Depressed and discouraged?
Can’t find a way to make an honest living in Trumpland?
Nobody can. But you can turn your life around with a simple and basic understanding of the following Truth:
“It’s just as easy to make a million-dollar sale as it is to make a two-buck transaction.”
Hard to believe? For most folks, determined to be end-user suckers, it’s downright impossible to believe that it’s the same effort regardless of the money involved, but boy, is it ever true, and with a few simple $35,000 art sales under your belt, you’ll maybe come to believe.
It can take a lifetime to really learn that it isn’t the money, and most folks remain ignorant of this fact, and when they do happen to hear it, they simply don’t believe it, but it’s true, and some people have made millions knowing how to take advantage of this fact.
Same amount of energy, and the two-buck sale is MORE likely to fall through or be reversed later, not the big deal.
It’s totally true, but it’s hard to believe, even when you’ve turned a few major sales. It adds up real fast, when you’re actually doing it, and it’s a LOT more fun than whining and begging on the street, although there are plenty of folks who clearly would rather eke out a living than roll around in a bundle of dough.
I’m not suggesting you get filthy rich. There’s a reason the word “filthy” is in there. But you can make a whole year’s worth of income in a single sale, if you get lucky, and getting lucky simply means finding some people with money, who don’t know what to do with it.
A lot of big money people put their extra cash into art, and there are millions of good reasons why.
Actually, if you knew what you were doing, you could build a billion-dollar collection on the combined salaries of a mail clerk and a librarian — Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, who assembled the greatest collection of modern art in history.
I can point you in the right direction to do the same. Go ahead and google them — you’ll be blown out of your socks, but it’s all about KNOWLEDGE, not money.
You might be interested in marketing a little something from my studio — three modest examples of original artwork combined with a full-color printed scrapbook in a 12″x12″ clothbound format, to retail at $3,500 — I wholesale them at $1,400, and there’s a whole lot of expense and time that goes into them, so I’m not inclined to blast them out the door.
It’s no big deal — I haven’t invented anything new, just a new face on an old dog — the “Artist’s Book” or “Livre d’Artiste”, which always means that there is some original artwork contained in the book. I have several examples on hand by a variety of famous artists, all of which are for sale, anywhere between $1800 and $45,000 per copy, depending on what it is.
I have two autographed copies of Warhol’s A to Z book, but those don’t count as livres d’artiste, just signed publications — still, you never know what a customer is going to go for, and these are intended to sell not alone, but along with my original eleven-foot tall painting of Andy and other art celebrities partying at a New York Gallery, and another giant eleven-foot tall painting of Andy and his INSTANT FAME Factory Friends at a New York Nightclub.
I typically paint in architectural sizes, so a five-foot painting is by me a miniature.
The artwork of a livre d’artiste may be pencil-signed, or the book may be signed in pen or pencil or even crayon on the colophon page, the last printed page in the book, which carries all the important information about the publication, including number of copies made, any odd runs, “hors-commerce” copies, typography selections, paper type, watermarks or binding eccentricities, and so other exactitudes of the book trade.
At the moment, I’ve completed three major art scrapbooks, which have an original acrylic painting on the cloth front cover, without text, so it can be mounted in a deep frame and hung on a wall — the only art I know of that contains the complete story and documentation of its provenance as part of the product.
- GOLD AT MOMA — This is a full-color printing on coated stock, an exact facsimile of my handmade MoMa scrapbook, containing photos of myself and friends at MOMA, information about the shows and the schoolroom teaching, and more, all with an original painting on the 12″x12″ cloth covered high-grade scrapbook.
- CEDAR BAR — The scrapbook is printed in full-color on coated stock, and presents the whole story of my involvement with the New York School Cedar Bar Group in the 1950s in New York City, and features the fact that my mother was the Assistant Director of the Children’s Art Carnival Program for 5 years at MoMa. Again, there’s an original painting on the cloth cover, valued at over $3,500.
- GOLD AT THE WHITE HOUSE — The full-color complete story of how I came to paint portraits of Catherine Oxenberg for the Clinton Whitehouse, and sent truffles and gifts for many years thereafter, with a current relationship with the Clinton family.
These are all about CELEBRITY, the only thing that sells anything these days. Only celebrity can make the sale, and don’t you forget it. I’ve spent years building up a collection of photos, but never with this in mind.
We all need to make more than one job’s worth of living in this horrible Age of Trump, and this is one way to do it — something that has CELEBRITY VALUE and the possible chance of making money from it.
CELEBRITY and MONEY — that oughtta do it. Money and fame. An age-old winning combination.
As you can well imagine, this AMAZING FINE-ART PRODUCT precludes the need for knowledge. You can know absolutely nothing about the artist or the work, and yet have all the answers ready at hand — just read the book, and all will be explained.
No need to actually even be able to read.
This means that virtually anyone who has recently come through the American education system should be able to sell a major painting of mine without fear of being trapped by the need for information, intelligence or attention.
In short, the book sells itself.
Now, let’s take a giant leap into the unimaginable reaches of deep space, or at least venture out a foot or two from our present position, shall we???
You’ve probably wanted all your life to be a high-grade professional million-dollar Madison Avenue Fine Art Dealer, right? I knew it, and all you have to do to exploit this idea is to have millions of dollars worth of art and antiques inventory.
No problem, right?
There is, indeed, no problem, if you have an inexhaustible supply of high-grade desirable and easy-to-market fine art, and you do!
You don’t need to OWN a single piece of art, nor make A SINGLE CENT of investment. All you need is some guts and some people-skills and just a smidge of personal ambition, enough to get up off the couch or tear yourself away from your daily dose of personal screentime.
Look, you don’t need to actually own something in order to sell it. Try to comprehend that, willya?
You DO need a color catalog, that’s one thing for sure, but it needn’t be expensive at all — in fact, if you have zero capital with which to work, meaning you can’t afford a color catalog style book, you merely carry the images in your cellphone or tap into the website where they’re being offered.
Like I said, if you own no artwork, no problem.
All you need is to get into close personal contact with a few millionaires. This is a LOT easier than it sounds, but if you just can’t do it, again no problem.
You merely hook up with a nonprofit organization that is utterly clueless on raising money, which means you have your choice of zillions of nonprofits, because none of them, even the very biggest, have any idea how to fundraise in the 21st century, the Age of Trump.
It’s easy, it’s simple.
You hook up the nonprofit for an art auction of mutual benefit. They get their people to the auction, you give them a great experience and worthwhile artwork to take home with them, and both organizations get the fundraising benefit.
There is no tax benefit to the buyer, unless the item is worth considerably less than the price you paid, but the big benefit is twofold:
- The buyer gets a great piece of art at a very modest price.
- Everybody has a good time and good memories are created.
Of course there’s a benefit to the organizations, too — they get the funds they need to carry on and continue their service to the public benefit, something Trump would never actually understand, but who’s asking him to?
If you can’t seem to get ahead, realize that you need something to sell with a profit margin large enough to make the extreme effort worthwhile, and that takes some doing.
If you can hook up with a rich crowd, you can offer artwork — not just mine, but I can make plenty of canvases faster than you can sell them.
Most of my important canvases are 4’x5′ or larger, some as tall as 12 feet, some as wide as 35 feet across and five feet tall, such as my “13 Angels” and pieces created with Tommy in my huge painting studio.
My paintings sell for big bucks, because I paid the price.
I painted and studied and showed in galleries with Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Bill & Elaine deKooning, Lee Krasner and many many others of the New York School, and my paintings, although they don’t sell at the prices of the big guys, do bring anywhere from $35,000 to $50,000 in New York.
One New York auction house, Gurnsey’s, valued my JazzArt 4’x4′ canvases at $50,000, and the ones that have hung in B.B. King’s performance venue and IAJE venues have brought a lot more.
Official records of bonafide sales of my paintings is available to serious buyers, and the same goes for Tommy X and Claude Needham, and I have collaboration pieces that I made with John Cage, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and others.
I’ll have an easy time making a scrapbook for my time spent with the Pop Art School in Los Angeles, mostly around the Gemini crowd, but I also have a couple of sci-fi illustrations which adorn several of my dad Horace’s books — both illios are by Andrew Warhola, Andy’s original name when he first showed up in NYC at the Galaxy Magazine offices — that was our Stuyvesant Town apartment’s official designation — back in the 1950s.
But what if your potential clients are totally disinterested in artists whose names they don’t happen to recognize?
Again, no problem.
There’s a name for art like that — Celebrity Art. I have plenty of celebrity art, all the way from Rembrandt to Hockney, but I also have original artwork from a variety of Hollywood and New York entertainment celebrities.
How would you like a painted ostrich egg by Goldie Hawn? It’s $12,500 and you’ll never ever find another one like it. You’ll find plenty of Goldie Hawn autographs, but not a signed painted giant ostrich egg that she did just for me for my nonprofit fundraising.
And how about a golf ball or a baseball with a celebrity signature? You can get them all, except the ones signed specifically to me, which don’t do you any good anyway, not on the marketplace.
Just a plain signature or a drawing and signature are what you want. I have one of Ringo’s ties, a very rare Jerry Garcia tie worth $35,000, but it’s worth even more because not only is the tie signed over to me from Harry Nilsson, who received it from Ringo, but I HAVE THE VIDEO where they gave me the tie!!!
How’s that for proof?
I have more than that — if someone in your hometown wants to be a hero, they can buy my DONNER FAMILY COLLECTION of original diary entry type letters between the surviving sisters and other family members, plus memorabilia and hundreds of unpublished family photos of the Donner Party survivors and victims, plus a signed copy of the original best-seller book on the subject, by Elizabeth Houghton, daughter of George Donner.
How about a Rembrandt?
They’re not cheap, not the genuine 1650s pieces. I have “Saint Jerome in a Dark Chamber” at only $175,000, a total steal for any serious Rembrandt collector, and if that’s too pricey, what about a “Rest on the Night Journey to Egypt”? It can be had for a mere $16,500.
Not only do I have a nice selection of Genuine Original Rembrandts, but I have a very extensive collection of 16th and 17th century prints.
The Rembrandts were all made in the studio of Rembrandt around 1650, when he flourished in Amsterdam.
How about an original oil on canvas by David Teniers the Younger? It’s worth a cool $45,000 and YOU GET HALF!!! Where in the hell can you work where you can turn tips like that?
Or what about a UNIQUE and ORIGINAL Renoir portrait of his young son? This is a one-of-a-kind item, no other copy exists anywhere, and this is gallery-tagged at $65,000, of which you personally receive a whalloping $15,000 commission just for finding the buyer — we do all the selling, unless you want to!
I have on the wall of my little cafe the only etching ever produced by Gainesborough. The closest you can come to the $35,000 price of the etching is an original proven genuine oil painting by Gainesborough, and they’re all in museums and not likely to turn up on the street anywhere or anytime soon — and an oil painting could run into the millions.
If you don’t have anything to sell, hook up with someone who does. So here’s what you can do right now, today, to get into the swing of this deal —
Get the buyer to buy two round-trip tickets to here and back to your hometown. Rent a car or we’ll pick you up at the airport, and you and your client will have lunch or dinner or both with us.
Your client will then get the Grand Tour of the studios — I currently work in three different studios, to avoid getting ceramic dust everywhere and to avoid getting paint on everything I own.
Your client will see literally thousands of artworks, all original, most of them signed, although if you’re a serious collector, you’ll know that signatures on Dali’s early etchings would ruin their value, especially the Moldoror Series, which people used to bring to Dali in his hotel, in order to get them signed. They were issued unsigned, and should remain so.
Never repair an antique, and never alter an artwork.
The biggest rule in painting is, “Don’t fix it”, and that goes double for sculpture. The best way to understand this principle is to watch the Jerry Lewis film, “The Bellboy”.
I wouldn’t recommend any Jerry Lewis film, except for the fact that the sculpture scene is the best rendition of the “Don’t Fix It” experience. Don’t fix it.
“Leave it alone.” (LOUD EXPLOSION) “I told ya, I told ya!!!”
See You At The Top!!!
gorby