[TheForge] fire steels

[Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer]

Bad attitude!!!! grin.
Beyond the basic necessities...value becomes most amorphous.
This is to our advantage because we are compelled to make this stuff and 
need some way to feed ourselves.
Folks, by in large, are quite plastic RE values and tend to reflect the 
values of those they are around.
So, keep a straight face...sound sincere and very convinced that your 
work is of great value, which is only proportionate to their affirmed 
good taste and appreciation of it.
I smile brightly and phart discreetly...pete f

Andrew Vida wrote:
> And this goes right to the point I've been making for the past 25 years: 
> people love and want art, but they do not want to pay for it.  Art is 
> not really essential in any immediate sense.  If you do not have art you 
> will not die the way you would if you didn't have water or food.  Art is 
> just one of those back burner things in most peoples' lives.  We live in 
> a time when depictions of Elvis on black velvet are at the budget limits 
> of many folks.  Even better-to-do folks often have to choose between a 
> decent piece of art and the next installment in their child's $150K 
> college edumacation.  When pitted against these more basic and more 
> immediate needs, the art will almost always lose out.
> 
> Then there are those with the mindset that an artist's time is not worth 
> that much - after all, it's ONLY art.  Add to that the tremendous 
> general ignorance of people that has come about as a result of the 
> technologies that have brought us so many mass produced miracles.  For 
> the most part, people have not the first clue of the difficulties in 
> manufacturing art.  Honest to God, many seem to think Jed Clampett pulls 
> Picasos out of his ass every Wednesday morning at 10:00 as if he were a 
> laying hen.
> 
> Trying to sell fine art to a world that is ignorant of such things is 
> like trying to teach a pig to sing.  I'm sure you know the rest of that 
> story.
> 
>     -Andy "looky ma, I'm back in Wes'erginny" V.
> 
> dan tull wrote:
>> That's what I have been saying for 15 yrs.
>> When I have to pay a plumber $65/hr. , and much worse at his job than 
>> me, I get on a soapbox.  Trouble is, there is not the demand.
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David E. Smucker" 
>> <davesmucker at hotmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Subject: Re: [TheForge] fire steels
>>> Lesson to be learned -- blacksmiths should charge as much for their 
>>> work today as plumbers and electricians.  It is the story of supply 
>>> and demand.
>>
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