Sunday, March 29, 2009

29th March - who's made a mark this week?

It's not often I feature a book at the beginning of this post each week. However I was very taken with Seven Things Every Artist Should Know from the Huffington Post and highly recommend that you have a quick read.

It's based on a new book published last week - ART/WORK: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career by Heather Darcy Bhandari (Director of the Mixed Greens Gallery, New York) and Jonathan Melber (an art attorney). If you'd like to know a bit more:
  • read the first chapter on the Amazon website (click the link in the title) and check out the two 5 star customer reviews
  • read a very thorough review on artblog.net.
For the record the seven things are listed below but you'll need to read the article (or the book) to understand the reasons behind the list.
    1. Every artist has a day job
    2. Residencies are good for your health
    3. NO BLIND SUBMISSIONS!
    4. Write stuff down
    5. The Internet is all the rage
    6. Rejection: It's not you, it's them
    7. There's more to life than commercial galleries
Jonathan Melber is the lawyer (degree in Ethics / doctorate in law) who has been opining in his new blog on the Huffington Post that The AP Has No Case Against Shepard Fairey - check it out for his take on the use of "fair use". Plus I like Ed Winkelman's take on it - that by using the photo Fairey actually increased the value of the original photo rather than harming it!

Congratulations to....

Laurel Daniel who has won 2nd place in the International Artist competition for April/May and has also joined the Daily Paintworks group.

Laurel's blog Laurel Daniel Oil Paintings features her plein air paintings and studio work while Laurel Daniel Small Works features her small paintings. Laurel now paints full-time and teaches at the Austin Museum of Art .

Congrats also to Richard Klekociuk who is an international member of UKCPS living, as he does, in the state of Tasmania in Australia. This year, Richard was one of 43 finalists in the Glover Prize - an art competition which has the biggest prize for landscape art in Australia.

You can read more about this in Richard Klekociuk - Glover Prize finalist on the UKCPS News blog.

Wholemeal Landscape, Northern Tasmania
90 x 75cm framed (35" x 29.5"), Prismacolour pencils on Canson Pastel Board
copyright Richard Klekociuk

Art Blogs

Drawing and sketching
Dry Media - pastels and coloured pencils
Botanical art
Environmental Art
  • Diane Wesman is also a member of Project Art for Nature. This is a a collaboration of artists and illustrators from Minnesota and Wisconsin, working independently and collaboratively to create artwork which promotes stewardship of threatened natural areas in the region. Great idea - I wonder if others are doing likewise!
Painting
Being a painter is my job and just like most jobs, I need to clock in and work whether I'm interested or not. That's where finding the key to motivation comes in.
Printmaking

Exquisite woodblock paintings drawing on the tradition of Japanese art. An uncompromising and accomplished artist, Cressida Campbell has established a reputation as Australia's pre-eminent exponent of the painted and printed woodblock.

Art business and marketing
Galleries are not the magic ticket to stardom and riches...they are but one option in the spectrum of venues by which artists can exhibit their work and hopefully advance their careers.......My point is there are other options out there, many of which are totally in the hands of artists themselves.
Edward Winkelman
  • Sharon L Butler (Two coast of Paint) has written about The Art World on Facebook: A Primer on the Brooklyn Rail. which is chock-full of insight into the advantages of Facebook. However it doesn't get to grips with the intellectual ownership/copyright issues and underlying thrust for finding ways to make Facebook generate income (witness more than one volte-face by its creator and owner).
  • You can lose out in more ways than one of losing out when investing in high-end contemporary art. Not only have values dropped but now it seems at least one gallery owner has been "economical with the provenance". Lawrence Salander, the gallery owner of Salander Oreilly Gallaries (once identified as the best in the world!) was last week indicted on 100 counts including fraud, forgery and falsifying business records - see New York art dealer charged in $88m scheme. I wonder if, like Madoff, yet more will surface?
Art competitions, exhibitions and galleries
Tips and techniques
Websites and blogging
and finally......

Have you seen this before - artists in their studios - from long ago! I liked the one of John Singer Sargent in his studio, circa. 1884.

PS
  • The good news - I've lost another half stone.
  • The bad news is that I'm having very major problems with my computer (and I'm already on the back-up one) which is freezing repeatedly. The latest theory I'm testing is that it's the latest version of Firefox which has just been uninstalled! The computer only froze five times during the writing of this post(which involved crashing out each time!!!) and I'm now publishing while I've still got a computer which is running! You may find this post updates in the next hour or so!

4 comments:

  1. Lots of great links to investigate here! Thanks again.

    I use the task function in gmail. It's excellent, like you say, it just doesn't go away. It's a good reminder when I'm just wasting time on the internet. As well, I email my goals each week to a friend - just drag them over and they're on the list!

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  2. The best news is well buried here, Katherine. You've carved your first linocut! Congratulations! Your first print is eagerly awaited. Your obsession with the process is bound to follow.

    Thank you very much for also highlighting my latest printmaking adventures. Such generous support really gives a struggling printmaker an enormous boost.

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  3. I'm rearing my head from an intense week, like a groundhog, blinking my eyes in the bright sunlight, to see what's happening in the big world! And what a great smorgasbord you've given us this week. I like the paintings of Laurel Daniel---thanks for showcasing her work. I found Dan's categories of blogging style very interesting---it's clear which one I fit in. Hadn't thought of this issue in such a clear way as Dan has articulated.
    I'm sorry you're having computer troubles! I can't use the latest version of Firefox at all on my mac. I had the very same problems you've had.
    I look forward to seeing your linocut, once printed!

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  4. My information is that Sarah Palin plagiarised Cosmo.

    ReplyDelete

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