Friday, September 29, 2017

How I set that Crazy World's Record

In July 2017 I set a World's Record for the Most Original Acrylic Paintings on Canvas by One Artist. I have painted 20,000 paintings.  Yeah -  it's hard for me to wrap my head around too - that's a whole lot of paintings!  But I did do this thing - I painted every single one of them over a period of eight years.  The paintings are 4x4" acrylic on canvas and are mostly images of my beloved hometown of New Orleans.


Here's the story of how this came about.  It started when I moved away from New Orleans years ago to study, work and live in other cities and countries.  I loved traveling and the adventures I had but as any New Orleanian can tell you, this city is in your soul and never leaves you.  So sometimes I just plain got homesick.  In those moments I used to do little sketches of things that reminded me of home - restaurants, gumbo, pelicans, beignets, schools, parades, parks and people.  They weren't in any particular format - sometimes they would be on napkins and sometimes on scrap paper or in the margins of notebooks.  I wasn't painting back then so they are all little drawings.  The images became somewhat of a doodle habit with me.

Then one day I knew it was time to stop moving around so much and I came back home to my city.  After living here awhile I ran across some of the little drawings I'd done and decided to try painting some of them.  I hadn't had any formal training in painting so this was stretch for me.  But it was one of those things I always wanted to learn.  So after a lot(!) of experimentation with paint I made up a technique that gave me the effect I wanted on the little paintings.  I sculpted the images with palette knives on canvas, then inked them, glazed them, painted and finally, varnished them.  There are quite a few steps to my mini paintings but I like the results from this technique and refuse to take shortcuts.  I liked how those first paintings came out and hung a few up in my house.

Then after some friends and family told me how much they liked the paintings too I wondered if other people would feel the same way.  So I painted up a bunch of them, entered my first little art show in 2009 and the mini paintings just took off.  From there I entered bigger shows and then approached my first store.  After that other stores and galleries started to find me.

I kept careful sales records over the years and one day I realized that the quantity of paintings was really mounting up.  At that point I had reached about 5,000 paintings.  From then on I kept an ongoing count.  When I hit around 19,000 painting I got curious about the World's Records on paintings.  I didn't find a lot of records in the field and the ones I found I realized I could beat.  I decided that I would go for a record when I hit 20,000 paintings because it sounded like a nice round number.  It wasn't easy to get that record.  I didn't just call up people and say, "Hey send over that certificate OK?  Ok then, bye."  I had to take photos and do pages of descriptions and make videos and hire an attorney and an accountant.  Each round of requirements met was followed by another round.  I jumped through many hoops.  But this was as it should be.  It shouldn't be easy - records needs to be provable or else everyone would be doing this, right?  So the hoops I was jumping through were comforting in a way, although time-consuming.

Then one day it just happened very suddenly.  The record was announced and put up on the website and announcements were made before I even knew it was happening.  A large framed certificate showed up at my door the next day and a whirlwind followed.  A slew of fun if not slightly embarrassing interviews ensued.  Truth be told it was a bit of a relief when it all mostly died down. (it's actually still going on but it's under control now - thank God)   It was a hoot while it lasted though.

The best part of about setting the World's Record was the day I got to tell my four kids that their mom set a World's Record. They were convinced at first that I was playing a joke on them.  Then slowly their convictions turned to realizations and then pure celebration!  They actually bragged to their friends about their mom (c'mon how often does that happen?! lol)   That was truly priceless and for that alone - I'd do it all over again!
Linda @ Life and Linda
Linda @ Life and Linda

A blog by Jax Frey, an artist who loves, paints and lives all things New Orleans and writes about life's adventures - artistic and otherwise! I

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Mama Jax from New Orleans, LA.
Jax Frey is an artist who creates bold, colorful, super-textured paintings of all things New Orleans. Look for Jax's line of New Orleans mini paintings, her favorite painting series of New Orleans women called the Gumbeaux Sistahs (I love those chicks!) and other favorite Jax products on her website - www.artbyjax.com I hope you enjoy your visit here and your comments make my day!

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