Make Me An Offer I Can't Refuse!

"Rooster" 8 x 10 acrylic painting by
Mark Phillips

I had so many plans last week. I was going to spend some time in my studio and finish some work for the upcoming exhibition at the Caribbean Gallery of Art as well as put some finishing touches on some pieces for the Little Gem Show at the Barbados Arts Council Gallery.

I am only about half way there! Oh for the day when I can spend all day, every day in my studio!

I had a conversation with an accountant this week with regards to another of my business ventures and the conversation got around to my Art and the "unscientific" way that I arrived at my pricing.

Now, before I go on let me tell you what I think about accountants and running a small business. 

They shouldn't!

In the early nineties, I incorporated my first business, an alarm company, with a friend of mine from high school. I was the alarm technician, had trained with Ademco in New York and had completed a number of other technical courses across the USA. Tony was a Certified Public Accountant and the Financial Controller at a well recognised financial institution in Barbados. I was good at what I did and he was good with the numbers but it was not long before I realised that being good with numbers is absolutely useless if the only major numbers that you are generating is debt! I was aware that I knew next to nothing about running a business but I had wrongfully assumed that an accountant would!

Fast forward 15 years. I was approached by, you guessed it, an accountant and another entrepreneur to form yet another security company. To make a not so long story short, this company was incorporated in 2010 with what I thought should have been adequate funding, but within 2 years it was bankrupt. Again, despite my better judgement, I left financial decisions to the accountant. In 2012, I salvaged what customers remained, formed a new company, (alone), and for the last 6 years, the business is growing, has no debt and is making a profit.

In my opinion, if a business is not grossing over 7 figures a year it does not need the regular input of an accountant. A decent accounts clerk and reputable software will get the job done.

So you can see the reason that I was sceptical when an accountant sought to give me advice on running a small business.

However, there was some merit to what he said. He pointed out that my prices should reflect the time and the skill that was used in producing the piece. I had explained to him that this piece of Leacock's Variety in Speightown has taken over 60hrs work already and yet it was not completely finished. I also told him that I would sell it for around $900.00.

His argument was that I was charging $15.00 per hour for my work. About the same as an inexperienced tradesman on a construction site. The skills required to transform a flat 2-dimensional canvas into a scene that creates the illusion of solidity and depth to the extent that the viewer feels that they are standing in person across the street looking up the road must be worth more than $15.00 per hour.

I, of course, argued that there is no way that the market in Barbados would be able to support art prices that reflect the true value of an artist's skill. However, as I was saying it I realised that I was not truly believing what I was saying. I charge $80.00 an hour as a security technician and no one complains. As a locksmith, I once charged what equated to over $1000.00 an hour to open a safe with a damaged combination for a business and they thanked me for it. Why should the skill and experience of an artist be so devalued?

So, I am going to carry out a little experiment. The painting of the rooster above is a unique piece of original art. It is painted in acrylic paint on an 8 x 10 stretched canvas. The materials used cost about $20.00 and it took me about 12 hours to complete.

What do you think I should charge for it?

No, I think the better question is...

What would you offer me for it? And why do you think it is worth that amount?

The person, in my opinion, with the most compelling reason for the offered price, will be allowed to purchase the piece at that price. You may make your offer in the comments section below or on my facebook page. 

I really look forward to hearing your opinions.

As always, thank you for reading. I appreciate the comments and the kind words of encouragement. Until next time when I will share some more of my work and a little about what makes me tick, please leave a comment. And, I will really appreciate if you share this post with your friends. To make sure that you don't miss any future posts, Please enter your email address in the subscribe by email box on the right.


Mark Phillips

Artist
Email:- mark@phillipsbajanart.com
Website:-www.phillipsbajanart.com

Blackbird

Blackbird. An 8 x 10 acrylic painting
by Mark Phillips

Blackbirds

The latest addition to my "Birds of Barbados" collection.

The Carib Grackle (Quiscalus lugubris), commonly called the Blackbird, is one of the most common birds in Barbados. Usually seen parading with its head held high, this jet black beauty has an air of regal elegance associated with it.

This is what I was trying to capture in this piece. The Blackbird always seems to be in control. He is the boss of all he sees. This is not a bird that gets concerned about human presence, they travel in flocks confidently going about their business.

I did this painting from a photograph and it was completed in about 3 hours. Usually, I work on multiple pieces at the same time, alternating between them. I find that the work always appears fresh to me this way. However, with this piece I worked from start to finish on it in one sitting. I am really happy with how it turned out.

Blackbirds in Barbados have a long, slender curved black beak and yellowish eyes. Its’ long wedge-shaped tail and black plumaged body reflect a rainbow of colours amidst the sun.  

Blackbirds like most birds love crumbs and leftovers but they've also been seen eagerly eating Giant African Snails right here in Barbados. Once the snail is dead and in some instances alive, they can be seen picking at them in an effort to take part in what may very well be considered a delicacy in bird land. Escargot anyone? 

Blackbirds are very aggressive especially when nesting. As children, we learned early not to mess with blackbird nests. They will attack humans and animals alike if they think you’re dangerously close to their territory. And the fact that these birds breed in colonies means that you can find several deep cup-shaped nests in one tree at any given time. There was a stand of casuarina trees just across from my grandmother's house that could prove very challenging to negotiate during the breeding season.

Males are very purposeful when the nesting period comes around. They take flight with their respective partners and even get involved in the nest building process. However, soon after the mating process, they are quick to leave their mates and babies behind to take care of themselves.

In his book, Explore Barbados, Harry S. Pariser asserts that blackbirds were used as fighting birds by attaching needles to their legs.  

"A slender young blackbird built in a thorn-tree:

A spruce little fellow as ever could be;

His bill was so yellow, his feathers so black,

So long was his tail, and so glossy his back,

That good Mrs. B., who sat hatching her eggs,

And only just left them to stretch her poor legs,

And pick for a minute the worm she preferred,

Thought there never was seen such a beautiful bird."

- Dinah Craik

 — The Blackbird and the Rooks; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 71.

As always, thank you for reading. I appreciate the comments and the kind words of encouragement. Until next time when I will share some more of my work and a little about what makes me tick, please leave a comment.  And, I will really appreciate if you share this post with your friends. To make sure that you don't miss any future posts, Please enter your email address in the subscribe by email box on the right.

Mark Phillips

Artist
Email:- mark@phillipsbajanart.com
Website:-www.phillipsbajanart.com

Wood Pigeon.

Wood Pigeon. An 8 x 10 Acrylic painting by
Mark Phillips

This is the latest painting in my “Birds of Barbados” collection.

For all my life, I have referred to this bird as a Wood Pigeon. However, its correct name is Columbidae Patagioenas Squamosa, also known as the Scaly-naped Pigeon or in some countries the Red-necked Pigeon.

The Scaly-naped Pigeon is a large, dark pigeon that is common and widespread throughout the Caribbean except for Jamaica and the Bahamas, where it does not occur.  

It is very good to eat.

No, it does not taste like chicken, it tastes much better!  They feed on fruit and seeds and as children, we caught them with “fly sticks” baited it with sunflower or “yellow hawk” seeds. Some of the boys even used downfall traps made from pieces of old chicken wire and wood but I preferred my fly stick. We have even used our "guttaperks", made of a y-shaped stick cut from a branch of a Whitewood tree and strung with a piece of rubber cut from an old bicycle tire.

We would remove the intestines and organs, remove the feathers, skin and all, and roast them over a fire made with cow dung and casuarina sticks. Good Eats!

Many times, our hunting efforts were frustrated by wood doves, my grandfather's pigeons and other smaller birds being caught in out traps. We usually set these free as they were just not worth the effort to cook. However, whenever wood pigeons were present they would push the other birds away to get at the bait and invariably they were caught. 

There is a lesson there somewhere.

I believe that there are other species of "wood pigeon" in Barbados. I would appreciate if anyone has any information to let me know in the comments below.

I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life - in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. - Frank Sinatra

As always, thank you for reading. I appreciate the comments and the kind words of encouragement. Until next time when I will share some more of my work and a little about what makes me tick, please leave a comment.  And, I will really appreciate if you share this post with your friends. To make sure that you don't miss any future posts, Please enter your email address in the subscribe by email box on the right.

Mark Phillips

Artist
Email:- mark@phillipsbajanart.com
Website:-www.phillipsbajanart.com
Online Store:- PhillipsArtStore

Doctor Booby - A Mighty Bird in a Tiny Package

"Doctor Booby" Bird. 8 x 10 Acrylic Painting
of a Humming Bird by Mark Phillips

As children, we grew up calling this bird a “Doctor Booby”.

Apparently, this is because 19th-century doctors wore long black coats so people couldn’t easily see the blood and gore that often got on their clothes while performing their duties. In the Barbados sunshine, the iridescent colours of the hummingbird are hidden and the dark silhouette of the hummingbird is often all you can see.

And… like the doctors of yesterday, they are always on the move, too busy to stop in one place for long.

I am 50% sure that this is a painting of the Green-throated Carib. This was easy to figure out as there are, to the best of my knowledge, only two species of Barbados hummingbird. The other is the Antillean Crested. If I am wrong please let me know. I am by no means an expert. I just think that they are awesome!

Hummingbirds are small, colourful birds with iridescent feathers. Their name comes from the fact that they flap their wings so fast (about 80 times per second) that they make a humming noise. Hummingbirds can fly right, left, up, down, backwards, and even upside down. They are also able to hover by flapping their wings in a figure-8 pattern. They have a specialized long and tapered bill that is used to obtain nectar from the centre of long, tubular flowers. The hummingbird’s feet are used for perching only and are not used for hopping or walking.

As a child, I remember marvelling at a hummingbird chasing blackbirds and other larger birds from the “coffee bush” in our yard, where they made their tiny, yet very well constructed nest. There are fiercely territorial and fearless despite their tiny size. Dr. Boobys, (or is it Dr. Boobies?), are fascinating creatures. Their very existence should make us humble ourselves before a creator that can not only conceptualize but bring into being such a marvel of biological engineering.

Vision

They have a dense array of retinal neurons allowing for increased spatial resolution in the lateral and frontal visual fields. Morphological studies showed that neuronal hypertrophy, relatively the largest in any bird, exists in a brain region called the pretectal nucleus lentiformis mesencephali (or nucleus of the optic tract in mammals) responsible for refining dynamic visual processing while hovering and during rapid flight. The enlargement of this brain region responsible for visual processing indicates enhanced ability for perception and processing of fast-moving visual stimuli which hummingbirds encounter during rapid forward flight, insect foraging, competitive interactions, and high-speed courtship.

Metabolism

With the exception of insects, hummingbirds while in flight have the highest metabolism of all animals – a necessity to support the rapid beating of their wings during hovering and fast forward flight. Their heart rate can reach as high as 1,260 beats per minute, a rate once measured in a blue-throated hummingbird, with a breathing rate of 250 breaths per minute, even at rest. During flight, oxygen consumption per gram of muscle tissue in a hummingbird is about 10 times higher than that measured in elite human athletes.

Hummingbirds are rare among vertebrates in their ability to rapidly make use of ingested sugars to fuel energetically expensive hovering flight, powering up to 100% of their metabolic needs with the sugars they drink (in comparison, human athletes max out at around 30%). Hummingbirds can use newly ingested sugars to fuel hovering flight within 30–45 minutes of consumption. These data suggest that hummingbirds are able to oxidize sugar in flight muscles at rates high enough to satisfy their extreme metabolic demands. By relying on newly ingested sugars to fuel flight, hummingbirds can reserve their limited fat stores to sustain their overnight fasting or to power migratory flights.

Studies of hummingbirds' metabolisms are relevant to the question of how a migrating ruby-throated hummingbird can cross 800 km (500 miles) of the Gulf of Mexico on a nonstop flight. This hummingbird, like other birds preparing to migrate, stores fat as a fuel reserve, thereby augmenting its weight by as much as 100%, hence increasing the potential flying time over open water.

Flight stability

The only type of bird that relies solely on its own strength to hover in the air, a hummingbird flapping its wings requires more mass-based mechanical power output than any other form of locomotion. Now, scientists have discovered that the tiny bird’s efficiency comes from the ratio of the wing’s length to its width. Researchers from Stanford University and Wageningen University tested the hover performance of 26 hummingbird wings from 12 different species in a machine that measured the torque and lift the wings produced at various angles.

The study also found that the aerodynamic performance of hummingbird wings is “remarkably similar” to that of our most advanced micro-helicopter, (drone), rotor. But the wings were up to 27 percent more efficient. Better than the best our brightest scientists can produce!

Torpor

The metabolism of hummingbirds can slow at night or at any time when food is not readily available: the birds enter a hibernation-like, deep-sleep state (known as torpor) to prevent energy reserves from falling to a critical level. During night-time torpor, body temperature falls from 40 to 18 °C, with heart and breathing rates both slowed dramatically (heart rate to roughly 50 to 180 beats per minute from its daytime rate of higher than 1000).

Hummingbirds have a long history of folklore and symbolism in native cultures. The Aztecs saw them as messengers between them and their ancestors or the gods. In Native American culture, hummingbirds are seen as healers and bringers of love, good luck and joy. In Central America, they are a sign of love and will bring love to the person who spots them.

Unfortunately, with the development of housing in areas where these birds traditionally thrived, they are not as prolific as they used to be. I have sighted only one in my garden so far this year. I would like to think that this is because I was too busy to notice but… who knows.

Have you ever thought that hummingbirds seem like something out of a fairy-tale? There is something magical about their colours, shape and the way their move as if they are reminding us to seek out the magic in life.

“The ruby-throated hummingbird is a wonder of migration. Every winter it makes an amazing journey. Some have been known to make a journey of 2500 miles or more, from Alaska to Central America. Because of it, the hummingbird is a symbol for accomplishing that which seems impossible. It will teach you how to find the miracle of joyful living from your own life circumstances.” – Ted Andrews 

As always, thank you for reading, (and viewing). I appreciate the comments and the kind words of encouragement. Until next time when I will share some more of my work with you, please leave a comment.  And, I will really appreciate if you share this post with your friends. To make sure that you don't miss any future posts, Please enter your email address in the subscribe by email box on the right.

Mark Phillips

Artist
Email:- mark@phillipsbajanart.com
Website:-www.phillipsbajanart.com
Online Store:- PhillipsArtStore

Yellow Breast

"Yellow Breast" an 8 x 10 Acrylic painting by Mark Phillips

The avifauna of Barbados includes a total of 270 species, according to Bird Checklists of the World as of February 2018. Of them, one is endemic, 17 have been introduced by humans, and 178 are rare or accidental. Eight species have been extirpated and one is probably extinct.

One of my goals is to record on canvas as many of these birds as I can. The first one in the “Birds of Barbados” collection is the Yellow Breast. This particular species is thought to be found only in Barbados.  I remember as children calling them yellow breast sparrows but they are not sparrows at all.

Common Name: Bananaquit aka Yellow Breast

Scientific Name: Coereba flaveola sp. barbadensis

Description: 4-5 inches; upperparts black with some white patches; black head with white eyebrow stripe (yellow in juveniles); bill curved; neck black, breast yellow, rump white

Habitat: Island wide – can be found in flower gardens etc. – Feeds on the nectar of flowers.

Many sub-species of Coereba flaveola are found throughout the Caribbean with sp. Bardadensis being endemic to Barbados.

I do not particularly like painting on canvases smaller than 11 x 14, however, I made an exception for this collection. The best thing about painting this size is the time it takes to complete. I finished this painting in about 4 hours.  I hope that one day these could be sold as a complete collection and displayed together.

I would be amiss if I did not share with you what this bird sounds like. I hope you like it!

It has been many years since I have seen or heard a "Yellow Breast". I grew up in St. Philip and they were very common around my home. Now I live in St. James and despite having a reasonable sized garden around my home with many species of flowering plants, I have not noticed one. I really hope it is because I have been too busy to notice and not because these birds are disappearing from our landscape. Please let me know when last you have seen one.

As always, thank you for reading, (and viewing). I appreciate the comments and the kind words of encouragement. Until next time when I will share some more of my work with you, please leave a comment.  And, I will really appreciate if you share this post with your friends. To make sure that you don't miss any future posts, Please enter your email address in the subscribe by email box on the right.

Mark Phillips

Artist
Email:- mark@phillipsbajanart.com
Website:-www.phillipsbajanart.com
Online Store:- PhillipsArtStore