I do admit I miss doing them so much.

What is the cause of quitting? After graduation I had to make a living to pay my rent as usual but I did managed my time to continue them. When you create hand made prints the money is made in the reproduction. I would spend a few months on just one image in my spare time. Sit and watch TV while I carve into the wood was not really hard work. So it is easy to continue and no need to quit.

Where do you exhibit these wood cuts? Because I am only producing an image once every few months I can't have a solo show. However there are group exhibitions where you can send your print and if lucky win some money. But the exposure is what you are looking for not really a big novelty cheque. These are called "art on paper" prizes and my art teachers recommended to submit my work.

The first one I sent came back in the mail, my first thought was "maybe there were better prints than mine." Clearly understandable but when you send your print you have to enclose an entry fee. I closely looked at the package and noticed that the original tape I stuck onto it had not been opened. I had placed the entry fee in an envelope on the outside so they happily took that but never looked at the print. I guess not having a name for myself was not enough to be looked at.

So then there was another art on paper prize, this time I got clever and placed the entry fee inside the package. If they want the money they would have to look at the print. I then it returned in the mail with a note stating how the selectors are only interested in the finest quality of prints. Rejection after rejection I didn't give up at all because I was given high marks and admiration when I was in art school. So I can't be that bad.

Then what made me quit? One of these galleries that rejected me sent everybody who entered a copy of the catalog of all the selected artworks. There was a woodcut that I noticed, carved with a fat tool were these big clumsy dots. Not just that it was a simple design but the printing was terrible. Uneven tone of ink not a evenly careful print as if it was a test run. Seeing such a poor print and been chosen over me made me so depressed. I can handle running against people who were greater than me but not those who have no talent whatsoever.

Is this what my life is going to be? Being rejected every time but can't compete against those with no talent and no skill in their craft? I can't live life like this, if I continued I would end up killing myself. So that is how I quit doing what I loved because so called art experts said I am not good enough but this hack is.

It is not the only industry where people with talent are not selected and untalented people are praised. Boy bands and movie stars are the example where talent means nothing. Should I live my life trying and trying without getting anywhere? Should I hope one day one of those tasteless morons might choose me. To hell with that, I am going to live life and even though I am a failed artist I will be happy.

Or do I fit out of a category and so unique that I am ahead of my own time? Because I am smarter than those who call themselves an expert? Or am I the next Van Gogh and the inevitable is a tragic life in order to be Van Gogh? Will people in the future say "what a great shame that he was rejected."

Van Gogh had drifted throughout his life and he recorded with art his journey. If had became successful would he still have made that journey? Is the journey and experience more valuable then being admired by those art expert morons? I would say yes. In the last five years living outside of my own culture there is no price I can put onto it. It is better than listening to pretentious art people trying to sound intellectual. Learning to read and write Chinese and able to communicate to locals is more rewarding.

I am not going to live a life of constant disappointment and never really live life. I am a failure and I don't care. I will never be accepted as an artist and I don't care. I will never have people crowding into a gallery to see me and I don't care. I believe in a God and I use to pray to him for success but in return he gave me better things in life. I have nothing but this website to show for my life. All I want is to live more and experience more and let me continue drawing in my sketchbooks.

When I am dead maybe my sketchbooks will be worth something that they could be auctioned off and proceeds go to charity. If I am lucky all I can hope for is fame after death because history repeats itself. Only technology and fashion changes but not human nature. The art critics and the experts hated Van Gogh because he did not fit into the current style. Maybe in the future art experts will praise me for being misunderstood.

Yet I don't want to be unhappy like Van Gogh, I don't want to chop off my ear because I am too vain. Van Gogh would have taken a lot of opium and back then it was all the rage. I am drug free and that makes the difference to being happy as a failure. His brother Theodore tried to help him sell lithographic prints of his work which were popular to the potato farmers he was drawing. But he never saw it through and if I was given that chance I would have been grateful.

I have no idea what the future has installed for me and where I am going to be in the next ten years. Ten years ago I was in my final year of art school full of hope but deep down I knew that I was not going to continue my wood cuts. Somewhere inside of me knew that the odds of having art experts liking me were as much of becoming a boy band singer. I already knew that if I am going to become any kind of success it would rely all on myself.

I am a fortunate person but I am not lucky, I am fortunate to be healthy and able body but I am not lucky to win the lottery. I am fortunate that my parents treated me well but not lucky to have famous parents that I can ride in their success. I am fortunate that I have an education when the experts said I am too dyslexic to have an education. I have proved the experts wrong even when I was very young I hope I can do the same with the art experts now.

Overall it is fun to let life take me and I know I can't talk the talk or won't bring myself to that pretentious dribble. It could be that I don't have a sad story about my inner pain that an artist is suppose to whine about. My own cheery out look on life could be my undoing.