This commission project took me a week to complete. I had to paint a collection of creepy crawlers for the school nursery playground at a local primary school.
I just worked 9 till 5 for a week painting it and that was the best day job I ever had in a very long time…
Why artists should be limited to gallery space or exhibiting??? To me, to be out there doing all kind of things with arts for the community is so regarding and fulfilling as well.
I think I was quite a performance entertainer who amused children, parents, people passing by and even a set of wavers inside the buses…
Voila, the final piece, worked wonders with my bright cheerful bold colours! Enjoy.
Angela, that’s the happiest collection of criters I’ve ever seen. I bet it brings a smile to many a face, and a second one if they realize they’ve just been imitating a bug. But what’s with the clean white suit? If you wanted to show them a real painter, you should have borrowed Rex’s dropcloth!
Angela,
I’ll have to ask at my kids’ school why we don’t have a nifty wall painting like this one.
“Why should artists be limited to gallery space or exhibiting?” you ask. Good question. Most of what we think of as great art was never in a gallery or museum during the lifetime of the artist. The rise of the gallery system coincides fairly well with the decline in the quality of art. Galleries do not have a great record in historical terms. I recently travelled to three major U.S. cities. I saw many books and cameras and computers that I would like to buy. I visited many galleries, but I saw almost nothing that I would want to take home, even for free. There was one piece that really impressed me, a Japanese wood-fired vase. In Haarlem there is a great show on at the moment, of course . . .
I will be honest, I love stone walls… but: You “had” to?
And Angela, I was perplexed by your comments made on the previous post on what a “true artist” is? My feeling is that one of the most positive elements of the contemporary art scene is that it has leveled a direct blow to the ridiculous romantic vision of the artist born.
And Karl, aren’t you limiting the art experience by suggesting that the quality of art is directly related to your desire to possess? Are your “perceptions” this limited?
D.,
Good question. I’ll try to answer this later. But maybe you should expand your question. I don’t completely understand it, I think.
Angela,
The style here is too cloyingly cute for my taste. But since your mural is designed for a specific community audience, that may matter very little.
The popularity of gallery and museums over other forms of display is an interesting and complex question. While I hate to reduce everything to money and fame, these are big factors. Mural making will not make you rich, and will most likely not make you a living unless you can get the government to pay you to do it (not very likely, at least in the U.S.). Being famous, even modestly so, requires developing and marketing an individualistic approach to artmaking. This contradicts the collaborative and service-like character of most murals I’ve seen.
None of this is meant to put down what you’re doing, just to give an honest answer to your question.
Karl,
Galleries do not have a great record in historical terms.
Its true that a lot more bad art is made under the gallery system than under one in which the artist is working directly for a patron. But its also doubtful that many of the innovations of the past 200 years would have been possible within the old system. I’m not sure how important these developments are to you, but they are important to me and many others. So I think you have to take the bad with the good. At least in the United States, the idea of a mass return to a patronage system looks like science fiction.
And it isn’t as if there are no filters in the gallery system. You have to take the time and effort to learn which galleries to trust, which collectors to trust, which writers to trust, and so on.
Karl,
In many of the posts that I have read from you (and others), the issue of commerce seems a central measure of success. (An artist once said to a critic: “Sell shoes!”)
I think that many artists working today are motivated beyond such measures, even against their own well-being. Art can be more. For example:
http://www.harrellfletcher.com/theamericanwar/
There are advantages to keeping commerce and art separate and, perhaps, it is a quality of life?
Angela,
My first proper visit to A&P in days (internet problems) and I bump into this. What fun!
And to answer your more serious question about galleries…..I think that the professionalisation of art through the gallery systems (plural because of the differences between the commercial and the public galleries) seriously risks the everyday enjoyment of art. It certainly limits the potential size of the audience.
That’s not to knock people who use that system, but just to say that there are other ways.
Angela,
These creeping, crawling, jumping and flying critters excite the imagination of neuroscientists. People are trying to figure out the neural networks that direct the weird motions of these critters.
Steve Ahahah I know I look like I just came from a post nuclear chemical war, you should had seem me using the face mask with it…
The suit looks clean in the photo but it’s actually filthy with paint. I use it to protect my winter’s clothes as it is really cold.
Karl Zipser you are right and I think you have agreed with me.
David yes I had to, I was invited to paint it… sorry if I offended anyone with my sincere comment before, it is not personal. It’s the fact that I see so many talented artists nowadays who don’t get any recognition whatsoever for their brilliant skills… and then I visit a gallery and everyone is talking about a piece of scat on the wall and pretend being really clever.
Poor Michelangelo if was born in today’s time!
Arthur Whitman this mural was a commission. I have seat down with them and they gave their ideas exactly how they wanted. It’s for 3-5 year olds in the youngest age playground area so it had to be this cute!
I would have done something different myself with dragons and castles…
Now, you are missing the whole point! I didn’t paint the mural to become grimy rich and famous. The genuine smiles around me all day, the spontaneity finger pointing of the children, the waving of people’s passing by, game me a big satisfaction and that was the best payment I could have ever had!!!
Colin Jago thanks you seem to understand me well. Hug X
Birgit Zipser Cool!
Angela,
I understand why you did the mural; I was trying to explain why other people did other things. Sorry as I came off as being rude.
D.,
In response to your comment above, I gave up a secure and successful career in neuroscience, something I enjoyed, to become an artist. I know what it means to give up financial comfort for the sake of art.
To deny the artist the desire to sell his or her work is not doing art any favor. You can keep art and commerce separate, but not if you want to do art full time and lack the financial resources to do it without selling it.
Karl,
I disagree.
It has been my experience (as an artist, writer, curator, and educator) that weaving the making with the selling is too complicated. I am simply not willing to cause the confusion.
Certainly, your position fits well with the contempory trend. Have you noticed how Business Schools have become central to University Life? How MBAs are major decision-makers in Art Museums? It is very discouraging. More and more, I admire the artists true, first, to their work.
D,
Then you should admire me! I don’t sell my work on line, or even in galleries at the moment. Through lack of attention to commerce, I’ve put my ability to be an artist in the future at risk.
Karl,
I know this can read as trite, but: Have you thought about representing yourself?
And why tie your art experiences so tightly to your career? I certainly do not believe that an artist is determined by sales, by birth, by palette (or camera), by beret, etc. Isn’t it determined by our sensibilities to observe and explore, to find meaningfulness in our own experiences? Why give up all of that?
The benefits can be beautiful, for ourselves and others.
http://www.riccomaresca.com/artists/slideshows/bill_traylor.htm
Isn’t it determined by our sensibilities to observe and explore, to find meaningfulness in our own experiences? Why give up all of that?
What makes you think Karl is giving up any of these things?
Arthur,
Within the context of the posts, it was meant to suggest that art-making can be experienced beyond matters of commerce. I was also hoping that if one agreed that art-making has such possibilities (meaningfulness), one never stops being an artist.
Arthur,
There is some truth in what D. is saying. I am temporarily giving up some of my own goals as an artist for the sake of Hanneke’s exhibition, career, etc. It is a valuable learning experience, I enjoy it. But I confess that I have been feeling an emptiness in the last few days, a separation from my own being as an artist. I hope that doesn’t read as too trite! Anyway, I’m not having self-pity here. I have every intention of focusing more on my own art and artistic self soon. I’m also in a period of transition. I have mostly been earning through commissions, not gallery exhibitions. I would like to do an exhibition in the coming year. Making the transition in modes of working is not trivial.
As I said, or at least hinted in the art patron/gallery consumer post, I think I worked well before I started selling my work. Once an artist begins to sell, they let the world into their studio. It can change everything, it is something to struggle against. This relates to a lot of the discussions we have been having here recently.