Robert Bean's Scribbles & Smudges

Happy Thanksgiving!

rbfineart — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:00:53 GMT

For those of you that celebrate this holiday, I hope you have a good one with plenty of food, friends, and family.

Third Friday Argenta Art Walk

rbfineart — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:12:34 GMT

It's time for the Argenta Art Walk once again!

I have a selection of works hanging at the Satori School for Creative Arts, so stop by and say hi!

The event runs from 5pm to 8pm.

Satori School for Creative Arts
417 Main Street
Historic Argenta
North Little Rock, AR 72114

Current Exhibitions

rbfineart — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:03:45 GMT

If you are in the Springfield, Missouri or Chickasha, Oklahoma area stop by these two venues and check out the shows. Both are juried shows and have a wide assortment of work including a piece by me in each show.

Prints USA 2009
Springfield Art Museum
November 21, 2009 - January 3, 2010
http://www.springfieldmo.gov/art/
Magen Was Burning Through Yesterday is the piece that was accepted into the exhibition. Prints from the edition will be available for $150.

7 State Biennial
The University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
October 10, 2009 - November 27, 2009
http://www.usao.edu/home/gallery/schedule
It Happened Back in August - New Orleans, That Is was selected by the juror of this exhibition to be included.

Demonstration at Art Outfitters set for August 1st

rbfineart — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:23:34 GMT

This Saturday I'll be at Art Outfitters to help them celebrate 30 years of Kerry being with the store. The good people at Art Outfitters are putting together a month of demonstrations, and I'll be demonstrating how to use the grid method to transfer a smaller photograph or drawing to a larger scale work. So come on by the store this Saturday from 1:30 to 4:00 and see what I'm up to!

Art Outfitters

917 W 7th Street

Little Rock, AR 72201

501-374-4323

877-ART-FITS

http://artoutfitters.blogspot.com/

Magen Has Merit

rbfineart — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:09:23 GMT

I'm proud to announce that my lithograph, Magen Was Burning Through Yesterday, won an Award of Merit at this years Arts in the Air exhibition at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain. It was an honor just to be accepted into the exhibition, much less win an award.

Fellowship Amid The Clouds

rbfineart — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:04:11 GMT

Participating in exhibitions and juried shows is, more often than not, a part of being an artist. But it is the rare occasion that the exhibition turns into an event that allows the artists exhibiting to get to know one another and share their thoughts. I was lucky enough this past weekend to participate in just such a show. It's called the Arts in the Air, and it's held at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute atop Petit Jean Mountain in central Arkansas. What made this event so different for me and several of the artists was that the Institute provided lodging for all the exhibiting artists.

The work that an artist does can be, and most often is, a solitary thing. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with others of a like mind, those that are struggling with creating images and trying to make their mark on the world. I found it invigorating to be able to just spend time with the other artists and hear what they had to say, regardless of whether or not it was about art.

The opening weekend of the exhibit was marked not only by good art, but also by strong storms. The mountain was enveloped in clouds almost the entire time we were there. It only helped to reinforce the feeling of being on some kind of retreat with other artists.

It's an experience that I hope to be able to have again.

New Piece Completed!

rbfineart — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:08:17 GMT

This is a newly completed piece that will be included in the exhibition this summer at the Historic Arkansas Museum.

Mr. Shipwreck's Ten Thousand Dreams
Acrylic on Clayboard, 16" x 20"

This work copyright 2009 Robert Bean.

Sneak Peek #2!

rbfineart — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:44:00 GMT

Another of the soon-to-be-exhibited works for my upcoming show at the Historic Arkansas Museum.

The Remainder of Henry's Whisper
Acrylic on Clayboard, 3 Panels, each panel is 10" x 8"

Comments are welcome!

This work copyright 2009 Robert Bean.

Sneak Peek at My Upcoming Historic Arkansas Museum Show

rbfineart — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:06:38 GMT

This is one of the new works that will be exhibited. The piece is titled Three Dozen Voices Downward. It's medium is acrylic on clayboard, 24" x 36".

Comments are welcome!

This work Copyright 2009 Robert Bean.

Quote of the Day

rbfineart — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:12:27 GMT

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

-Harold Whitman

I found this quote on the website of a talented pastelist: Teresa Freed.

It's a great quote, and one that I'd like to see more people listen to.

On a side note, I have to get my car tags renewed, and I'm not fond of the process. Does anyone think that if I don't renew them and get pulled over, I can tell the officer, "But I asked myself if the world really needed another set of car tags. I figured it had plenty. Besides, what makes me come alive is art. Say, can I draw on that ticket you're writing?"

Anyone think that would get me out of the ticket?

Q&A With the Arkansas Pastel Society

rbfineart — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:30:37 GMT

This past Tuesday evening I had the wonderful opportunity to present myself and my work to the members of the Arkansas Pastel Society. I was invited to be the guest artist for the evening and to talk about my work, my processes, and my ideas. It made it all the more interesting to be able to discuss my pastel work with other artists that understand the medium and all of its trials, tribulations, and triumphs.

It has been my experience that when one reaches a certain level of practice within a discipline, whether it's art or something else, it becomes difficult at times to be able to quickly break down what you do during your normal work routines. If I'm explaining to someone the process of my drawing, a lot of times I will forget some of the foundations of my drawings skills, since those very skills that I build everything else on have become second nature to me and I rarely consider them consciously when I work. It takes me a minute to remember how to explain what it is that I'm doing.

The advantage of having a discussion with a group of people that already understand the fundamentals is that I don't have that awkward pause as I try to break down what it is that I do, and it allows me, and the group, to instead concentrate on topics of a deeper level. It wasn't so much a discussion of how do you do that as much as it was why do you do that.

It was a dialogue that made me take a hard look at the reasons behind the current trends in my work, and I think that any artist would see that as a big advantage. Having others call into question the reasons behind the madness is something that can be hard to find once you've stepped outside the halls of academia. Calling into question my methodologies really allowed me to cement my explanations and ideas behind the work and present them to a group in a way that helped to keep them alive and well and understood.

I'd like to thank the Society for not only letting me present my work to them, but for raising such good and thorough questions that I was forced to look again at the reasons that lurk in those dark corners of my thoughts and act as the conceptual foundations underneath my work. You were all wonderful and inquisitive and I hope to be able to resume the topics we started at a later time.

I Should Shush Myself More Often

rbfineart — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:35:47 GMT

I had my doubts. I was cocky. I was confident.

And all of those prideful struts wouldn't be quiet enough for me to listen. At least in the beginning, that is.

Learning to make myself be quiet long enough to listen to my own voice - and by voice, yes, I mean that inner artistic voice, no matter how cliche it sounds to call it that, it's still there - was one of the single greatest lessons I learned while studying at UALR. I think that's one of the most important jobs of a teacher of the arts, not teaching the how, but teaching the ability to find the what that everyone is desperately trying to get out. The how isn't any good unless you can grasp the what.

But listening to that little voice, finding that whatness (ok ok, I'll stop with the bad made up words after this sentence, I promise), is always the hard part. I would say though, that just like me before I went back to school, most artists believe they know what it is they are trying to say, what it is that they want to express. And sometimes it really is simple and straightforward with little subtlety, like a landscape or a bowl of fruit. But more often than not, even those aren't really as simple as they sound, and it's the ability to look at what you are doing, at what is in front of you, and understand how much more there is to what you've done. Sure, it's a landscape, but why that particular place? Why that time of day? Why is the bowl of fruit full of nothing but oranges? Learning these little things is what helps a person to develop as an artist. I know it helped me.

I've been struggling with a piece that's in the early stages of it's development. I have a concept, I have a title, and yet, the image just won't jive for me. I want to make a move, to give it energy, and give it life, but it just won't budge. And part of it is because I can't shut up about everything else that surrounds it. My thoughts aren't on what's in front of me, on the real essence of why I'm even constructing this piece, but rather they keep swarming around all the other aspects of my art career, not the least of which is the upcoming show this summer that the piece is slated to be included in.

The inception of the piece came from a single photo I had taken, with the stance of a woman and how a couple hovered behind her. And a title popped in my head, Sarah Made Her Peace With It.

BAM! An instant masterpiece!

But wait, it just doesn't seem to work. It's all broken. The work is flat. And in a weird way, what will probably solve the problem for me, is if I just give up on the piece, and start working helter skelter on it. Add whatever, play around with it.

Doodle, dammit, doodle.

When there's nothing left to say, then I should just shut up and listen and let my fingers do the drawing.

*All images in this post copyright 2005 Cosmi Corporation, and it's licensors. All rights reserved. Images may not be saved or downloaded, and are only to be used for viewing purposes.

Quote of the Day

rbfineart — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:06:51 GMT

I came across this quote while reading a wonderful book, Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, by Josua Zeitz, and thought I'd share it.

(from the great cartoonist and caricaturist John Held)

"When I draw a caricature, it's like writing. I simply pick out the characteristics of a person. I try to make the picture look like them more than they are like themselves. It usually shows something the person does not want shown. The caricaturist, if he does anything, wars upon the individual for the benefit of society."

But I Like This Dream...

rbfineart — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:37:33 GMT

I would think that we've all had those dreams of success, especially when we were children. The dreams of being a household name, whatever our pursuits. I know that I dreamed of being something larger than life, and, in all honesty, at times I still do. I think it's good for me to be this way because it acts as motivation and drive for me to work on those days that I don't want to work (and as much as I love making artworks, there are days when it's very hard for me to get in the studio and make myself sit down and produce).

So, a few days ago, in a random act of insight, I was blindsided by the question, "What happens when you achieve this dream?"

I know that, on some level, no matter the level of success I obtain with my art career, both in a business sense and in an artistic and creative sense, there will always be ideas that I want to explore and images I will want to create. But I have to wonder, if the drive to achieve my dream has been tempered by the act of achieving the dream, will I still push as hard as I do now?

I don't know the answer to that question, and I cannot see how I will until I reach that point in my life. But I think it's interesting to keep in my mind, to wonder about my motivations and the driving forces behind my work. Will I still pursue this passion of mine if I've achieved a certain level of success, or will I begin to slow down or stop producing work at all? Or will the dream change, as I change, as my work changes, keeping me one step from it, never quite achieving it?

There is a part of me that hopes for the latter. I like the idea of always striving for something and having it just out of reach. It gives me a sense of hope and wonder at what the future holds. I don't want to know everything. I always want a question laying there on my lips, ready to be asked.

*All images in this post copyright 2005 Cosmi Corporation, and it's licensors. All rights reserved. Images may not be saved or downloaded, and are only to be used for viewing purposes.

Left Brain vs Right Brain. FIGHT!

rbfineart — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:15:41 GMT

As my grandfather used to say, "One damn thing leads to another".

I finally reached that apex of university baccalaureatehood (I know that's not a real word, but I like flaunting my edukashun), and all I've been able to do for the past two months is deal with the transitions that come from leaving the hallowed halls of academia. It's the big reason of why I've been so quiet in electronic la-la land. It's really hard to type while you're throwing out old and unneeded papers from your academic career.

It's also taking some adjusting to get used to what I can only describe as a, well, as a quieter lifestyle. It's more streamlined. I don't have five different subjects thrown at me every few months, with five different professorial voices calling down from on high (ok, maybe they didn't all call down from on high, just a few). My schedule is more of a solid block day to day rather than a bunch of little one hour meetings (or three hour meetings if they were studio classes). While I do miss some of the ideas that were bandied about, I'm excited about having a much slower pace in which to explore some of those ideas that I learned and developed while walking those halls.

At least, that's what I thought would happen. Lots of right brain, less of the left brain.

My mistake.

So now that I'm out in the cold, cold real world (okay, it's not really that cold), I'm finding all kinds of fun things to detour my visual thinking and keep me chasing the white rabbits. Building a new studio and figuring out exactly what kind of technology set-up I'm going to need to take my career to the next level, for instance. Or perhaps I'm spending my time researching exhibition opportunities. Or working on getting my database more streamlined. I need to photograph more of my work, too. Oh, and at some point I have to finish the works available page for my website and make it live. And those contracts, gotta get those contracts hammered out.

But I do have brand spankin' new clayboard. Pristine white and waiting to be glopped all over with paint. I've got ideas, several lists of them. I've got shows lined up. I've got raw canvas waiting to be stretched and pastels itching to tickle the paper.

I've got deadlines too. But it's exciting, and I feel that I'm getting geared up again to work out visually. It's nice to have a rested brain that is winding down from the chaotic and schizophrenic schedule that the academic world requires. I've just got to get away from the computer, away from the day to day stuff, and get my easels underway.

Now, if I can just work my way slowly away from this keyboard, without frightening it or enraging it so that I might escape cleanly...

*All images in this post copyright 2005 Cosmi Corporation, and it's licensors. All rights reserved. Images may not be saved or downloaded, and are only to be used for viewing purposes.

On The Road to Spongeville

rbfineart — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:03:16 GMT

Prune-tipped fingers and an ink-stained set of shirt and shorts have kept me from sounding off in the electronic frontier of late. I took a break from the information age and vacationed with the technology that was cutting edge in the 1800s. Over the past few weeks I've learned the different printing processes of ages past, including intaglio processes and direct lithography (which is different from offset-lithography that is still used commercially today).

So, what is involved in these printmaking processes?

Quite a bit of forethought and planning. That was the part that really stood out to me - just how prepared you need to be before taking your image and printing it. For me, since my work is already fairly process oriented, printmaking has offered a chance to just add on to what I already do, piling on new steps that are musts for the work to develop the way it should. And while I enjoyed all the processes we covered the past few months, the one that really grabbed me was the most time intensive of the group, and the last one we covered.

Lithography.

This process seems to be the one that gets my imagery as close as it can to the other methodologies I use in my drawing and painting. In simplest terms, lithography requires the artist to prepare a plate, or a stone, in a manner in which a drawing can then be applied to the surface that will become the print matrix. This drawing is achieved through the use of litho crayons or pencils, which are much the same as grease pencils. The artist creates the image, and then using the principle of how oil and water will not mix, the ink is applied and the image is printed.

But it isn't that simple. The printmaker must carefully prepare the plate (in my case, an aluminum litho plate as can be seen on the left) through a series of steps and etches. The artist must first use a counteretch solution to clean the plate and stop any oxidation that has occurred. Once this is finished, a border of gum arabic is applied and then the image can be drawn on the clean center surface.

Once the drawing is completed, the artist must then move on to the second step, which is moving the plate through it's first etch procedure. It's during this time that the plate's newly drawn image is first being "fixed" to the plate's surface.

After the plate is correctly prepped, the first etch solution is applied and buffed smooth using cheesecloth. The strength of etch solution to be used is determined by the darkness of marks made on the plate (my plate had heavy blacks in the image, so I used a 100% solution). Once the etch is applied the plate is set aside and allowed to dry for at least 30 minutes

Most of the solutions used in the different etch processes are fairly harmless (like the gum arabic which is often found in things like soft drinks), but there are times when a substance must be used that creates fumes one shouldn't breathe. That's why you should always have some sort of ventilation system when working with these materials, as we did in the printmaking studio (the image on the right). During the second etching, the artist must use mineral spirits to wash out the drawing.

Seriously. Gone. Wiped out.

It was one of the strangest things I've ever done in creating a piece of artwork. I spent several hours working over the plate with my litho pencil, creating the image that I was happy with and I wanted to print, and after a period of time of applying solutions to my plate, I was told that the next step was to pour mineral spirits over the plate and wipe the drawing away. For some of my classmates, this process made their plate look completely clean once again, with little to no traces of the image they had drawn. For those of us, like me, that created a drawing with heavier darks, a "ghost" image was left behind.

There were a few uncertain looks on some of my classmates faces (and mine as well) the first time our instructor demonstrated how this worked. But the image is quickly built back up. Once the image is completely removed the artist applies a thin layer of asphaltum and buffs it smooth. This helps to give the ink a little more to grab on to. After five or ten minutes, the plate is moved to an inking station - which can be on the lithography press itself - and the plate goes through the process of being inked.

But putting the ink on the plate isn't just rolling the ink on once and being done with it. The trick with lithography is that you need, at least when you are new at it, someone to help you out, because the plate has to stay damp the entire time you are working with it. With the plate damp, you can roll an oil based ink across the surface and the ink will only adhere to those areas that were drawn in and then prepared (the areas that get wiped away and replaced with asphaltum). This is kind of hard to do the first time around by yourself, because you have to keep wiping the plate with a damp sponge but also keep loading ink on your roller and inking the plate. This process gets repeated over and over until the plate is inked up to the darkness level of the original drawing - in my case this took around 15 sessions of applying ink to the plate (each session is about four to five passes across the plate with an inked up roller).

Thankfully my wonderful girlfriend helped me out and came up to the printmaking studio at odd hours to help me print my lithographs (With only one press and ten students in the class, odd hours can often be the best time to work uninterrupted by others needing to use the press).

Once the plate is inked up the first time, the artist lets it dry and then applies French Chalk to the image and follows with the second etch. This second etch solution is often the same strength as the first solution, and once applied, is allowed to dry for an additional half an hour to an hour. Once it's dry, you're ready to open the plate and start proofing and then printing. But, opening the plate involves going back to the beginning of the second etch process and starting it over. You have to remove the inked image with mineral spirits, then apply asphaltum and ink it back up. Once you get it inked up, you're ready to start running it through the press and proofing. Once you have a satisfactory proof, you can start printing. If you can't print the entire edition in one session, you have to "close" the plate by allowing it to dry and covering it with gum arabic, and then when you are ready to print again, you start the process of the second etch all over again to "open" it back up (but after you've applied etch solution the second time, you don't apply it again, you just do all the steps up to that point).

And that's why lithography is a very involved process and why it can be difficult to do in a short amount of time. But, for me at least, the end result is wonderful, and I'd like to keep doing it. So, without further ado, here is the final result of the plate that is pictured above, titled Magen Was Burning Through Yesterday.

5 to 10 and History is Made

rbfineart — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:04:13 GMT

I find it difficult sometimes to side with those that make up what many consider to be the inner workings of the art world. One of the biggest problems that I have seen inhabit this realm of art is that the people spend all their time in the art world (and by art world I mean the collection of critics, artists, artist reps, galleries, museums, academic institutions and such that makes up the tight circle of determiners of the western ideals of art). I came across an interesting little article this morning that really helped drive this point home for me.

The article, I Am Often Midwifing Things Into Being, by Maureen Paley, is the viewpoint of an art school trained gallery owner on her business, artists, art and the art world. And while I agree with some of what Ms. Paley discusses, such as her view that a gallery owner has to sometimes step in and help artists produce the work they have the ability to produce (and who doesn't need a helping hand once in a while?), I have strong disagreements with some of her other points.

Ms. Paley states, "I can often tell a really important work in five or ten seconds." Five to ten seconds? That's a very short amount of time for most any activity, but especially for the assessment of a work of art's importance. I believe that one may be able to come to a decision of whether or not a work is interesting to him or herself in five to ten seconds, but really important? And, for that matter, important to what? Her clientele? A museum collection? The history of art? If she is speaking about being able to judge a new work's importance in terms of her clientele, then I could believe that. You come to know and understand the kind of work that you deal with on a daily basis and the tastes in work that your clients have. But that wasn't the impression that I came away with from the article.

And this idea of being able to judge so quickly leads me to my second point: Not everyone is well versed and trained in the history and trends of art. Let me step away from Ms. Paley's article for a moment, and explain what I mean by this.

Most people have not spent years learning and studying the history and trends of art. They do not read books about art, they do not attend gallery openings frequently, and they are often bewildered by and often intimidated by art (at least the art that is considered Art).Often someone who exhibits these qualities likes painting, drawing, sculpture - but of a more traditional nature. For them, the painting of a barn or a sculpture of birds can be a moving experience. It can give them an emotional boost, it can change the way they see and think. If you're a person who has spent a considerable amount of time studying the history of art the same work probably won't interest or move you nearly as much, if at all. But isn't the affectation of a person by a work of art one of the genuine goals in making art?

So, when Ms. Paley, or others, speak of being able to judge what is really important, and put it in the context of really important to Art, I always feel that this is somewhat misplaced.To those that have invested a large amount of time learning about the history of art and keeping up with current trends, the new works by artists, like the works that Ms. Paley discusses, are often vibrant and important. But to most of society at large, they can be confusing and intimidating.

It's not that I disagree with Ms. Paley that having this level of knowledge about art and seeking out works that are birthed out of that history is a good thing, it's that I am tired of hearing about this aspect of the art world as if it is the best way to go about it. I'm sure for Ms. Paley's clientele that her vision and expertise and appraisal of works in this manner is a wonderful thing, but it isn't the only type of work out there for people to see. It's articles like these that often help to perpetuate a lot of the myths about art, and helps to keep others without training in the arts from taking those tentative first steps towards reaching out and trying to discover what might be in a gallery.

Results 1 -10 Of About 1,480,000,000

rbfineart — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:07:41 GMT

I just can't absorb it all. Not a chance. I can't even absorb a fraction of it, unless that fraction is very very very very small.

There's just too much out there. Too much of what, you ask? Art. Art on the internet.

Type in the search word "art" into Google and you'll see the title of this posting pop up for your number of results. And while I know that using the word art for a search term isn't a good idea if you are working hard to find something, I do believe that it's the place that most people who do not have an already developed interest of the subject will start.

The world has changed in the last twenty years in some amazing and incredible ways, with access to information being more prevalent that at any time in human history. But in a way, it's also making it more difficult for the average Joe to discover contemporary artists without already having developed a level of knowledge about the vast array of websites that are dedicated to showcasing artists and their works. And even if they do know about some of those sites, they are usually so bloated with members that trying to search for something specific can lead to hundreds or even thousands of results.

For example, let's imagine there is a small business owner who has always had a love for trains, and we'll call him Frank. Ever since he was a child Frank loved to watch the trains roar by his grandmother's house, clacking their way down the tracks. Now that he's an adult, he's opened his own business, but wants it to have a human feel - he wants it to reflect a part of who he is. So, Frank decides to decorate his office with paintings, drawings, and fine art photography that all center around trains. It's a different look than the usual chain store artwork that gets hung on office walls, and it's a way to get his clients to open up and ask questions and to let him talk about one of his passions, all of which will allow him to connect with his clients in a human manner. But Frank isn't someone who normally goes gallery hopping, and in all honesty is a little intimidated by the commercial art gallery. He decides to buy online.

Frank goes to Google, and performs a search for trains and art. He gets 7100 hits. He clicks through the first few sites, and comes across a site that sells original artwork prints that looks good to him. He searches that site for trains and gets several hundred matches, all of which show up as small thumbnails. He clicks the first few to enlarge them, then gets tired and looks for another site. After several sites, Frank has repeated the process from the first vendor, and is tired of looking at the images. He shuts down his browser, and stops looking.

Yes, some people will be tenacious enough to stick through the process and muddle their way through the hundreds and thousands of results to find exactly what they want. But most won't. I'm an artist, with years of training and education in the subject, and I'm frustrated after several pages of looking at thumbnails.

So how can someone find what they want, whether it's online or not?

Check with your local arts council if you have one. Often these organizations will have artist registries that you can search and the people at the art council will be knowledgeable of artists in their area.
Museums and art centers will often have an employee that can help you to find an artist, or at the very least can help point you in the right direction.
University art departments often have someone working in their office that will be knowledgeable of the area and beyond and can be helpful in finding what you are looking for.
While walking into a commercial art gallery can be intimidating for some people, most galleries have a website, and a way to contact them through email. You can therefore email them with a query, and if they have any artists that work along those lines they will let you know (and art galleries shouldn't be intimidating, but that's a subject for a future article).
Performing an online search for the subject matter minus the words art or artwork will often yield results of organizations that have a vested interest in what you are looking for. In our example above, Frank, had he searched for "trains" or "trains + history" he might have generated results that would lead him to historical societies. Often groups of this nature have worked with artists in the past or will know of artists that work in the field, and they can help point you in the right direction. And this works for most subject matters - if it exists, there is most likely a society or organization that deals with it.

It's often not an unwillingness to look at several different artworks to find what one wants that stops people from putting good artwork on their walls, but rather the inability, or lack of desire, to look through hundreds of thumbnails over and over on the chance that they will come across what they are looking for. There are people in many different organizations and business that have invested time and effort into learning exactly what it is that you might be looking for. Use them as a resource, and it should make your search far easier.

Change Today, or Tomorrow, or the Next Day, or...

rbfineart — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:18:59 GMT

They happen throughout our lives: moments of change. Some are big, dramatic upheavals of the everyday norm that send us reeling and scrambling to find solid ground. Sometimes they are as simple as developing a new appreciation and taste for a food you didn't like in the past.

I'm about to hit what many would consider to be a big change: I'm finishing up my undergraduate degree.

And, accordingly, I'm getting some of the expected questions, like What are you going to do now? and the sayings like Now that you're done with school, you can move on with your life. And until last night, I listened to them. It's easy enough to do, and you start to wonder just how different life will be outside those academic hallways.

But a funny thing happened in my sculpture class last night as we discussed a book we had read, The View From the Studio Door: How Artists Find Their Way in an Uncertain World, by Ted Orland, I came to realize that at the core of it all, graduation, for me at least, is not a big change. It's been interesting to see how so many people see a few years at a university or college as another rung on the ladder. I'd rather think of my ladder as only having one, very big and vast rung. I don't see a degree program as being a stepping stone to success, and I don't think I ever really did. It's a chapter that has ended, and I'm already moving on to the next one.

So, what am I planning to do now? Well, the same thing I've been doing - making artwork, trying to develop a career doing that, and doing whatever else I need to do to make ends meet and to be happy. The fact that I won't be in a degree program anymore doesn't change that. And will my life now be able to move on? In a financial sense, yes, I can work harder at my career and get a better paying job until that career supports me fully. In a sense of development and self-fulfillment? I've been moving that way the whole time (even in the classes I've been frustrated with, wondering why I have to take them, I've come out of them better off than when I went in).

As the world (and I) grows older and develops and changes I will continue to do what I did before I went to school and what I did while in school - make artwork. I'll make ends meet, as I always have, and I'll enjoy my life. In Mr. Orland's book, he states,

It's hard to overemphasize the fact that the most difficult part of artmaking is not the making-a-living part - it's the staying-alive-as-an-artist part.

It's too easy to see graduation as a time of change. It's too easy to move from the classroom to an office, or a cubicle, or wherever the day job takes you, and to leave behind the one thing that you, as an aspiring artist, went to school for: to become better at your craft and to produce work.

I may be graduating, but I'm not changing.

Theory vs Practical Application, Round Whatever

rbfineart — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:29:42 GMT

One of the most difficult trials I've gone through in my young artistic career is my quest seeking balance between the theories of art and aesthetics, and the practice of art. At first glance it might seem an easy task to separate the two, but theory has a sometimes sinister manner of sneaking into an artist's thoughts as he or she works at the easel. This isn't always a bad thing, but sometimes it can keep an artist from being as free as he or she needs to be, causing them to second guess their directions and ideas in order to help them conform more to the current trends being expressed in the greater art world at large, instead of just the trends being expressed inside the artist's private studio.

From time to time I pick up a book I purchased a while back, The End of the Art World, and work my way through pages at a time (and while I believe the author, Robert C. Morgan has an intelligent writing style, it is sometimes truly work to make my way through some of the hardier passages - not because of a denseness of wording that leads to difficult understanding but because even smaller passages contain enough ideas and thoughts to keep me busy for weeks). I recently came across this passage and found it to be quite striking:

Labels ranging from "abstract expressionism" to "neo-geo" have been the result of art journalism, the indulgence of a reactionary model whereby judgments are made hastily and trends are identified in relation to fashion as if they were concomitant with the advertising media. Yet, postmodernism did not refute this position, but accepted that this was the inevitability of a hyperbolized cultural bandwagon, a neutralized productivism that could usurp any premise or idea or image. Any object could be fetishized and thereby neutralized.

Mass production has made it possible to standardize any type of product - any object or image, any type of environment, including the psychological. Art production became another form of cultural production, regardless of the level of appearance. So, from the industry of objects, images, and the like, Duchamp discovered his ready-mades (1913-21), taken from the assembly line - detached objects with an aura of anonymity. Yet the reception of art became less palatable than that of mass culture. It could not compete with the popular demand for movies, magazines, and other forms of popular entertainment. Even so, for the so-called power elite, the world of art - primarily paintings and sculptures - was a fetish industry, a hoarding of artifacts of history. It is of no surprise that contemporary art eventually became a type of commodity, an investment, something that could be bartered or traded, a medium capable of engendering a profit.

This is exactly the kind of passage that can give an artist fits. While I believe the ideas presented in the above passage are good ideas, worthy of artists and non-artists alike taking the time to give them thought, they shouldn't be brought into the studio. These kinds of passages can cause an artist to freeze up, second guessing whether or not they are creating art that is worthwhile, or just creating another aspect of a mass production culture. It is for this reason that I avoid reading these kinds of texts or watching films with this kind of subject matter when I'm working through the idea phase of new works.

It's an interesting twist that, in order for me to try and do what Mr. Morgan suggests in his book, and work towards an art that is distinct from a mass production culture I must ignore what he has written, just as I must ignore other influences that stay within the realm of art and art theory and influences that wander outside of the boundaries of art.

What's a Computer?

rbfineart — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:02:05 GMT

I've been a wee bit absent from the online world for the past several weeks. It's been an interesting and wonderful trip back a few centuries, as I've been working on woodcut printmaking and casting metal sculptures. I'm enjoying both art forms, although the sculpture side does tend to have quite a bit of waiting time between processes.

I've also been a wee bit sick as well. Fun fun. But, I'm finally getting that out of my system (a quick blast of heat from the molten metal in the sculpture studio is a great way to open the sinuses!).

Being away from the computer, and spending time working on projects that involve a long process and many different steps has really made me realize just how much time we now spend with newer and faster technologies. And while I love these new technologies, and all that has come about from them, I'm also enjoying the very slow paced work involved in carving away a wood block, rolling it with ink, and then running it through a manually cranked printing press. It's very therapeutic.

And while creating a drawing or a painting can take a long time as well, you can still create quick sketches, or a quick painting that has a high level of interesting content and is of quality work. You just cannot do that in printmaking, or in creating a sculpture in a permanent form, like cast bronze. I'm realizing more and more than I'd like to slow things down a bit, take my time in a more process heavy medium, like printmaking, and enjoy every part of what I'm doing. Hard to do in today's technology laden climate, but I'm going to do my best.

Stumbling Behind The Times

rbfineart — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:45:48 GMT

So I'm behind the times in finding out and using StumbleUpon. It's a neat service though, and I've been finding out about a lot of really great artists I had never heard of before because of it.

For example: Wesley Burt. I really like his drawing style and skill.

If any of you are stumblers, feel free to add me as a friend (look for rbfineart or use my email address of robert at rbfineart.com) and I'll add you back.

I Hope I'm Not The Deadman

rbfineart — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:37:16 GMT

This fall I'm tackling a new side of art for me - casting metal as sculpture. First and foremost, three dimensional work has never been my forte. I've always had a much harder time creating a concept that works in a three-dimensional space compared to the illusions I create on a two-dimensional surface. Add to this the fact that I seem to have an allergic aversion to working in clay (nasty rashes when working with the stuff), and any ideas that could possibly work as a 3D project usually get converted to 2D, worked out in wood, or thrown out.

But, so far, the process has been interesting. I've started by working with wax, which is also a first for me. I'll admit that I like it, but I'm wondering at how much I will enjoy the process beyond the wax mock-up. Thankfully, I have several incredibly helpful and interesting classmates and a good teacher to learn from, Michael Warrick.

I've been doing research, looking up materials and articles about the process. I want to know what goes into it, how it works, so that my initial objects are created with the end process in mind. It's always more difficult to help a created work turn out the way you want when you don't fully understand the process and materials being used. Along those lines, I found an interesting page on the Modern Sculpture website that explains the process I'm learning. From that page I came across this line:

The artisan with the controls is the "lead pour," the artisan maintaining the crucible balance is known as the "deadman."

Hopefully I'll do well, and only play the part of the deadman instead of screwing up and becoming one.

PostSecret at the Yeiser Art Center

rbfineart — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:06:05 GMT

One of the interesting exhibits I was lucky enough to see while in Paducah was the PostSecret exhibit at the Yeiser Art Center. I had followed the postings on the website of the PostSecret works. For those of you that don't know what this work is, here is a snippet from the PostSecret website that explains it:

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.

The cards range from the sad and happy to the bizarre and confessional and everything in between. It's an interesting project, and one that is updated often.

I enjoyed seeing the exhibit, enjoyed reading the cards, but I have to say, I believe the project works more for me as an online posting, rather than seeing the cards themselves. Maybe it's the way that the internet and an online screen can make things seem a little bigger than life or the way that the postcards themselves, when hung on a wall, seem small, or perhaps both of those combined, but the cards have a bigger impact on me when I read them online. It might sound strange, but in a way it makes them more personal to me. I would guess that some of that comes from the way that a traditional gallery setting lends itself to making the work feel created and contrived. When it's online, where everyone has a voice, it feels more honest.

I was happy to be able to see the project in a museum setting though, as it's always good to see something you've seen before in a new way.

Behind The Floodwall

rbfineart — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:45:37 GMT

There was a time when I had difficulty seeing beyond the traditional methods of art making, like drawing or sculpture. If it wasn't one of those methods, it wasn't art. As I've grown older, and learned more about art history, I've moved away from that position and have come to embrace the perception that any material or technique can produce art - it's how the artist employs it that makes it what it is.

On my recent trip to Paducah, Kentucky, I took the time to visit both the Lowertown Arts District and the Museum of the American Quilter's Society. With it's Artist Relocation Program, the Yeiser Art Center, the Luther F. Carson Four Rivers Center, and a revitalized downtown, Paducah is a town on the upswing. And while I found all aspects of the town to be interesting and fun (and the food wonderful, especially the menu choices at Max's Brick Oven and the sandwiches at the Kirchoff Deli & Bakery), the section of Paducah that I found the most intriguing was the quilt museum. Had I been exposed to the works contained within during those early formative years of mine, I might have reached my newer perceptions and definition of art much sooner.

The grasp that some of these artists have over color and pattern is absolutely phenomenal. Even if you disregard the technical skill that it takes to piece together these large cloth works, these artists have a wonderful grasp of imagery and design. It may not be a stretched canvas, but it is still most decidedly a work of art. You can see a few examples of these quilts here. I was lucky enough during my visit to be able to enjoy the 9th Quilt Nihon Exhibition, a quilt competitive from Japan that is touring, and the museum happened to have it while I was there.

I was amazed and impressed by the offerings at the museum, and the offerings of this gem of a small town nestled on the banks of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. I thank the people of Paducah for their wonderful hospitality and delightful cultural offerings. If you are ever looking for an interesting small town to visit for a few days worth of vacation, Paduch should definitely be on your list.