They surrounded me on a drizzly walk

Compare and Contrast

I am so glad that we, as a people, have YouTubers like MrSExperience making perfectly valid connections like this. I equally love N.E.R.D. and the Softboys. This whole correlation reminded me of McSweeny's A Convergence of Convergences: A Contest.

Stream Drop

Denis Darzacq
I wish I could paint like this cat's photographs.
I wish I was bilingual too.

Susken Rosenthal, "The Football Drawings show the ball movements during a soccer game as viewed from above. The first Football Drawings were produced in 1982. . . Each work is an individual "portrait" of a specific game: for instance the final match of the FIFA Worldcup 1986 Argentina versus Germany. Like a seismographical sketch, the ball movements are drawn simultaneously to the action on the field: individual movements, corners and goals can be recognized as well as the strategy and the relation of strength between the competing teams.

At the same time these graphic series are a work of abstract art. Each one displays an aesthetic network of lines, the density of which increases with the energy of the game. This happens in a strict concept of time (90 minutes) and form (football field)."

Magnetic Ink, Process video from flight404 on Vimeo.

Robert Hodgin's Flight 404 all manner of distractions is worth perusing for painters wishing to keep on eye out for the next "end of painting".

Compare and Contrast

Joseph Phillips, Sidewalk, Street, Retaining wall Package, 2007
Gouache, Ink, Graphite on paper 14 x 17"

Josh Keyes, The Tree of Knowledge, 2008

acrylic on panel, 12"x12"

Steven LaRose, The Slave of Pomp, 2008

Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 48 x 32"
(details below)

Don't Ask Me Why

Steven LaRose, Thirteen Reasons 2008
Oil on canvas 9 x 12"

Got Hair?

Viva Obama

A video tip from the painter with a studio practice in Greenpoint.

Three quick thoughts

Martin Johnson Heade, Thunderstorm at the Shore, c. 1870-1
Oil on paper on canvas, mounted on wood panel, 9 x 18"
My eye spins through a compositional helix. I travel through a sublime Escher space where the beginning meets the end (like that Land of the Lost episode where they leave one side of the valley only to appear upon the other).

Frederic Edwin Church, At the Base of the American Falls, Niagara, 1856
Oil on paper laminate, 11 x 13"
What is that tiny rainbow doing in the bottom right hand corner?

Sanford Robinson Gifford, October in the Catskills, 1880

Oil on canvas, 36 x 29"
Aaah, my eyes! That is so cool. . .

UPDATE: 101 reasons to draw

Aztec Dawn

Botticelli Blue

Deep Space

Rose Bouquet (Doug to Tracy)

Tangy Green

West Keys

Sleeveface

another tip from largely a twentieth-century phenomenon

Less talk and more demonstration

Big day

Zaida rode a bike for the first time today. It is funny how some things are learned in a painless PING of events. She declared it "the most awesome day of her life." Of course, it took a lot out of her.

Stare-down for the Sunrise Strip

Steven LaRose, Eagles and Trumpets, 2008
Acrylic and oil on wood panel, 48" x 32"

I'm Baa-aaack!

My Problem

On Fridays I have been spending one hour in the afternoon with a group of first and second graders. I had grand ideas of a drawing club, not herding kittens.

During the most recent session I handed out some images for the kids to copy, just to get a feel for what might be happening. The problem, it seems, is that there is a VAST disparity between what these little humans can see and do. Take student "A":
and compare that to student "B":
Some observations:
1) This disparity can also be observed in my Intermediate Drawing class, a four credit baccalaureate program. If I ever find myself in a position of authority at a school, I would insist on a thorough front-end assessment/portfolio review. I find myself metaphorically thinking that, like the importance of a stable ground to paint on, we should never underestimate the value of the first step in education. Proper prep work on a canvas prevents all sorts of future problems and proper placement in a school facilitates learning.
2) Last week I had students crying in both environments. Did the self-critical judgment of the college student start in grade school? I find myself completely baffled at the crippling emotions brought on by a 6B pencil line. Well, not baffled actually, but intrigued. Rooted in our attitude towards our mistakes rests a vital element regarding all learning. Sitting next to the sobbing First Grader was a cackling and rapturous individual declaring, "This is hard, I can't do this! Bwa ha ha!" and all the while continuing to draw.

Scale and detail

Steven LaRose, Bardo Pond, 2008
Acrylic and oil on panel, 48" x 32"

You painters out there better hold on to your "oh jesus" bar because Mary has hit post-roller-coaster/pre-steam-bath beauty:

Image source for M.A.H's show

Happy V.D.

I apologize for pulling out all these old images, but I unearthed them while doing a studio re-org and some of them, like this fifty year old cover, are just too appropriate. Too bad I don't have the guts of the magazine, I'd love to see the Special Color Feature: THE ART BOOM. Instead, we have to settle for the Kurt Ard painting that is a Valentines Day chuckle. Imagine, this was an accepted traditional custom of a particular social group.

With your portfolio ready, you are prepared for the exciting experience of contacting art buyers!

This is like finding an arrowhead in your backyard.

Sunday Morning Project

The Prints of Robert Motherwell

I always find a gem when I visit Hequin's commonplace book. Last month, he posted a lithograph on Robert Motherwell's birthday. It wasn't the one above titled Automatism A, 1965-66. I found this in a book titled The Prints of Robert Motherwell while trolling the Hannon Library on the SOU campus. I don't think I would have even looked at the print section of the library if I hadn't had that ghost of Motherwell's lithograph flapping around my head. Thanks Helquin.
Some of my favorite silkscreens in the book are from Motherwell's Africa Suite, 1970 (above). What a sweet word "suite." I think I'll discontinue calling my series "clusters."
I was also struck by 40 etchings Motherwell created for Joyce's Ulysses (above). But I'm not being dramatic when I say "my breath was taken away" by a suite of 27 lithographs that were done to accompany poems by Octavio Paz (below).
Once I looked at all the images in this 400 page book, I went back to read the text. Robert Motherwell says it all:

"The subject does not pre-exist. It emerges out of the interaction between the artist and the medium. That is why, and only how (my work) can be created, and why its conclusion cannot be predetermined. When (one has) a predetermined conclusion, you have 'academic art' by definition."

". . . A creative person. . . . directs his (attention) toward the one other thing in human existence as rich, sensitive, supple, and complicated as human beings themselves: that is to say, an artistic medium, which is not an inert object, or, conversely, a set of rules for composition, but a living collaboration, which not only reflects every nuance of one's being but which, in the moment in which one is 'lost,' comes to one's aid, not arbitrarily and capriciously. . . but seriously, accurately, and concretely with you, as when a canvas says to one, 'This empty space in me needs to be pinker'; or a shape says, 'I want to be larger and more expansive'; or the format says, 'The conception is too large or too small for me, all out of scale'; or a stripe says, 'Gouge me more, you are too polite and elegant'; or a gray says, 'A bit more blue - my present color is uncomfortable and does not fit. . .'"

"I often paint in a series, a dozen or more versions of the same motif at once - of the same theme. . . I bring the weakest up to the strongest, which in turn becomes the weakest and so on and ad infinitum, so that one goes beyond oneself (or sometimes below!) There is no knowing, only faith."

Maquette

In order to prove to me how wrong I was about the evils of the gumball-machine-plastic-balls, my seven year old daughter created the maquette above. She can already push my buttons. Still, (ahem) we impose a strict anti-landfill rule under our roof.

A Post In Progress

I have been asked to talk to the art students who are about to graduate from Southern Oregon University. They are participating in a "Professional Practices" class and their instructor is a self-described Luddite.

What is interesting to me is that because I merely have a blog, and a Flickr account, I am overly qualified to approach this subject.

What is changing here?

Slides are out . . . obviously, just talk to Chris about that.

Should all students be members of the CAA?

Should all students mainline feed to Deborah Fisher's SELLOUT?

How effective are the artist's registries like Saatchi Online and Artist Space?

What about social-networking slash info-buzz systems like ArtSlant and deviantART?

Do the Creative Commons icons protect your work? Why even bother protecting your work? What is wrong with visual sampling? Karen Jacobs has an interesting story about this.

I appreciate that I've been asked to talk to the students (and faculty) but I wonder what I/we have to offer? Isn't it, in the long run, about finding/creating the time to be in the studio? Isn't it about making quality? Is the pitch: "It is not what you know, but who you know" really what it is all about? (Hopefully, its the hokey-pokey).

Regardless, I'm going into a classroom on Tuesday the 12th with my laptop and a video projector. I'm going to show them this post. I'm going to show them how you helped me:

Links:
Americans for the Arts
This is a great resource for news on legislation that affects the arts. It is also a resource for information on how arts affect communities. - Susan


Updates:
Marketing?
Duane Keiser = the Ebay/PayPal pioneer with chops.
Etsy = "The place to buy and sell all things handmade"

Understanding the game?
Gallery owners who blog = Edward Winkleman.
Ex-gallery owners who publish "newsletters" = Paul Klein.
Collectors who blog = Lisa Hunter.

Finger on the pulse?
PaintersNYC
PaintersPDX
emailed magazines like Artkrush.

Regional Arts resources:
PORT
Oregon Arts Commission

Second Update:
Joanne Mattera's post A Long Marriage (A Brush with Destiny) is a sweet take on the relationship between us and where we find "flow".