Art & Perception » Karl Zipser

How are you shaped by your tools?

Karl Zipser — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:00:33 +0000

Sometimes when I am painting with brushes that are a bit worn out, I have the feeling that it doesn’t matter so much if the tips are worn away. But then if I take a brand new brush and start using it, my whole perception of what is possible, what is acceptable, changes. I know that I shape my brushes through use, but I also have come to understand that my brushes shape me.

There is a widely used saying (it goes like this)

If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

which I think is very deep. I think that when we pick up a tool and use it a lot, it actually becomes a part of us from the brain’s point of view. It becomes part of us in a simulated physical sense, like a violinist’s bow becoming an extension of his right arm; and it also becomes part of our psychology, this perhaps in a less obvious way.

I’m coming back to blogging after being away for more than a year. When I got back into it, I noticed with amusement that I tend to phrase my thoughts in terms of blog posts or blog comments. A blog is a sort of tool, isn’t it?

I would like to hear your thoughts on this topic of being shaped by your tools. Do you believe it happens? What are your tools? How do they affect you? And finally, what are the implications of this? How should we select the tools that will shape us?

Also by Karl:

How do you feel about gold in art?

Karl Zipser — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:55:55 +0000

Frame in process of being gilded

Gilding is easy, though it requires attention to detail. Gilding is also fun. I gild when I make my own frames. I recently went into the gilding process in detail on my own site. Not many artists gild or use gold. I sometimes wonder why.

Does gold have a place in modern/contemporary art? Would you use gold if you knew how? Or is gold something of a symbol on being not-modern?

World Depression II: Great Time to Become an Artist — Bad Time to Be a Dealer?

Karl Zipser — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:36:49 +0000

UPDATE!
What I am really wondering here is,

Will our Dealers Survive?

Every artist has a relationship with at least one dealer — even if it is only a one-sided voyeuristic relationship. So it is relevant to ask:

Are they all going to go bust?

And if so, what happens to us? Do we need the dealers, or is the Fall of the Art World (as we know it) the best thing that could possibly happen?

On the one hand, the idea of cataclysmic change is always interesting, especially if it is happening to someone else. On the other hand, if you have been cultivating good relationships with dealers over the course of years, as Hanneke and I have, then the prospect of these people going out of business is pretty distressing. Distressing from an economic standpoint, not to mention from a personal one, since dealers can be pretty nice once you get to know them.

But it certainly does not look good. The New York Times paints a grim picture of the current art market:

Auction houses have begun to report sales that are less than half their level a year ago. In November 2007, the Christie’s evening sale of postwar contemporary art in New York totaled nearly $325 million; in 2008, the same sale brought in just $113 million. A share of Sotheby’s stock, which peaked above $50 in late 2007, now trades in the $6 range. . . the prices of work by young artists . . . are falling like bank stocks.

The world economy is falling apart, but it’s a great time to become an artist.

True, making a living as an artist can be difficult, even in the best of times. But there is more to being an artist than money . . .

Become an artist today and:

stop wasting your time on the internet
discover your inner value, even as your stock portfolio’s worth declines
work hard, and, by the time of the next economic boom, you may well be a successful artist

The last point is critical. Someone else (I think it was Obama) said it in one word: hope.

Remember, the economy goes up and down, but art transcends economic cycles . . . and so can you. Become an artist today!

. . .

What are your creative goals for the Depression?

Related, by Birgit:

Obama and the Arts [34 comments]

See also 24 comments on Daily Kos for above

Also by Karl Zipser:
How to Store Oil Paints

Tube Trouble?

The Greatest Invention Since the Paint Tube

How to Care for Brushes

Turpentine Trouble?

Storing Brushes

Cleaning Brushes

Shaping Brushes

Transporting Brushes

Frames and Framing

How to Gild a Frame

To Frame or not to Frame?

Internet as Frame

In real life, the frame matters

Things to Ponder

What is Art?

How to Make Art Last?

Is Art School Worthless?

Why is it Difficult to be an Artist?

Painting from Life vs. from Photos

From Life by Zipser

From Photos by Bodner

From Life by Bartman

How to Blog

How to Write the Perfect Blog Post?

“Bloggers have to Earn the Right to be Read”

How Should Artists Blog?

Can You Create in Public?

Do you have a Problem with Turpentine?

Karl Zipser — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:25:43 +0000

Do you use turpentine? Do you wish you didn’t have to? I can use turpentine in the studio in winter, with the windows closed, but it’s not something I would like to do every day. Turpentine, even a small amount, can give me a headache. I am happy that turpentine (or some other organic solvent) is not a normal part of my oil painting technique.

Turpentine has two basic roles in modern painting: as a thinner for the paint to allow a flowing application, and for the purpose of cleaning brushes.

However, turpentine did not play that important a role in the history of Western Art. Certainly it was not much used before the 18th century, so painters before then (like Jan van Eyck and Rembrandt) must have gotten by without the turps.

But how could they work without turpentine? I learned, through reading translations of old manuscripts, and looking at paintings depicting artists at work, that the old masters used a different approach to cleaning and storing their brushes. For both purposes, they used linseed oil, the same oil they painted with. As to how to apply paint without using turpentine, I’ll write about that in another post.

Here is how I store my oil painting brushes in a tray of linseed oil.

various brushes stored in linseed oil

I discuss storing brushes in linseed oil in more detail on my own website.

Cleaning brushes with linseed oil is fast and easy (again, the linked page goes into more detail).

seven dabs of oil to clean the brush

A big advantage to this approach: it permits me, in a crunch, to clean up a painting session quickly by putting the unwashed brushes back into the linseed oil. This is not the way to treat brushes well, because they will eventually dry under oil, so I make sure to clean them the next day, but it does buy me flexibility in my work schedule. This kind of flexibility sometimes is the difference between painting and not painting.

Safety tip: Keep in mind, linseed oil releases heat as it dries in the presence of oxygen. Keep rags with linseed oil on them in a sealed metal container.

Would you paint more if you didn’t have to use turpentine? Would you paint more if you could clean your brushes more easily?

Other posts by Karl:
What does it take to be a dealer?
Fall of the Art World
Art school controversy
Is Art School Worthless?

How to Store Oil Paints

How to Care for Brushes

Things to Ponder

Frames and Framing

Painting from Life vs. from Photos

How to Blog

Art and Tango

Karl Zipser — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:27:05 +0000

I’ve always liked this photo by Steve Durbin.

But what does it have to do with tango?

Let’s look more closely. The landscape has sharp and repetitive features. This regularity creates a structure through visual rhythm. The water is something quite different. It is a smooth flow, it is bold and bright, yet soft. Both the land and the water have motion. You might say, the water is moving and the land is still, but that is not correct. This is a photo and everything is still. The movement is not literal movement, but the suggestion of movement of a different sort, of visual movement — it makes your eyes move, it makes your thoughts move, it is psychological movement. This is the magic of photography(and drawing and painting) — putting movement and stillness on an equal footing, giving each the potential to move.

Above the photo I’ve placed the opening of the most famous of all tango tunes, La Cumparsita. Here it is again, below. You don’t need to read music to see some basic structure. [You can hear a old recording here]

Look at the second line of the music above: it looks jagged and repetitive, rhythmic. In contrast, the solo violin on top begins a melody with one long note, followed by a shorter one, then another long one. At a musical level, this is very much like Steve’s photo. The river is the melody, the land is the textured rhythm that create a structure for the river to run through, for it’s form to take on the meaning that it does.

We’ve looked at some music, but what about the tango dance itself? The goal in tango dancing is to express the feeling of the music as a totality, which means, in part at least, to express these two elements simultaneously — rhythm and melody. The complex rhythm is expressed with the feet, the melody with the upper body. I’m trying to learn and I can say, it is not easy! The image below is a link to some real Argentinian dancers (you will need to scroll down on the linked page to find this video).

This video (click image, scroll down) shows the feet marking the rhythm, the upper body the melody. The linked site, Tango and Chaos, is an excellent source of information.

A river flowing through a landscape, or an old tango tune, both are pleasant in and of themselves. To interpret them, into a picture, or into a dance, requires some special ability and awareness. What I am arguing in this post is that part of what we need as visual artists is to accomplish multiple tasks at the same time. We don’t necessarily have to do everything at once, as artists, but in the final outcome, it must all be there, working together. The tango dance, expressing the melody and rhythm together, seems to me both an informative and inspiring metaphor, or perhaps example, of what we are doing when we are at our best making still images.

Have you ever found inspiration for your artwork in (what seemed like) unrelated disciplines?

Also by Karl Zipser . . .

How to Store Oil Paints

Tube Trouble?

The Greatest Invention Since the Paint Tube

How to Care for Brushes

Turpentine Trouble?

Storing Brushes

Cleaning Brushes

Shaping Brushes

Transporting Brushes

Things to Ponder

What is Art?

How to Make Art Last?

Is Art School Worthless?

Why is it Difficult to be an Artist?

Frames and Framing

To Frame or not to Frame?

Internet as Frame

In real life, the frame matters

Painting from Life vs. from Photos

From Life by Zipser

From Photos by Bodner

From Life by Bartman

How to Blog

How to Write the Perfect Blog Post?

“Bloggers have to Earn the Right to be Read”

How Should Artists Blog?

Can You Create in Public?

A bridge from drawing to painting

Karl Zipser — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:00:25 +0000

Painting From Life vs. From Photos

This is a painting resulting from searching. Outlines of different figures are visible behind the man and woman whom I ‘found’ in the process. The sketching use of paint is not the way I usually work. That’s part of what makes this picture interesting to me. It bridges drawing and painting which, for me, are usually sequential and distinct processes.

I made this back in April. Now I am returning to this limited palette and exploratory form of painting.

The Dutch have an expression, “fine painter.” I loath this expression, because it tends to force an artist into a position where “fine” (as in detailed, not loaded with spontaneous dabs of paint) becomes the goal of painting. “Fine” or “coarse” are of no interest to me as goals, only as means.

Do you sometimes switch between very different modes of expression, whether in painting, drawing, or photography? Do you think in doing so you are trying to find difference approaches to the same expressive goal? My feeling is that I am doing that, that there is an unity. This is part of what makes its so exciting.

Also by Karl:

Things you Should See

Karl Zipser — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:03:52 +0000