2nd try visiting sculptors & letters

[gary grossman <grossman@zzzzzzzzz>]

Hi Norman, I've had similar experiences in our university town, even
with sculpture students, whose shows I've missed.  I can't tell you why,
I don't take it personally and know of others who have had similar
experiences.  These experiences would seem to go against the grain of
common sense - the more exposure you have the more folks will talk about
your work which will result in greater professional recognition and
sales.  I will say that the cultural portrayal of creativity
necessitating an immature and anti-social personality probably
facilitates this behavior - the art students at our university are
certainly some of the craziest as measured by one of the commonly used
indices of mental stability, the piercings to exposed flesh ratio.  My
guess is that some of these folks are so insecure/immature that the only
reason that they can conceive of that you'd want to see their work is to
critique it.  It's so funny when compared to science where folks visit
each others research labs all the time and share "trade secrets".

OTOH I've met some extremely helpful sculptors who are much better than
I am and have shared their wisdom selflessly such as Don Dougan of this
list, or Horace Farlowe.  These folks have enabled me to keep my faith
in the sculpting community as a whole.

As for letters as a form of communication.  There is an active group of
fountain pen collectors, that can be found at www.pentrace.com who
correspond regularly (see the community page).  I have 3-5 "penpals" and
truly enjoy writing and receiving letters - the trip to the mailbox now
holds some anticipation rather than just the disgust of having to
recycle wads of junk mail.  In fact, I've picked up a pen pal from this
list <g >, a fellow sculptor who also writes with fountain pens <g >.

Well spring is here in the southland, daffodils are blooming and the
temperature is in the 60's!

atb, g
--
Gary D. Grossman

G. Grossman Fine Art
http://www.negia.net/~grossman/

Distinguished Research Professor - Animal Ecology
Warnell School of Forest Resources
University of Georgia
Athens, GA, USA 30602

http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman/

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