a small change on my art for sale page… the studio gallery or little picture shop, a humble means of generating some creative commerce in the digital age, some intended artfulness, a place for the curious to browse or perhaps buy, the small shop for art that i quietly oversee and very occasionally promote. if you can spare some change you might be interested to know that these small paintings are now listed in good ol’ british money – although you can opt to pay in whatever currency you choose; worldwide paypal will do the currency conversion automatically (which is nice)…

LXXIX 2009, abstract stripes painting on paper [click to view more small paintings]
etsy (my art store’s online venue) recently made it possible to sell in a range of currencies and so i opted for UK £s – it makes perfect sense… a small change but i believe quite a fundamental one in helping artists to promote and sell their art to buyers in their own countries of residence… this does mean that the alternative prices in USD $ next to the paintings might fluctuate by a few cents according to the day’s exchange rate to match the fixed GBP £ shown (etsy’s default currency is still USD), but that could turn out to be a benefit to overseas buyers if our sterling british pound is not feeling quite so sterling that day…
etsy works much like ebay as a marketplace – you sign up, create a username & account, then search or browse for things and can purchase instantly & securely with a paypal account or credit card (no anxious bidding involved!) – the main difference being etsy is a creative marketplace for artists, designers and craftspeople to connect directly with buyers of art… and a big part of the shopping experience is then waiting for the special parcel to duly arrive, wrapped up in all the anticipation & excitement of receiving a gift that you really wanted…

fjord 2010 [click to view details]
to celebrate the small change in my shop, there is free p&p to anywhere in the UK mainland…

[a set of five art bookmarks, for books, naturally enough]
my online art shop is really an extension of my studio, where i can exhibit a selection of small abstracts on paper and even smaller works on canvas – of which, if you are one that has visited this blog before, might know a little about when and how they came about. these are all small, experimental works which are more process-oriented but they still relate to (and perhaps even influence) my other paintings…

xciv, 2009 [click to view in my gallery shop]
in my art for sale shop you can view some of the original chromatids, a series of 100 small square works on paper that were completed between november 2008 and march 2009. these small works are probably the most collectively colourful series of work i have ever done and yet i never outwardly planned to do them at all – but i do have an ongoing thing about numbers, patterns and squares. i like squares for their impartiality and objectivity…
i usually work with a more subtle or reduced palette of colours on my larger canvases and panels, so it has been a good exercise to explore colour and texture on this small scale for its own playful & expressive means, and in turn the one hundred paintings later inspired the creation of these distinctive bookmarks – such a simple change in format opened up some new ideas to pursue…

[another set of five abstract art bookmarks - in subtle browns, blues and greens, quite liminal and coastal in palette]
also in the gallery shop are some very small, mixed media canvases, from a more recent and ongoing 2010 experimental project (documented here in the blog), the diminutive travel i-cons – i have created thirty of these canvases (so far) – type in i-cons into the search to discover their own little stories…

trinidad 2010 [click to view more]
ok, art for sale promotion over – i always feel a little uneasy doing this online thing, i don’t want to seem too pushy – these are just a few of the things that i have done, things that in their own way make a path to the other art i want to make and do… but my role as an artist is not to entertain, to pull paper flowers or bunnies out of a hat – i’m still figuring out the sawing-in-half illusion…
for now, i have some new exhibitions to focus on (which i hinted at previously) in the year ahead – but there are no pictures-in-progress because… well, it’s complicated – stuff happened, i thought a lot about it, what to do next… let’s just call this a deliberate episode of photography withdrawal, a creative interlude, a pause in the digital proceedings… purging the senses, a space to think, to write notes or sketch, to doodle and draw, to just make art – just how it used to be… i am always taking a philosophical stance on things…
…
My field of perception is constantly filled with a play of colours, noises and fleeting tactile sensations which I cannot relate precisely to the context of my clearly perceived world, yet which I nevertheless immediately ‘place’ in the world, without ever confusing them with my daydreams.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty in The Phenomenology of Perception
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Edit: Please note, I no longer offer my small abstract paintings via the website Etsy. Please visit my Art for Sale page for small works on paper and canvas available to purchase.
Thank you for your continued support of my art.