Recently I redesigned my extremely outdated portfolio website and I had a really down-to-earth moment when I looked at some of the images I had put in there in the past. Among the 50+ works that the site showed, I could only argue about 9-12 to be of any real quality, and not because my skills had grown so much during the past year or two, because I remember them being bad at the time I put them up on my site. Shallow as it is, the only reason they got there in the first place was that I had sold them to someone.
And it's really funny how we creatives usually require much more outside validation that other people and I don't think that this is necessarily a bad trait to have, because one is able to be more conscious about his or her choices, but the fact that I had left more than 30 examples of what I wasn't really proud of in combination with only about 10 that I thought were great was a real reality check. And for the record many of the 10 good works were also sold (about half of them are) so this was not a problem of artistic integrity and commercial work, on the contrary not a lot of people were interested in my work at that time anyway. So I deleted every piece that I was not explicitly proud of or wanted to be associated with my art style and even though my website now only has about 12 images of my work for the last 5 years I feel so much better just knowing that each and everyone of those pieces is something I would be proud to produce for a potential client or exhibition. I guess the point is this: never let the need for outside validation compromise your vision, make what you're proud of and show only the best to those you wish to work with. There is a place for the rest, and it's called social media. Don't get me wrong, I love to watch behind-the-scenes and in-the-process videos, but I think everyone of us needs a place to only show his or her best work and in a tight, beautifully curated format. Do you agree?Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://survivingart.com/2018/10/29/dont-just-show-what-you-sold/