ArtId Art Blog
| Subscribe ArtID Blog Posts |
The moment at the beginning of the 20th century when artists made the lead to pure non-representational art is a fascinating one. It is the culmination of a number of trends over the previous 100-200 years, each interesting in itself, and together creating a uniquely self-aware moment in art.
First, I would like to register my complaint about the term "abstract", which has come to be applied indiscriminately to non-representational art. The term describes very well the process which led up to the leap, but is misleading when applied to "pure abstraction". Abstraction implies a process of generalizing and simplifying from the specific; it presumes a reality from which essentials are being drawn
… Continue reading… 0 comments
After many weeks of reading, asking questions, curing quills, scorching quills, cutting, mangling and muttering, I finally got a quill to write. Two of them actually. The aluminum can strip reservoir is a pain as far as I'm concerned. I can't get the thing to sit straight or touch the back of the quill properly so I resorted to holding it in place with masking tape. It worked. I did the entire piece (except the painting of the stones) pictured with a quill and gouache on a very poor choice of laid charcoal paper. Put that on the list of things not to do again. The color was perfect but the surface was frustrating. I need to rework it, I think the stones look like potatoes
… Continue reading… 3 comments
A couple of weeks ago I was driving up Interstate 89 in Vermont, keeping an eye as usual on the rockfaces which border the highway. Highway cuts expose the inner skeleton of the living rock, almost like cracking open a geode. What struck me is that not all exposed rock is interesting, and of the interesting rock, not all of it "works". Rocks, and any element in nature, may compose, or it may not.
Many things can contribute to this natural composition: color, texture, the conformity of lines, all things which are available to the artist as well. But what I particularly noticed was that a rockface worked when it had large forms, and did not when there were none
… Continue reading… 4 comments
Inevitably when the weekend draws nears, my plans to create move into high gear, and by Friday about 3pm, I am making grandiose lists of what I will accomplish: priming canvases, painting several works, scanning dried works, uploading .jpgs to my website and blog, creating backup CDs, preparing letters of inquiry to galleries, organizing and sorting through older works . . . and the list goes on.
I'm ready. I have waited for the weekend all week. I lock up the office and am on my way home to a weekend filled with CREATIVITY (note the big letters). Argghhh -- get out of my way -- here I come, Artworld!
Halfway into my commute (about a 45-minute drive), I begin to relax and anticipate that first sip of chilled wine on the deck
… Continue reading… 2 comments
I know this sounds like somewhat of a cliche, but staying true to yourself as far as your artwork is concerned is good for the soul and your work.
I know I'm not the only artist in the world to be downright annoyed at some of the aweful work that gets the nod at big-money events. I'm not just talking about the winning paintings, but stuff that gets into final 100 or so.
Recently, entries closed for this year's Waterhouse Prize in South Australia. A very big art event that is held every year at the museum. Every year amazing works are seen at this exhibition, but there is always the shocker. The work that no one can understand the reasons why it made the cut. Last year was no exception! Have a look at the link here http://www.thewaterhouse.com.au/page/default
… Continue reading… 8 comments
I was informed a few months ago by a colleague at the local university that there was a chance I could be supervising a student teacher this coming fall. Initially I was very intimidated by this prospect as it would be my first occasion hosting a student teacher and I was uncertain if I was ready for the responsibility. I’ve always strived to be very personally reflective of my teaching style and have functioned under a credo of never teaching a class the same way twice. I challenge myself to try and constantly be tinkering, tweaking, and adjusting my instructional processes and aesthetic motivations. Being one of five art teachers in a single school has undoubtedly made these efforts much easier by providing a wealth of influences and inspirations
… Continue reading… 2 comments
Inky Fingers
No matter how fastidious you are, we all get ink and gouache and paint on our hands sometimes. I try to keep my work area immaculate especially when working on a final piece, one little over-dip, one fumble and you're done. I have had many a struggle with an ink bottle cap and lost. Fountain pens and their maintenance are the worst offenders. I should just accept that ink is going to get all over the place and put on an apron and some laytex gloves before tackling a fountain pen.
… Continue reading… 4 comments
A well worded statement can be the perfect opening for your biography. Your personality will generally lead you into the construction of this brief paragraph. Many artists who have a talent to be nimble with words may decide on revealing something of their nature by playing with the media in which they work. I think one of my favorite examples is the statement by the gifted paper artist, Mary Lawler:
“The nature of my work varies from time to time, but it almost always involves paper. I love paper, I write on paper, I collect paper, I hoard paper in drawers. I open a drawer, stroke the paper admiringly, then close the drawer. It's hard to put that first cut into a new sheet.”
Independent Coffee Network News
The Good News:
Seven more coffee shops have been added to the network feed. The coffee shops are located in Pasadena, Burbank, Alhambra, Monterey Park, Redondo Beach, San Dimas, Hollywood and Ventura (2) and the network is growing rapidly. ICN has also struck a deal with Aardvark Records, check it out:
“Aardvark Records and World Wide Arts’ Independent Coffee Network have announced a licensing deal. which sees the British record label supplying the US-based music video entertainment provider with its promotional music videos. The video licensing deal will see popular videos broadcast in independent American coffee houses from coast to coast.”
Centuries ago a scholar, probably suffering from his own creative block, realized the benefits of walking for problem-solving and penned "Solvitur ambulando" -- It is solved by walking.
We all hit a brick wall sooner or later: what to paint, why bother, does anyone care whether I create or not? We feel no inspiration, just desperation. The well has dried up or perhaps the frustration arises from not being able to overcome a technical problem. The list goes on and on.
Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Move away from the easel. Put the pencils and brushes down, leave your studio or kitchen table or wherever it is you create.
Sometimes simply by moving, by putting one foot in front of another, the blockage to our creative efforts begins to shift
… Continue reading… 5 comments
After my recent post on landscape painting of the Romantic period, I want to do a more general piece on the appeal of landscape. I believe this appeal is grounded in the appeal to our age of scenes in nature, and that painted landscapes depend in large part on capturing this appeal. This appeal has many sources, but for me, two of them stand out: empathy and nostalgia.
Even without these two elements, which we bring to nature from within ourselves, landscape would have plenty going for it. It is infinite in variety of texture, form and color, infinite in its possibilities for order, composition and movement. But these possibilities have always been there, and can't explain the immense appeal of landscape in the modern era
… Continue reading… 6 comments
It feels good to laugh but laughter is contagious and addictive. Humor should be treated like a controlled substance. After all, it is the leading cause of laughter - real laughter. I'm talking about spontaneous, involuntary spasms of genuine mirth. Artificially induced chortling needn't apply.
Laughter is caused by the sudden and favorable resolution of an anxiety. Humor is art's ugly sister whom we exhort instead of exalt, but some art - like Yue Minjun's toothy self-portraits or even ancient hieroglyphics of people with cat or bird heads - can make me laugh. Music is more apt to make me cry.
Laughter is an effect, not a cause. It is a reaction to, and a symptom of humor. We yawn, we sneeze, we laugh. Laughing is a physical paroxysm that is good for the heart due to stress relief
… Continue reading… 2 comments
Over the course of the 18th century there was a remarkable change in attitudes toward nature, discoverable in all the arts, especially literature, painting and landscape architecture. It culminated in the Romantic landscape tradition in Europe and America in the 19th century, the golden age of landscape painting. It marked a major change in the relationship of man to nature.
Romantic landscape covers the gamut between the Pastoral - inhabited landscape: comfortable and relatively tame, with shepherds and peasants - and the Sublime - wild nature: vast and powerful, inspiring terror and awe. The Pastoral was not a sea change in attitude
… Continue reading… 5 comments
Photographing Your Artwork and Resizing Images
It’s a challenge to give artists step-by-step instructions for photographing, downloading and sizing their artwork, because everyone is working with different combinations of Mac, PC, Camera model, mega pixels and photo editing software.
… Continue reading… 5 comments
Back in the 80s, artist Richard Prince took a picture of a picture of the Marlboro Man and sold it as art. The original photo by Jim Krantz was part of an ad campaign to sell cigarettes. Talk about "branding!" What Prince did was liberate a cultural icon, the cowboy, from the sales force. His re-image is sort of a parody - humor so sophisticated that it's not even funny. The dialog between those two seemingly identical images is not about craft, but meaning.
Did Prince's copy lessen the value of the original photo? No, I'd say Krantz's stock went up on the notoriety of his cowboy and its doppelganger. Similarly, Shepard Fairey's "Obama" portrait, appropriated from an API photo, now hangs in the National Gallery with compliments from photographer Mannie Garcia
… Continue reading… 3 comments
Since my post a few months ago about the Portrait Attitude, I have felt there was more to say about my interest in portraiture. I began as a portrait artist, well before I developed my interest in landscape, and it still holds a special place for me. While I am always interested in commissions, and am happy to work from photographs on commission, my major interest is in asking Great Heads to sit for me, wherever I find them. It can even overcome my shyness and cause me to accost a stranger!
For me, though there are many things that can attract me to a head, great heads primarily means good bones. The head that will make me itch to paint it has visible structure, dramatic changes of plane: a strong jaw, pronouced cheekbones, sculpted eye sockets
… Continue reading… 4 comments
The rich interaction between painting and theater is something I have touched on in an earlier post on David and the French Revolution, and I will end by looking into that extraordinary moment of symbiosis at the end of this post. However, another moment of rich interaction occurred in the Italian Renaissance, and it is difficult to claim that either art form was taking the lead.
The lead image, Botticelli's "Story of Lucretia", may be a surprise to those who know his "Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". However, this is one of many works in which he essentially paints an elaborate stage setting and fills it with dramatic action. There is little question that the elaborate architectural frame with its described deep space reflects the stage design of the time
… Continue reading… 3 comments
I thought everyone should get a little good news. Sandy DiCristofaro received a commission last week from someone who saw her work on her ArtId site. A few days later, I got a calligraphy job from someone who found my ArtId site in a Google search for calligraphers.
Leaving links, blogging, and social media really does pay off
Some aspects of teaching kids art are quite obvious and straight-forward: the correct way to hold a linoleum cutter; using gel medium when painting a thick impasto; or mixing a hue with its complement to dull the color slightly. These are the kind of facts and techniques students must acquire to ensure proficiency within a given media. This kind of information is essentially the first order of knowledge in the hierarchy of aesthetic understanding, and it answers the artistic query of how to create. (How do I sculpt this form? How do I draw a face? How do I clean a brush?) Typically, the necessary skills are demonstrated by the teacher and then replicated first hand by the students
… Continue reading… 2 comments
Painting in front of others is a problem for most of us, particularly early on in our painting life. I just know as you read this you have a story to tell on this point!
Some cannot even paint in front of family members let alone strangers, but there are benefits in being able to do so.
I remember the first time I was determined to do it during a craft sale at a low-key country show. I had my easel all ready to go and paints were packed in anticipation, but when the time came I just coudn't do it! The spell was broken a few years later when I had my own little stall at on outdoor art day in a city square. It was a quiet affair but there was hardly a minute when someone wasnt watching me work - it completely cured me of being afraid to paint to an audience, as casual as it was
… Continue reading… 2 comments