tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74325344207695988912024-02-06T22:25:43.342-05:00Art Writing Bold Drawingthe everything blog on art and life for artists, collectors and everybodyArt Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-25802933946415456792008-03-16T19:36:00.002-04:002008-03-16T19:38:27.061-04:00My latest painting<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZb429ddrbfKq6LKE6Dt_ltcs0KdfshQOdu4NuheWEFpX-PhTviZcwmFXao4M-vJrDeyL2UxqUgZVBLluvBqYn2KfYFCo1Hc_ArMoEQqSn1qR-a4C3uq37ieusJIoVL_bZDKQSOVHEEhM/s1600-h/100_6986.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178487924580592962" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZb429ddrbfKq6LKE6Dt_ltcs0KdfshQOdu4NuheWEFpX-PhTviZcwmFXao4M-vJrDeyL2UxqUgZVBLluvBqYn2KfYFCo1Hc_ArMoEQqSn1qR-a4C3uq37ieusJIoVL_bZDKQSOVHEEhM/s400/100_6986.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />30 x 40, oil on canvas, SOLDArt Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-83089651976392607112008-02-08T19:35:00.002-05:002008-02-18T18:02:39.753-05:00How does one begin?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXxoB8Vb1AhXtwSU8pwJPzRl4lNS3Cr0oGNW6AfEycjxd61Sdk4b2a0gr0FVe0QcfJaVvG69XcWwMeHNSQeAPQEAoVH5dnGUDVYhWmj6_Ad5sn-_-vqwE-Y8rQNaXG_LqfqDi4RjUpDHg/s1600-h/021_19.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXxoB8Vb1AhXtwSU8pwJPzRl4lNS3Cr0oGNW6AfEycjxd61Sdk4b2a0gr0FVe0QcfJaVvG69XcWwMeHNSQeAPQEAoVH5dnGUDVYhWmj6_Ad5sn-_-vqwE-Y8rQNaXG_LqfqDi4RjUpDHg/s400/021_19.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5164772890147565330" /></a><br />I have been thinking about teaching lately -- thinking about what <em>should</em> be taught. One finds plenty of books in the stores. They typically show a series of steps, a series of ideas represented in different stages of a picture. The books are okay, as far as they go, in giving someone who has never thought about drawing a way of starting. However, they have the great disadvantage of starting one in the path of convention, of teaching people to see a subject in terms of predetermined ideas. In sharp contrast to that, a real picture deals with ideas in some kind of hidden order of attention and meaning. Your eye goes to this place or that for sometimes mysterious reasons.<br />In real life, pictures can also sometimes stop abruptly. One has lost the idea, or become temporarily derailed. It is not a matter of not knowing how to draw, but of not knowing what to draw. Sometimes the unfinish of the image is more evocative than adding to it would be. Sometimes a painting has to ripen slowly, or to age like a wine. You set it aside and let it stand as an object of meditation. It's like a dream that has been interrupted.<br />An image can go through stages that have nothing to do with convention. There is no proper way to draw a thing because there is no proper way to think about it or experience it. The life in the image has to be lived in the mind of the artist first if it is ever to live in the mind and heart of the spectator.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-90390112360207602352008-02-08T18:52:00.000-05:002008-02-08T19:02:58.346-05:00Intuition<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioq9AiaNNa8Ynmu4c9SJ3baQVpNDsJ0VrYhwvhmm8e5Ooq0vmvDzSstHcWXA9VH8FP4bmC_i8n-Lyl_cmHjVB_3D8ALt-cN1nxjK8OFKfdUzuI8xhOUxYxQbatjQ-kVS8KN0Z8seUyI3w/s1600-h/100_6736.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioq9AiaNNa8Ynmu4c9SJ3baQVpNDsJ0VrYhwvhmm8e5Ooq0vmvDzSstHcWXA9VH8FP4bmC_i8n-Lyl_cmHjVB_3D8ALt-cN1nxjK8OFKfdUzuI8xhOUxYxQbatjQ-kVS8KN0Z8seUyI3w/s400/100_6736.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5164761826311810786" /></a><br />I've learned over the years to trust my artistic instincts, and I find that sometimes I'm "composing" things when I least expect it -- as when I rearrange pictures in the studio as part of an effort to "clean up" or to organize work or because I'm looking for something. I often find that the pictures I place next to each other, however casually and with no evident purpose, often times reveals formal relationships between images that I had failed to notice. <br />In the picture above I put some canvases that I meant to work on out where I could see them. The still life of flowers was already leaning against the wall. It was with a little double-take that I noticed that the features of the landscape are very similar to the forms of the cloth in the still life and to its out of focus design. The comparison is perhaps more interesting for the fact that the landscape is based on a drawing of Van Gogh's which I decided to make into a painting.<br />Sometimes it seems as if I am just painting one picture, it appears in many forms, but it's the same picture underneath the various manifestations. <br />Well, something like that probably is happening. The "picture" I'm painting is the structure of my own thoughts. <br />Delacroix said so wisely that the artist paints the self. It is not narcissism to do so, but necessity.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-65751628389526081102008-02-03T17:49:00.000-05:002008-02-03T18:00:45.066-05:00Especially when it's your kid<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-oUpuF0Ryukvcnw27rJjW_wW-ATxLKZcGUB6U4s6YXk7AK-c9r5pb7GiynFIZAsnLb8rwBUR1Kd_LTYyc2vF4dUtOWY4lHorXHynxxtapRtCETn2PCwt0BNKx7PnFCO53bpa7FhjW8kk/s1600-h/T's+asparagusLighter.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-oUpuF0Ryukvcnw27rJjW_wW-ATxLKZcGUB6U4s6YXk7AK-c9r5pb7GiynFIZAsnLb8rwBUR1Kd_LTYyc2vF4dUtOWY4lHorXHynxxtapRtCETn2PCwt0BNKx7PnFCO53bpa7FhjW8kk/s400/T's+asparagusLighter.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162891535558127234" /></a><br /><br />It's always wonderful discovering a new instance of bold drawing. It's especially wonderful when the example comes from my kid. The drawing illustrated here arose from a process that I've observed before in my daughter: she sees a subject that is "too hard," "too complicated." In her simplication of the "hard" subject, she discovers a beautiful and elegant economy of means.<br />It's a wonderful lesson. Learn to think like a child. See the world anew.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-8854704532263321782008-02-03T17:47:00.000-05:002008-02-03T17:59:28.401-05:00Asparagus and Carrots<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPVo-B2-Ixk8N4SpQGt7X-3wXo2KOOKlIWQJ6MCQNhymS377e_8LDyyEjU7z3bRlRBcKFzCAtaKj6Z2HHpLMv9JKUzhukU47TA1-eDBcx2wFVm6wqMLNKr6rhFZVTu8C3aYHwEiBXvcw/s1600-h/carrots&asparagusTlighter.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPVo-B2-Ixk8N4SpQGt7X-3wXo2KOOKlIWQJ6MCQNhymS377e_8LDyyEjU7z3bRlRBcKFzCAtaKj6Z2HHpLMv9JKUzhukU47TA1-eDBcx2wFVm6wqMLNKr6rhFZVTu8C3aYHwEiBXvcw/s400/carrots&asparagusTlighter.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162892248522698386" /></a><br />Here's a novel way to measure your ingredients!Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-13357010565955241642008-01-27T20:41:00.002-05:002008-03-10T19:09:13.253-04:00Il faut refaire la meme chose dix fois, cents fois<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhRJUsBl5mrrRAgMzEV_uQIeV67y-wb1gUXhcqtw19SOlCpe78X9pYtLyI60ck6Vd7V2_TpIquNlV8T6P4fftOdAQ_V5XaBYfIiRa5arkbN4h_WODSQZB7pbZB2d0ojslG0DZNMFrWqA/s1600-h/notebook+drawing+for+Lattice.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhRJUsBl5mrrRAgMzEV_uQIeV67y-wb1gUXhcqtw19SOlCpe78X9pYtLyI60ck6Vd7V2_TpIquNlV8T6P4fftOdAQ_V5XaBYfIiRa5arkbN4h_WODSQZB7pbZB2d0ojslG0DZNMFrWqA/s400/notebook+drawing+for+Lattice.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160337275557523026" /></a><br />["You must redraw the same thing, ten times, a hundred times." -- Edgar Degas]<br /><br />It's not so much that one makes a bad drawing. The problem is that one fails to make hundreds of bad drawings -- in order to understand the thing and to find the good drawing.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-51224434505806784552008-01-27T19:52:00.002-05:002008-03-10T19:12:25.020-04:00Wandering the Museum<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDYmaQuTX5kRYmdzJyHKDIljf_JhjJ8OmkIbYo9Gv1P5gG_UGCfS4YJ8Il-yUrG_jXDaxJKt4egxkfnCFewOLJKTjtyXDY9N_qwwwImNLx3eyVHBQc66hCN9vJNVLE58gTReCYjIGqXO0/s1600-h/Degas+Horse+at+NGA.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160330841696513586" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDYmaQuTX5kRYmdzJyHKDIljf_JhjJ8OmkIbYo9Gv1P5gG_UGCfS4YJ8Il-yUrG_jXDaxJKt4egxkfnCFewOLJKTjtyXDY9N_qwwwImNLx3eyVHBQc66hCN9vJNVLE58gTReCYjIGqXO0/s400/Degas+Horse+at+NGA.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBJAVAnewaUyLvuA0mnYAb05XMdNs-bDwGjGz07zCwv2XuwVRUNzaseLfXnd8wJLddokU_mA6XJbq7h1_9wBaKrPTaSRW5O8GqTMuMVPTJoHnvTjsfCFxHwCHQay7UXWCGjpFjzBLpqw/s1600-h/100_6671.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160330850286448194" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBJAVAnewaUyLvuA0mnYAb05XMdNs-bDwGjGz07zCwv2XuwVRUNzaseLfXnd8wJLddokU_mA6XJbq7h1_9wBaKrPTaSRW5O8GqTMuMVPTJoHnvTjsfCFxHwCHQay7UXWCGjpFjzBLpqw/s400/100_6671.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I spent a hour or so wandering the National Gallery of Art. Wanted to reconnect with some pictures I hadn't seen in a while. I've written about the plague of hipness and its detrimental effect on modern art at some length already in previous posts. So it was with some irony that I noticed a book on the new books table of NGA's bookstore called <em>The Birth of the Cool</em>. Yes, well, I suppose <em>that</em> proves my point.<br />But if hipness is the illness, what then is the cure?<br />I looked at many things, a very odd assortment -- Dutch 17th century paintings generally, including a new acquisition by <a href="http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?136583+0+0">Salomon Van Ruisdael</a>, and "<a href="http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?41322+0+0">Mary Queen of Heaven</a>" by the Master of the Saint Lucy Altarpiece, some French 19th century landscapes by academic painters, and a whole mish mash generally.<br />But I stopped among the Degas sculptures and drew horses briefly, using the only thing I had, a ball point pen. As I was drawing, I was struggling a little with being able to see (my contacts were not good drawing eye wear), but I focused on what I was seeing in the <a href="http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?69825+0+0">sculptures</a> by asking myself this question: "What was Degas looking at or remembering when he made these sculptures of horses?" So I let myself get lost in the forms and just doodled the ideas that I had, <em>my ideas</em>, as I looked. I was, in other words, trying to "draw from life" while drawing from his sculpture of, <em>his idea of</em>, a horse. The drawing at the top of the post is one of Degas's off-hand horse drawings, and below it is one of the drawings I made today while looking at his sculpture.<br />I was thinking with the pen in my handArt Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-55866123179587401742008-01-25T19:40:00.001-05:002008-02-08T19:07:22.857-05:00Refreshment<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDzERuMG7WWLQE7WQuGAc9KMQVW0LC90bukRDPIFQfu2F1UJxkxlTASrpGFZETHGM76OmDCgdP1JahOA285YaGosLPruTTyBYirX9RmEsFpVgCzl2jUZMFk_11NKb3N3o5wL4NFgZsCGo/s1600-h/100_6541.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDzERuMG7WWLQE7WQuGAc9KMQVW0LC90bukRDPIFQfu2F1UJxkxlTASrpGFZETHGM76OmDCgdP1JahOA285YaGosLPruTTyBYirX9RmEsFpVgCzl2jUZMFk_11NKb3N3o5wL4NFgZsCGo/s400/100_6541.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159579467232849330" /></a><br /><br />This is a sketch for a painting I'm thinking about. Cannot begin to explain what it is about it that fills me so with joy. And even the sketch -- I cannot expect it to affect others as it affects me -- but it's spare lines set my thoughts into the most happy direction.<br />Real art grows out of someone's actual life. Why? Because life is wonderful.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-49071252201928345682008-01-25T19:19:00.000-05:002008-02-08T19:08:00.107-05:00What's in a name?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCy3CkNFWq6It3aQYsXJtxCaOf_Ug6BadS-BuOsHwVBUROZ7afasGgHfpABunq8-xQwiJdLTaOouID5H7nYmi41B0sliQAj5Qnn7XNYyCs_PvnsTntZBYmM5IUKpd7xWxxPZW3mi4xtc/s1600-h/aa.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCy3CkNFWq6It3aQYsXJtxCaOf_Ug6BadS-BuOsHwVBUROZ7afasGgHfpABunq8-xQwiJdLTaOouID5H7nYmi41B0sliQAj5Qnn7XNYyCs_PvnsTntZBYmM5IUKpd7xWxxPZW3mi4xtc/s400/aa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159578543814880674" /></a><br />In the previous post, I lampoon and lament the National Gallery of Art's recent acquisition of a "<a href="http://judgementonjudd.blogspot.com/">Donald Judd</a>." Since, as I posit, Judd's box is not art, why even care? <br />Unfortunately, as an artist I have to care. The canonization of junk has hurt artists enormously. Real artists -- at least people of genuine talent who might become real artists -- are discouraged by trends like this. It's hard to do the hard work of learning when your whole enterprise is trashed by the very people that one would have hoped to have champion it. Many artists I know whose own art-making could not be further in spirit from the inane, hipsterism that surrounds curators like NGA's Jeffrey Weiss, will nevertheless pay lip service to "contemporary art." They seem to feel that they must go along with the trends since to do otherwise is to earn the deepest cut of all, the charge of being "traditional."<br />Oh how things have changed since Rubens was in charge.<br />But Van Gogh (who had done a stint as an art dealer long before having made art himself) correctly identified the false pattern of making artists into "names." And what was just the 19th century's version of <em>branding</em> has become full blown insanity today -- because in the case of things like Donald Judd's boxes, the objects really don't matter at all. It is all about "names." Why Judd instead of somebody else? Why not? When there is no purpose, it hardly matters where the magic wand lands.<br />However, real art does still exist. It has gone underground in the sense that you do not find it in the well appointed and expensive modern museums (with some rare exceptions). Where is it then? Who knows? In somebody's house. In a private collection gathered by someone of taste who lives quietly enjoying his or her objects.<br />It is somewhere but we don't quite know where. But one knows that it is there because art has always been there. The impulse to make images is a deep and true component of the human spirit, and the images that comprise the best art are made by people of genuine talent (this should come as no surprise) and the imagery will speak to the real minds and hearts of ordinary human beings. Why? Because the real spectator like the real artist is an intelligent, thoughtful and emotionally responsive human being.<br />The hipster elitism of the official art world exists to satisfy the vanity of its participants (who evidently wouldn't recognize real art if it came up and bit them). But the officialdom will pass away. This has happened before too. <br />Remember Govaert Flinck? You don't? He was the guy who beat out Rembrandt in the Amsterdam City Hall art contest. Flinck was a damn sight more interesting than Judd, though!<br />This too will pass.<br />Contemporary art should mean that which is made in the present time. That it refers to a very narrow style of art for the consumption of the foppish class ought to tell us something. That the great number of people buying Winsor Newton colors are out there doing something. It will be for our descendants to find out.<br />Alas!<br />[At the top of the post: Govaert Flinck]Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-70173949455564585602008-01-25T18:18:00.000-05:002008-02-03T18:48:53.792-05:00Much Ado About Nothing<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVcZtOLuGlo1F48fw2F5jMpFzA_ju_lgaTJj8b9Irdn5R-A96mc_y7vPIjUVqJPd7om-UIuCVP6VEu-nLZ0fT049Sx-i1J5J0YhNB_Wtwb11lkHhcQSfFjS_3TSEyBG-g92b3VoBDeRsc/s1600-h/A.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVcZtOLuGlo1F48fw2F5jMpFzA_ju_lgaTJj8b9Irdn5R-A96mc_y7vPIjUVqJPd7om-UIuCVP6VEu-nLZ0fT049Sx-i1J5J0YhNB_Wtwb11lkHhcQSfFjS_3TSEyBG-g92b3VoBDeRsc/s400/A.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159568373332323730" /></a><br />The National Gallery finally got a "Donald Judd" for their collection, an <a href="http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/acquisitioninfo.shtm">event</a> that someone at NGA thinks is <a href="http://judgementonjudd.blogspot.com/">newsworthy</a>. The truly newsworthy part is something that NGA will never willingly reveal: <a href="http://you-have-really-got-to-be-kidding.blogspot.com/">how much</a> the object <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/10/arts/auction.php">cost</a>. <br />The problem with Donald Judd is so convoluted that it cannot really be explained in a short essay. Well, it <em>could</em> be explained, but not without putting a reader into deep, near comatose sleep. <br />The problem is that, well, quite obviously, the object in question is not really a work of art. The reason why a plain wooden platform, painted red, sitting in the middle of a room should be mistaken by <em>anyone</em> for art is the thing that would require the thousand word somnabulistic history, and it would conclude with a moral that no normal person needs.<br />However, I'll attempt the brief <em>Cliff Notes</em> version and try to make it as painless as possible.<br />Once upon a time, a long time ago, someone noticed that art changes in big waves: the Middle Ages gives way to the Renaissance, which passes away before the Baroque, and each wave after wave reveals a society transformed. Or at least that's what art historians created in their narratives, a picture of change, organized as the historian understands it. Over time, bookish people, began to suppose that life actually transpired in the clean categories which the historian created to shape his story and at that point the distinction between "history" and "reality" got a little bit fuzzy (for the bookish).<br />They pretend and seem really to believe that "movements" took place where by one premier artist influenced all the artists around him until soon everybody began painting in a brand new way. Sometimes, of course, something like this does actually happen. But all along, while various people are imitating the grand Poobah, a very much larger number of other artists blissfully go on doing whatever they damn well please. And it has been ever thus.<br />But since art historians started writing art history and organizing it into neat little packages, the idea struck their colleagues in the "contemporary" art department that they could not only characterize what was happening in the exciting world of great art, they could make it up themselves -- they could coronate the various artists and pronounce which ones are "important" and "matter" and which ones piss them off and hence don't matter.<br />Fast forward. Somebody somewhere decided that Donald Judd, who designed boxes which were assembled by anonymous others, was the new golden boy. His "style" was minimalism, a "movement" that pushed art <em>to the limits of meaning</em> by making just about <em>nothing</em> into art. First one simplifies and afterwards one stupifies. Poof! "Minimalism" is born.<br />Quite recently, after Mr. Judd's rather convenient death, minimalism has vaulted into the prime place of 21st century movements.<br />What? You haven't heard? Well, if you don't know about this, consider it evidence that you probably have a life. <br />What you wouldn't want to know about this, though, even from the perspective of the delights of having a life, is how much it costs. All the money that the National Gallery wasted on this triangular red box might have been spent on real art.<br />You know what <a href="http://earlyminimalism.blogspot.com/">real art</a> is, don't you? The kind that doesn't need the seven paragraphs of explanation.<br />Still, aren't you glad to know that plexiglass became Judd's "signature" medium? Kind of the way that, for some people, beer is their signature food. One could wish that the Trustees were about three sheets to the wind when they signed off on this one.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-19621806816582692652008-01-23T17:45:00.000-05:002008-01-23T17:54:46.289-05:00Reverie<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHbuAGk4p_QyS-V-IhqgnmEpTqdWYhVAqZ1m9M-jFWLlb7vfOtaerHZvUfRT0COszR6zSab96b5gD8mDELgdye57R5AO1tlIkL4rTDPS3vw5WnhyphenhyphenyVIIQFYEaoZg73dEFBCP9mZeIAjpc/s1600-h/100_6578.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHbuAGk4p_QyS-V-IhqgnmEpTqdWYhVAqZ1m9M-jFWLlb7vfOtaerHZvUfRT0COszR6zSab96b5gD8mDELgdye57R5AO1tlIkL4rTDPS3vw5WnhyphenhyphenyVIIQFYEaoZg73dEFBCP9mZeIAjpc/s400/100_6578.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158808177005833602" /></a><br />I have been in a reverie these past several days, one made richer by drawing. It provokes all these feelings, seeing the beautiful blue and pearl of the Chinese vase, the exquisite character of the lines that curve round its edges. I understand better some aspect of Degas whose pictures often seize upon evocative fragments. You find these fragments <em>through</em> drawing because drawing is simple and intense and uncluttered by problems and distractions of technique. It's more just pure looking, watching with a pencil. I can see how a composite approach to a still life can become essential, though drawing the complex arrangement of things is desirable too.<br />However you can get at something first by just doing the effect of light curling round a single object and its unitary surface. As complex as exploring another planet is seeing these intense and particular effects of vision.<br />Just the space between one edge of the rim and another ought to matter -- in a real still life -- and the space in between them.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-10092193764218096942008-01-23T17:26:00.000-05:002008-02-08T19:09:03.424-05:00My still life<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIN4MKznIqVhdGOBdRZz8GpasPb6ipsZmoRNShp91XxbPUuc4fQY4P7ApDEjBCGs9X7sxPt4zkZGYyYsTxt08Rgrxoos1EKtg8hQGxAqudZ4KbMADNVm021Tu1RCOl3exPUMfocKTl-J8/s1600-h/Dark+Still+life.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIN4MKznIqVhdGOBdRZz8GpasPb6ipsZmoRNShp91XxbPUuc4fQY4P7ApDEjBCGs9X7sxPt4zkZGYyYsTxt08Rgrxoos1EKtg8hQGxAqudZ4KbMADNVm021Tu1RCOl3exPUMfocKTl-J8/s400/Dark+Still+life.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159913856206646722" /></a><br /><br />What does it mean? What do I want?<br />A table to eat at. Quiet, gentler schedules, less worry, fewer people around ranting their rant (thinking here particularly of the political realm). Also marmelade with a lovely picture on the pearlescent jar, good nuitrition, exercise, places to walk later on. Patterns on the table cloth, distortions seen through the glass surfaces, interesting shadows cast by objects, and no one telling me that real art is "edgy" unless they're talking about the edges of the picture, or the table's edges, the one in the picture, that is.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-2993687813878135332008-01-23T17:11:00.001-05:002008-03-10T19:22:26.628-04:00Still Life<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjeseO71yUAajkXqpYQ6KLJZNlFDnMo8HypMuJX2_XPaWvqclVSiRuxzgWj7Ze9mnROk1DmhZdnJxbEabaVnKLEsnXfT10zi5iHaIF4MUQGBjk_lOroCL8nkqE3qrKlqM4vb4aEOW30JM/s1600-h/100_6581.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158801446792080738" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjeseO71yUAajkXqpYQ6KLJZNlFDnMo8HypMuJX2_XPaWvqclVSiRuxzgWj7Ze9mnROk1DmhZdnJxbEabaVnKLEsnXfT10zi5iHaIF4MUQGBjk_lOroCL8nkqE3qrKlqM4vb4aEOW30JM/s400/100_6581.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />My own life has stilled somewhat in a magical way. I have been drawing still life objects, taking them one by one, getting ready to revive an idea that I first began many, many years ago. And it strikes me that still life is a good metaphor for art, is also a form of pure painting, for one chooses and arranges things, solely for their appearances and their meanings. One doesn't necessarily grasp at first what the meanings of the things are -- meaning sneaks in unrecognized, hidden inside appearance. Sometimes after long years one begins to understand why the objects were chosen.<br />Then too the organization of the objects in the still life matters. It also adds much to what the things mean, and this "organization" is similarly encrypted.<br />From these things comes beauties, fragments, spaces between spaces (filled with mysteries), distortions, pure shapes, colors that are like deep, concise thougths. Perchance the painting will seem to capture light and air, will have stilled time, caused a mood to arise, memories to gather -- not the artists' memories only, but those of so many unknown and unknowable others. And if these things succeed the painting will have connected one to oneself and made us feel alive.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-65179044772462805762008-01-23T16:51:00.000-05:002008-01-23T17:10:25.038-05:00Wonderful Drawing Website<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Z9imZ3OnRICsGpONM_jiL8Kcq2opcoCWibn_PAesLQTGyDqwBIydOduScDEIfbIlKh123Q14xOmAHFlsMXiuiWYMhMP4hH82nuNkqfepSnwE8td6_ACdG5YBgJsRcsDvyhsX0EJ9R5g/s1600-h/tins.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Z9imZ3OnRICsGpONM_jiL8Kcq2opcoCWibn_PAesLQTGyDqwBIydOduScDEIfbIlKh123Q14xOmAHFlsMXiuiWYMhMP4hH82nuNkqfepSnwE8td6_ACdG5YBgJsRcsDvyhsX0EJ9R5g/s400/tins.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158796086672895298" /></a><br />I recently discovered a wonderful website on drawing, "<a href="http://www.drawanyway.com/">Draw Anyway</a>." It's author is currently on sabbatical, but there's plenty of old posts to browse through. She offers lots of advice about confidence and finding ideas. And she puts art to all kinds of uses, such as designing a birthday cake.<br />The drawing of tins comes from her site, from <a href="http://www.drawanyway.com/about-drawanywaycom/">this page</a>. <br />The various cans are a little clumsy and askew in an essential way. Imagine how it would look if all the cans were drawn in accurate perspective. I'm quite sure, that all things being equal, it would still be lovely. But these cans as they are have personalities. They are more than just cans. They are more like a company of cans, or a coterie of cans -- conversing.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-83340766580511378582007-12-30T18:36:00.000-05:002008-02-08T19:20:10.019-05:00Advice on Buying Art<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdlPm2-DVkeMVeY5b7pvj50ds8uJlpMoFoPj3hq2tLR1OZVReb036dgtHWtR-0jKsy5ILRh9MXdu9am3jnw5AiBiS569LTAU98p5Xamj-4Jiutd1XeEyrs_ifFizymFTa4Rra_NSST7aE/s1600-h/Iturria.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdlPm2-DVkeMVeY5b7pvj50ds8uJlpMoFoPj3hq2tLR1OZVReb036dgtHWtR-0jKsy5ILRh9MXdu9am3jnw5AiBiS569LTAU98p5Xamj-4Jiutd1XeEyrs_ifFizymFTa4Rra_NSST7aE/s400/Iturria.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5149917150254770930" /></a><br />Alan Bamberger writes an article on <a href="http://www.artspan.com/article_details.php?articleid=112&catid=&atid=880">art collecting</a> that offers a very reasoned and lucid set of questions that prospective collectors should ask themselves when buying art. <a href="http://www.artbusiness.com/index.html">Bamberger</a> is a San Francisco based art consultant whose website offers lots of good counsel and common sense for both artists and collectors.<br /><br />Having said that, I would point out that using Bamberger's advice a collector of the 1890s would have been wise to ignore Vincent Van Gogh, who was an unknown artist, working in an idiosyncratic style, had been largely self-taught and who was recommended by almost no one. And similarly, we would judge based on Bamberger's advice that Damiem Hirst is "it," being the highest paid, living artist in the history of mankind. But Hirst is not it. He is the art version of a junk bond.<br /><br />Bamberger is giving first rate advice in his piece. But the missing element is taste, intelligence, sensibility, having good hunches, having a great eye ... is all tied up with some kind of <em>je ne sais quoi</em> logic that combines various felicitous abilities. Buying really fine quality art involves one in an intellectual quest for which no amount of advice from the status quo can help. It's a little like getting married. Your relatives can all weigh in with their two cents, but it's your heart. <br /> <br />Knowing how to see the kind of powerful visual idea that will be tomorrow's acclaimed masterpiece means being in the right place at the right time (for buying a Van Gogh in 1890 it would have meant being in France and being friendly with Theo Van Gogh) and having a strong inner sense of what constitutes both beauty and meaning.<br /><br />However, this is not a bad outcome. We were meant to wonder about these things and to search for them.<br /><br />Otherwise, I'd say heed Bamberger's advice. Buy things you love. Make certain of their pedigree with as much information as you can get. But if you want to buy truly great art, the kind that is "boldly going where no one has gone before," you have to step outside the comfort zone of the status quo and go with your gut. And your luck!<br /><br />[The painting that illustrates this post is by Ignacio Iturria, contemporary Uraguayan painter.]Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-20122508850113726042007-12-29T20:23:00.000-05:002007-12-29T20:26:50.144-05:00Opportunity<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh02jICWOQ2LkYZ9Z68Vvk6eqC8T5aI-iqsYu9vSGH61oyuxIfPwo5LOb3UWdO2_wskIJoE5JjCHOV7ngXsBFaXGbE1gmmkz50FizendCyuzuo5kFDdZM5yOSV7D5CO-5S63U1CEbbsipk/s1600-h/opportunity.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh02jICWOQ2LkYZ9Z68Vvk6eqC8T5aI-iqsYu9vSGH61oyuxIfPwo5LOb3UWdO2_wskIJoE5JjCHOV7ngXsBFaXGbE1gmmkz50FizendCyuzuo5kFDdZM5yOSV7D5CO-5S63U1CEbbsipk/s320/opportunity.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5149571224998816482" /></a><br /><br />I am a captured moment of time.<br />I stand on a ball constatly turning<br />I have wings on my feet<br />and a razor in my hand.<br />You may grasp me<br />by the lock of hair on my forehead<br />but the back of my head is shaved<br />so that once I take my leave,<br />I cannot be held.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.netnik.com/emblemata/alciatbook/alciat17.html">From this site.</a>Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-6649484246542930062007-12-23T20:13:00.000-05:002007-12-23T20:17:27.046-05:00If you have an idea: Draw it<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijatEqbTjAtZN-V3Suf037bbCVkPZjCRJFFco3v5pR6qiPdfhysgaXjBGMX0Dvlr7hSmoW12eV27xyvDKurF0lLL0obLg0YMJ-mIz6D_gA0Skh-98MvYRYJJeKbjrh1-8adSNeBj5Zba0/s1600-h/notebook+lattice.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijatEqbTjAtZN-V3Suf037bbCVkPZjCRJFFco3v5pR6qiPdfhysgaXjBGMX0Dvlr7hSmoW12eV27xyvDKurF0lLL0obLg0YMJ-mIz6D_gA0Skh-98MvYRYJJeKbjrh1-8adSNeBj5Zba0/s400/notebook+lattice.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147341797669775922" /></a><br /><br />Let your thoughts be visual thoughts. The appearances of things are so marvellous, and meaning will get dragged in whether you wish it or not.<br /><br />So draw!Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-21842467931180949382007-12-23T17:46:00.001-05:002007-12-23T17:52:27.120-05:00How to draw<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJwHwSNo9-GRxdfA-fZ9YPXVi3EG7whvaalH2DEpfXIowP9_2GZyKy_rvl__SU6goCgaXYID13e4Uqjcyhd1NZ4lw7TJA5NqctbxFLxUrFqSP-EeodBdIFWX8qRrGMUzGyxXBTTU06Vk/s1600-h/shell+1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJwHwSNo9-GRxdfA-fZ9YPXVi3EG7whvaalH2DEpfXIowP9_2GZyKy_rvl__SU6goCgaXYID13e4Uqjcyhd1NZ4lw7TJA5NqctbxFLxUrFqSP-EeodBdIFWX8qRrGMUzGyxXBTTU06Vk/s400/shell+1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147304113626720770" /></a><br /><br />Begin with something you like. Take a pencil. Draw the lines that you believe describe this thing in the most direct way you know. Put lines down like you mean them. Draw <em>boldly</em>. This drawing of a shell was made by a child of nine.<br /><br />To draw with directness of this kind makes a great beginning. It connects you to things. Objects will not be just appearances that you name: they will become shapes and forms and gestures.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-34672398836185008432007-12-23T16:19:00.000-05:002008-02-08T19:10:10.366-05:00Drawing<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFooPbQMOKj7VibsZBEgNNRCkBcccJX8cHBg6JAr-MdA2tqouBkwTzebppKBmEKErLHOD1xt2oHGeEaZhR-t81eUiibFrLf0RqCNK8PFjEzWqD5KD51AwhStoOqi_7NwRarvOgJhZHKzc/s1600-h/HorsesNotebook.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFooPbQMOKj7VibsZBEgNNRCkBcccJX8cHBg6JAr-MdA2tqouBkwTzebppKBmEKErLHOD1xt2oHGeEaZhR-t81eUiibFrLf0RqCNK8PFjEzWqD5KD51AwhStoOqi_7NwRarvOgJhZHKzc/s400/HorsesNotebook.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147288132053412322" /></a><br /><br /><br />For a long time I remembered a passage I'd read somewhere about Degas, that his was the art of the "ensemble." A group of dancers, a group of horses, the audience of a concert, or the loitering people at the ballet rehearsal, all these collections of things have the sense of being united in very natural and unself-conscious ways. Ever since reading that -- and of course noting it in Degas's pictures -- I have had some curiosity about how to capture a similar sense of things in my paintings. <br /><br />This drawing of horses is made from my daughter's toys. I arranged them to overlap, to seem as though they were moving in a line together, perhaps out of a corral. Drawing them, one thinks about real horses and wants them to seem life-like. Yet, I also think about them as toys. They have many happy associations as my daughter's toys, all the loveliness of watching her learn and grow. <br /><br />The green that surrounds the horses is added without reference to anything. It's amazing how just the addition of the color creates the beginnings of landscape and weather and temperature.<br /><br />The spiral coil of the notebook, the fact that the drawing spilled over into the facing page, prevents this drawing from being framed for sale. But artists of course have drawings that are made strictly for personal reasons, and they should always make many such drawings. Some of the best drawings in history were privately made for the appreciative audience of one.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-51212229472287736512007-12-22T17:25:00.000-05:002007-12-23T17:01:28.190-05:00The art of writing about art<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwWSqRn2giREmHpkaDIFcJJswyT4vjrSvoFUS6iphgEhGqr013nDKTH0T69r02jZeR9L6pI__yCNV6vlfHGJd3AkZhXQGQylNz6ImSAti5ZilCaLb20MaAeoJ7i870aF3_yIF-JSDiMmQ/s1600-h/KoiSwimmingDrawing.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwWSqRn2giREmHpkaDIFcJJswyT4vjrSvoFUS6iphgEhGqr013nDKTH0T69r02jZeR9L6pI__yCNV6vlfHGJd3AkZhXQGQylNz6ImSAti5ZilCaLb20MaAeoJ7i870aF3_yIF-JSDiMmQ/s320/KoiSwimmingDrawing.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5146937542462974402" /></a><br />I have been practicing writing about my paintings. Some people are visually sensitive by nature. Others need a little help understanding visual things. So, writing about the paintings is meant to help the less visual person acquire a more nuanced understanding of the purely visual aspect of a painting. The difficulty that some people have with paintings arises from a certain reluctance to give themselves over to the pure enjoyment of a visual spectacle. As a species, we tend to trust words over and above images.<br /><br />Any number of things are beautiful. (I will leave it a tacit argument for the present that most great art is in some manner fundamentally beautiful, whatever else it might be.) Almost anybody will tell you that a sunset is beautiful, though how many people will go out of their way to observe the sunset? How many people would schedule their hours so that they could be outdoors when sunset occurs? Or finding themselves in front of a beautiful sunset, how many people will stand and gaze at the changing colors, the effects of light and dark that tinges the entire landscape? How many will watch the light until it departs and revell in the glory of the spectacle? And a sunset is after all reality.<br /><br />A painting is a simulacrum. Oddly people will sometimes spend more time gazing at and studying a painting than they would spend studying the reality. (This, of course, is not something that an artist complains about.) When people study paintings in that scrutinizing way, they are sometimes trying to figure out how it is done -- how it is possible that the image looks so "real"? This response equates painting almost with magic. (Again, the artist profits by such interest so we won't complain.)<br /><br />But the element of the painting that most deserves our continued attention is not the mechanics of it, but its beauty -- the grace, the rightness of colors, the fineness of effects, the harmony of the whole. All these things will bring along with them meanings, thoughts, memories, insights, feelings. All these things are fine qualities to linger over also.<br /><br />A really great painting helps reveals parts of ourselves to us. It enlarges our world. <br /><br />It's things like this that I try to write about with regard to my own painting. I do so in part to help the audience see the picture better. But I also do it to help me see my own picture better. Sometimes I learn things that help me continue deeper into the picture. It's then that writing becomes a form of visual invention.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-28229725231833060192007-12-21T17:23:00.001-05:002007-12-23T16:59:51.648-05:00Thinking about the Imagination<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDtWQMVdRPFP-_XAapWP8jXK2DbEGXIDIk9DDbmIDN5_Ti3I7CNzjQ8zQ-Dt0Z8csCoR__W28uzBnMkmKyJyxeZfggh8ajkCbLe_7DDQwH3fxkxX9DbpnG3W-MFTR6urYZFp7kW6QjQs/s1600-h/Kuschan_2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDtWQMVdRPFP-_XAapWP8jXK2DbEGXIDIk9DDbmIDN5_Ti3I7CNzjQ8zQ-Dt0Z8csCoR__W28uzBnMkmKyJyxeZfggh8ajkCbLe_7DDQwH3fxkxX9DbpnG3W-MFTR6urYZFp7kW6QjQs/s320/Kuschan_2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5146559928938310066" /></a><br />I recently found an enthusiastic buyer for an image that has found many admirers. It has reminded me that when you make images that relate to life, people will be attracted to them. The crazy art world appeals to ideas that people have about what art is "supposed" to be, but art that explores life (in contrast) takes its meaning from several places, all of which are authentic. <br /><br />First it takes some of its meaning from life. If you observe the world, you discover the meanings that inhere in real things. So a still life of food has the meanings that food has -- nurture, pleasure, providence, sensuality (it depends upon the character of the image, does it not, what kind of feeling-tone will affix itself to the image). The second place where meaning enters is in the visual character of the thing, whether it is light or dark, richly colored or muted, crisply delineated or adumbrated, large or small, busy or simple, and so on. All the myriad qualities that can characterize something each bring forth different sensibilities. And the third place where meaning enters is from the spectator's personal associations with the image, the ways that it connects to an individual life -- perhaps quite arbitrarily -- whether it is the artist's life or somebody else's.<br /><br />Art that does connect in this way really begins to have a life of its own. If in addition to all these things, the image is crafted with mastery -- well, maybe it becomes a great work of art. <br /><br />We're recently experiencing a crisis in the real estate industry that has begun to spill over into related businesses. It's causing some uncertainly in the markets. I suppose that means that real art is a particularly good investment now. Of course, great art is always a good investment. People have trouble trying to sort out what "great art" is. (Hint: it's not the stuff you see in the trendy museums, the stuff you stand in front of, scratching your head wondering what it is). <br /><br />If an image draws you in, if it is somehow incredibly beautiful, if it has meaning that deepens the more you think about it, if it is skillful and not ordinary, and yet can speak to ordinary life -- the chances are quite good that it's "the real deal," real art, maybe great art.<br /><br />I'm certainly trying to make my pictures ones that collectors will profit by owning. When my work appreciates in value, it will benefit the collector and me together. But the first profit I wish to see from it is an increase in its meaningfulness. <br /><br />Art ought to really matter. Real art does really matter. And that's what makes it real.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-10548016214927942282007-09-07T19:05:00.001-04:002008-03-10T19:35:55.378-04:00Curator Incubators<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga0w3FVx20HYTBZa3wt_wj365hEJdeLh77vrHnqkb2FAhbyQ9ODBWog9D7BY4RZn_WCjGQp2KW79DZriOh1ARJYZQfIGJqfDXCfJxPbQAfJwJsSz70_gfNvg37o-FNOCyi490AT4oFwE0/s1600-h/incubator2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5107613790473431154" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga0w3FVx20HYTBZa3wt_wj365hEJdeLh77vrHnqkb2FAhbyQ9ODBWog9D7BY4RZn_WCjGQp2KW79DZriOh1ARJYZQfIGJqfDXCfJxPbQAfJwJsSz70_gfNvg37o-FNOCyi490AT4oFwE0/s320/incubator2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOrp2MCwowToKXeY0TGd7-zIS9taCYcNwSHbXdEKKwlInSLHI7egQ2rFAfp21aWsx1J-wG1HMrTgt41uhFJjpvbqYMWVlDSGTGqHCxJjXIelkAf6zd6EsaiCYzFoCJONdgNU2f-90GxR8/s1600-h/incubator.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5107613309437093986" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOrp2MCwowToKXeY0TGd7-zIS9taCYcNwSHbXdEKKwlInSLHI7egQ2rFAfp21aWsx1J-wG1HMrTgt41uhFJjpvbqYMWVlDSGTGqHCxJjXIelkAf6zd6EsaiCYzFoCJONdgNU2f-90GxR8/s200/incubator.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>They are the latest fad. The appearance of these platforms to teach <em>emerging</em> curators "how to" mount an exhibit ought to draw more attention than they do. It's a natural enough development flowing out of the whole "installation" rage. And it's a sad and revealing trend that these curator gigs spring up without commentary, that most artists don't appear to find anything troubling about them, for they are the latest in a long series of steps leading to diminishing stature for the artist.<br /><br />Most of us "grew up" with the stereotype of Picasso as "the artist." Picasso represented what a real artist is supposed to be -- a free spirit, someone who lives by his own set of rules, an Ur-creator who will steadfastly do as he sees fit and brave poverty before surrendering one iota of command over his own vision. And, as far as it goes, much of that stereotype <em>was</em> true for Picasso. He did brave much for the sake of what he wanted to do, and he successfully persuaded the world to accept his strikingly bizarre images and became unimaginably wealthy in doing so as well.<br /><br />The flaw in the stereotype was in supposing that it was <em>defining</em>. While it might have suited Picasso's life, Picasso's art, it is not a model that necessarily flows over into anybody else's authenticity. Nevertheless, the Picasso idea of a great master was one that rightly put the <em>horse before the cart</em>, rather than the other way around. That ideal of the artist recognized that it is the artist who creates things out of the exigencies of his or her own life. And it is the art world that discovers and learns to understand these products.<br /><br />Unfortunately once "anything" became art, the artist's role declined in what should have been a thoroughly predictable way! The Dadaist gesture of a urinal in a museum might have seemed liberating to some desperately gauche persons decades ago, but it definitely did nothing for those who were searching in art for something high, something difficult, something inspiring or beautiful or meaningful or deep or natural or wonderful or self-revealing.<br /><br />Well, all that is ancient history now. That all kinds of easy and bizarre objects are heralded with the "art" label is nothing new. To suggest that things should be otherwise is to risk getting hammered with the dreaded "T" word -- or the "C" word (<em>traditional</em>, <em>conservative</em>). These labels are blinders that make the avoidance of thought an easy task. Certainly to really spend time looking at images and trying to engage their meanings can be a bit more diligent work than some people can bare. What, for instance, would be the harm in appreciating a painting that really was traditional? What would be the harm in discovering meaning in a place where lots of people have even stopped looking for it?<br /><br />To flaunt the whole, facile dichotomy of modern/traditional is something that goes beyond the accepted notion of art appreciation. We are supposed to engage with objects that challenge us -- and it's better if the challenge is out-there obvious. It should come clothed in socially accepted standards of "edginess." But real art that breathes like real life is always going to come from somewhere else. It won't be the Hip Kids who find it. It will linger in some quiet corner of life -- somewhere like the small French towns where Van Gogh worked in obscurity.<br /><br />And the truth is today, pretty much as it always has been (here tradition gets it right), that the best and most serious art takes time to know and understand. It is intellectually challenging. It might seem "traditional" upon first examination and really be very daring -- but its daring will all have been of a very deep kind that easily slips by the crowd. It might seem like the ultimate in contemporary -- but it's authentic inner meaning will elude the notice of the Culture Vultures.<br /><br />Anything is art (I have over-shot my topic a little) and consequently the artist is much less significant. If it's trends and edginess that count, well these things are in constant flux. The artists engaged in making these things must be constantly looking over their shoulders to assure themselves that they're still doing the hip thing. And then these "important" artists will come and go.<br /><br />It certainly opens up a place for the Curator to shape and direct what art <em>IS</em> now. And that's exactly what has happened. We'll still need these monkeys wielding paint brushes, but the Theme will be directed from someone with nice credentials.<br /><br />We still have a Salon. And most artists are not fighting it, rather they vie to get in. "Pick me!" is the cry. The more they reinvent themselves in the latest fad, the more irrelevant they become.<br /><br />And no one seems even to have noticed. Or to care.</div></div>Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-67385522358031817692007-09-02T19:53:00.000-04:002007-09-02T19:54:08.331-04:00New Whateverism in ArtClick <a href="http://www.marshillaudio.org/resources/article.asp?id=148">here</a>.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-71716088561258092772007-08-24T14:24:00.000-04:002007-12-30T19:35:34.861-05:00Official-dom<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHEm-z3i2ZFpUBzIgpHWdC4V4sLcwS6KmirvWK2Uqds8vB04TlIa61UTrQ9DX1oOaB1pM-nATRd9OzO3oalPjiOoP2BqJNcDZxV3s0BPfOoliDAGDstrV9IjE28iMTNo7Oe1PlF8v23ds/s1600-h/SpanishGuitarPlayer.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147292873697307122" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHEm-z3i2ZFpUBzIgpHWdC4V4sLcwS6KmirvWK2Uqds8vB04TlIa61UTrQ9DX1oOaB1pM-nATRd9OzO3oalPjiOoP2BqJNcDZxV3s0BPfOoliDAGDstrV9IjE28iMTNo7Oe1PlF8v23ds/s400/SpanishGuitarPlayer.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Officialdom verses how an artist really lives? Our whole edifice of contemporary art, all the rationalization that keeps the modern museums humming, the outlandish prices, the culture of hipness, the elitism, the mystique, all these things are founded upon a mistaken notion concerning 19th century French art.<br /><br />As the myth goes, all the really important artists of the late 19th century (Monet, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, et al) were misunderstood and unappreciated because they were ahead of their times. The official art of the era belonged to the Salon with its academic entrenched habits of thought and sight. And so far as that goes, it has its kernel of truth. From this premise arose the idea of the artist as the bĂȘte noire, and Picasso in the 20th century was to have epitomized the type: the artist genius who lives by his own rules. Fast forward a bit, through various mutations, and one arrives at the present dogma of the church of high art where it has become the stock notion that if art is "accessible" it cannot be very important. Hence, the viewer must be scratching his head wondering what the object <em>is</em> if it is to be genuine, "edgy," avant garde, etc.<br /><br />The only problem with this notion is that it's wrong. Otherwise, it's grand. It just happens that the audience for the French Impressionists (as the first group of "bĂȘte noires" were called) was probably there all along. The paintings they made are ravishingly beautiful and full of touchstones to the art of predecesors. But the Salon had a political lock on the art market of the 19th century (though that was beginning to change even then as private dealers gained prominence).<br /><br />The problem is that the intelligent, ordinary person whose experience of life and whose taste was being sought in these very humane pictures was not an audience that was easily captured. There was enormous variety in the kinds of art being produced, but there was only one official and lucrative outlet for making a career. And the niche market had not arrived in its full splendor, and the means of communicating to potential audiences was limited also.<br /><br />But look at who loves French Impressionism now, and you get a glimpse of the natural audience for art. Just as ordinary people love the tenderness, the loveliness, the elegance of French painting, today's real life-affirming art appeals directly to people. Such an appeal has nothing to do with fashion. Indeed, art that deals in the real sensations of living goes contrary to the foppishness that characerizes elites today and in eras past. Real art appeals to the senses, to beauty, to memory, to intelligence, to curiosity -- all things that a person of sensibility possesses and uses to make judgments.<br /><br />In Byzantium, during the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, in China and elsewhere, art has appealed to intellect, to the senses, to the sense of divinity, to the narrative of mythologies or the Bible or other cosmologies. All these sources address a deep, living awareness in us. Real art always makes appeal to life. And ordinary people are more in touch with life than are people who move through their days as poseurs. Why should it be otherwise now?<br /><br />Still, dogmas die hard. And money talks. And money and morality do not always go hand in hand. For the entirety of the 20th century the "isms" have had the day. Of course real artists made real art (one need only consider Matisse, Bonnard, and yes even Picasso, Edward Hopper, Richard Diebenkorn, Andrew Wyeth, numerous others).<br /><br />A real artist living today has to be true to oneself. You have to make the things that your own life presses you to make and not cave into meaningless and ephermal trends. The <em>Spanish Guitar Player</em> at the top of the page was a drawing after a ceramic figure that I bought impulsively for my daughter when she was very little. It never became hers, it's always been mine. But somehow a certain magicalness of a ceramic guitar player with a few nicks here and there (I found it in a thrift store) enchanted me as something to transform in drawing. It was something I wanted my daughter to see. I don't know why. Just to see how someone made a ceramic image of a romantic idea, which I later turned into a different idea through drawing.<br /><br />She is a real woman in the drawing, not a statue. And she is also lines, a figure composed of lines.Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7432534420769598891.post-60160128403918320182007-08-22T17:55:00.001-04:002007-08-22T18:24:23.976-04:00Nostalgia<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEBHQKP7naqRKUCJjpVfA0qOKdfUJCBVOumx33o3J83SVjWmOqZaZCsM0bcZQRP7gThyphenhyphenuOHYqXBfzYeQqaLUKEWr_0k_Irama2cmIPrvzVCawkssFDSR4eKEZS4Ip7kBMoWBecSYucLR0/s1600-h/100_5548.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101647651402557490" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEBHQKP7naqRKUCJjpVfA0qOKdfUJCBVOumx33o3J83SVjWmOqZaZCsM0bcZQRP7gThyphenhyphenuOHYqXBfzYeQqaLUKEWr_0k_Irama2cmIPrvzVCawkssFDSR4eKEZS4Ip7kBMoWBecSYucLR0/s400/100_5548.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>The Art Writer has been doing something that I hope everyone takes time to do once in a while: rereading old letters. Of course it goes without saying that to reread them, you probably had to write some -- to which these that you reread are replies.</div><br /><p>When the Art Writer was young and first struggling with learning to paint, these letters exchanged with a friend were a source of shared feeling of camaraderie and purpose. I never realized when these letters were new how much they lifted my spirits. I enjoyed them immensely then. But reading them now has an effect that is really hard to describe. The correspondent, and I have lost touch over the years. But the topics of the letters takes on renewed meaning.</p><p>Over time, you can begin to question the worth of what you do. Artists really struggle with this worry when they are earnest and idealistic -- as we were. Over the years -- even though you have various triumphs (I've come a long way with my painting from where I began) -- it's still tough not to doubt, especially when the current of the "art world" rushes past in a different direction. </p><p>Reading these old letters from my friend reminds me of the ways we held ourselves to high standards -- to how we were quite firm in our decision to do painting the way we wanted -- as realists (of a sort) when realism wasn't at all trendy. (Goodness, it's so less trendy now!) </p><p>I admire our spirits of determination back then. We were so young. But we had guts. We did so much work from life. We wanted to have the immediacy of the subject before us. We looked at things really deeply. We wanted to understand nature and life.</p><p>I am also struck by our qualms. My friend particularly asked again and again: is this the right way to be an artist? Gosh, I wish we got some of the well deserved credit for earnestness that truly characterized our seriousness of purpose. </p><p>How many others ask themselves in spells of recurrent soul-searching -- does what I do matter? Do congressmen in their endless finger pointing ask this? Do all those companies that put you on hold when you call them ask this? Do bureaucrats who put you through endless mazes ever ask themselves? Artists, real artists, don't get near enough credit for their very laudable sense of purpose and their high standards.</p><p>Does what I do matter? </p><p>And so often, in the cases where the answer is resolutely "yes" -- yes, what you did really did matter -- in those cases, so often the answer doesn't even come until decades, perhaps even centuries later!</p><p>That's dedication!</p><p></p>Art Writinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972316268738956469noreply@blogger.com0