I did make it over to Brooklyn Artists Gym this afternoon and ended up doing a self portrait.  Here’s a picture Peter Wallace, owner and manager of BAG took of me with my SideKick 3 camera.

I feel this painting, self portrait, is one of my best.

 

The photo I took is decent - but many of the subtleties are not showing up in the digital picture - the work is much richer when looking at it - and some for the lighting I captured on my face looks more arbitrary in the photo than in real life.   The painting looks better, I feel, standing in front of it - than seeing it online, like I have it, above. 

I think I spent close to 5 hours working on my self portrait.  Once I started painting again last year - I let myself go - when I paint - it’s 100% of me and I often feel as if something else is working through me and I’m just along for the ride - and that’s totally fine with me.

Also feel that I can complete my work now where I could not years and years ago - I had no idea what “finished” meant - I did not know when to stop.  Feel much more  confident of my abilities as an artist.

It’s also nice when artists at my studio come up to me and tell me the painting is beautiful - it’s unsolicited feedback.  Without taking it too seriously - if I “see it”, “feel it” and “know it” and other people (who have no idea of how aware I am of the “energy”) come over to me and tell me they’re drawn to the work…..I must be onto something.

But I’m totally glad I’m not out to sell or even show my work at this time.  It takes a alot of courage to put your work out for the world to see - in a gallery show - my soul is exposed.  I’m not ready for it yet.  Maybe I’ll never be ready - I’m fine going on, just as I have -and I’ll see where the road takes me.

BTW, here’s what my Self Portrait looks like at a distance:

I believe a painting should look good at a distance but also close up - but the power of painting is different at a distance - I hope if this work is ever shown, it’s also seen at a distance, like I’m showing above.   Getting close up, another set of associations takes over as you can see the textures and the forms are clearer.

Well, that’s enough for one post and after 5 hours, I packed it up and left the studio, a little after 7PM, Saturday.

I went by the Chelsea Art Museum tonight for an opening of “Dangerous Beauty” - it was packed and the first time I actually toured the museum.

I also notice there were several books about Jean Miotte at the Chelsea Museum book store in the lobby. I don’t know anything about this artist but I see there’s’ a Jean Miotte Foundation connected to the Chelsea Museum - maybe that’s why the books are available in the lobby.  I don’t connect with Miotte’s work, lets leave it at that.

Took a lot of pictures tonight - but I won’t put the pictures here; I’ll just mention the works that struck me.

Emily Eveleth’s Conjecture, 2004, Oil on Canvas, 49 x 76 inches (great to have a camera and unlimited storage - so I can take pictures of everything, including the name tags next to the painting).   I think this was one of the most successful paintings in the museum and looked like either a gel filled donut leaking out gelly or a gunshot (guess that’s why it’s called “Conjecture”).

I also like Barry Sullivan’s Sirpa Front, painted in 2006, 64 x 46 inches, oil on linen.  I found the nude woman with breast showing a turn on - in a show that was very depressing, actually.

Donald Sultan’s Egg and Tomatoes painted in 1998, 48 inches x 48 inches was pretty darn good as a painting.

I also never heard of a painter called George Condo, whose’s “Fruit Man” painted in 1983 is an interesting painting that I liked a lot.

The Genealogy of the Supermarket by Nina Katchadourlain is fascinating parody of the faces next to our brands and how they gave birth to characters from other brands.

The Mummified Barbie Dolls, made of Barbie dolls, are fairly small.

Meanwhile, Tom Sanford’s painting of Paris Hilton, 29×29 inches was one of the more interesting, if soulless, images in the show.

And I have to say that I was not comfortable in the Chelsea Museum; just the overall feeling about art and what it takes to be an artist.  It makes me wonder if I want to show my work at all - and right now I’m having an identity conflict with doing the work - I’m sorta afraid I won’t end up harnessing my full creativity.  And I need to paint more.

I was invited to attend Spot’s talk at the Entheocentic Salon last night at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors by Allyson Grey, artist wife of the visionary artist Alex Gray. Actually, Allyson is an artist and I found her technique interesting - in fact I can’t imagine how much detailed work most go into it. 

Alex Gray’s work has had a good deal of media coverage although I got the impression it’s not really been accepted in the main stream art world (is that any surprise?  the mainstream art world is much the same as the mainstream music world - you have to fit into a “slot”).  Actually, I’m not sure that’s entirely true any longer - it seems like “Visionary Artists” like Joe Colemen and Paul Laffoley are beginning to get some mainstream acceptance - if they can do it, why not Alex Grey? 

A frame from one of Spot’s Electronic Paintings

The main part of last night’s event at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, for me, was Spot’s demonstration of his new Electronic Paintings - which I wrote up in Smartmobs.com.  I put a lot of work and thought in that post.

Yesterday I was painting at Brooklyn Artist Gym but I could not get anything much done - it seems like time for a change in my approach, technique, planning what I’m going to do before I arrive, things like that.  Anyway, that’s the backdrop from which I came to view Spot’s work yesterday.

Spot just moved to New York, and is trying to get gallery representation for his large Electronic Paintings - I wish him success in this.   One problem I see is in how Spot’s paintings are marketed.  Presently, Spot has, maybe a dozen works that are packaged with 100GB disks and processor (as one unit) - I think with a large LCD screen (but I’m not sure about the screen part) for prices starting at 30,000 dollars USD.

For me, I’m seeing Spot’s paintings as being much more marketable at a lower price by just selling the software with an High Definition Screen, but that’s me.   I see a problem with trying to go after a niche audience of art collectors based on a technology that’s also open-sourced.   Doubt is created in the mind of a collector that what they’re spending 30K on might also be something they’ll be able to buy later for next to nothing as a more advanced screen saver program.   

In a way, this is the same problem that HitWise has, as a web analytic platform; their main program, fully loaded, is about 60K and they have maybe 1200 customers, mostly corporate.  But they’re not Omniture, not Visual Sciences - platforms that can sell for up to one million dollars a pop (you don’t need that many one million dollar installations to make it).  I wrote about this in WebMetricsGuru recently Was HitWise sold yet?

Can Spot sell enough paintings at 30K and above ….. I don’t know.  I hope he’s successful - but I do think the technology makes it somewhat problematic - are you selling the artist or are you selling the technology?   If your selling the technology, your going to have a problem selling the individuality of your creation, that’s my take.

If Spot wants to be an Artist, in the same line as Kandinsky …… he needs to sell his idea past the technology that houses it - and right now I don’t see that.   His talk was great last night, but I felt the star is not spot, it’s his Electronic Paintings - paintings that anyone can recreate with 100GB hard drive and a nice shiny laptop screen, just like the one I have now with my new HP Pavilion dv6000.

It gets back to what Seth Godin said at Google Unbound, earlier this week - to be successful you need to know that business your really in.  The House Designers, my former client for SEO, thought that buying architectural house plans from a consortium of known architects, rather than from a brokerage house like globalhouseplans.com or eplans.com, would be a competitive advantage - but it was not. 

THD totally misunderstood their true opportunity - as a larger consortium of Architects and knowledge base and tools - something they entire missed the boat on - and now that site struggles to break even.

While I’m am artist, first and foremost, I’m also a web analyst and a marketer - and I have to call things the way I see them - people expect no less from a blogger with an audience.   What Spot is trying to do, as an artist, is great, but he needs to sell his vision, not the technology - to gain broader acceptance that he wants. 

I tried the same thing with using Iron On Art 15 years ago - but what I ended up doing is paralyzing my own creativity, and could not separate the technology - Amiga PC scanned images of faces, from painting techniques - and now, anyone can make tea-shirt art - so technology has taken a technique and made it common, almost banal - yet it seemed like a great idea when I first happened onto it around 1990.

How he does that - I don’t know, but one hint - focus beyond the technology - because technology is copyable - artistic genius, on the other hand, is unique.  Be unique.