The following story, which appeared  in the online edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education, points out one aspect of being an artist that is not the norm among most other professions. That is this: Artists often must be deftly opportunistic to keep making art. This (ig)noble tradition includes trading services for a small space to do one’s work, bartering paintings for rent or food, offering one good stroke for another–whatever it takes.

I can’t help but think there’s something poetic and beautiful in the pathos of this part of the artistic reality.

Have Paintbrush, Will Travel

By KAREN BIRCHARD

A picture is worth more than a thousand words to the Canadian artist Katherine Dolgy Ludwig, who trades her watercolors for lodging at the homes of professors on sabbaticals.

Through the rental matchmaking service SabbaticalHomes.com, Ms. Ludwig has house-sat for academics in New York, London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Wales over the past seven years. Instead of paying them money, she gives them one of her vibrant artworks.

“Hosts can choose any of my paintings,” she says, “but often they’ll pick one I’ve done while living in their home. They say, ‘Wow, that’s my rug,’ or ‘That’s my kitchen in the background,’ or ‘There’s my pet,’ so there’s a personal connection with the painting.”

Ms. Ludwig trained as an architect but switched to painting and taught at the Ontario College of Art & Design. In 2006 she decided to paint full time. That has resulted in a series of fellowships in the United States and Europe, during which she cares for professors’ homes and, occasionally, their pets for weeks or months at a time while she paints and exhibits her artworks.

“It’s a very old tradition for artists to trade their work for necessities,” says Ms. Ludwig, who during one memorable house-sit three years ago “paint jammed” with the jazz musician Ornette Coleman, putting him and his band on canvas while they played on Manhattan’s Lower West Side.

As an artist on the rise, Ms. Ludwig has seen her paintings, bartered and otherwise, appreciate in value over the years.

“One of the first I traded was worth about $2,000 then,” she says. “Today it would be valued around $10,000.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 10:53 am and is filed under Appreciating Art Despite It All, Artists as survivors despite it all, The poetry of artistic failure, Making art for the sake of it, Commerce and the failure of art, Exploiting artists, The struggles of artists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.