For a well-considered visual environment
2 May 2011 Leave a Comment
Reinhold Marxhausen, an innovative Nebraska artist of some renown, died last week. Here he is on Late Night with David Letterman in 1986.
Marxhuasen is known in part here in Nebraska for a mural in the Nebraska State Capital building. You can read a little bit more about this explorative sculptor on the Seward Concordia Neighborhood blog.
6 March 2011 2 Comments
Image Journal featured artist John Frame in their last newsletter. Frame’s work is fascinating, and slightly disturbing, and in an interview he says a couple of things I felt the need to respond to in some form or fashion.
The subject matter of art can be anything that the artist chooses. The content however will always and only be who the artist has made him or herself into.
There is a lot of truth in this statement. I’ve said before, particularly when talking about painter Thomas Kinkade, that the subject matter of art is not something I’ll debate with an artist. I may not appreciate every subject, I may not be drawn into every subject, but subject matter is up to the artist. Frame’s point about content being separate from subject matter is not something that I’ve considered, at least not using those terms.
Subject: An object, scene, incident, etc., chosen by an artist for representation
Content: Something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts
In general I think of the subject of a work of art as a tool for conveying what Dictionary.com suggests as the content (more commonly referred to, it seems to me, as the message or meaning). Frame’s comment about content seems to born out of Modernism, which commonly glorifies the individual. Curiously though, his observation seems somewhat aloof — if I can make this kind of judgment based such a brief video interview. For some reason, the comment comes across as academic more than personal.
This is an age-old debate really, one that is not a stranger to The Aesthetic Elevator. How much of the artist should come through in a work? Is serious artwork self-expressive or reserved? Is the content of a painting negated by the raucous lifestyle of of the painter?
We expect each artist to have his or her own style. We each work a little bit differently. We each respond to inspiration around us in our own way. Each artist has their own process. We each come from different roots that color our approaches, our choices on subject matter and so forth. Each artist has a different passion that will show up over time in their style. But is this, “who the artist has made him or herself into,” really what amounts to content, the meaning of a work? Frame talks about meaning a little later in the interview.
When people ask what the work is about, the real answer is that it isn’t about anything and that’s not to say that it’s meaningless rather than it carries its meaning in its own way and on its own terms. And I really think the only way to understand that meaning is by looking and letting go of thinking.
Again there is truth in what the artist says, but I can’t agree wholeheartedly. I’m not going to argue with an artist about whether or not there is intended meaning in a work. That’s for the artist alone to know, and share if he likes. Of course, content, meaning, comes through regardless of an artist’s intentions. I appreciate Frame’s emphasis on looking, but I’m not certain why letting go of thinking needs to be part of viewing art.
I do agree that our own roots, preconceptions, baggage as it were impede looking. If he means that we should let go of or carefully moderate these sometime hindrances while viewing a sculpture or painting I agree. If he’s suggesting that we should check our intellect at the door of the gallery, I disagree.
Still, it’s a good interview and fascinating interactive sculpture. Have a look.
20 October 2010 Leave a Comment
Not that I dislike the idea of being an artist on and of the Great Plains, but this would be the life. It seems to have all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. (Is that a good thing? Since it’s starting out in real life, I’m using it as a good thing in this context.)
Create for yourself a persona and carry out creative acts of artistry to bring awareness to social injustices around the world. JR, a French photograffeur, was awarded this year’s annual TED prize with accompanying “One wish to change the world.” The artist is very protective of his true identity, at first wearing sunglasses and a hat pulled down over his face in a Skype interview with TED.
A number of JR’s monumental photographic installations are “unauthorised,” pasted on the sides of buildings as inconspicuously as possible while officials who will most certainly object to the message go about their socially unjust business. One such installation was going up in China when he was being interviewed by the New York Times; JR was worried they might get into trouble. “We went into the building next door, and it was empty, and we went up to the tower, and nobody stopped us, so we just started working,” he said in the article. “It’s crazy. This city is so huge and overgrown, the more you’re in the middle of things, the more you feel transparent.”
The money the artist garners from sales and prizes go back into more ambitious projects around the world acording to the Times’ interview. See the artist’s installations on his website.
20 June 2010 2 Comments
. . . who thinks that church is good for sketching. So does Lorraine Glessner. Her oh, what a world, what a world blog features a Sunday church drawing every week. From this morning’s post, an explanation:
i draw in church during the sermons. it helps me hear and retain the words. i usually begin by drawing the first thing i see-a piece of furniture, the shadows in the architecture, the pattern of someone’s shirt-and let the drawing take on a life of it’s own. most of the time, the object or pattern i started with isn’t recognizable. i only work on these drawings for one sermon and rarely work back into them. here’s one from a few weeks ago.
Glessner serves as faculty at Tyler School of Art Fibers & Material Studies.
6 March 2010 2 Comments
Yesterday evening I made it to the Prairie Winds Art Gallery during an opening for a show titled Spirit of the Cranes. While there I was excited to see Karen Krull Robart‘s fiber works, depicting storms on the prairie, for the first time. One of the works, Tempest Brewing, even includes a tornado.
It’s crafted from hand painted and hand dyed cottons. From Robart’s website:
Much of the inspiration for her work comes from the sunsets seen from
the front deck of the home she shares with her husband, Bill.
Karen’s landscapes combine the arts of painting and textile construction. Each sky is hand painted on either
cotton, silk, silk satin, or rayon; the result is a truly unique piece of cloth. Most of the other features in her
landscapes are pieced using fabrics that have been hand dyed.
Maybe I’ll get one of her smaller works for my birthday (hint hint). Of course, I also still want one of Jane Flanders’ ceramic bones.
27 February 2010 3 Comments
The MudBucket Blog featured Tom Lauerman’s ceramic clouds last week. From Lauerman’s website:
During a residency at the Kohler Company Arts/Industry program in 2005 I began thinking about using a very durable material in a form adapted from something ephemeral. I worked through a series of cloud forms and formations, looking at representations of clouds in science, in art history, and in various cultures.
The storm form below looks a lot like an idea I’ve sketched but haven’t had the chance work on (story of my artistic life). The clouds here are well modeled, although many of the peaks (so-to-speak) seem a little more angular than what I’ve actually observed in the prairie skies. Not that an artist must replicate in exact terms what we observe in nature.
I’d like to own this piece.
11 May 2009 2 Comments
Painter and graphic designer Kendra Baird is putting down her paintbrush to participate in an eleven month mission trip according to the Charlotte Observer. Baird began painting a few years ago after forays into graphic design and photography. She turned to the brush while taking pictures of geckos with a friend. Her first painting “turned out really well,” so she thought, “Why don’t I try to sell these?” She talked to Green Rice Gallery in NoDa, which took three of her paintings. Two of them sold.
The Observer article implies that Baird is giving painting up in order to go overseas as a missionary. “Baird will leave for the World Race in August, carrying only a backpack. She’s packing a small sketch pad and watercolor palette, but she’s prepared to leave the rest of her art behind — forever, if God asks her to.” My question — to Baird and to the missions community — is this: Why did she have to give up painting to be a part of Adventure’s in Missions’ World Race? Baird should be made aware of opportunities (as new and few as they may be) that put her God-given talents to use. Operation Moblization’s ArtsLink offers mission trips designed specifically for artists.
Baird believes she can sell paintings after returning from the World Race, but that’s beside the point. Sacrifice is an important part of character, and giving up her craft for a year may be entirely intentional on the part of the artist. However, if a person is gifted in a particular craft that shouldn’t be ignored. God doesn’t gift each of us as part of the body just so we can say we are good at this or than and then box it up and put it on at shelf.
Image from Kendra Baird’s Etsy store.
27 April 2009 1 Comment
Via Twitter (and thanks to searches I’ve set up in TweetDeck) I’ve become internetly acquainted with ceramic sculptor Anna Keiller. The most recent post on her blog, Fire and Earth, details her smoking process, which is much more exciting than using an electric kiln (as I do).
She also has an older post that talks a little more about smoke firing titled Smoke Firing. I talk about my process in this post from last July. The following is one of her recent works titled The Abduction, after a Swedish fairy tale. I quite like the coloring on the piece, and give her props for the use of salvaged materials in the base and post.
I think I’m going to have to find myself a barrel and try this smoking method out. It looks much more fun and is probably cheaper than running the kiln to smoke. The only trick to barrel smoking for me could be locally enforced burn bans we suffer from in Northwest Arkansas on a fairly regular basis.
21 April 2009 9 Comments
I saw photos yesterday in two places of Dennis Gerwin’s extruded clay cityscapes and had to share them. They were a part of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts’ (NCECA) Juried Student Show.
From Eva Funderburgh‘s Flickr Photostream
From Priscilla Mouritzen’s blog Pinchpots
At first I was trying to figure out how you hand-build something that large and delicate and fire it without all kinds of problems. According to Funderburgh, the sculptures were pieced together after being wood fired. That’ makes more sense. One way or another they are amazing.
8 April 2009 1 Comment
A month or so ago I dug a hole in my front yard for a new mailbox post. The dirt looked a lot like clay, so I saved a few hunks and fired them in the kiln.
They came out a bit soft and quite crumbly, not surprising, but they more or less turned into Arkansas rocks. They look very similar to the stones found on a lot that’s just been graded for construction.
George Ohr, the Mad Potter of Biloxi, dug a lot of his clay locally in Mississippi. My father told me recently that Ohr sometimes took dirt out of the middle of the road. He’s one of a few historical characters I’d like to meet (another off the top of my head being G.K. Chesterton). The bisqued, scroddled Orh pot below shows off some of his raw materials.
Image from Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art.
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