I’m attending FRIENDS OF THE ARTS PARTY AT CHRISTIE’S ON NOVEMBER 13, 2009, 6:30-8:30 pm – here’s the press release, below:

NEW YORK, November 4th, 2009—The Alliance for the Arts will partner with the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) to host the annual Friends of the Arts Party at Christie’s, opening the galleries for an exclusive preview of the much-heralded Latin American Art show, cocktails and music on Friday the 13th of November, 6:30-8:30 pm.

The Friends Party began in 2003 as a way to support the Alliance’s work as a leader in arts advocacy and to engage artists, policymakers and patrons in conversation about the arts.

“As we face a time when support for the arts is more crucial than ever, the Friends party is an ideal opportunity for younger New Yorkers to become arts advocates,” said Randall Bourscheidt, President of the Alliance for the Arts.

The Alliance’s new partnership with NYPLI is an effort to economize and share resources and serve our mutual commitment to making New York the most accessible and livable city possible.  ”The idea of bringing together two critical organizations for the good of the city is a powerful one,” said Michael Rothenberg, Executive Director of NYLPI.  ”We expect this is an idea that endures beyond the recession.”

Event leaders include Ashton Hawkins and John L. Moore III, Paul Beirne, Robert C. Clauser, Kipton Cronkite, William Earle, Nick Hockens, Werner H. Kramarsky, Dr. J. Marc Michel Léonard and Michael Yeager, Helen Marx, David and Elizabeth Netto, Susan D. Ralston, Jane Gregory Rubin, Joe Versace, Enzo Viscusi and Alan Wanzenberg.  Other special guests include public officials Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, State Senator Liz Krueger and State Assemblyman Jonathan L. Bing, and artists Cornelia Guest, William Ivey Long and Tor Seidler.

In addition to Christie’s, sponsors include Eni, ForbesLife, KiptonART, NYCharities.org, City Winery and Diamond Standard Vodka.  KiptonART will present a silent auction featuring KiptonART artists, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Alliance.

Christie’s is located at 20 Rockefeller Plaza on 49th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas.

THE ALLIANCE FOR THE ARTS serves the entire cultural community through research and advocacy and informs the public through cultural guides and calendars. Now in its 33rd year, the Alliance publishes information on the arts and cultural events in New York City as well as studies highlighting the importance of the arts to the economy and to education.

The Alliance helps government and civil leaders understand the importance of the arts to New York City by making the case for more support for culture from all levels of government. One of the ways it does this is through the Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Fellowship for Public Policy and the Arts, which was inaugurated in 2002 with the objective of training cultural policy leaders through engagement with the Alliance’s advocacy work.

New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) is a nonprofit civil rights law firm that strives for social justice in New York City through litigation, community organizing, policy advocacy and public education. NYLPI has in-house expertise in health justice, environmental justice and disability rights.  This expertise is extended by a network of volunteers from New York’s top law firms and corporate legal departments that work with NYLPI to provide pro bono legal assistance to nonprofit organizations and individuals in need.

I saw Julie and Julia tonight in midtown and met several other film and food blog enthusiasts to see a movie that partly, takes place in New York City right after 9/11, and also 40 or 50 years earlier, in Paris, France.

I liked the movie a lot and met before and after it with a group of food enthusiasts, including some bloggers (and then there was me, a blogger, as well) at  Luce Restaurant & Wine Bar – 2014 Broadway- see the two short movies, below.

This painting, I think, is done – I went by my studio space and decided to finish it – if anything can really be finished.   Orginally, I named it “The Uprising” but I think it ought to really be named “Truth” because that’s what I feel when I look at the painting.

Truth 40" x 60" Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Canvas - Marshall Sponder

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.

This looks good.  I got an email on another site that allows an artist to show their work – and so far, I like what I’m seeing, even though I haven’t signed up yet. 

True, I’m not really interested in selling anything at this point; my art is entirely for my own self exploration.  I’m not against selling it, but I’m not creating anything in order to sell it and it’s fine if I never do.  I noticed FineArtAmerica.com is aiming at artists who want to sell their work.   So, in that sense, maybe I’m not entirely in sync with them.  But that’s fine, I’m more interested in how I can bundle my work, and it looks like FineArtAmerica.com does that well.

But being a search expert and the author of www.Webmetricsguru.com. FineArtAmerica.com appeals to my “Web Analyst” persona.   I make my living as a Web Analyst for IBM and others.  When I see a site that appeals to artists and yet offers Web Analytics, I take notice.  Here’s what I like:

“…AUTOMATIC LOCATION DETECTION – One of the most powerful features of the site is its ability to automatically detect a visitor’s geographic location.  When you visit our website, we automatically identify your location in the U.S. and then display content that is designed specifically for your location! ”

“….If you live in Chicago, for instance, our site will automatically tailor itself to the Chicago area.  If you were to view our list of featured art galleries, you would automatically see galleries that are located near Chicago!  Similarly, if you were to view our list of upcoming events, the list would be sorted with Chicago-area events at the top!

I’m going to need to set up an account and play with this later this week.  

Finally, someone is starting to use technology to improve site experience (which is, by the way, Art).

The other thing that’s really, really smart is the bi-monthly newsletter that’s published by FineArtAmerica; readers to Webmetricsguru.com know how often I mention email marketing as lead generation.  Email marketing, when done well, is very effective, especially when you have a fresh, targeted list of recipients.   Listen to this:

“….BI-MONTHLY NEWSLETTER – On the 1st and 15th of every month, we e-mail a unique newsletter to all of our registered fine art collectors.   The newsletter features artists, artwork, jobs, press releases, and events that have been posted on our site during the previous two weeks.   This is a great way to introduce your newest releases and upcoming events to an interested audience.   Each collector receives a customized newsletter which prominently features events that will be occurring in their area (see AUTOMATIC LOCATION DETECTION).

I’ll let readers know when I have my page set up on FineArtAmerica.com and have tested it out.  I’m looking forward to seeing the customized results, which I’ll probably also write up in Webmetricsguru.com, SmartMobs.com and BigGreenBlog.com, if I think the material fits those blogs.

I meant to write this earlier this weekend but have been so busy with painting and SEO Work, and life (I suppose) that I really did not have the time or energy – but I think I can write it down now.

Yesterday, when I worked on the painting / oil pastel sketch below – a couple of thoughts were on my mind.

One thought – how much different is what I’d doing now than what I painted 30 years ago?   For one thing, I don’t overwork nearly as much, work a lot faster and more focused – but for all that – I feel limited – that I haven’t really challenged myself enough – to go past the edges of what I know how to do visually.

And yet, the painting / sketch above seemed to have caught something I noticed several years ago about my Homage to Manet painting (see below)

There’s a “twist”, slanting that somehow works for me.  Yesterday, the same thing sorta happened, a slanting of the post is the left part of the picture that somehow made it more interesting.   In both cases i did not plan it – but I’m aware of it now.

That reminds me – Brice Marden mentioned in his talk today that he spends the majority of his time thinking about his work and deciding about it vs. actually producing it (he might have said it a little differently – but I think that’s what he meant).  When he was younger – he worked more than he does now - and he thinks about it more  – maybe, then he did earlier in his life.

Now, getting back to my paintings – when I detect things that work – even though there’s a lot I need to work on…..that still don’t work for me ….. I can use that information again – I can be more aware of choices I have before me.

I attended the Brice Marden session moderated by Barbara Solomon talk at the New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend this afternoon; I had my son, Adam, with me, and was able to buy him a ticket, along with my own.

First, Barbara Solomon got on just about every one’s nerves with her questions.  I tried to take notes on my SideKick 3, but it was too noisy and had to stop – listen closely and now write the essence of what I heard.  I’ll write down what I remember in no particular order.

Brice Marden, whose show at MOMA I reviewed several weeks ago, had just visited his show this morning, back from vacation; he’s been there several times.  Part of doing a show  is seeing your art in one place – and creating work that you want to see.  In fact, it’s the artist’s job to create the best, most exciting work they’d want to see.

Marden was particularly sensitive to the space where art is shown – claimed that many Miro’s, particularly those in the Metropolitan Museum’s Modern Art Wing – were not well seen due to the room setting and “rugs”.   Brice Marden mentioned he like Miro’s late work but it’s not received much attension from curators.  Brice mentioned, in response to a question from Barbara Solomon (don’t recall what it was) that an artist starts to make a lot of money when they repeat themselves (I guess, later on in their career).

He mentioned he started out at Boston University (hope I got that right) and ended up with a Graduate Scholarship to Yale Art Academy where he had art feedback twice a week (one person gave “classical” feedback, the other, “romanticism” feedback and there was a graduate thesis which took the form of a show.  Brice Marden won a small prize from the show (400 dollars at the time, I think in 1963 – but I’m not sure) and ended up living in New York City where he rented an apartment from a landlord who bought his paintings, from time to time.  He had his first show in NYC around this time.

Brice Marden talked about working part time throughout his career – that he’s someone that opted to have a fixed income for his work (so he’d know how much he had to work with) over doing freelance work to get by.  Even now, he’s advanced a monthly stipend from his gallery dealer as his has a need to keep his many residences – his lifestyle up.  As well as Brice does – he still needs a steady income coming in.

Someone asked Marden a question at the end about what he’s influenced by – he said that he starts with an idea, that in the process, that idea is altered by the painting; he also mentioned he uses long brushes and that Velazquez, who he admired quite a bit, did to as well.

Getting back to Spanish painting, Barbara Solomon asked Brice how he liked the Spanish Painting show at the Guggenheim Museum..he said he was happy to see many of the paintings, particularly many of the older Spanish paintings being shown - but did not feel many of those  paintings worked in the environment of the Guggenheim.  Marden also said he admired Manet’s work a lot (which makes a lot of sense as the “gray” he uses in many of his earlier paintings seems to have been influenced by Manet.

There was probably a lot more I could write – but I don’t remember it all. Some of it will come back to me.

A funny moment – before the talk I ended up buying a ticket from a scalper for the show but it ended up being the for the wrong talk – one by an architect instead of the Marden show.    It made me think that often, when startled, it’s easy to be thrown off and make the wrong decision.  Out of 25 bucks, it may not have been the wrong decision for the man who I bought the ticket from.  It just shows me that good and bad, right and wrong, depend, somewhat, on what position you’re in.

I guess I’ve seen everything – I like the picture – of Angelina Jolie as a Madonna. 

Go to Kate’s Blog to see more on how this large painting was created.

I spent some time reading Kate’s blog and found most of the work that led up to his painting is detailed and photographed in November’s Archives.  Kate Kretz’s blog is actually pretty interesting – and while I’m not sure (probably have read it more closely) why she chose to paint Angelina Jolie hovering over a WalMart – it was a smart move – I think WalMart ought to buy the painting – that or Angelina Jolie (but that’s just my opinion – I think Angelina is more into Banksy and might not like to see herself “deified”….but then again – maybe it’s too much to resist).

I think it’s fairly courageous to give up a tenured career as teacher in Florida to go to North Carolina, get married, and now have the time to just paint – to just create.   I think Kate had a hunch this was the right thing to do for her – I think she was right.

Been busy – lots of stuff to do – but not that many art openings going on this week and next in New York City due to the Christmas and New Years holidays.

I was not planning on going to the Life Drawing session at the Brooklyn Artists Gym last night – I only came by to see the new studio space that’s going to be available starting next month (January 07).  The new space, 10,000 square feet is a significant improvement over our current space, and most of it will be studio space in form or another including: huge wet area in the studio, large room for 3D and crafts, a wood shop, a metal shop, art storage, a gallery that has more wall space and an alliance with Brooklyn Writer’s Space to have a writer’s studio.  BAG is poised to become a vital Art Center in New York City.

Since I was already at my studio and a life drawing session was going on – I drew and here’s what I came up with the same model, Aveida, who I painted last time (see the first picture below – the oil pastel was done about 10 days ago).

 

Here’s my conte crayon and oil pastel on newspaper sketches of the model from last night – most were 5 or 10 minute sketches.

 

I may cover a opening or two tonight and some more museum shows over the weekend – hopefully I’ll spend the bulk of the next 10 days painting.

I’m not sure if they are paintings or sketches.

The first was a model study I did this afternoon (above) – I arrived halfway into the session and spent about 90 minutes on this painting – there was lively conversation from the few of us painting from this model – who I think was named Avieda (hope I got the spelling right).

I did another still life and again, I had problems resolving this study – maybe it’s the coloring in the studio – the floors are a muted brown – green and I try to capture that – but there’s so much of it that I don’t have anything present in front of me to offset it - it’s almost a sea of brown – green – gray.  

I enjoy being immediate with Oil Pastels – little setup – fast results – both studies are 22″ x 28″.

Peter Wallace showed me the new studio space that we will be moving into starting January 2007 – down the hall – it’s magnificent – and there will lots more activities going on at BAG – and room for it.

By the way, the still life I did tonight is along the same theme as the one I did last month (below) with Junot wine bottle (I think it was Red Wine last month and White Wine this time.  I could do more elaborate still lifes if there was imagery I wanted to work with at the studio – most of the time I just take whats lying around.

I think the first Junot still life – the one with Red Scissors might have been more successful – less cluttered than the one I did today.  On the other hand, an artist paints what’s inside – sometimes it’s sunny and sometimes it’s stormy and cloudy – both are equally valid and important.  We can’t just pick out the parts of our life that we like and forget the rest – or else life loses it’s meaning.

So, I’m not sure what I’m working out today that was different than a month ago – or for that fact, The Red Cup still life I did two weeks ago – where I also had problems with figure – ground relationships. 

And I’m also thinking of the Black Nude Study I did two weeks ago.

I enjoy seeing these works together – the first two were new from today, the rest being done over the last month.  In fact, the “tone” of my first two pictures from today appears “darker” and more somber - yet I don’t recall being any more that way than before.

I think we just paint what is going on inside of us – can’t help it … sometimes it will come out bright, other times, somber.

What is it with Pablo Picasso lately – there’s two major shows in New York (at least) that focus on his work – with the Whitney focusing on Picasso and American Art while the Guggenheim highlights Picasso compared to other Spanish artists of all time.

 

I should have started from the top of the spiral and worked my way down – that’s what the Guggenheim is designed to encourage – but I usually walk from the bottom up – and made it a little more than halfway up the spiral ramp before the museum was closing – so I’ll have to come back at least one more time.

Unlike a typical show where the artist is highlighted – here the genre is exhausted – IE: Picasso landscapes are compared to landscapes of other Spanish Artists across time.  Same thing with portraits and still lifes.  Some of the finest Spanish paintings are here in this show on loan till late March, 2007.

Some thoughts - the best art in the show had a consistent quality – great art is about the idea beyond the painting – it’s not the painting itself – but the thought and energy behind it that matters the most.

IN fact, most of Picasso’s paintings in this show were done in one or two sittings – often a sketch or two a day.

There’s so many good shows here in NYC right now because there is an abundance of art that can be loaned to create all kinds of shows, like this one.  In a way, it’s totally irrelevant how long it takes to do a work of art – Picasso’s work is compared to artists that lived 350 years before he was born – these works placed side by side showed Picasso’s greatness.

Anyway – it’s time to go to bed.

I was not sure I’d like this show about Shrinking Cities at Pratt and I did not really connect with it – not only that …. I was not even trying to understand it – it was too much effort to read all the information about it.   But I did take a walk around the gallery a couple of times and tried to see if there was anything I could connect with … and there was not.

 

Here’s some notes about Shrinking Cities:

The conclusion of a three-year project of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, under the direction of Philipp Oswalt (Berlin), in cooperation with the Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the magazine Archplus, Shrinking Cities examines the phenomenon of urban population decline from an international perspective. Artists, architects, filmmakers, journalists, and cultural and social researchers present the changed reality in these regions using examples of four cities and regions: Detroit, Michigan, USA; Manchester/Liverpool, United Kingdom; Ivanovo, Russia; and Halle/Leipzig, Germany. The topics range from neglect and the appropriation of spaces to the development of innovative subcultures and criticism of city planning.

Pratt Manhattan Gallery will present phase 2 of this exhibition, interventions while Van Alen Institute, New York will simultaneously present Shrinking Cities, phase 1, international research, December 8 – January 21. A symposium is being organized for February 2007.

Like I said – architectural shows about social reform …. interesting to some..but not to me.

I wanted to post something tonight – been pretty busy with my web analytic work – but here’s a thought – Art Newspapers …on the web – are there any? How many? Are there any Art Newspapers devoted to art in NYC?

I found The Art Newspaper to be pretty good, but not really about NYC – just things in the Art World in general.

Art Daily is another Art Newspaper – again it’s not about NYC – and it does not look as interesting as The Art Newspaper.

The ArtJournal seems seems to be the best of the three (save the best for last?).

I liked this entry from December 2nd.

“ When Admission Is Free, People Flock To Museums (Who Knew?) Admission to England’s museums and galleries has been free for five years. “To mark the occasion, the government released figures which showed an average 83% rise in visits to museums and galleries which formerly charged. That is 30m extra visits, says the government, and something to be celebrated, according to the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell.” But some warn that if the state cuts its support, the price barrier may have to go back up. The Guardian (UK) 12/02/06″ 

Yes, free admission for all museums does seem to help bring more people in. Actually, I think it’s the shows at museums that bring people in – and there are so many good ones in New York right now.

I’m a big fan of Amy Crehore’s art and I have several postcards of Crehore’s paintings surrounding my desk at work, plus I own a Banjo Gal giclee print (#5 of 250). 

I Interviewed Amy Crehore a couple of months ago (part 1, part 2); decided there were more questions – so here’s part 3 of my interview with Amy Crehore. 

Amy Crehore in Palm Springs during the M Modern Gallery Blonde Bombshell show Jan 2006

1. Now that you’ve done the last Blab! Show and are in the “Blab! 17” book, what would you like to do next?

I would like to expand my new Blues Gal series. I had a nice reception for the Blues Gal paintings that were in the Blab! Show (in fact, all 8 paintings of mine sold out -www.blabshow.com).

I have done some new drawings (you can see them on my blog- www.amycrehore.blogspot.com) and I am working on the paintings now. They have vintage musical instruments, woodsy settings and animals.

“Roaming Tomcat Rag” – Amy Crehore – Blues Gal series 

“Blues Gal Drawing # 4″ – Amy Crehore – Blues Gal series

I am also working on putting together an art book of my best paintings and drawings.

I plan to just keep making art, showing, selling. I’m not running out of ideas.

One thing leads to another. Moving forward is the goal. Art is intellectual property and can be expanded upon in many ways and the outlets are varied.

Showing my work in NYC is also a possibility.

2. How did you connect with “Blab!” in the first place? 

I had always admired “Blab!” and I published a comic book myself once (“Boys and Girls Grow Up”), so it seemed like a natural fit.

One day I decided that I was ready, so I found out how to contact Monte Beauchamp and I began to send him jpgs of my Little Pierrot Series paintings.

After some months of doing that, he asked me to try a native girl w/a monkey with a sailor hat in a landscape spread (I had painted those characters before, but not together in one setting).

It took me a while to work it all out and make it entertaining, but I finally finished the painting (“The Banana Eater”) and it was included in the first Blab! art show at Track 16 Gallery. It has just now been published in “Blab! 17”. (BTW, I bought a copy at Forbidden Planet a couple of weeks ago – Marshall)

“The Nibbler” – by Amy Crehore – part of the Monkey Love Series

Monte also asked me to do two more monkeys for the first show and it became my Monkey Love Series (I have painted and shown 15 of them now at different west coast venues- the last 6 appearing for the first time  in the second Blab! show at CoproNason Gallery in Santa Monica).

The Monkey Love Series naturally evolved out of my Little Pierrot Series (below) and now the Blues Gals Series is evolving from those.

“Banjo Gal” – Amy Crehore – Little Pierrot Series  

3. Your work moved more strongly towards painting over illustration in the last 3 years. What spurred this change? 

Given the same subject – how would you execute an illustration differently than a painting?

The illustration profession has gone through many different changes over the last few years. It is not really a viable career anymore, at least not for me.

I was one of those people who always painted anyway and I often used my fine art paintings as samples to land illustration jobs and those jobs, in turn, kept me painting.

Luckily, there is a new trend toward representational painting in galleries and a lot of illustrators are now showing and selling fine art.

I began producing more and more fine art as the jobs dwindled and I saw this new market opening up, mostly on the west coast, but now it is a global art movement.

As a much younger artist, I had some solo fine art shows and showed at a couple of museums and then in the early 90’s, I became a magazine illustrator when Playboy and Esquire gave me spreads to do after seeing samples of my fine art.

My illustrations for magazines were always done in exactly the same way as my fine art  paintings, except that those paintings were “art directed” and the sketches had to be approved by editors.

So, I guess the answer to your question is: for illustrations I would have to take into account what the assignment called for.

I like my paintings better than my illustrations because they are all mine, from start to finish.

I do not make compromises. I paint exactly what I want to without concern for political correctness.

4. You recommend the 1923 book, Robert Henri’s “The Art Spirit”. What are some of his philosophies that you can relate to?  What other art books do you read?

Robert Henri was a great teacher who was very passionate about painting. It was all about the process of painting for him, about the nourishment of the soul through painting as a lifestyle. He considered it a very healthy way of life and a path to happiness. He encouraged the student to put more feeling and personality into his or her art.

He viewed each painting as a “trace” of life lived at the highest state of living and concentration.

Henri said that an art school should really be made up of two rooms: one room where you look at the model and the other room where you draw from your memory of what you saw.

He believed in painting from memory and so do I. Also, he believed  in the painter as an” inventor”.

He said that an artist should not be “attached” to any country or family and must be free in his own mind to pursue his vision. He wrote many more great things in this book and gave lots of wonderful tips about painting techniques.
Here is a good quote from Robert Henri:   “Those who express even a little of themselves never become old-fashioned. The only true modern movement is a frank expression of self.”

I also read biographies of artists such as Remedios Varo, Joseph Cornell, Picasso, Balthus, Van Gogh’s journal and the writings of Matisse, books on Henry Darger and Morton Barlett.

All kinds of art history books.

I enjoy newer art books by Thomas Woodruff, Daniel Clowes, Seth, etc. A magazine called “Comic Art”. A new book called “Art Out of Time”by Dan Nadel which is a collection of vintage unknown comics visionaries.

5. Fast forward 3 years from – where would you like to be showing?  What role does the Internet and communities on the web shape that likely future?

The Internet has opened up a global marketplace to artists like never before. More and more artists are showing and selling around the world. Viral marketing is a powerful thing.

Perhaps I will be showing in NYC, or other countries besides the U.S.A.  (yea! Lets get a show of Amy Crehore here in NYC!) 

Perhaps I will show in a museum setting, but I am already showing my art everywhere because the Internet enables anyone, anywhere to view your art on your own website. Communities such as stumbleupon , myspace, blogs and forums spread the word.

I like to blog about other artists, music, and comics and searches will often send people to my blog and they discover me.

6.Your online presence has enabled you to gather fans from around the world.
What can you tell us about them? 

I have received the nicest emails from people who have seen my art online. Some of the people who have bought my art or prints are in theater, film or the music professions.

Some have never bought art before or really looked at it, yet maybe they saw something I painted on boingboing.net or somewhere such as that and it stuck with them.

They are from all walks of life, all ages and live all over the world. This never would have been possible before the Internet.
 

 End of Interview with Amy Crehore – Part 3

Amy Crehore now has a special offer of Free shipping on prints through feb 28, 2007 now on her signed, limited edition giclee prints. Monkey Love Series Prints can be ordered at Amy Crehore’s Monkey Love Store and Little Pierrot Series Prints can be ordered at her Little Pierrot Store.

Most of Amy Crehore’s recent paintings sold right away – and yet there are some from a couple of years go, like the “Sleeping Gamblers” that remind me of Cezanne’s Card Players.  

I’m a big fan of Paul Cezanne; when I compare an artist to Cezanne, it means I think highly of the artist.

In answering question 5, Amy Crehore follows Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail by  “blogging about other artists, music, and comics and searches will often send people to my blog and they discover me”. 

Following The Long Tail is an approach I also take while writing Webmetricsguru.com - and am rewarded with traffic from all the people I write about.

I’m glad I have the opportunity to publish part 3 of my Interview with Amy Crehore and thank Amy for taking the time to prepare for it (and answer my questions as well as she did).

I dashed from the Frick Collection over to the Whitney last night – knowing I did not have much time; it was 5:30 PM and I was let in for free and a guard told me to see Picasso and American Art on the 4th Floor – so I did – and what a show!

However, the Whitney site does not show much of the details about the Picasso and American Art exhibition – I understand they want people to visit - and no photography is allowed (so they want you to buy the catalog – I guess) ……

…but what about all those people who want to go but can’t (because they don’t live or visit NYC)? 

I think it’s somewhat shortsighted of the Whitney to not have put the entire Catalog of Picasso and American Art online – so it can be more widely discussed.  After all – it’s that level of Internet participation with Art Communities that makes Art interesting today…that is our 21st century Renaissance.  As a result, I need to quote other magazine articles that do discuss Picasso and American Art in more depth than the Whitney does – online.

To quote New York Magazine (which actually has some content) ..

“Picasso and American Art,” now at the Whitney, is an ambitious examination of how this great father-monster shaped the modern American imagination. The way serious artists influence one another is always a subtle and complex subject, especially when the interplay occurs, as it does here, among strong, independent figures rather than between a leader and his followers (as was the case with, say, Caravaggio and the Caravaggisti). In an exhibit where space is limited and curators cannot display less-visible forms of influence, such as the moral or personal sway of an artist, the focus inevitably narrows. “Picasso and American Art” leaves out much. But what it does do—juxtapose paintings—it does brilliantly. Those who like to look closely at individual works will savor the show, entering a state of compare-and-contrast bliss. And, more mysteriously, they may gain a better sense of what’s peculiarly American.”

Since I could not photograph anything, and there’s no online catalog – all I can say …. I had no idea that Jasper Johns was so influenced by Picasso till I saw this exhibition … a show I will go back to a couple of times (plus there’s a lot I missed at the Whitney that’s running right now).

Jasper John’s encaustic /wax and oil paintings are FANTASTIC – and there’s a lot of them in the Picasso show ….. it shows a range of work of John’s that is not particularly well represented in books or online – but is absolutely some of his finest work …and it turns out.. inspired largely by Pablo Picasso – who would have known?  I guess it is known..but who would have known that Picasso has SO MUCH influence on Modern American Art – since he never actually came to America?  Well, he did influence a lot of of struggling artists who worshiped Picasso’s popularity in the 1930′s and 1940′s and grew up to be famous artists themselves – like Jasper Johns.

But the show also says something at Picasso – and my inner intuition whispered this in my ear.

“…Picasso became bored with painting reality, painting representational reality by 1910.  Essentially, Picasso focused entirely on 2 and 3 dimensional design as a “problem to be solved”  and then put an eye or an arm of a part of a face on it …. to give it human meaning …. and meaning to him.  

You can trace the large ovals and circles on a flat plane as what interested him, balancing it with form and color …and then putting an eye there..to make it a face, or an arm, to show it was a shoulder.    Picasso essentially disconnected design from visual meaning ..and then threw in the eye, the arm, the hand, they table as a marker to where he began…and ended.  

Because of that … his later works are not that satisfying on a human level – though they are masterpieces of design and construction.  Picasso embodied the philosophy of his times, that painting really was just a representation of 2 dimensional objects …so he went all the way – to purely abstract qualities – and yet, still had to say …this is a person, this is a table, this is a still life….. because he thought that it still needed a connection to visual reality…the reality he now found boring.”

However, the influenced painters in this show, with the exception of Jasper Johns, don’t produce anything nearly as good as Picasso’s work … how could they ..when they imitate him?  

I’ll have more to say when I see the Picasso and American Art, perhaps Friday, when I will attempt to visit a friend, Liz Camps, in a nearby hospital, recovering from an operation.  I don’t usually like visiting hospitals..but I will, for a friend.

I suppose as an artist we should care about capturing transient moments – and for me that could be  the artwork I do,  the Art Openings I go to and cover here at ArtNewYorkCity or Conferences I attend and cover at WebMetricsGuru.

As I am a high tech junkie – I like gadgets and decided I needed a video camera to take MP4 videos – decent length / size and also function as a player for podcasts and transcribed online videos as well as a sound recorder.   Well, I found a reasonably good device that does all of that and more in the Optimus DV-5040 5.0MP Digital Camera Camcorder  which I bought a couple of weeks ago.

I took a couple of videos that you can see, along with my initial comments and a review prior to attending Ad-Tech in NYC earlier this month; I had a press pass as a blogger for Know More Media – for my WebMetricsGuru.com blog and I wanted to take some videos …and I did!

You can see an online video I took of a unique product at the Ad-Tech show and another YouTube video of Out of This World @ PS 122 -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48p-sQh4Za0.

Overall, I’m happy with the Digital Video Camera I bought and the only gotchas are – low battery life and not so great in low light situations…but for 99 bucks, or less, it’s a fantastic deal.

I spent most of the day at Brooklyn Artists Gym and got did 2 large oil pastels studies, the first of a nude model and the second, a still life.  You can click on each picture to get a larger view and possibly, the proportions will be more correctly sized.

 

Spent 3 hours on this oil pastel sketch of a nude - painted this model twice before.  As usual, I had difficulty working on the model’s face but managed to do so. I was aware that my proportions for the model were off – but did not mind.  I was going for “feeling” and noticed I was producing a lot of subtle variations of color, and the area in the lower left has many variations of color.

I also used my left hand for some of the drawing (I’m right handed) and found I can do better work when some of it is done using my left hand.

 

Decided I needed to paint more and stayed at the Studio for a couple of house more - had the studio all to myself during that time.   I wanted to paint a still life but there were not apples or pears, no flowers, nothing much I cared about to use as a model for the still life in the studio. Found an almost empty bottle of red wine in the refrigerator and used my own red plaid scarf plus a scissors that was lying around – and the back of a stretched canvas as a model. 

I need to have an emotional response ,with a person or object before painting it – I did not want to start a still life about objects I do not care about – that’s the formula for a bad painting, or at least, a very boring one.  What I picked as objects – I cared about.  I had the last of the red wine in the bottle and I guess the scissors are symbolic too…as I used to know someone who liked to cut things off (I’ll leave it at that).

When I stepped back look at my still life – I felt a clarity in it that I used to not have when I painted still life’s in the past.  Yes, I have changed – I know myself – I’m not fighting it, I’ve accepted what my gifts are.  I’m not trying to be something I’m not – just enjoying being “me” and valuing it – my gifts.  I felt SO GOOD mixing the colors – pushing it while being natural.  Who needs to be anyone else – I’m quite happy to be “me”.  

When I was younger – I tried to be like the artists I admired, and my paintings, After The Bath and Homage to Manet were fully mine yet they looked at the artists I admired and the best of me was held in check while I struggled to be like them – the people I admired.  

Now I know when to “stop” painting – when I have said what I had to say.  I could not do that years ago – I did not know when or how to stop and overpainted quite a bit- I just stopped when I was exhausted or sick of the work. 

See, we get better as we get older – some things do improve.  

Here’s the photo of the still life from which I made the painting above.

I tried to get the angle and positioning as close to possible to match the view in my painting.

I was quite happy with both oil pastels that I painted today and before I left the studio, I spent about a half an hour looking at all the work I did this year and I feel quite proud of my work.  I had some thoughts that came to me as I painted and soon after I left the studio. 

My first thought – I’m pretty darn good as a painter / colorist and I want a show (maybe I should think about framing all my oil pastels – even if it costs a bit) - but it does not have to happen now.  I counted about 18 oil pastels and 5 or 6 paintings I’ve done since this spring – each done in one sitting.   Since I go to many museums and art openings – I have a pretty good idea of what I like, what I think is good or not.  I think my work is good, maybe better than good – but it’s ok to paint and not show anything right now.

OK, two more thoughts.   Had dinner in a Mexican restaurant nearby – there’s a mural in the restaurant that’s quite good ….. but somehow, because it’s in a restaurant – it fades into the wall.  Why is that?   All of a sudden – it hit me – in order for Art to stand out – it has to be well positioned (meaning – if the mural were in a cultural center or perhaps a small museum – it might have stood out).  In order for good work to be great work, it needs to be different somehow, and it also needs to be well positioned (so it can be admired, seen by the many)..  

If you put a Vermeer painting in the Mexican Cafe – it also might have disappeared in the woodwork – or even the Van Gogh I admired last week at the Metropolitan Museum – when Van Gogh first showed his work – it also was not recognized – it took individuals with vision to appreciate someone like Van Gogh.

Maybe the Mexican Mural is not that good – but there’s no denying that showing paintings in a restaurant is not positioning them well, in almost every case – no one will take painting in a restaurant very seriously.   And the other part – enough people need to validate the selection.  So, if your work is in a museum – it’s somewhat validated already – but what really makes works well known is several authorities validating the artwork – first it needs to be “positioned” well and then validated.

My final idea, about positioning again, involves one of my clients whose homepage has 4 types of content (pages).  While the client thinks each type of page is different and one type, called an ideas page, was superior in some respects, web analytics data showed little different in ideas pages from other pages that ran on their homepage.  It turns out, the main difference – that affected how people reacted to their pages – how the client positioned their pages and what the put on the pages.

Positioning, more than anything else, determines the value of a thing in our world.  What does that mean to me?

For one thing, as a Artist and Web Analyst – how I think of my work and how I position myself, to  a large extent, determines what is going to happen both in my Art and in my professional life. 

I also think I could be, if positioned properly, an much more well known authority in Web Analytics than I am today, and someone who can bring new ideas in the field – as I’m attempting to do at IBM; or, I can be in a situation where I’m not positioned that way – and therefore – not valued (or better yet, my true value is not seen or appreciated).

This coming year, I’ve decided I want to paint much more, I want to be in a position where that’s going to be easy (to paint) and money will not be a problem, where my Web Analytics will flow and where I’ll “well positioned”.

That’s the thoughts I had today as I painted these two paintings.

I’m on my way out the door soon to see Annie Ratti’s EVAPORATED SEA @ White Box.

I’ll have more to say later tonight once I’ve seen it – here’s the description which gives an idea of why I’m interested in going to the opening.

“Exhibition Dates: November 17 – December 16, 2006 Opening Reception: Friday, November 17, 6 – 8pmViewing Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm

Viewing Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pmANNIE RATTI’s site-specific installation Evaporated Sea will radically alter White Box’s seemingly archeological space by filling it with sea salt, challenging visitors to revise the parameters by which they view art and overturning any preconceptions they had about what constitutes an exhibition space. The floor will be encrusted in salt. The existing catwalk will be transformed into a wooden pier-like structure that will allow visitors to view the installation from its center. An audio component will further enhance the overall sensorial experience.

This project, stated Ms. Ratti, is a “composite psychological window reflecting the appearance, disappearance, and reincarnation of memories attached to social complexities. This will be represented by the imagery projected in the slides and videos–referencing Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, children at play, and additional subjects that provoke reconsideration of contemporary society and the essence of humanity.”

Annie Ratti has shown in major international museums, galleries, and Biennales over the past twenty years. She has initiatiated and collaborated on projects with artists such as Joseph Kosuth, John Armleder, Allan Kaprow, Hamish Fulton, Haim Steinbach, Ilya Kabakov, Marina Abramovic, Giulio Paolini, Richard Nonas, Jimmie Durham, Alfredo Jarr and Marjetica Potrc. Her work has become known for its focus on collaborations and interactive communication. In that capacity, she has been part of a generation of contemporary artists who experimented and developed strategies for communicative methodology that continue to resonate today.”
These are some other shows nearby – I’ll see how many I’m up for attending and photographing:

Odili Donald Odita & Martha Camerillo at Jack Shainman
W 20 street, 513

“Who Cares Book Launch Party” for The NY Art Book Fair
W 22 street, 548, 5-7pm

Dave Anderson at Andrew Kreps
W 22 street, 525

Launch party for NOOKA watches at New Museum of Contemporary Art
W 22 street, 556, 6:30-9pm

Zoe Crosher at DCKT Contemporary, Inc.
W 24 street, 552, floor 2

Mark Mulroney at Mixed Greens
W 26 street, 531, floor 1

Ivan Navarro at Roebling Hall
W 26 street, 606

If nothing else, I’d have liked to go by the NY Art Book Fair Party.  We’ll see.

I met Jeff Howe of Wired Magazine tonight at ApexArt Gallery in Lower Manhattan.  I saw the notice for this show in www.Artcards.cc a couple of days ago and made the decision I’d show up.  The public notes for this show are below and my comments and transcript follow.

Most of the content of this talk is contained in Jeff Howe’s CrowdSourcing article on Wired.com earlier this year.  Here are my notes and a few thoughts afterwards:

Notes:
====================================
Started with Converse Gallery sent out a viral campaign of why people love their Converse Sneakers…all user generated.  Jeff became a little obsessed with the idea …. outsourcing to the crowd sourcing…term was picked up and widely adopted.   Went from 3 results to 2.2 million results in Google in a couple of weeks.

Crowdsourcing is when a company outsources a job previously done by an employee and gives it to a stranger.

How does it work?  Cambrian House had ideas that are voted on and anyone who has passed the voting gets developed and there’s royalties. (note: I wrote about Cambrian House’s PR stunt bring 10,000 Pizzas to Google for Lunch a couple of months ago – very successful stunt)

Why do they do it?  Average cost of providing amateur verses professional television…great savings result.

If the crown helps build your product then the product will probably appeal to the crowd.

Threadless.com   (shoe design done by social media).

InnoCentive…crowd sourcing science..  Correlation between distance
from problem is better prediction of ability to solve problems …. Krim Lakhami research paper.

Second Life…while Linden Labs built the infrastructure rhe crowd built
the world..the meta verse.

Crowdsourcing can cause economic destruction in areas like stock
photos…. 300 dollars for stock photographer vs 3 dollar for a
crowdsourced photographer.   The quality is almost indistinguishable.
Make up profit in volume.

People who shoot for iStockphoto don’t really do it for the money.

The crowd has many talents and is dispersed, has a short attention span..work is broken up to micro chunk.

Mechanical Turk …Amazon created..human intelligence tasks.  Micro
chunk labor.  Article ii CSM a month ago.   Crownd is full of specialists.  90 percent is junk but 10 percent is good.  Digg is a
crowd filter.

Gannet started a crowd sourcing project.  Line between work and play
have blurred.  Hypoposos  …3 million band profiles o Myspace.

Wired.com  …old media is frozen in time.  We’re never done telling the
story.

1997 ….yellow 3 corner room….viewer is part of it (at either MOMA or Whitney)

Pew Study show majority of 11 to 16 get their news from Digg – sites like that.

Myspace home page can actually be a work of art.

Search for community ….boundary between player and viewer dissolving.

Makers of intellectual properties.

Crowd as creators and professionals as packagers..a lot of jobs are
being eliminating.

Thesheepmarket.com  community

But also.there’s need for an audience.  Internet provides

Wiki books …why are you here now?

Swarm of angels …British film based on getting 1 million pounds to
produce a movie that they can also contribute to.

======================================
I took a look at the Phantom Captain: Art and Crowdsourcing curated by Andrea Grover  – who was in the audience and spoke with Jeff Howe for a couple of minutes tonight – I also looked briefly at the http://www.thesheepmarket.com/ video that was playing in the backroom.

Once I left, I had dinner next door - a glass of Red Wine, bowl of soup and some fresh fruit for dessert – and about 40 dollars later – I was on my way home – feeling fat, dumb and happy – and hopefully not crowdsourced!

Having Dinner and Red Wine after ApexArt.

Been looking at David Galenston’s two books – thinking I’ll purchase the latest book called Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity.   Got interested in David W. Galenson after reading a review of his ideas in the New York Times today.  

In The Art of Pricing Great Art, the writer, Mr. Leonhardt, expresses the following:

“The mysterious part of the current mania lies in figuring out what exactly makes a piece of art worth $30 million instead of, say, $1 million. Not even people who make their living selling art claim to have much of a definition of great art. In fact, they’re proud not to have one. “That’s where the market becomes magical,” Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s chief auctioneer, told me.”

In my www.webmetricsguru.com blog – I use with metrics to solve a business need (some times I make my own metrics – you have to be creative – you know); a theory explaining value of a work of art would appeal to someone with my values and way of thinking.

There’s a lot of good stuff in the Leonhardt article so I’ll quote from it quite a bit, then comment at the end.

“…..he began collecting data on the sale price of works by Warhol, Jackson Pollock and other American artists, and he discovered a pattern. Most of them produced their most valuable work either very early in their career, like Warhol, or very late, like Pollock. When he expanded his research to European painters, he found the same pattern.

Not only that, but the two groups tended to approach art, and to talk about it, in strikingly different ways. The young geniuses, like Gauguin, Picasso and Van Gogh, were conceptual innovators whose paintings broke sharply from previous work. They typically had a precise goal in mind when they started a piece and didn’t need long to finish it. “Above all, don’t sweat over a painting,” Gauguin once told a friend. “A great sentiment can be rendered immediately.”

The late bloomers, on the other hand, arrived at their innovations gradually, through trial and error, making their major contributions late in life. They painted the same subject again and again, experimenting on the canvas, often reluctant to say that a painting was finished. Consider that Cézanne, who did his most valuable and celebrated work in his 60s, signed few of his paintings.

Mr. Galenson has extended the theory to novelists, poets and beyond, arguing that most creative people fall on one end or the other of the spectrum, and he has earned a fair bit of attention. Malcolm Gladwell, in a speech at Columbia University, described “Old Masters and Young Geniuses,” which Mr. Galenson published this year, as “a really wonderful book.” Wired magazine recently profiled him under the headline, “What Kind of Genius Are You?”

Maybe few artists are exactly one type or the other – I believe there is polarity in just about everything – including creativity.

“……If you look through the prices from the current auction season, or walk through any major museum, you can’t help but notice that Mr. Galenson is onto something. When a still life that Cézanne painted at the age of 56, for instance, fetched $37 million at Sotheby’s last week, art experts cited the rarity of Cézanne still lifes. The next night at Christie’s, another Cézanne still life — one painted when he was 34 — sold for just $1.1 million. “

I don’t find that surprising – Cezanne’s late still lifes are much more “unique” than his earlier work – when he was struggling to find himself and his style.  While Cezanne’s early work is notable – yet he had he not evolved his later style and revolutionized art.  Had Paul Cezanne painted his early still lifes, then died all of a sudden, before doing his later work - we’d probably not know he existed today – he’d never become that well known for his early work.

Now, it turns out that Malcolm Gladwell (the same Malcolm Gladwell who I heard at Webmasterworld Pubcon X in Boston, earlier this year) has come to Galenson’s defense and spoke about Galenson’s theory in February at Columbia.   I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Age Before Beauty all the way through and it’s great!

“…way—he’s an economist—the way he decides to analyse great artists is to look at the value of their paintings. How much money do their paintings reach at auction? There’s a big record called the [GuideMayer] which is this big Swiss volume, which records precisely what’s paid for every painting at all the major auction houses of the year, and he basically goes through this thing, combs through it and does these very, very complicated regression analyses based on the size of the painting and when it was painted and how much was paid for it, et cetera. And using this whole kind of thing.

He analyses the value of the paintings of famous artists. And he comes up with this really interesting conclusion, which is that, if you do that kind of analysis, looking at the value of paintings of famous artists over the course of their career, what happens is they divide quite neatly into two groups. There’s a group of artists that do their greatest work very, very early in their career, and then their value declines, and there’s a group of artists who do their very best  work at the very end of their career, right? The very end of life. In other words there isn’t a kind of single profile of what it means to be a successful artist; there’s two.”

“…So he says, look, Pisarro peaks at forty-five, Degas at forty-six, Kandinsky at fifty-two, Georgia O’Keefe at forty-eight. Munch, on the other hand, does his best work at thirty-four, Derain at twenty-four, Braque at twenty-eight, Juan Gris at twenty-eight, and de Chirico at twenty-six.” “……That’s very much the way that experimental artists are working, they’re kind of groping towards something they can’t quite define. Now here, by contrast, is another art historian talking about Picasso: “There was not one Picasso, but ten, twenty, always different, unpredictably changing. And in this he was the opposite of a Cezanne, whose work followed that logical, reasonable course to fruition.” Cezanne famously said, “I seek in painting.” What did Picasso say? He said, “I don’t seek, I find.”“…he looks, for example, at the abstract expressionists and points out, you know, you’ve got a group of older abstract expressionists like Rothko and de Kooning and Jackson Pollock—they’re all guys who peak in their fifties and in some cases in their sixties. It’s a long time to work out their method. And then you’ve got this younger group, you know, Stella, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, who peak, on the contrary, in their twenties, and who have a radically different way of explaining their art, and of doing art and of thinking about art, and that look at the older generation of abstract expressionists and think of them as being kind of antiintellectual, as being kind of mere painters, not kind of thinkers who are possessed of an idea and a concept of how to do art, but guys who are kind of mucking around with paint.”

Ok, I agree with most of this – but what if your the first type of artist -and you may have peaked early but don’t want to accept that your too old to achieve anything lasting now….what do you do?  It’s a question I don’t as yet, have an answer to.