Baren Digest Monday, 9 September 2002 Volume 20 : Number 1952 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Jean Womack" Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 08:50:09 -0700 Subject: [Baren 19099] Re: Baren Digest V20 #1951 Hi Marilyn, Please spell my name write on the colphon, or whatever you call it. It is Jean Eger Womack. I kept my ex-husband's last name when we divorced so that my son's school teachers would be able to reach me in an emergency, by looking in the telephone directory. Now I keep it as my middle name for the same general reason. Howard ask me to keep Jean Eger as my name for artistic purposes--to sign my art work that way and keep my web site in that name, but I don't believe in using false names. I rejected that idea long ago after an old red-headed boyfriend persuaded me (after much nagging) to use a false name when talking to Art Carter of the Central Labor Council. It made me feel so bad to do that, that I never did it again. I don't even remember what name he said to use. Anyway, Art knows who I am, so I doubt he was fooled for a minute. He also convinced me to write articles for my little newspaper and use fake bylines for the newspaper articles, in order to make it look like there were more people working on the newspaper than just me and a few volunteers. He gave me a lot of bad advice, but he gave me a lot of good advice too and really saved my life and my son's life. Gallery owners have to make a profit or there won't be a gallery to sell either reproductions or original prints. I think we are swimming against the tide when we insist they not use the word "print" to describe the art work they are selling. Anyway, buyers should understand that they buy a print because they like it and want to look at it for the rest of their lives, not as an investment. The only people who buy and sell art as an investment are governments and museums. I think they use the sale of Van Gogh and Monet paintings, for example, as a way of transferring enormous amounts of money legally. I don't know that to be a fact, I just think it. I have no inside knowledge of that end of the art market. However, it is just awe inspiring to read the astronomical price of the art work of some very famous artist, and then very sad to read in an artists' magazine that the artist himself or herself is on the street penniless. I think that, in California, according to my late cartoonist friend Joel Beck, the artist is entitled to a percentage of any sale over $2,000 if the art work is resold. Reproduction rights of artists is another interesting topic. The artist can sell the art work and retain reproduction rights to the art work. In other words, the artist can ask for a percent of the sale of the art work if it is used on the cover of a magazine, or something like that, or stop it from being used. I think the owner of a print should have the right to display it, on the world wide web, for example, if they want to sell it. The Graphic Artists guild puts out a small guide to pricing and artist's legal rights. I never sold any art work for enough money to worry about that, so I didn't investigate it very much. There is a saying bandied about around here that the artist's work is only worth a lot after he or she is dead, by which I think they mean they are going to prevent me from selling enough of my art work to make a living until after I am dead and then they are going to make money on it. I think that is manipulation of the art market which is probably against the law. I don't say I am all that great as an artist, but I think my art work is worth more than I have been selling it for. I think the going price for a 10 x 15 original print these days is about $50 unless one is a university professor. Then the price increases considerably. I do have a couple of nice prints to deliver to a local woman which am selling to her for $25 each, which would be a great price if I could sell the whole edition of 75. But it is not likely that I can do that. I guess I already talked myself out of a commission for two $250 oil paintings of her house by offering her the prints for $25 each. It's time to get the oil paints out again. The prints were studies for the oil paintings. Anyway, I wouldn't mind all that if I could sell a few prints, then it would be worthwhile. But about all I can do is give those Baren and Print Australia portfolios to some charitable cause...* I thought you'd like to know that I gave my son and his wife a Print Australia portfolio to show at the Officer's Club in Monterey, if they have room for it, and a budget and inclination to frame the prints. Or somewhere in Monterey. Then he can do whatever he thinks is appropriate with it afterwards, but they will be worth more money if they get shown and documented with a newspaper story. Keeping the portfolio together is preferable, but art dealers have been known to break up the portfolios and sell individual prints when they needed the money and couldn't sell the whole portfolio for a good price. I thought they would be more interested in Print Australia because it is an international exchange. I'll get around to the Baren prints pretty soon. I have so many prints now, that there doesn't seem to be much reason to just have them stacking up around the house. When I get another job teaching art, I'll use them for teaching purposes. I don't know if San Francisco State University wants a set of Baren prints, but I guess I'll offer one of the Baren portfolios to them, after I take some slides of them. I forgot to take slides of the Print Australia prints before I sent them to my son, but they do have them documented on line. Jean Eger Womack http://www.jeaneger.com *(archivist's note: portions edited due to being unrelated to printmaking) ------------------------------ From: "Bill H. Ritchie, Jr." Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 09:01:53 -0700 Subject: [Baren 19100] Re: Baren Digest V20 #1950 Regarding original prints (thanks to Marilynn Smith) I had this thought: In the age of mechanical reproduction (in my opinion, all printmaking artists should include reading Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in their history) the face value of a print meant something else than it does in this age, the age of digital reproduction. I call it the difference between face value and interface value. For example I like the way a hand-pulled print (especially hand-pulled, live, right in the presence of the viewer, as in the open studio, street fair, etc.) is bringing the artist and the audience face to face. However, reproduction now--with the exception sometimes of size, deep embossing, sheen, flocking, etc.--can look identical in "face value" on the surface. What I think now is that the work of art in the age of digital reproduction has a high "interface value" like the interface the early computer programmer and software designers were concerned about. The technical people needed to bridge he gap between themselves (mathematicians, engineers and others working in teams) and the lone, individual, non-programmer. People like me needed a "look-and-feel" interface. The "mouse" device, the TV screen, the keyboard--all the more familiar devices we were at least somewhat skilled with. So, too, with the digital print. It looks and feels like a "real" print, painting, drawing, etc. So how did it end up in a art gallery or print bin, looking all the world like a color litho or woodcut? The gallery, in my opinion, is an "interface" with a high "face value" by tradition--a place of high priced art works of potentially increasing value. Compared to a poster shop or tee shirt vendor (or magazine stand, postcard stand, etc.), NOT the same thing! Comingled with true, handmade works, there's a difference. So I figure that a digital print may, in some instances, have the interface value the artist needs to, eventually perhaps, bring the audience face to face in the street, so to speak, in a peaceful, beautiful way, a free way. - - Bill Professional Career Site: www.seanet.com/~ritchie First Emeralda Portal Site: www.artsport.com Bill's Virtual Art Gallery & e-commerce Site: www.myartpatron.com Experimental Free Site: www.freeyellow.com/members/videoprint Snail Mail: 500 Aloha #105, Seattle 98109 e-mail: ritchie#seanet.com Professional Career Site: www.seanet.com/~ritchie First Emeralda Portal Site: www.artsport.com Bill's Virtual Art Gallery & e-commerce Site: www.myartpatron.com Experimental Free Site: www.freeyellow.com/members/videoprint Snail Mail: 500 Aloha #105, Seattle 98109 e-mail: ritchie#seanet.com ------------------------------ From: Sharri LaPierre Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 19:51:22 -0700 Subject: [Baren 19101] Re: Baren Digest V20 #1951 > We as printmakers need to take the responsibility of educating. > Marilynn > Yes, I fear, it will forever be our mission to educate. What I have found works best is to start with " I'm a printmaker, and it seems not too many people are really familiar with what constitutes an original print and what is simply a reproduction of a painting, or drawing. Most people just have no idea what all goes into making an etching or woodblock or ............". From this type of beginning you can form a give and take between you and the gallery owner that doesn't embarrass either of you (or your husband - they are a very touchy breed I've found :-)). The best part is you can enlist another soldier, who is more than willing to march arm in arm with you, in the war against Limited Edition Deceit. If the gallery owner doesn't know a print from a reproduction they shouldn't be in the business, and won't last long, but most of them are really intrigued when you start describing how to do an original print, if they don't know. We'll never know how much good it does, because in the end, they will operate from the bottom line and there is big money in reproductions - much more of a margin than with our prints. Alas. Sigh. Sharri ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V20 #1952 *****************************