Define success

[cyberduck]

'Messum’s from London and Lemon Street Gallery pushed the reputation of arguably Cornwall’s most successful living artist Kurt Jackson yet further last week. Not only did Messum’s sell their most expensive work by the artist to date at the fair - a canvas for £38,000 - they also held an extensive exhibition of his work across two Cork Street galleries which at the time of writing has, one week into the show, sold 95% of the more than 120 works.'

In the recent feature about the art fair in London, we have another example of a slightly skewed propostion about Cornwall's most financially successful artist. I met Kurt last week, socially and find him to be a generous and likeable person, and I appreciate his work, I do not have any issues with his reward for his work and so on. But.....

.... perhaps this feature misses the point. Whilst I did not go to the show it seems that the galleries from the county have again presented a very small and surely unrepresentative set of work. Of course it's up to the galleries what they show and I don't have any issues with that. But let be honest, surely the measure of success is not purely based upon monetary value ? Whilst these kinds of articles perpetuate the notion that private galleries in the county somehow are arbiters of practice in the county we ( or some of us) become seen as marginlised practioners.

For myself (as many may know that Cyberduck is in fact Andy hughes), when I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York last year I was chuffed to see my book in the reading room alongside the likes of Warhol, Pollock, Parr and so on. I did not see any work from 'the current crop of our leading lights on Cornwall'. My comments aren't mean to be provocative or bitchy but just an observation about measuring success.

What do people feel measures success ?

[jondavey]

Success might be measured by the extent to which your intention has been achieved.

[John Sims]

My god I hope its not financial or I am a dismal failure!!! Though I was once quite a successful graphic designer and illustrator who could demand pretty high rewards and in that world that in itself is perceived as success.

However now it is rare, maybe its that gut feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that tells me "It has nearly worked", I hope so. I trust that feeling more than my head, which is often confused and tells me lies. Making stuff is a physical thing sometimes carried out by intelligent people...it rarely works for me when its the other way around...is that called Conceptual Lol.

[Julia Cooper]

The measure of success is ANY feed back from the viewer I think.  If the viewer is moved by your work, that is even better.

[Jo]

To feel satisfied with the aesthetic efforts however ghastly the result and without any reference to the oft distorting influences of fame or fortune.

[jondavey]

No, if you want sucess to be quantifiable you have to first consider what you intention is. Then you can easily measure to what  degree you have been sucessfull. That is conceptual.