This weekend I will be participating in the Dumbo Arts Center’s Pop-up Sale. The opening is Friday night 2/26/2010 from 6-9PM, and the sale continues Saturday, 2/27 from 12-8PM and Sunday 2/28 from 12-6PM. DAC is located at 30 Washington Street, Brooklyn, NY. go here for DAC’s contact info and directions to the gallery.
Not only does this look like a lot of fun, it is a relief to see a arts fundraiser being done the right way. As a painter whose work sells pretty well, I get asked to do a fair amount of fundraisers. If you don’t know, the usual set-up is to ask the artists to donate work outright to the charity, which then auctions or otherwise disposes of the work to raise money. What is funny is that a lot of arts organizations think that this is a good way to do things, taking handouts from the artists they are ostensibly there to help. In reality, the vast majority of artists need the help more than these organizations. What’s worse, tax law has generally not allowed the artist to claim any more than the cost of goods as a deduction for their donation. So a painting selling for thousands can only be deducted for the hundreds that were spent on the actual materials involved. The artist gets nothing for their labor!
Enough ranting. DAC is setting a good example by splitting proceeds with the artists for this event. Come check out the show. If anything catches your eye and you decide to take it home with you, 50% of the sale will go directly to the artist. Not only will you be supporting a great arts organization, you will be supporting the artist that made the art. Which really could be the start of something good.
I’ll have three pieces in the show, a painting and two drawings. Here’s the painting, a sweet little nocturne started during my residency at the Saltonstall Foundation and finished several years later:
"Ithaca," 2007, oil and gold leaf on panel, 9.75"x19.75"
It is always neat to see a painting hanging in a new context. Fresh eyes and feedback are precious, especially after hours of painting in solitude. It’s extra special to see paintings hung by someone who is gifted at presentation and display.
Fellow artist and long time friend, David Beahm has definitely got those gifts. David is a talented floral designer and a sought-after event planner here in New York. Lately he has been busy creating a line of bouquets for flora2000.com.
David thought it might be nice to hang a few paintings at the party he was having to introduce the new bouquets. That sounded like an interesting context for paintings– certainly fun, anyway. But wow! Red roses looked amazing in front of the new canvas “Ishmael,” with its own touches of red and flashes of palladium. And Blue Magic Vanda Orchids were not something I knew about before, but they have a color that I really wish I could include in a painting. I’m happy to say that having a few of them sitting near a painting like “Specter,” with all that active blue, is maybe even better.
If you are an artist and are still wondering what Facebook might be for, the answer doesn’t get any clearer than this: Jerry Saltz edits artist statements on Facebook. You will need a Facebook account to read the thread.
Mr. Saltz is a professional critic– he knows how to use words to set a fire. But still, his experiment with Facebook is provocative, and maybe even virtuosic. Under his guidance, critical discourse and a critical mass of interested participants are pushing Facebook up against its own technical limits. When Saltz invited artists to post statements about their work in the comments for some interactive editing, over one thousand comments resulted, which had to be spread out over seven threads to prevent automatic “deletions”! The result is a new media epic and admittedly quite a bit to wade through. But if you have ever had to write or edit one of these statements, it is a priceless read.
Saltz coaches the writer to treat the statement as a question of life or death, referring frequently to the riddle of the Sphinx. Here’s a little bit of his coaching style, in all caps:
NOW, [writer's name] DEAR, STAND BEFORE THE SPHINX; A STORM MORE HORRIBLE THAN THE WORST FEARS OF THE WORST DARK NIGHT OF THE WORST SOUL WILL COME OVER YOU; IN WAVES IT WILL WASH OVER YOU. TELL US WHAT THE SPHINX ASKED YOU. NO HURRY. IF YOU DO NOT RETURN IN 40 YEARS WE WILL SEND LAWYERS, GUNS, AND MONEY.
REMEMBER, WE WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU.
I ONLY NEED FOUR HONEST SENTENCES ABOUT YOUR WORK. FOUR.
The quote comes from the December 25th, 3:59 PM comment on the thread titled Repost II: An experiment. An amazing Christmas gift!
The studio will be open to visitors during this year’s 13th edition of the D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival on Saturday, September 25 and Sunday, September 26, 2009 from 1- 6 PM each day.
The Dumbo Festival website has a complete list of the 80+ participating studios, as well as links that will get you started exploring what the Dumbo Arts Center calls “a one-of-a-kind art happening” and “the nation’s largest urban forum for experimental art.” You can also browse the festival’s media partner, Art + Culture, to take a peek at some of what is planned this year.
The studio is at 89 Bridge Street, between York and Front Streets, and just one block from the York Street Subway on the F line. Come up the stairs, head left, back the hall, and say hello! While you are here, visit some of the other artists in the building who are participating. DAC lists six, though there will likely be a few last minute additions.
"Darius," 2009, raw pigment, pastel, and gold leaf on handmade paper, 7"x9"
There is something resonant about a grand landscape space presented on a tiny sheet of paper. It’s not just the magic trick of making something small read big– though that is fun. As Jake Berthot once pointed out to me– small scale implies distance, so a small scale painting of a distant landscape benefits from a multiplier effect. Turner and Constable both knew this well. One well placed pencil line tracing across the paper can set the mind to wander through a distant dream. And though I’m not either of those painters, I’d sure like to have just a little bit of the booming distance they so effectively contained on scraps of paper.
This drawing is part of this year’s Dieu Donné benefit exhibit. There will be an opening reception September 17th (tonight!) from 6-8PM at 315 West 38th Street, New York, NY. Details about the show and benefit can be found on the Dieu Donné website.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. – Samuel Beckett
It’s a nice quote from Beckett, and a fantastic online literary journal. The current front page at Failbetter.com includes poetry by Rachel Springer, a story by Alix Ohlin, an interview with Robert Fanning, and, I am very happy to say, a gallery of my own recent work. It’s great seeing visual work paired with literary art; there is a rich space that occurs between genres that makes the imagination hum. Take a look, won’t you?
Admittedly, there is some irony when a painter who was “raised without television” has something to say about Bob Ross. But the television painting programs that I did see as a child certainly made an impression. I know I saw Bob Ross programs a few times, and there was also something shown in elementary school called “Draw Man.” (I think that was what it was called — anybody remember that?) And then there was William Alexander. He was fascinating-- that accent!
Fast forward to the current business of making very tactile paintings that probably get seen more often online than any other way. Getting comfortable with those low resolution images of Alexander’s painting-in-progress was training for accepting the compromise of presenting paintings on a computer screen.
Personally, I find myself pushing back against the compromises of screen resolution by making big, intricately textured paintings. The texture almost never shows up in reproduction. And scale is lost. In the end whatever I paint will need to translate at least somewhat if it is to find an audience, however. I am grateful for the discipline this contradiction provides for my painting practice. I wonder about previous generations of painters. How much was Monet pushing back against photography as impressionism developed? When did he first see a photograph of one of his own paintings?
What about the relationship between the low resolution of the TV screen and the greatly simplified compositions chosen by the TV teachers. How much is their speedy, broad-brushed stylization a precursor to the sort of simplified painting seen frequently today? Does the computer screen perpetuate a specific contemporary style of painting?
Scanner Sketch for Traveling Moleskine Project, 2009, ink and archival inkjet with gold leaf, 7"x5.5"
This was a fun project: my friend Vanessa Mikk (a.k.a. CheapGirlDraws) has been sending specially prepared Moleskine notebooks out in all directions in a sort-of expanded-sketchblog-slash-exquisite-corpse mail-art-experiment. The idea is that each artist does a sketch and then passes the notbook along to someone else, either by hand or by mail. I was honored to bring Traveling Moleskine Number 3 back to NYC from Vanessa’s home base of San Francisco.
The traveling Moleskine in the studio
Vanessa wrote some clear instructions in the front of the notebook, but it impressed me that the project is an act of faith. I’m rooting for all of the sketchbooks to make it back to her filled up with marvelous stuff. But it does seem a bit like launching a paper boat into a stream and hoping to pick it up later on. There’s a lot that can happen out there. So maybe posting this per Vanessa’s instructions will help track sketchbook number three and begin to create a record that will be there no matter what happens to the actual book. Here’s a page from Vanessa’s website that shows the progress so far with scans from a couple of the notebooks.
The cool thing about the Moleskine is that the paper is thin enough that the verso of the sketch on the preceding page shows through. So in the scan above you can see Vanessa’s sketch in reverse next to mine, which happens to be a sketch of me sitting in her living room. So the result really is almost a form of exquisite corpse, with each artist’s work relating a bit to whatever came before and after.
"Penumbra" installed in the LIMN showroom in San Francisco
You can still see work from the recent show at LIMN Gallery in San Francisco by visiting the neighboring LIMN furniture & design showroom at 290 Townsend Street. LIMN’s showroom website has more about visiting the showroom. Wandering in the showroom is fun: there are beautiful vignettes combining art and design around every corner.
One of the first really exciting painting resources I remember discovering online was Bruce MacEvoy’s website handprint. When I was actively engaging with my limitations as a watercolor painter several years ago, his comprehensive section on the medium was invaluable. Lately, I have been enjoying exploring the newer section on color vision. Mr. MacEvoy presents his subject matter with clarity and depth. Both sections include extensive references to other valuable books and websites. If you have time for nothing else, take a quick look around the page on watercolor books, which are logically organized and presented with insightful summaries. The only danger– you might end up with a pretty long wish list for your own library!
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