If you don't love it should you display it?

[Linda Marcille]

Should you display paintings you don't care for in the galleries that represent you? I ask myself this all the time. Sometimes I will complete a batch of paintings for a gallery and there will be one painting in the batch that I really dislike. I really struggle with the question "Should I send this to the gallery or not?" My husband and visitors to the studio always seem to talk me into sending what to me are ugly ducklings out there in the world and an amazing thing happens...they sell!

Yesterday one of my galleries sold a painting that made me cringe every time I saw it , there it was hanging on the gallery wall with some of my best work, yet the customer bought THAT one??!!

I find that "My taste" is not always the public’s taste and what I feel is "good" or "bad" art does not always match up with my customers views. So if the painting is executed well and professional looking but I just don’t happen to “Love” it then I send it anyway and my ugly ducklings become beautiful swans in someone else’s eyes.

[Jean-Louis Mireault]

Linda,
You are right. This happens a lot of time to me too. Or my wife don't like a specific painting; I bring it to the show and it is the first one that I sold.
The important thing is: "So if the painting is executed well and professional looking". Al the rest is a question of taste and if you look at the shoes people wear, you will understand the diversity of the human being.
It is a pleasure to see you here.

Have a nice creative day.

Jean-Louis

[Lynn Meek]

Jean-Louis said it perfectly. Everyone's taste is different (loved the shoes comment!) Lynn

[Linda Marcille]

Hello to my dear friend Jean-Louis! I can always leave it to you to come up with the best analogies on any subject!
And to my new friend Lynn, you are so right that each person has his or her own unique tastes and who are we to judge that ;-)

L.

[Maria Jürimäe]

I have not sold many paintings on silk (so far), but it is surely true with the scarves I paint. An extreme example - I painted a lovely square scarf with exotic flowers, and then my 2-year old daughter decided to add some gold gutta on it and I discovered it a bit too late. So one part of the scarf was really shiny, but the rest of it was too nice to just wash it out, so I added some gold to other parts too, finally it was surely too golden for my taste.
I still fixed the colors and didn't wash them out.
When some Russian ladies game to me to buy a present to their friend i showed them my scarves, it was not easy to make the choice, I hesitated, but hten decided to shoe them my "incidental one" too.
And they were really excited - yes, that's the one!
So really - you'll never know ; ))