tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70408412024-03-06T23:31:36.832-05:00The Brooklyn daysAn artist wanders around Brooklyn.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.comBlogger216125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-43907239244260999032009-11-03T18:28:00.003-05:002011-02-16T12:26:18.906-05:00The Brooklyn Days is Now an ArchiveCheck out my new business in Philadelphia, <a href="http://practicalbodywork.com/">Practical Bodywork</a>! I'm writing about health and related issues on the <a href="http://practicalbodywork.com/blog">Practical Bodywork Blog</a>. I'm also still posting occasionally on <a href="http://ohprettylady.blogspot.com/">Pretty Lady</a>. Cheers!Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-1178059901926702392008-08-31T12:38:00.004-04:002008-08-31T13:32:32.887-04:00Lisa Adams: Now, Shamelessly Gorgeous<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQOVt0HUEp5phvc2WM8csM0XJmTtDQ0unOFz7W3gS3iJwnrVeQ1dEnVJtsZ_kJf0Hu9LzNqeYrAUxREDlvbpyUxZ-7bi7AYMkumfkm_1OXgLrCPSlghAAy3nyX2wDu03YQieX/s1600-h/lisaadams.paradise.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQOVt0HUEp5phvc2WM8csM0XJmTtDQ0unOFz7W3gS3iJwnrVeQ1dEnVJtsZ_kJf0Hu9LzNqeYrAUxREDlvbpyUxZ-7bi7AYMkumfkm_1OXgLrCPSlghAAy3nyX2wDu03YQieX/s400/lisaadams.paradise.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240727017119778258" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"><span style="font-size:85%;">Lisa Adams, 'The Future of Paradise Past,' oil on panel, 32"x 78", 2008<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">I first encountered the work of <a href="http://www.lisamakesart.com/">Lisa Adams</a> in 2004, when a curator tapped her for the "Carpetbag and Cozyspace" exhibition at my gallery, Healing Arts. Her work at that time bore little resemblance to what you see above; it was diminutive, cryptic, and engagingly bizarre. She combined odd text phrases with enigmatic and vaguely hostile foreground images, superimposed upon lusciously painted backgrounds. Her artist's statement declared that she was addressing different states of consciousness with each of the elements in the painting--intellectual, emotional, spiritual. I was all over that, of course, and included her work in another exhibition, "Visual Poetry."<br /><br />Now, four years later, she is still playing metaphysical games with her imagery, but she has left aside the text and the odd objects in favor of the exuberantly pretty--vines, birds, flowers. The pictures pack a hefty consciousness wallop. They have precisely the same effect, to my mind, as extended contemplation of a Zen koan; the intellectual tangles of the sharply painted vines are superimposed upon backgrounds of moody, open sky, encouraging you to let go of your own circular thinking and access the raw emotion underlying those thoughts, eventually releasing even the emotions. Ultimately, the process is one of liberation. Her painterly technique is formidable, all of it rigorously directed toward the goal of taking your mind off technical concerns. The painting is so successful that you forget you are looking at a painting. <br /><br />For all its universal import, Lisa's work is deeply and specifically personal. She says:<br /><blockquote>I try in my work to embody my own sense of what it is to be alive, to encapsulate the difficulties in being human, experiencing all the itinerant shadings of joy, sadness, rage and despair, the things I am sometimes afraid to look straight in the face. Most of my paintings ask difficult questions both of me and of the viewer. These questions comprise a larger aesthetic that infuses my interest in spiritualism, pathos and the strangely complicated and enigmatic discourse between human beings.</blockquote>This, in my view, is what great art does. It moves from the specific to the universal, speaking a visual language which defies intellectual analysis. Looking at painting is an <span style="font-style: italic;">experience.</span> When the medium seamlessly conveys its content, without intermediary translation, that experience is a transcendent one.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.lawrenceasher.com/LisaAdams.htm">Lisa's upcoming solo show</a> will take place at the Lawrence Asher Gallery in Los Angeles from January 10--February 14, 2009. Highly recommended! <br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"></span></div></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-6313802636869179742008-05-27T19:48:00.004-04:002008-05-27T21:07:53.381-04:00Status update; Yari Ostovany, Brian Dettmer, Edwina WhiteAs you can see from the sidebar, I now have <a href="http://prettylady.imagekind.com/">prints available of selected works</a> from the New York series and the Implicate Order series. The Implicate Order series seems to be winding to its natural conclusion; I've <a href="http://www.stephart.com/implicate.html">updated my website</a> with favorites (both mine and other people's) and am looking for an appropriate venue to show them. <a href="http://www.stephart.com/heart2.html">Heart II</a> has sold to some <a href="http://www.barakyedidia.com/">favorite collectors</a> in California. <a href="http://www.stephart.com/ring.html">Ring</a> and <a href="http://www.stephart.com/blueorchid.html">Blue Orchid</a> are safely home from Pittsburgh, thanks to Jean McClung of <a href="http://urbanbytes.blogspot.com/">Urban Bytes</a> and and Jill Larson of Fe Gallery, who crashed in my living room over Memorial Day weekend and drank me under the table. We had a blast. Thanks, gals!<br /><br />My next series, I think, will be more expansive, more abstract and less rigid; right now I've been washing a lot of brushes, taking long random bike rides, and sitting on the window seat of the fire escape, fussing over my miniature garden. It feels like I'm being horribly lazy, but I've come to understand that this phase of the process is necessary. If I try to force it I just wreck a lot of canvas. The last two big pieces from 'The Implicate Order' are currently facing toward the wall in the studio, after I <span style="font-style: italic;">hit</span> the wall with them and decided to organize the practical details of my life for awhile.<br /><br />Last week an old studio mate of mine, <a href="http://www.opus125.org/ostovany/index.html">Yari Ostovany</a>, found me on LinkedIn. Upon perusing his website, I was thrilled to discover that not only is he producing some gorgeous work, but that we've followed parallel creative paths. He is also dealing directly with mystical and spiritual sensibilities, with series titles like <a href="http://www.opus125.org/ostovany/numinous/index.html">'Numinous'</a> and <a href="http://www.opus125.org/ostovany/koans/index.htm">'Koans'</a> and <a href="http://www.opus125.org/ostovany/conference_of_the_birds/index.htm">'Conference of the Birds.'</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHuXdMZE64TrUb93Dg5TtwcQctHTIKBxSbQ7v4Ai6x5SgNyzWmCQvyePyS-O0feCmqxsYDg-4gz9cqt7s8YF2WjUxv_YoIPxgCNDQSG6wJjNxagmWVsOqT8qcdGXahNX6mYEkJ/s1600-h/yari1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHuXdMZE64TrUb93Dg5TtwcQctHTIKBxSbQ7v4Ai6x5SgNyzWmCQvyePyS-O0feCmqxsYDg-4gz9cqt7s8YF2WjUxv_YoIPxgCNDQSG6wJjNxagmWVsOqT8qcdGXahNX6mYEkJ/s320/yari1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205220923571680242" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'The Poet (II)' oil on canvas, 20"x 16" by Yari Ostovany<br /><br /></span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JwzJMbaMZxVSAnTnhHQ7x-amP5RVjxzBTG78BOmtUX4DFMS_VZZxlVANLKSYOINYVE-IpuXE8-JAaKkJWqu9qj3OzfKePlf5R41gotFBXMbU9r9FlzXh-bcMOuh5BW9MMOCz/s1600-h/yari2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JwzJMbaMZxVSAnTnhHQ7x-amP5RVjxzBTG78BOmtUX4DFMS_VZZxlVANLKSYOINYVE-IpuXE8-JAaKkJWqu9qj3OzfKePlf5R41gotFBXMbU9r9FlzXh-bcMOuh5BW9MMOCz/s320/yari2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205220927866647554" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Numinous Nr. 10', oil on canvas, 26"x 27" by Yari Ostovany<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">Yari's work, when I knew him in the early 90's, was surrealistic and expertly rendered; he, like I, was subjected to intense institutional abuse at the San Francisco Art Institute because we both thought it was important to actually learn to paint. The prevailing SFAI aesthetic was 'a piece of the floor,' which dominated not only the painting department but the film and photography departments as well. In the long run it has only added richness, depth and subtlety to the work, as frustrating as it was to be immersed in an entire art community that seemed philosophically opposed to the creation of images.<br /><br />Finally, I saw a show recently at <a href="http://www.ktfgallery.com/">Kinz, Tillou and Feigen</a> which <span style="font-style: italic;">rocked. </span>The book sculptures by Brian Dettmer needed no fancy statements, or even titles, to blow you out of the water. What he does is obvious; he excavates old books with a scalpel, to wondrous effect. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kNSm33c1Dt8EPlDqTjtx1oCjv3lTGD-IBVuyarCMjkihhmqSc-vpkrxDTCBei7Iv5O1-2xxx_2I64GsB-ruc0ujF9cjmXdqvN0JwwEuKg0aP5jSYi5nCFsLyQ2tsKx3rIVFz/s1600-h/dettmer1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kNSm33c1Dt8EPlDqTjtx1oCjv3lTGD-IBVuyarCMjkihhmqSc-vpkrxDTCBei7Iv5O1-2xxx_2I64GsB-ruc0ujF9cjmXdqvN0JwwEuKg0aP5jSYi5nCFsLyQ2tsKx3rIVFz/s320/dettmer1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205220914981745618" border="0" /></a><br />Pictures don't do these sculptures justice. The layers and layers of images and text have been painstakingly cut to reveal a jungle of free but precise associations, and the outer surfaces of the books have been filed, sanded and shellacked until some of them resemble stones, or other natural landforms.<br /> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PnlkwviH1369dRs7KU1qaq_-zvi4UWrmcKRtvXyOqX7UhfdprNgNEU5DZ-szI488gV43arYM4bmfa0aKHgblUIEPab8mN2OmGeSuyLKl9XNdjK2wOk-S4RMUsZ6uMhoiGIrV/s1600-h/dettmer2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PnlkwviH1369dRs7KU1qaq_-zvi4UWrmcKRtvXyOqX7UhfdprNgNEU5DZ-szI488gV43arYM4bmfa0aKHgblUIEPab8mN2OmGeSuyLKl9XNdjK2wOk-S4RMUsZ6uMhoiGIrV/s320/dettmer2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205220923571680226" border="0" /></a><br />The other artist in the show, Edwina White, also works with old paper; her whimsical figurative images were economical and enchanting.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCjeFVA9meRyJC97k6W4_J4ot7etiYt75CP_HudJg0lcKeV3us0BOandNGknsRAQFlouhxNWoeRAxgdlSIbqkd3K3n3n5Fbm3Ii97s326EL20PQqR7JRgTSJDZELuYF_KN8TEw/s1600-h/white1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCjeFVA9meRyJC97k6W4_J4ot7etiYt75CP_HudJg0lcKeV3us0BOandNGknsRAQFlouhxNWoeRAxgdlSIbqkd3K3n3n5Fbm3Ii97s326EL20PQqR7JRgTSJDZELuYF_KN8TEw/s320/white1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205220932161614866" border="0" /></a>Art is looking up. <br /></div></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-1189026667995470722008-04-30T22:42:00.002-04:002008-04-30T22:51:24.684-04:00Value<a href="http://ksquest.blogspot.com/2008/04/and-now-back-to-art-of-changing-my-life.html">This is the kind of patron that gives me a reason to get up in the morning.</a><br /><blockquote>My art education is lacking. Yet I come from a long line of artists, myself. Some were quite good. Not even approaching Pretty Lady's level, but then, I have a sneaking suspicion that very few are. When I look at her artwork I have a powerful sense that I'm seeing paintings that the art world is overlooking, and should not be.<br /><br />These are works of far greater merit, I believe, than she's getting credit for. They move people. It's not just me; I read some fascinating comments about this on her blog. You look at her paintings and things can happen to you, deep down inside of you. I've only felt that before in museums. World-class museums like the Art Institute of Chicago, wondrous place of early art memories for me.<br /><br />So I want one. There are <a href="http://www.stephart.com/implicate.html">paintings</a> on her blog <a href="http://www.stephart.com/newyork.html">that</a> I <a href="http://www.stephart.com/mexico.html">return</a> to, over and <a href="http://www.stephart.com/mexico2.html">over,</a> falling <a href="http://www.stephart.com/sanfrancisco.html">into</a> them, and I want one.<br /><br />I doubt I can afford one. Maybe later. Maybe, if I keep on taking care of business here, straightening things out, paying off those old business debts till there's nothing left and we can finally use our bits of money to enjoy ourselves. Walter is all for it; his European love of culture shines happily upon my plans.<br />...<br /><br />So. This precious piece of real art will find a home on a wall in my happy room, my home office, close to me. For now I'll just sit here looking at it in front of me, falling into it. Touching it in its protective sleeve. Happily thinking up frames, and where to put it.<br /><br />I'm overwhelmed.</blockquote>It's not about money. It's not about fame, Art World Parties, hipness, fashion, or status. It's about being seen, really seen, both for what is there on the wall and what you had to go through to put it there. <br /><br />Thank you.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-20469144199402834582008-04-25T19:36:00.003-04:002008-04-25T20:27:51.846-04:00The Tenuous Universe<div style="text-align: left;">Last week I attended the <a href="http://e32.hitart.com/">E32 art series</a>, hosted by Linda Griggs, despite some deep forebodings, based upon past unfortunate experiences with arts groups that met at cafés on the Lower East Side. I am very pleased to report that the past unfortunate experiences were NOT repeated; on the contrary, it is my sober conclusion that this event was far superior, in both content and attitude, to the Armory Fair. At least, I had a lot more fun there.<br /></div><br />I was particularly struck by the paintings of <a href="http://barbarafriedmanpaintings.com/index.html">Barbara Friedman</a>, which at first sight appeared to be mere blurred photo-depictions, but upon deeper inspection, proved at once more painterly and more metaphysical. The physical world is indeed an illusion, resolving momentarily out of linear time, then sliding away again. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYOSAnzyLk5gA9a2fWIUWB3FFssucSWpkUlWp-X1aR1FEITY4DYmzapnNXUGCWAkPL-oWAV4beEEdrLcLyFmv5yqjy63Ufs-G4CnbBF0YwgJAaEtPIXU_1a-MUpKX6XimNIPp/s1600-h/friedmanferris.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYOSAnzyLk5gA9a2fWIUWB3FFssucSWpkUlWp-X1aR1FEITY4DYmzapnNXUGCWAkPL-oWAV4beEEdrLcLyFmv5yqjy63Ufs-G4CnbBF0YwgJAaEtPIXU_1a-MUpKX6XimNIPp/s320/friedmanferris.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193331671436211394" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Ferris Wheel,' Barbara Friedman, 36"x 27", 2006<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">A salient feature of her style is the bright, almost fluorescent underpainting, which is allowed to glow through the image at key points, intimating the existence of an otherworldly light penetrating into this one.<br /></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLBbHB8LZCRwLMvYKrixHKyBQKnDFY7g2cjfGHIUm6XKKnXjOaGlqonpABsMube0NMnOQYdUqSbAF9mAckWHYnkInfeYNrzNaYQNEyNdV2D3GKmGsTBdCrYaH9hvvsaJ5q21pY/s1600-h/friedmanfitzi.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLBbHB8LZCRwLMvYKrixHKyBQKnDFY7g2cjfGHIUm6XKKnXjOaGlqonpABsMube0NMnOQYdUqSbAF9mAckWHYnkInfeYNrzNaYQNEyNdV2D3GKmGsTBdCrYaH9hvvsaJ5q21pY/s320/friedmanfitzi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193331675731178706" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'The Garden of the Fitzi-Continis, 45"x 60", 2005</span></span><br /></div><br />They manage to be romantic, melancholic and downright creepy, all at the same time.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwOJ3jGYqdZFrO6N0dM76WBBzhhUhICB8ILcZtXzjCcqmpshZJRftCkxjJVoQE2elAEDAr0EGxeG97HRFhqJI3zPsx8FJ9_6G-rvObD1lRDkFFKDKjByqT3voUet9L6abC63b/s1600-h/friedmanyellow.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwOJ3jGYqdZFrO6N0dM76WBBzhhUhICB8ILcZtXzjCcqmpshZJRftCkxjJVoQE2elAEDAr0EGxeG97HRFhqJI3zPsx8FJ9_6G-rvObD1lRDkFFKDKjByqT3voUet9L6abC63b/s320/friedmanyellow.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193331675731178722" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Yellow Splashes,' 36"x 84", 2006<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">Barbara says that she usually starts out with a specific image in mind, but often her original plan is completely obliterated by the time she is finished. Her work has been compared to Richter, of course, but has a warmth and depth that Richter's lacks.<br /><br />Then this week, as if my cup weren't already overflowing, I discovered the work of <a href="http://judithsimonian.com/index.html">Judith Simonian</a>, through my critique group. Lo! <span style="font-style: italic;">Another</span> rich, vivid, metaphysical painter.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2WEGMNJ2uvWvJ8avxmffKJZ4pyC3UNOcMr4rAqXf1ZR7Cid3BGN4j6UEf0ygxd6bQ7yths0u0H1SHYwdtx_YgCdDraae0qqVqktfo6iB1h3sqgl9u7xamFUBX6MFMf7xSVgT4/s1600-h/simonianboats.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2WEGMNJ2uvWvJ8avxmffKJZ4pyC3UNOcMr4rAqXf1ZR7Cid3BGN4j6UEf0ygxd6bQ7yths0u0H1SHYwdtx_YgCdDraae0qqVqktfo6iB1h3sqgl9u7xamFUBX6MFMf7xSVgT4/s320/simonianboats.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193331684321113330" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Twin Boats,' 36"x 48",acrylic, mixed media, collage on canvas, Judith Simonian<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Judy told me that she envied people who had had a formal art education in painting technique; I countered that no painting technique was taught at my school, and that her work did not seem to be suffering for the lack of it. I have not been to her studio, but spent a good half an hour on her website. <br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMVQY6D3UQWSiTX24WLpXmmc4AeQnLHkuo8V2-1UVGkG79LNLryxKQz0nB_3csm84i2S6SWmDNJQEd09uGPXlvhRlN6uKtt5BOAb-QkFgd4AJdinbtHgBsUzRg_WMpeoOzM5qI/s1600-h/simoniancrossing.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMVQY6D3UQWSiTX24WLpXmmc4AeQnLHkuo8V2-1UVGkG79LNLryxKQz0nB_3csm84i2S6SWmDNJQEd09uGPXlvhRlN6uKtt5BOAb-QkFgd4AJdinbtHgBsUzRg_WMpeoOzM5qI/s320/simoniancrossing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193331684321113346" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Crossing II,' 2007, 42"x 62", mixed media/collage and acrylic on canvas<br /><br /></span></span></span></div>Again, it seems to me that her work evokes a radiant but fractured world, where physical events and objects are continuously obliterated by light and color, transcending the passage of time.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUnO-rJ1J_hs9spO_WSVF6PCbNoqwq5qRq22jgKwNMm_4saSxQ7_tZR3bkI2GcaqvzBqTzxPp0HA5mmuSJRCdNsC6_5l3qs9Ev_-70KamIgS2qd2gEVh0w5HCtyzQyE_ZKXdd9/s1600-h/simonianplateaux.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUnO-rJ1J_hs9spO_WSVF6PCbNoqwq5qRq22jgKwNMm_4saSxQ7_tZR3bkI2GcaqvzBqTzxPp0HA5mmuSJRCdNsC6_5l3qs9Ev_-70KamIgS2qd2gEVh0w5HCtyzQyE_ZKXdd9/s320/simonianplateaux.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193331864709739794" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Twin Plateaux,' mixed media/collage and acrylic on canvas, 44"x 82"</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">But maybe that's just what I'm bringing to it. ;-)<br /></div><br /></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-24306776270131567682008-04-19T13:38:00.002-04:002008-04-19T13:47:17.374-04:00The Two PercentI <span style="font-style: italic;">meant</span> to post about the art fairs, really I did, but <span style="font-weight: bold;">spring is here.</span> To those of you who do not live in a climate with honest-to-God seasons, I don't expect you to fathom the importance of this. I have been out biking round and round the park, the cemetary and various cute little neighborhoods, soaking in the blooming trees and the sunshine like someone with bipolar disorder in a manic phase.<br /><br />So I am pleased to announce that David Behringer has taken it upon himself to parse the NYC art scene, and particularly the Chelsea scene, into something manageable for people who do not spend 10-20 hours a week reading art reviews. It's called <a href="http://www.thetwopercent.com/index.html">The Two Percent.</a> Because:<br /><blockquote>On any given day, no more than 2% of contemporary art galleries are even worth entering. With over 300 galleries in Chelsea, each with frequently rotating shows, finding that 2% is an arguably impossible effort… until now. </blockquote>I don't know if this guy's taste is all he claims it to be, except that he liked the Pulse art fair, too. So I'm taking a chance on him. Let us know what you think.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-14262048058372625912008-03-27T21:58:00.004-04:002008-03-29T19:26:14.724-04:00Why I am Still a Painter<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBq0oeIC4Vv1R1VBp6c90pJXPbYbsiznnazAIjV0YXsuBTGdiIXDun5GXO0Ydx1GM_Tm0HnjNNcB53FbjPktJta17g8CsvkD5co9ihbsbvZeQABab29bUOH3xM_kPxZAlGE5i_/s1600-h/heartprint5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBq0oeIC4Vv1R1VBp6c90pJXPbYbsiznnazAIjV0YXsuBTGdiIXDun5GXO0Ydx1GM_Tm0HnjNNcB53FbjPktJta17g8CsvkD5co9ihbsbvZeQABab29bUOH3xM_kPxZAlGE5i_/s320/heartprint5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182607531924094578" border="0" /></a><br />I was about to write a standard defensive post about why I continue to pursue the hidebound, retro, unfashionable art of painting, even though painting has been declared officially Dead, lo these twenty or thirty years, even though major contemporary art institutions seem to be sharing in this perspective, and even though it seems to be automatically assumed by the Art World Intelligentsia that a painter cannot <span style="font-style: italic;">possibly</span> also be intelligent, progressive, and a unique original thinker. <br /><br />Then I went to the Pulse Art Fair today, and changed my mind. Go see the Pulse Art Fair. It's wonderful. I will post about it when I'm not between seeing the Pulse Art Fair and throwing a birthday party for my honey. :-)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihhIYaFcOYImQ-LL_rj6Hg5LXV-4j9eYlUAgb6RAG2XJzMx-pDtvE4CvI0w71Rbzcz-KDc7N6DAcAC7KxIVXY2FBX8bublBVWEPE3MfGXGdUmZ3VM6wAww2adJKxVfHwrntU7P/s1600-h/heartprint2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihhIYaFcOYImQ-LL_rj6Hg5LXV-4j9eYlUAgb6RAG2XJzMx-pDtvE4CvI0w71Rbzcz-KDc7N6DAcAC7KxIVXY2FBX8bublBVWEPE3MfGXGdUmZ3VM6wAww2adJKxVfHwrntU7P/s320/heartprint2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182607514744225346" border="0" /></a><br />So, the reason I am still a painter has nothing to do with repeating an archaic Form, in a mechanical manner, the way the vast majority of persons who sell paintings at plein-air art fairs in places like Canton, Texas or Holton, Kansas do. It has to do with needing a complex and subtle language in which to communicate complex, subtle ideas; it has to do with using a medium that communicates kinesthetically and emotionally as well as visually; it has to do with the pragmatism inherent in using a language that has already been invented, and helping it proceed in its evolution, instead of having to invent an entirely new one, and explain it as I go along.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxp7ySKb1g6XXGPf35GPxVFmMts8CRYa9_1GIc0SIBU4bRTZsiVTFUSoRztNsCvU4Qqn1h9rskUaR7pq9VqFL6iQLb1GoVq6YhQhcBCQ2aBF1OLsX3609F09q24MzhYkEO5Ty/s1600-h/heartprint3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxp7ySKb1g6XXGPf35GPxVFmMts8CRYa9_1GIc0SIBU4bRTZsiVTFUSoRztNsCvU4Qqn1h9rskUaR7pq9VqFL6iQLb1GoVq6YhQhcBCQ2aBF1OLsX3609F09q24MzhYkEO5Ty/s320/heartprint3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182607523334159954" border="0" /></a><br />Also, as difficult and expensive as it is to find the space for a painting studio anywhere in the world, the difficulty and expense is nowhere <span style="font-style: italic;">near</span> that of a welding shop, a film studio or a print shop. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_dQ_t8X-RGiCf13zEK8Bkr8CnrjsN1e3ER-B9EBKDKQI-tVjTRT8VursFtXDdQlXczmmJ-Ab0X3GZa2tg7uaQ_YMjMimlcfmaWEc7imrY6G5R_kwrYRh5cabP3i3rhMSi3nO/s1600-h/heartprint4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_dQ_t8X-RGiCf13zEK8Bkr8CnrjsN1e3ER-B9EBKDKQI-tVjTRT8VursFtXDdQlXczmmJ-Ab0X3GZa2tg7uaQ_YMjMimlcfmaWEc7imrY6G5R_kwrYRh5cabP3i3rhMSi3nO/s320/heartprint4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182607527629127266" border="0" /></a>(All images--screenprint, pencil and watercolor on paper, product of recent class at Lower East Side Print Shop. Now I must obtain a print shop residency so I can pursue this line of thought.)Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-74304812152849944422008-03-24T19:13:00.001-04:002008-03-24T19:18:15.029-04:00REAL Art Reality TVJust in case any of you missed <a href="http://www.joannemattera.blogspot.com/">Joanne Mattera's</a> brilliant brainstorm over at <a href="http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/">Ed's:</a><br /><br />. “Pimp my Rep”—a show in which the art is really about the curators. Oh, wait, it’s been done. The Whitney Biennial.<br /><br />. “The Big Lie”—a show in which the contestants vie for top gallery representation, except (and here’s the fun part) what they don’t know is that 80% of the female contestants will be weeded out, even as they vie for one of the coveted slots. Extra points for extra penises.<br /><br />. “Inverse Proportion”—top dealers judge potential gallery assistants on such talents as length of leg to length of skirt, trophy realness and their froid factor. The winners will receive a job in one of New York City’s top galleries, with a salary offer in inverse proportion to the amount of condescension the contestants have shown through the competition.<br /><br />. “Studio Visit”—we show up at the studios of artists around town and try to guess what the rent increase will be at the end of the current lease period. Immunity on the next challenge if you can correctly identify the ground-floor spaces that will be taken over by Starbucks, Pottery Barn or Banana Republic.<br /><br />. “Space’d”—tourists and artists alike will enter a gallery and remark “Nice Space” to an unsuspecting dealer who is paying $40,000 a month in rent. The dealer will be secretly wired to record his/her blood pressure. First visitor to push it past the “apoplexy” level wins. Bonus points if their kids can leave handprints on the art.<br /><br />. “Hold My Slides”—producers troll galleries for the largest boxes of unlooked-at artists slides and CDs. Artists will serve as judges. Everyone loses.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-19813855051020422602008-03-21T19:34:00.003-04:002008-03-21T20:05:54.555-04:00Discoveries<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggi1aLgSboz0PEiPvkGU-RoiGpHsFfmnlHv6ZCY_W745UhAA-vAOcnznZOgq7yd0HUafiQFAZP5X4jHx_05L0L5fOJ0XGiVk7MzbiPbXvGtC4Gx0bJvrBjiDafue7Otbc56Gk4/s1600-h/Maciver1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggi1aLgSboz0PEiPvkGU-RoiGpHsFfmnlHv6ZCY_W745UhAA-vAOcnznZOgq7yd0HUafiQFAZP5X4jHx_05L0L5fOJ0XGiVk7MzbiPbXvGtC4Gx0bJvrBjiDafue7Otbc56Gk4/s320/Maciver1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180343826461064674" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Fleurs de Marronniers,' Loren MacIver, 1963</span></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div><br />Thanks to Sharon Butler of <a href="http://twocoatsofpaint.blogspot.com/">Two Coats of Paint</a>, I have <a href="http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/03/artseen/tracking">discovered another role model:</a><br /><blockquote>There are indications that [Loren] MacIver was neither gormless nor self-abnegating when it came to her career. She certainly recognized that being a woman could affect it negatively. When she was in her late teens, she adopted a moniker that obscured her gender. MacIver scholar Jenni Schlossman discovered in the census records that MacIver was born “Mary Newman,” but changed “Mary” to “Loren,” and adopted MacIver, which is a variation on her mother’s maiden name, McIvers. Yet at bottom, her anti-theoretical stance appears to have been resolute and genuine. It seems to have set her apart and enhanced her persona as an outsider, a naïf in the edgy territory of Abstract Expressionist histrionics, loftiness, and, arguably, pretension. During the forties, her work was acclaimed for its honest exploration of domestic subject matter and its frank, unapologetically female viewpoint, but in the late fifties and sixties, her paintings lost much of their currency to Abstract Expressionism and later to Minimalism. Nevertheless, MacIver, unlike contemporaries such as Louise Nevelson and Lee Krasner, had no urge to drain her work of content customarily considered “female,” and refused to do so simply to be taken seriously in a decidedly masculine arena.</blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9plCDX4SPgNh9_IsixQR_S0qLDIK9GnHXLOaZS1Jni1l4GpwzhTbZG7mn3huwHXGYcmV1aX2e4PGF6Z_e0UVWki8fUx88s4tLfQ1NC-t-CyMJA52NBkIWmo6sqIuTQ0g5liuA/s1600-h/maciver2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9plCDX4SPgNh9_IsixQR_S0qLDIK9GnHXLOaZS1Jni1l4GpwzhTbZG7mn3huwHXGYcmV1aX2e4PGF6Z_e0UVWki8fUx88s4tLfQ1NC-t-CyMJA52NBkIWmo6sqIuTQ0g5liuA/s320/maciver2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180343835050999282" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'La Bonne Table,' Loren MacIver, 1963<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Like Sharon, I can't quite believe I never heard of MacIver before now. If I've seen any of her works in person I don't recall it; it's hard to tell from the photos what the paint quality, brushwork and luminosity really is, but I suspect it's fabulous. <br /><br />Chalk up another one for the 'amended' art history books. Sigh. <br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbax2G1SlluL5zJb_FOETn2d-3InAf6JEODzovmGJsP1-miwJn7fd4dagUEO3bTg-NjCcfqZg7cdw4t1tcVnQ_wbaC8uTC06FzKeHMBXJ3_eQcDTx2FrgCCwY8sh47NnGjbIAq/s1600-h/maciver3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbax2G1SlluL5zJb_FOETn2d-3InAf6JEODzovmGJsP1-miwJn7fd4dagUEO3bTg-NjCcfqZg7cdw4t1tcVnQ_wbaC8uTC06FzKeHMBXJ3_eQcDTx2FrgCCwY8sh47NnGjbIAq/s320/maciver3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180343835050999298" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Studio,' Loren MacIver, 1983<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span>Also, this week J. and I caught a performance of <a href="http://www.ps122.org/performances/bride.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bride</span> at PS 122</a>, which was a cut above most of the theatre and diverse 'performance' work we've been looking at, or for, this season. (We got a membership to one of those theatre-goers discount clubs, so life has been lively lately. :-)) The Lone Wolf Tribe, directed by Kevin Augustine, does a spang-up job of integrating puppetry, post-apocalyptic set design, live music, acting, and dance in a way that greatly transcends both the sum of its parts, and the conceit of assembling those parts in the first place.<br /><br />One of my biggest chronic complaints about 'integrative' art is that it so often congratulates itself for having the audacity to combine such things as dance, theatre, puppetry and woodwind quartets, without paying much attention either to the artistic quality of each element on its own, or the way in which these elements work together to form a cohesive whole. This production leaped masterfully over this pitfall, living up to its stated intent of creating a 'visceral, gut-wrenching' piece of theatre. Although I found the ultimate conceptual thrust of the piece a little annoyingly predictable, having spent a few too many years in the Bay Area among the Burning Man crowd, the music alone made up for it. Highly recommended.<br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-28374409089822341202008-03-16T22:26:00.003-04:002008-03-16T22:55:30.088-04:00Magic<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYM_zFtZ1a2O8SkD6S8l_k7JYD20kharCQWMCHrEepTZ-Q8-GECEqf-_knawI6lXNr14SNeAP7Av0H8ALQiCVLWaBDW1rtfYXtfSWtTKj_Dam1rJyG_1FwckBQ7Xx0v8gCpl8X/s1600-h/confusion.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYM_zFtZ1a2O8SkD6S8l_k7JYD20kharCQWMCHrEepTZ-Q8-GECEqf-_knawI6lXNr14SNeAP7Av0H8ALQiCVLWaBDW1rtfYXtfSWtTKj_Dam1rJyG_1FwckBQ7Xx0v8gCpl8X/s320/confusion.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178531632552769362" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Confusion,' oil on linen, 36"x 48", 2008<br />by Stephanie Lee Jackson<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span>I think this one's finished. Maybe it's a little rigid, particularly up top in the cloud shape, but it's at that precarious level of balance where one slash could totally alter it, and maybe I'm not feeling so brave. <br /><br />The reason I love painting is because it's magic. When you reach a certain point, suddenly a canvas becomes infinitely more than the sum of its parts. It's more than an image, more than a color, more than some grease on a piece of cloth. It starts to radiate an independent, complex energy of its own. I try to stop painting on a canvas when, in my judgment, the whole thing is radiating cohesively, with no 'dead zones.'<br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQ_5zaCZchZGwiS8QHzZgXCnFr0j1McfqFOOEISlunRWxR918TLNHWKtNWmGbyz-Q2QyJXZmXNfadgAC-dJr6YcEehmS_nsBgzJJ6Hj_stMpY-I9hj4W79V7zhsee-P8Pvw_R/s1600-h/confusiondetail.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQ_5zaCZchZGwiS8QHzZgXCnFr0j1McfqFOOEISlunRWxR918TLNHWKtNWmGbyz-Q2QyJXZmXNfadgAC-dJr6YcEehmS_nsBgzJJ6Hj_stMpY-I9hj4W79V7zhsee-P8Pvw_R/s320/confusiondetail.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178531636847736674" border="0" /></a>For me there's an infinite difference between a brush mark that is obvious, in a redundant way, and one that is necessary. A necessary brush mark gives you unexpected and incredibly efficient information about direction, light, energy, touch, form, and even emotion; a redundant one just delineates a form. Rembrandt's and Vermeer's brush marks are all necessary.<br /><br />Sometimes I have to re-work mine a whole lot to avoid obviousness, sometimes they work as soon as I put them down. Sometimes they work but I don't trust them, and end up reworking them too much.<br /><br />Is this sort of thing interesting to anyone other than other painters? Are other painters even interested?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0DjBiU9LCg8_EB8V64pJ08E_ywqE1IWAEp2_gwyyJPOt_BRBybB5z0ucI6fpP5f5llRfAj3Zf6wL9uSiZNS6jPOkBD1L7TJTYvHu9t5jtnSG3-JwpJpWrfPG48PvVt0cftWZB/s1600-h/heart2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0DjBiU9LCg8_EB8V64pJ08E_ywqE1IWAEp2_gwyyJPOt_BRBybB5z0ucI6fpP5f5llRfAj3Zf6wL9uSiZNS6jPOkBD1L7TJTYvHu9t5jtnSG3-JwpJpWrfPG48PvVt0cftWZB/s320/heart2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178531641142703986" border="0" /></a><br />I re-shot this painting this evening, so I'm re-posting the image in the hopes that it's a little better.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-59745440545419572342008-03-10T14:06:00.002-04:002008-03-10T14:51:46.995-04:00Anonymity in Art CriticismWithout linking any links or naming any names, let me just say that two things have become clear; 1) quite a number of people seem to agree with me about the state of the Art World today in general, and the state of the Whitney Biennial in particular; and 2) most of those people prefer to remain publically anonymous, or at least publically circumspect, about their opinions. <br /><br />I don't actually have a problem with that.<br /><br />One of the biggest fictions that the Art World tries to maintain is that it fosters an egalitarian playing field; that anybody's perspective counts just as much as anybody else's. Therefore we have people seriously stating that my cavalier dismissal of most of the art in this year's Whitney Biennial is mean and wrong and hurtful, because those artists and curators and the people who support them are just as vulnerable as I am.<br /><br />Hello?<br /><br />Look, people. The fact is, artists have to eat. The fact is, we are <span style="font-style: italic;">bombarded</span> with information about how many billions of dollars flow through the Art Market every year, at the same time as the vast majority of us are working two jobs, in debt, and worried about sinking into an impoverished old age without health insurance. In concrete terms, the Art World is the <span style="font-style: italic;">opposite</span> of egalitarian. It is a pyramid scheme that depends for its very existence on the economic and aesthetic disempowerment of hundreds of thousands of contenders.<br /><br />The fact is, there are a very few people in the Art World who hold the money strings, and pissing those people off can get you a one-way ticket to lifelong destitution. These people don't bother countering criticism with criticism; that would be to 'provoke controversy,' which in this modern Art World is synonymous with both artistic validity and big, big bucks. <br /><br />What they do is just ignore you. Or else they use the word 'decorative.' Damn you to hell, too.<br /><br />So I do not blame an artist for not wanting to make waves, by stating a decisive opinion about the doings of these economic manipulators of culture. A lot of visual artists are visual artists, in part, because they're not hugely articulate; the validity of their opinion is nothing if it is inelegantly expressed. <br /><br />I speak up because I have to. I think my life might be easier if I could be more tactful, diplomatic and equivocal about stating my opinions; certainly I'd burn fewer bridges. <br /><br />But the price for keeping my mouth closed has always seemed too high. Because I care passionately, not about Art in an unconditional, monolithic sense, but about the things that great art has the potential to communicate--inspiration, complexity, profundity, joy, despair, transcendence. I live for that thrill of humility and awe that can be triggered by a chorus by Arvo Pärt, an installation by Lee Bontecou, a ballet by Balanchine or a poem by Stevens. <br /><br />And playing the political game of circumspection and relativism, for me, would mean selling out my entire reason for being an artist.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-80811618993658181172008-03-05T20:51:00.002-05:002008-03-05T22:02:54.410-05:00More Junk in the HallwayI am very sorry to report that this years' Whitney Biennial is an extension of the <a href="http://brooklyndays.blogspot.com/2006/03/who-left-junk-in-hallway.html">last one</a>, only perhaps a teensy little bit lamer and more half-assed. <br /><br />O was with me; looking at the expression on my face, she declared, "I think you're taking this a little bit too personally."<br /><br />It was true, I <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> taking it personally. There seemed to be no curatorial vision or thematic direction for this exhibition at all, except perhaps for Tim Hawkinson and Gordon Matta-Clark Redux, Half-Baked and Ripped-Off. The vast majority of sculptures and installation-type thingies did not read as finished works of art at all; they came across as sketches and machettes for the sorts of ideas that get fooled around with for awhile, then discarded as not being sufficiently compelling. There was a lot of raw lumber, badly crafted and gracelessly arranged; a lot of garbagey goop suspended in plaster, concrete or resin; a lot of bare lightbulbs purposelessly attached to random structures; and a lot of construction materials just leaning around. <br /><br />There was also <a href="http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=180">Robert Bechtle.</a> God knows why. <br /><br />However. Here are the artists whose installations were a little bit better than contemptibly forgettable:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/matthew_brannon.htm">Matthew Brannon</a>. Very nice letterpress prints with random, poetic textual snippets, giving the work a whimsically contemplative texture. White noise generators in the corners muted the assaultive noises from outside video installations, allowing you to calm down and actually focus on the work. Enigmatic wall sculptures of ordinary objects were, well, enigmatic. But cute.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ellenharvey.info/index.html">Ellen Harvey</a>. Her installation, "<a href="http://www.ellenharvey.info/Projects/museum_of_failure01.html">Museum of Failure: Collection of Impossible Subjects and Invisible Self-Portrait in my Studio</a>" was a bit klunky, but it began to engage your perceptions in an interesting way, with levels and windows and ornate frames and mirrors and real lights vs. painted lights. She's an okay painter, not a great one, but competent enough not to look like a total dork when relying on painting to integrate with a larger installation. Check out her website; she used to paint tiny oil landscapes on graffiti-covered walls in NYC. Which is something I might have done. Except that tiny oil landscapes bore me.<br /><br />(But I promised myself to be more positive. Positive! Cheery smile!)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nicoleklagsbrun.com/rottenberg-images-09.html">Mika Rottenberg</a>. Seriously hilarious and well-executed installation involving a sort of a shed/goat run, containing several videos of women with The Longest Hair In The World (the hair is real--she advertised on the Internet for them) milking their hair into buckets, and waving the hair at donkeys and goats. Feminist Fairy Tales, mmm-mmm.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.damelioterras.com/exhibition.html?id=336">Jedediah Caesar</a>. Impressive big ol' lump of multicolored, porous resin, which looked like a gigantic block of drips from a hundred thousand multicolored candles; smelled like it, too. Also a wall of resin tiles full of random garbage. This actually worked, unlike most of the other garbage in the show; I'd tile my bathroom with it. My High Art outdoor bathroom in my avant-garde architect-designed house in the Andes.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Near misses:</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/88/">Phoebe Washburn</a>. Her installation for this Biennial appears to have been a bit of a departure from her earlier work; instead of creating tidal poetry with raw trash, she has created what ought to be a set for a comic surrealist film. More raw lumber (unfortunately) creates a towering framework for a 'soda factory' involving drawers full of colored golf balls, buckets of chrysanthemums, tanks of colored water, sprouting bulbs, and lots of hand towels. The title is something long and amusing which I've forgotten.<br /><br />(In fact, a lot of artists in this show seemed to have appended long, strange titles to inscrutable works, sometimes two or three titles per work. Presumably to deepen the mystery. As if we cared.)<br /><br /><a href="http://whitney.org/www/2008biennial/www/?section=artists&page=artist_long">Charles Long</a>. Sculptures intended to resemble encrusted birdshit. It is a testament to how uninspiring this exhibition was as a whole that I actually paid attention to these.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.andrearosengallery.com/artists/rita-ackermann/">Rita Ackerman</a>. Human sized drawing-collages under Plexiglass. Meh. <br /><br /><a href="http://whitney.org/www/2008biennial/www/?section=artists&page=artist_kilimnik">Karen Kilimnick</a>. Four small, bright, mediocre paintings on four large walls, with a chandelier in the center. The way these were installed <span style="font-style: italic;">began</span> to charge the space in an interesting way; I filed this idea for future reference, to be used with some <span style="font-style: italic;">good</span> paintings and an <span style="font-style: italic;">original</span> chandelier-type sculpture.<br /><br />There were a few other things that weren't entirely bankrupt, from an aesthetic, conceptual or structural perspective, but now that I look at my notes, not enough to be worth mentioning.<br /><br />In fact, after viewing this exhibition, I thought, "I could curate a better Biennial than this." Tune in next time for my submissions; suggestions welcome, with extreme prejudice.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-36674404695499906922008-02-21T14:13:00.004-05:002008-02-21T14:22:29.938-05:00Gosh, What Beautiful Art!I just received a veritable <span style="font-style: italic;">packet</span> in the mail, from the <a href="http://www.smackmellon.org/">Smack Mellon</a> studio program. Here is the stack of invitational postcards contained therein:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghA4CbufIdhAk3iRmJCabIVN-aP6AKeLyI4926-XCc_E_oATyQWh9O3tmZCM3fKNmjk1Zb9_AD7-zmadxA3iPDcOOUNd0x8QAwykClkFVJ8PHOJdMGxWzGTCFWFrm0ZngYT8yu/s1600-h/sm1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghA4CbufIdhAk3iRmJCabIVN-aP6AKeLyI4926-XCc_E_oATyQWh9O3tmZCM3fKNmjk1Zb9_AD7-zmadxA3iPDcOOUNd0x8QAwykClkFVJ8PHOJdMGxWzGTCFWFrm0ZngYT8yu/s200/sm1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169514245883783650" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0aVaY5esD2AtfBhsertZ1yqyu7tUXTgt0P4bfJvYC2UDjWW2KLrQClLjpyCE8zbQpNryLdmnxfC_wKr8ah67IlH5Ne1a3zyw-Hdgjq0-doViANEWTF6b0opEKlOqAC2s9lXIG/s1600-h/sm2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0aVaY5esD2AtfBhsertZ1yqyu7tUXTgt0P4bfJvYC2UDjWW2KLrQClLjpyCE8zbQpNryLdmnxfC_wKr8ah67IlH5Ne1a3zyw-Hdgjq0-doViANEWTF6b0opEKlOqAC2s9lXIG/s200/sm2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169514254473718258" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL3RTArBCeqy4wU_mu7LRud9rwZojvD6KW3Fl8Z4VZBQMoMeZ0EpBCd4Q4LcptyqBvSRlEjukhuAjdXUgU7SFkGhiozNkSUzkj-sHvgcjlnRf-wwstq5wflwM6Jt7TngxBTdLi/s1600-h/sm3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL3RTArBCeqy4wU_mu7LRud9rwZojvD6KW3Fl8Z4VZBQMoMeZ0EpBCd4Q4LcptyqBvSRlEjukhuAjdXUgU7SFkGhiozNkSUzkj-sHvgcjlnRf-wwstq5wflwM6Jt7TngxBTdLi/s200/sm3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169514258768685570" border="0" /></a><br />Man, how inspiring, and humbling at the same time. I just can't <span style="font-style: italic;">wait</span> to see the shows. They're bound to be both aesthetically compelling and intellectually challenging, in ways I literally can't <span style="font-style: italic;">imagine</span>.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-37315180763082901632008-02-15T19:04:00.005-05:002008-02-18T13:44:29.341-05:00The Feminine Mind<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfdp2JtXOgMKKgsAnt4yQIzTWbkbKxDuA_2PYT6wWL5YKVUbMRpAkeDlkK9cWLquG9Chy0W6KjQLycKZKJ12RpyLbbTVim4YPFi1vDp2UC08Ox17YyjQjc_W_Xg-6qbEyHXGei/s1600-h/longseeds.jpg"><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on menu-top" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_FontSize" title="Font size" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);toggleFontSizeMenu();ButtonMouseDown(this);"></span></span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfdp2JtXOgMKKgsAnt4yQIzTWbkbKxDuA_2PYT6wWL5YKVUbMRpAkeDlkK9cWLquG9Chy0W6KjQLycKZKJ12RpyLbbTVim4YPFi1vDp2UC08Ox17YyjQjc_W_Xg-6qbEyHXGei/s400/longseeds.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167399550016121282" border="0" /></a><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.susanconstanse.com/artwork/main.php?g2_itemId=27&g2_page=3">'fifth seed,' </a>collage and etching on wood<br />Susan Constanse and Stephanie Lee Jackson<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />People are still <a href="http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2008/02/no-sign-of-progress.html">wringing their hands</a> over the radically unequal representation of women in the blue-chip end of the Art World. All the possible, political explanations for this fact have been discussed <span style="font-style: italic;">ad nauseam</span>; frankly, I'm not interested in them anymore.<br /><br />On my last visit to MoMA, I caught the <a href="http://deborahfisher.blogspot.com/2007/12/sculpture-is-about-imbuing-things-with.html">Martin Puryear</a> retrospective, which most of my friends found to be staggeringly wonderful. I thought it was fine. It was playful, whimsical, relatively broad in scope, and the pieces were well-executed.<br /><br />What struck me was the essential <span style="font-style: italic;">singularity</span> of each piece. The sculptor would think, "I think I'll make a circular piece that hangs on the wall," and boom! he'd do it. There was no second-guessing about any of these sculptures; what you saw was what you got. "I think I'll make a horn shape that points <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> way." "This time the circle goes on the floor."<br /><br />This show, in fact, was as relaxing as having a male roommate. There was no Subtext, nothing Implied, no shades of emotional complexity to unravel, just a nice, straightforward guy in the living room, drinking beer and messing with his tools.<br /><br />I went through the show fairly quickly.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBJE7sggnz_K4f4erM8nB3NhIoQyQQZMsiyemXMm6XmbDvT8fc7VUb9H44n8_7d5FHaIxVf7c9Cs2vJTTkeA6nv9vLGv7nmvPGoMWSvp7A8nU6Deo7Fr4h4o51RjheBB-hRS0p/s1600-h/Sculpturebontecou2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBJE7sggnz_K4f4erM8nB3NhIoQyQQZMsiyemXMm6XmbDvT8fc7VUb9H44n8_7d5FHaIxVf7c9Cs2vJTTkeA6nv9vLGv7nmvPGoMWSvp7A8nU6Deo7Fr4h4o51RjheBB-hRS0p/s400/Sculpturebontecou2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167407057618954706" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">Suspended sculpture, Lee Bontecou<br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div><br />As I perused the rest of the museum, I found myself looking for works by women; I suppose I was in a Mood. What I found, when I found them, were works that tended to have a greater number of <span style="font-style: italic;">layers of complexity. </span><a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/museo/5/5/mehretu/mehretu.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/museo/5/5/mehretu/&h=350&w=450&sz=67&tbnid=AAyihseNAbZlsM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djulie%2Bmehretu%26um%3D1&start=1&ei=v1K2R4ijJ4mIpwTaurGnDQ&sig2=BeS2iJyj3Kp1l8whoKZ3DQ&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1">Julie Mehretu's work</a>, for example; and an <a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ACL%3AI%3A20&page_number=5&template_id=1&sort_order=1">enigmatic and unwieldy installation</a> by Louise Bourgeois. Some of them I liked, some of them not so much. They took a lot of time to apprehend, and some of them were downright creepy.<br /><br />Rather like some of my female roommates, in fact.<br /><br />I have, in the past, made the case that <a href="http://ohprettylady.blogspot.com/2006/03/san-francisco-nights.html">women's brains actually work differently</a> than men's. Not better or worse, just differently--in a more holistic, non-linear, relational way. This theory is borne out by <a href="http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2008/01/22/mars-and-venus-and-stress.html">recent brain scan studies</a> on how men and women handle stress:<br /><blockquote>Increased corpus callosum in women—the connective tissue between the left and right side of the brain—was the first big discovery about how men and women's brains work differently. It was extremely controversial at first. The corpus callosum allows both sides of the brain to be in conversation. Her brain is, to much greater extent than his, multitasking due to all of this communication that goes on in different parts of the brain. There's a tendency for men to sort of stay focused, using one part of the brain. In a woman's brain, when the thinking part of the brain is in use, the feeling part is involved. In the middle of a crisis, men will go sit down and watch TV. And women are going, "How can you do that?" When a woman is using the right side of the brain doing recreational activity, the left side of the brain is still pumping her messages that there are important problems that have to be addressed.</blockquote>Perhaps part of the reason that art by women still goes underrecognized, particularly in the Big Leagues, is that we still define Great Art from a masculine perspective--as a Monolith, as a Big Statement. Women tend not to make grandiose statements, so much as an intricate web of conjecture, which points to many levels of being, of consciousness, and relation. So much so that I don't think we can get to the top of the tree by faking a masculine attitude; we're simply not pushing with our whole minds when we do that.<br /><br /><br /></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-12877428028444703952008-01-15T12:31:00.000-05:002008-01-15T13:10:42.355-05:00Visual Art: Not Visual Any MoreHow apropos. I must quote <a href="http://artblog.net/">Franklin. </a><br /><p></p><blockquote><p>1. Taste is the ability to detect visual quality. People with taste are relatively rare. People with inclinations towards art and the mental capacity to wonder about it are quite a bit more common.</p> 2. The art market grew to its present size thanks to the latter group, not the former. It has done so by flattering the latter group into thinking that it has progressive taste, not a lack of taste.</blockquote>Apropos because the list of 2008 <a href="http://www.creative-capital.org/">Creative Capital</a> visual arts grantees arrived in my mailbox this morning. The title of the announcement was, "41 <span style="font-weight: bold;">ideas</span> whose time has come.'<br /><br />Note that <span style="font-style: italic;">ideas.</span> Not 'visions,' not 'artists.' <br /><br />Creative Capital grants are the biggest grants available for artists working today, as far as I know. They not only provide grantees a whopping influx of cash, around $50,000, but they provided mentorship, promotion and visibility. A Creative Capital grant can and does make an artist's career.<br /><br />And Creative Capital makes its first cut of visual arts grant applications <span style="font-style: italic;">without looking at any visuals.</span><br /><br />This is disgusting. It is sheer, unmitigated, blithering arrogance, ignorance and stupidity. It is pseudo-elitism at its most banal and bourgeois. It is flattering the tasteless at the expense of people who became visual artists because they communicate, and express themselves, <span style="font-style: italic;">visually</span>.<br /><br />Thus, Creative Capital is guilty of extreme bigotry and prejudice against the very people they purport to be supporting. <br /><br />Visual art is a language of its own. It does not translate into English, particularly not the kind of postmodern bullshit that appears on press releases, artist's statements, museum catalogs and Creative Capital applications. It can transcend culture, religion, language and politics; it can heal the world, if given a chance. <br /><br />I am really, really tired of arts organizations which are more interested in <span style="font-style: italic;">appearing </span>important and progressive than they are in actually making that kind of a difference in the world--the kind of difference that would genuinely heal, genuinely communicate in a manner that transcends chatter, politics, social class and culture clash. I am disgusted and I am furious and I don't feel like being polite about it anymore. <br /><br />Look, people. Ideas are easy to come by. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas are good, bad and in between, but they don't mean jack without thorough follow-through and execution in the physical world. You don't fund<span style="font-style: italic;"> ideas</span> to get results; you fund <span style="font-style: italic;">people</span> who are actually out there <span style="font-style: italic;">doing something,</span> with or without your funding. You will not shut us up. You will remain banal and irrelevant, regardless of the press or the plaudits you receive, and those of us with actual taste will always know the difference.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-34671264855336640302008-01-12T16:34:00.001-05:002008-01-12T17:44:38.662-05:00The Vital Importance of Spirituality in Art<span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://oranje.susanconstanse.com/"></a></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiVTDwrMJboFFjR7170GjPWIRrp6aTYErUeNkrIHwGQm-SJ37rb5iP4zkjWSHOKYrWhU8tzkxklxBoUjiX_gtGPWU-B3XNvgnlZVNhHv-vanugRAQl1NYoRSP0C212aYTXU4nP/s1600-h/joy3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiVTDwrMJboFFjR7170GjPWIRrp6aTYErUeNkrIHwGQm-SJ37rb5iP4zkjWSHOKYrWhU8tzkxklxBoUjiX_gtGPWU-B3XNvgnlZVNhHv-vanugRAQl1NYoRSP0C212aYTXU4nP/s400/joy3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154706868395695682" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Heart II," oil on linen, 36"x 48", 2007-8<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></span>No, it's not hubris. It could save our culture.<br /><br />This week Ed W. was discussing the <a href="http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2008/01/extreme-reactions-to-art.html">latest, predictably overblown controversy</a> on art and death threats:<br /><blockquote>It's almost become a punchline, the notion that any artwork exploring both sex and Islam will be met with a flurry of extreme reactions (death threats, riots, burned-down embassies...again?). The controversy in question this time involves the Iranian artist who goes by the name <a href="http://soorehhera.com/index.html">Sooreh Hera</a>, whose photography of naked gay Muslim men wearing a mask said to depict the prophet Mohammed was pulled from an exhibition at the municipal museum in The Hague once it became clear to the museum director that that's what she was showing.</blockquote>Ed, and most of the other artists on the thread, see this as a Freedom of Speech issue; just about everybody seemed to take it for granted that violent Muslim extremists need and deserve to be publically taunted, provoked, and confronted in a way that is bound to cause an extreme reaction. Failing to do so is labelled cowardice and censorship.<br /><br />It never, ever seems to occur to anyone that there is more than one way to confront an extremist; still less that said extremist could be, in any way, worthy of attention or respect.<br /><br />This attitude, in my opinion, could lead to the end of civilization as we know it. It is already leading to the trivialization, degeneracy, and near-total irrelevance of Fine Art, as it is viewed by the vast majority of people who are not intimately involved in the elitist, hubristic, self-involved Art World.<br /><br />I've already written about the Art World's tendency to dismiss anything that remotely hints at a spiritual context, in a way that is much stronger even than 'that's not trendy right now.' I believe that this is one of the ways that the sense of an elite, exclusive club is maintained; it's a way of separating ourselves from the deluded masses out there, some of whom are fundamentalists ready to kill and be killed for their delusions. We, of course, are Above All That, and any artist who outspokenly says she's not is obviously Not One Of Us.<br /><br />The fact is, it is human nature to be drawn toward the transcendent, in whatever context. When a concrete, workable religious tradition is absent, we channel this impulse into politics, or career, or environmentalism, or art. There's a reason that apparently sane people get sucked into cults and stripped of their money and sense of individual identity; the pull toward the spiritual is so strong that when it is ignored or suppressed, it is all the more vulnerable to manipulation.<br /><br />Moreover, as Karen Armstrong elucidates in 'The Battle For God,' extremist fundamentalism is a relatively modern phenomenon, which arose as a natural response to the rapid and traumatic changes brought about by technological, political and social revolution. Religion not only provides a channel for our spiritual instincts, but a basis for stable society; when religious law and tradition is rapidly, obviously flouted by extremely disorienting and destabilizing change, the backlash is equally extreme.<br /><br />Thus, in my opinion, whatever you may think of the fundamentalist mentality, the <span style="font-style: italic;">worst possible thing</span> we can do to contront it is to use our media, our 'elitist' bully pulpit, and our creativity to deny the spiritual, and smack people in the face with puerile, shallow affirmations of secularism.<br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj94npBYBVGYuaxanqlJiJ1oHslPyVFrWX8QwksNMrIpIrE0mnIN1btw11eAMEjRnGk7S3QKJVYlkz3_v811zHnlmWl6AoyHWRv-6x86BtaWqEZH0jMgzga-1RaYfeUwJiCIus8/s1600-h/heartflower.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj94npBYBVGYuaxanqlJiJ1oHslPyVFrWX8QwksNMrIpIrE0mnIN1btw11eAMEjRnGk7S3QKJVYlkz3_v811zHnlmWl6AoyHWRv-6x86BtaWqEZH0jMgzga-1RaYfeUwJiCIus8/s400/heartflower.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154715333776236146" border="0" /></a>Ed says, "Perhaps part of the problem there, though, is the difference between cultures in the significance/taboo/sacrity of images. How do you visually discuss Allah, for example, when any image of him is forbidden and I suspect any proxy would be open to intense scrutiny."<br /><br />Oh, please. We're <span style="font-style: italic;">visual artists.</span> We don't have to be literal, transgressive, or confrontational in order to evoke a response; still less do we need to write a ream of unreadable text, in a language that our audience doesn't even speak, in order to communicate across cultures. We merely need to reach deep into our own hearts for what is universal.<br /><br />We sell ourselves terribly short when we assume that shallow, literal, provocative statements about 'This is good, this is bad, this is what I like' are the best we can do as artists. We sell ourselves short when we allow the Art World Game to pigeonhole or ignore us entirely. <br /><br />Music communicates across cultures; two people who agree on nothing politically will calm down and cease arguing when a mutual favorite song comes on the radio. You don't need to understand someone's language, religion, culture or tradition to listen to their music and respond to it on a visceral level. Art can communicate this way as well, if we shut up with the conceptual blather long enough to allow it. <br /><br />As a parenthetical note--even though I am a die-hard Obama supporter, I think that <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obama">Andrew Sullivan's article in the Atlantic </a>about him was maudlin and over the top. But his point about Obama's face being a statement in and of itself is analogous to my beliefs about the transformative power of visual art:<br /><blockquote>The next president has to create a sophisticated and supple blend of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in. <p>Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.</p></blockquote><p> </p>Are we going to prove to the fundamentalist extremists of the world that we, as artists, are every bit as depraved, shallow, and soulless as they believe us to be, or are we going to work to create powerful images that speak to our common humanity?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://wwworanje.blogspot.com/2008/01/collaboration.html">collaboration update</a>: also, Susan has a <a href="http://oranje.susanconstanse.com/">new blog!</a></span><br /></div></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-80873056104437191162008-01-05T14:54:00.001-05:002008-01-05T15:34:10.483-05:00CollaborationHappy New Year, everybody!<br /><br />This year is going to be interesting. After getting completely enveloped in <a href="http://thebloggershow.diggingpitt.com/about/">The Blogger Show</a>, including chauffeuring the redoubtable John Morris to Pittsburgh in a snowstorm with a truck full of art, I'm beginning a collaboration with <a href="http://wwworanje.blogspot.com/">Susan Constanse of Digging Pitt, and her blog oranje</a>.<br /><br />We are both terrified.<br /><br />I was drawn to Susan's work because it is a lot like mine--organic, layered, nuanced, subtle. Particularly in her line quality, she does what I do, only better, which may not necessarily be the best reason to collaborate, but will certainly be challenging. On some level, it seems that we resonate.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSyBoHFjbsjcfJkx3vBKnaloGSE9oW0eANmrBotpbhDPcpbW1kc_liajCOAG7yiFl_O1RPFegAlJaS8g7JcmZNpTWrLEJbYK3vc5WyaFlbHvYQzxbS8xP1jfhWptGMNj-0lQ5i/s1600-h/susanseed1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSyBoHFjbsjcfJkx3vBKnaloGSE9oW0eANmrBotpbhDPcpbW1kc_liajCOAG7yiFl_O1RPFegAlJaS8g7JcmZNpTWrLEJbYK3vc5WyaFlbHvYQzxbS8xP1jfhWptGMNj-0lQ5i/s400/susanseed1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152083579680710162" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Susan Constanse, 'seed 1,' silverpoint on paper, 4" x 6"<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span></span>We decided to start small, by mailing each other three 4" x 6" 'seeds,' which could be anything. Then we'll mess with them, and send them back.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span></span></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSVTqMraeG3ZGIU2uqyuCPrEsyeBriS_g2DPfBhvWrEw6AigjBKJFaAaIEcn_rzncUpSFzsAByNj41KKZFXWrf5kXLMlCC2krezeRV3Zn7Z26cgKDvvuRP3gIbKEiZZwpZHv01/s1600-h/susanseed2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSVTqMraeG3ZGIU2uqyuCPrEsyeBriS_g2DPfBhvWrEw6AigjBKJFaAaIEcn_rzncUpSFzsAByNj41KKZFXWrf5kXLMlCC2krezeRV3Zn7Z26cgKDvvuRP3gIbKEiZZwpZHv01/s400/susanseed2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152083583975677474" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Susan Constanse, 'seed 2,' collage on canvas<br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I once wrote, <a href="http://www.stephart.com/alicia.html">in a review of an exhibit</a> by Alicia McCarthy, about the joys and pitfalls of collaboration:<br /><blockquote>Looking at it I was overwhelmed by longing, for such courage and such comfort, such lack of neurosis, that two people could share a studio and a gallery, drip all over each other's paintings, and not kill one another. It was like watching a litter of puppies, sleeping in a pile, knawing on one another's ears, never knowing loneliness. Most artists are way, way too uptight to work like that.</blockquote>Neither Susan nor I have ever collaborated like this before; until now, visual art has been the one area of our lives over which we were able to execute complete control. Thus the reason for starting small, and long-distance.<br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN9d3M9xdn3IKR-P-EtoXgf_ElEGjuxlIgBGF5xrrthTDEkGkbA0n_txULJ2YkNmo6ygTFUUv_0XlRbbNG2TSnSMg7dqitSr7tYfQyf8oV9_nMKndrrRdBWDbJPkSYpO_OYOot/s1600-h/susanseed3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN9d3M9xdn3IKR-P-EtoXgf_ElEGjuxlIgBGF5xrrthTDEkGkbA0n_txULJ2YkNmo6ygTFUUv_0XlRbbNG2TSnSMg7dqitSr7tYfQyf8oV9_nMKndrrRdBWDbJPkSYpO_OYOot/s400/susanseed3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152083583975677490" border="0" /></a></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Susan Constanse, 'seed 3,' mixed media on paper<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">I really love these first three that she's sent me, and it was a bit intimidating, coming up with adequate pieces to send in return. I won't post mine, or my alterations to hers, until she's received them; they went in the mail today. <br /><br />I realize that although the essence of artmaking for me is spiritual, and spirituality for me is about connection, that I've always made art in virtual isolation. You spend a year or two in your studio, editing, tweaking, adjusting, and destroying the evidence, then you hang a show, and voilá! you finally invite other people in to see it. <br /><br />This sort of collaboration makes you a lot more vulnerable. The other person gets to see all your false starts, failures and procrastinations. At the same time, the possibilities for really engaging and pushing things to a new level are legion. So, Susan, here's to becoming the artists we were meant to be!<br /><br />P.S. For the first time in my life, <a href="http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A39812">I've been mentioned in an art review written in English,</a> which was not written by a friend of mine. Hoo whee!<br /></div></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span></span></div></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-37372785863486369112007-11-25T17:12:00.000-05:002007-11-25T18:26:53.849-05:00I Am Not TalentedJust returned from a trip to Fort Worth, visiting my family, and incidentally my archive of Early Works, which lives in a storage unit down by the railroad tracks. The verdict is in: as a feckless young art student, I had No Talent. Yack. I mean it.<br /><br />Mom and my aunt Prudence were splendid; they helped me haul the piles of cracked, crumbling, dusty, dirty, decaying artworks out of their tomb, unroll them, take vile snapshots with a digital camera for the Historical Record, and then pile them into a dumpster. I didn't throw away everything, just the extreme monstrosities that made me cringe in horror and shame. Actually I even saved one or two of those, as a reminder. They remind me, principally, to be kind.<br /><br />Because I can't begin to describe how bad those student paintings were. Suffice it to say that I had no notion of color, composition, light, surface, paint quality, line quality, or conceptual content. My student work had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, except for a certain cheerful willingness to keep flinging paint around, in the absence of all external evidence that this process would lead somewhere fruitful. <br /><br />Funnily enough, I don't find this revelation of my profound untalentedness to be the slightest bit depressing. Instead I feel an expansive sense of peace, liberation and connection. It's difficult to describe. <br /><br />I'm not one of those PC egalitarians who thinks that talent is an elitist myth. It does exist, and I've seen it. There are people born with grace, skill, vision, and a discipline which expresses itself ceaselessly and without apparent effort; it is if they spent a thousand lifetimes in intensive practice and study, and were born into this body already possessing a mastery of medium and profundity of expression.<br /><br />I repeat; I am not one of those people. I started off as a committed painter with nothing more than an overpowering sense that there were things I needed to <span style="font-style: italic;">learn</span> through painting, and things I needed to <span style="font-style: italic;">express</span>. I had only the vaguest idea what those things were; if I'd known, I wouldn't have needed to paint. I waged epic battles in defense of my right to be callow, immature and clueless. Anything I may have achieved in the way of worthwhile art has been done the hard way, through trial and error, discipline and practice, and sheer irrational pigheadedness.<br /><br />Why does this give me such a sense of peace? Well, for starters, I'm no longer the slightest bit upset with all those faculties, arts organizations, committees, galleries and philanthropists who turned down my persistent applications. They were obviously people of taste who knew exactly what they were doing, and I commend them. I didn't need or deserve their help; any assistance from then would have only fed my unrealistically inflated notions of self. <br /><br />Furthermore, I feel a warm sense of connection with the vast majority of humanity, also not born with the facility of a Mozart or a Barry McGee. Being perceived as 'gifted' sets you apart; it is isolating and chill. Much is expected of a talented person--success is regarded as automatic, and failure is received with exasperated contempt. Talented people are not judged by the standards of ordinary mortals. They are not expected to be kind, mature, ethical or friendly; if they are any of those things, it's a bonus. <br /><br />When I expected myself to be talented, I also regarded myself with exasperated contempt, as a separate creature from the rest of humanity, where the usual standards did not apply. This was not a comfortable state of mind in which to exist. <br /><br />Now I look back and think--well, I'm not talented. I just worked really hard. I worked to earn money, and practiced hard, and studied hard, and thought hard. I improved, really really slowly. I made a lot of messes and wasted a lot of time and money on dead ends, and picked out the one small thing I learned from that dead end and used it later on, to better effect. Now when I look around at how many people have paid good money to hang one of my paintings on their wall, and continue to enjoy it, and don't regret the money spent, I'm very proud of that. It was never a given that this would happen.<br /><br />Now I look at my future, and think that I will continue doing this, without the burden of thinking that it has to be something special. If I create something beautiful, that will be a joy. If I don't, that's to be expected. I am not talented.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-91271605464951020262007-11-08T13:39:00.001-05:002007-11-08T14:39:43.594-05:00Goals<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3g-B4b_gtMuLbXf0y_q9Uc7B-ssyjFOnANjMAgUrGFvvYYGzkD6K4O_G79OSquDHyq5b6xjzeVQaBHvQV6P_xIgaqyY32ixzNoDFJ9fWVQ4W2qhV1JbFIqXIzha41_2u4tHRX/s1600-h/mandalaconcentric1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3g-B4b_gtMuLbXf0y_q9Uc7B-ssyjFOnANjMAgUrGFvvYYGzkD6K4O_G79OSquDHyq5b6xjzeVQaBHvQV6P_xIgaqyY32ixzNoDFJ9fWVQ4W2qhV1JbFIqXIzha41_2u4tHRX/s400/mandalaconcentric1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130541608369238770" border="0" /></a><br />I took a short studio moratorium while hanging the <a href="http://www.fimp.net/bloggershow.html">Blogger Show</a>; it seems to be true that I can only flex my creative muscles in one or two directions at once, and hanging shows is like painting and sculpting using other people's artwork as your raw materials. It's a process I really enjoy, and know that I'm good at. Moreover, I've known many many artists who are not good at it at all, and thus I have no problem with unapologetically taking charge of the process. A bad hanging or lighting job can make a great piece look mediocre, and a mediocre piece look like garbage; a good hanging job, or just lots of clean white walls and good light, can make a mediocre piece look like it's in Chelsea. Oh, wait...<br /><br />So, anyway, at the opening I had a good chat with <a href="http://tireshop.blogspot.com/">Nancy Baker</a> about the blatant sexism of the Art World at the highest levels, the levels where serious money changes hands. It is true, as <a href="http://worksbytracy.blogspot.com/">Tracy Helgeson</a> says, that there are tons of non-NYC galleries run by women, that show lots of women's work--largely work that is pretty, in a recognizable genre like landscape or still life, and breaks no new ground, artistically speaking. It is also true that women who paint like Nancy does have a very hard time selling work outside of NYC. Nancy told me that she has repeatedly been dumped by galleries, even when her work was selling well, and replaced by a good-looking young guy just out of art school. Big Money, and Chelsea dealers, seem to be interested in good-looking young men, and not much else.<br /><br />This is the kind of thing that I prefer not to think about, for obvious reasons. But when I am forced to think of it, I don't expend much mental energy on getting angry. Instead, it forces me to consciously prioritize my life's goals--because, given that there are enormous obstacles in the way of my achieving even moderate worldly success, I haven't got any energy to waste. I need to remember what the ball is, and keep my eye on it. <br /><br />So, in no particular order, here is my list of Lifelong Ambitions:<br /><br />• Design a chapel, in collaboration with an architect (hopefully my brother-in-law, who is something of a genius) and a glassworker. It will be of stone, placed in a rural setting or on a large piece of forested property, with a stream bisecting it from back to front. It will include simple vaults, windows based on my mandala paintings, and lanterns suspended in arcs, parallel to the stream. (At least, these are my preliminary sketches.) <br /><br />• Form connections with artists and other creative people (musicians, writers, dancers, performers, directors etc.) and work with them on collaborative projects that help extend our joint creative minds in genuinely new and effective ways. <br /><br />• Have some influence on the way hospitals are designed and fitted out, to make then into genuinely healing environments, and not the nightmarish torture-zones that most of them currently are. (I can and will write an extensive treatise on this subject, soon.)<br /><br />• Exhibit my work in serious professional galleries, where it gets the press and recognition that it deserves. (This may seem so obvious as to be tautological, but it needs to be stated.)<br /><br />• Produce museum-quality work that extends the capacities of the human mind--perceptually, imaginatively, and spiritually. <br /><br />• Create healing and meditative environments at every opportunity.<br /><br />• Publish at least one book. <br /><br />Maybe these goals are too general, but it's a working list. I am wary of setting my eye on specific targets that are all too easily shot down by forces beyond my control--i.e. 'I want a solo show at the Whitney by the time I'm thirty-five.' I am equally wary of putting too much weight on what might be called external factors--money, recognition, and fame. It has to be enough to for me to succeed on the terms where I have the most control, which are self-discipline, relationships, and the quality of the work itself.<br /><br />My biggest enemy, and the biggest fear I have, is that despair over the world's indifference will make me lazy. It has done so many times in the past. My biggest challenge is to overcome my own negative tendencies. <br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXHai-INw0PlJTCWT0gInpqv4XwUTG6kx1ymHc-pI_bdMH4fjDCCH1nlDaMhw8gNny3SUh2RKEhHn0UJLDfa-hgEihBokgLayhoPUXZrAV7UQvJm_4YFCq4Qqj1XXfIlqQbcp5/s1600-h/mandalaconcentric2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXHai-INw0PlJTCWT0gInpqv4XwUTG6kx1ymHc-pI_bdMH4fjDCCH1nlDaMhw8gNny3SUh2RKEhHn0UJLDfa-hgEihBokgLayhoPUXZrAV7UQvJm_4YFCq4Qqj1XXfIlqQbcp5/s400/mandalaconcentric2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130541612664206082" border="0" /></a>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-88054849534395566992007-10-23T22:50:00.000-04:002007-10-23T23:23:11.492-04:00Rufino Tamayo--Tres PersonajesWell, some people have all the damn luck. If I had found a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/arts/design/23pain.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin">Tamayo in a dumpster</a>, you bet I would have recognized it. <br /><blockquote>But one March morning four years ago, Elizabeth Gibson was on her way to get coffee, as usual, when she spotted a large and colorful abstract canvas nestled between two big garbage bags in front of the Alexandria, an apartment building on the northwest corner of Broadway and 72nd Street in Manhattan. <p>“I had a real debate with myself,” said Ms. Gibson, a writer and self-professed Dumpster diver. “I almost left it there because it was so big, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Why are you taking this back to your crammed apartment?’” </p><p> But, she said, she felt she simply had to have the 38-by-51-inch painting, because “it had a strange power.”</p></blockquote><p> </p>I wondered why my blog traffic had suddenly spiked; evidently the New York Times ungenerously posted an inadequately tiny photo of the Stolen Masterpiece, and when a person Googles the name 'Tamayo,' looking for a bigger one, they get me. So I did a high-resolution scan of 'Tres Personajes' from the Tamayo anthology on my bookshelf, and here it is. We aim to please.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHTXHn6radaukEvPyZwNu-U_wP5UxpcH-oNd-VuyTAC3dEWWWACNvzt0jYEAXg4RhpJrI0QNASR5RAs1BXkuV_dGXK_hUOhcjDjit7LWzaVIacf52RdnRIgI3qZ8TI8-iU4i3J/s1600-h/tamayotrespersonajes.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHTXHn6radaukEvPyZwNu-U_wP5UxpcH-oNd-VuyTAC3dEWWWACNvzt0jYEAXg4RhpJrI0QNASR5RAs1BXkuV_dGXK_hUOhcjDjit7LWzaVIacf52RdnRIgI3qZ8TI8-iU4i3J/s400/tamayotrespersonajes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124730763871989522" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">Rufino Tamayo, 'Tres Personajes,' oil on canvas, 1970<br /></span></span></div><br />Over the last few days, I have been following a <a href="http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2007/10/pushing-limits.html">couple</a> of <a href="http://artblog.net/?name=2007-10-10-11-26-panjective">debates</a> about Quality in art--whether it is subjective, objective, or has any relation to morality whatsoever. Much has been said, which I shall not attempt to paraphrase or repeat. I will merely state that one aspect of Quality may include that nameless thing which causes a non-art-scenester to haul a large, odd, cumbersome object out of a trash pile and put it on her wall, because it has 'a strange power.' Not because it has a ream of text on the wall next to it, explaining the post-modern or political ramifications of its existence; not because a haughty individual with a gift of gab and many wealthy connections tells you it is Important; not because it enrages people, or cost a lot to produce, or critics wrote about it, or because hipsters are clustered in front of it, talking about themselves. Just for the energy in the object itself.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-63693224803264086732007-10-22T14:49:00.000-04:002007-10-22T16:40:46.530-04:00That's IT!<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmxaFddL0QyRhxJJUKxbQzfiBlQos3-4__GnXfVmllLHqwdPqeNSpzx7NGWPHspkalaJRo0STVWjMQlohmElwuxTB5mMDasr1Ph-228gk3O937Glu6gFki8YnElTjE-6npHgTP/s1600-h/divinitylotus.bin"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmxaFddL0QyRhxJJUKxbQzfiBlQos3-4__GnXfVmllLHqwdPqeNSpzx7NGWPHspkalaJRo0STVWjMQlohmElwuxTB5mMDasr1Ph-228gk3O937Glu6gFki8YnElTjE-6npHgTP/s320/divinitylotus.bin" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124249203548827346" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Divinity Lotus' by <a href="http://www.cla.purdue.edu/WAAW/Pelton_Pierce/">Agnes Pelton</a><br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">Thank you, <a href="http://jackadandy.net/blog/2007/10/transcendingness.html">Jackadandy</a>!<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Why didn't I know about <a href="http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1996/Articles0596/Pelton.html">Agnes Pelton</a> before this? Good grief! I went to an accredited (barely) Art School, and received an honor degree from a major university. Additionally, I studied Humanities in high school with the mad Hungarian pianist who demanded that all graduates of HIS school be classically, culturally literate. And I've combed the painting galleries of major museums in seven or eight major cities, exhaustively and repeatedly, looking for the Inspiriting Spark. I don't think I've been THAT lazy.<br /><br />So why have I never heard of the <a href="http://www.cla.purdue.edu/WAAW/Pelton_Pierce/">Transcendental Painting Group</a>? This is it! This is The Stuff!<br /></span><p></p><blockquote><p>The TPG manifesto stated that their purpose was "to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, color, light and design, to imaginative realms that are idealistic and spiritual." The manifesto included the statement that "the work does not concern itself with political, economic, or other social problems." Arranging exhibitions of transcendental work that would "serve to widen the horizon of art" became the focus of the TPG's activity.</p> <p>One of the most significant accomplishments of the TPG was to bring the term transcendental to prominence within the semantic dialogue. The TPG's application of the term to their art advanced the meaning assumed by the terms abstraction or non-objective. The term transcendental allowed expansion of the ideas already behind each artist's work and established the concept of the sublime, a word that conveyed high spiritual and intellectual worth. Because a transcendental painting represented an ideal condition or one of expanded awareness and acceptance, the TPG believed that it held the potential to serve as a powerful icon for enlightened cultural values.</p> <p>Difficult and perhaps seemingly obscure terms such as spiritual, transcendental, quality, or ideal were part of the transcendental dialogue. At the time, the group was aware of the difficulty involved in defining these terms and made a genuine effort to explain the TPG's ideals through lectures, newspaper articles, and the group's manifesto. These terms generated confusion, fear, or dismissal. <span style="font-weight: bold;">For the TPG, spiritual was meant to convey something other than religious meaning--rather, something that was reached from a process of refining integrity, skill, knowledge, and experience into an artistic statement conveying openness and acceptance--and something that was ultimately inspiring for the human condition.</span> The term transcendental was tied to quality, as was the concept of ideal, because no work lacking in quality could represent an ideal, and therefore could not approach the spiritual.</p></blockquote><p></p>Well, THAT'S not very PC, is it. Silly question.<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Agnes Pelton, according to the essays I found about her, spent the final thirty years of her life in the desert, painting spiritual energy through abstraction from nature. I could BE this woman.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLkopz66gmAfihEeyyuJYIT-XuV6A22o84bX66qT_zK3RvpdWptodWUoau4VGSr1iNjYUueh6RGDVbxUR8y1KlRJHpOXWecbuzRP2ZAl4i20apuyPQiz5o1hwsagBPnWvLVJ9S/s1600-h/peltonflame.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLkopz66gmAfihEeyyuJYIT-XuV6A22o84bX66qT_zK3RvpdWptodWUoau4VGSr1iNjYUueh6RGDVbxUR8y1KlRJHpOXWecbuzRP2ZAl4i20apuyPQiz5o1hwsagBPnWvLVJ9S/s320/peltonflame.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124259769168375554" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Mount of Flame,' Agnes Pelton<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div></div><span style="font-size:100%;">Wow, wow, wow. I suppose, for the sake of being My Own Artist, non-derivative, progressive etc., I should explain why I am NOT Agnes Pelton; the technician in me notes that she, like Georgia O'Keefe, seems to have labored under the Old Master paradigm of creating a flat-surfaced image with a homogeneous paint quality. The images, although abstract, are still vaguely illustrative, and thus can be engaged with on a literalistic level, as 'depiction.' Whereas I, schooled in the SFAI 'piece of the floor' aesthetic, am integrating a range of textures and surface refractivities into my paintings, to better convey the multidimensional aspects of transcendent experience. <br /><br />But gosh, they're gorgeous. I want one. I want ten. Someone send me one, please. Woo hoo.<br /><br />This almost makes up for my last few trips to Chelsea, which have been largely dispiriting. I will refrain from cataloguing the 'art' I viewed there, except to say that most of it was ugly and/or lame, boring, puerile, derivative, tepid, negative, and narcissistic. I am making a bigger effort to Reach Out, this year, but when you trudge through gallery after gallery of pure hubris, it kind of makes you question what you're aspiring to.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">This</span></span> is what I'm aspiring to. It's lovely to be reminded. <br /><br /></span></div></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-20362510806779892262007-09-06T23:10:00.000-04:002007-09-06T23:31:41.585-04:00Layered intentDesert Cat has a burning question:<br /><blockquote>In the specific way that you employ these mandalas in your paintings, what do they represent? (I'm ruminating on that "Meditation" one in particular at the moment, but there seems to be a common theme to their use in many of your recent paintings.)</blockquote>DC, for me the mandalas work on a number of levels simultaneously; each of these levels comes into play in each painting, and they are all equally important. In no particular order, they are:<br /><br />1) A meditation practice, in and of themselves, in the process of drawing them. I am opening myself up to receive guidance about how to work, while working within the same stringent form.<br /><br />2) A metaphor for an underlying holistic order, independent of space and time--what Bohm calls 'the implicate order'--which determines how the physical universe unfolds. Since mandalas are circular and symmetrical, they work rather like cut-paper snowflakes--one gesture can simultaneously create form in many different physical and temporal locations. <br /><br />3) Chakras.<br /><br />4) Celestial bodies.<br /><br />5) Organic growth patterns. <br /><br />Sometimes the lines of force both within and without the mandalas represent kinetic trajectories as well--orbits, currents and gravity. <br /><br />Thus, these paintings can be read simultaneously as landscapes, mindscapes, microscapes, and metascapes. <br /><br />And it is quite late, and you can perhaps tell that I just got in from Opening Night in Chelsea. The powers of deconstruction are upon me...Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-63369289599733635522007-09-06T12:33:00.000-04:002007-09-06T13:11:53.964-04:00After the FactAnonymous has a question, which Chris doesn't think I should answer. But being basically self-absorbed, and thrilled with the attention, I will answer it anyway:<br /><blockquote>I'm not an art person. I know nothing. I have neither the vocabulary nor the sensibility to discuss it. If anything, I like nice old historical portraits of individuals, where one knows just what one is seeing and whether it looks pleasing or ill. But 'Heart' affects me unlike anything I've ever seen before. How odd and bewitching! Please explain it to me if you can, what this painting is supposed to represent and elicit.</blockquote>Well, Anon, please take all of the following with a huge handful of salt, because this painting (and just about all of the good ones) was created intuitively, without attempting to literally <span style="font-style: italic;">depict</span> anything, either an object or an idea. Each new painting is a function of everything that went before, both a sum total of my experience with painting, and of life experience, and ideas floating loosely around in my mind.<br /><br />With that said--it was based on a mandala I drew last year:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobYhrls0rqZ0rSchm6Bm6sB_xgShQVHLr00rYpxgMwuSBz99ov7G5CAHByM9BBLrw7zWV16EjGHBzbGH2EaszJbmx1akEXTIJPZtM3GC3cbqznHsZYUoPvytokRS7fCUMHyPz/s1600-h/mandala7.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobYhrls0rqZ0rSchm6Bm6sB_xgShQVHLr00rYpxgMwuSBz99ov7G5CAHByM9BBLrw7zWV16EjGHBzbGH2EaszJbmx1akEXTIJPZtM3GC3cbqznHsZYUoPvytokRS7fCUMHyPz/s320/mandala7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5107131915039197554" border="0" /></a>which is one of my favorites, being particularly baroque and organic. The painting, instead of just being a bigger, colored version of it, is a bit like being hit in the face. At least, that's how I feel when I stand in front of it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibra_DqR9hCHIzbPRFXp_a2uHWu495o8ssaciKpu9moQ2tXxVL6Jo4Um6BxCd1PfgFI5CJalzq4fbWO6SagY5mAI5okmd_naeQvNuLCecwInC5HidrFbw3a2UoBr5itkfUH8MA/s1600-h/heart.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibra_DqR9hCHIzbPRFXp_a2uHWu495o8ssaciKpu9moQ2tXxVL6Jo4Um6BxCd1PfgFI5CJalzq4fbWO6SagY5mAI5okmd_naeQvNuLCecwInC5HidrFbw3a2UoBr5itkfUH8MA/s320/heart.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5107132902881675650" border="0" /></a><br />Compositionally, it's a pretty simple assembly of three more or less circular forms, one ornate, one small, one dark and messy. Colorwise, it's also very simple, with the whites over gold and rose giving it a feeling of glowing from within; however, the broken sections of deeper rose in the mandala have the feeling of cuts or wounds.<br /><br />The color of the small circle specifically gives me a tight feeling over the solar plexus; I didn't analyze it much farther than that. <br /><br />Take the rest of this as metaphor, if you like; or don't take it at all.<br /><br />Yoga philosophy postulates that our bodies have seven vortices, called chakras, at major nerve plexuses--root, genital, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye, and crown. Each chakra, when functioning properly, takes in information from the world around us and processes it, helping to build our world-view and sense of place in the world. However, most of us have 'blocks' in some of our chakras, which mean that we are 1) not taking in information through them, 2) projecting information out through them that we then read as coming from outside, or 3) defending against the miasma of clogged energy brought about by past traumas and fears.<br /><br />This painting is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> a literal illustration of a blocked heart chakra, the way Alex Grey might paint it, but rather an attempt to convey the <span style="font-style: italic;">feeling</span> of having such a block; the muddiness obscuring something which you can intuit is whole, intricate and symmetrical, but which you cannot completely access.Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-69506325030216208772007-09-05T16:17:00.001-04:002007-09-05T16:19:41.604-04:00Blue Orchid<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCW0g0kjBeKw2S7rcnJZarWLJ7XR61Ib9l9j7lV-xyxE3HgtV_2TDljD4osjEF-yK5uZUwJwlgTOHTltwnTSWCrphyphenhyphenCsZOjQoY20uVFN6LDuBidfV9kFZEecMULjNMYzcgA4c9/s1600-h/blueorchid.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCW0g0kjBeKw2S7rcnJZarWLJ7XR61Ib9l9j7lV-xyxE3HgtV_2TDljD4osjEF-yK5uZUwJwlgTOHTltwnTSWCrphyphenhyphenCsZOjQoY20uVFN6LDuBidfV9kFZEecMULjNMYzcgA4c9/s320/blueorchid.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106817149770975586" border="0" /></a>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7040841.post-58094462856902626922007-09-04T15:06:00.000-04:002007-09-04T18:04:39.167-04:00To Be ContinuedI can hear you out there, thinking, "Well, Brooklyn, is this it? Are you headed for the Blog Graveyard? Have you completely morphed into that irritating Lady caricature, and lost touch with that moody, acerbic Inner Self we have become somewhat pruriently attached to?"<br /><br />Well, perhaps.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixmDzXhMtk-8fAP5d3fwfHL1_YfsvWwAsTTTc9SPbJwi4nvo904ohabEnj7X7R51BAAIurC86exZsfwESXH5lJuRvxICI-0lc6q3hDxvPxAtDI0sw0vpAUvF9sSbZqoBZBlQHQ/s1600-h/desert.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixmDzXhMtk-8fAP5d3fwfHL1_YfsvWwAsTTTc9SPbJwi4nvo904ohabEnj7X7R51BAAIurC86exZsfwESXH5lJuRvxICI-0lc6q3hDxvPxAtDI0sw0vpAUvF9sSbZqoBZBlQHQ/s320/desert.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106429241209702690" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Desert,' oil on linen, 48"x 36", 2007<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span>The truth is, I have been: 1) dating somebody really great, who, instead of distracting me from my work with all sorts of useless drama, actually helps me focus; and 2) actually focussing.<br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDO96FbIyQDPlFC4_k-EIVYKvf3faja3eNqRF0dxGUcy2OiatHnU0uZEgMSzOOZa0ESkCMufTpbTH4OhNU4IChDzUrFu9Vk8kEzoa__gv54ozpKbvGoRb-7BGzdtAkSZrEP6u/s1600-h/jacksonring.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDO96FbIyQDPlFC4_k-EIVYKvf3faja3eNqRF0dxGUcy2OiatHnU0uZEgMSzOOZa0ESkCMufTpbTH4OhNU4IChDzUrFu9Vk8kEzoa__gv54ozpKbvGoRb-7BGzdtAkSZrEP6u/s320/jacksonring.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106429232619768050" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Ring,' oil on linen, 36"x 48", 2007.</span><br /></span></div><br />Usually, I work on one painting at a time, and turn as many of the others toward the wall as possible, so that I am not distracted by them, nor am I painting 'relatively,' but focussing my whole attention on the one in front of me. The idea, for me, is to make certain that every painting stands on its own terms, as powerfully as possible. A few weeks ago I got out all the newest ones I'd done, eight or ten of them, and looked at them all together. And I realized that I was grossly overworking them.<br /><br />They weren't terrible, but the word that came to mind was <span style="font-style: italic;">turgid.</span> I was trying to pack my Whole Entire Essence into every one of them; I couldn't just put something down and leave it alone. <a href="http://www.crywalt.com/blog/pws/">Chris Rywalt</a> visited about that time, and confirmed what I was thinking. He said, "you're not using your lines. Let your hands speak for themselves."<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8YWSBlJWuEu8Fv70EUUXOt85ncjfBFTKzzfxIQmreKbEr368fvBUQ_iwziX543TgtipgSx3M2-oA_1NI0j2a5QMRN7QuV88umXTIEHCz0l6jN4aq9T-yZy61a3QfaMiykxcw3/s1600-h/heart.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8YWSBlJWuEu8Fv70EUUXOt85ncjfBFTKzzfxIQmreKbEr368fvBUQ_iwziX543TgtipgSx3M2-oA_1NI0j2a5QMRN7QuV88umXTIEHCz0l6jN4aq9T-yZy61a3QfaMiykxcw3/s320/heart.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106429541857413426" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Heart,' 48"x 36", oil on linen, 2007.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">So, I decided to Let Go. Let go of trying to state my entire agenda with each painting, and just try one thing; one odd thing, one new thing, one gesture, one concept. Make paintings as postulates, not definitive statements.<br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Ra1bT_UfaWbOMsMeLSfha4V453nb2QScc8VQJsAofL0fAgPUji2XSaKEuPNokaShHqqUpPye3Q7DjTwS1dC_cw88W-kmRVnP_SGGsNIaLitlJ_lCniVKCmPZJStr3NlD3ygz/s1600-h/current.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Ra1bT_UfaWbOMsMeLSfha4V453nb2QScc8VQJsAofL0fAgPUji2XSaKEuPNokaShHqqUpPye3Q7DjTwS1dC_cw88W-kmRVnP_SGGsNIaLitlJ_lCniVKCmPZJStr3NlD3ygz/s320/current.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106429546152380738" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Current,' 36"x 48", oil on linen, 2007.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">Within a few weeks, I had burned through all my available supplies, and reordered. I also took a few failed canvases off the stretchers, turned them over and painted on the back; when those failed, too, I stripped the stretchers again and recycled them. Lucio Pozo, one of my only good teachers, once told me, "Painters have to have an attitude."<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></span></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1rFCxycQl37PU0VqsWo_t9sszH-lAJCw5OcRIi9o4QeBFHlFj8YIoIremsRk7DUecY5gN2Ksw_a8l7D2VH72mkxbWChs78_Wz3Rq5WXQ_yePb01MCxsQ74gqatCxZc1O98Hse/s1600-h/jacksonmeditation.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1rFCxycQl37PU0VqsWo_t9sszH-lAJCw5OcRIi9o4QeBFHlFj8YIoIremsRk7DUecY5gN2Ksw_a8l7D2VH72mkxbWChs78_Wz3Rq5WXQ_yePb01MCxsQ74gqatCxZc1O98Hse/s320/jacksonmeditation.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106429232619768034" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">'Meditation,' 48"x 36", oil on linen, 2007.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">I also realized something else, which oddly helped me come to terms with certain perennial 'career issues,' which have paralyzed me in the past.<br /><br />We've discussed, ad nauseam, the politics of the Art World. We know all the horrendous odds against getting one of the fifty grants or residencies you've applied for in the last ten years. We've discussed institutional sexism, ageism, cronyism, yadda yadda. But after getting into a <a href="http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2007/08/simple-question-tuesday.html">rather high-pitched argument</a> last week with a gentleman who turned out to be an art critic, I decided that for me, personally, there's something else going on.<br /><br />Because my work is emphatically, overtly, primarily spiritual, both in process and content. 'Spiritual' is my 'schtick.' And 'spiritual,' in the Art World, whether it is religious or not, is not only <span style="font-style: italic;">not in style, </span>not trendy, not P.C., but it renders you <span style="font-style: italic;">virtually invisible</span>. It triggers an instantaneous dismissal which occurs below the level of conscious thought. Few art critics, dealers, curators or collectors will go so far as to say, like this fellow did, "I'm not interested in this 'spiritualism' junk." <span style="font-style: italic;">It just doesn't even register.<br /></span><br />Having spent plenty of years among the self-styled Intellectual Elite, I am fairly certain that I know where this is coming from. It is a reaction against the perceived hegemony of Christian conservatism, the bigotry which frequently accompanies it, and the anti-scientific literalism of Bible Belt evangelists. The fact that this is a shallow, simplistic, unexamined dismissal of something that is not only integral to the society, culture and psychological makeup of the vast majority of human beings, but which at its root is the most anti-bigotry, pro peace-and-integration philosophy in existence, is never addressed. Spirituality is the ultimate taboo. When I mention it among a group of hip, progressive, cutting-edge radicals, the social effect is precisely the same as if I had mentioned mutual masturbation among transsexual lesbians at a Junior League meeting in South Texas.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></span></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFP2R0l6AQYWsVILYEmJQiBtPjbZzMpV0j6mqbOAEunStkGRW0S8dx3agDI_TVY6fPGzvJfvil7UkSyTpDuldqVFEiPKi7kOten9aEkbtgCRhYLeun2S1AM5bd0yiZvC1_LMb/s1600-h/bridge.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFP2R0l6AQYWsVILYEmJQiBtPjbZzMpV0j6mqbOAEunStkGRW0S8dx3agDI_TVY6fPGzvJfvil7UkSyTpDuldqVFEiPKi7kOten9aEkbtgCRhYLeun2S1AM5bd0yiZvC1_LMb/s320/bridge.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106429236914735378" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Bridge,' 36"x 48", oil on linen, 2007.<br /></span></span></div><br />Strangely enough, this realization helped my state of mind immensely. This is probably because I'm emphatically a 'J' on the Meyers-Briggs personality scale; as long as I know what's <span style="font-style: italic;">going on</span>, I'm okay. It is the paranoid feeling of, "You know, I <span style="font-style: italic;">feel like I'm invisible,</span> but that's crazy, there's no reason I should be invisible, I'm confident and smart and articulate, I'm polite, I listen--why would people ignore me? They can't <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> be spiteful jerks!" that completely confounds me.<br /><br />So what this means to me, right now, is that I have to make three times the noise and ten times the high-quality work in order to get the same amount of attention that a mediocre artist who pushes all the right P.C. buttons gets. What it means is that I have to work my butt off with no expectations.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-YtPOc7rCcSYrAiCFhlBNJXXZDowZyKm2Z2aue-prSNH1h9OT2IdtcPeXgR_opIjFkvMG8CiIJmOFgULDXqbgGKB2U8zihV2Y6SAWTwku2Gc-RMut3pUZUgcLi0WIw0RZHWLW/s1600-h/jacksonsingularity.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-YtPOc7rCcSYrAiCFhlBNJXXZDowZyKm2Z2aue-prSNH1h9OT2IdtcPeXgR_opIjFkvMG8CiIJmOFgULDXqbgGKB2U8zihV2Y6SAWTwku2Gc-RMut3pUZUgcLi0WIw0RZHWLW/s320/jacksonsingularity.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106429236914735362" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Singularity,' 16"x 12", oil on linen, 2007.<br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">What this doesn't mean is that I will tweak my agenda to accomodate the prevalant cultural gestalt. Being a 'spiritual' artist is not only my vocation, for which I have jettisoned everything approaching security and social approval, but I sincerely believe that grounding in the transcendent is the <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> way to resolve the myriad miseries and conflicts of this world. I pursue and explore the path toward inner peace in the hope of extending it outward.<br /><br />I was working on this one until twelve-thirty last night; it's not done yet, but I'm pretty thrilled with it so far.<br /></span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxsN7paLBcWLxOFmlG2tW3fX485o_AIHLyhuGMZB6vVPH675PdctkH8XaJGQxtpoTvfqoiY6FxZe4lvRKZJRcyeZUQFoQ2jXhtjdjQOKeqR-79pgCP1fNUkRBDmvLZEtgdhoWG/s1600-h/blueorchidprogress.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxsN7paLBcWLxOFmlG2tW3fX485o_AIHLyhuGMZB6vVPH675PdctkH8XaJGQxtpoTvfqoiY6FxZe4lvRKZJRcyeZUQFoQ2jXhtjdjQOKeqR-79pgCP1fNUkRBDmvLZEtgdhoWG/s320/blueorchidprogress.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106438917771020626" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Blue Orchid,' 48"x 36", oil on linen, in progress, 2007.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">For the young who want to</span><br /><br />Talent is what they say<br />you have after the novel<br />is published and favorably<br />reviewed. Beforehand what<br />you have is a tedious<br />delusion, a hobby like knitting.<br /><br />Work is what you have done<br />after the play is produced<br />and the audience claps.<br />Before that friends keep asking<br />when you are planning to go<br />out and get a job.<br /><br />Genius is what they know you<br />had after the third volume<br />of remarkable poems. Earlier<br />they accuse you of withdrawing,<br />ask why you don't have a baby,<br />call you a bum.<br /><br />The reason people want MFA's,<br />take workshops with fancy names<br />when all you can really<br />learn is a few techniques,<br />typing instructions and some-<br />body else's mannerisms,<br /><br />is that every artist lacks<br />a license to hang on the wall<br />like your optician, your vet<br />proving that you may be a clumsy sadist<br />whose fillings fall into the stew<br />but you're certified a dentist.<br /><br />The real writer is one<br />who really writes. Talent<br />is an invention like phlogiston<br />after the fact of fire.<br />Work is its own cure. You have to<br />like it better than being loved.<br /><br />--Marge Pearcy</blockquote><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"></span></div></div>Pretty Ladyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342833918614545778noreply@blogger.com44