August 6, 2021 Weekly Musings

Featured image: Cairns

Announcements:

Cairn and Listen To The Music Accepted Into Northwest Arts Center’s Americas 2021

Posted August 5, 2021

“Cairn” and “Listen to the Music," have been accepted into the Northwest Arts Center’s Americas 2021: All Media exhibition by juror, Zig Jackson.

Christine's 2 works were among the 46 that were selected from the 229 that were submitted for consideration from 77 artists within 4 countries.

Americas 2021: All Media
August 13 through Sept 25, 2021
Walter Piehl Jr. Gallery
Northwest Arts Center
Minot State University
Minot, North Dakota

Blogs:

Art As Property

Posted July 31, 2021

Featured image: Neo

Do not Bastardize your Art work.

An art object belongs to someone, an artist, an art lover, an art collector. This belonging is property. Who has the rights to this piece of property? Is it the artist, the lover, the collector, or someone else? That's a good question. Could the property belong to the government, or the market, or a patron? For me, when I am creating, anytime I begin to think about whose property this art object belongs to, it, the object, ceases to be art. There is just something about art that needs to always, always be free and independent, both when it is created and when it is collected. If the work at any point is governed by another, other than freedom, independence, and choice, then, for me, it ceases to be art.

The artist, the collector and the lover, all have the right to trade their property with another. and during these trades if the very elements that make the object art, change then they work was never art in the first place.

For example, when I create a work, in my heart I know it was created freely and independently, for no other reason than to be a unique work of art. (That doesn’t always happen, but that is always the goal.) The key is that when the work becomes property and the property is traded for its fair value, the fair value is determined by its independence, uniqueness and its ability to maintain its freedom. These sacred elements do not change no matter now many times this property changes ownership. If the work is no longer free and independent then the work was never art in the first place.

Artists need to produce in order to support themselves and their life. If they choose to support themselves with their creative works, then they are choosing a life of independence and individuality.

If an artist chooses to give away their work, then they are giving away their very soul and life. So, I don’t understand why an artist would choose to give away their work and their soul. If an artist chooses to create and try to support their lifestyle through their creativity and art but cannot, then they need to make different choices. Do not choose to bastardize your work.(Bastardize defined as: change 'something' in such a way as to lower its quality or value, typically by adding new elements, it is to corrupt, contaminate, dilute, spoil, pollute.) Instead, define the work and yourself and the artist.

On A Scale of 1-10

Posted August 1, 2021

Featured image: Mom's Violets II

Is your creative work alive?

Does your creative work have value?

Does your creative work give you pleasure?

Does your creative work expand creative thinking?

Does your work cripple creative thinking?

Do you feel good about your creative work?

Do you feel competent in your creative work?

Does your creative work encourage life?

Now ask yourself are you a creator, inventor?

On a scale of 1-10 being the best what # would you give yourself as a creator?

If you are a 9 or a 10 and if you answered yes to over 8 of those questions did you know that slowly slowly inventors creators are disappearing in our culture?

Why?

Because it means you have to think and many folks just choose not to because thinking is too hard.

A New Paradigm

Posted August 2, 2021

Featured image: You Make Me Happy

A new paradigm is emerging – one that is changing our fundamental ideas about the nature of art and the nature of the artist within our culture.  There is no question that many will say today that they can define art?  That simple statement is quite different from 50  years about when no one could.

Can A Machine Think?

Posted August 3, 2021

Featured image: Strawberry

Can a machine think?

What is the main thing an artist creator needs to do to survive?

Think

Small Window

Posted August 4, 2021

Featured image: Pine Trees and Lily Pads

The Woods

The many greens in our woods
Yellow green
Black green
Lime green
Veridian
Golden green
Hunter’s green
Brown green
Juniper
Fern
Olive

The green grass at woods edge
The difference one is topiary. cultured
One is not
Both are green
Small window into life

It’s not easy being green

by Frank Sinatra

It's not easy bein' green
Having to spend each day
The color of the leaves
When I think it could be nicer
Bein' red or yellow or gold
Or something much more colorful like that
It's not easy bein' green
It seems you blend in
With so many other ordinary things
And people tend to pass you over
'Cause you're not standing out
Like flashy sparkles on the water
Or stars in the sky
But green's the color of spring
And green can be cool and friendly like
And green can be big like a mountain
Or important like a river or tall like a tree
When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why
But, why wonder, why wonder?
I'm green and it'll do fine
It's beautiful and I think it's what I want to be

Art Elements From Non-objectivity, To concept, To Objectivity

Posted August 5, 2021

Featured image: Say I Love You With Flowers

It is very hard to take something that is nonobjective and find objectivity in it. Taking a nonobjective element and making it objective is the first step that the abstract artist takes when they begin to create a work of art. If the artist does not go beyond this first step, then he has not created a work of art. The next steps when creating a work of art is to make the nonobjective element objective. How that is done varies. For me, my next step is to take that unimagined element and imagine its objectivity and its reality. Then, it becomes a concept. Concepts are objective. So for me the first step is to take the nonobjective element and make it an object – by making it a concept.

Works Created During the Tour

Posted August 5, 2021

Featured image: Blue Bird on Her Shoulder

For those of you who came by my studio during the tour these are two of the four pieces that I was working on at that time. All four are finished now and I thought you would like to see the last two. I posted the other two which sold during the tour earlier. Roots Transformed and July's Garden.



Roots Transformed, 40x30 Acrylic and Watercolor on Paper





July's Garden, 20x60 Acrylic and Watercolor on Paper


If you recall there was one I was working on that had the theme of a mask with a beak. Notice that this piece no longer exists. This frequently happens when I am painting. The flow of the work and the paint and the marks take on a life of their own making the piece change continuously. Blue Bird on Her Shoulder used to be that piece.



Blue Bird On Her Shoulder, 40x30 Acrylic and Watercolor on Paper


The other figure I was working on I had stated that the concept of 'creative thinking" was going to speak in this painting. I ended up calling it "Inspiration" which is like creative thinking.





Inspiration, Acrylic and Watercolor on Paper

New Works this week:

Blue Bird On Her Shoulder and Inspiration (both pictured above) are two works created this week.