A Lesson From Dali

I watched a program on Salvador Dali, the Surrealist the other day. Dali was one of the most successful artist of the 20th Century. He was worth millions, an died broke. He shouldn't have. He was a very generous man, an had always offered those close to him, loyal to him, that helped him sell his paintings 10% of his sales. To me, that's just a smart way to be. Reward people for being there for you. Supporting you. So, I intend to offer the same: I will give anyone: 10% of the traditional artwork sales you bring me personally. I will give $20 to anyone that sends me a photography client who purchases the digital CD. If you send me five purchasing clients, I will do a photo session for you for free: Give you a CD of the session so you can print them up on your own. To me, this is no different then Dali's way of saying thank you.

The problem Dali ran into, was trusting someone in his late years that didn't have his best interest at heart. They had him sign over rights to his copyrighted works. It was suppose to have been a trust, an the works go to Spain when he passed. But it didn't exactly work out that way. Now, I can only hope to be as good as someone like Dali by the time I pass: But I do worry about what will happen to my works after I'm gone.

I want the works to be in a trust, an my children to benefit from them. No one else. An I want that to be pretty clear. I'm on a lot of online websites. There are arrangements between those sites & myself as an artist to print & sell those works: but they do not own the rights to them. The rights, after I'm gone go to my children. If nothing comes of them, so be it but if something does. It's theirs to be divided up equally.

I'd like the unsold artwork kept together. Not divided or fought over. So it can be displayed. They can sell pieces, as long as all three agree to sell. It has to be for a decent price or the original is not worth selling. If they do sell, they have to make it clear to the buyer they, an they alone will always own the copyright of the piece. Only they are legally allowed to profit of it's prints or products. They need to be sure to keep a good digital copy of the prints. So they will always have residual income.

If my artwork never makes a cent for them: They've lost nothing.
But if it does, it's theirs an theirs alone.

With the exception of making sure they give the ten percent to anyone who physically sells one of the pieces. That's my “will” on it. Simple enough. So, why am I thinking about this anyway?

A few reasons: I'm getting older for one, an trying to recover from an physical illness: a breast cancer scare. Which I'm not really sure I've beat. I have to go back an get rechecked. I've had asthma attacks. Experienced a lot of sluggishness. Removed myself from any medication that could be causing it an all the doctors can only say for sure is that I do have a thyroid problem going on. The medication for it doesn't seem to be working. I have a great deal of tiredness an it's hard to get motivated. I'm pretty swollen up. My face looks like I've gone ten rounds in a boxing ring.

An for most part feels like it some days.

I'm not whining: I'm alive. Thankful for that. Slowly, I'm recovering from whatever is really physically going on with me. I feel better then I did a year ago. While I'm tired, it's no where near the level it was a year ago. It's not pure exhaustion.

An some people are just going to have to accept that.
An the fact, that their behavior wasn't so hot. Not that I'm perfect.

Because I'm not but when your seriously ill probably isn't the time to pick on someone. The only plus side of it is that people really do show you their true colors during a time period when you can't really fend for yourself. My oldest child wasn't there for me at all. She was to stuck on what I did wrong as parent to be. My son tried to be but verbally abused me up one side an down the other. The youngest was just getting kept away from me.

An the others, well is the reason I'm writing this.

When your sick, you really don't want people around you who will try to take advantage. It's really easy to “kick” someone when they are down. Your pretty vulnerable to whatever whim some get on. Defenseless. An you can forgive some of it, but not all of it. During it, your kinda well: They don't know. They don't understand. An well, they are the ones that have to live with it. It'll be their regret if ya actually kill over dead.

My kids, I can easily forgive.

Others, I'm struggling to because it's the same shitty manipulative behavior. The kind that picks you over before you're even dead. So I write this to protect my kids from it in the future. I'm human. I'm gonna die someday an people attacking me, my life, my character when Im ill it isn't going to change the life I lived. I won't have them rewriting my whole life to fit their needs. They weren't apart of my life for the most part a majority of it. So they don't get to say, she was this or that. They don't know me, an they still didn't get to know me. An it's their loss.

But I won't let it be my kids.

Dali, wasn't perfect. The man painted abstract pictures of masturbation in a time period that you didn't even talk about sex. His father wouldn't even speak to him after a certain point in his life. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to his art career. He no longer sat around trying to please someone he couldn't please. He focused on what he should have been: His art. If he sat around dwelling on OMG what's my family going to say: We might never have got to see all the wonderful things he produced. An I can't either just because four people I'm related to don't like me or afraid of what I might put out there.

Dali's dad refused to speak to him an life got nothing but better for Dali.

He left the small local scene, an grew into a international artist. Bigger then he would have ever been if he let his dad's approval or disapproval of his artwork have the last say. He might have censored it. Demanded Dali do something else. Behave differently. Ect. I myself can say, my son probably needs to rain himself in a little on social media. But I won't. It's his choice how he expresses himself an has to live with it. I don't always agree with what he is posting but I won't interfere with someones right to free speak. All I can do as his mother is say: That's probably not the best way to show the world who you are. It might come back an bite you in the ass. But for all I know it could be the right way for him. It might get him where he wants to be, doubtful but maybe. You never know.

Dali didn't have kids.

I doubt if he had he would have ever had to listen to he was a bad parent for going to work in his studio. I have. My “studio” just happened to be in my home office. Just because they couldn't see the artwork didn't make it any less real. Just because I can't display the 5000+ photo shoots I've done doesn't mean they weren't real work either. It's like saying my father never worked because he operated soly out of his house to do his work. Framing an rentals are home businesses. They are family businesses.

My daycare was out of my house.

Dealing with people that run on you for that is annoying. They will treat you like your just sitting around eating bon bons doing nothing with your time. Even if you built a empire doing it. So I really don't have a lot of use for the few that didn't understand it an went on in the backgrounds of my childrens lives telling them I was neglecting them. This would be like someone saying my grandmother did because she was watching her children and hoeing a cotton field at the same time. She was working & mothering at the same time.

To some it might have been seemed better if she just went to a factory job an didn't take them with. That is only because some can't wrap their minds around the concept of: Yes some of us took our kids to work with them. I'd took them to the gas station I managed if I could as well. In fact I did one day, take my son to work with me a few hours: Just so he could learn about what it is I did all day. I'd bring my daughter an her friends up to the studio all day too once in a while. So they got: I'm not ignoring you. I'm actually working. The only place I wouldn't take them much to was the bar. Unless it was daylight, a family meal or gathering: I saw no reason for them to be in it.

Parents have to work to support their children.

My children saw me work. All of it might not been as successful as I'd like it to be but I was working. They also saw me studying a lot. Going to college. Am I a bad parent for that too? The only time my kids where not with me, they where with my grandmother or another adult supervising in my home. I didn't like the Latch & Key way I was raised. I went way out of my way not to mommy by telephone. I was also home with them. They might not have had my full attention constantly but I was there for them if they needed me. It was no different then if I had taken them to a job with me. Its no different then me working on a painting in my own home. Mine just happened to be on the computer a lot. An they could not always see what I was doing. Nor could the person(s) that constantly runs me down for it. Just because everyone else was only online to socialized didn't mean I was.

So right now, I will apologize to my kids for being a space cadet. I don't mind saying, I was distracted. Or that I usually had ten things going on at once. No different then if I had took them to my gas station management job. I would have had to watch them, an do my job: but I did pay attention to you more then I was growing up. A lot more. An someday, my kids will have kids of their own an understand just how hard it is to raise children an work. They may choose to put their kids in daycare while they work. I choose not to most of it. I'm not the only one that choose to parent this way.

It made me working harder.

But I didn't complain about having a kid stuck to my leg 24-7. I choose to have you. I wanted you an I raised each one of you best I could with you with me as much as possible. Being a single mother is a hard task. An I am forever grateful to my grandmother for co parenting with me. She didn't have to. An I didn't make her. A good chunk of the time, she'd insist the kids come up to her house wither they really needed to or I wanted her to. What I am not grateful for is the constant criticism of me parenting all during it. Or someone interfering an robbing my youngest of years with me based on me living in a house they sold me or me being ill.

It's not fair to her. It never will be.

An I don't care what someone who has always only worked for another has to say about it. By all means yes, it certainly is easier. I get that, but it never leads to any great accomplishments in life either. Some don't get what it means to own your own business, successful or not. An you never had three kids teetered to you all through you work day either. I literally use to breastfed my youngest while sitting at the computer working on something. My son sat next to me all day long playing, napping or learning to crawl as I learned HTML. I was there for every diaper change, burp or gas movement for each one of them. Even if it meant I had to stop what I was programming, drawing or studying in college to attend them. An tell ya truth, it was no different then when I was a teen working or doing artwork around my little sisters needs. I wasn't a phone call away. I was there.

If my kids are mad at me about it, it's because someone has been putting it in their head that it was wrong. An that's all they do, is go on about how “wrong” I am. Even though, I flat out told one of them I'm thinking about writing a book an they stated “You should.” then play victim when I start.

How do you think Dali's career would have went had he listened to his Dad?

I can tell you from personal experience not so damn hot. He would have stayed local. He never would have meet the people in the surrealist movement an probably never seen the wax museum that so influenced his art. An Dali sold so well, not only because he had great art but because people all over talked about him. He stirred up controversy. He was known for it. It helped him establish himself as a household name.

So let the “haters” hate. Let them talk.

No one remembers who talked about Dali, or even much of what they had to say about him.
They remember Dali thou, an his art.

An that's what I would like my children to understand. I'm not doing this or that to hurt someone. I just don't need that someones approval or they few using you to get at me. It won't work. I'll just take more pictures, paint more murals an put out more content. You don't have to like it, but maybe someday I'll have a real Legecy to really leave you. Then you might understand. An if not, I'm sorry but your grown adults: An I like to think I've taught you all to think for yourselves.

Dali did, an I don't think hes a bad example to follow.

Tons said he was crazy too an whether he was or not. He wasn't really, he just really got okay with putting himself out there. Which, back in the day was unheard of, specially topics he covered. Because back in the day, you didn't even talk about sex let alone admit to masturbation. He shocked many not accustomed to a culture where nudism on he beach was normal. That didn't make him crazy. It just gave him the ability to have others question the status quo of their own cultures. It didn't make him crazy. It really just boiled down to being raised differently then anothers culture.

I don't regret the way I raised my children.

When I was 8,9, 10 years old, my grandmother use to paint all day watching me & my sister. I have found memories of being with her while she did. She would even let me paint, or dabble in whatever as well. She'd hand me the book she was learning from, an have a go at it myself. I still have those books.I'd watch Bob Ross with her, totally enjoying learning something new. An she would take me along with her to her sisters house who was a farmer, an artist herself. Her sister got into it even more, with her husband building picture frames an selling at art shows.

I enjoyed that part of my upbringing.

I thought nothing of buying my daughter a barbie computer, with preschool software to learn her ABCS. She could work on hers, while I worked on mine. An that was pretty strange to some folks too. Letting a three year old get on the computer an play. But I did. I made sure my son had a hot wheels computer an could enjoy it just as much as I did. My oldest started to hate on the computer, bored with it: I reintroduced into it being like a library because she loved to read. I made sure each kid had one, so they could explore their passions: Even if it was just Everquest. An I let my youngest get on social media, as long as she was safe about it. I'd take the time to check on her account. Who was on it, why they where an how she knew them.

My kids run computers better then most adults.

A skill needed in this day an age an if they ever wanted a career in it they could have it. Easily. My nephews in college for it right now. Learning exact same stuff I went to college for. When he was little, he use to play on my sons. An I don't regret teaching any of them a little bit about computers. Or what it was, I was trying to do for work. The kids get it better then most adults around me. Because they grew up playing games with artwork on computer screens. And none of them might not ever go down the arts bunny hole I have but if they do: It's certainly okay with me. This is where the future is going.

An I won't apologize for teaching my kids about it. Or working. Or working from home. Wanting to own your own business. Or Art. An someday, they are going to look back at it an go: Yea, that really wasn't all that bad of her.


But Dali didn't have kids, or a computer...but he did have one other thing I have: A admiration for Disney. He didn't work for Walt even though he wanted to. He ended up in the Twilight Zone instead an I don't much mind going there myself. Crazy, not crazy: As my grandma would say to me: “Who gives a shit” “Just do at least one thing a day an it will add up to something”

OH! and...“Practice” AND “Stop giving a shit what other people think” Best advice ever!
Given from one artist to another.

If your an artist, an on social media because you have to be: take a primer out of Dali's life. Don't worry about your families/”friends” approval. They aren't your buyers anyway. If you are worried about their approval all your gonna end up doing is painting flowers. Because flowers are about the only thing you can do artistically that doesn't offend someone. An the weather is about the only thing you can write about that doesn't piss someone off. Even then, you'll have a few haters. Focus on who encourages you. Not the ones who don't. An you'll find a lot more love, then hate. An for all you know, your hater could end up jump starting your career.

Dali's dad certainly did his.