art rant continued

Some of the people in the co-op were proud of the fact that they started the co-op a hundred years ago. They no longer painted, they just exhibited work they had done in the 60's. You know the trend then was to sign your name larger than the work itself and to add the date in characters two inches high - you coyly left off the century you had created the work in, instead, substituting
an apostrophe and then the year. That way people could really speculate if you were as old as you looked.

These women - and I am ashamed to say that they were all women - had learned their craft at various universities - not known for art programs. There was no passion in the work they produced - just a dogged determination not to be a secretary or a receptionist or a bank teller or any of the other mundane professions yawning before them. They held themselves aloof - they were better - they were talented.

Only of course they weren't. I could not divine what ego led them to think that their paintings of three pears, or a storm tossed landscape, or a series of still life's of shells collected on a one and only brush with La Mere, were remarkable in any way.

art rant

I've been exposed to some galleries lately. It always depresses me to see the same themes over and over. In my case I am dazzled by the array of palm tree and heron and marsh depictions. Different artists but hanging right next to each other like one was looking over the other's shoulder in a workshop where boldness and innovation give way in a collective endeavor to emulate the instructor. The palettes have a sameness too. There must be a formula in a book at barnes and Noble that instructs as to how much cinnabar green light, sap green, and indian yellow is required to render the southern coastal ouvre.

Usually these paintings are small - tempting to the tourist who wants to bring home a little tang of the marsh and show people in Nyack what spanish moss looks like. Then again there is the avant garde marsh painter who paints on 5 foot canvases (wrap around mind) in dayglo colors - a purple stream may be glimpsed snaking its way through the hot pink marsh grass towards a copse of turquoise and indigo palms and live oaks - all backlit by an angry tangerine sky. These, the artist hopes, will grace the foyer of a wealthy retiree's winter snuggery of 10,000 square feet or so. And God willing, the retiree will want to impress his friends with 10 or so of these daring and "different" works.

well you have found me out. I am an art snob. Though not at all succesful myself, i can still wrinkle a nose at mediocrity. I was once a member of an art co-op. Some people in the c0-op

the spanish lady

I love that old song - every line paints a picture - as i went down to Dublin City as the sun began to set - who should i see but the Spanish Lady catching a moth in a silver net...

the artist's life

now you know me.

my life the mid years

this is my artist statement.

my life - the early years

Because he can

To all the dog lovers out there.