Replies: 49 Comments
on Monday, June 30th, Ruby said
www.tangjewelry.com
on Sunday, June 29th, JonathanSteeleWorks said
Thanks Brad,
...for the explanation and inspiration.
Perhaps I am just on the fringes, hoping to be, some day, where you are.
on Friday, June 27th, Volker said
Thanks,
finally I have found it....
on Friday, June 27th, Brad Michael Moore said
Look deeper - the papers are out there (24" for sure)...bmm
on Thursday, June 26th, Volker Schrader said
I just digged a little and I have found a calumet shop in Germany, but the only papers they offer are called brilliant inkjet, the producer is fineart
on Thursday, June 26th, Volker Schrader said
Brad and Marjan
Thanks for the quick information, I think I need the 24 inch rolls....
on Thursday, June 26th, marjan said
Thanks Boys! ;)
Volker, Calumet have a branches in the UK and JipeLabo in Paris usually have anything you like. Jipe are sweeties. (if you can't find the paper in Germany...)
on Wednesday, June 25th, Brad Michael Moore said
Volker,
I buy through Calumet Photographic (www calumetphoto com)
I find:
Ilford Gold Fibre Silk in, 44 inch (or 24, 17 inch) x 40 ft roll
and,
Museo Silver Rag, and its other papers in, 50 inch (or 44, 24, 17 inch) x 50 ft Roll
I'm sure there are many other vendors to look up these products... - bmm
on Wednesday, June 25th, Volker Schrader said
Brad
Do you have the sizes as well? Are they available on rolls? I am living in a diaspora concerning papers!
on Tuesday, June 24th, Brad Michael Moore said
Marjan,
It is good to be busy. Three other papers (non-Baryta) to consider are, Crane & Company's, "Museo - Silver Rag (a little more luster than Ilford's fiber Gold, but an Archival Fine Art Inkjet Paper, that is 100 percent cotton, no optical brighteners, 300 GSM), Museo II (2-sided printable, non-reflective, watercolor-like - but low-profile surface, archival 100 percent cotton, acid-free, no optical brighteners, and weighs 250 GSM - both great! And, Museo has another matte archival Fine Art Inkjet Paper, called Mueso Max - it too, is 100 percent cotton, with no optical brighteners, and weighs 250 GSM.
Good luck with your printing! - Brad
on Tuesday, June 24th, marjan said
Bradsy (sorry, I'm going to do a girlie on everyone. ;))
Thanks heaps! I trust your judgment, so I'm going to have it tested out. Made my day really, because I have a hundred metronomes to print....
on Sunday, June 22nd, Brad Michael Moore said
marjan said
...Out of curiosity, have you tried the Ilford Fibre (baryta) paper for digital prints?...
--
Marjan,
I use Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Silk papers for color printing. They really stand the inkset up upon their surface... It has a light matte - slight luster Baryta infused surface.
I haven't tried a monochrome, or B&W digital original image file yet. Still, my favorite paper is Ilford's hard to find, "Smooth High Gloss MEDIA." It is a thinner paper than Gold Fiber Silk, but, it has a really nice sense of reflective transparency to it I really like.
Thanks Walt, I'm still waiting for my tomatoes to ripen on the vine...
on Saturday, June 21st, marjan said
Volkerchen
Keine Ahnung (Groesse). I'm hoping that they'll hurry up though, because at the moment it takes longer for me to retouch on the computer then mucking around in the darkroom to fix my ,politely put, "experimental" negatives....
I spend a lot of time, wasted, on switching off most of the automatic features (e.g. on the scanner).
on Friday, June 20th, Volker Schrader said
Marjan,
I never have tested it, I use a very large Epson/Agfa printer (60x80 cm picture size) Is the Ilford paper available in this size on rolls? But I think even if the effect is not comparable between a print on e.G. Baryt photo paper or a digital print, the quality of the prints is getting higher day by day, this future I don't want to change. So much time I can spare by doing it the digital way, having more time for other interesting things, just llok into nature or working on music...
on Wednesday, June 18th, marjan said
Volker
"a phantastic B/W print is not the same as a digital print" I agree. They look so flat and lifeless with no real black.
Out of curiosity, have you tried the Ilford Fibre (baryta) paper for digital prints? (I haven't, so I'm wondering if anyone has)
Oh and Brad, I'm following this blog. Enjoying all the info.Thanks!
on Tuesday, June 17th, walt said
That should have been $4.50 a gallon for diesel by the way.
on Friday, June 13th, walt said
Brad I think you've done a fine job of it too! I do like my tomatoes better than the ones from the supermarket.
on Wednesday, June 11th, Brad Michael Moore said
I have started to rebuild my OS - to upgrade to 64-Bit Workflow. Meanwhile, I have only a small window here to close out my comments. I will move this blog to the other side of the page in a few days - or, after a few more blogs move this one off the Left Column.
Thanks to Volker for your interest - everyone takes something different from someone else's ideas, and observations - be they brought forth through art, blogging, or other means of expression. So you have gathered what you can use, and Ellen, she takes from it what she needs to polish a idea, or two, she may already have, and Walt - Well, Walt is going to grow his own vegetables...
BYW, Walt,
I want to thank you, here, for starting me off to my sorting of ideas, experiences, historical viewpoints, and terminology over this topic. You challenged me in one of your blog comments to define, 'Digital Art,' better, if I could - since I had the experience to perhaps do so. I think I told you, 'I'd sleep on it...' I did, and 'here'tis' (as we sometimes say in the Old South).
on Monday, June 9th, walt said
Brad, Sure you can. Just like you can compare a sailboat to a motor boat. I watched a guy fill a 400 gallon tank on a large luxury cabin cruiser yesterday. You do the math...400 gals at $.50 a gallon for diesel.A sailboat will cost pennies on the dollar in comparison. But just a couple years ago I'm sure the owner of that boat said there was no comparison. But you know me. I have an open mind when it comes to art that s truly something to look at. Whether I like th new medium or its possibilies has nothing to do with when or if something really important happens through it. I'm sure you are right in your opinion that as a new medium something good will come of it. But I won't be one of those doing that work. In fact I'm finding almost all new mediums less than satisfactory these days. I'm going back to fresco, oils and egg tempera. And by gpd I'll make my own brushes too if I have to...and live in a cave, and use whale oil lamps...no, torches made of sticks so I can also get my own charcoal. And I'm gonna kill and cook my own meat and grow my own vegetables as well. You wait. You'll see.
on Monday, June 9th, Ellen said
Brad-
Sorry I joined this blog so late. I think that digital art is coming into its own. You certainly have made great strides in promoting it. Your use of the computer to create masterful and synamic images is superb! As a photographer, I find that the computer is a marvelous tool. The world of digital is ever opening doors for me!
on Monday, June 9th, Volker Schrader said
Brad,Andrew, Maelo, Jose and all the others,
First of all I want to thank you so much that I am able by your comments to reflect my own work, my way of doing it and the needs I have to follow my way.
I think we are now at a point of discussion that we are able to draw an interim conclusion, not to end the discussion, but to raise it to another level.
Your comments have animated me to go through it, because I am educated in scientific thinking as well (and you know I am German and some of us like to structure things).
I hope you all will correct my ideas which are based on your comments, especially on yours, Brad.
1 - Digital art is a new media.
2 - Digital art is developing on democratic levels.
3 - Digital art needs more knowledge about art in general and how to produce it than conservative arts like painting, otherwise it will be only superficial and without deeper imagination and messages, which are the basis for art.
4 - The formal aspects of digital art are, that there really is not a single style or attitude, there are endless possibilities to create art within a very short time. Have a look at the above artefacts of Brad, there is not a single style, there are many different styles. Every photo needs a different work on it to create a good visual result.
5 - To create art in the digital world means therefore, that the creator needs a good education in conventional arts (painting, drawing, photography or any other analogue art).
6 - Without education it is easy to get lost in the digital world with its endless possibilities.
7 - The structural aspects of digital art evoke (hope this is the right word) this education more than other arts, because everybody has the ability to use the techniques and tools without artistic education.
8 - It is of more importance and a speciality of digital art, that objects of the real world can be used for a new arrangement on the screen in the 2 dimensional field. The painter has his palette with different colors, we have spaces and objects and individuals, which can be rearranged.
9 - The technical reproducability of digital art leads to other forms of distribution. We all have the same conflict as it exists in music. The digital world is another market and is not really congruent to the normal art market with galleries and art fairs. The single art product can not be sold as a unique artefact, the chance and problem at the same time. I have decided in my work not to sell my work through galleries, but only by the internet for a price which is adequate for the work and which is payable by anyone. That is my decision, but when I look at music and the new forms of distribution I feel, that it is congruent with the medium we use.
10 - Art is a global language, digital art is a global communication in a global language. Look at us: artist from all continents, from different countries are able to develop a new medium together by exchanging their different experiences and ideas. This will give the development the right speed which is a reflection of the medium.
11 - The digital medium is correspondent to the Internet, which gives us new challenges. I see in future a creation process which can be followed live all over the world, people can discuss the work during its process of creation and can contribute their ideas to the work.
11 - One of the frontieres of the new medium is the combination with other arts, e.G. music, film, slideshows etc.
These are my thoughts and conclusions out of our discussion. Maybe I have forgot some things, maybe we didn't discuss some aspects until now, I would like to continue our discussion, it gives me power and strength and helps me to clarify my ideas and visions, thanks.
on Sunday, June 8th, Brad Michael Moore said
I agree - that it is beyond conjecture - that if today's souls, trying to become computer (Digital) artists - without the foundation of Art History, design and drawing, Color Theory are missing the boat. One must learn the plain practice of seeing things as they are, and portraying them in their simplest forms... In not doing so, then the chances are your pursuits shall be shallow. I could not agree more. Today, as ever, you can not rely on luck, hit or miss, or gimmicks (tools not used properly - or without a full understanding of their design and uses). Every painter, most every sculptor, has to learn to draw first. To draw - you must learn to see. So Education - either self-taught, through research and study, or acquired, through an institution, must be a prerequisite - and well practiced - to have a mouse's chance in h ell of being any artist at all. Being a digital artist is no different that being an artist of any other cloth - you must first, join the world, or forever, be lost in the woods...
on Sunday, June 8th, jose said
Volker, these two points you now mention are fundamental and i couldn't agree with you more - it is important first to have something to say and know how to say it before reaching for the tools... and as Andrew said, drawing should never be abandoned, it is the key tool. believe it or not we have architects studying with us at OD who went through college without learning how to draw and and are now catching up on what they feel is a loss - they do their work with CAD type programs. That vision of a bud flowering differently every time, Andrew, is in itself a very powerful tool or mantra to keep present in one's mind.
on Sunday, June 8th, Volker said
To come back to our discussion,
2 other points concerning digital art:
1 - The easy and wide range of possibilites by the tools we can use seduces the user to go formal, what you want to say is no longer of interest, the form conquers the content. This is dangerous for those who didn't learn in before about the world and about the inner world. If I have nothing to say it will not be better if I add formal games.... but isn't it a reflection of our today's situation which only discuss the surface of everything?
2 - If you are experienced with perception you can use objects of reality like a painter uses his colors. You are able to restructure your 2-dimensional frame and use the parts of reality to do this, to create a new picture. If I work on a photo I first look what I want to say, then I take my tools to build it up on the frame.
on Sunday, June 8th, Volker said
Brad,
Thanks for your warm words. I have to return, because I would never contribute to this discussion without beeing attracted by the above shown pictures.
And thanks for translations as well. I think to understand and follow the discussion is not the main problem, the bigger problem is to express myself.
on Sunday, June 8th, Andrew said
Brad; even in marble sculpture, digital photography has changed things. It is now so easy and so quick to shoot any angle of a piece that you're trying to improve, and see it blown up on a screen minutes later. You can see what you've done wrong, fast, this way.
Another aspect of the digital age is that with the internet, you can view and download other artists' works that ought to be studied to resolve a particular problem on your own work. You can find everything, and have it on your desktop to work from, in very little time.
You can create concepts using programs that enable you to design something in three dimensions before you ever pick up a chisel.
There is a downside to all this. Drawing should never be abandoned, because it is good training for everything that follows. With such easy access, I think many artists will find they just don't feel they have the time to master something like that.
Evolving into something new every day is a must if an artist wants to avoid making signature work that is repetative just to be recognizable. That's when the joy of discovery leaves and it all becomes production, formula work as it has for so many. Imagine a flower, that each time it's bud opened, was completely different, once a rose, then a tulip, and then an iris. Or better yet, each time was a flower that had never been seen before.
It would be a dream if we could do this, not because technology has arrived at a new frontier, but because we have.
on Saturday, June 7th, Brad Michael Moore said
P.S.
Volker,
Your work in digital (video work) is very impressive. It is nice to have a musical collabrator! 'Children of Aranjuez (wonderful world views), My Spanish Heart, & Once Upon a Child' music video presentations were my first two favorites. This direction of work is another topic I think - but one to be thinking about...
--
P. S. Volker, Ihre Arbeit in digital (Videoarbeit) ist sehr eindrucksvoll. Es ist nett, einen musikalischen Mitarbeiter zu haben! Kinder von Aranjuez (wunderbare Welt sieht an), Mein spanisches Herz, & Einmal Auf einer Kind Musik Videovorstellungen waren meine ersten zwei Lieblinge. Diese Richtung der Arbeit ist ein anderes Thema das ich denke - aber Ein, an zu denken...
on Saturday, June 7th, Brad Michael Moore said
Volker,
I visited your, "Lightworks Gallery," - lots of work under your belt - and a lot of experience in digital. Thanks for your comments and making the effort to communicate in a second language! I liked a number of your sets - both, "Places in Nature (Nubian Sundance)," and, "Trees (Crying)," come to mind.
While I believe you can match a photograph in the digital medium - that was the first marketing campaign to move us away from analogue materials and hardware - I seldom feel the need to do so - unless it suits the subject.
I too, believe, "...that inside everybody sleeps an artist.." And I can suppose that, in order to access my imagination, I must first perceive I stand before a door that opens up into it. However, such a process, for me, is so well-use, and instantly exercised, without pre-thought - that it is sometimes hard for me to consider that such an exercise may not be as easy for someone else...
Finally, it still comes down to what you can accomplish with the internal, and external tools you have at hand - and what your training, and life experience, bring to the table. Thanks for your comments, and the input of your experiences.
--
Volker,
ich habe Ihres besucht, „Lightworks Galerie“, - viele Arbeit unter Ihrem Band - und viel Erfahrung in digital. Dank für Ihre Bemerkungen und sich anzustrengen, in einer Zweitsprache zu kommunizieren! Ich habe einige Ihre Sätze - beide gemocht, „Orte in Natur (Nubian Sundance),“ und, „Bäume (Crying),” kommen, zu bedenken.
Während ich glaube, dass Sie können anpassen einer Fotografie im digitalen Medium - das war die erste Marketingkampagne, zu den uns weg von Analogonenmaterialien und Hardware bewegen - ich selten das Bedürfnis fühle, so zu machen - es sei denn es passt dem Thema an.
Ich auch, glaubt, schläft “...that innerhalb jedes ein Künstler.“. Und ich kann das annehmen, um zuzugreifen, auf meine Einbildungskraft, ich muss zuerst ich stehe vor einer Tür wahrnehmen, die darein öffnet. Jedoch, so ein Verfahren, für mich, ist so Brunnengebrauch, und geübt sofort, ohne vorgedanke - dass es manchmal hart für mich ist, zu bedenken, dass so eine Übung als leicht für jemanden anders nicht sein darf...
Schließlich kommt es noch herunter den den inneren, und äußerlichen Werkzeugen die Sie haben an Hand - und, was Ihre Ausbildung und Lebenserfahrung zum Tisch bringen. Dank für Ihre Bemerkungen, und die Eingabe von Ihrer Erfahrung.
on Saturday, June 7th, maelo terkim said
good art
on Saturday, June 7th, Volker said
Brad,
Thanks for this intense discussion about the new digital world. I agree that the chemical (environmental) aspect is of big importance for all of us. I think, not all old techniques can be exactly copied by the digital medium, a phantastic B/W print is not the same as a digital print. I like the Epson colors as well, and there are many papers on the market (we shouldn't forget screen presentations). On the other hand the main stream will reduce the number of papers as it has done in before with photographic papers.
Another advantage is the already discussed democratic aspect, which will grow more and more. What you call imagination, I would prefer to call it perception. When we learn to open our doors of perception, and if we are able to reflect all aspects (inner and outer) this might lead to imagination, and imagination is the first step to art. And deep in my heart I believe that inside everybody sleeps an artist.
I will call this process the structured development of creativity, which is a pre step to art.
Back to the old way producing visual art. If I look at pictures for example of Ansel Adams I see him walking with a big camera in his rucksack and a tripod until he arrives after a long walk at El Capitan, he then rests, meditates, waits until the right moment has come and he shoots his picture(s). The intensity of his landscapes has appeared by this process, and this process is reproducable as well with a digital camera.
And this is another aspect of digital art: the very high resolution of even very cheap cameras. Sometimes I really am astonished about the very sharp pictures.
I am sorry about my bad English and I hope you understand what I want to express. For me it is very difficult to discuss these issues in English.
on Friday, June 6th, Mark said
I think it is great that there is a new medium, long live digital. All mediums have their pros and cons, no medium is perfect, thank goodness, because neither are we artists. Thankfuly too there is always room for more art regardless of the medium. The only weaknes a medium has is the artist. Keep up the great work Brad. Tho I am not a photographer I think it good the chemical aspect of it can be eliminated, we do need to do what we can for the enviroment.
on Friday, June 6th, Brad Michael Moore said
First of all – I apologies for the typos to my last comment – I wrote about 4am.
Mark, Volker, & Paul,
I miss the ‘tactile feel,’ of the old, ‘Wet Darkroom,’ too. It was the crust of the medium I was raised in. I do not miss the finger skin stains, or the occasional burning eyes, throat, and nasal passages. I do not miss the guilt of pouring used chemicals down the drain. It always made me feel a false sense of relief when I washed my prints for 30 minutes – or an hour, to remove the fixation agents off the imaged papers. All that water was diluting all those chemicals I earlier put into the sewer. It was a thinly veiled, bogus inkling. Now, I think of all that water going down the drain… I think about how many times, over the years since, that same waste concoction has been reused as drinking water, water for agriculture, water used to bath our children and our ‘selves’ in…
There is no medium that can produce a greater element of scale and reflection than the human imagination. This is no medium (art form) that stands over any other in expressing the human imagination. While painting (drawing) may be the older preserved mediums exhibiting the expression of the human imagination – how do you compare its ability to incite human emotive expressions, as compared to watching a performance of Modern Dance or theater? They are both deliveries from the same creative core of humanity. A painter prefers painting because that is what they have chosen through the rigors of their training and artistic upbringing – the same as the sculptor. What is the most accessible medium of possibilities available to the greatest number of humans today – across the world? Digital mediums… Digital Soup (information) is the creative food of potential that our children are now most exposed to, and, we, are raising them on it. Digital Soup also offers anyone, poor or not, the ability to teach themselves, research the best minds on the topics of their interests, and see the best examples in the fields of their concentration to aspire towards. A digital Artifact will more easily transcend into new engaging textural provisions, and 3-D representations, through upcoming, constantly updating processes – both technical, and from the imagination, than photography (or any other medium in such a short time) was ever able to achieve. Truthfully, while a few of us piddled with ‘2-D to 3-D’ expressions during the last hay days of the analogue photography medium’s history – I believe the new digital artists will be much less bashful, and much more vigorous in stretching their new digital mediums. Bottom line, still,,,, creativity trumps all.
Finally,
I have, ‘Happy Accidents,’ all the time working in the digital medium – many more than I had in the analogue medium. In Analogue, most of my surprises came through my camera, my sense of composition, or my ability the quickly capture a moment that was fleeting – the main reason I used the 35mm format as my most ‘used’ camera. I figured – if I have the time – I go to a larger format. But, if time were fleeting, I would rather compromise the format, and capture the image. In digital, not only can I cover for my source shortcomings, but also, I can add layers of creative efforts of my imagination, after-hand, over my source layer. The source layer becomes the ‘inspirational layer,’ and, as a digital artist, I can draw, paint, tint, texture, and photomerge new layers to stack over my first - to end up with the same as any artist has in any medium at the end of their work – a sum of their efforts – an ‘additive process reaching its conclusion. The result may not be what the artist was original expecting, or aiming for, seldom is art making that way. Still, maybe the final effort that stands beyond any achievement they have ever reached before in their efforts. Art is about possibilities that spring form our imagination. It makes no difference if you use grass, or granite – if you achieve the result of your imagination. It will become recognized. More importantly, you will enjoy the self-satisfaction of ‘knowing,’ you gave it your all…
on Friday, June 6th, cartier@igc.org">paul cartier said
My story covers roughly the same as yours. I have embraced the new tech while holding onto the old. Truthfully, I shoot much more digital than film. The main problem with digital I find is that it's harder to have the accidental, serendipital element. Many digital artists are control freaks: indeed, I think digital requires it. And when machinery starts to dictate too much, I start to get uneasy or rebel.
My own interest is in combining the various tools in new ways: eg., digital negs to make old process prints. Some things work better than others, but at least it returns a degree of the happy accident.
Digital is a powerful new tool, but it is JUST a tool.
on Friday, June 6th, Volker Schrader said
Sometimes I like to work with my hands, sometimes I like to work with my brain, sometimes I like walking around reflecting the situation with my camera, all in all different activities you can do. Is one better as the other? A different question is what makes these activities become art. Sometimes artwork is really unconscious, I personally like to reflect my perception and then give it a style that is able to transfer it to others, my emotions, my point of view. Digital work is able to produce exactly the style I need for my emotional perception, I am able to produce very different styles in a minute. That's in my opinion the advantage of digital artwork. But I agree to Walt, that sometimes the 3 D textures and the long work on one single subject goes deeper into it.
on Friday, June 6th, Mark said
Digital work is just another choice, like choosing watercolor or oils. Another way to achieve an end. I agree some with Walt. Truth is I like getting my hands dirty (oil, pastel) I like feeling a physical connection to the media I may use, something that might be lost working with a keyboard and/or mouse. Also tho I find digital work interesting on its own, I have not seen anything that could not be done with paint. Now I am not 'dissing' digital work, only that tho it has great possabilities I doubt it will ever go beyond what the human mind can think of, and if it does then that brings up a whole other argument. My point being that nothing done in digital world can not be done with more traditional media.
on Friday, June 6th, Brad Michael Moore said
Walt,
You can't compare the two - or you always be disappointed, like trying to make a gradient drawing on canvas - wet with Gesso...
Digital images are a new form - the papers are not light sensitive - they are a new (and always improving) and have their own characteristics. Many new ones provide textures and luminance's I have never seen before. Then there are the dye ink sets, and at least three Chromatic Ink Sets by Epson alone.
Painting is a different genre - long proved for it's uniqueness - for the challenges presented with choices of brushes, and color palettes - even their smells are a part of the process for some... I remember when acrylics first came on the scene - what an uproar they caused for the purest at first. Eventually, they integrated into the painting lingua franca, and many found they could express their art in new ways - once unavailable to them.
Digital Art is not really photography, and likely should not be judge as such - except, if exercised in the most stringent ways - the same as photography processes have dictated. But, why? Digital artifacts (deliveries) free an artist to express themselves very unreservedly, and as intrinsically as they can achieve - through training, and exercising their medium (like one seeking to grasp any artform in a meaningful way).
A digital print is it's own kind of art form that will come to have it's own field of Coppolas, Fords, Kubricks, - it's own Botticelli's, Dalis, Durer's and Renior's. It will find it's standards, given time, as all art mediums will that come to pass the tests of time... I feel certain such will become the fate of the Digital Print.
Illustrative, and unique, Digital Artifacts give us a set of avenues for imagination filling with all these new and wondrous flexibilities that are being created, everyday - like plug-ins added to the ever-increasing array of tools available to the Digital Artist creating Digital Artifacts. Artifact that shall truly reflect the deepest, and most illustrious imaginations that may be held in the artist mind.
Like any means of expression - the cream of the crop dose not come overnight! Keep an open heart, and mind - and watch for the new works coming forward all the time! You will come to find there is a unique quality here, different from paintings, drawings, wood block printings, and so on - a new addition, a new chapter. Great art all the same - capable of inspiration, dream-building, and enormous emotional markings upon other human souls. You just got to get over the word 'digital,' and exchagne it for, 'New Artform,' and everything else will take care of itself... Just another part of our fabric, nature, and curiosity. Looks who's running for President as a Democrat... We couldn't have imaged it 45 years ago - but we fought for the rights that are being expressed and exercised today. It surely has made us a better, wiser, more insightful society. No one wanted the music industry to go digital - but look at how much that 'move' has added to the sounds of everything we listen to today. Doesn't mean we can't get out the old Jazz LP's to listen to on the weekend. It just is another choice... And so, Digital Renderings, Artifacts, or Deliveries will just become a different way to be creative, and achieve personal expression one might could not pick on a piano, or guitar, or vocally, or with pencil and paper, or paint and canvas... But if you can express yourself proficiently, profoundly, and prolifically - in this new art form - then, there has just become another way for a start create a new way to move on and become a constructive being - maybe, someday, a great artist and human... Isn't that what makes it worth considering - does not that make it worthy?
on Thursday, June 5th, walt said
Presently I'm on Lake Erie on a friends sailboat making watercolors to reprise the ones I lost in Argentina. I just managed to get internet connection on the boat (thanks to Markus Kruse) and began catching up on the blogs. I missed my last one. Will send it in later.
So digital is not a problem as far as usefulness is concerned in my mind. And I agree that it is perfect for photography. But how come I don't like the stuff that tries to be like painting? It really seems flat and tasteless to me...little texture...like milk toast. In my mind it confirms the idea that content is not enough as some of the work I've seen I want to like because of the interesting subject or even composition and color. But somehow I'm always kept from entering the work. Without the aspect of texture that is not just a paper or secondary application (giclees build up some texture because of the pigmented inks but they too feel more mechanical than made,) a work just closes its door in my face. Even a photograph is made of those little flecks of silver or colors...pixels just seem like so much plastic.
I suppose I'm being too tedious for most people. I agree with much of what you are saying Brad. I'd rather see a real painting or photo in a museum than a digital print of anything. They just leave me cold. Old dogs and all that I suppose. It took the fifties generation to come to appreciate vinyl furniture and daycron. It took the 80's to get us back to natural fibers. Now that makes me wonder if we are forgetting that all those chemicals are not being poured down sinks in private darkrooms...but how many solvents are being dumped by the computer manufacturers in comparison? You always trade something for something. Nothing comes free. Ah...the smell of turpentine gets my juices flowing. And later a good Irish whiskey!
on Thursday, June 5th, Volker Schrader said
Brad,
I probably think both of us have the same history. Since 35 years I have developed myself from B/W to color adding processes in the lab to color photography and from there into the digital world. Without this history I think it would be very difficult for me to work in the digital world, many possibilities and forms, but the main thing in art, the perception of the artist which has to be transformed into a media could be lost in the digital world.
And now a new tool is growing, the internet and its new possibilities and new challenges. What might be happening with us if we learn to use it for art?
on Wednesday, June 4th, Brad Michael Moore said
Mark, Read the final draft (of the two seeming dupes below) - the top draft will read most correctly... Sorry
(*) I wish I could edit here - more tan I can, oh well...
on Wednesday, June 4th, Brad Michael Moore said
Mark,
...And I believe that the process between generations never changes, but superficially - in the famous arguments at shows, and other venues of debate, or, finally, via a third party essay - written, spoken, or recorded; portraying an alternative, and personal viewpoint - that raises even another, or others perspectives... But only the changing substrates, and the materials that activate them, really are what moves us forward with the mess we use as, or upon, the tools of our arting. Those ideas creating changes in our viewpoints - after all that arguing generations before - will eventually come to change their final tenor. There will be those, in the future - who will settle our differences with - but a glance, and some trained utterances that are, for them, 'Old Hat,' to their own training, and upbringing, designed to consider such topics of our 'old' rants that we pride ourselves in today - the very same ones that ofter feed motivations, and direct us forward in the directions we each go...
on Wednesday, June 4th, Brad Michael Moore said
Mark,
...And I believe that the process between generations never changes, but superficially - in the famous arguments at shows, and other venues of debate, or, finally, via a third party essay - written, spoken, or recorded; portraying an alternative, and personal viewpoint - that raises even amother or others perspectives... But only the changing substrates, and the materials that activate it, really are what moves us forward with the mess we use as, or upon the tools of our uses. Those ideas creating changes in our viewpoints - after all that arguing generations before - will eventually come to change their final tenor. There will be those, in the future - who will settle our differences with - but a glance, and some trained utterances that are, for them, are 'Old Hat,' to their own training, and upbring, designed to consider such topics of our rants we pride ourselves in today - the very same ones that ofter feed motivations, and direct us forward in the directions we each go...
on Tuesday, June 3rd, Mark said
Brad, I wasn't refering to what you said in regards to replacing oils, but Cassandra's statement. I agree there will be some exciting new things to come from the digital world. But it is only a mudium, not unlike all others, it is not the medium that creates or brings new things but the artist. Lets not forget tho that new can also come from the old.
By the way very intersting and exciting work brad.
on Tuesday, June 3rd, Brad Michael Moore said
CORRECTION::::::::::
""""1989, when I participated in the 15th Annual International Sculptor's Conference, in San Francisco."""
Actually - the 15th Annual International Sculptor's Conference, in San Francisco was in August of 1995 - sorry of the mistake. This was my first experience with camcorders with backlite, and detachable (or hinged) LCD (Liquid Chrystal Displays). This allowed an image catcher to exercise new perspectives while making compositions - by being able to use both their eyes, to see their subject both live to their eyes, and to also view the subject through a movable tool the LCD provides - by helping you preview your captures during your captures. Today - this is no longer novel - but accepted as the normal approach to using capture devices - the only differences are the improvements in the displays which now are brighter, non-glare, and much larger - if you want to pay for it...
Thanks JP for you comments, and Cassandra - I am glad you use the digital tools available to you as assistants to developing and shaping your perspective as you make your own, "Painter's Way!"
Sincerely, Brad Michael Moore
on Tuesday, June 3rd, Brad Michael Moore said
José,
Yes, A great point I was just thinking about last night - the digital Camcorder. It has helped many a sculptor since at least 1989, when I participated in the 15th Annual International Sculptor's Conference, in San Francisco. It was the rave for logging new materials, angles galore from finish, near-finished works - and models. Since - so many have used these type devices, like Robert Geen, in his Painter'sKeys to illustrate his work process from start to finish. AA'er Gary Reef is doing this, Walter King has used such devices for showing us his book works on his pages... So many examples... The digital world has born YouTube. It is getting saturated out here - yet we have only touch the surface as holograms and their live and static digital representations will become more advanced and accessible in the years to come... Lot to look forward too - lots to learn and determine how to use such tools to widen the expance of you own person art world... - Brad
on Tuesday, June 3rd, josé said
There’s another aspect of the digital age that I think is also very positive – although this can easily be a double-edged blade - it has democratized spontaneity. Spontaneity needs to be fine-tuned to yield worthwhile results and the reduced cost factor allows you to let go of fear and to go for shots more readily. Letting go of fear is always good in art. I know the purists will bang me on the head for this one but I’ve succumbed to the digital age as well and am all for it. Cannot claim to have reached your standards Brad, but it’s something I am discovering to be more and more useful at many levels. I’ll never stop being a painter, but video and digital photography are helping me to look at new ways of approaching the subject matter and finding solutions for the work at hand. Thanks for a great blog, with interesting information on the more technical details regarding prints.
on Tuesday, June 3rd, Brad Michael Moore said
Mark, I don't expect the painters to quit paintings, or the sculptors to stop sculpting - or the weavers from weavers a'weaving - this is pointed mostly at the photo-based visual arts community who are most effected. Photo-capture has not only has turned over 180 degrees - but now up to 360 degrees, to where its has become a wild, and beautiful new medium - with new tools, and new and unexpected results. We are only beginning to see to real possibilities. There has been a lot of screaming out there - as some just push the limits they perceive - while missing the real morphing potential - which can be both striking and subtle. It will take a lot of work - introspection, imagination, and consideration over what representation really implicates in our future works. Art is not just about the limited knowledge we have - it is about frontiers before us left to discover. That is the journey we must seek. You know it when you find it - the right arrangement - or combination of actions... Best wishes to us all as we integrate, and with exercise, and some vision, and some tweaking - come to realize what was once unimaginable. Shanghai! Nirvana! Dreams that follow us all... Brad Michael Moore
on Tuesday, June 3rd, Mark said
I think that an artist should use what tools needed to create their art. There is a place for digital art now and into the far future and yes it may become the 'Art medium' at some point, but replace other mediums, I doubt it, if for no other reasons then some of us like getting our hands dirty. Also because we are such a diverse creature, not all artists will be drawn to digital art no matter how good, expressive, or visitle it is. But to those who embrace digital art, got for it.
on Monday, June 2nd, cassandra said
Well said Brad. Truer words of past and present have not been presented in such a touching and personal manner. Mixed media was said to replace oils and it almost did. Digital art will, I think, in the distant future, replace all art forms...It is all ready headed in that direction...an inevitability I feel, perfecting itself each generation like a sentient form.......very few painters will exist in that perceived vision. Oh dear! I may be the last of my kind.....lol...
As an aside, Brad, the essence piece... I am glad you found the light...
on Monday, June 2nd, JP@JeanPaul2008.com">Jean Paul LeBlanc said
As an emerging Digital Artist, I admire your work and thank you for expressing so eloquently what I believe is the future of the art world.
As a Digital Artifact Artist - born just passing the golden age of photography, I will offer to you here, a intricate definition (part theory, some elements - tongue in cheek) of where I have arrived as an artist, and why I think I am here. Complexity is a quality we all share in common... Each of us is unique, and multifaceted, regardless of our aspirations. So allow me to explain what I offer as an artist of Digital Artifacts, or, Analogue Digital Deliveries, and the life-long process that brought me to here. 
As an enduring photographer thru the majority of my days, my eyes and heart have long steeped in the roots of the natural landscape, its color, its environments, and all that entails. During my professional career, 38 years deep, and 55 years old in curiosity - the world of 'Photo-Capture and Presentation' has evolved, dramatically - and so have I. This has come about due to the turnover of, "Analog Methods," of film and, 'Wet Darkroom' printing processes - both becoming overrun, and replaced, by new Digital counterparts... 
Manufactures were the first instigators to nudge a hesitant visual arts community and industry towards the digital experience - beginning seriously in the early to mid-1980's. How was this scheme accomplished? Corporate marketing executives convinced their boards into beginning to slowly close down their lines of the companies' offerings of long established analogue papers, films, cameras, printing and processing equipment. In this stead - they had R&D replacing Analography with Digital counterparts. No doubt, in these boardrooms across the business world, strategies were being plotted, based on the now established assumptions that; A digital world would provide greater revenues to manufacturers as prices of digital delivery systems struck down the more narrow, and elite markets, and replaced digital media into commercial and business levels of the private and public economy - something never before imagined... These days, families can print their home photographs on their kitchen counters by just sitting their digital cameras into a port of their countertop photo-printer (next to the iPod port receptacle). 
In today's digital cameras - you have a rudimentary 'darkrooming' process capability that can be enacted within in your digital camera before, and after shooting. This allows you (if you choose) to totally bypass a computer, and its specialized programs, or commercial lab processing all together. Cameras now capture images with electronically recorded data. 'Wet Darkrooms' of old, have been replaced by, 'Daylight Print Rooms,' where 'digital capture electronic files' are transferred from your camera's, 'Flash Cards,' to larger data storage devices for computers - or other direct-printing devices. These digital 'electronic' files can be reprocessed, beyond their original state, prior to their data passing along to a digital printer - such as a Giclee Inkjet Device. Alternatively, digital files may also be uploaded onto any of the Internet Art Exposure Sites - such as AbsoluteArts, Saatchi-Gallery, #artmesh - or even FTP'ed (File Transfer protocol) to web-programming editors, or other professional, or commercial software and web designers, to integrate your image product into even more intricate presentation delivery systems, that can be used for business and government purposes... 
Getting back from this world-wide discussion to the personal story; I have experienced this revolution first hand, and have rolled with the punches of this great transition from an analogue world to one of 'Digital Capture and Presentation.' The films, of my early works, are today, transformed by the new digital scanners developed for reflective and transparency materials. These scan devices create digital 'negatives,' or files, that are then printable digitally, and deliverable for other purposes.
I knew the high costs for digital equipment would only go down as the technology developed. It didn't take too long - not with all of the competition of recognized purveyors who serve the public, and private sectors, with their long established photo capture, print equipment, cameras, and paper materials. I believe there will be some holdbacks who will hoard old materials, and produce their work with these resources to appear different from the majority of others in their contemporary field who have moved on with the digital revolution... They may say that the first processes were the purest processes, - but I can't agree... The first 'wet' processes were filled with carcinogenetic elements ingrained into their chemical make-up - chemicals so often washed down the basin drain into the sewer systems to someday become our drinking water again... I firmly believe these lagers and misbelievers of the new technologies will only provide an asterisk to the real world of art today, and in the future. The elitism of the, "Artist Patronage System," will no longer be a barrier to upcoming visual digital (still and video) artists, trying to make their mark. It will likely continue to exist for painters and sculptors. (*) Please note, I do not mean to discount past archival-processed Silver Gelatin, toned, and color counterpart processes exercised by the pioneers of the old days - who created great and historic works. Speaking of the legends of our Visual Arts History - successful artists who were born, and died, in the days of analogue...Their works, and those photographers - tagged with art historical connotations attached to their art, will live on in their own chapters of our Art History.
This record will also recognize those in the same boat as I - who have one foot born into both generations - Analogue and Digital... My analogue prints I have labored over - they may be more valuable than my Digital prints, today - simply for the fact there are only a finite number of them - never to be more. Only truer collectors, and investors, will be most interested in the oldest prints. What makes my new work collectible can be parsed this way. First, the digital processes, and printing materials, are as archival-healthy as any of the old analogue processes - provided the proper materials are chosen.
Just like the value of mutual funds on world exchanges, or a barrel of oil, or a gallon of milk, may change in price on a daily basis - so should the eye of a discerning artist change their view with a world in motion, I believe. I grew up in an art market where the artist goal was to make every image exact - so that you couldn't tell one from another - even if processed ten years apart. The biggest difference would not be the quality, but the date on which it was processed. As an artist of the digital age - dating images, and scribing artist notes on every print, still is the grandest exercise an artist can do for enhancing their work's future evaluations (especially usefully to the heirs of your estate)... 
Today, I challenge those old assumptions about reproduced art. I hold my strongest belief; that it should be the artist's prerogative, as to what standard they choose to create by. If one artist decides each print must be exactly alike, in every way, with it's literal counterparts - then that is a part of that's artist's identity - to create a digital file, and never change it, never improve it - never consider if you yourself grow from day to day as an artist... If an artist chooses, like I choose, to make each and every artwork unique - no matter how many times it is printed - then that is part of my identity - my freedom, and my creative prerogative. I believe everyday I am a newer person, with a greater knowledge - based on the experience of everyday efforts to improve myself as artist and human.
Perhaps when the Age of Digital Artifacts reaches its conclusion - maybe the painters will still be slowly brushing their way through their days and canvases - how great would that be? Meanwhile, collectors, purveyors, and exhibitors, shall come to fully accept the Digital Artifact as today's newest art form - considering it important, collectible, seriously produced, and a new expression of these most modern of times... The Digital Artifact will someday stand with the art painter's brush! After all - is this not the role of Art? A new chapter in history is being expressed, recorded, and digitally delivered! And so, until the next revolution - let's offer this one the seriousness it deserves... We have morphed out a new kind of artist, in a new and changing world. It is high time to make room for this fresh kind of art creation and medium. This is cause for celebration, and our support, and our attention!"
