September 10, 2021 Weekly Musings
Posted on September 09 2021
Announcements:
Rolling Stones Receives Recognition
This recognition will add to the long distinction list received by this. beautiful painting.
"Rolling Stones." Honorable Mention. California Art Leagues National Exhibition
"Rolling Stones." Second Place. Spring 2021 Exhibition. Conroe Art League of Conroe, TX.
"Rolling Stones" Pikes Peak Watercolor Society's 2021 International Watermedia Exhibition, Pikes Peak District Library, Colorado Springs, CO
Heading West, Entrapment and Rolling Stones accepted into the Webster Arts' “Open Theme Annual 2021" online national exhibition.
"Rolling Stones" was accepted into the State of The Arts 2020 virtual juried exhibition sponsored by the R.G. Endres Gallery in Prairie Village, Kansas.
Finalist. Artist of the Year Award. Circle Foundation For The Arts. Lyons, France. 2020
National Juried Exhibition. “Rolling Stones” International Society of Experimental Artists. 2019
2nd Place. Juried International On Line Exhibition. American Art Awards 2019. “Rolling Stones.”
“Rolling Stones,” has been accepted for inclusion in the Northwest Arts Center’s Americas 2019: All Media Exhibition.
“Rolling Stones” received a Merit Award at the 2016 Sali National Abstract Art Exhibition, Garfield Park Art Center, Indianapolis, IN.
Blogs:
Energizer Bunny
Kiss of Death For The Arts
Featured image: Wild Lupine
Artists need to continually evolve, change and adapt. Artists should never become settled or comfortable as it is the kiss of death to creative thinking, to exploration, and to discovery. Artists need to be comfortable with change and go with the flow.
Art is like life. It is alive. Both, life and art, are all about exploring, discovering, changing and evolving.
Ideologies
Featured image: Not All Who Wander
An artist's work should have embedded within it the way that they think and feel. That is hard – and if the work is truly the work of one individual artist, it spreads out in the open exactly who the artist is and how they think.
The materials of the artists are used as visual words and sentences. What artists create and the materials they use should always be united distinctly as a combination of the creator the artist. That is a very difficult task. If the viewer can see and feel an artist in the work, then the work is authentic art. The viewer doesn’t have to like what they see. They just have to be able to read visually what the artist is trying to say.
When I was at the university, I took some literature classes. I loved them. I would read the materials required and go to the required lectures. The works of literature were unique, authentic, original works of art. I did not have to agree with what was being said about the work. I didn’t have to agree with the professor and their interpretation of the work. For the most part I was allowed to think for myself. In fact, most often I was allowed to think for myself.
This process has changed not only for the visual arts, but also in literature. Now it seems they all emphasize a specific ideology. My work is no different. It emphasizes my values. I emphasize individual uniqueness, individual freedom, originality and authenticity. These values can be placed anywhere even in ideologies I don’t agree with. The problem is that when this happens, I must ask, "Is there really individual freedom, originality, authenticity and uniqueness?" This is always the question that needs to be asked.
Wonder and Delight
Posted September 8, 2021
Featured image: Zoom
Art is filled with wonder and delight. If an object is being called art but doesn’t fill us with wonder and delight, then I would have to question whether it is art or not. We don’t have to like a work for it to be called art, it still fills with wonder and delight, because we learn from it.
Doing What You Love
Posted September 9, 2021
Featured image: I'm Late, I'm Late
Master Chefs do what they love, and they don’t work for free.
Gardeners do what they love, but they do not do it for free.
Why is it that artists are expected not to place a monetary value on their work?
Could it be that our culture does not value the creative, authentic, rugged individual who is a free thinker?
Art is work. "Want-to-be" artists do not think of what they do as work. They are still stuck in the old romantic paradigm of a creative empty space where art just emerges – oozed from them. They want others to think that they are special because they are gifted and can create. I know I used to think that. But, really, I am just like every other working tradesperson. Does that mean I think of myself as a techne? No, I work at being an authentic artist. And like any other tradesperson I expect to be paid not just in the form of self-empowerment, self and identity and self-definition. While praise, opportunity and exposure are all wonderful for an artist, praise, opportunity, and exposure do not put paint on my brush.
Artists need to be valued.Their intellectual property needs to be valued. And, once this value becomes real then, that empowers the artist to be authentic.