sharon hart

New Years Resolution

2010-01-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

Colwyn Bay
An Original Oil Painting
By Sharon A. Hart

A few years ago I was very active in a local arts organization. One of my dear friends attended a workshop by a nationally recognized watercolourist. When he posed the question “What would you suggest I do to take my work to the next level?”, we both were shocked by the response. The artist suggested we both withdraw from the art organizations we belonged to so that we could concentrate on our work and spend more time in the studio.

As we’ve entered into a new year, I’ve reflected on that advice. I’ve also made the decision to become more seriously invested in my own work, even if that means appearing to be a little selfish by being less active in other forums, including this blog. As someone else has shared, “The internet is just too much of a seductive place to spend the bulk of my day and have nothing to show for the time except a lightly overloaded and confused mind and a lonely studio.”

Periodically I’ll post something as the muse leads me to pontificate or if I have a particularly interesting painting to share. In the interim, I wish you all a great and creative 2010!

Dr. Johnson could never persevere in keeping a journal

2009-08-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

Land's End
by
Sharon A. Hart
mixed media - Watercolor & paper

Writing 457 He [Johnson] told me that he had twelve or fourteen times attempted to keep a journal of his life but never could persevere. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

When I elected to initiate this blog it was fueled by the desire to share a glimpse of the artistic process and allied interests with others. To this end, I feel the blog has been successful. It did, however, create a form of blockage to the painting process, a form of procrastination that created interference by the act of deciding whether to pick up a brush or put my fingers to the keyboard. Consequently, since January I have avoided writing in this public forum so that my real love, painting, would not be sacrificed.

Whereas there are numerous artists who have brought something "new" to art, I have always sensed that the role of the artist is to make others see seasoned landscapes anew. Whether it be a "landscape of emotion" or a pastoral scene, the artist is challenged to expand one's perception and enter into a dialogue with the artist, the medium, and one's self.

During an interview, Nancy Ireson, curator at the National Gallery of Art in London, said: "There is a Renoir that we know, the chocolate box Renoir, and there is a secret Renoir.

"Renoir wasn't so keen on showing them, some were unfinished, and they wouldn't have commanded the same prices, but landscapes were absolutely integral to his life.

In a way he used landscapes to test himself."

I suspect that Renoir was not alone in painting landscapes as a vehicle for expanding his skills and vision; one can readily reflect on Monet's Haystacks series which effectively examined expression of transient appearances – unvarying the motif -- viewed always from the same angle, only the light would change, depending on the season, the weather and the time of day. Monet's experimentation left the world richer and continues to inspire other artists, expanding their perception of the universe unfolding. Kandinsky, after seeing several of Monet's haystack paintings, wrote in his memoirs: “What suddenly became clear to me was the unsuspected power of the palette, which I had not understood before and which surpassed my wildest dreams”.

Since January, I have been doing some experimental work and exploring the concept of "pure landscape" painting, a genre devoid of the human form or other aspects that would initiate the viewer's immediate placement of the scene in the annuals of chronology, mythology, or national geography. I have no idea where this adventure will end or how often I may abandon the brush for the keyboard, but rest assured Creativity will find her way through the labyrinth one way or another.

Brief History of Landscape Painting

Simple Thoughts on the New Year

2009-01-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."--T.S. Eliot

"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."--Oscar Wilde

How Would You Tell the Tale?

2008-12-24T22:46:00.001-08:00

Adoration of the Magi
by John Duncan

Journey of the Magi

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

– T. S. Eliot

What Color Is the Coming Year?

2008-12-03T20:35:00.000-08:00

"Stormy Sea" by Sharon Hart

Last year prior to joining the glitzeratti at the vernissage at Art Basel Miami, I delivered a painting to an art patron in Miami. Much to her delight it was a monochromatic painting in the identical color that the Pantone Color Institute, had just announced was the “color of the year.” I knew the color as French Ultramarine Blue, whereas Pantone elected to term it “ Blue Iris,” or No. 18-3943. Coincidentally throughout the year I painted several mono-chromatic paintings in the color of which Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute said: “Blue Iris brings together the dependable aspects of blue, underscored by a strong, soul-searching purple cast. Emotionally, it is anchoring and meditative with a touch of magic.”

December first seems to be open season for magazines, newscasts, and even blogs to present “The Annual Best of ... ” or predictions for the year to come. I , therefore, was reminded that every year the Pantone Color Institute chooses a "color of the year", essentially as a media –grabbing exercise. Considering the state of the economy, I pondered what color Pantone would seize upon as “The” Color for 2009. Review of past trends gave me some clues to their thinking process. Here is their previous panel of choices:

2000:
Cerulean Blue: Chosen for the millennium for its calming zen state of mind.

2001:
Fuchsia Rose: A reversal from the previous year, more exciting, more feminine and sexy.

2002:
True Red: Recognizes the impact of 9/11 with a patriotic hue.

2003:
Aqua Sky: A cool blue meant to restore hope and serenity.

2004:
Tiger Lily: Acknowledges the hipness of orange, with a touch of exoticism

2005:
Blue Turquoise: Another reversal to a calming shade.

2006:
Sand Dollar: A neutral color that expresses concern about the economy

2007:
Chili Pepper: Chosen for its pizazz and sophistication and its hint of ethnic taste.

2008:
Blue Iris: A mix of blue and purple that suggests dependability and magic

Pantone is considered by some in the decorating community to be a “Color Authority”. There is a video entitled “Color Watch 2009” that addresses how Pantone’s Executive Director chooses palettes and identifies future color trends, stating that they draw their inspiration from artists, museums, and the economy.

Prior to the Pantone’s announcement, I playfully discussed the topic with a couple of friends, as it provided some light relief to other more pressing issues such as the global economic condition. Someone suggested that green would be a logical choice, considering the focus on organic foods, the environment, and money. Another individual opted for bamboo, as the Chinese influence on the west is becoming an increasingly dominating consideration, both on products, as well as in banking. I, however, suggested that considering the economy, people will opt for comfort foods such as Kraft macaroni and cheese ---a peculiar shade of yellow-orange and that with the focus on optimism that was reflected in our recent elections, yellow-orange would be the most logical color for 2009.

Much to my surprise, today I discovered that Pantone announced that 14-0848 Mimosa, yellow as the color of the year for 2009. Their rational from the press release follows forthwith:

“In a time of economic uncertainty and political change, optimism is paramount and no other color expresses hope and reassurances more than yellow.

“The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance,” explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Mimosa also speaks to enlightenment, as it is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation.”

Artists have long used color to direct the mood of the viewer, in addition to being used because of cultural symbolism. A good example of this can be found in the colors traditionally selected by icon writers. Here is a brief synopsis of the meanings ascribed to the colors often used in Christian religious icons:

* Gold symbolizes divine light.

* Blues are associated with heaven, mystery and the mystical life

* Red is linked with heat, passion, love, beauty, life ,

* Orange-red, associated with fire, suggests fervor and spiritual purification.

* Purple & crimson is associated with royalty and the divine. It is the symbol of supreme power.

* White is associated with the divine world, purity, innocence, and is sometimes used with what Orthodoxy calls "the uncreated light,"

* Green represents the earth's vegetation, fertility, youth, hope and freshness, and martyrdom

• Brown is affiliated with poverty, humility, bare earth, dust, inert matter and all that is transient and perishable.,

It will be interesting to explore how artists will use color in 2009. Although “experts” such as Eisenman may suggest that we respond to tides such as economic conditions to determine our palette choices, I would suggest our choices are not that volatile. I would also suggest that artists are not that vulnerable and suggestive to marketing influences, but are more apt to be the fulcrum by which consumer choices are directed.

Art and the Power of Myth

2008-11-26T23:58:00.000-08:00

Although conventional credit is given to the holiday being first celebrated by the pilgrims at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621, Governor William Bradford officially proclaimed Nov 29, 1624 a day of thanksgiving to be shared by all the colonists and the neighboring Native Americans to thank God for saving their lives and guiding them through their struggles through their journey on the Mayflower and during the following years of draught at Plymouth.

Later, In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a national day of thanksgiving. Now it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. Although “Thanksgiving” is often considered a decidedly American holiday, even Australia celebrates an official day of Thanksgiving in May. Details can be found at http://www.thanksgiving.org.au/

Norman Rockwell's illustration Freedom from Want appeared on the pages of The Saturday Evening Post on March 6, 1943 and was inspired by a speech given before the United States Congress on January 6, 1941 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during which the president enumerated four basic freedoms to which every person was entitled. In this illustration, by using familial images and a projection of prosperity, Rockwell tapped into archetypal concepts of comfort and hope that are culturally driven.

In an interview with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell, the late mythographer, stated that myths are “stories about the wisdom of life." He taught that they are life-nourishing and that we as individuals as well as a society have need of myth. Norman Rockwell used his personal family cook as the model for the elderly grandmother figure in Freedom From Want, and provided the nation more than a grandmother-figure to relate to during a particularly economically distressed period. Freedom From Want wasn’t originally issued as a Thanksgiving illustration, but as a message of hope for a nation hungry and fearful, a myth for a nation who experienced the deeper meaning of “man does not live by bread alone.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

I find it interesting to note that people who think they are not influenced by art, have subliminally been socially shaped by art. For example, on Thanksgiving, countless Americans will strive to emulate the meals that Norman Rockwell presented on his illustration Freedom From Want. It is paradoxical that this struggle to put food on many an American dining room table is being done at the same time that the US government is considering providing more than $7.76 trillion to rescue the US financial system after guaranteeing $306 billion to Citigroup—which as much as half the value of everything produced in the nation last year.

Norman Rockwell ‘s Saturday Evening Post covers also provided representations of the feast day that captured various aspects of the American persona. I’ve included several of them on this blog, as many people aren’t familiar with the images.

The Thanksgiving feast also provided inspiration for other artists, including the illustrator Joseph Christian Leyendecker whose works often graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, and Jeff Koon’s who designed a 53-foot-high balloon "sculpture" called "Rabbit" for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Traditional Thanksgiving representations can be found in many places, but it is harder to find artistic representations of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, which is celebrating its 80th year of festivities. Joseph Delaney, a noted artist who was captivated by the energy and tradition of parades captured the balloons, floats, and excitement of the parade at Herald Square in his painting “Macy’s Parade” which was created between 1974-1984. The painting is now in the permanent collection of the Knoxville Museum of Art.

This Thanksgiving and in the days to follow as global finances have tanked, experts are forecasting that food prices will increase between 3-9% next year, homes are being foreclosed upon, companies are closing their doors and unemployment rolls are expanding, it's hard for many to rejoice. However, this is, indeed the ideal time to give thanks for all that we have---including cultural myths that feed our nation during times of dire need.

What is the First Work of Art You Remember?

2008-11-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

The Art Newspaper’s Digital edition has started a video series entitled “The first work of art I remember”. In the short video, viewers are introduced to the sculptor Anthony Caro, photographer David La Chapelle, and Harry Blaine, and the works of art that inspired them as children. No matter who we are, we've been influenced by art at an early age, even if we are not fortunate enough to be exposed to works of art in great museums and cathedrals throughout the globe. Children are introduced to folk art, prints or paintings their parents or mentors love, and often even the illustrations in a book will serve to inspire the young.

This morning, after watching the video I had to think about my earliest memory of art, as I lived in a home infused with the humanities. What piece in particular could I recall as the earliest inspirational piece? Much to my surprise, it was a print that hung in my grandparent’s dining room. The art is what I’ll term a “period piece” of kitsch, but it still engaged my imagination and lurked in my memory long after the passing of time. I won’t go so far as to say that it inspired me to become an artist, for it didn’t. Yet when I was a child, it captivated me entirely and on many an occasion when I have viewed the print in other locations, I have looked on it with fondness. It is more than sentimental journeying that holds my interest now, it is a recognition that the artist achieved his intended message in this work.

Today as I reflected back on the painting, I realized that I didn’t even know the name of the artist or the painting…..although I could describe it in graphic detail. After significant research, I discovered the painting was actually a photograph taken in 1918 by Eric Enstrom; it is entitled “Grace.” I encourage you to read the full story about the picture’s origin: http://www.gracebyenstrom.com/history.html It’s a short read, but quite inspiring.

During the 1920’s , Enstrom’s iconic image could be purchased in several versions, as a black and white photograph, as a sepia-toned photo, or as a photograph that would be over-painted in oils by Enstrom’s daughter, Rhoda Nyberg. In fact, she would oil paint them to order, changing the color of the old man’s shirt according to the wishes of the individual who commissioned the painting.

It is interesting to note the difference between the photograph and the painting, as the sepia photo doesn’t include the light streaming. This artistic technique aids in directing the eye towards the model’s hands, and only later does the eye then travel to the items placed on the table. I do not intend to enter into a dialogue about Enstrom’s talents as a photographer, but I do believe that the work was substantially enhanced by his daughter’s coloration.

What first work of art do you remember? How did it impact you? How did it inspire you? How do you relate to it today? Perhaps there is a story awaiting you, too!

How Artists Can Survive the Economic Downturn

2008-11-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

The Chinese word weiji (危機 translated as “crisis”) is often said to be composed of the characters for “danger” and “opportunity”; the implication being precarious situations afford us opportunity. I remember how surprised I was when I learned this is an often-repeated misconception based upon etymological fallacy. While the deconstruction has gained momentum as a modern piece of wisdom, in truth in the word weiji (危機), the “ji “ ideogram actually means “crucial point”, not “opportunity .

Despite the fact that the ideogram doesn’t support the theory, whenever there is a significant problem, such as the global economic crisis, there is opportunity for people who choose to take advantage of the situation. This was pointed out quite clearly by Carol Vogel of the New York Times who noted that “There were bargains to be had" due to the economic climate. In her in her Nov 5, 2008 news report, Bleak Night at Christie’s, in Both Sales and Prices, she refers to these opportunists as “bottom-feeders”:

"Early on, a Cézanne watercolor landscape from 1904-6, “The Cathedral at Aix From the Studio at Les Lauves,” was expected to bring $4 million to $6 million. It failed to sell. One bottom-feeder was willing to pay $2.8 million."

However, she’s not alone in viewing smart art investors as “bottom-feeders", as Editor at Large of Art+Auction, Judd Tully, published these words in response to the same auction:

“ It was an evening of price corrections, and some bottom-feeders took advantage. Long Island dealer David Benrimon acquired three significant works, including two bargain-basement deals: Georges Braque’s Nature morte à la corbeille de fruits for $842,500 (est. $1.2–1.8 million) and Joan Miró’s Femme et oiseau devant le soleil for $2,154,500 (est. $2.5–3.5 million). “Tonight you had great opportunities,” said the dealer. “It’s between 20 and 25 percent below market value,” he added of the works he purchased. “

I suspect I would have written the accounts in a more charitable vein, electing to use a less pejorative term than “bottom-feeder” to describe the individuals who purchased the art for relatively low market prices. However, I do believe we’ll be seeing more of this---and I applaud it, for it is important that the art market be supported at a more authentic level than it enjoyed in recent history.

My sentiments appear to be shared by Jerry Saltz who recently considered how the economic downturn will impact the entire art economy, not just artists and the auction houses. Here’s what he had to say in NY Magazine:

"If the art economy is as bad as it looks—if worse comes to worst—40 to 50 New York galleries will close. Around the same number of European galleries will, too. An art magazine will cease publishing. A major fair will call it quits—possibly the Armory Show, because so many dealers hate the conditions on the piers, or maybe Art Basel Miami Beach, because although it’s fun, it’s also ridiculous. Museums will cancel shows because they can’t raise funds. Art advisers will be out of work. Alternative spaces will become more important for shaping the discourse, although they’ll have a hard time making ends meet.

As for artists, too many have been getting away with murder, making questionable or derivative work and selling it for inflated prices. They will either lower their prices or stop selling. Many younger artists who made a killing will be forgotten quickly. Others will be seen mainly as relics of a time when marketability equaled likability. Many of the hot Chinese artists, most of whom are only nth-generation photo-realists, will fall by the wayside, having stuck collectors with a lot of junk....The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists—especially emerging ones—won’t have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They’ll be able to experiment as much as they want."

Ok. So that’s the good news! We can experiment during this down time. We can explore different techniques, improve our work, make contacts, develop our portfolios, and increase our inventory. And when the market starts to move from being bearish to bullish, we’ll be ready for it---fully armed with great art and visions to share with the changed world that will welcome new ideas.

Of Mice and Men and Foxing: Preserving Works on Paper

2008-11-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

Years ago I spent several months collecting poppy seeds from various gardens that grew these plants. It was my intention to collect the seed pods and then create a garden showcasing the wide variety of poppies. I ensured that each little envelope or paper bag was appropriately marked with the common name as well as the botanical name of each variety of poppy seed it enclosed. I further stored the extensive collection in a cardboard box in my basement. Throughout the long British winter, I dreamt of the garden I would plant once the snow was a memory. I envisioned a summer and autumn paradise of color---all stemming from this beautiful flower.

When spring arrived, I went into the basement and was shocked to discover that at least one mouse had dined throughout the winter on the poppy seeds; none were left. This was my first real lesson in the importance of proper preservation techniques.

Several years ago I reinforced this lesson when I learned that some lovely watercolors I had framed previously were starting to develop brown stains in patches because the framer I had used failed to use acid-free materials. Prior to re-framing the works on paper, I was oblivious to the deterioration. The matte-burn was due to proximity to acidic window and back mattes and had yet to expand into the visually-exposed area of the paintings. Luckily, we caught it in time and the paintings were saved. However, I learned that it is vital that you work with a frame shops that use museum-quality archival framing techniques and materials, even if they seem more expensive than other framers. The additional money you spend will be a good investment for any works on paper that you value.

The stains/matte-burn on my paintings is often referred to as foxing because the color of the spots was said to resemble that of a fox's fur. The discoloration are a type of mold, often caused by metallic impurities in the sheet due to manufacturing. Foxing is an indication that the paper is acidic. The Mass Deacidification Feasibility Project Report : February 2001, a report by the British Library on acid deterioration of paper helps to elucidate the situation. Here is an extract of their report:

"The core constituent of paper manufactured before the onset of the Industrial Revolution was rag fibre. However, even though the final product was successful, the processing of rag fibre was costly and generally small scale. The supply of rags for papermaking became insufficient to meet the demands for paper brought about by rapid population growth and increasing literacy during the second half of the 19th Century.

With the increased output potential of industrial machinery and the developing knowledge of the use of a wider range of chemicals, a major change in the approach to paper manufacture took place. This change was to seriously affect the finished product. Wood pulp, literally macerated tree fibre, was chosen as a more widely available source material. A range of chemical treatments were incorporated to process the raw fibre - to encourage it to break-up, and to ensure the smoothness and colour of the finished product. Chemical wood pulp, as it became known, was produced from both hardwood and softwood chips.

It is true to say that the benefit of cheaper and much more widely available printed material, was immediately felt by the consumer, and contributed to the spread of knowledge in the industrial society. This cultural change was to significantly increase the scale of the acid paper problem.

Unfortunately, a combination of the inherently unstable chemical composition of the wood pulp fibre, plus the further chemicals added to the paper making process, all conspired to affect the long-term potential of the product and kick started this cycle of decay. Once this new paper product was exposed to light, heat, poor storage conditions and the high levels of Sulphur Dioxide pollution produced by the industrial age, the process of decay was accelerated.

The naturally deteriorating compounds within the paper structure then started to react to synthesise acids. In turn these acids started to work on the paper fibres, already shortened and weakened by the production process. The result is a discolouration of the paper (a darkening brown), and an embrittled quality to the sheet (or page). Even careful handling causes further deterioration and the material soon becomes unusable. Unchecked, this chemical deterioration continues until the sheet is completely destroyed, leaving only a pile of brown flakes. "

To remove foxing from paper, one can lightly dab 3% hydrogen peroxide onto the affected area using a cotton swab or cotton bud. Ensure you don't soak the spots and that you test the procedure on a less critical area of the paper---there is no sense in potentially destroying a valuable painting or other document such as a prized letter for the sake of bleaching out the foxing. Be aware that this method doesn't always work and it may be advisable to consult a professional conservation expert rather than attempt the task yourself.

Many people collect posters or newspapers of important historical events, such as the birth of a child, a wedding announcement, or the election of a world leader. It is important that special care be taken when preserving these documents for posterity. The US Library of Congress maintains an excellent resource of suggestions for document preservation at http://www.loc.gov/preserv/

Here are some basic recommendations on how to preserve historic front pages of newspapers or other important documents:

Store your document flat, out of direct sunlight and in low humidity, and not in anything plastic that can trap moisture because the papers are apt to become mildewed. The paper will be better preserved and survive longer if you invest in buffered, acid-free tissue paper to lay between sheets and front and back covers of a newspaper. This acid-free paper can be purchased at art supply stores or ordered online from archival storage suppliers. The Smithsonian offers a list of suppliers at http:www.si.edu/MCI/english/learn_more/taking_care/acidfree.html.

If you elect to preserve an entire newspaper, be aware you should use a tissue between each page, so the cost of preserving the document can become a bit pricey if you are saving more than simply the front page. Please don't be tempted to save money by using regular tissue paper, especially colored or one with print designs, as it will expedite the deterioration of the newspaper.

Additional preservation information:

There is no self-adhesive tape currently available which is archival. Because of this, try to avoid using all self-adhesive tapes as these will often fail or stain, and the adhesive becomes difficult to remove later. The glue and tape are also a favorite diet of insects, so it is wise to avoid it entirely.

Do not use paper clips or rubber bands to keep loose pieces of paper together.

Photos and works on paper should be stored in acid-free enclosures, made of either paper or card. Alternatively one can encapsulate them in mylar or polyester envelopes or in Melinex (a clear polyester film). Ensure that the storage containers are acid-free but do not contain PVC (Poly Vinyl Chlorides). Be aware that even acid-free paper may contain lignin, which over time will cause deterioration. Therefore, it is advisable to purchase paper that is both acid-free and lignin-free.

Learning from my lesson of the poppy seeds, choose storage locations which minimize exposure of your documents, posters, or newspapers to dampness, heat, air pollutants, dust, insects and vermin. When storing the boxes, ensure they are well above the floor, to avoid damage from potential water damage.

You may have noted that archivists and appraisers wear cotton gloves when handling paper items or valuable paintings. This is because the natural oils from your fingers can damage your papers. Follow their lead and only minimally handle your valued works on paper.

While one can't anticipate or prevent every potential type of disaster, you can take simple measures to retard deterioration and prevent damage by creating conditions optimal for the preservation of your prized works on paper, maps, posters or newspaper front page.

The Artist's Muse Wins More Awards!

2008-11-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

“I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.”
--Jack Benny

Maitri at Magic and Moments At Dragonfly Cottage and Kim at Laketrees both kindly announced The Artist’s Muse is the recipient of more awards. I am truly blessed by the knowledge that others enjoy my musings, which generally are “somewhat meatier than a cream-puff. “ I am truly honored and humbled. Many thanks to the ever-insightful and sensitive blogger, Maitri for these following three awards.

:

Muchas gracias to Kim for the Art y Pico Award that was originally created in June 2008 by Arte y Pico, the bi-lingual (Spanish/English) blog “to honor artists who create, design, and inspire regardless of language or culture. Kim described it thusly : “ It’s an international award for a global community of artist-bloggers, acknowledging that what we create helps make the world a finer place.”

People have different reactions to this type of meme chain as it works exponentially to provide backlinks to the original creator’s site. In fact, one blogger, William McCamment, calculated the award has been given out (as of July 1, 2008) to 67,750 bloggers.

I’m grateful for the bestowal, however, as it is always nice to take a few minutes off to think about why one really likes some blogs more than others. Unfortunately being the ever-independent and free-thinking artist, I’m going to break the meme chain and not link to the Arte y Pico blog as it seems like nothing more than a link-generating exercise by a clever blogger. However, because I believe recognition of others is important, I am passing all four of awards onto the eleven following outstanding artists and creative bloggers who inspire me whenever I read their blogs:

Thank you for sharing your talents and making the world a better place.
I hope no one feels either obliged to take part and/or feels disappointed they were excluded from my list of nominees.

In a recent interview, Maya Angelou, the noted American poet, reflected:
“You need to know that you can go somewhere. You're not just like grass growing on the street. You're like trees, you have roots, and they've done wonderful things, and you need to know that, and by knowing that, you see how outfitted you are for these times. And that you really owe it to those who went before so that you can add to them for those who are yet to come. You need to know that you are in a continuum, and if you understand that, you realize that you are worthwhile.”

Tomorrow the horses will run in Melbourne, Australia to determine the winner of the Melbourne Cup, paintings will be nervously auctioned in various venues throughout the world, and in the U.S. a proverbial horse-race will finish its prolonged run to determine who will sit in the Oval Office on Pennsylvania Avenue. But let us not get caught up in a winners and losers mentality, for as Maya Angelou has suggested, indeed, each of you are worthwhile and make this world a paradise for all.

~~~~
Here are the "official" rules for the Arte y Pico Award:
1) Award five blogs that contribute to the blogging community through creativity, design, and interesting material, regardless of language.
2) Name each of the five blog authors and provide a link to his or her blog.
3) Award recipients must show the Arte y Pico Award image and the name of the award-giving blog author, as well as the award-giving blog author's blog link.
4) Award recipients must provide a link to the Arte y Pico blog.
5) Award recipients must show these rules.

The Scream Heard Around the World

2008-11-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

Parts relate to whole, the chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown – Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

The esteemed psychologist, Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity and defined it as "meaningful coincidences," Perhaps the fact that a lithograph printed in 1895, Edvard Munch’s masterpiece Das Geschrei (The Scream), was offered at $2/3 million. at auction at Sotheby’s just a few days ago and the fact that the iconic image has become a comical viral hit on the internet could qualify as an example of synchronicity.

Das Geschrei exemplifies Munch’s frequent exploration of negative emotion such as misery, despair and the depths of the human soul and psyche. Although most people are aware he painted multiple versions of the composition beginning in 1893, many are not cognizant he also produced several lithographs, of his signature image. Exploring the subject from a different perspective, the graphic versions of 1895 refine the earlier painted treatments of Das Geschrei , emphasizing line over color. The inscription on the bottom right of the lithograph being auctioned at Sotheby’s is printed in German Ich fühlte das grosse Geschrei durch die Natur (I felt the great scream throughout nature).

Munch was a key pioneer of Expressionism amd used the genre of landscape as a vehicle to express inner states of being. In depicting nature in a highly individual, internalized manner, Munch draws on the tradition of stemningsmaleri ('mood-painting'), characteristic of Nordic art towards the end of the nineteenth century.

In the late twentieth century, The Scream acquired iconic status in popular culture and been used in political humor and advertisement. However, it does not hold exclusive claim to this phenomena.

The American regionalist painter Grant DeVolson Wood repeatedly asked Dr. B.H. McKeeby, a local dentist, to pose for for him but was consistently turned down, as the dentist did not want to garner any resultant attention. Having been reassured that Wood was only a local painter without hope of significant recognition, the dentist finally gave in to the self-taught painter and posed with the artist’s sister Nan for a painting of a Midwestern farmer and his unmarried daughter.

Grant Wood’s American Gothic gained significant attention in 1930 when it was exhibited for the first time at The Art Institute of Chicago and awarded a prize of 300 dollars. The painting has since become part of American popular culture, and the couple has been the subject of endless parodies, including a recently-created variation casting Sarah Palin and John McCain as the narrow-minded couple. Some believe that Wood used this painting to satirize the closed-mindedness, tunnel-vision and repression that has sometimes been said to characterize the American Midwestern culture.

As I write this blog, the world waits poised to discover who will win the US Presidential election. It will be fascinating to discover how artists, including cartoonists, will respond when the votes are finally tallied, and which iconic paintings they will choose as models to reflect their resultant emotions.

Art and the State of the Soul

2008-10-30T02:57:00.000-07:00

"Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else. " --Marc Chagal

The artist, Sharon A. Hart, in front of a Chagall painting at Miami Art Basel. "Being so close to a Chagall, seeing the tiniest of brush strokes evoked a sense of awe."

Holland Cotter, art critic for the New York Times, in an article entitled Making Secular Art Out of Religious Imagery averred,

“There is little question that contemporary art is changing yet again, and in ways that have little directly to do with the current economic crisis. After several years of submersion in lightweight post-Pop painting, clever design and quip-driven soft politics, we seem to be ready for something with a little more depth, breadth and soul.”

Considering the amount of kitsch that abounds in the contemporary artworld,, these may be seen as “fighting words.” However, there is truth in them. The sociological Jeremiah, Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin, was the son of a Russian icon-writer. He is best noted for having written several books about the excesses of modern culture. I'm confident he would feel vindicated had he lived to see this day, as the founding professor of Harvard’s department of sociology had prophesied our society’s fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era.

In Sorokin's controversial 4-volume tome, Social and Cultural Dynamics (1937-1941), he classified societies according to their 'cultural mentality', which can be ideational (reality is spiritual), sensate (reality is material), or idealistic (a synthesis of the two). Within these pages he analyzed and compared the history of art, ethics, philosophy, science, religion, and psychology, to explore general principles of human history. Based on his research, Sorokin predicted that modern civilization was moving toward a bloody period of transition. That interim period would be characterized by wars, revolutions, and general conflict, technological progress. He further prophesied our society’s fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational (religious/intuitional) or idealistic era. Sorokin further emphatically believed that altruism was the antidote to our destruction, and that we needed to seek truth and knowledge within the spiritual realm.

Artists have long answered the call to experience and interpret spirituality. The works they produce may not always been overtly religious, but those who have been touched by what in Spanish art is called Duende, (loosely translated as having soul.) cannot help but create works that reflect their personal or our collective experience with the Divine. The art that is produced will actually touch the viewer in a direct manner.

In his brilliant lecture entitled The Theory and Function of Duende Federico García Lorca attempted to shed some light on the spiritual essence that lives in the heart of certain works of art: " This ‘mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained’ is, in sum, the spirit of the earth, the same duende that scorched Nietzsche’s heart as he searched for its outer form on the Rialto Bridge and in Bizet’s music, without finding it---"

Earlier, Rumi addressed the same emotive expression using these words:

"In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, But sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art."

Obviously there is, indeed, a place in our society for artwork that is based upon spiritual themes and have depth greater than the patina on inexpensive kitchen cabinetry. The creative dichotomy that exists between the sacred and the secular is not something to be reconciled by the artist, but to be embraced. Ultimately one recognizes that the secular is sacred, if seen with clarity of spiritual vision.

For Marc Chagall, despite having studied with the cubist Robert Delaunay and the abstract expressionist Kazimir Malevich, abstract art was a product of a mechanistic world that lacked a sense of God. For him, the removal of figurative aspects from painting was tantamount to a desire to make a world without God. Examination of Chagall’s work reveals that throughout his career, he interwove spirituality, Jewish cultural life and folklore, and a close dialogue with the avant-garde. Recognizing the impact of one's roots on one's one, Chagall stated unequivocally: "If I were not a Jew (with the content I put into that word), I wouldn't have been an artist or I would be a different artist altogether." A deeply spiritual man, he was not disturbed when his art was declared by critics as “ too mystical.” In fact, he once told his granddaughter, "When I paint, I pray.”

Despite the uniqueness of vision, the experience of the artist who elects to explore the tension between the sacred and the secular is often challenging and is certainly not filled with significant monetary or critical reward. Consequently, it may be encouraging to take solace in the words of Robert Bateman,

“When one thinks of the real problems facing the planet and, indeed, civilization, at the end of the 20th century, the problem of whether art critics appreciate this form of art or that form of art or me seems so minuscule as to be virtually invisible. Being rebuffed by one's peers in the art world is, of course, hurtful, but that has always happened and always will and it really doesn't matter. It is still fun to discuss and dismember... I do it myself, as you may have noticed.”

Art and the Bridge to Nowhere

2008-10-24T01:01:00.000-07:00

As museum directors are bracing for the effects of financial meltdown, I found myself rambling through the galleries in The National Gallery of Art, the Freer Museum and the Sackler Museum. Insulated from the news of stock price declines, the museums served as a sanctuary from the economic and political storms raging in the United States. Fortunately, all these museums remain free of entry charges so even the most financially impoverished families can be exposed to great works of art in Washington, D.C.

The National Gallery, of Art comprises two buildings, linked by an underground passage: the West Building and the East Building, The West Building has an extensive collection of paintings and sculptures by European masters from the medieval period through the late 19th century, as well as pre-20th century works by American artists. Highlights of the collection include many paintings by Titian , Raphael. Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Durer,, J. M.W. Turner. Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Degas, Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, Seurat, Cézanne, Gauguin, William Merritt Chase, and the only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the western hemisphere. The East Building focuses on modern and contemporary art, with a collection including works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Wassily Kandinsky, René Magritte, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Alexander Calder.

On October 15th, a special exhibition opened at the National Gallery of Art. Oceans, Rivers, and Skies: Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, and Alfred Stieglitz will be on show until March 15, 2009. As a long-time admirer of all three of these legendary American photographers I looked forward to seeing the exhibition that features 21 works and was organized by Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art. In particular, my sensibilities were piqued for Stieglitz's series Music: A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs, which was last seen in its entirety in 1923. Alas, the exhibition was a major disappointment and I even heard another viewer proclaim, “Obviously there was a good reason these photos haven’t been exhibited together since 1923.”

Considering the economic demands upon museums, I debated whether or not to publicly criticize the showing. However, during this economic crisis it behooves directors and curators to provide the public with exhibitions worthy of attendance---and not just piece together shows that may attract numbers based upon the “name” of artists.

An antidote to the disappointment found in Oceans, Rivers, and Skies is a permanent installation residing immediately across the hall: The Armand Hammer Collection. Amongst the treasures found in this selection of drawings and paintings is a watercolor by Andrew Wyeth. It alone made the trek to the area of the West Wing that houses the photo exhibition worthwhile.

Not all exhibitions presently on view in the Smithsonian affiliate network were substandard. In fact, through January 25, 2009 one can view the breathtaking and inspiring exhibition Seascapes : Tryon and Sugimoto at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

The exhibition consists of series of 22 pastels of the Maine coast by the late American landscape painter Dwight Tryon, juxtaposed with six black-and-white photographs of the sea by contemporary Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto from his ongoing series "Seascapes." As the museum’s marketing material states, “ The formal resonances between these two series will encourage quiet contemplation.” A small selection of the works can be viewed at
http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/current/Seascapes/seascapes.htm

Another surprise is housed within The Freer Gallery of Art. When the gallery opened to the public in 1923, it was the first Smithsonian museum for fine arts. The gallery houses a world-renowned collection of art from Asia However, it is the American collection of works created between 1855–1919 that captured my breath. Charles Lang Freer, founder of the museum was a Detroit businessman who began collecting American art in the 1880s. Freer’s collection was eventually gifted to the American people and includes an unparalleled collection of over 1,300 works by Whistler as well as numerous masterpieces by Dwight William Tryon , Abbott Handerson Thayer, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, and John Twachtman. In this quiet and unpretentious museum, one is reminded of Whistler’s comment that a work of art "should appear as the flower to the painter—perfect in its bud as in its bloom—with no reason to explain its presence—no mission to fulfill—a joy to the artist—a delusion to the philanthropist—a puzzle to the botanist—an accident of sentiment and alliteration to the literary man."

While I was exploring the artistic wonders in the Smithsonian museums, I reflected on the recent report issued by the bipartisan Americans for the Arts Action Fund: the Congressional Arts Report Card, covering the 110th Congress (2007-2009). The document containing detailed scores of every Member of Congress based on his or her voting record on arts issues can be found online at http://www.artsactionfund.org/stay_informed/special_reports/.

The 2008 Congressional Arts Report Card reveals that 43% of Congress received a grade of A or higher. When the grades of the Members of each state delegation are averaged on a state-by-state basis, the highest scoring state delegation is Maine, with a perfect score of 100. Alaska and Wyoming are the lowest scoring state delegations with a score of 20 points each.

Well worth considering is Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund, statement, “As the arts and arts education increasingly established a foothold during this year’s presidential campaign trail, the Report Card will serve as a compelling guide for the public to make overall arts-informed decisions at the ballot box on Election Day. Although the Report Card shows that Congress is progressively acknowledging the importance of the arts and arts education, further support is needed in arts funding.”

With state and local education budgets being slashed and an increased focus on testing and test preparation, there is a real potential that arts education will disappear from schools. This trend started years ago as more attention was placed on the need for progress in critical courses such as the maths and sciences. Additionally, museum budgets are dependent upon funding that is sought by a myriad of sources all vying for increasingly limited monies.

It is vital that this country and others do not neglect the arts ---especially during an economic downslide. In addition to providing inspiration and a glimpse into the past, the humanities are an essential component of a successful civilization. Furthermore, arts programs are part of a well-rounded education that helps enrich our society and aids individuals to develop their abilities to think creatively and independently. Natalja Fedorova Borovskaja, an art history professor at the Russian Academy of Fine Arts, at a recent conference shared that as a young woman growing up under state atheism in the Soviet Union, she never thought about God except when encountering works of art, music and literature. Truly the arts and and humanities have long been a way to build bridges among people of different countries, cultures, and faiths. If we elect politicians without concern for the arts we have truly built our nation’s bridge to nowhere

The Heroic Tardis of Portraiture

2008-10-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Fishing Lesson
a watercolor portrait by Sharon A. Hart

Many years ago I had the pleasure of attending a conference at the Art Worker’s Guild Hall at No. 6 Queen Square, London WC1. The hall was designed by F.W. Troup and built in the 1913-14 and is a testament to the best quality of craftsmanship of the period. The entire experience harkened back to an earlier and more formal time, as we were immersed in a traditional, somewhat quaint, environment , induced by sitting on heavy wooden ladder-backed, rush seated Clissett chairs, based on a design by Ernest Gimson.

My mind and eyes wandered during a talk that made most of the attendees slip into ennui; around the wall are painted the names of Guildsmen since 1884: white when still with us, gilded when not in niches sit busts of some of the founders, while the walls are covered with portraits of the Guild’s Past-Masters. Having a slightly perverse nature and not immediately recognizing any of the Masters by their portraits, I envisioned alternative non-arts related careers for the host of illuminated talents. When the prayed-for intermission finally arrived, I surveyed the room anew, discovering the actual identities of the past Masters. To my sensibilities’ horror, the man I had cast in the role of a libertarian accountant was the esteemed Walter Crane, book illustrator who is considered one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif of the latter 19th century. Crane’s presence in the Art Worker’s Guild Hall is significant, especially when you become full aware that the symbol above the Master’s chair, designed by Walter Crane bears the motto ‘Art is Unity.’

When I think about portraits, this is the primary experience that colors my understanding of their impact and the truths about human nature the artform can convey. As Aristotle stated, “The aim of Art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance; for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes true reality.”

The history of portraiture is rich and has its origins in funerary commemoration; the first representations of identifiable individuals date from the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt about 3100 BC. Early Christian art, dating from the 3rd century to the 7th century, included portraits in mosaic and stylized imago clipeatae that convey authority. This portrayal of “authority” and social stature was later more fully embraced during the Renaissance, and the artistic Baroque and Rococo periods (17th century and 18th century, respectively.) It wasn’t until the mid-19th Century when the realist artists began to create objective portraits of “the common people.” I suspect that this turn in approach was partially due to the philosophy expressed by William Morris, “You cannot educate, you cannot civilise man, unless you give him a share in art.”

The focus on portraiture as an art form has waned over the years, but there has been a resurgence in the number of artists who specialize in portraying perceptive images of individuals, as well as pets. The Australian artist, Kim Barker, recently announced a contest on her blog, Lake Trees, which will award the winner with a portrait of their choice, .painted in acrylic and valued at $6,000+ .

This past summer, the author Stephen King published Duma Key, a tale of conflict between the forces of horror and the redemptive power of creativity. It tells the story of a man who has seemingly lost his way in modern life and retreats to a Florida island to regain his sense of self. Amazingly, out of nowhere, he starts drawing and painting, producing sketches and surreal landscapes. His landlady, provides enigmatic awareness into what is happening to her tenant. "Art is memory, Edgar There is no simpler way to say it."

While I’ve never been a fan of Gothic or Horror fiction, King’s work engaged me with insights such as this:

How to Draw a Picture

Start with a blank surface. It doesn't have to be paper or canvas, but I feel it should be white. We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can't remember. How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon.

You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I’ve come to believe.

King draws on Faustian concepts such as those Oscar Wilde introduced in his classic Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the tale, the primary character is the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian cries out, wishing that the portrait Basil has painted of him would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, subsequently plunging him into a series of debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin being displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging. I suspect that Wilde was aware of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Aesthetics in which the author raged against “Almost repulsively lifelike portraits,” insisting that portrait-painters flatter their subject, paying less attention to outward appearance, but “Presenting us with a view which emphasizes the subject’s general character and lasting spiritual qualities.” According to this philosophy, it was the spiritual nature that should determine our picture of the human being.

Artists have long transformed their subjects in the alembic of the artist’s imagination, whether or not they were painting actual likenesses. They have taken liberties while still embracing aesthetic points of view. A good example of this is found in the melancholic portrait of Queen Charlotte by the Georgian master, Thomas Lawrence. Queen Charlotte, who sat for Lawrence in 1789 to 90. She had lost her her husband, George III, to madness and their son seemed to offer the monarchy a poor future. Lawrence captures all the nuances of the historic period and the inner grief of Queen Charlotte, yet still conveys her majesty and beauty.

Another individual who reveled in having her portrait painted was Henry VIII’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth. She was very proud of her beautiful hands; she considered them her best feature and took pains to have them prominently displayed in all of her state portraits. In 1546, the portrait-painter, William Scrots sent a portrait of Elizabeth as a gift to Elizabeth's half-brother, King Edward VI. In the letter accompanying the gift, Elizabeth wrote:

'For the face, I grant, I might well blush to offer, but the mind I shall never be ashamed to present. ....when you shall look on my picture you will witsafe to think that as you have but the outward shadow of the body before you, so my inward mind wisheth that the body itself were oftener in your presence.'

Another portrait of Elizabeth, painted when she was in her late sixties, portrays a young and beautiful Queen, seemingly ageless and immortal. It’s a classic Tudor portrayal by Isaac Oliver (c1600), weaving allegory and symbolism with each brushstroke. Here is an exegeis of the painting from an Elizabethan scholar who has spent time studying the painting:

Elizabeth's gown is embroidered with English wildflowers, thus allowing the queen to pose in the guise of Astraea, the virginal heroine of classical literature. Her cloak is decorated with eyes and ears, implying that she sees and hears all. Her headdress is an incredible design decorated lavishly with pearls and rubies and supports her royal crown. The pearls symbolize her virginity; the crown, of course, symbolizes her royalty. Pearls also adorn the transparent veil which hangs over her shoulders. Above her crown is a crescent-shaped jewel which alludes to Cynthia, the goddess of the moon. A jeweled serpent is entwined along her left arm, and holds from its mouth a heart-shaped ruby. Above its head is a celestial sphere. The serpent symbolizes wisdom; it has captured the ruby, which in turn symbolizes the queen's heart. In other words, the queen's passions are controlled by her wisdom. The celestial sphere echoes this theme; it symbolizes wisdom and the queen's royal command over nature. Elizabeth's right hand holds a rainbow with the Latin inscription 'Non sine sole iris' ('No rainbow without the sun'). The rainbow symbolizes peace, and the inscription reminds viewers that only the queen's wisdom can ensure peace and prosperity.

To my knowledge, few modern portrait painters incorporate symbolism at this level. Additionally, artists such as Lucian Freud have abandoned the pretense of flattery and have often provided unsympathetic portrayals of their subjects.

In my opinion, the artist’s search of honesty in their portraits doesn’t require negative reflections, as one can always find an artful truthfulness in the dignity of the individual. For example, Annie Leibovitz used her camera to create a sensitive portrait of Britain's aging Queen Elizabeth seated in an unlit room in Buckingham Palace, that is highly reminiscent of Lawrence’s portrait of Queen Charlotte.

There is little in my past that I regret. However, I occasionally lament the fact that I failed to paint portraits of my children while they were young. An exception is found in my painting “The Fishing Lesson.” In the same way that the earlier Queen Elizabeth insisted that the paintings of her later years would convey her as a young woman, portraits capture a specific moment in time that can be returned to each time one gazes upon the work. Indeed, art is memory and can alchemically transform the past into the present.

Does Humility have a Role in the Art Market?

2008-10-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

My profound thanks to Veronica Escudero, the talented creator of “A Painting A Day by Veronica Escudero” who recently really caught me off guard when she graced The Artist’s Muse with the Brilliante Weblog award. I am honored by this recognition as The Brilliante Weblog is a prize historically given to web sites and blogs that are creative and brilliant both in content and design.

Gifts are meant to be shared, so I’d like to award this prize to the following talents:

Over the years, I’ve discovered that artists, regardless of their medium, tend to fall into two classifications:

Those who love everything they create and shamelessly promote their work, without any true sense of discernment; and
Those who are hyper-critical of their work, hesitant to share their artistic expressions, and are self-effacing when accolades are received.

As a student of psychology, I’ve often wondered if humility is part of the creative process, as it encourages us to reach heights that complacency and pride might prohibit. The noble person must look first within, then to others for clues as to how one is actually progressing. I believe this is done by humbly assisting others with our abilities, while not denying our abilities and talents. Such humility is understood to “preserve the soul in tranquility; In the Bible, an exhortation to humility is found in Philippians 2:3-4

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, is quoted as saying: "You shouldn't gloat about anything you've done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do."

We are taught to take pride in our accomplishments, but pride functions successfully only when comparing yourself to others. It is folly to base one’s self-worth on how you stack up to others and their achievements. Instead, I believe it is wiser to focus on yourself and how you can improve. C.S. Lewis said the following about pride:

The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature-while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.

The issue of pride, humility and competition has been a frequent topic in many conversations I’ve shared recently with fellow artists. Therefore, I thought it might be worthwhile to examine the concept of competition in the arts community.

In an essay published in 1994, A Dysfunctional Culture: Competition in Music, Rodney E. Miller, Dean of Wichita State University College of Fine Arts, articulated his theory that by eliminating competition in music education, co-operation and creativity is encouraged. Miller’s article leads with this sentiment,

For art to be art, it must be a reflection of our human condition. This is because art is ultimately a subjective sharing of emotion, usually emotion affected by or in response to the conditions in which the artist and the subject find themselves. Paradoxically, art very often becomes a casualty to the very social conditions it tries to reflect. One of the most insidious examples of this in our contemporary society is the obsession for competing that has permeated all venues of our society, including our artistic environment. Life for many of us in America has now evolved into a series of challenges to compete. We are bombarded with this doctrine at work, at school, and worst of all,, at home. It has become perhaps the only common thread in the diverse patchwork culture of American life. We hear it in our commercials (Pepsi vs. Coke in a taste test), in our politics (Republicans vs. Democrats), and in our recreation (Cowboys vs. Redskins). So saturated is our society with this spirit of competition that we allow its effects to go unchecked because we simply don’t recognize its existence, or worse yet, we fail to understand how it decays the very essence of art and creativity. Yet, as psychologist Elliot Aronson maintains, the prevailing spirit of competition is a dysfunction of epidemic proportions.

The spirit of competition is not uniquely American, nor is it restricted to the 9-5 business world, as Miller clearly demonstrated. However, to fully understand one’s strengths, it is helpful, if not vital, to understand your competition and your positioning in the market.

Many artists naively believe that they are exempt from these issues---that their “job” is simply to create works of art. Yet, they also worry about the financial realities of their experience as artists, often failing to consider critical questions such as “Who competes with you for your customers’ time and money? “and “What are their strengths and weaknesses? How are they positioned in the market?”

In other words, an artist should know how they are positioned in the market. Why do people buy your artwork instead of the others offered in the same general categories? Think about specific kinds of unique aspects of your work and audience, comparing where you think you can show the difference.

During the process of my contemplation on these issues, I explored the history of the Impressionists, PreRaphaelite artists and the Futurists with relationship to competition amongst each other. It’s a fascinating study that exceeds the limitations of this blog. One of the most important benefits I derived from the experience was reinforcement of my belief that only the best of my work should be seen by others.

When looking at the 4,000 pictures Pierre-Auguste Renoir left behind it is helpful to be aware that he actually was more prolific --- producing over 6,000 paintings during his active years as an artist. Although Renoir’s critical reputation has fluctuated throughout the years, the general populace continues to embrace Renoir’s paintings. He is a wildly uneven painter and one who often did not finish pictures.

In 1864, Pierre-Auguste Renoir had his first success with a painting entitled “Esmeralda Dancing with her Goat around a Fire Illuminating the Entire Crowd of Vagabonds --“the very first painting he had managed to show in the much coveted Paris Salon. Yet, in 1865, Renoir destroyed the painting and began a shift in his style. Later, he destroyed practically everything he had painted up to 1866.

While writing the post, The Booker, The Dobell and the Ultimate Prize, about Melbourne artist Virginia Grayson winning the 2008 Dobell Prize for Drawing for a for drawing she had struggled to produce, I was reminded of a letter Renoir wrote to his dealer, Durand-Ruel, in 1881: "I am not satisfied and I erase, I erase again..." In a similar sentiment in 1889 he refused to exhibit at the Exposition Universelle, declaring: "I find everything I do to be bad".

Many art critics have expressed their opinion that Renoir’s saccharine paintings are “too sweet”, and may even agree with Renoir’s insecure sense of his position in the art world. However, I believe this stems from a lack of understanding of his themes, as he once remarked, 'Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.'

Fortunately, Renoir did not destroy all of his work, and we have the opportunity to use his paintings to learn about the culture in which he lived .

The Phillips Collection, in Washington, D.C., was America’s first museum of modern art and is widely regarded as one of the world’s finest small museums. In 1923, Duncan Phillips purchased Pierre-Auguste Renoir's brilliant example of impressionism, Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880–81), which is now considered the museum’s best-known work.

In Britain, one can see Renoir’s masterpiece, La Loge, at the Courtland Gallery in London. La Loge was Renoir’s principal exhibit in the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1874.

Renoir’s La Loge received enthusiastic reviews when it was first exhibited and later that year it traveled to London for an exhibition organized by his dealer Durand-Ruel, making it one of the first major Impressionist paintings to be shown in England. However, the painting did not sell at either exhibition and was bought inexpensively the following year by the minor dealer ‘Père’ Martin for 425 francs, providing Renoir with much needed funds to pay the rent.

Although he is best known for scenes of Parisian life such as La Moulin de la Galette and paintings of children and young women, his landscapes were nearly all created in the first two decades of his career, before he began to concentrate on figure painting. between 1865 and 1883. It’s been written that the young artist used landscapes to experiment. With innovative explorations of color and brushstroke.

As Nancy Ireson, a curator of Britain’s National Gallery, said concerning his landscapes: "There is a Renoir that we know, the chocolate box Renoir, and there is a secret Renoir. Renoir wasn't so keen on showing them, some were unfinished, and they wouldn't have commanded the same prices, but landscapes were absolutely integral to his life. In a way he used landscapes to test himself."

One of Renoir;s amazing landscape, Le Jardin d'essai à Alger (The Test Garden), was painted in Algeria in 1881. It now hangs in a private office at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas

Late in his life Renoir’s style underwent a significant change, his outlines becoming less defined and his works entirely softer, with stronger use of reds and oranges. This variation in technique was largely effected by his severe arthiritis

By 1913 he was partially disabled by a stroke, his limbs deformed by arthritis, and he had become frail and wheelchair-bound, his hands coiled inwards like claws. Renoir continued to paint, with a brush jammed between paralyzed fingers strapped with bandages to prevent the fingernails digging into his palms.. After expressing a desire to work in sculpture to his friend and dealer, Ambroise Vollard, he began to work with sculpture. According to the tale, In 1913 Vollard introduced Renoir to Richard Guino, a 20-year-old Catalan sculptor, at Spanish sculptor Aristide Maillol's studio, announcing, 'I have found your hands.' . From 1913 until 1918 Renoir and Guino worked together, mainly at Renoir's 100-acre estate, Les Collettes, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, creating about 37 sculptures, many based on Renoir's paintings. There were other assistants, after 1918 , when Guino stopped working with Renoir.

Had Renoir not destroyed well over 2000 paintings, I suspect his reputation as a master of Impressionism would be significantly questioned. Similarly, his foray into creating sculptures based on his earlier paintings, is only footnote in some art history books as his quality pieces of art were created much earlier. I think of artists such as Georgia O’Keefe and Renoir, who in their winter years turn to assistants such as Juan Hamilton, to complete their vision when their hands or eyes have failed. The issue of “ownership of creative rights” often becomes a legal issue, but perhaps it’s more than legal---it’s a moral issue.

In today’s commercially-cognizant art world, noted individuals, such as Jeff Koons, Dale Chihuly and Damien Hirst, have morphed the time-revered profession of “artist” into “marketing promoter.” The “art work” is not produced by their own hand, despite being entirely healthy and able to create their own work. Instead, a stable of artists are hired to produce pieces to be sold at auction and in high-street galleries. The artwork, however, doesn’t bear the name of the actual creator, but the “Brand name” of the audacious artist who has. employed others to create their works. The artists' names have become trade-marks, essentially brandnames no more significant to the concept of "originality" than a McDonald's hamburger on a bun.

Referring to the mass-produced spot paintings of Rachel Howard, that are sold as Damien Hirst originals, Hirst has said, “"The spots I painted are shite. The best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She's brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel."

While addressing the factory-based production of Dale Chihuly’s work, the Portland Art Museum curator, Guenther, astutely stated "But at some point you lose faith in a production that is so distanced from the artist, from the creative mind that brought it out initially. At what point is there a loss of faith in the work and an erosion of the brand?"

Perhaps we’d do well to return to basics, take responsibility for our own work, assign only our own names to work we personally create, and use humility and discernment while determining which pieces “see the light of day.” Every work an artist creates is not a masterpiece, every poem a poet create is not forged in genius, and every book labored over by an author is not worthy of the lives of the trees that will showcase one’s words.

The consumer also has responsibility in this arena. While everyone cannot afford to purchase masterpieces by known artists, most individuals have the ability to purchase an original piece of art---not a giclee or an “edition”---but an original that bears the name of its actual creator. By selectively purchasing art, the excesses and deceptive marketing practices of Brand-names in the art world will be reduced, hitherto unknown artists will gain overdue recognition, and one’s “true” position in the marketplace will over-ride unhealthy competition fueled by greed and rampant consumerism . Through this revolutionary and shockingly simple process, art may, indeed, once again reflect the truth of the human condition.

The Only Thing We have to Fear is Fear Itself

2008-09-29T03:18:00.000-07:00

Banned Books Week
Celebrating the Freedom to Read

September 27–October 4, 2008

How are you celebrating Banned Books Week? Observed during the last week of September each year since 1982, the American Library Association event reminds Americans and other interested people not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.

Reflecting upon the fact that one of the books that is counted amongst the top 100 Banned Books is D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover led me to recall a visit La Fonda de Taos in Taos, New Mexico approximately ten years ago. Outside of the lobby door of the hung a wooden sign bearing the words:

''D. H. Lawrence, Author: Lady Chatterley's Lover. This is The Only Showing of the D. H. Lawrence Controversial Paintings since his Exhibition Was Permanently Banned by Scotland Yard, When his show Opened at the Warren Galleries, London, in 1929.''

My curiosity was piqued; for the paltry sum of one dollar, I gained entry into the hotel manager’s office where the paintings were unceremoniously hung alongside numerous photographs and correspondence from “The British Crown.”

Prior to my trip to Taos, I was familiar with Lawrence the writer, but was blissfully unaware of his experience as a painter. It has been suggested Lawrence's desire to paint was due to his growing disenchantment with words and his sense that language was too civilized to convey the rawness of emotional depth. Additionally, he apparently felt a need to provoke the viewer, not just in words, but in images, for as he wrote to one friend: 'I put a phallus in each one of my pictures somewhere. And I paint no picture that won't shock people's castrated social spirituality. I do this out of positive belief, that the phallus is a great sacred image: it represents a deep, deep life which has been denied in us, and is still denied'.

The story of how Lawrence’s paintings came to reside in Taos, in my opinion, is an interesting tale – one that makes us examine our own social prejudices and re-examine what is truly offensive to the spirit. On 15 June 1929, approximately 20 oil paintings and watercolors by D.H. Lawrence debuted as a one-man exhibition at the Warren Gallery in London, England. Although many of the paintings were inspired by Biblical scenes and mythology, (ie. A Holy Family, Boccaccio Story, Fight With an Amazon, Leda and the Swan and Under the Mango Tree), many (if not most) of the paintings reflected unabashed nudity. As D.H. Lawrence’s book, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, had already been declared obscene in the UK , the exhibition drew additional attention and complaints condemning the work as “an outrage upon decency.” No less than 12,000 visitors viewed the paintings prior to the authorities confiscating thirteen of Lawrence’s paintings, and ultimately forced the Warren Gallery to close.

Paradoxically, when Lawrence’s paintings were censored he responded not with anguish,as when Lady Chatterley's Lover was proscribed, but with a satire of 'Innocent England':

'Oh what a pity, Oh! Don't you agree that figs aren't found in the land of the free! Fig trees don't grow in my native land; There's never a fig-leaf near at hand When you want one; so I did without; And that is what the row's about'

Despite this, he did not want the works to languish in obscurity, or to "be burned". Therefore, after much notoriety, the prosecution and defense counsel final arrived at a compromise by which the paintings were returned to Lawrence on the condition that they would never be exhibited in England again. The paintings were subsequently shipped to the United States, where they have remained since that fateful decision in March 1930.

Some of the paintings are at the University of Texas, Austin, but nine of the thirteen paintings landed in the hotel in Taos. Frieda Lawrence returned to Taos a few years after her husband’s death with her Italian lover, Angelo Ravagli, who became her husband in 1950. After Frieda died in August 1956, Ravagli sold the nine oil paintings to Saki Karavas, a Greek expatriate, art collector, and hotelier of La Fonda de Taos. Karavas, an avid Lawrence fan, hung the paintings in his office at the hotel, amongst stacks of papers, boxes stacked high, and general disarray. Saki. never would disclose what he paid for Lawrence’s paintings and, though he received many generous offers over the years, he refused to sell them. When I visited the “office/Gallery”, there was a copy of a correspondence that had been exchanged between Karavas and Her Magesty’s Government, requesting the return of the paintings to Britain contending the paintings were “National Treasures”. His clever response was to offer to trade the paintings for the return of the Elgin marbles to Greece. Needless to say, both the paintings and the Elgin Marbles remained unmoved. Unmarried, Karavas left the paintings and the hotel to the five children of long-time friends, George and Cordelia Sahd.’ at the time of his death in 1996. I am advised that after the death of Karavas, Lawrence’s paintings were dispersed, although I haven't been able to confirm this inforation.

As a writer, Lawrence followed the principle advocated by Saul Bellow's Augie March that "everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing you hold down the adjoining". I suspect that as a painter, he saw things quite similarly, especially as he held William Blake in great esteem because of the visionary quality of his poetry and paintings. Blake was a notable exception in Lawrence’s view, and it is my opinion that he sought to emulate Blake’s prophetic spirit in his artistic works.

In his essay, "Introduction to these Paintings", Lawrence held that the reason why the British and the Americans produce so few Old Masters is because, "The fault, lies in the English attitude to life. The English, and the Americans following them, are paralysed by fear. That is what thwarts and distorts the Anglo-Saxon existence, this paralysis of fear... It is an old fear, which seemed to dig into the English soul at the time of the Renaissance. Nothing could be more lovely and fearless than Chaucer. But already Shakespeare is morbid with fear, fear of consequences."

Alluding to matters of sex, and the impact of Puritanism, Lawrence argued, "Vision became more optical, less intuitive... look at England! Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, they are all already bourgeois. The coat is really more important than the man. It is amazing how important clothes suddenly become, how they cover the subject..."

Whether one is reading Lawrence or viewing his paintings today, it is hard to evoke the passion the works once induced amongst the public outcry concerning obscenity. Certainly, there are hints of lubricous behavior to act as a pied piper for the mind, but in our jaded society even Lawrence would be shocked to discover that nudity isn’t enough today to scandalize the general public nor has it reduced our fear of inspired and creative spirits.

The contemporary visionary John F. Kennedy held, " If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all --- except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty."

Danceband on the Titanic

2008-09-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

Stormy Sea
An oil painting by Sharon A. Hart

The thought of buying art whilst worldwide economic tsunamis threaten the stability of countries may seem akin to the proverbial tale of Nero playing his lyre and singing while Rome burned. However, the analogy fails because it does not consider the fact that art is not an empty experience of self-indulgence, but a commodity upon which many depend for their “daily bread”. Professional artists and gallery owners are dependent upon the sales of art work to pay their mortgages and feed their children. Likewise, an entire host of peripheral businesses, both large and small, are closely tied to the welfare of the artists---frame shops, corporations that produce moldings, mat board, glass, clay, and various forms of media that are used in the creation of art. Even shipping companies, stationary and book publishers are impacted by the economics of art, for without the patronage of artists, a significant portion of their business would be lost.

Professor Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a visionary pioneer of computer-aided design and is the founder of the One Laptop per Child initiative, which seeks to provide millions of poor children throughout the world with educational opportunities by providing them low-cost laptop computers. Earlier this month he delivered the keynote speech for John Maeda's Inauguration at the Rhode Island School of Design. I was particularly struck by his astute comment, “Hundreds of years from now we will not remember our corporations of today or even prominent politicians. Instead we will be remembered for the great art that our society will leave for future generations. It follows that great art is a great long-term investment. So if you’re going to invest, think about investing in art."

Despite the bearish economic news, the art world has maneuvered through the tough economic times in recent months, and years. One need only look at the highly publicised Sotheby auction where the shameless promoter Damien Hirst flogged his copious wares to recognize that within certain circles money is still flowing freely despite general consumer confidence falling and the economic crisis on Wall Street. In fact, according to Sotheby’s, the eleven days of pre-sale exhibition drew in some 21,000 visitors and the auction house generated a total revenue of £70.5m (over $127m) on 15 September and £40.9m the day after.

Unfortunately, not all art events are as successful as the Sotheby's auction in London. Last weekend I attended Las Vegas Artexpo, at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. Whereas last year, Artexpo Las Vegas reported 11,000 attendees, the silence of the hall was a dinning contrast this year. The show’s organizers’ marketing information stated, “The 2008 show has moved to a larger exhibit hall in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in order to accommodate more exhibitors and buyers. The expansion has enabled the growth of the SOLO Independent Artists Pavilion and the introduction of EXPOSURE, a new section dedicated to burgeoning fine art photographers. Artexpo Las Vegas is quickly establishing itself as the premier fine art fair of the West coast.” With this in mind, I was looking forward to an improvement over last year’s event. Despite this, the show was moved into smaller quarters, was poorly marketed at the local level and experienced very little foot traffic. Many exhibitors failed to sell sufficiently to cover their booth space rentals, and attempted to dismissively take solace in the philosophy that the trade show ultimately was about networking, not sales.

It was obvious that the artists who did well at the show were those who were focusing on art that was unique and well-executed. It also was quite interesting that the alarm may have sounded on abstract and conceptual art, for the few works that sold were figurative and landscape pieces forged from the realistic schools.

It is my belief that the difference between the success of the afore-mentioned spectacle at Sotheby's and Artexpo Las Vegas is that one was successfully promoted and the other was not. In fact, I witnessed little promotion of Artexpo in Las Vegas compared to last year's advertising. In the words of an old adage, "the proof was in the pudding"...and in this case, the pudding flopped by all accounts.

In May, I read an interesting article that asked the question “Should you put your assets in art, stocks, or real estate? “ The article quoted the research of Jianping Mei and Michael Moses’s Semi Annual All Art Index, which compares how approximately 11,000 pieces of art fare when sold and resold at auction. This index was compared to the S & P 500 and the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index to track how real property (houses), stocks and art compared as investment property between the period of June and December from 1987 to 2007. It indicated that art offered a better return on one's investment, although one must realize that art cannot be liquidated as quickly as homes or stocks and is also directly impacted by changing societal tastes.

Considering the spiraling subprime mortgage problems, the stock market crashing, and general economic crisis, these discussions become moot issues when one is concerned about how one is going to put gasoline in the vehicles we drive, heat our homes, feed our families and keep a roof over one’s head. However, if one is not in a place to be concerned about Maslow’s Basic Hierarchy of Needs, it appears that art is not only a better investment option for one’s portfolio, but it is actually a responsible choice, for you ultimately employ a domino effect of individuals who are dependent upon a purchase that will delight you and others, not only through a recession or a depression, a bear or a bull market, or simply provide a safe harbor for your assets while the market tsunami crashes all around.

Nathaniel Hawthorne contended, "Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers." I emphatically disagree with the final statement. Economics and art are lovers; society should encourage them to fully embrace each other during these turbulant times.

The Artist's Muse Wins Another Award!

2008-09-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

Seeing through a lens of gratitude effects the way one can see each moment. As Meister Eckhert counseled, "If the only prayer you ever say is 'thank you,' it will be enough!"

Recently, I was reminded how much I have to be grateful for when I received an award from a fellow blogger, Veronica Escudero, the talented artist and author of “A Painting A Day by Veronica Escudero” . Here’s the Award I was presented:

In this world, we are faced with rules and regulations with the intent that civility is maintained. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that the acceptance of this award also came with rules. They follow herewith:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog

2. Link the person you received your award from

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4. Put links of those blogs on yours, and

5. Leave a message on the blogs that you've nominated

Since my foray into blogging, last January I’ve discovered a diverse array of blogs. There is truly “something for everyone”, and the quality of writing is equally varied. Because there are many blogs I enjoy visiting it was a difficult task narrowing the list down to seven blogs of note. Please check out the blogs I’ve nominated for this award; all of them are worthy of one’s attention. The nominees are listed in alphabetical order......

http://apostcardaday.blogspot.com/
A Postcard A day

http://alexiswired.com/
Alex is Wired

http://clarkspicks.com/
Clark’s Picks

http://domcaredragon.blogspot.com
Dom Care Dragon

http://www.esoterically.net/weblog/
First Door on The Left

http://fromayellowhouse.blogspot.com/
From A Yellow House In England

http://kenarmstrong.blogspot.com/
Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff

I am grateful to each of the blog authors for their amazing and fascinating contributions, especially Veronica Escudero at A Painting A Day and Caroline at Dom Care Dragon. Thank you for enriching my life!

The Booker, The Dobell and the Ultimate Prize

2008-09-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.: --Andre Malraux

In 2001, Graham Huggan published The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins, a scholarly book that examines some of the processes by which value is given to postcolonial works within their cultural field. He uses both literary-critical and sociological methods of analysis of the marketing of "products" for Western consumption.

Higgan’s postcolonial study includes a section on the Booker Prize, arguably the world's most important literary award which has the power to transform the fortunes of authors. The 1996 winner Graham Swift commented upon the import of the Booker thusly, "Prizes don't make writers and writers don't write to win prizes, but in the near-glut of literary awards now on offer, the Booker remains special. It's the one which, if we're completely honest, we most covet."

Now in its 40th year, the prize attempts to reward the author of the best original full-length novel of the year, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the British Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland.

Whilst discussing the impact and the history of the Booker Prize, Huggan advised,
“Literary prizes have existed in one form or another for many centuries. . …..As state subsidies of the arts have dwindled, alarmingly in many countries, corporate sponsors have emerged to dominate the literary/artistic scene. “ [The Postcolonial Exotic, pg 105]

Indeed, such is the origin of the Booker Prize, established by the Booker McConnell company, a leading multinational agribusiness, who began sponsoring the event in 1968. In 2002, the administration of the prize was transferred to the Booker Prize Foundation. At that time, the title sponsor became the investment company Man Group, which opted to retain "Booker" as part of the official title of the prize. Although the official name of the award is the “Man Booker Prize for Fiction”, aficionados and the media alike simply refer to it as “the Booker.”

In previous years, the gala dinner, where the winner of the award is announced, was televised in the UK and the Commonwealth nations awaited the decision of the judges with baited breath and much learned debate. I vividly recall one year (1990) when a panel of writers inclusive of Germaine Greer discussed the books that had been shortlisted for the prize, and then did a post-mortem analysis, similar to the way political speeches are addressed by the political analysts and the media in the United States, and movies are dissected when awarded “Oscars”. In fact, The Economist, a weekly news and international affairs publication, referred to this reception thusly," The {Booker} Prize has become a British institution, rather like Derby Day. "

Recently, there was an excellent article in The Guardian which provided vignettes gleaned from the annual adjudication of the Booker prize winner. Even if you’re not a bibliophile, it is an enjoyable read, especially as you learn about the horse-trading, the tantrums, and the personality politics that contributed to the awards.

One of the most vocal losers of the award has been Salman Rushdie, when he lost to J. M. Coetzee from South Africa/Australia, author of Disgrace. Allegedly, Rushdie, who had attended the ceremonial dinner, pounded the table in a rage upon hearing the announcement, and declared to all present that Coetzee was a “shitty winner.” This outrageous show of bad sportsmanship and poor command of language was despite the fact that in 1981 Salman Rushdie won the prize for Midnight's Children.

The reality is that winning an award is a vindication of hard work and most who “lose” feel a sense of disappointment, no matter what a polite smile on their face may attempt to convey. Yet, anyone who is nominated for a prize and loses can count themselves amongst a gallery of time-honored individuals. Review of the distinguished writers of the last century who have been overlooked for the Nobel Prize for Literature include Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy and Federico Garcia Lorca. One can also readily turn to celebrated movies that have failed to win the "Oscar" for Best Picture of the Year to see great movies unrecognized by the members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Here’s a short list of some of those films:

Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
Raiders of the Lost Ark
North by Northwest
Citizen Kane
Vertigo
Star Wars
Some Like It Hot
The Wizard of Oz
Philadelphia
2001: A Space Odyssey

Oddly enough, although he was nominated for five Best Director Oscars, enjoyed a career spanning 54 years, traversing 65 films, two continents and practically every technical revolution (silents, sound, color, 3D) and directed numerous movies now viewed as "classics", Alfred Hitchcock never won an award for Best Director in Oscar competition, although he was awarded the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award (for lifetime achievement) at the 1967 Oscars.

Ultimately, the evaluative process cannot be truly freed from ideological constraint. As humans, we have social agendas, personal biases, and cultural predilections and while we may try to consciously act impartially, these preferences will determine our concept of “excellence.”

My interest was engaged recently when it was announced at the Art Gallery of New South Wales that Melbourne artist Virginia Grayson is the winner of the 2008 Dobell Prize for Drawing for her work, No conclusions drawn – self portrait. The Dobell is Australia’s most respected award for drawing

According to The Australian’s national arts writer, Corrie Perkin, “Speaking after the presentation at the Art Gallery of NSW, Grayson said she was shocked to win the award, named after one of the great figures in 20th-century Australian art, William Dobell.

"Recently I have decided I have to resist this desire to wipe out the work, to let it go, move onto another, and return to it later if the need is still there to do so.''

On September 5th, Louise Schwartzkoff, The Sydney Morning Herald, quoted Grayson as saying, "Honestly, I don't feel like I've quite finished it," she said. "I always feel like there's something more to do. At one point near the end, I was ready to just erase myself and make it more abstract."

When I investigated further, I learned Grayson had also commented, "I was becoming a bit too obsessive about it, and it just didn't seem to be working. . . . You want to keep a level of play and energy and looseness in the work, and I felt I was losing that. You feel like you're taking the virginity out of the paper if you muck around with it too much. For a minute, I thought about throwing it away."

How many times have other artists and writers experienced similar feelings of inadequacy and doubt? How often have artists and writers abandoned works of quality because of an inner voice that quelled the understanding that the work was “good enough” or ready to be seen by another? I suspect the answer to these questions is “far too often.”

Virginia Grayson, who has claimed that she drew a self portrait as she couldn’t afford a model and has spent the past few years working up the courage to submit her work for the first time to the Dobell Prize committee, should be a source of inspiration for us all. She should be commended, not just for the artistic recognition afforded by the Dobell, but for actively demonstrating how to slay the demons and ghosts of insecurity that haunt most artists and walking away victorious and untrammeled.

As many will attest, there is an intrinsic relationship between art and freedom. The art historian, André Malraux, examined the relationship between art, freedom and reality. For Malraux, the reality in question is not a vaguely defined ‘world in which we live’ nor a nebulous collective reality. All art, he argued, is essentially the individual’s response to a metaphysical reality. He believed the reality to which art responds is ‘the fundamental emotion man feels in the face of life, beginning with his own.’ He further elucidated that same emotion is our underlying and inherent sense of the arbitrariness and contingency of all things.

Gaining from Grayson's experience, and fully recognizing that we have arbitrarily created standards demanded of ourselves, we may start to learn how to confront our fears and empower ourselves, thereby effectively coping with negative emotions and becoming able to obtain greater inner and outer freedom. And maybe....just maybe.... great works of art won't find their way to the dust bin but will receive their due accolades.

On Writing an Artist’s Statement

2008-09-06T00:28:00.001-07:00

Under the Awning
Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida

While preparing a package for a national juried show, I was reminded that Jean Cocteau contended, "An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture." Despite this, I was required to include an “Artist’s Statement”.

When the esteemed Spanish Impressionist painter Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, who excelled in the painting of portraits and seascapes, was asked by a journalist, " Maestro, you have had such a brilliant success with works on social themes, will you please tell me what you think about them?" Sorolla responded " My friend, I just paint pictures – other people do the explaining!"’

I can relate to this, as I personally believe that any and all art should speak for itself, allowing the viewer to respond authentically to the work without pre-conditioning due to having read or heard commentary by the artist. Even if one works in an abstract or expressionist style, rather than in an academic realism approach, the audience’s experience should be primary, not secondary, to the viewing of the work. Furthermore, people should be encouraged to trust their own experience of the moment, not discount it.

The concept of the artist’s statement is a relatively modern one born out of the manifestos written by the Italian Futurists in the early 1900’s. Futurism was an attempt to revitalize Italian culture by embracing the dynamic power of modern science and technology.

Umberto Boccioni adapted Filippo Marinetti’s ideas to the visual arts and became the leading theoretician of Futurist art. In 1910 he and Carlo Carra, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla and Gino drafted and published several Futurist manifestos promoting the representation of the symbols of modern technology—violence, power, and speed.

They sought to free all artistic expression from the heavy religious atmosphere that controlled most art produced in Italy. The Futurists promoted art that related to the modern developments of their day - the automobile, the airplane, and mass communication. Perhaps one of their most arcane manifestos was the “The Painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells.” Their philosophies were clearly delineated in their manifestos and make interesting reading. Herewith follows the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting:

Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini On the 18th of March, 1910, in the limelight of the Chiarella Theater of Turin, we launched our first manifesto to a public of three thousand people—artists, men of letters, students and others; it was a violent and cynical cry which displayed our sense of rebellion, our deep-rooted disgust, our haughty contempt for vulgarity, for academic and pedantic mediocrity, for the fanatical worship of all that is old and worm-eaten.

We bound ourselves there and then to the movement of Futurist Poetry which was initiated a year earlier by F. T. Marinetti in the columns of the Figaro.

The battle of Turin has remained legendary. We exchanged almost as many knocks as we did ideas, in order to protect from certain death the genius of Italian Art.

And now during a temporary pause in this formidable struggle we come out of the crowd in order to expound with technical precision our program for the renovation of painting, of which Futurist Salon at Milan was a dazzling manifestation.

Our growing need of truth is no longer satisfied with Form and Color as they have been understood hitherto. The gesture which we would reproduce on canvas shall no longer be a fixed moment in universal dynamism. It shall simply be the dynamic sensation itself.

Indeed, all things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing. A profile is never motionless before our eyes, but it constantly appears and disappears. On account of the persistency of an image upon the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves; their form changes like rapid vibrations, in their mad career. Thus a running horse has not four legs, but twenty, and their movements are triangular.

All is conventional in art. Nothing is absolute in painting. What was truth for the painters of yesterday is but a falsehood today. We declare, for instance, that a portrait must not be like the sitter, and that the painter carries in himself the landscapes which he would fix upon his canvas.

To paint a human figure you must not paint it; you must render the whole of its surrounding atmosphere.

Space no longer exists: the street pavement, soaked by rain beneath the glare of electric lamps, becomes immensely deep and gapes to the very center of the earth. Thousands of miles divide us from the sun; yet the house in front of us fits into the solar disk.

Who can still believe in the opacity of bodies, since our sharpened and multiplied sensitiveness has already penetrated the obscure manifestations of the medium? Why should we forget in our creations the doubled power of our sight, capable of giving results analogous to those of the X-rays?

It will be sufficient to cite a few examples, chosen amongst thousands, to prove the truth of our arguments.

The sixteen people around you in a rolling motor bus are in turn and at the same time one, ten, four, three; they are motionless and they change places; they come and go, bound into the street, are suddenly swallowed up by the sunshine, then come back and sit before you, like persistent symbols of universal vibration.

How often have we not seen upon the cheek of the person with whom we are talking the horse which passes at the end of the street.

Our bodies penetrate the sofas upon which we sit, and the sofas penetrate our bodies. The motor bus rushes into the houses which it passes, and in their turn the houses throw themselves upon the motor bus and are blended with it.

The construction of pictures has hitherto been foolishly traditional. Painters have shown us the objects and the people placed before us. We shall henceforward put the spectator in the center of the picture.

As in every realm of the human mind, clear-sighted individual research has swept away the unchanging obscurities of dogma, so must the vivifying current of science soon deliver painting from academism.

We would at any price re-enter into life. Victorious science has nowadays disowned its past in order the better to serve the material needs of our time; we would that art, disowning its past, were able to serve at last the intellectual needs which are within us.

Our renovated consciousness does not permit us to look upon man as the center of universal life. The suffering of a man is of the same interest to us as the suffering of an electric lamp, which, with spasmodic starts, shrieks out the most heartrending expressions of color. The harmony of the lines and folds of modern dress works upon our sensitiveness with the same emotional and symbolical power as did the nude upon the sensitiveness of the old masters.

In order to conceive and understand the novel beauties of a Futurist picture, the soul must be purified; the eye must be freed from its veil of atavism and culture, so that it may at last look upon Nature and not upon the museum as the one and only standard.

As soon as ever this result has been obtained, it will be readily admitted that brown tints have never coursed beneath our skin; it will be discovered that yellow shines forth in our flesh, that red blazes, and that green, blue and violet dance upon it with untold charms, voluptuous and caressing.

How is it possible still to see the human face pink, now that our life, redoubled by noctambulism, has multiplied our perceptions as colorists? The human face is yellow, red, green, blue, violet. The pallor of a woman gazing in a jeweler’s window is more intensely iridescent than the prismatic fires of the jewels that fascinate her like a lark.

The time has passed for our sensations in painting to be whispered. We wish them in future to sing and re-echo upon our canvases in deafening and triumphant flourishes.

Your eyes, accustomed to semi-darkness, will soon open to more radiant visions of light. The shadows which we shall paint shall be more luminous than the high-lights of our predecessors, and our pictures, next to those of the museums, will shine like blinding daylight compared with deepest night.

We conclude that painting cannot exist today withc without Divisionism. This is no process that can be learned and applied at will. Divisionism, for the modern painter, must be an innate complementariness which we declare to be essential and necessary.

Our art will probably be accused of tormented and decadent cerebralism. But we shall merely answer that we are, on the contrary, the primitives of a new sensitiveness, multiplied hundredfold, and that our art is intoxicated with spontaneity and power.

We declare:

1. That all forms of imitation must be despised, all forms of originality glorified.

2. That it is essential to rebel against the tyranny of the terms “harmony” and “good taste” as being too elastic expressions, by the help of which it is easy to demolish the works of Rembrandt, of Goya and of Rodin.

3. That the art critics are useless or harmful.

4. That all subjects previously used must be swept aside in order to express our whirling life of steel, of pride, of fever and of speed.

5. That the name of “madman” with which it is attempted to gag all innovators should be looked upon as a title of honor.

6. That innate complementariness is an absolute necessity in painting, just as free meter in poetry or polyphony in music.

7. That universal dynamism must be rendered in painting as a dynamic sensation.

8. That in the manner of rendering Nature the first essential is sincerity and purity.

9. That movement and light destroy the materiality of bodies.

We fight:

1. Against the bituminous tints by which it is attempted to obtain the patina of time upon modern pictures.

2. Against the superficial and elementary archaism founded upon flat tints, and which, by imitating the linear technique of the Egyptians, reduces painting to a powerless synthesis, both childish and grotesque.

3. Against the false claims to belong to the future put forward by the secessionists and the independents, who have installed new academies no less trite and attached to routine than the preceding ones.

4. Against the nude in painting, as nauseous and as tedious as adultery in literature.

We wish to explain this last point. Nothing is immoral in our eyes; it is the monotony of the nude against which we fight. We are told that the subject is nothing and that everything lies in the manner of treating it. That is agreed; we too, admit that. But this truism, unimpeachable and absolute fifty years ago, is no longer so today with regard to the nude, since artists obsessed with the desire to expose the bodies of their mistresses have transformed the Salons into arrays of unwholesome flesh!

We demand, for ten years, the total suppression of the nude in painting.

…..And to think from this manifesto we’ve moved into modern “Artspeak” and opaque jargon in copious artist’s statements!

It is interesting to note that the reality of war dampened, if not killed the Futurisitic movement by 1918. Ironically, one of the shining stars of the movement, Carlo Carrà, subsequently become a metaphysical painter, quite possibly due to his disenchantment with Italy's entry into World War I in 1915. He abandoned the concepts embraced by Futurism in lieu of inspiration from the works of Giotto and Uccello, and by the Modernist, Le Douanier (Henri) Rousseau. It is yet more interesting that Carrà didn’t write another manifesto, he simply painted.

I wish that artists would start to refuse the requests to provide artist’s statements and force the viewers to arrive at their own understanding of the work. But, alas, this will not happen. Failing that, my suggestion is for artists to consider the implicit words of Voltaire, "The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."

Capanni sul mare
by Carlo Carrà

News

2008-08-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Artist's Muse was recently awarded the "Creative Artist Award" by Laketrees, the noted art blog and resource. Thank you Kim, I am greatly honored.

When is a Frog not a Frog? -- Freedom of Artistic Expression

2008-08-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

The Theotokos and the Pomegranate
an oil painting by Sharon A. Hart, 2008

Edward Hopper, the American painter, believed, “If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Artists have long used symbols to convey greater truth that can not be fully communicated via the spoken language.

But, exactly what is a "symbol"?

The word symbol derives from the Greek verb symballein, meaning "to throw together"; its noun is symbolon, meaning "mark," or "sign." Symbols are means of communication.

A symbol is classically defined as an object, animate or inanimate, that stands for or points to a reality beyond itself. For example, a butterfly or a rainbow are often used as symbols of hope. However, a butterfly can also represent a more specific concept --- hope forged in transformation.

Symbols are used by writers and artists to indicate and represent ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. However, it is important to understand that symbols are rich and complex and, therefore, have many layers of meaning. According to the philosopher and symbologist Rene Gueron there are few “universal symbols” because signs and symbols are culturally defined. For example, a dragon in the Nordic European tradition is understood as something “evil”, whereas in the Eastern Asian tradition, a dragon is accepted as a symbol of wisdom.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, whilst addressing the relationship between art and symbolism, offered this gem of information:

“ The greater part of modern aesthetics assumes (as the words “aesthetic” and “empathy” imply) that art consists or should consist entirely of such unintelligible shapes, and that the appreciation of art consists or should consist in appropriate emotional reactions. It is further assumed that whatever is of permanent value in traditional works of art is of the same kind, and altogether independent of their iconography and meaning.” – Symbols

Recently, a symbol of the cross and crucifixion has caused a furor in a cultural milieu defined by religious beliefs. According to Wikipedia.org, “A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run diagonally, the design is technically termed a saltire.

The cross is one of the most ancient human symbols, and is used by many religions, such as Christianity. It is frequently a representation of the division of the world into four elements (Chevalier, 1997) (or cardinal points), or alternately as the union of the concepts of divinity, the vertical line, and the world, the horizontal line (Koch, 1955).”

The cross has often been used as a sign of suffering. However, for Christians it conveys a very specific understanding of suffering and a finite event --- the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth at the hands of the Romans over 2,000 years ago.

Crucifixion (hanging or nailing someone to a cross) was a well-known and commonly practiced mean of executing criminals in the ancient world. Herodotus, the noted Greek historian, documented the Persians used crucifixion as a form of extreme punishment. Additionally, other equally valid historical sources reveal the practice was common among the Assyrians, the Scythians, the Thracians , the Celts, the Germans and the Britons. It is a historical fact that Alexander the Great had 2000 survivors of the siege of Tyre crucified along the shores of the Mediterranean.

Because of this rich history of crucifixion not being restricted to a single event or culture, some artists have drawn upon the symbol of the cross to convey concepts beyond the limited scope of representing Jesus suffering on behalf of humanity. A prime example is a wooden sculpture which is entitled Zuerst die Füsse (First the Feet) by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger. The sculpture dating from 1990 depicts a frog approximately 1 meter 30 cm high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in its right outstretched hand and an egg in its left hand.

I suspect that Kippenberger would have agreed with Edward Hopper who whilst, speaking of artists in the sole context of painters, once shared, “I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions.”

The subject of personal and collective torment was a topic which Kippenberger addressed in many works; he considered Zuerst die Füsse a self-portrait illustrating human angst. More specifically, it symbolized his personal anguish concerning to our society that projects perfection but is actually hypocritical. He drew upon his experience within a society that at the end of the day drinks beer in bars and unbends to distasteful comments about sex and uses obscene language. He stated the crucified frog represents the bestial nature of humans that drink to the point of demeaning themselves, and who are unable to liberate themselves from the cross of alcohol lived as a plague. Through this sculpture, Kippenberger attempted to actively condemn a society that, on the one hand claims to be Christian and on the other, right under and before the very Christ that it reckons to venerate, can only express its worst side. Essentially, the frog represents humanity demeaned by alcohol addiction, constantly “nailed” or fixated by sex, while the egg, an ancient alchemical symbol, represents the betrayed perfection of creation.

When the sculpture was first on display at Museion, a museum of contemporary art in Bolzano, Italy, Antonio Lampis explained “a crucifixion is always an invitation to reflect on suffering” – claiming that – “in any event of contemporary art you will find more or less strong works on religion. It is part of people’s life, it is normal for it to become an ingredient of art. Society is getting used to being hypersensitive about certain themes but nobody can feel offended by a work of art”.

Despite this, numerous people have, indeed, been offended by the work which they believe to be a tasteless variation on the theme of the Christ’s death. The work has actually caused a polemic; even Pope Benedict XVI has chimed in on the subject! The Vatican released a letter in the Pope’s name, stating the sculpture “wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God’s love.” Ignoring the complete history of crucifixion, key members of the Magisterium have further declared the sculpture to be “blasphemous ” although the artist in no way intended to mock the cross or the experience of Jesus of Nazareth.

In response to the polemics against Kippenberger’s sculpture, Claudio Strinati, a superintendent for Rome’s state museums, was quoted in an Italian newspaper as follows:
“Art must always be free and the artist should not have any restrictions on freedom of expression.”

Interestingly, after significant discernment the board of the foundation of the Museion recently voted to keep the this controversial artwork on display, despite the immense pressure from the Vatican to censor Zuerst die Füsse.

While I personally do not appreciate art that is specifically designed to desecrate or shock, I fully recognize that many people may be hypersensitive about certain themes and, therefore, may be offended -- especially if they are not educated with regard to the artist’s intent and understanding of the symbols used in their work. One does not need to be in agreement with or even sympathetic to the message conveyed, but careful consideration of what is actually being communicated is essential to one’s perception and interpretation of any artist’s creation. This is true whether or not we are speaking about modern art, religious icons or even the cave paintings in Lascaux, France.

While one may rage against Kippenberger’s expression, perhaps those who do are doing so at society’s ultimate peril and one day the Vatican will renounce their recent declarations, as they needed to do centuries after declaring Galileo Galilei. a heretic.

How to Price Artwork

2008-08-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

Marshlands, Paludes
a watercolor by Sharon A. Hart

Vincent Van Gogh once told his brother, "No painting ever sells for as much as it cost the artist to make it." I've yet to meet any artist who could prove him wrong!

It is always difficult to determine how to price a painting. Some artists arbitrarily price solely by the dimensions of the artwork, some artists calculate the time it took to create the piece, while others "quantify" the value of the artwork's perceived "quality." One of the most creative methods I've ever heard used to establish pricing was developed by the Baroque Era Italian painter Giovani Grancesco Barbieri, better known as Guercino, who was renowned for his innovative compositions and profound psychological insight. He based his prices upon the number of figures in the composition---even pro-rating for three-quarter or half-length figures. Obviously, there is no set formulae that works across the board for all artists, as our costs, working methods, experience and skills are decidedly different.

St. Luke
by Guercino

In truth, sometimes a visually simple painting is harder to do than a complex one. An oil painting is always more expensive to create, but a watercolor is more difficult to control.

Consequently, my prices are not "fixed" but are an alchemical blend of all of the factors mentioned above to help determine a fair market price for each piece of fine art one would wish to add to their collection.

My price guidelines are just that --- guidelines that will give my patrons and aspiring collectors an approximation of what the piece may cost, depending upon medium, subject, and rendering. Each artist finds their own method of pricing and (for the most part) we do try to be fair. Furthermore, any piece of art is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it;the true arbiter of its value therefore is always the buyer.

While you read about record prices being set at auction houses like Christies and Sotheby's most of us aren't Prima Donnas commanding millions of dollars or pounds per each piece we create. Instead, the majority of artists fail to enjoy a living wage solely from their art, yet they continue to pursue their creative endeavors with the understanding that the process of creativity provides greater rewards than money---although that's appreciated, too. Let's face it -- most artists are passionate about creating art. If they were more interested in the business of money-making, they'd be bankers or venture-capitalists!

I agree entirely with the sage words of Kurt Vonnegut, "The practice of art isn't to make a living, it's to make your soul grow." What more can anyone ask for?

All That Glitters is Not Gold

2008-08-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

One of the early concepts for the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing (北京) considered incorporating the work of artist artist Cai Guo-Qiang. He is noted for his "fireworks painting" – where he draws the outline of a picture with gun-powder and then ignites the powder, creating a three-fold painting effect --"original painting," "fireworks painting" and "ash painting”.

The design team tested their idea out by selecting Picasso's Guernica, an oil painting condemning war atrocities. Performers stepped into a huge remake of the frame, poured gun-powder along the lines of the painting it enclosed, and thus turned it into a line drawing of Guernica. They then ignited the gunpowder from one corner of the painting; the fire soon spread to the entire piece, burning an outline of the artwork into the surface, and leaving behind beautiful ashes in the same shape.

However, the International Olympic Committee rejected the concept, as Picasso's Guernica might rightfully remind the spectators of war, not peace, thereby subtly communicating a truth they chose not to unveil to the masses. Additionally, the Chinese creative design team questioned the reliability and safety of the artform and were not prepared to experience embarrassment on the global stage. Therefore, after continuing to pursue this concept for half a year, they pursued other creative ideas designs for the opening ceremony.

It is sadly ironic that the initial concept of using Guernica was abandoned, for as millions throughout the world watched the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic games Russia and Georgia veered closer to all-out war, Mauritania experienced a coup which overthrew the democratically elected president, Pakistan continued their constitutional crisis that threatens its increased instability in the nuclear-armed state, and the remainder of the world continued with its interminable fighting and injustices that have become the “norm.”

The Chinese made inspired choices in their Olympic opening ceremony design team-- Zhang Yimou as artistic director and Zhang Jigang and Chen Weiya were selected as deputy artistic directors, Yu Jianping as director of the technology group and Lu Jiankang, production director. Anyone who watched the performance could not but be impressed by the sophistication, elegance, and state of the art technology used to produce the show. The lighting, music and human performances were meticulously coordinated; at times it was easy to forget that one was witnessing a spectacle extravaganza that was being delivered from a third world nation.

Early in the evening, I called a dear friend to remind her that the ceremony was about to begin. To my amazement, she announced that her husband was going to be watching “Hellboy” on their television instead. The Olympics from Beijing versus a movie? I couldn’t believe the choice he was making. However, I wonder in retrospect if he made the wiser decision based upon history.

The Games of the XI Olympiad were held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. The German government saw the Olympic Games as an opportunity to promote their ideology, particularly its promotion of the superiority of the "Aryan Race"; Adolf Hitler used the Olympics as a tool for propaganda.

While reflecting upon the exquisite pageantry of the Olympic Opening Ceremony at Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, I recalled that Dr. Jeffrey Seagrave , Professor of Exercise Science, Dance, and Athletics, at Skidmore College. wrote a fascinating essay on 1936 Berlin Olympics that includes a brief examination of how even the architecture played into the propaganda machine. Check it out at: http://hnn.us/articles/6875.html

When we consider how Hitler used the Olympics to imaginatively sway public opinion and promote his political agenda, is this any different than the Chinese using the opening of the 29th Olympic Games for similar ambitious purposes?

Let’s look at the basics of the four-hour show. It consisted of two parts: the first half, entitled "Brilliant Civilization," highlighted the past 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, and the second half, "Glorious Era," focused on the great achievements and portrayed the Chinese as a nation seeking to building harmonious relationship with the people of the world.

Of course, it was flawlessly executed with great artistic beauty within a framework of a Chinese scroll, on which performers demonstrated the development of Chinese culture through time.

On this high-tech stage, "moveable type printing," "Confucius' 3,000 disciples," "The Analects of Confucius," "Zheng He's ocean voyages" and "Chinese ritual music" were artfully synchronized and showcased. I particularly appreciated how the opening was orchestrated with the use of Fou drums and thousands of drummers, designed to impress, as well as to initiate a form of biofeedback perhaps of which only musicians, magicians or advertising agents would be acutely aware. Truly the entire performance from start to end was a stunning display of pyrotechnics and pageantry.

It is unfortunate yet interesting that 5,000 years of Chinese history all under the direction of Zhang Yimou, whose early films often ran afoul of government censors for their blunt portrayals of China's human rights problems, blatantly skipped modern historical events such as Chairman Mao’s ascent, the horrors of Tian'anmen Square massacre, and the more recent conflicts and controversies of note.

Too often, society has forgotten the power of art and its ability to move and inspire. Yet, it is far to easy to be distracted by beauty when we are immersed in an environment that begs us to examine the realities of injustice and suffering. Richard Mandell addressed the Berlin Olympic ceremonial as "an obscuring layer of shimmering froth on a noxious wave of destiny."

Perhaps those of us who watch and or report on the 2008 Summer Olympic games should heed the words of George Santayana, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

All Things Bright and Beautiful

2008-07-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

Words are ghosts that will come back to haunt you, or so I quickly learned after I had been interviewed by a reporter with the BBC. She had been referred to me from a friend, who had declined the interview, and prior to sitting down with the tape recorder, we chatted seemingly aimlessly, developing a good rapport with each other. To my surprise, when the actual interview was conducted on tape, the reporter introduced a topic we had spoken about earlier; this took me off-guard especially as I didn’t want to share my answer with the world at large. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, as both “rapport” and “report” share a Latin etymological root meaning “to bring or carry back.”

I recalled this exceptionally educational and embarrassing experience when I read an essay in the New York Time’s Sunday Book Review. The paragraph that triggered my memory follows:

“ Mark Haddon, who wrote numerous novels for children before The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, said in an e-mail message that he recalled 'a number of people looking down their noses at me when I explained what I did for a living, as if I painted watercolors of cats or performed as a clown at parties.' "

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I have never read a single book by Mark Haddon, yet I question his ability to choose words wisely when writing. Perhaps he felt an email gave him the luxury to sling words fast and furious, without any thought of the import or meaning behind them. I suspect his comments referencing artists who paint watercolors of animals, cats in particular, are words that may come back to haunt him. Why? The art history chronicles are filled with the names and works of esteemed artists who have painted cats, both in watercolor and in other mediums, so perhaps Mr. Haddon might want to re-think his analogy.

One of the treasures in the British Museum is by a no lesser-talented artist than Leonardo Da Vinci included a drawing of a cat sitting with the Christ Child on the lap of the Madonna in his Virgin and Child with Cat . (AD 1478-81) Unfortunately, no painting of this study has survived or been subsequently discovered, although Rembrandt later was inspired to create an etching also entitled Virgin and Child with a Cat. (1654).

Other artists, such as Matisse, Goya, and Manet painted cats using their own particular style to capture the essence of the animal. Henri Matisse’s Girl with A Black Cat, was completed in 1910, and is presently in private collection.

Even Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Pablo Picasso shared an affection for cats, as evidenced by the number of paintings and drawings both artists created that included felines. Similarly, Theophile Alexandre Steinlen, the esteemed Swiss illustrator and collaborator of Emile Zola and Toulouse-Lautrec, is noted for his highly collectible paintings, posters and sculptures of cats.

One of my favorite paintings by Pierre Bonnard , a member of Les Nabis, can be found in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Characteristic of his colorful narrative paintings of interiors, the cat’s presence acts as an animated distinction to the immobility and calmness of his wife, Marthe.

Recently I discovered the work of the Key West Artist, Bill Borough whose website is http://www.keywestwatercolors.com . His realistic watercolor paintings focus on the buildings found in Key West, including Audubon House, the home of John James Audubon, the world-renown ornithologist, and at the house located at 1431 Duncan Street, generally known as Tennessee Williams' House. More relevant, however, to this discussion, Bill Borough has skillfully captured one of the felines lurking at the lovely Spanish Colonial house previously owned by Ernest Hemingway.

True diplomacy, like great art, involves having the sense to know how to express ideas succinctly and to restrain from the tendency to speak without knowledge of one’s subject, always opting to remain silent, when appropriate. Therefore, like a cat, I’ll now opt to remain silent and hope that the next time a writer addresses a wider audience, words are chosen wisely instead of in dismissive haste.

Ariadne's Thread

2008-07-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

"Back into the labyrinth, where we are found or lost forever."
W.B. Yeats

A single crumpled landscape painted strokes of a checkerboard pattern and a checked quilt on another’s canvases are the only known works of art that Sunday Reed, the late Australian arts patron and Muse of several artists has left for posterity. However, she continues to arouse, as the tabloid and quality press recently reported that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s creative choice of their baby’s unusual name was inspired by the still-controversial Sunday Reed.

Sunday was a woman who provided inspiration and acted as Muse for many of the famous painters of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s in Australia, including Sir Sydney Nolan, one of the giants of 20th century Australian art and Albert Tucker. She shocked many by entering into an open menage a trios with John Reed and Sydney Nolan, during which Nolan produced most of his greatest work, including the famous Ned Kelly series.

Melbourne art historian Janine Burke, devoted much time researching Sunday Reed, culminating in a book, The Heart Garden: Sunday Reed and Heide, wherein she stated Sunday was not only Nolan's lover and financial supporter in the 1940’s but collaborated in his art. She further believes Sunday helped paint key sections of two paintings, The Trial and The Defence, both part of Nolan’s Ned Kelly series.

As stated in an Australian newspaper from 2004,
“Burke suggests that Reed, once an art student, painted the red-and-white tiled floor in The Trial with a stencil and the checked quilt in The Defence of Aaron Sherritt, both now in the National Gallery of Australia.

Peter Haynes, director of the Nolan Gallery at Lanyon, said: "It wouldn't surprise me if she did. He worked so quickly right up to his death (in 1992). We've got works in the collection with times on them as well as dates, so he might well have had a bit of assistance here and there on something like a pattern."

No one is suggesting Nolan's paintings are devalued if he allowed Reed to assist him. But those close to the artists - wives in particular - are protective of their creative and emotional lives.”

According to the psychologist Carl Jung, the Muse represents the male’s anima: “immortal,” she is “disguised under the many names we give to creative impulses and ideas.” In the life of Sunday Reed, we see the role of a woman artist being over-shadowed by the men around her. However, we also see how the role of the Muse elevates the artist, and supporting Jung’s understanding of the immortality of the Muse.

Some muses are erotic wives and lovers, while others are chaste and unattainable, some are solely devoted to the artistic expression of a single artist, whereas, others are serial Muses, facilitating the artistic labor of many. Regardless, the qualities and sacrifices of the living Muse has yet to be fully explored and documented. Here is a small sampling of some Muses throughout history and the artists they inspired:

Muse : Artist

Beatrice Portinari : Dante Alighieri
Lucrezia (del Fede) : Andrea del Sarto
Sandra Fisher : RB Kitaj
Maud Gonne : William Butler Yeats
Laura: Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca)
Emilie Flöge :Gustave Klimt
Monique Bourgeois :Henri Matisse
Victorine Louise Meurent: Edouard Manet
Camille Claudel : Auguste Rodin
Françoise Gilot : Pablo Picasso
Alma Mahler : Gustav Mahler, Oskar Kokoschka, Walter Gropius, & Franz Werfel
Elizabeth Siddal : Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Lou Andreas-Salomé :Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke and Sigmund Freud
Lee Miller : Man Ray
Elena Ivanovna Diakonova (Aka Galarina aka Gala): Paul Éluard, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Andre Breton, & others

Francine Prose is one of the few writers who has sought to start to record the lives of women as Muse. She recently published a book entitled The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists they Inspired, in which she wrote, ''Artists rarely create for the muse, to win or keep the Muse's love and admiration, but rather for themselves, for the world, and for the more inchoate and unquantifiable imperatives of art itself. Their muses are merely the instruments that raise the emotional and erotic temperature high enough, churn up the weather in a way that may speed and facilitate the artist's labors.''

I believe this is entirely true. Hesiod and Virgil believed that the Muses were symbols of ontological truth and certainty, allowing the artist to enter into greater awareness of consciousness and reception. It is also important to remember the presence of the muse is always numinous and dramatic, and the artist’s response to her determines our response to his artistic expression.

One will recall from classic Hellenic mythology, it is Ariadne, Muse and guide to truth, who gives Theseus the golden thread that leads into the labyrinth, where he slays the Minotaur and then follows the golden thread back into the light; in every time and season, Ariadne is born anew to yet another awakening Theseus divinely driven to create his art.

If one has the opportunity to view Henri Matisse’s final and greatest masterpiece, the Chapelle du Rosaire, one can see the direct impact of the Muse, and how the sapphire blue, emerald green and lemon yellow window with the prickly pear fig motif transmits the ever-revealing symbolism of contained yet ever-expectant vibrant sensuality .

"strangers in the country of man"

2008-07-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

Recently, the British art critic, Brian Sewell had the audacity to proclaim “There’s never been a great woman artist.” In an article in the Independent Newspaper, he was quoted thusly:

"The art market is not sexist," Mr. Sewell said. "The likes of Bridget Riley and Louise Bourgeois are of the second and third rank. There has never been a first-rank woman artist.

"Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness. Women make up 50 per cent or more of classes at art school. Yet they fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it's something to do with bearing children."

I’m not so sure that the biological and sociological potential for ‘reduced volume of oeuvre’ can be equated to “lack of greatness.” Within Germaine Greer’s coruscating book, The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work, the issues of domesticity on the woman artist are addressed. More importantly, she poses questions of note and contends, “The real questions are ‘What is the contributions of women to the visual arts?’ If there were any women artists, why were there not more?’, “If we can find one good painting by a woman, where is the rest of her work?”, “How good were the women who earned a living by painting?” The real questions are based not in the notions of great art entertained by the ‘layman’, which are essentially prejudices, but in the sociology of art, an infant study still in the preliminary stages of inventing terminology for itself.” (pp. 3, pg 6, The Obstacle Race)

These questions floated through my mind while I considered Mr. Sewell’s myopic commentary on women artists. I later reflected on my own question,

“Outside of relative historical obscurity, what does Judith Leyster, the esteemed Haarlem painter of the Baroque Era and Laura Riding Jackson, the talented American poet and essayist who died in 1991 have in common?”

Thanks to the astute observation of the art historian, Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, who studied Leyster’s work, we know that Judith Leyster creatively signed her paintings with a monogram, - a five-pointed lodestar shooting from entwined initials, making a play on her last name, which in Dutch, means “Leading Star”.

Despite this cleverness and the mastery of the artist, the name “Judith Leyster” may not quickly rise to the forefront of the average individual’s art-history recollection.

Why? In January 25, 1994, Jo Ann Lewis, an art reviewer for the Washington Post, published an article entitled, “Judith Leyster, the Dutch Master Who Was a Mrs.” The review was published in association with a mini-retrospective at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Herewith is a key extract of the article:

“ Not a single work is known to have been hung in a museum or sold under Leyster's name until 1892, when a lawsuit between two London art dealers forced a closer inspection of a painting attributed to her probable teacher, Frans Hals, and revealed Leyster's monogram under the grime. The lawsuit was settled by reducing the price of the work (now in the Louvre) by 25 percent; but it also prompted the Dutch art historian who had made the discovery to track down six more paintings with Leyster's monogram and publish the first article on her work.”

There is much information about women’s artistic endeavors and how they are received by the critics is contained within those words by Jo Ann Lewis:

Firstly, we become aware that having discovered the authentic creator of the painting, the work has lost commercial value despite having previous received critical accolades by the art community for the fine brushstrokes and nuances of character portrayed in the portraits; this blatantly demonstrates the sexism that is rampant in the valuation of women’s art versus men’s creations.

And, secondly, the good news is that having become aware of the mis-attribution of Leyster’s work as that of Frans Hals’, greater attention was given to identification of similar works that had also be mis-identified.

Here is a short list of some of Judith Leyster’s art that had been previously attributed to other artists:

• Laughing Man with Wine Glass --formerly attributed to Gerard Honthorst

• The Jolly Companions, sold in 1890, (Leyster’s unique monogram had been altered to an interlocking FH)

• The Jolly Toper (acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 1897) has her monogram and is dated 1629. It was sold as a Frans Hals at the Hotel Drouot in 1890.

• Yet another Jolly Toper was bought in 1874 by the Kaise-Friedrich Museum as a Frans Hals.

• Self Portrait, 1633, formerly attributed to Frans Hals, (Owned by National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) [please see image at top of this blog]

One can only wonder if the most recent Frans Hals sale of “Portrait of Willem van Heythuysen, Seated on a Chair and holding a Hunting Crop,”, which exceeded its estimated price and sold for £7m at a Sotheby's auction in London will one day be revealed to also truly be the work of Judith Leyester, rather than Frans Hals.

Review of the recent auction notes provides these reassuring comments that could indicate that the work should actually be ascribed to Judith Leyster:

“This is one of Hals' most arresting portraits, and is a familiar image. The tipping chair that bears Van Heythuysen's larger than life presence in a diagonal that fills the picture plane from lower right to upper left, and the whip that he grasps with both hands and bends into an arc are provocative and charge the picture with tension and drama. We think he is about to fall over, but it is obvious from his relaxed form with one leg crossed over the other that he knows he will not, and that the chair will safely bear the bulk of his reposing body. His pose suggests more than nonchalance; it is self-confident. This may suggest to us that Hals has here depicted an archetypal bravo, but the Van Heythuysen that Hals portrays is very far from being a caricature. The pose of his bulky relaxed body with one leg crossed over the other is not that of studied arrogance. Rather it leads us naturally to his sympathetic serious careworn face which belies any bravo stereotype, and which fixes the viewer with an intent but calm intelligent gaze.

As Bijl and Biesboer observed, this spontaneous and informal portrait is unusual within Hals' oeuvre and among Dutch portraiture of the time, and this may be because it was intended for a private chamber – such as the one in which Van Heythuysen is depicted.”

Hank Burchard, seasoned art correspondent for the Washington Post, critically noted in an article dated December 24, 1993, “The assignments to Hals are the most puzzling because, while Leyster apparently was at least briefly one of his students and her brushwork is similar, the tone and atmosphere of her work is very different. Where Hals radiates golden warmth, Leyster's characters are much more coolly and clearly observed. She seizes in particular on those moments during changes of facial expressions when the shutters of the soul are briefly opened to betray the fool within.”

If we use our eyes to look at art, without attention to gender, will we see greater commercial value in the work if we are not blinded by gender?

One may accuse me of wishful thinking -- of being delusional enough to suggest the possibility that the recent painting that sold at Sotheby’s may be not be a genuine Frans Hals work. However, only four years ago, the same painting was sold at an auction in Vienna to an anonymous buyer for a mere $700,000, as the catalog description read, “Studio of Frans Hals”. It was only later authenticated to have been painted by the renowned painter. Surely, as the art community and the business community becomes receptive to the idea that women have created masterpieces, the attributions may be ascribed to women as well as to male artists of the respective period.

It is not uncommon for the work of women’s hands and creative spirit to be credited to men. Historically, Art Guilds, ateliers, and Salons often refused women entry. Despite this, women worked alongside their fathers, brothers, husbands, or lovers to produce works of art in their private studios; the creations were generally attributed to the men in their lives.

Times have not changed greatly. I personally have witnessed women who were barred entry into art and photographic competitions because of their gender, so they submitted their work under the name of a husband or a father, just to have the opportunity to have their work exposed to others and get a “fair” juried appraisal and critical acuity of the work. Ribbons may bear the name of a man, but the truth is known by the principals involved.

It has been said that Laura Riding Jackson, the highly original essayist and poet, is “distinguished by her insistence on defining the value of poetry as truth-value.” As an ardent thinker on language, much of her writing is preoccupied with the precept of truth.

• If what you write is true, it will not be so because of what you are as a writer but because of what you are as a being. There can be no literary equivalent to truth. If, in writing, truth is the quality of what is said, told, this is not a literary achievement: it is a simple human achievement.
"Extracts from Communications", from The Telling (London: Athlone Press, 1972).

• Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth. Poetic art cheats truth to further and finer degrees than art of any other kind because the spoken word is its exclusive medium.
Preface to Selected Poems (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973).

• To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth…but only a problem of art is solved in poetry.
Preface to Selected Poems (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973).

Laura Riding Jackson also steadfastly refused to let her own experiences be misrepresented. I believe she would have delighted in the recent headline in the British press which read, “War Poet Robert Graves ‘stole Work from his mistress’.”

The well-written article by the Independent’s art correspondent, Arifa Akbar, includes these passages:

“Few would doubt the brilliance of Robert Graves, a man considered to be one of Britain's foremost war poets whose verses on Greek mythology and frontline conflict cemented his name in literary history.

But one academic has accused the poet of stealing ideas, literary criticism and poetry from his one-time American mistress and passing them off as his own.…..

"Between 1926 and 1939, he was learning from her what she was doing and thinking," Dr. Jacobs said. "He was taking her ideas, her research, he was simply shovelling it in to his own books.... She left her manuscript in Majorca. She later wrote to him [Graves] and told him to burn the manuscript. We now know that he didn't. It all appeared in dribble form in The White Goddess. He used it for his own ends without mentioning it to her. She only found out in the 1950s."

Thanks to historians such as Dr. Mark Jacobs, a fair reassessment of Grave’s and Laura Riding Jackson’s writings will be made in the light of the revelations. Most importantly, greater attention may be brought to the work of a brilliant woman, who was more than a muse, more than a living incarnation of “The White Goddess”, she was an artist concerned with the truth. Like Judith Leyster, thanks to the curious and affirming authoritative researchers who look beyond gender, Laura Riding Jackson’s critical voice will no longer be silent and the truth will shout loudly.

so I began to live.
It was outrageous,

I made mortal mistakes,
I did not mean to live so mortally.

But something must be written about me,
And not by them.
So I began those mistold confidences
Which now read like profanity of self
To my internal eye
And which my critic hand erases
As the story grows too different to speak of

In the way the world speaks.

---Laura Riding Jackson, Memories of Mortalities

Fearless Variation

2008-07-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

Les fleurs

by Natalia Goncharova

Natalia Goncharova's Les fleurs, painted circa 1912, recently was sold at auction at Christie's in London. With a final bid of £4.6 million ($9.6 million), Natalia Goncharova became the "most expensive" female painter on the art market.

Artists are generally given advice to adhere to a given style, yet one can look to Goncharova's ceaseless reevaluation of painterly possibilities and recognize that she did not develop one signature style, but many.

Goncharova articulated her artistic ambitions as follows, 'Do drawings of things, the landscape, people just as they appear at a given moment in your imagination; fear nothing, no deformity of any kind, no fabrication, no fantasy. Try out various styles and methods, emphasizing first one part, then another, now movement, now the very position of the object itself in space and its relationship to others. Change them according to your imagination and instinct, urge yourself to do it precisely that way or in accordance with the idea that you have worked out consciously in your own mind' (N. Goncharova, quoted in exh. cat., Amazons of the Avant-Garde, New York, 2000, p. 310).

If an artist is being true to their inner self and not to "the market", drawing artistic inspiration from their environment and their imagination, it follows that there will be an authenticity in their oeuvre that will be lacking otherwise. Without a focus that is heavily reliant on ideas of personal authenticity, the artistic expression becomes marginal and indistinctive. Is that perhaps that the true differentiation between genius and average art?

Marshlands, Paludes by Sharon A. Hart

The Haiku of Painting

2008-06-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Escape by Sharon A. Hart

Recently, while working on a new painting, I’ve been thinking about Frank O’Hara, the late reviewer for Art News and Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Perhaps it’s because recently a book of his selected poems, edited by Mark Ford, has been released. There’s an informative review of the book found in the New York Times.

However, even prior to learning about the publication of the book, I had been reflecting on O’Hara’s poem Why I Am Not A Painter because it beautifully articulates the creative process; the result is unexpected, the process is improvisatory, ever- changing and the final product is found in the process itself which may involve a process of obliqueness or even extraction.

Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

(originally published 1957, Evergreen Review)

I can relate to the understanding of “too much in the painting”, for the very painting I’ve been working on initially had been planned much too complicated. Once I started painting, the life of the painting directed me to remove certain aspects of the design, even parts initially painted. As the painting was a watercolor, this created certain demands, but I believe I was able to rise to the challenge. Spatial differences, alliances and references enter into the experience of the artist until it is imbued with a seemingly natural expression related to haiku. Sometimes it is in what we don’t add or say that we express the most.

Sardines
by
Mike Goldberg
1955

Stating the Obvious

2008-06-08T12:27:00.001-07:00

Louise Bourgeois in 1990 with her marble sculpture Eye to Eye (1970) Photo by Raimon Ramis  Louise Bourgeois

In Issue 4 of the Special Edition of The Art Basel Fair Edition of The Art Newspaper, Iwan Wirth, of Hauser and Wirth, is quoted as saying, "Female artists as a whole are shockingly undervalued by the market." He further elucidates, "In May, Lucian Freud became the priciest living artist at $33.6 m and Louise Bourgeois became the priciest living female artist at €2.9m [$4.6m—at Christie’s, Paris, on 27 May.] It is not my mission, but it occurred to me again, on the back of these records, how far female artists have to go."

Women's artistic efforts have consistently been undervalued by society. This isn't "news". It's one of the reasons why Virginia Woolfe wrote the classic A Room of One's Own, other women, such as Mary Ann Evans, have published under pseudonymns such George Elliot, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts is the sole museum in the world dedicated to recognizing the contributions of women artists.

I doubt that change is going to come about in our life time. Perhaps we need to follow the lead of women authors and consider selling our work under pseudonyms?

Writing, Chewing Gum and Bliss

2008-01-17T01:06:00.000-08:00

Last week a question was posed on a popular artblog “Why is it so many bloggers write as if they're chewing gum?” Frankly, at the time, I was too busy painting to compose an intelligent answer to the query. However, in the interim, I’ve considered the question and arrived at an answer dissimilar to that held by the art critic who initially asked the question.

It became evident to me that the critical issue is essentially a struggle between the word and the image. George Orwell, in his essay “Politics and the English Language”, warned us that if a writer “is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming…he is not really thinking.”

While the artist attempts to communicate one’s inner vision through the choice and rendering of materials, the writer is forced to use the medium of language. Logos—“meaning” can be derived from both experiences but will be expressed differently because of the media chosen.

Consequently, words, images and logos often enter into battlefields such as artblogs, websites, and even the production of artist’s statements. While marketing gurus encourage artists to take the plunge into the blogging experience, citing the importance of increased exposure, there is no consideration of the negative impact of poorly constructed or maintained presentations when this suggestion is tendered.

One of the other problems facing artists when considering blogging is the very real consideration of how one spends one’s creative time. Does one write or does one focus on one’s principle artistic endeavor?

Perhaps we’d do well to follow Joseph Campbell’s advice,”…. if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

Tellers of Stories~~Weavers of Dreams

2008-01-08T23:44:00.001-08:00

While watching Charlie Rose’s show, A Memorial of those who died in 2007, I was struck by a question he variously posed in several of the interviews :“ What job-title do you want engraved on your tombstone?” One of the individuals declined the suggested appellations tendered, choosing instead the descriptive story-teller.

In The Four Truths of the Storyteller, published by the Harvard Business Review, filmmaker Peter Guber detailed what he believes are the four facets of storytelling that are crucial to its success: truth to the audience, to the moment, to the mission, and to the storyteller. It is interesting to apply these same principles to an understanding of narrative painting and determine whether or not the moment can be a universal moment or must be restricted.

It is my opinion the voyeuristic nature of humans also lends itself well to art, especially when considering Alfred Hitchcock’s comment, “I’ll bet you that nine out of ten people, if they see a woman across the courtyard undressing for bed, or even a man puttering around in his room, will stay and look.” Despite this, in today’s art market there is a distinct absence of narrative painting, such as demonstrated in Jan van Eyck's masterpiece, The Marriage of Giovanni Arnofino.

On a positive note, there are still some contemporary artists, such as Dana Schultz and Drago Persic, who have embraced this rarified genre and embed tales in their images. One is led to ask whether or not the reasoning for the contemporary absence of narrative painting is determined by something greater than a philosophical shift in the art world towards formalism.

Blake Gopnik, in an article in the Washington Post, Is Cubism's Revolution Behind Us? If You Think Picasso's Work Didn't Last, Keep Looking, addressed the issue of cubism’s impact on modern art. He offered several astute observations:

“Cubism realizes that all great art demands some generosity on the part of its viewers. Look up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and you know you're not really looking up at God creating Adam -- and that it's worth pretending for a minute that you are. Cubism pushes that idea about as far as it could possibly go. It asks you to forget about what pictures can really do and to try on some artist's confounding new notions of art's capacities and goals -- "to make the best of that obscurity, and finally to revel in it," as Clark says. We all know a cubist picture fails to represent the world in anything like useful or coherent ways. But there's something to be gained imagining it could. Cubism marks art's greatest "because I say so" moment, and thereby launches the history of fully modern art. Cubism says it's going to rewrite art's rules for representing things, and demands we go along with the unlikely fictions it creates. And that frees every later artist to make a similarly daring, even arbitrary move.”

The reality, however, is than in the thrust towards freedom, artists abandoned the narrative for the implied, the form, the obscure, and the inane. One might contend that it was easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the challenge of narrative painting is in trying to provide a convincing relationship between form and content. The viewer must fully participate and have some sense of what is being conveyed by the artist, or alternatively be given permission to “create one’s own understanding of the story”. This sense of participatory relationship was noted in a press release about one of Drago Persic’s shows:

“The viewer is invited, indeed obliged, to participate in an effort to patch together the clues and fill in what is not actually there. Anything consistent that we might perceive - erotic or sinister, harmless or harmful – in fact takes place in our own imagination. The artist himself does nothing more than suggest.”

Furthermore, the artist must demonstrate acute skill in the rendering; a story's power to captivate and inspire is directly related to the technical skill of the narrator. It is difficult to balance cultural or historic meaning, use formal elements reveal the meaning of the artwork, and effectively manipulate scale, composition, paint application, color, and contrast to create a persuasive narrative. A good tutorial about narrative painting, using William Frederick Yeames’ painting “And When Did you last See Your Father” can be found on the internet, courtesy of the Walker Art Gallery.

One must not, however, presuppose that narrative painting is the purview of American or European artists. In fact, the narrative painting has a time-honored tradition found in Oriental and Aboriginal art. It has also been explored within the context of Ethiopean artwork.

It seems to me that if an artist is skilled in their technical abilities and has imaginative faculties and is willing to not climb on board of the train leading to the familiar territory of abstraction, the realm of narrative painting is a wide-open field awaiting exploration. Perhaps this is the next frontier of postmodernism.

Courage versus the Blank Canvas

2008-01-06T23:10:00.000-08:00

I find that starting to paint is equally the most exhilarating and also the most daunting aspect of the creative process. While ideas percolate in my mind long before I pick the brush or palette knife, and I long to express myself, the very sight of the blank canvas often intimidates me. In talking with other painters, I’ve discovered I’m not alone, as most of them share this emotion. The trick is to prevent one’s feelings of intimidation from allowing too much time to pass before the inspiration is devoured by loss.

W. H. Murray, the writer and explorer offered words advice for those of us who hesitate in his book, The Scottish Himalaya Expedition:

'But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'

Getting started often is nothing more than seizing the moment and either sketching one’s idea on the canvas or paper. Sometimes even covering the pristine white canvas or paper with a wash of color is sufficient to drive intimidation from the room and allow courage to sully forth.

The burning passion to express one’s self will emerge and ultimately may be met by genius. Truly, Goethe was writing from experience!

Time, Art, and Sacred Space

2008-01-05T00:32:00.000-08:00

Memories entwine, a skein of visions, half-recalled moments, bits of poetry and prose until there is a need to pull something specific from the tumbled masse. Even then, one is sometimes surprised by what is delivered to the conscious awareness.

Salon recently published an article by Cary Tennis entitled Go away, can't you see I'm writing?! that sent me on an internal journey to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique. Theoretically, they are connected by a root of feminist philosophy. While this is true, their relationship is deeper for me, however bleak.

The arguments Virginia Woolf introduced over seventy-four years ago in her slim but monumental A Room of One's Own, are still relevant today. When I first was led to the book, I felt the way countless other women felt when they read Betty Friedan's book---someone had articulated a problem facing women--my issues--and once the problem was "identified", it would not , could not, be silenced. Regardless of which field of art a woman is attracted towards, the reality is that it remains a struggle to seek and retain resources of time, money, and the peace delivered by "A room of one's own" in the pursuit to create.

The need to have a "sacred space" to create is vital for artists, but often women share their "creative space" with others, putting their own expressive needs aside to make room for dinner, children, or a myriad of other interruptions that delay or entirely halt the creative process. Woolf beautifully offers justification of space as a key element for the woman writer :

"One goes into the room –– but the resources of the English language would be much put to the stretch, and whole flights of words would need to wing their way illegitimately into existence before a woman could say what happens when she goes into a room. The rooms differ so completely; they are calm or thunderous; open on to the sea, or, on the contrary, give on to a prison yard; are hung with washing; or alive with opals and silks; are hard as horsehair or soft as feathers –– one has only to go into any room in any street for the whole of that extremely complex force of femininity to fly in one's face. How could it be otherwise? For women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated with their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics."
---Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1957) 91.

While one might put pens, paper, or even a computer aside, it is yet more difficult for the artist whose medium is something other than language. Material considerations flood forth, and the issue of space then keenly competes with the reality of costs associated with one's art. Is it any wonder why most individuals are hard-pressed to cite the names of ten women artists when you recognize the Atlantean struggles women painters and sculptors have had to endure to create then have their work be noticed?

There was an excellent article in the UK's Telegraph about Claude Cahun, a talented surrealist photographer from the 1920's whose work remained lost to us until the 1990's when it was re-discovered. How many other women artists are lost in the mists of time, their work destroyed, unappreciated, or simply unknown?

Distraction... invention... experience....even the discounting of one's own worth are part of the "recipe" women bring to the creative expression. Moments stolen in time are alchemically transformed into a visual mandate for vita, life.

Many years ago I stumbled across a poem that has haunted me ever since. I've danced with the poem over the years and now understand what words and images will never touch. The poem follows:

Woman Enough

Because my grandmother's hours
were apple cakes baking,
& dust motes gathering,
& linens yellowing
& seams and hems
inevitably unraveling
I almost never keep house
though really I like houses
& wish I had a clean one.

Because my mother's minutes
were sucked into the roar
of the vacuum cleaner,
because she waltzed with the washer-dryer
& tore her hair waiting for repairmen
I send out my laundry,
& live in a dusty house,
though really I like clean houses
as well as anyone.

I am woman enough
to love the kneading of bread
as much as the feel
of typewriter keys
under my fingers
springy, springy.
& the smell of clean laundry
& simmering soup
are almost as dear to me
as the smell of paper and ink.

I wish there were not a choice;
I wish I could be two women.
I wish the days could be longer.
But they are short.
So I write while
the dust piles up.

I sit at my typewriter
remembering my grandmother
& all my mothers,
& the minutes they lost
loving houses better than themselves
& the man I love cleans up the kitchen
grumbling only a little
because he knows
that after all these centuries
it is easier for him
than for me.

~~ Erica Mann Jong~~

Art, Ethics, and Honor Amongst Thieves

2008-01-04T23:40:00.001-08:00

"William Blake is damned good to steal from! "--Henry Fuseli

Earlier today I was faced with an ethical quandry. One of the e-groups I lurk upon had a post by a professor of Art History at an American university. She posted this message:

Dear All,

Here's a photograph and artist's statement of a Sofiia icon that one
of my students made through a difficult print-making process on raw
silk in 16 plate layers. The photograph doesn't do this piece
justice, but I love her interpretation of what Wisdom is and how to
portray it. The dominant color after all the layers were laid down
is a soft of warm lavender-grey (maybe jasper is the best descriptor).

Just thought you'd like to see it.

When I followed the link she had provided, I was astonished to recognize the work was plaigerized from a painting of Mary Magdalene by Richard Stodart that had been created in 1995 and has been widely distributed via the internet on various websites. How does one respond to this, especially when you consider we are considering the issue of grades as well as professional ethics?

As far back as 2001, issues of intellectual property and artistic license were discussed on the internet. In an article published by Wired, entitled Is It Art, or Memorex?, Reena Jana offered these key pieces of information:

"The laws aren't black and white. The nuance lies in the real purpose of the artwork using the borrowed images," said Barry Werbin, a partner at Herrick, Feinstein, a Manhattan law firm in which he heads a department focused on intellectual property and the Internet.

"If someone borrows an image and uses it non-commercially for educational purposes, then it's fair use," Werbin said. "But if an artist does so without permission to promote their own work, there's no question it's an infringement."

So, does that excuse the student's theft of the image? I'd suggest not, firstly as she promoted it as her own work, even if the medium used differed from the original piece of work. Secondly, it would be my contention that the understanding "educational purposes" would apply to the use of the image by the instructor and not the clandestine theft by the student. Most universities and educational institutions have established, and sometimes enforced, policies with regard to plaigerism, including use of intellectual property /ideas. Students are made aware that if an instructor can demonstrate the student has purloined material, the culprit will be dealt with appropriately by the institution.

As a friend reminded me, character and talent are two distinct entities. While we seek to enjoy creative expression within the arts, it is increasingly rare to discover talent teamed with innovation, for that is the essence of artistic genius. Art shows and galleries showcase works of art that are often nothing more than derivative pieces of work. One might quickly suggest that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but any art that is produced as a "copy" should be noted as such and proper credit attributed.

In the case of the student, the instructor hadn't taken the students to a museum to "copy" a masterpiece and learn from the experience. Instead, the student quite simply had plaigerized the work and apparently believed no one would be the wiser. [According to Black's Law Dictionary, the definition of plaigerism is "The act or instance of copying or stealing another's words or ideas or attributing them as one's own."(Black's Law Dictionary, West Group, 1999, 7th ed., p. 1170) ]

Jonathan Lethem published a noted article in Harpers, entitled "The ecstasy of influence: A Plagiarism" in response to Something Borrowed, an earlier article on the topic that was published in the New Yorker. Lethem's article deftly points out the thin line between influence and plagiarism. I have heard it argued at even Picasso and Matisse "copied" the works of others, and Andy Warhol would likely be the recipient of a litigious suit in our society if he were to offer his paintings in today's market.

In the 14th century, Petrarch answered these "justifications" and offered wisdom concerning plaigerism, although his focus was on the written word:

"He who imitates must have a care that what he writes be similar, not identical . . . and that the similarity should not be of the kind that obtains between a portrait and a sitter, where the artist earns the more praise the greater the likeness, but rather of the kind that obtains between a son and his father . . . we (too) should take care that when one thing is like, many should be unlike, and that what is like should be hidden so as to be grasped only by the mind's silent enquiry, intelligible rather than describable. We should therefore make use of another man's inner quality and tone, but avoid his words. For the one kind of similarity is hidden and the other protrudes; the one creates poets, the other apes."
-- Petrarch, Le familiari, XXIII (14thc), quoted in Gombrich, E.H. Norm and Form: Studies in the art of the Renaissance, Phaidon, 1971 (2nd edition), February 18, 2000

James Dean, an electrical engineer and artist, successful has presented renderings of "Old Masters" that humorously incorporate his cat, Pete. When one views the oeuvre of Dean, there is no mistaking these pieces as "original" in concept, even if homage is made to better-known works of art. Perhaps those artists and students who wish to purloin "good ideas" should reconsider such nonsense and but learn from Dean's approach.

Recently, there has been an increase of works "appropriated" via the internet, reproduced in some form by other hands and then sold through global channels. Legal steps have been taken by individuals as well as groups such as the Art Renewal Center to stop this activity.

It was with this body of knowledge that I debated what to do about the student who had copied Stodart's "Mary Magdalene" and submitted it for a grade to her instructor. Ultimately the question of artistic integrity versus technical process seemed to be the primary issue that plagued my mind. Consequently, I fired off an email to the instructor, citing Stodart's work, citing his website as well as one from another site that had been archived on the internet since 1999. This proved earlier "provenance" and I included a .jpg of his image for the immediate reference of the instructor.

Within hours of sending the email, I received the following response:

Dear Sharon (if I may):

Thanks for sending the image--it's beautiful. It seems my student lifted the idea. Very sad, especially as I watched her produce all 16 layers of her serigraph on raw silk and it's very beautiful. Anyway, I much appreciate the beautiful image.

Which "beautiful image" does the professor appreciate, the original one by Richard Stoddart or the serigraphed copy by her student? Ah, the nuances of words! As if to play a "trump", the instructor appended her name with a reference to her Ph.D, and a composite list of her credentials as a professor of art history at the university. I'm not sure what to make of it all, and I suspect the instructor will do nothing with the information I provided. If this is the case, the student will have learned much about art history, for its chronicles are filled with tales of art thefts and honor amongst thieves.

Please note: Within this blog I intentionally have not given appropriate attribution to the cited written words of the Art History instructor. This is because I wish to protect the identity of the individual, and I hope that a culture of shame isn't necessary for her to take appropriate action. One might also contend the concept of "fair use policy" herein applies.

NB: Legal Info for artists

Is the Laborer Worth His Wage?

2008-01-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago Ed Vaizey, the UK Shadow Minister for Culture, published an article in the Art Newspaper entitled "Artists are apolitical, leaning to the left but embracing right-wing standards". The article asked and attempted to answer some excellent and timely questions posed by the UK's Art Fund, including "Has contemporary art sold out? Have contemporary British artists sold their soul to Mammon?"

While I disagree with Mr Vaizey in his contention that artists have a responsibility to be political in their art, I fully appreciated the honesty expressed in his statement, "The contemporary art trade is exactly that—a finely honed, global business." As implied in my previous post, it was more than evident at Art Basel Miami that art and business are intimately entwined on a global scale. Furthermore, if one watches the art auction scene, you can witness numerous performances at the Theater of Absurd Pricing.

Several months ago an associate indicated they would like to purchase one of my oil paintings, Boscastle Memories. Of course, one's ego always enjoys hearing that one's work is appreciated so I was pleased to hear this voiced. However, when I unashamedly stated the cost of the painting, the individual was rather taken back and asked me to repeat myself. I, of course, also gave them a graceful "out" of the purchase offer. This experience reaffirmed the general public has no conception of the actual material & time costs incurred by artists in the process of creating their works. Consequently, a "fair price" may appear to be astronomical to someone who isn't familiar with the realities of our profession.

Artists certainly have a responsibility to other artists to not under- or over-price one's work, but to ensure the prices established are fair and reasonable. Too often, emerging artists under-price their work, hoping that it will gain notice and they will recoup some of the monies they've invested in the work. It's not a trade secret that co-op galleries are wonderful places to pick up "steals" because many of these artists don't possess the confidence to ask a "fair" price, thinking it "too high" for their town/region/country/self. Sadly, in doing so, these artists fail to understand six words from the Gospel of Luke also apply to artisans in our day and age, "The laborer is worth his wage." (Luke 10:7)

The Emperor's New Clothes

2008-01-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

Rudyard Kipling wisely contended, "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." Words can draw you in and seduce you---they are the Mata Hari of the marketing industry.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why every profession I am aware of elects to develop its own "jargon." Language serves to act as a barrier against those who are "not amongst the chosen membership". Relatedly, one's lack of knowledge of the jargon or inappropriate use of the language will quickly alert the profession's sentinels and elitist hound dogs meant to keep outsiders at bay.

In a recent article published by the New York Times, Roberta Smith accuses the art community of leading the charge on "obtuse language." Interestingly, I forwarded the article to a dear friend who is "outside" of the art world, and many of the language usages were unfamiliar to her astute and learned ear. Truly, Ms. Smith hit a nerve, for I was unaware that "ArtSpeak" has been so cloistered that it continues to prohibit entry for even the more cultured mavens of our society.

"Symbolical Head, Illustrating the Natural Language of the Faculties."
(Image from Wells, Samuel. How to Read Character. New York: Wells Publishing, 1870. p.36.)

I couldn't help but reflect on my experience at Art Basel Miami---the monstrously proportioned and equally prestigious art fair, with more than 20 fairs that piggybacked on the main event held at the Miami Convention Center. The fair is billed as "the most important art show in the United States." Collectors, artists, VIPs and gallery owners are aware that this is the place to view and sell contemporary and modern art -- works whose intent and meanings are seemingly secret, posed in riddles, and decipherable only by the cognisenti.

Most individuals attending the larger fair darted from booth to booth, exhausting themselves rather than entering into full appreciation of some of the fine art that graced the pristine white walls in the 200+ mini-galleries from all over the world. I was acutely aware that the largest percentage of attendees at the fairs were happily oblivious to what they were actually viewing--so much for the import of artistic meaning and metaphor! Indeed, ArtSpeak was heard frequently at Art Basel Miami this past December; I quickly ascertained that the word of the week was "edgy". By the end of the fair, I came to re-define "edgy" as "over-priced schlock."

More importantly, however, it appeared to me that many people who were actually buying art are more concerned with potential profits from a future sale of the piece than the craftsmanship, skill and message of the artist. As an artist, this offended me. I want my patrons to love my work---and not just buy it as a tax dodge or as another commodity in their investment portfolio. Perhaps it would have been different if the artists were present, rather than the agents and gallery owners who mastered the art of ArtSpeak , psychology and economics; I really don't know.

But I suspect individuals who purchase art as investments and have no concern with regard to the artist's process or inherent meaning of a given work are often the same individuals who would be heartily surprised to discover the reality of the Emperor's new clothes. Perhaps this is why art critics tend to write in Modern ArtSpeak?