"Art for art’s sake!
Money, for God's sake!"

Eric Stewart/Graham Gouldman (10cc)

Last summer, my wife and I visited Sedona, Arizona. Sedona is an artists' colony, with lots of galleries to browse through, and all types of art to discover; it’s a visual wine-tasting. (Also, Sedona being in Coconino County, is an appropriate place to raise a toast at dinner to George Herriman.) Ironically, many of the artists don’t live in Sedona; they live all over the country, but sell through Sedona galleries.

We took a drive southwest through Coconino National Forest and came upon a small mining-town-turned-artist-community built on the side of a mesa. Houses on the left side of the street were built right into the palisade; houses on the right side of the street were built on stilts. We stopped in a few galleries, which contained the usual kitsch and caboodle and came across a breathtaking landscape done by a local artist. We were told that his studio was down the road, and visitors were welcome, and so we stopped in.

The studio was a very large building that formerly belonged to the local government. Canvasses were in every room. In the hall, we ran into the artist himself, and we walked around for half an hour while he explained what he was presently working on. We came to his studio where there were a number of etched plates that he had done.

“Pick one,” he said.

My wife picked out a 4 by 5 inch nude. He rolled ink over it; wiped away the residue; placed a piece of paper over it; ran both through a roller. A mirror image of the nude was now on the piece of paper, and he placed the paper on the table in front of us, to dry.

“I charge fifty dollars for one of these,” he said. The room got very quiet for an awkward 20 seconds. Then, one of us picked up the conversation, and five minutes later my wife and I were gone.

I couldn’t explain the bad feeling I was left with. My wife could, though.

“I felt manipulated,” she said, and that summed it up. Nothing wrong with an artist asking for money for his work; I do it all the time. It was the way it was done.

Later that summer, one Friday afternoon, I dropped off a CD portfolio of my work at the studio of a famous comic book artist. I went back a week later, and there was the great man himself sitting at the receptionist’s desk, shooting the breeze with 2 employees. I got the feeling that this was downtime after completing a project.

I introduced myself. He smiled and handed me my CD and said that he really didn’t have any work for me.

We chatted a few minutes, and then he called someone from the back to show me around some of the studio. “Give him copy of our catalog,” he said. So, I was given a tour of the coloring studio, and on the way out, I was handed a copy of the catalog.

“Are you sure?” I asked. The catalog sells for $45 in the comic shops.

“That’s what the boss says,” he answered.

The catalog sits on the shelf, next to other cherished books. I’ll often take it down and look through it by myself, or with one of my grandchildren. They love the pictures and colors.

On the way out, I passed by the reception desk again, where the artist was still chatting. I thanked him. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask for his autograph, but I thought better of it. I had taken up enough of the man’s time and generosity. He had been gracious and had treated me with respect, as a fellow artist; and it had come at a time when I had really needed the encouragement.

I walked out with something much more valuable than a mere autograph. Soon after, I started work on a project that would define the rest of my art career.