[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Sunday, 24 October 1999 Volume 09 : Number 754 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ruth Leaf Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 09:11:24 -0700 Subject: [Baren 6356] Re: Baren Digest V9 #753 I find the discussion of great art, mediocre art, selling out really interesting. I've been a printmaker for 50 years and when I look back at the body of work, I realize we are the sum of our experiences and though I've gone through many periods some of them political statements, antiwar stuff, and pretty landscapes (which incidentally was a good income) and abstractions and it was all me. I was always searching for something that would make me happy when it came off the press and sometimes I was. I think the motivation was the high you get when you complete something and it's what you meant. As long as you HAVE to make art you have no choice and you are luckier than most people who don't get the kind of highs artists get. Don't stop. Ruth ------------------------------ From: "Jean Eger" Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 02:59:37 +0900 Subject: [Baren 6357] I have given some thought to the subject of a cohesive body of work, or a coherent body of work. If one were to have a one-man show, then one could hang all those prints together in the same room and it would look like the same person made them, not two different people. Then you could say that artist had his or her own "style," that might even be recognizable. The subject matter could differ greatly, but the style would still be there, like an individual's fingerprint. Of course if a person used Poser 4, as I just did, and printed out some figure poses she liked, then traced them and made them into a woodcut, where would the style be? I guess it would be a Poser 4 style, not a Jean Eger style. I have to keep kicking myself to make myself stay original. I have to remind myself not to trace those figures. I only made them so I could see the relationship between body parts and where the light falls on the figure. Well, those are the thought processes of a mediocre artist. Most of us have already resolved those issues long ago. For me, being original is important, because I don't have the skill to be a great copyist, as Dave is. Well, if I drew out the figures freehand, while looking at the Poser 4 composition that I just made, then my art work would be original, and it would have my original style, I think. (I used Mervyn's ads before I got Poser 4.) (Sometimes Howard poses for me too!) I still get to pick the color, the Bokashi blend, whether or not to use black lines, overlapping or atmopheric perspective and so on and on and on. In the last print, I used brown lines to define the horse, but solid blocks of color for everything else. That was not a concious decision, now that I look at it in retrospect. Perhaps I should make 10 with that style. I have to thank Gayle for suggesting that I do some more flying horse prints. And THEN, if I make some small prints I like, I could make them into BIG prints! My goal is to fill a gallery with my flying horses. Maria, you might consider organizing some print shows and get to know the other printmakers in LV, including the university. The Los Angeles Print Society probably has members in LV. You would really get to know the gallery scene this way, by approaching them for a show for a group of printmakers. You could even try to get a Baren show in Las Vegas somewhere and that would be a good excuse to approach everyone! There is much more money-making potential in that than in taking over Printworks magazine, which seems like it should go to an academic institution. Of course, you probably have already started your own mailing list for your collectors and friends and relatives. Jean Eger http://users.lanminds.com/~jeaneger ------------------------------ From: Josephine Severn Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 20:24:54 +1000 Subject: [Baren 6360] Content and appropriation. Getting the digest version feels like I am reduced to mailing post scripts to everyone else's comments. I'm listening to debate on two forums and I'd like to cross post my comments on the issues. The subject of content is one that is fundamental to art practice. Its a feature of postmodernity that it is no longer OK to make art to be 'just' aesthetically pleasing, it must justify its existence by making a statement. In fact aesthetically pleasing is often scorned along with decoration and anything feminine in the work. The problem with this academic viewpoint is that it is only understood by the educated few. The masses out there don't know about this and don't care. They think all 'artists' are painters and their first criteria about an art work is whether they like it or whether it will match the curtains. If there isn't a representational image that they can recognise enough to form an opinion about how well the artist has rendered the subject then they are lost. So the artist is left with the dilemma of choosing whether to satisfy the art world and critics and thus gain recognition, or whether to make something that is saleable and thus eat. And if you choose the latter you are a 'sell out' though if this refers to your exhibition maybe its not a bad thing. Its this issue about how aesthetics shapes the art market that I am one day going to write my thesis on. (Dont anyone steal my subject!) A couple of days ago I found I found the Museum of Bad Art. This wonderful site not only left me rolling on the floor, but also left me thinking that the author had very succinctly shown us all what is wrong with the art world. The site is at http://www.glyphs.com/moba/ I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I would like to hear how everyone else resolves this issue. My personal choice has been to separate my practice into two distinct areas. My 'serious' museum practice with 'informed' post modern content and contemporary techniques (at least that is what I'm trying to do) and the 'commercial' works that I have just started working on that are informed by my observations of what I think might sell. I make no apologies for this, its just a way of surviving. The second issue I'd like to raise is the one of appropriation. Having been much of a recluse for the last few years, I am out of touch on the latest views on copyright and the ethics of using another's image. I know the work of many artists who have done this as a postmodern 'trend' of addressing fundamental concepts of ownership and reproduction. I think its still legal for someone to take the work of a long dead person and change it (I'm thinking of Duchamp's mona lisa here and all the work that followed it) but what if I find an image on the net that is appropriate to my current series and want to use it. Where is the line? If I say invert the image black to white or left to right and then re-carve it and produce a new work from it (I wont say 'original') is this in breach of copyright? Is it ethical? Should I care? If its from the other side of the world and the owner of the first image will never know, does it matter? I'm sure there are people out there who do this all the time, why else are there warnings of ownership on all the sites I visit? And does the answer to these questions vary according to which country you are in? If I then acknowledge the source in the description of the work and give it free advertisting. Where does that leave me? Thats enough from me for the time being. I'm off to scan some art to put on my site and see if I can make a buck from it. Bit cynical this morning I think. Josephine ------------------------------ From: kim and paul Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 05:52:53 +0000 Subject: [Baren 6363] Re: Baren Digest V9 #753 On Selling Out or Staying True: A university setting demands content/concept in art, then one is thrust upon the demands of the rest of the world. Hence the phrase "struggling artist". It seems like most Americans are more fascinated with the details of a piece (it's technique and execution) than what it is about. This is what I hear from non-artists (my mother being a good example): "Look at all the colors in the eyes on that face. How did they do that?" or "The colors in this picture match the color scheme in my living room." I dunno, Amanda's "Mother Teresa" might work here (?). Amanda had a show of her prints at a local gallery in Tucson right before she graduated and many of her prints, if not most of them, sold. What were they? Her clown prints. Recently she showed her landscape prints and in the same place and none of them sold. Is there a lesson to be learned here? I dunno. Maybe it was the size of the work, maybe it was a lack of color, who knows? There are so many variables that, in the end, it is a waste of time to even think about it. The fact is that Amanda was making landscapes because it was time for her to make landscapes. The minute you try to "give the market what it wants", or what you THINK it wants, you're doomed to mediocrity. Your passion for what you do will come through and THAT is what sells work. Until the time arrives when your work does sell enough to pay the rent, just keep plugging on, and yes, make some "pretty pictures", sell them to Carlton cards or Hallmark, Portal Publications, etc. and get those royalty checks to keep you going. It isn't a sellout. It is surviving. Mozart did it. Durer did it. Rembrandt, Clarence White (a photographer), graphic designers and illustrators. James Rosenquist started off painting roadside billboards. Dave, don't worry about whether or not a retrospect of your work will yield any cohesiveness. The fact that you are constantly working at making art, is enough. The rest will take care of itself. I finally came to terms with this sore subject last year. My cycling prints would probably not get me into UC Santa Barbara or RIT but now that is not important to me. What is most important to me is to keep making art and to follow the subjects that interest me, allowing them to evolve as I work. As for the pretty picture that all of us are bound to make at one time or another, there is a big world outside of the museum and gallery setting. You don't need to eat macaroni and cheese for the rest of your life. Kim Kaschimer-Medina Tucson, AZ ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V9 #754 ***************************