Spark of Joy!
Since I transferred my domain www.TheWayVictorious.com to my Shopify site my art has not been displayed on the web. I was adding my art to the site and was confounded because in the Shopify world each item becomes a product and has a price. I asked my Chinese Brother Mark how should I appraise my art and he suggested I use the Marie Kondo method and hold each piece of art and see how much joy it sparks.
That method did not work so well because the joy of each piece never comes in holding it. There is some joy when something surprising happens during the creative process like when I found my experience as a chemist facilitated creating the coloring of the Copper Rose. However the real joy has been sparked by seeing other people hold the things I have created. For example the first copper rose was purchased by my friend the Sandman. The true joy was not in the sale. The true joy came when months later I visited his home for a party and in his living room I saw a cabinet with an open lighted area and under that light was the Copper Rose I made.
The joy is sparked by seeing someone else hold onto your art. Joy is sparked by Sandy telling me about how her daughters still have the butterflies I made her or Lori still having the Autumn Crocus statue I made for her as a trophy for enrollment in Cooperative Study 352. (The medication we tested was derived from the autumn crocus). There is my cousin Jeff who has the copper humming bird suspended in a cage at his house. I remember joy in seeing my art as I entered the living room of my friend Ranunculus alismifolius; she is a botanist so she won't just let me shorten her name to California Buttercup, or even worse just Buttercup, but still R.a. brings me joy.
Perhaps there is some small affirmation of professional identity in making a sale, but the pleasure of completing a cash transaction is short-lived in comparison to the joy of knowing that you have meaning in someone's life. Joy is distinguished from mere happiness by its transcendent nature superseding and surpassing the moment. Thus the ultimate joy was in the last memory of my mother's living room and seeing the objects I had created for her carefully arrange and displayed about the room, wire roses in vases and butterflies crawling across her glass coffee table. That is the difference between joy and pleasure or even happiness. Cleaning out my mother's apartment after her death was certainly neither pleasurable nor a happy moment, but the visual representing her value of me sparked joy then and every time I remember it. It is often the things we let go of and give as gifts that bring us joy. It is what I hold in my heart not my hands, that sparks joy.
See growing art collection at https://thewayvictorious.com/collections/all
That method did not work so well because the joy of each piece never comes in holding it. There is some joy when something surprising happens during the creative process like when I found my experience as a chemist facilitated creating the coloring of the Copper Rose. However the real joy has been sparked by seeing other people hold the things I have created. For example the first copper rose was purchased by my friend the Sandman. The true joy was not in the sale. The true joy came when months later I visited his home for a party and in his living room I saw a cabinet with an open lighted area and under that light was the Copper Rose I made.
The joy is sparked by seeing someone else hold onto your art. Joy is sparked by Sandy telling me about how her daughters still have the butterflies I made her or Lori still having the Autumn Crocus statue I made for her as a trophy for enrollment in Cooperative Study 352. (The medication we tested was derived from the autumn crocus). There is my cousin Jeff who has the copper humming bird suspended in a cage at his house. I remember joy in seeing my art as I entered the living room of my friend Ranunculus alismifolius; she is a botanist so she won't just let me shorten her name to California Buttercup, or even worse just Buttercup, but still R.a. brings me joy.
Perhaps there is some small affirmation of professional identity in making a sale, but the pleasure of completing a cash transaction is short-lived in comparison to the joy of knowing that you have meaning in someone's life. Joy is distinguished from mere happiness by its transcendent nature superseding and surpassing the moment. Thus the ultimate joy was in the last memory of my mother's living room and seeing the objects I had created for her carefully arrange and displayed about the room, wire roses in vases and butterflies crawling across her glass coffee table. That is the difference between joy and pleasure or even happiness. Cleaning out my mother's apartment after her death was certainly neither pleasurable nor a happy moment, but the visual representing her value of me sparked joy then and every time I remember it. It is often the things we let go of and give as gifts that bring us joy. It is what I hold in my heart not my hands, that sparks joy.
See growing art collection at https://thewayvictorious.com/collections/all