Art blogging has gotten a lot of attention recently. Last week Kriston Capps and Ed Winkleman suggested interest in an on-blog survey of responses to questions posed in a recent discussion, published in Art in America. So here’s my go at it. Anyone else, please chime in with your perspectives, comments, gripes, etc. What are we doing here, anyway?
Archives for art world
Male And Manhattan Architecture
Since I last checked in with Art & Perception, I’ve been exploring the synthesis of two of my most persistent obsessions: Manhattan and beatuiful men. I was partly motivated by comments on this blog questioning my lack of people in my city views and details. As a result of that, I have of late gone in a completely opposite direction.
Truth be told, I rarely enoy nude male photography, it leaves me cold. Too obvious. On the other hand the naked city in all of its hardness, rigid angles and cubist statements is to my eye powerfully masculine and quite arousing. So I wondered if I could use my camera to create some kind of visual and emotional communication between the stone, steel and glass architecture, textures and colors of my adored metropolis and the architecture, textures and colors of beautiful men.
I’m not sure I’ve succeeded quite yet, but I do feel I am on the right path. And I must confess–not surprisingly–the exploration has been great fun.
Perhaps the strangest part of this experience has been that the sexual and visual pleasure that I’ve been experiencing during this process of of exploration has been unique and extraordinarily intense in ways I had not imagined. Furthermore, the experience has given rise to intense personal feelings that I’ve not experienced during the actual act of sex. Partly, this is because–with one exception–I have not indulged in sex with my models despite the fact that one of the criteria I’ve used to select my models has been powerful sexual attraction. Limiting myself to the visual experience has opened the door on new sensations and much more powerful visual experience than I’ve ever had before.
Do or die list for artists
Painting From Life vs. From Photos
Do or die list for artists
Art News Blog posted a great list of survival tips for artists. The one that made that warm, resonating tone in my head was:
Inspiration is found in the studio while you are working. If you sit around waiting for inspiration before you start creating you will have about 15 paintings finished when you’re 60.
How true how true how true! The corollary: don’t let a lack of inspiration bother you if you are not actually doing art at that very moment.
What a fool I am sometimes, walking in the evening and wondering if I am on the right track with my artwork. When I am painting in the studio, I know I am. That’s the opinion that matters.
In the post at Art News Blog, Dion asks what I will ask here: do you have other artist survival wisdom to share?
How to Store Oil Paints
How to Care for Brushes
Frames and Framing
Painting from Life vs. from Photos
How to Blog
Two Kinds of Artists
I haven’t read Stephen King in a while, but I recently picked off a random shelf the last of his Dark Tower series — The Song of Susannah. I was intrigued enough to start reading. King has in the past written many nice essays on the subject of writing. The introduction to this book is no exception.
What caught my eye and what I’m relaying here is germane to all the arts, so I thought I’d bring it in.
From “On Being Nineteen (And A Few Other Things)”
I think novelists come in two types, and that includes the sort of fledgling novelist I was by 1970. Those who are bound for the more literary or ‘serious’ side of the job examine every possible subject in the light of this question: What would writing this story mean to me? Those whose destiny … is to include the writing of popular novels are apt to ask a very different one: What would this story mean to others? The ‘serious’ novelist is looking for answers and keys to the self; the ‘popular’ novelist is looking for an audience.
It is no stretch to extend this to other arts. I know what kind of artist I am. Which kind are you?
On the paintings in our malls…
Some time back (2005) the BBC conducted a poll in England that asked people to pick out the most popular painting in their land. In a field crowded with van Gogh’s evocative pictures and Monet’s breathtaking impressions, the winner turned out to be a rather ordinary-by-today’s-standards painting by J.M.W. Turner titled the ‘The Fighting Temeraire’. Somewhat more surprising was the fact that the second prize also went to a similarly bucolic oil painting by Constable – ‘The Haywain’. (Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck was ranked fourth – one of my favorites) more… »
Inner Space
Recently, I embarked on a little mini project in a bid to better understand the vagaries of photography. I find photography a hard master and am still unable to photograph my paintings to the level of detail I want… This mini-project may just be regarded as another attempt at understating photography better. The premise was simple: Instead of turning the camera to outside subjects like “people, landscape, houses, family’, I decided to turn it inwards. I decided that I was going to photograph just objects in and around the confines of our home. What initially was envisaged as a dull chronicle of household items turned out to be quite an exciting one (at least for me).
Sunil Gangadharan, ‘Juxtaposition’, digital photograph
I took about 50 pictures in a space of about two hours. All of them shot inside. I have posted a majority of them to the flickr site here. To see as slideshow click here.
So, instead of asking some serious art question (which I frequently find myself thinking more and more), I decided to take it easy and play.
What is really life about?
Sitting and meditating lately about what is really life about that makes up get up in the morning and carry on as artists…
Is it how much money you got in the bank? The partner of our dreams? That new car you been saving up? The Exhibition you booked for?
Or is it the peace of mind, security and happiness that all this acquirements provide us?
What is really life about?
It’s very easy to confuse values with goals, but they are very different – goals are specific ways in which you might express your values…
Now, think for yourself, what you really value in your life? You might say “my job”, but then ask yourself “What is your job in the service of?” You might answer “Financial security”. Keep asking the same question “What is financial security in the service of?” Keep on asking the question until can’t find an answer and you have found your value.
Values are what life is about, and it it’s all about happiness. Know your values! Happiness is what makes my life worth for, ask yourself!
Everything else my dear collegues, it will before long turn to dust…
