To sell or not to sell.....that is the question

I sold a very large painting this past month....what a thrill.
I even met the purchaser it was nice. It was a very large abstracted landscape titled Peaceful Garden.

They bought this painting on the insistence of their interior decorator.
Well, it sold...even if it was because it helped mask the large brick wall.
Laughing as I go to the bank.
I have been told a lot of things about why my work sells...
I think the best one was "because it was yellow".

I sold another one this weekend. Well, rather the gallery sold it.
I am an Innocent by stander to the whole marketing process.
I just paint..take it in...let them hang...and then I wait.
I have my own gallery where I am more involved but I hate being on the analytical side of my brain...much prefer the creative side.

Anyway, the first painting that sold was one that was left over from the A2H show...it was nice to see this one go. I hated the idea of maybe having to take it down and find a place to store it. It was 6 ft by 8 ft....so selling it made things a little easier.

The second one that sold was the first to sell from the coffee series that I painted for a solo show back in Dec 2006. I love that series but worried since nothing had sold even from the show. I sold abstracts and clay art at that show..but none of the coffee series.

I wanted to tell a friend about it....because he said it was some of my best work. I had almost given up and thought about painting over them, but I always need to be patient. I appreciate his telling me to keep working, sometimes a friend can see things you can not.

Anyway...to sell or not to sell, that is the question.
Do we as artist paint to sell?
I paint for shows. The ultimate reason for having shows is the expectation to sell, so does that mean I am painting to sell?