Why Hosting a Paint and Sip Party Will Never Happen

     One night at the Dead Since grand Opening in Downtown Jersey City, this pair approached me. David had told them I was the artist behind the painting that was hung up at the store at the moment. Number one I like people not knowing what I look like.. I'm not trying to be Bansky or anything its merely my way of getting people to concentrate more on my art than myself. Anyways they approached me and boasted about how awesome my painting was and how talented i am, yada yada yada, they finally got out their agenda. " We organize a non-profit (just a douchey way of saying business I get free money and don't pay taxes for.. ie FIFA) and we do Paint and Sips. Whats a Paint and sip you ask? 

     A Paint and Sip is a party, so to speak, where one goes and brings their own alcohol and paints the same painting as everyone else while drinking and socializing ensues. It's what middle aged people do when just drinking and talking sounds shameful. Look people seem to have a blast doing it, I'm not hating on that. Nor am I hating on the paintings that surface from these gatherings. What I didn't like was how those two approached me about it. 

Them: "You ever consider hosting a paint and sip?" 

Me: "No"

Them: "You should, you wouldn't believe how much money is in it. It's so popular right now and with an Artist like yourself hosting it I feel like everyone can definitely profit from it."

Me: "To be honest you lost me the minute you thought money would spark my interest."

Them: "No one with your talent should be doing anything for free."

Me: "With all due respect, if I'm as talented as you say I am then I wouldn't be caught dead at a paint and sip. Paint and Sip is for people that never painted in their lives, to be walked through by a semi-capable painter, making the most meaningless pieces of dogshit that wouldn't make the cut at ikea. I go to school and have been studying for years to get where I am and you want to water me down like a high school gym teacher...no thanks."

      Needless to say, they walked away a little upset, maybe even a little embarrassed, but shit like this is whats ruining art in my lifetime. The real reason I wont partake is because people lately have been finding ways to commercialize art to the point of making it less than what it is. Great Example, not too long ago Jeff Koons did a collaboration with Louis Vuitton, making a series of handbags with Master Artist works printed all over them. 1. How in the fuck is it a collaboration if you're using other peoples work? 2. Who the fuck do you think you are? 3. Louis Vuiton must've been really fresh out of ideas that they paid someone alot of money for something they could've done theirselves. 

     This to me is watering down Artists to the worse versions of their selves. Had it been a Mall Kiosk making $15 tees? Whatever I expect that from them. But this shit was an insult to the masters. There's a special place in Art Hell, Dante's Inferno, the ninth Circle, Bottom of the Well (Traitors), just for you. Enough drama, I don't like these things because it promotes them in such a way where you don't look at them as art anymore, it's almost meaningless and sad. Like putting a Lion in a cage and paying kids to throw peanuts at it. I'm trying to bring art back to homes.. dope shit you can brag about that relates to everyone. It's the real reason I use a Skeleton to depict the main character of most my paintings. It can be left for interpretation.. he could be black white asian,he might not even be a he. I want everyone to relate to it. My mission is to bring it back to it's mantle where it belongs. So in conclusion Fuck Paint and Sip.