11th September 2011 - Who's made a mark this week?

Tribute Art and 9/11:  Healing Through Artistic Response

Art created in response to a crisis or tragedy can be used to:

• Send a message of condolence and support
• Honor the memory of victims
• Build and comfort affected communities
• Rebuild after disasters
• Foster healing and channel emotions
Tribute Art and 9/11: Commemorative Resources for Upper Elementary, Middle and High School Educators

We've always known that art can provide a means of creating public memorials.

Yesterday the new National September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero was dedicated and tomorrow it opens - 10 years after the events in the USA on September 11 2011.  This is a link to the website for the 9/11 Memorial.  Click this link to an animation about the new memorial which illustrates how the footprints of the twin towers are marked out forever.

 However art can do a lot more than that.  It also provides a way for people to express their own emotions and feelins and personal tributes and for communities to rebuild.  See the webpage about Tribute Art & 9/11.  This includes a Resource Pack for Educators

In the aftermath of the attacks, many people chose to respond through a range of artistic channels as part of the healing, recovery, and rebuilding process.  In studying these responses, we learn how art is not only a means for self-expression, but can also serve as a vehicle for community-building and personal growth.

I was also very impressed by the power of photography and the photoessay created by the New York Times of the The Towers Rise and Fall. Some bloggers have also been marking the passing

• Veronica Lawlor - Ten Years Later - posted sketches she did on that day.  Veronica was drawing one of the towers as it collapsed.  She recommends visiting September 11th Words and Pictures to purchase the memorial book of drawings from 9/11. 
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) chose to highlight The 911 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (paperback) - which is certainly a different perspective
• This is The Encyclopedia of 9/11 MISSING-PERSON POSTERS by Jerry Saltz.  He describes how the creative efforts to make effective posters succeeded in reaching the pit of one's stomach

Now for the rest of what I noticed last week....

Art Blogs and Artists

News of fellow art bloggers in Texas

The bad news on the house and studio front in Texas continues.

• Carol Marine Carol Marine's Painting a Day) posted an Update.  There is now doubt whatsoever - she has definitely lost both her house in Bastrop and her brand new studio.  See her studio blog Building My Studio.  However she's still delivering workshops!
• Jo Castillo (Jo Castillo Art Blog - Pastels and More) also lives in Bastrop but had been travelling with her husband in her RV for the last few weeks and...
• On Tuesday she posted that she feared her her home was lost to the Texas wild fires.
• By Wednesday this had been confirmed from two reliable local sources - her home is burned too - see No News is Good News is Right.....

Unsurprisingly both artists now have to find a new house and are thinking very hard about moving away from the area - and what has been an extreme summer heat (3 months of over 100 degree temperatures) which inevitably must continue to bring the prospect of more wildfires in the future.  If it were me in that situation I can only say I'd be thinking very much along the same lines...

Drawing and Sketching

• Liz Steel told me about a brand new blog a friend of hers has started.  It's called The Artling - I think it looks very promising and definitely worth taking a look at.  Below you will find links to a couple of posts. Let's hope it gets past the major hurdle of the three months mark!
• 5 Reasons to Sketch From Life V’s 5 Reasons to Sketch From Photos = Win Win!
• Figurative Narrative Sketching and a Little More about The Artling
• Pete Scully (Pete Scully) is being incredibly prolific at the moment - and very good

Botanical

• Jan Harbon writes about her preparation for her exhibition A Year at Gilbert White's - following her "artist in residence" stint at Gilbert White's house in Hampshire 
• I think Felicity Grace (Felicity's Philosophies and Other Curiosities) might be currently channeling Maria Sibylla Merian - I love the postcards she is coming up with for A Postcard from my Walk - see her latest Leaves and bugs - discoveries from the garden

Painting

• Do take a look at Terry Miura's Studio Notes blog - he's just been on a Sierra Pack Trip with painting friends (five posts for the five days).  Fascinating to see a different approach to plein air painting.  Marvellous paintings too.  
• Michael Chesley Johnson (Plein Air Painter's Blog) is also up for a bit of energetic plein air - he's painting on the rim of the Grand Canyon (+ day 2)- and will be participating in the Grand Canyon plein air painting event.  The weirdest thing is that I read this post and saw he was photographing condors at the Grand Canyon - and then read Contrasts from the Grand Canyon by Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) - and I think she might have been photographing the same bird at pretty much the same time!
• Charley Parker reviewed the impressive watercolours of Keiko Tanabe (Blog) on Lines and Colors - Keiko Tanabe
• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) recently wrote about Saussure’s Cyanometer.  Yup - with titles like that you've just got to click the link!  Back in 2008 there was a post about How to build a cyanometer on My French Easel

Saussure's cyanometer

Landscape Art

• I'm having a mini-series of posts about David Hockey and his paintings of the landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds.  Two so far and another one next Tuesday.
• David Hockney talks about landscape painting routine - which is a video
  
• David Hockney's Yorkshire - features 3 major new exhibitions and a book 
• Mark Curtis (BBC/Your Paintings) comments on Landscape Art - with lots of great illustrations from the Government's Art Collection
• The Virtual Paintout is in New Orleans in September

Printmaking

• Take a look at Sherrie York's Fieldwork Fridays on her blog Brush and Baren.  Do If your subject area is the natural world do you make regular time for fieldwork?

Public Art

• Michael Arad's design for the National September 11 Memorial is called Reflecting Absence.  His work was supported by Maya Lin who designed the iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.  Click the link in his name to find out why public art is not an easy option.  There is also this article in Art Info "Design Is a Process of Rebirth": Michael Arad on the Making of the 9/11 Memorial

Sculpture

• Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge by Henry Moore has been returned to its original location in Greenwich Park which plays host to the modern pentathlon and equestrian competitions in the Olympics.  It's been on its travels to the Moore exhibition in Kew Gardens and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park plus a spot of restoration so it will look its best for next year.

Art Business & Marketing

• Karen Middleton has written a nice summary comparison of Selling Art Online vs Selling Art Offline on Empty Easel
• Alyson Stanfield (Art Biz Blog) wrote last week about Selecting Images for Greeting Cards
• If you've always aspired to having one of your tweets retweeted by others try reading Twitter 101: 55 Tips to Get Retweeted on Twitter by Pam Moore The Marketing Nut
• One of the little bonuses of having done my MBA at the London Business School is that LBS send me a very good business strategy newsletter!  Here's a couple of articles which might interest some of you and give pause for thought.  Mind you, you have to get past the fact they are written for SME entrepreneurs rather than artists!!!  (I might have a go at translation sometime)  Check out 
• the metrics in 10 elements of entrepreneurship .  Were they thinking of you?
• How consumers can help you create new products re the use of social media for market research

Art Collectors and Art Economy

• Four rarely seen paintings by LS Lowry were sold at auction this week.  Man posting a letter (1965) had never been seen in public as Lowry sold it direct to the couple who bought it

Art Books

• I posted Makingamark's Top Ten Art Books in August 2011 very late this month - in part because of the loss of functionality due to the changes in the Amazon website.  Triangulation has just become very taxing!  Some very interesting new books were published last month - see The Best NEW Art Books - which has been revised and updated
• Did you know there are 74,660 e-books about fine arts that you can access via the World Public Library?  Mind you there access routes could do with some improvement!

Art Competitions

Autumn is always an important time for the major art competitions in the UK - so there's lots to announce this week!

• It had to happen - given three female winners to date! Read my post about The Shortlist for Threadneedle Prize 2011 dominated by women artists. You can also now view the work of other artists in the exhibition.
• What sort of shape is contemporary drawing in?  The announcement of the winners of the Jerwood Drawing Prize and Private View is due to take place on Tuesday 13th September from 7pm.  The works in the exhibition were selected from c.3,500 entries (See my post in July about Jerwood Drawing Prize - selected artists announced for links to their websites).  The exhibition opens on 14 September and continues until 30 October at the Jerwood Space 
• The exhibition for the biggest open art competition for watercolour painters in the UK - the Sunday Times Watercolour Prize - opens tomorrow at the Mall Galleries (and closes on Saturday) and I'm going Tuesday afternoon.  Click the link in the name for the pdf file of the catalogue for the exhibition.
• The artists selected for the International Print Biennale organised by Northern Print have been selected

Plus in the USA, entries are now being accepted for the third Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, to be held in 2013 (see my post >The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 27 Jul 2011)

For more information about art competitions generally see Art Competitions in the UK - Resources for Artists

Art Exhibitions

Major Art Galleries and Museums

• The Miro exhibition at Tate Modern closes today.  Future exhibitions include:
• The Gerhard Richter: Panorama exhibition which opens 8th October 
• plus on 12th October the Turbine Hall series continues with a new work by Tacita Dean
• Mark Rothko - Rothko in Britain opened at the Whitechapel Gallery on Friday.  It commorates the first exhibition of his work.  This is today's Observer review of the exhibition.  I wonder what he would have made of the heavily policed EDL demonstrations in Aldgate - right outside the gallery last Saturday.

In 1961 the Whitechapel Gallery held the first solo show of American artist Mark Rothko in Britain

• There hasn't been a lot of publicity for this - but there is a special display of works by Lucien Freud works at Tate Britain - until 25th September.  This now includes Freud's unfinished portrait of Francis Bacon.
• John Martin - Apocalypse opens 24th September at Tate Britain.  Don't know much about John Martin?  No - nor do I - however the columnists have been out in force:
• Jonathan Jones (The Guardian) - John Martin's Apocalypse is coming ... but it's not the end of the world
• Roya Nikkah (The Telegraph) - John Martin, the artist vilified by establishment, had gained a royal fan
• The exhibition about John Constable and Salisbury at Salisbury & South Wilshire Museum finishes on 24th September.  There's also the Constable Trail a self guided route set up by the Museum to complement the Exhibition which identifies places in Salisbury which inspired Constable.

Constable's paintings and drawings of Salisbury and its surroundings have figured in every major overview of his work, but they have never, until now, been considered as a subject complete in itself. 

Regional Art Exhibitions

• Images of Power - From the Jeffery Archer Political Cartoon Collection is at the Monnow Valley Arts from 3 September - 30 October 2011.  The collection has never been seen in public before.  Archer is hoping to tour the exhibition before finding it a permanent home.

Art Societies / Group Art Exhibitions

• The Pastel Society of America has opened its 39th Annual Exhibition at the National Arts Club in New York city - and at the end of the month at its awards dinner the American Pastel Society to honor Bill Creevy.  Good news - the PSA website has now been updated and you can see some of the works in the exhibition.  I've also updated my post to link to the prizewinners and their websites.
• Yesterday I posted my review of a fine exhibition of art about plants - see Exhibition Review: Florum 2011 - in Sevenoaks.  It now has more images of the exhibition

Florum 2011 - part of the exhibition

Art Bloggers and featured artists (only if I know you or your blog!)

• Angus McEwan RSW ARWS's watercolour paintings can be seen at a new exhibition at Gallery Q.  Click all the links and you can get to the paintings on exhibition.
• Both Tina Mammoser and Deborah Paris will be exhibiting at the upcoming Blackheath Gallery's Autumn Exhibition 24 September - 28 October 34a Tranquil Vale, Blackheath London SE3 0AX.  I'm not quite sure why the gallery has not yet worked out the wisdom of also having a web page for the NEXT exhibition!  Tina will be showing all of the new Vertical cliff paintings 

Composition

• Stapleton Kearns (Stapleton Kearns) has been answering questions about design and composition
• this one is about how you stop your paintings looking like postcards - No postcards please.  Good advice

Put the house into the landscape rather than the landscape around the house

• shapes and masses kept large - is about how to make the paintings work without the detail

Opinion Polls

• A lot of you have been actively responding to the latest Making A Mark Opinion Poll in the right hand column.  If you've not yet responded please do.  Results to date have certainly prompted some thoughts for the commentary at the end of this month  when I report on the outcome.

Art Supplies

• This is the Inkling - it might change our lives.
• On Making A Mark Reviews, I highlighted Product Review: Liz Steel reviews Schminke watercolour paints - sketches of her new paints and handwritten in her journal.

and finally......

The Observer has an article about how doctors have uncovered murder, syphilis and all manner of ills by making 'ward rounds' at the National Gallery - see The fine art of medical diagnosis.  

Next time you go to a gallery you'll be looking at the art with a whole new perspective!