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01/17/2005: "Digital Art Discovered in 1985" by Pygoya
As a digital and conceptual artist, I have taken the position that my "originals" are online, in global Internet cyberspace, and composed of pixels. In other words, the images are that of a Purist; I created the art with software and display it in a digital environment. From that stance, I then consider paintings rendered in oil on canvas, as intermediaries, toward my final "output" to make a living through selling Giclee canvas print editions. Although I proclaim the canvases merely a working stage in my "process," they are in the eyes of traditionalists, "original paintings." This continues to be a pesky dilemma for me. At the moment I am preoccupied with searching for a "brick n' mortar" gallery to exhibit my prints. I have been researching Eugene city and Cottage Grove town of Oregon, USA as I see this as a wonderful environment to relocate from Honolulu, unsupportive of digital fine art.
In Eugene there is more foot traffic and a dynamic grass roots efforts by the arts community to relive the arts in the downtown area. I have joined DIVA, or the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts, spearheaded by affable and dedicated Mary Unruh. I am planning to exhibit in my first group show there, "Tidal Lights," a memorial piece for the victims of the recent Asian tsunami. It is a 40x50" Giclee on canvas custom printed with Sterling Editions, Springfield, with print master Janet Smith personally assigned to this project.
But for my gallery location I am gravitating towards buying in Cottage Grove, a quaint little town 18 miles south of Eugene on the I-5 interstate highway, about a 35 minute drive. I am captivated over this vacant brick building, built in 1895, so steeped in the history of the town. 8,000 square feet would go a long way in providing the space for not just my Pygoya Art Gallery upstairs, but also establish Cottage Grove Arts Center (none exists at this time) and a partitioned off physical complement of the Museum of Webism for the online artists at www.artingrid.de.
IMAGINE this "for art's sake"- Instead of rendering digitals to oils on canvas to make a more simulated/integrated traditional painting as Giclee canvas, the digital is reproduced by hand on the floor or wall of this 1900 century building! Then a mega-digital photograph is taken to accommodate the processing of the image to canvas print. Now there is NO portable oil on canvas. Instead the imagery is affixed to the building, sort of a wedding of architecture and digital art that spans over 100 years between their creations. Then conceptually the oil pigment imagery, after photographed, is "disposed" of by concealing it under a carpet or entombing it on the wall behind new paneling. Gone, out of sight, forgotten over time, make no record of it. Now in public, only the virtual digital original exists at www.lastplace.com, but also as print reproduction of cyber-art, integral to Internet cyber-culture, that can be bought in a planned Cottage Grove gallery to be located on Main Street in one of America's "All-American Cities."
My realtor travels from the Eugene/Springfield area to take photos of the building today. Alternatives may be a former 1938 church (3000 sq. ft.) or an early 20th century vintage Victorian on Main Street.I spoke with the other realtor this morning and I am meeting with him around noon today. I will take as many pictures today as possible for you, be ready I can take 200 with my camera!! Talk with you when I get back, Kim (January 12, 2005)
