Art & Perception

A dialogue with Rex Crockett, Arthur Whitman, and Karl Zipser; artwork by Rex Crockett.

KARL: This is the first post at our team blog’s new location, ArtAndPerception.com. What should we talk about?

ARTHUR: The topic of Art & Perception‘s future is perfect.

REX: What do you think we could accomplish? In what direction do you think we should go?

KARL: The most obvious goal for most of us is to become the best artists that we can be. Another goal is to make money doing it, or at least to survive. If Art & Perception is to be useful, rather than a distraction, it should help us with these key goals.

REX: Karl, interaction with other artists will definitely help with these goals you state. With other artists, it’s possible to explore new ideas before you take action on them. Other artists are more willing to experience edgy work. They can see through the rough edges to the inner jewel. more… »

In previous critiques here on Art & Perception I referred to a lack of “robust colors” in some paintings. I wanted to show some positive examples of what I mean by “robust colors.” These still life paintings by Gautam Rao are just what I had in mind.

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Posted by Karl Zipser

I made this painting in the summer of 1985, when I was sixteen years old. I painted it over the course of several mornings, standing on a dock in Woods Hole, Cape Cod. This is one of my first landscape paintings in oil.

I was able to do work like the above because I was part of a group of motivated students in the art class of Walter Bartman, a high school teacher in Bethesda, Maryland. more… »

As an artist who has spent most of his employed life in the arts, (in many diverse fields), I have had to humble myself to criticism many times for shear lack of credentials. At first, this was very uncomfortable to bear, I hadn’t known the gift of honest opinion, insecurity of the “self”, (my own), always stepped in and “botched it” for me, (like a reflex). After-all, how dare someone tell me “what they really think”: Right! I have since learned from my folly, and furthermore, now cherish the “morsels of truth” that others seemingly can’t hold back from sharing with me from time to time.

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Posted by Karl Zipser

Accidents Happen

Hanneke van den Bergh‘s husband dropped this ceramic sculpture and it shattered on the sidewalk. Her 50 cm high wood-fired piece was a central work for the exhibition to be installed that day . . .

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Posted by Hanneke van Oosterhout

This still life is about 13 cm wide. I painted everything from life. I drew directly on the panel with charcoal, then pencil. Then I made an under painting in acrylic in one day. I made the over painting oil in two days, one day focusing on the berries, the other on the cup. I think this is a good picture. Please tell me what could be done better. Photographers, have you any insights for me?

Posted by Colin

There is an old saw from the history of photography that the ‘negative is the score and the print is the performance’. This has been around for so long that photographers have absorbed it to the point that they no longer think about it. I was reminded of this saying yesterday though, when Karl referred to an earlier interview with Dan Bodner in which Dan said:

“A photo is a record of a moment that has passed, a dead moment. I don’t feel that I own the image as a photograph until I paint it as a painting. The photo itself always refers to the past. But a painting of the photo is a creation, which goes on living. The painting defines its own continuing moment in time.”

I obviously have no idea how creation works for Dan, but I wanted to point out to anybody else who followed the link that this was a very limiting way of seeing the medium. I’ve written more about this here.

You can be sure that reality didn’t look much like this photo. Or, for that matter, the rather different one that I’ve also linked in the post on my blog. No one artform has the monopoly on creation. And I think that in understanding what works for us we need to be careful not to be dismissive about what works for others.