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Thursday, December 28th
I DON'T GET IT!
It's probably the biggest slap in the face to any work of art. Imagine being an artist who has slaved away for weeks, months or even years on a single piece and after finally getting it into a gallery show or museum, you hear someone say, with complete abandon ...
"I DON'T GET IT!"
Okay, let's examine this. There are two sides to the whole, "I don't get it!" thing. First, you could see it as a sign that the viewer is trying to understand what the art is communicating to them. Great. That's good and we should encourage that. After all, isn't this what art is all about? However, far too often, this just isn't the case. We're living during a time when people's minds are probably more closed than ever. And so, when I hear someone say, "I don't get it!" it makes me think that they DON'T WANT to understand. That's just me.
Michael Corbin on 12.28.06 @ 10:10 AM EST [more..]
Monday, December 25th
Merry Christmas
When I realised I had the heavy duty of blogging on Christmas day, I decided it must be symbolic: I had to find a festive subject on which to write. But when you look at it more closely, you realise there is no such thing as “Christmas art”, as there would be “Arte Povera”, “impressionist art” or then again “Pompier art”. Or course, there are many religious paintings or sculptures that pay tribute to the miracle of the Nativity and all that surrounds it, but there is not an official “Christmas art”. And it’s all for the best, as the Christmas “icon” of the man in red and white is really just a commercial stunt and a figment of imagination for children. At a time when art critics and art amateurs relish in putting everything into categories, no one has defined this type of art yet.
Alice Cavender on 12.25.06 @ 11:41 AM EST [more..]
Thursday, December 21st
MOHLER’S TEUTONIC SCALE
 Chris Mohler and I go back a ways. I remember the first time I ever became aware of his work here in Columbus. It was back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I was driving down High Street through the Short North Art District when to my left I saw an open lot, maybe an acre altogether full of monstrous welded steel sculpture. The largest was a piece called The Ark (see on left), a gigantic form that at first glance seemed like it could be the carriage for a huge armored chariot without wheels or war sled. I’d never seen anything quite like it before. It was Teutonic in scale about 12’ wide, 20’ deep and maybe 10’ high. From one view it looked like a giant bronze covered by ancient runes and commanded its space much like a Sherman Tank. That got my attention.
Walter King on 12.21.06 @ 09:55 AM EST [more..]
Monday, December 18th
Ambassador for Art
As "artist's" we tend to attract certain labels. Most people have heard the quote that we have "artist's minds" or live in our "artist's world" as if we are a group living and working outside of regular society. I am not criticizing this response, just making an observation from personally hearing these statements. With this perception in mind, it makes me realize "we" have a part to play in this labeling. I am a very introspective person. I see the world in shapes and symmetry or asymmetry. I do not partake in certain things in life, like watching a TV series or the news and therefore rarely know the most recent current affairs. I can spend months polishing a finished sculpture and be without all consciousness of time other than, "it is night time" or "it is daytime".
Julia Cake on 12.18.06 @ 08:40 AM EST [more..]
Thursday, December 14th
A painter’s thoughts
 A) There are various reasons why a young man may choose to take up the challenge of painting, poetry or music. A natural talent for writing, a natural ear for music, or hands that have a natural ability to draw can help you take that first step; but this does not, in itself, determine whether you will become a painter, poet or musician.
Talent is a precious tool for anyone who has something original to say; but it is a useless, even harmful, natural gift when it does not lead to self-expression, but simply to virtuosity.
I do not know whether we can be sure that drawing and painting is one and the same thing; however, at least to me, they seem to be inseparable.
Alberto Sughi on 12.14.06 @ 07:49 AM EST [more..]
Monday, December 11th
My Art Portal Concept...
An Art portal is a portal for one specific user,
a country, a city, a municipality, a museum, a company etc.
It shows and it has links to those art works that might be relevant to that specific user.
The Art Portal logo is the arch of Septimus Severus in Forum Romanum, Rome.
Why Art Portals?
The short and simple answer is to serve my customers better and to seve customers that are not familiar with computers, with internet etc.
I'll show you an Art Portal.
I am building the Aarhus City Art Portal right now.
Aarhus City is the second largest city in Denmark.
Aarhus City has 225.000 inhabitants.
So, this user portal intends to serve 225.000 users.
The first thing to do is to create motifs that describe Aarhus City.
I went to Aarhus and found buildings and landmarks of Aarhus, that I could use.
The new museum, the city hall tower, the queen's summer residence, the Theater, a house in the Old Town, the cathedral and finally the old cathedral office in St. Clemen's Courtyard.
Today I finished these motifs:
  
Asbjorn Lonvig on 12.11.06 @ 03:59 AM EST [more..]
Monday, December 4th
Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Every artist was first an amateur.” If you examine any professional artist who paid the bills from their creative output in his or her lifetime, you’ll find each of them made peace with making commerce. Most were or are salespeople in their own right. A few may have had family or management to take on the task for them, but even then they were implicitly, if not directly involved in getting the art to market.
If there is a shame in embracing commerce, it is only that it violates the quaint overrated sappy notion of the starving artist. To my mind, starving is a bleak situation that cannot possibly help the creative process… lead eating mad genius’ aside. That doesn’t mean a well-fed artist can’t be hungry. Virtually every “known” artist got that way in part by being hungry. But it was hunger for food; their hunger was for recognition and validation. What fuels that hunger was ambition.
Barney Davey on 12.04.06 @ 07:30 AM EST [more..]
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