Copying as a learning tool

Many years ago I spent a fair bit of time researching traditional Chinese art.  I was in my “Chinese phase” (one of many phases in which I would take as many books as I could carry home from the library on a given subject).  One of the things that I thought was particularly interesting was the mention, in several places, that when a student went to study art at a school, they were set to copying the work of acknowledged masters.  They weren’t allowed to choose subjects or even compositions on their own until they had spent several years repeating the brush strokes of the great artists of earlier periods.
Of course, this struck me because in the West we are discouraged from copying or even really mimicking artists, alive or dead.  But the concept made a great deal of sense to me, never having had the advantage of an art school education.  This would be a great way to learn to paint – I could copy a painting I liked and when I didn’t get it right, I could critically examine the original and mine side by side and see where it went wrong.  Sometimes I could fix it, but even if not, I would learn something I could carry with me to the next painting.  The above painting is one such exercise.  The image in the lower right is copied from a book by Alison Stilwell Cameron called Chinese Painting Techniques.  The calligraphy is from a book of Chinese poetry and is called I Want To Go Out, But It’s Raining.  What the poem says is beside the point, but I love it and will share it anyway.

The east wind blows rain,
Vexing the rambler.
The road turns to mud
From fine dust.

Flowers sleep, willows drowse,
Spring itself is lazy.
Who knew that I
Am even lazier than spring?

                                             -- Lu You
                                                 circa 1200AD

I was always conscious of the Western taboo on this subject, so as soon as I could begin to create my own original work, I moved on.  But I think it shouldn’t be viewed that way.  This is probably a practice that all artists could benefit from throughout their lifetimes.  There is always something more to learn.
Having said that, a fair number of mosaic artists I know have seen their worked not only copied, but for sale online.  That would be bad enough if the original artist were credited, but he or she never is.  So before I go any further let me be firm about this – NEVER, EVER, MAKE A COPY OF SOMEONE ELSE’S ART FOR SALE.  It should only be for learning purposes.
What brought this up is running across this blog post this morning:  Artists Don’t Own Subjects! by Jean Haines.  Although her main point is the association of subject matter with particular artists (sunflowers with Van Gogh, Venice with Sargent, etc.), she mentions copying as a valid learning technique, and set me to thinking about this.  I really think maybe I’ll return to that as a learning aide. 
How do you feel about this?  Do you use copying as a learning tool?  Why or why not?

Technorati Tags: learning tool,copying,Jean Haines,taboo,I Want To Go Out But It's Raining,Lu You,Chinese art

Is it surreal or is it whimsical? Choose wisely, Grasshopper.

I’ve been AWOL from the studio for a bit.  I have been having some increasing levels of pain in my hands over several months, (years, really) but it finally got to the point where I simply couldn’t hold on to tiny little pieces of glass anymore.  I decided to give it a couple of weeks and see if the pain improved.  It has, but not as much as I’d hoped.  I have a piece in progress that I’m anxious to get back to, but I’ll take it slowly, I think.
Meantime, let’s talk about art!  I have been following Juli Adams’ blog for a while now, ever since I discovered this little gem -





I Changed Your House
© Juli Adams




It made me chuckle because of a personal connection – my mother in law came home from Florida this spring to find that her granddaughter had repainted her living room (a different color) and rearranged the furniture.  It was done with love and good intentions, but I think it was a little jarring for my mother in law. 
Aside from the personal note, I love this painting for the long shadows, the look of intransigence on the character’s face, and the surreal concept that it would be possible to just push someone’s house over.  There’s a great deal more in this painting that deserves scrutiny, but for our purposes today, let’s talk about that word “surreal”.
Juli wrote a blog post about surrealism vs. whimsy, and I’d love it if you’d go read what she has to say here.  I understand exactly what she means when she says “I can't recall  when my dislike of the word 'whimsy' started or when, exactly, it turned to a seething and almost comical hatred.” 
I think the word whimsy suggests a lack of seriousness, a fatal cuteness (I HATE cute) that once flung at an artwork, sticks like the smell of yesterday’s fried fish.  Surrealism, on the other hand, connotes a juxtaposition of elements that creates enough astonishment to cause the viewer to examine preconceived notions about a subject, or to reexamine a context from a different perspective.  That’s a very serious thing indeed.  What a marvelous way to change the world.
Obviously, I have no personal investment in the discussion of surreal vs. whimsical.  My work has never been called either.  But I wonder, where do we draw the line between that lovely way of changing how people view something, and fatal cuteness?
What are your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: Juli Adams,I Changed Your House,surrealism,whimsy,whimsical,surreal,cuteness

The more things change….

On a day in which had a many tiresome hours to kill, I turned to my shelf of art books and began rummaging.  I settled on William Morris, Artist, Craftsman, Pioneer by R. Ormiston and N. M. Wells.  I have skimmed this one several times, but I set to really reading  it today.  I was reminded how much I align myself with Morris’ ideas on beauty, art, craftsmanship, and the destructive capabilities of industrialization.
Morris is often characterized as an ‘anti-industrialist’, but that really isn’t accurate.  After all, he started a design company that utilized mechanized processes to produce wallpapers, upholstery fabrics, tapestries and carpets on a large scale.  But it is true that Morris had much to say about the dehumanization of industrialization.  It wasn’t with an eye toward halting progress, but toward bringing back the dignity of a day’s hard work for those who labored day in and day out to keep the gears turning.  He believed that Victorian industrialists were quite comfortable with the idea of using up human lives like fuel for their forges, without regard to the illness and misery those lives suffered as a result.  The authors state “[H]e became part of a movement that swept through Europe.  The rise in industrial fortunes had brought with them a nascent resentment and suffering of those on whose backs growth was being made; the Victorian Age was a capitalistic bludgeon, creating iniquities as quickly as it created wealth.”
A capitalistic bludgeon.  Wow.  That rings so true for me.  Every time I step inside a Pier 1 and see their simplistic mosaic tables and mirrors (no doubt crafted by 9 year olds in China) with a price tag that wouldn’t even cover my supplies to replicate, I die a little bit inside.  I know that a large percentage of the population doesn’t know the difference in quality between those mosaic pieces and my wall art, and that it is my job to educate them.  I know, too, that I could create wall art with larger pieces and cheaper glass in order to lessen my expenses (although not enough to be competitive with Pier 1 and other such retailers).
But if I were to try to compete with retailers whose manufacturers have access to slave wages and cheaply produced materials, my art wouldn’t be as beautiful or as soulful. 
Morris writes “There is a great deal of sham work in the world, hurtful to the buyer, more hurtful to the seller, if only he knew it; most hurtful to the maker.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?

Technorati Tags: William Morris,Arts & Crafts Movement,industrialization,cheap labor,art

Is it art?

Oh here I go again. 
Mosaic artists have long been dogged by the perception among movers and shakers in “The Art World” that what we do is craft or, at best, decorative art. This opinion is often held by people with little or no knowledge of what has been happening on the mosaic art scene in recent years, although that is not to say that the only meaningful work has been done recently.  That’s ok. It’s our job to educate people about what we’re doing and why.  Artists who can’t handle the attitudes of the wider art community will often play with mosaics awhile and then move on. Those who are left, for the most part, don’t give a shit about what the wider art community thinks.

The Mosaic Art Now blog featured Marcelo De Melo today, with this introduction:

For those who would relegate contemporary mosaics to the “decorative arts” section of the library, museum or art appreciation course, we would submit the work of Marcelo de Melo.  There is nothing pretty or decorative about it.  On the contrary.  It is often crude, awkward and somewhat difficult to look at.  It is also edgy, thought provoking and very clear in its intent.  Marcelo de Melo has a voice and he’s not afraid to use it. 

Corpo MusivoMarcelo De Melo
copyright 2004

Before I go any further, let me state emphatically that I am not hatin’ on MAN.  I love that blog and admire Nancie for the amazingly in-depth research that goes into it.
However -
Art is, at its core, a means of communication.  I think few people would dispute that.  Must it communicate unpleasantness to move beyond the decorative? (In fairness, I don’t think that’s what Nancie is trying to say.) How do you suppose Michaelangelo would feel about that? Or Georgia O’Keefe? Or Chihuly?
But as I read the words of Marcelo De Melo this morning, and his lengthy explanations for each piece, I again returned to my train of thought from a previous post:

…artworks with lengthy explanations always wear me out.  And I have a brick wall in my head between language and images.  I want them both to stand alone. If they can’t, they aren’t quality. They can enrich each other in wonderful ways, but if one needs the other, it isn’t quality.

So, what can you tell me about the artwork pictured above?  What was the artist trying to communicate?
I think it might be inappropriate for me to write down here what I thought.
Here is his own explanation:

Corpo Musivo (Mosaic Body) was created for the 2004 Prix Picassiette in Chartres, France, one of the art form’s most important events. For the Prix, I chose to question of the very historicity of mosaic art by exploring the relation between mosaics and religious iconography. This shapeless form is meant to shock, by desecrating techniques and materials precious to mosaic art. The smalti functions as a reference to the body of Christ and other religious figures widely portrayed in mosaics.

WHAAAT?!?!?  And then I read the list of materials he used –  pubic hair may fit with “descrating techniques and materials precious to mosaic art”, but I have no idea how it enhances the composition.
Now contrast that with this image:

Queens of the Night
Yulia Hanansen
copyright 2012
The image communicates a great deal to the viewer, the title enhances what is perceived from the image.  There is no need for a lengthy monologue for the viewer to appreciate the piece.
Though it took me a long time to get to it, my point is this: Art that communicates most clearly is art of a higher order.  I do still believe that technical skill is important, but it doesn’t matter if your intent is to point out man’s cruelty to man, or the holy gift of an amazing sunset.  If a viewer can look at your piece and know where your heart was when you made it, it is art.

Technorati Tags: MAN,Mosaic Art Now,Marcelo De Melo,Yulia Hanansen,mosaic,rant,art

Synchronicity

I spent Friday afternoon in the studio. I got nothing done. Well, that’s not entirely true, but close enough for government work, as my father used to say.
I have a piece started – sort of. The sketch is on the Wedi, but I’m waiting for some glass I ordered to move forward with it. I have another piece of Wedi that has been prepped and is waiting for a sketch, so I thought maybe I’d start on that.
I was paralyzed by indecision. That’s not a common occurrence for me. I found myself thinking that all the things that I wanted to put on that board were things that probably wouldn’t have a very wide appeal, or would be too esoteric to be easily understood. And therefore, I probably wouldn’t sell it.
And running in the background of my mind was the argument that every artist deals with regularly – do I make what I think will sell or what I want to make. Pros and cons on both sides, of course. That’s why we keep going round in circles instead of settling it once and for all.
So first of all, the question is “who do I think I am, that I know what will please the market?” The things I have created that I thought would surely sell quickly are still in my inventory, and for the most part, the ones I’ve sold were surprising to me.
So I packed up and came home and parked my fanny in front of the computer. After about an hour of random and mindless surfing, I ran across Linda Smith’s recent blog post, Philosophical Thoughts about What is Mosaic Fine Art. Linda referenced an article by Sonia King originally published in Mosaic Art Now in 2010. I remembered having read it, but of course I didn’t remember what it said.  When I went back and reread it – there was my dilemma spelled out in black and white. Sonia said,

“Make what pleases you and what keeps you in the studio, eager to learn what happens next.  Being concerned about whether others will like what you do or to fulfill what you perceive as a market niche dilutes everything special and unique about your work.”

Huh. What do you know about that?
I’m not sure where that leaves me with the blank Wedi board, but it certainly leaves my brain in a tailspin. How in the world did that particular piece of information from two years ago happen to land in my lap on this day?
You can read Sonia’s entire article here. There is much more of value in it, I just grabbed that part for its uncanny pertinence.
But here’s the thing….
What I find myself thinking of creating is something to demonstrate the fact that man is not separate from nature, although our modern society implies otherwise. We can ignore our oneness with the natural world or not, but it will not change the fact. The artwork needs (for me) to include some archetypal imagery (maybe a green man, but also a particularly feminine symbol) and some really lush foliage.
But I feel so very resistant to doing that because I dread the idea of having to explain it.
Maybe I wouldn’t have to do that often. Maybe I can manage a design that communicates my concept without words. I don’t have a lot of confidence that I can.
I know that artworks with lengthy explanations always wear me out.  And I have a brick wall in my head between language and images.  I want them both to stand alone. If they can’t, they aren’t quality. They can enrich each other in wonderful ways, but if one needs the other, it isn’t quality. I don’t want to make something that I believe out of the starting gate isn’t going to be a quality artwork. So what to do?
As I mentioned, I know every artist deals with this to some degree. I would love to hear from you – how did you approach it/resolve it? Do you still struggle with it? Please leave a comment.

Technorati Tags: indecision,art philosophy,Sonia King,Linda Smith

Rant alert

Well I’m going to open up a great big can of worms here.  Don’t try to stop me, it’s what I do best.
As you know, I have been serving as the Gallery Director at CrazyLake Art Gallery for nearly a year.  And I have spent a lot of time thinking about the attitudes about art and artists espoused by visitors and often, unfortunately, reflected by artists.
In fact, it’s something I have been pondering in the context of my own art business for several years.
So here is my interpretation of the comments I’m hearing regularly:

Artists don’t deserve to make a fair wage for the work they do, whether in producing art or teaching it.

Every time I hear it from a gallery visitor, I patiently try to educate them on the value of what they are looking at, and remind them that there is a real human being behind each piece of art in the gallery.  Someone who spends a great deal of time and care on each piece, and deserves to be paid a fair price for that.  Someone who is quite possibly using this as their main means of support for themselves. 
The next comment is usually something along the lines of “well he could get a ‘real’ job and just do this on the weekends.”
And when it comes to classes, they want a full roster of classes available so they can be sure to find one that is convenient for them, and they want them offered at a price that is nearly minimum wage for the instructor.  And this is the very community that supported me as a private piano teacher 20 years ago at $20 an hour without a single complaint that my services were too dear.
There was a time when it was recognized that art was a good thing, generally.  That creativity was something that everyone should nurture in themselves because it helped them broaden their horizons and cultivated their problem-solving skills.  That people who dedicated their lives to being creative and coaching others in creativity were worthy of admiration.  Art served many functions – it taught appreciation for the beauty of the natural world, recorded and interpreted history, demonstrated moral lessons, provided glimpses into emotional states that we all share at some time in our lives.  It connected us.  It gave us a reference for trying to understand the lives and decisions of people with whom we have little in common.  These are the attitudes that support a healthy art community, and a healthy society in general.
Now everybody wants something for free. 
I realize this isn’t a problem confined to the arts.  In times like these, many people are forced to tighten their belts, and they begin looking for bargains in every area of their lives.  I would like to remind everyone that 99% of all artists are among that crowd. 
And there are a fair number of people who haven’t in fact been forced to tighten anything, but they will certainly use the economy as an excuse to extract a discount everywhere they go.
But the thing that really roasts my peppers is when I hear an artist (especially a teaching artist) making excuses for the very people who devalue the work they do!  Just because the price of a gallon of gas went up, how do you then conclude that your services as a teacher are now worth less?  In fact, it now costs you more to get to work – and you are willing to lower your fees?  Where is the logic in this?  If you were a doctor, do you suppose you would lower your fees to accommodate people’s pinched budgets?  Or is it just that you don’t believe what you do is important?  If you don’t, no one else will either.
My belief is that it isn’t an action rooted in logic, but in fear.  These are artists in fear that others will no longer pay for their art or their teaching skills if they don’t set their prices terribly low.  But this is a losing battle – once you tell the public that YOU don’t believe you are worthy of your asking price, they won’t either. 
So I will end this with a call to action to all you artists out there:  stand up and demand the respect you deserve.  Don’t let your insecurities allow you to be bullied into working below poverty level.  Don’t let your insecurities contribute to the perception in the public mind that art isn’t a real job.  I believe our society depends on it.

*I am not in the habit of justifying my prices, because I believe that if I have to explain them to someone, they don’t want what I’m offering much anyway.  But in this case I want to illustrate a point.
The only piece I have produced in which I kept record of both the materials I purchased and the hours spent was Indian Summer.  I purchased over $200 worth of materials, although a fair bit was left over to use in other projects.  Let’s say I used $75 worth.  I spent 60 hours on the construction of it, although I didn’t think to keep track of hours until the concept and design work and surface prep was already done.  Let’s add a conservative 3 hours for that.
Now let’s work backward.  It is retail priced at $900.  Subtract 30% right off the top for gallery commission (that is a decent commission – one of my galleries takes 50%) bringing our total to $630.  Subtract the materials = $555.  Now at this point I could also subtract the entry fee and shipping costs for the exhibition I sent it to hoping to get more exposure, but we’ll even leave that out.  That means that when it sells, I will have earned myself an hourly wage of $8.81.  However, if I were to go work at McDonalds and happened to work my sorry self up to an assistant manager position, I’d be making $10.36 per hour (click HERE for reference). 
I know artists whose numbers don’t work out as favorably even as that, and yet the perception from the public is that we want too much.  So my point is that I believe art is being valued at a level that puts us on a par with fast food workers at best.  And if you don’t also think that’s a problem, then I really think there is no hope for us as a civilized society.

Technorati Tags: rant,worth,value,Indian Summer

I’m confused.

I spent the evening at the Stutz Artists Open House in Indianapolis.  For those unfamiliar with the Stutz Building:

Harry Stutz, founder of the Stutz Motorcar Company, built and headquartered his car company at the present day Stutz I and II [buildings] from 1911 to 1919. Stutz is remembered for many things, including the Bearcat which raced in the first Indianapolis 500 and was built at his factory.

The factory is now a business center and art complex with studios and gallery space.  More info.
I had high hopes.  After all, if you can afford to rent studio space in downtown Indy, in the heart of the best known art complex in town, you are FREAKIN’ AWESOME, right?
Wrong.
Some of the artists actually were FREAKIN’ AWESOME.   It was certainly not the common thread. 
Most of them just seemed to be average Joes, producing average art.  Not a bad thing.  But what I found interesting (and confusing) was that the ones who produced stunning work, full of both comprehensible symbolism and beautiful design, were the ones whose studios were mostly empty of crowds. 
The crowds were shoulder to shoulder in the studios full of formulaic, generic style art.  Granted, it was well done.  The perspective was perfect, the chiaroscuro impeccable, the subject matter well composed, if less than original. 
Was is because they were more generous with their food and wine?  Was it because I can’t tell a stunning work of art from a piece of crap?  Was it because the public wants what they are told that everybody else likes (referrence the popularity of Thomas Kincade)?
I don’t know.
That’s why I’m confused.

Technorati Tags: Stutz Building,open house,formulaic

An opinionated rant

This evening I attended a discussion at the Portsmouth Museum of Fine Art. The discussion was to be about 3 pieces of the current exhibit Art At The Edge. I mentioned attending the opening reception of this exhibit a couple of weeks ago – most of the work isn’t my cup of tea, and I actually hoped to learn more about the appeal of some of these works from other participants. Instead, I was reminded once again that I am a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.
We began with the overwhelmingly popular (to everyone else) installation by Sarah Hutt My Mother’s Legacy. On display is a table full of wooden bowls. On the bottom of each bowl was carved a memory of her mother, who died of cancer when the artist was 13. This included things like “my mother wore a girdle”, “my mother alphabetized her books”, “my mother always wore a hat to church”. I kept silent while nearly everyone else in the room raved about the lovely tribute, and how wonderful it was to participate in the installation by picking up the bowls to read them, whether there was any symbolism in choosing bowls to carve on, or that they were wood. Whatever. To me, it felt like sappy sentimentality masquerading as art. Honestly, if your mother wore a girdle, keep it to yourself. Really. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know that your mother was “always on a diet”. That’s not art, that’s a transcript of your therapy sessions. Harsh. I know – don’t bother telling me. It’s not that I can’t understand the pain of losing one’s mother at a young age – mine died when I was three. But I never expected everyone else to want to experience it with me – that’s beyond strange to me. And yet…..

These two pieces by Ray Caesar (actually the second one is a study of the one in the museum, not the exact image) were mostly panned by the group, who were alternately repulsed by what they perceived to be the “sexualization of children” or what they called “demon horns” on the two in Wallflowers (which appear to me to be more like animal ears, hollow in the front). I find the surreal quality of these digital paintings captivating, and as to the impressions of the others in the group, I believe we find what we look for. And I was amazed (and a little disturbed) to find that I was the only one in the room with anything positive to say about them. In fact, I love them.

Ray Caesar copyright 2008
Daybreak

Ray Caesar copyright 2008
Wallflowers Study Above

It’s not as if you don’t already know about my penchant for the strange and macabre – see here and here and the comments about Surrealism here. None of which is reflected in my own art. Hmm. There’s a subject for another day.

An epiphany of sorts

When I was young, my creative focus was music. Specifically, piano. Up until my freshman year in high school, I had a teacher who was very creative. She taught music theory as well as technique, and she also taught how to embellish music with octaves, arpeggios, glissandos, etc. Think Ferrante and Teicher.

Yeah. I even played that particular piece. Without the jacket. Anyway, I remember being amazed at what could be done for a plain melody with embellishments of various kinds. And each time you played it, it could be different, depending on which embellishments you chose and where you placed them. That was fun. For a little while. And then I remember being rather bored with that, and thinking maybe I could just find some more interesting music to play, rather than have to make it interesting myself. And so I moved on to a new teacher, and Bach, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Chopin. And I was happy.
But then I was introduced to Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Paganini. I loved Paganini’s music, so I looked forward to working on it, but I soon realized I had come full circle. Here I was again, taking a melody and disguising it, morphing it, playing it louder, then softer, then faster, then slower…..ad nauseum.
So where am I going with this? So what?
I have been thinking a lot recently about the advice I see everywhere that artists need to “find their voice”. It seems that the common wisdom suggests that artists need a body of work that uniquely expresses their perspective on the world, on life and what it means to live it. As I have interpreted this advice, it means that people should be able to look at a new piece of yours and know, or at least suspect, that you made it. I have a problem with that.
There are a couple of artists whose work I recognize as quickly as that. These are famous artists who are respected in their field and paid well for their time and effort. So maybe there is something to that advice? And yet, I honestly don’t find their work interesting. For one artist in particular, all of her work seems to me to be a variation on a single theme. It is technically spectacular, but with each new piece I think “haven’t I seen this before?” I don’t want people to look at my work and think that. I want to be able to stretch my creativity by using different materials, different substrates, different themes. And yet, I worry that I will never be taken seriously if I don’t “settle down” into a style.
Well, maybe I have just been too rigid in my interpretation of the advice. After pondering the review in the paper I mentioned in my last post, I began to think about the phrase “feminine and organic” and looked at the exhibit with fresh eyes. I do now see a common thread that connects each work to the ones before and after. A thread that is “feminine and organic” – a desire to find the beautiful, the peaceful, the respite from the ugliness of gulf oil spills, war, economic exploitation, prejudice and ignorance. Not a fantasy world type of beauty, but the beauty that is here, now, real. And I think I have found that without being too repetitive and wearing out a tired old melody. Today is a good day after all.

Kim Wozniak is my new hero.

My mosaic friends on Facebook had a discussion yesterday about being a full time artist vs. working a day job and fitting it in.  Of course, women never seem to discuss their lives without bringing up the idea of guilt at some point.  Toward the end of the discussion, Kim Wozniak had this to say: 

Work 9 to 5 = guilt for not being there for your kids. Stay home mom = guilt for not contributing financially. Be an artist = guilt for both. Get over it girls! Life is not about guilt and contribution it is about dreams and nuturing and creation. Be a mom, be an artist, be a partner, be happy.

I can’t even comment on that.  There is absolutely nothing else to add to it.  :)
Kim is the owner of a mosaic supply store called Wit’s End Mosaic – check it out here.
And in other random news – the oil paint is finally dry to the touch!  Only took 25 days.  bleh.  And I’m giving myself a Christmas break – I may not post again until after the first of the year, but definitely not untl after Christmas.  In fact, I’m not likely to even work on anything in the studio.  Not because I have too much to do, but because that’s what I want.  So there.  :) 
Hope you all enjoy the holidays to the fullest, with no stress and no guilt, because after all “life… is about dreams and nuturing and creation.”