Sunday, December 07, 2008

7th December 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?




This week saw the launch of Watermarks. I'm involved in contributing to this blog as one of a new and small community of artists who are all interested in creating art out of water.

We all started off having known some of the other people involved for some time. However none of us knew every other member well so we all knew we'd be learning about people.

What I'm finding absolutely fascinated is hearing all the different perspectives on water and approaches to drawing or painting it. That and the fact that even though I think I know somebody well and have been following their work for some time I'm finding I can still learn something knew about them and their work.

It's been a fascinating insight to why people do what they do and how they do it. It's the sort of narrative which I love reading about on other people's blogs

This week we've had the first six introductions to the nine artists in this new community - and rather a lot of slideshows and videos!
The images are by all the different artists introduced to date. Top block (clockwise) is Vivien Blackburn, Lindsay Olson, Jeanette Jobson and Gesa Helms. Top left is mine and bottom right (opposite the links) is by Laura Frankston.

More next week!

Art Blogs
Art Group Blogs
Art Business & Marketing
Art economy
On Thursday, up to 17 of the 22 people who make the pills for Hirst's drug cabinet series were told their contracts were not being renewed, according to two sources close to Science Ltd, Hirst's main art-producing company. Another three who make his butterfly paintings were also told they were surplus to requirements.

It is thought that amounts to approximately half of the London-based artists who work for Hirst. They are paid about £19,000 a year, sources said. In June 2007, Lullaby Spring, a cabinet filled with hand-painted pills, sold for £9.65m.
Recession reaches Hirst's studios.

  • An announcement was made last week that Lehman Brothers gets approval to sell $8m art collection. It made me wonder how many more collections will need to be broken up and sold before the recession comes to an end and what that will mean for art prices at the high end of the market. My inclination is to predict the slide will continue.............
  • There are varying reports from Miami about Art Basel Miami. I read all reports keeping in mind who is writing and what level of investment do they have in promoting particular messages. The message from the Guardian was Don't mention the Depression as they noted that there was talk of recession everywhere.
Art Competitions
  • CPSA Annual International Exhibition 2009 - Call for Entries - all those interested in coloured pencils and wanting to enter the Annual Exhibition of the Coloured Pencil Society of America should read my post from Wednesday.
  • The American Watercolor Society gold medal controversy meanders on (and on!) but has had recently yet more newspaper coverage in Canada - here and here. Interestingly in one of these the artist appears to make a statement which suggests that the artist acknowledges she breached the rules. However newspapers don't always get it right - so who knows? Spare a thought for Mark Mehaffey, the man who (if the reports are correct) is having to wait an awfully long time to hear whether he should now receive both the gold medal and the cash prize. I can't help but think that this matter needs to be sorted out prior to the announcement of the notice of who has been accepted for the 2009 exhibition and who has won awards! (Slides had to be in by November and the notice of who has been selected is due out in January with awards announced in February).
Art Exhibitions
Tips and techniques
websites and blogging
  • Did we all get problems with Feedburner playing up this week? I know I did and I've seen references to other people also having problems with their blogs taking forever to load or being unable to access Feedburner. Just so you know you weren't on your own.....
  • ....and then I find out that Feedburner is in the process of migrating publishers to Google Accounts. It says that our feeds will continue to work normally - but I think we may all have a different perspective on that. Keep an eye on the Feedburner blog for more information.
  • Darren Rowse at Problogger has been writing about the Characteristics of Traffic Generating Posts
  • Here's a blog which has a poll which asks Do you automatically follow everyone who follos you? In case you're wondering (1) I 'follow' an awful lot of people (2) I still haven't got all the people who I've got in my feedreader into the 'follower' function and (3) I don't follow everyone who follows me - but I will do if I like your content.
  • Google Reader has had a revamp - square is the new round
  • On the topic of comment spam - have a read of this post The Price of Closing Comments on Old Posts from the Blog Herald - not so much for the issue about closing comments so much as the description of how comment spam works - and what makes you vulnerable. It's a real education!
......and finally

Birds in the College Greenhouse by Richard Bell

Richard Bell MA(RCA) Hons
(Wild West Yorkshire ) is an ex graduate of the Royal College of Art and came up to London recently for a gatherine at the Collegeto celebrate the life of Prof. Richard Guyatt (1914-2007), the first ever head of graphic design of the new and reformed postwar RCA and latterly its Rector. (Do read this link to Prof Guyatt's obituary - it's absolutely fascinating!)

In his newsletter Richard mentioned how delighted he was to see his student painting of Birds in the College Greenhouse hanging in pride of place in the Senior Common Room. Lucian Freud's (arguably our greatest living painter) portrait of John Minton hangs on the wall to the right, Peter Blake's (the pop artist best known for his cover of the Beatles' 'Sergeant Pepper' album) portrait of Professor Richard Guyatt hangs on the wall opposite and David Hockney's 'Rakes Progress' etchings hang on the wall near the entrance. Apparently my picture was hung where the college's Francis Bacon painting (recently sold) had been!

Well I couldn't resist and promptly asked Richard whether he could supply a picture of his painting for this post! Here it is - the one at the top shows the whole painting and the one on the right shows an extract.

I'd now love to see more paintings by Richard!

1 comment:

  1. WM made the Mark! Nice post and I missed that article from the Chicago Tribune so thanks.

    ReplyDelete

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