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Please feel free to forward this to others, who can subscribe by sending their name and email to sej@studionotes.org ************************************************************ e-J #2 studioNOTES e-Journal (Feb-Mar) a project of studioNOTES ************************************************************ Welcome to the second issue of the studioNOTES e-Journal. So that all mail programs and computers can handle it, it is in plain text. To go to the links shown between angle brackets <like this>, simply click on them while you are connected to the Internet, if your mail program and browser can handle that, as most can. Otherwise, copy and paste them into your browser. Your comments are welcomed. The general layout and contents for this issue are: * RESOURCES: CAREER (Information to help you get support for your work or make it easier or more pleasant) Lawyers for the Arts * Perseverance * Guide to Commissioning Artwork * RESOURCES: TECHNICAL (Information on artmaking techniques and materials, art history and related, promotional materials) Timeline of Art History * Reproductions from The UK's National Gallery * Letter Shapes and Writing Systems * Computer Graphics, Visualization and Human-Computer Interaction * ART IN GENERAL (Art to look at and think about) Stop Motion Studies * Whitney ARTPORT * World's Tallest Virtual Building * Censorship * Censorship File * Bella Feldman's War Toys * IN HOUSE (News about studioNOTES and AOM, Opinions and Observations) Counseling Notes * AOM Still Tops Google Search, others * Publisher's Corner * Subscriber of the Moment: Joan Schulze * Subscriber of the Moment Notes * ASK STUDIONOTES: (Questions from readers) Sales Contracts and Resale of Art * THIS AND THAT (Stuff that doesn't necessarily fit into the other categories) Woman Arrested for Car Art * Willful Destruction of Art * 30,000-year-old Carvings Found * READERS RECOMMEND (Books, art materials, etc.) * QUOTES ||__________________ NOTICE ________________________________ || If you are not a member of the free studioNOTES email || discussion list but would like to be, send a BLANK email to || studionotes-L-subscribe@topica.com || Discussion topics include everything and anything about || art, from the technical to the sublime. ||__________________________________________________________ ************************* Begin Contents ************* RESOURCES: CAREER * Lawyers for The Arts. If you need help with a legal problem related your art work or art life, look for the Lawyers for the Arts organization nearest you. There seems to be no parent organization tying them together, but there are such services in New York, San Francisco, Oakland, Washington (State and DC), Georgia, Texas, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. A partial and not up-to-date list is at http://dwij.org/matrix/vla_list.html. Some provide free services, some provide low-cost initial consultations, seminars and printed materials. The most active seems to be the New York Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, 1 East 53rd St, 6th floor, New York, NY 10022-4201; 212-319-2787x1; fax: -752-6575; www.vlany.org * Perseverance. In my years of observing and interviewing artists I have noticed that the successful ones share a belief that the world needs what they are doing. For them, "it's about the art, not the artist," as Beth Yarnelle Edwards put it. Their belief leads to perseverance. This conviction is not something that can be manufactured, but it can be a goal. And all is not lost for the artist who does not yet have enough faith. Keeping at it will still pay off. Of course what you do must suit your personality and it has to make sense: no amount of painting a canvas red will turn it blue. Hint: one technique to help you keep at it is to report each week's promotional activities to a willing but no-nonsense friend or colleague. Keeping a log helps, too. ---Benny S * Guide to Commissioning Artwork Artists involved in public art might want to have "A New Renaissance, by Richard Brecknock, available as a free download from the author's site, http://www.brecknockconsulting.com.au. The site describes the book as "a practical guide to commissioning and to assist artists and commissioners work their way through the process with the minimum of problems. The handbook draws on his extensive experience as both a practicing visual artist and as a consultant to architects, landscape architects and urban designers." RESOURCES: TECHNICAL * Timeline of Art History The Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History runs from prehistory to 1800, with plans to bring it up to the present by the fall of 2004. According to the site, it is a "chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated especially by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. The Museum's curatorial, conservation, and education staff the largest team of art experts anywhere in the world research and write the Timeline, which is an invaluable reference and research tool for students, educators, scholars, and anyone interested in the study of art history and related subjects." First-time visitors will want to use the helpful tutorial. www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm. * Reproductions The National Gallery now offers a "Print on Demand" service that provides high quality digital prints from a selection of over 1,000 paintings from its permanent collection. These reproductions, available in sizes A4, A3 and A2, are made from computer scans taken directly from the paintings, a process developed by the National Gallery Scientific Department in conjunction with Hewlett Packard. According to the museum, "Provided that the prints are not exposed to extreme conditions, the lightfast expectancy can be as much as 70 years." More details. * Interesting Letter Shapes and Writing Systems Omniglot.com has a fount of material on such subjects as What is Writing, Alphabetic Writing Systems and Undeciphered Writing Systems. For artists who use text in their work, this whole site should prove fascinating. For those particularly interested in shapes and forms created primarily for functional purposes but which stand on their own as aesthetic objects, the section on Writing Alternative Writing Systems should provide a lot of source material. Check, for instance, the Enochian and Theban characters. * Computer Graphics, Visualization and Human-computer Interaction At www.mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin, you can see some of the shows some of the experiments of computer science professor Ken Perlin: blending shapes and textures, an "intuitive design widget" named "Body Guy," a Jackson Pollock puzzle (see "my cultural epiphany) and much more. Perlin is part of the Media Research Lab at NYU, which covers many areas in computer graphics, visualization and human-computer interaction. Demetri Terzopoulos, another professor connected to the Lab, and his team "create physics-based virtual worlds inhabited by realistic artificial animals. These synthetic fauna possess muscle-actuated bodies, sensors, and brains with motor, perception, behavior, and cognition centers," according to the site. ART IN GENERAL * Stop Motion Studies Artist David Crawford calls his work, "A Web-based, experimental documentary that chronicles my interaction with subway passengers in cities around the world. The aim of this ongoing project is to create an international character study based on the aspects of identity that emerge." He continues, "It is said that 90% of human communication is non-verbal. In these photographs, the body language of the subjects becomes the basic syntax for a series of Web-based animations exploring movement, gesture, and algorithmic montage. Many sequences document a person's reaction to being photographed by a stranger. Some smile, others snarl, still others perform. Some pretend not to notice. Underneath all of this are assumptions and unknowns unique to each situation." There are currently 12 in the series, shot in London, New York, Paris, Boston, Tokyo and Göteborg, Sweden. * Whitney ARTPORT <http://artport.whitney.org> The Whitney Museum Portal to Net Art and digital arts, and an online gallery space for commissioned net art projects consists of five major areas. 1) Archive of "gate pages," portals to net artists' works, a new one each month. 2) Commissions area, presenting original net art projects commissioned by Museum. 3) Exhibitions space, access to and information about current and past net art and digital arts exhibitions at the Whitney. 4) Resources archive, which links to galleries, networks and museums on Web; past net art exhibitions at venues world-wide, etc. 5) Collection area archiving works of net art and digital art in Museum's holdings. Current projects include Martin Wattenberg's, "The Idea Line," which displays a timeline of net artworks, arranged in a fan of luminous threads. * World's Tallest Virtual Building Mr Wong's Soup'Partments, a collaborative art project, is billed as "The worlds tallest virtual building," and who are we to argue. It has 406 residents from all parts of the world, "living" in one and two story apartments with designs ranging from the purely visual to the political to fantasy to the indescribable. You'll find dancing cows, a homage to Bruce Springsteen, soccer, a zoo, a tennis court, a huge pie, a cake, an aquarium, military maneuvers, surfing and mayhem. Takes a while to load. * Censorship. There have been several stories in the news recently about art being censored or treated in a way that appeared to be censorship. Among them: Show Canceled Because of Nudes The National Council against Censorship reports that Nevada County (CA) administrators Tom Coburn and Rich Reader removed the work of five of the artists from the county's Rood Administration Center during the Annual Open Studios Art Show because they contained partial nudity. The county has no written policy regarding the content of art shown in government buildings. Some of the censored artists rehung their paintings but with a cloth over them and the word "Censored" pinned to the cloth. That so offended Nevada County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sue Horn, that the exhibit was canceled and the work of all 65 artists was removed. According to the local paper The Union, Horn said, "It's very unfortunate it had to escalate to something that should have had adult dialogue. To me, it's being disrespectful to the county's position. That's like a slap in the face. Where's the cooperation, the ability to talk about it in an adult manner? We're not going to let them hang up there with the drape and word 'censored' when we should be able to have communication and discuss it without this being a big argument." She did not comment on whether she thought it was like a slap in the face to the five artists whose work was removed in the first place or whether it was disrespectful to the remaining 60 artists to cancel the show. Read more at: <http://www.ncac.org/issues/nevadacounty.htm>. Art Deemed Politically Offensive Removed from Show In November, Jim Kimberly's sculpture, "The Super Imposer," was removed from the juried art show at the Fairfield Center for Creative Arts in Fairfield, CA, because it was considered politically controversial. The piece features a two-sided panel with the American Flag on one side and Osama bin Laden on the other; when someone pedals the stationary bicycle to which it the two images fuse. A member of the art group allegedly called the city to complain so Community Services Department Director John De Lorenzo removed the piece, claiming, "Given the barbaric acts linked to Osama, continued loss of life in Iraq, the strong military presence in our community and a goal to protect Travis Air Force Base, we didn't feel this piece was appropriate to place in a government facility." Later it was claimed that censorship was not an issue, that the piece was removed because it was too big and thus required a placement that created a fire hazard. More at <http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2003/11/19/news/news2.txt>. Drawing Called Hate Speech by Exhibit Donor Chuck Bowden made a drawing that he called "The Tactics of Tyrants Are Always Transparent." It shows a crown- and halo-topped George W. Bush standing on a grave, his hand dripping with blood as bodies fall to the ground from the World Trade Center towers in the distance. He entered it in the Redwood Art Association's annual fall exhibit, held in December in Eureka, CA. The juror, Robert Hudson awarded it a $300 second-place prize at the Only the artist didn't get the prize. An art association board member tipped off the donor as to the contents of the drawing, so the donor, a local frame shop owner, withdrew the prize, calling the drawing "hate speech." He said he was standing up for his beliefs, as the President was standing up for his. The drawing was never shown at the exhibit, because, according to David Ploss, president of the association, the artist's valuation ($35,000) on the 11x14"drawing was too high to meet insurance standards without documentation, which the artist did not provide. Bowden was given a gift of $300 by an anonymous donor, though. More at <http://tinyurl.com/37w5t>. * Censorship File For those interested in this issue in general, The File Room <http://www.thefileroom.org/documents/CategoryHomePage.html> is a collection of initial case studies for an interactive database concerning censorship. It organizers write that they are interested in "alternative methods for information collection, processing and distribution, to stimulate dialogue and debate around issues of censorship and archiving." A user can search by region of the world, dates, medium (Visual Arts. Public Speech, etc.) or grounds for censorship (Explicit Sexuality, Nudity, Religion, etc.). The search page for visual artists is at <http://www.thefileroom.org/documents/dyn/subMedium.cfm/subID/30>. * Weapons (the pun that we are not going to use would be "of Mass Seduction") Referring to her show of small glass and metal sculptures (Jan Baum Gallery last spring and Museum of Crafts and Folk Arts last summer), Bella Feldman (see sN #25 ) wrote: "I believe weapons have a seductive appeal to our flawed species but whatever biological necessity this fascination with aggression has for the species, it has long ago gone obsolete." On her site <http://www.bellafeldman.com>:, she writes, "Since 1992, two series of work, both involving movement and interaction, have occupied me. The first, inspired by the Gulf War and my own concerns, is 'War Toys.' These are a flock of comic, ferocious, fantastic machines with wheels and clumsy movement. I made them small-ankle to knee high-to give the viewer an opportunity for Olympian detachment. On the other hand, they are pet-size, seductively interesting, and inviting to play with." IN HOUSE * PR Workshop. We'd like to have another one in the SF Bay Area or outside of it. Is your local art center or group interested in sponsoring it or renting their facilities for the event? Email pr@studionotes.org if so. Thanks. * Counseling Notes A couple of months I got a call for counseling services from an artist who had moved to the US from an oil-rich nation. Accompanied by her husband, she brought some of her work over. I looked at it and found out a little about her history and goals. She had done quite well with her work, which was competent and marketable, in her home country, but not so well here. When we started discussing strategies, her husband politely interrupted and they both asked if, since there were so many artists and relatively few galleries, they might have a letter of introduction to the galleries. I explained that it a letter from me or from anyone wouldn't make much difference, as dealers generally based their choices on the appropriateness of the work. The artist seemed to loose interest a bit and her husband lapsed into silence. I continued on with my advice and afterwards emailed her some specific galleries she might try. But as I ruminated about the session later, I began to wonder if they thought that the point of my service was to "sell" them a letter of introduction to a gallery, as might be a custom where they had previously lived. Hmmn. ---Benny S * AOM Still Tops in Google, Yahoo, Other Searches A search for the two words "art opportunities" with or without the quotes still shows "Art Opportunities Monthly" <http://www.ArtOpportunitiesMonthly.com> in first place in Google, Yahoo, Netscape, Alta Vista and other popular search engines. This placing was achieved not by paying any of the services that claim to improve the placement of a site for a fee but by carefully reading the information about how search engines work and applying that knowledge in a straightforward way. * Publisher's Corner Notes on Censorship. It appears that censorship of the arts has increased in the last three years, Even "tasteful" nudity -- seems to be a target, perhaps taking a cue from the Ashcroft coverup of the breast of "The Spirit of Justice". I am of the school that believes the First Amendment means exactly what it says: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." (It is well established that art is a form of speech [Bery et al v. City of New York / Lederman et al v. City of New York #95-9089, West Virginia State Board of Education , 319 U.S., et al.].) I am against censorship for any reason. My view is supported by many persuasive arguments, including Camus's, "Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others." Furthermore, I believe that government limits on free expression are actually more harmful to the audience than to the artists, for it is only from an open and free exchange that some semblance of the truth can be approached. To prohibit any view is to distort the portrait of reality. I think that better communication between artists and organizers of a show on the one hand and the people in charge of the facility which is to house the exhibit on the other can prevent what otherwise might be a lose-lose conflict, though. Artists are eager to have their work shown, as they should be, but they can fail to acknowledge that their idea of what is art is not necessarily shared by the non-artists who ask or agree to have art in the buildings they manage or work in. Such people often think what they will be getting will be pretty flowers and landscapes. It seems like a good idea for representatives from the art group to meet with their potential "hosts" to show and explain what will be involved. I am not suggesting backing down on any substantive issue, but sometimes a solution that is acceptable to all can be reached. There's no accounting for taste, though. Two years ago, in Hyde Park NY, a program to feature the "Artist of the Month" in the local post office was shut down because someone complained that one of the paintings, "Fatgirl," was offensive even though it contained no nudity, violence or politics and the artist painted it because she thought it was beautiful. The post office spokesperson said they ended the program because, "We wanted to make sure nobody gets offended when they come into the post office to do business." * Subscriber of the Moment: Joan Schulze Joan's quilts and collages are in the American Craft Museum, New York City; Isle of Daiichi Chapel, Japan; National Museum of American Art, Renwick Gallery/Smithsonian, Washington, DC, and many other top collections. She is also a teacher and has been an artist-in-residence at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, a cultural specialist for the US Information Agency in the Netherlands and Luxembourg; and an instructor at Arrowmont, Haystack and other schools. Her work has been reproduced in dozens of books and magazines and her own book, "The Art of Joan Schulze," was a highly-priased Honorable Mention winner in the Reference Books Category of the 9th Annual Writer's Digest National Self-Published Book Awards. She has also published a book of poems. Her site is <http://www.joan-of-arts.com/>. * Subscriber of the Moment Notes We'll occasionally post links to sites of e-Journal or AOM subscribers on the studioNOTES Blog <http://www.studionotes.org/blogger.html>. There will be a short description of the site and the work on it. To enter the pool of candidates, who will be chosen and posted at random, send your URL to pool@studionotes.org. ASK STUDIONOTES Sales Contracts and Resale of Art Question: I have some questions about sales contracts. Can the artist reserve reproduction rights? Is he entitled to 10 percent of the resale of a painting? Where can I do the research on artist rights and find contract forms? Thanks, Nassu, via the Internet. Answer: In California, where you are, an artist is entitled by law to five percent royalty on the resale of his or her creation ("original painting, sculpture, or drawing, or an original work of art in glass") if the sale takes place in that state or the seller resides there (California Civil Code, section 986). This applies only if the resale price is greater than $1000 and is greater than the price the purchaser had paid for the piece. It also applies to a work that is part of real estate that is resold. There are some limitations, but that's basically it. Currently no other state has a similar law. For more details, see <http://www.ivanhoffman.com/crra.html> and <http://www.cac.ca.gov/library/resale.cfm>. This California Resale Royalty Act allows an artist to waive this right, but only if the artist provides in writing that he or she gets a greater amount. I recommend that no matter where an artist lives, he or she make an agreement that the buyer pay a 10 percent royalty on the resale of the work as long as the work is being sold for at least 50 percent more than he or she paid for it. This would mean, for instance, that if you originally sold something for $1000 and the buyer resold it for $1500, you'd get $150 and the buyer would get a profit of $350. Another way is to name a particular figure, stating that the artist will get X percent of the sale if it is more than Y dollars. Some artists ask for only a percent of the increase. It's certainly something you can negotiate, but you want to figure out first what is fair to both parties. As Evan Lindquist pointed out in his answer to refund policies last issue, you want every buyer to become your "agent." Requesting a cut of the profit of a resale can increase the enthusiasm of the buyer, but you don't want him or her to think that the burden of reselling the work will be too great a burden. As far as contract forms, a contract is simply an offer, an acceptance and consideration, which means that one person (party) has said he or she will do something in exchange for something and that the other party has agreed to this. Of course, to be legally binding the contract has to be between people who are capable (of sound mind, of age, and not under threat or otherwise unable to exercise reasonable free will) and the offer can't be for something that is against the law. An oral contract is normally as valid as a written one, but is of course harder to prove. If you are talking about a sale of art to a collector, we do not recommend a pre-printed, "store-bought" contract form. Not only is it off-putting and creates a distance you may not want, it is likely to contain things that you or the collector do not fully understand or desire and omit others that you do. But we *do* suggest a written agreement that you draw up, because it makes clear to both parties what is expected of and provided for each. An agreement like this is sometimes called a bill of sale. For artists, it should state: * You own the copyright, thus retain reproduction rights. (Copyright is always automatically retained by the artist, at least the artist working for himself, and cannot be transferred without a written agreement.) * Under what conditions you may photograph and reproduce the artwork, say, for publicity. * Under what conditions you may borrow the work for exhibition. (This should be limited to a frequency that will not cause undue inconvenience for the collector; perhaps only for a retrospective or other "big" show.) * Your right to limit the exhibition of the work in public. This may include something about prohibiting -- or sharing the income from -- rental. * Your share and the particulars of the royalties on the resale of artwork. You might develop a template built around these points and others that are important to you and fill it in for each sale. If you are considering making reproductions of the work you are selling, it's probably best to let the buyer know that. It's only fair. To do otherwise might alienate the buyer if he or she should see the copies of the art they thought was theirs alone. As a sales point, you can explain that the original is more valuable because it is the original, and that the reproductions can serve to make it more valuable since it will be better known. There are a number of publications that deal with artists' contracts, but again, you should use them only as guidelines, not copying the forms. These include: Caroll Michels's "How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist," and Cay Lang's "Taking the Leap." Allworth Press <http://www.allworth.com/Catalog/AC003C.htm> has "Business and Legal Forms for Fine Artists - Revised Edition with CD-ROM" and there is Tad Crawford's popular "Business And Legal Forms For Fine Artists." There are others, some of which contain too much that is inaccurate, incomplete or unrealistic, in our opinion. THIS AND THAT * Woman Arrested for Car Art The Jan 10 "Indianapolis Star" reports "a woman was arrested and her boyfriend's vintage Buick impounded because an image of a naked exotic dancer painted on it was visible to children." The police called it obscene and said the woman's children and children who attend Indianapolis Public School 83, near where the woman lives, could possibly see the image. The driver said the car is normally locked in a garage except when taken to sports and car shows; she was using it because her car was broken and she needed to take her infant to the emergency room and pick up her eight year old from school. Full story at <http://tinyurl.com/3f73o> * 30,000-year-old Carvings Found in Southwestern Germany A set of ivory life-like figurines found in a German cave challenges some ideas of art history. Made from mammoth ivory between 35,000 and 30,000 years ago, the sculptures, each nearly as long as a thumb, depict a horse's head, a waterbird and a half-lion, half-human creature. Nicholas J. Conard, of the University of Tubingen in Germany, director of the project that found the objects, reported in "Nature," (Dec. 18/25, 2003): "Southwestern Germany was probably one of several centers of ancient figurative art." He believes that the find supports the controversial theory that a sizable portion of prehistoric artwork reflects shamans' supernatural rituals, but studioNOTES believes that pure "artistic impulse" -- the drive that artists have to depict and create -- is just as likely to be the impetus for the work. In any event, the tiny sculptures challenge the view that ancient art in Europe gradually evolved from simple origins, according to the University of Liverpool archeologist Anthony Sinclair. "The first modern humans in Europe were, in fact, astonishingly precocious artists," he writes in the magazine. And University of Arizona archaeologist Steven Kuhn suggests that Stone Age art began with realistic depictions of the world and evolved toward other modes of expression, such as the use of geometric designs. The three artifacts join a group of more than 20 ivory figurines found in the area, which Sinclair called the oldest body of figurative art in the world. Read more at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3328229.stm>, <http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature02186> and <http://www.nature.com/nsu/031215/031215-8.html>. * Willful Destruction of Art Israel's ambassador to Sweden was kicked out of the Jan 16 opening of Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities after he destroyed an artwork featuring a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber. The exhibit, "Making Differences" was part of an upcoming international conference on genocide hosted by the Swedish government. Anna Larsson, the spokesperson for the Swedish foreign ministry said "We feel that it is unacceptable for him [Israeli ambassador Zvi Mazel] to destroy art in this way." The wrecked installation, called "Snow White," (image at <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/images/0117-04.jpg> featured a basin filled with blood-red water. A sailboat with the name Snow White floated on the water, and placed like a sail was a photo of a smiling Hanadi Jaradat, the Palestinian female lawyer-in-training who purposely blew up 21 Israelis and herself in Haifa last October. One of the two artists who created the work, ex-Israeli paratrooper Dror Feiler, a well-known musician, said the ambassador was "totally unreasonable and undiplomatic" and would not listen to his explanations. "He said he was ashamed that I was a Jew." The other artist, Feiler's Swedish wife Gunilla Skoeld Feiler, told the daily "Expressen" that the work was "not a glorification of the suicide bomber. I wanted to show how incomprehensible it is that a mother-of-two, who is a lawyer no less, can do such a thing," she said. "When I saw her picture in the paper, I thought she looked like Snow White, that's why I gave that name to the piece." Museum director Kristian Berg said he didn't consider the work to be threatening, but "rather an invitation to think about why such things happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The artwork was repaired after the incident and was again on view to the public, despite Israel's insistence that it be disassembled. Sources include <http://tinyurl.com/38qjs> and <http://tinyurl.com/2mlng>. READERS RECOMMEND "Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing", by Margaret S. Livingstone. I found this fascinating book remaindered at a book store in Davis. It has the clearest explanation of vision and how it affects art that I have ever seen. The author is a neurobiologist at Harvard. It is available at Amazon. [Or search on Abebooks, <http://www.abebooks.com/> for a used copy ed.]. ---Barbara Milman, <http://www.barbaramilman.com>. "Beat Generation & Counter-Culture Photography Galleries", by Larry Keenan . If you are interested, as I am, in photographs of and notes about the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti (see sN 26, <http://www.studionotes.org/26/ferlinghetti.html> ), Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Gregory Corso, Timothy Leary, Richard Brautigan, Neal Cassady, Diane Di Prima, Andrei Codrescu, Herb Gold, David Amram, Bruce Conner, Ray Manzarek, Michael McClure, George Herms, Dennis Hopper, Robert Frank, and Philip Whalen, you will understand why I just spent an hour at <http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/keenan> although I only meant to see if the link was correct and will buy the book when I can. ---Benny S "The Tipping Point", by Malcolm Caldwell should be tops on people's reading list, Well written, insightful. If you are attempting to find an audience for your artwork, this book relates how this might happen. It also helps understand the world and how culture takes up new ideas and fads. It is readable. It is in paperback. I will buy a copy for everyone in my family. ---Joan Schulze <www.joan-of-arts.com> Information on pricing art at <http://www.peninsulaopenstudios.org/pricing.html> ---Dave Himmelblau, collector "......" The academic teaching about beauty is false. We are deceived, but so well deceived that it is impossible to recover even the shadow of a truth. The beauties of the Parthenon, the Venuses, the Nymphs, the Narcissuses, are so many lies. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but what instinct and intellect can conceive independently of the canon. ~Picasso Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.... Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation. ~Attributed to Jean Arp in "On My Way", ed. Robert Motherwell (1948). I have always sought to be understood and, while I was taken to task by critics or colleagues, I thought they were right, assuming I had not been clear enough to be understood. This assumption allowed me to work my whole life without hatred and even without bitterness toward criticism, regardless of its source. I counted solely on the clarity of expression of my work to gain my ends. Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough for him to cleanse his soul of everything which could make it more so. ~Matisse As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure. ~John Dewey The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business. ~John Berryman, poet Art is still the only place in the world where you can do exactly what you want if you pay the price, which is having no one else want it. ~Grace Hartigan ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~ * ~* Edited by Benny Shaboy. The studioNOTES e-Journal is a project of studioNOTES. Copyright 2004. Portions of this publication may be copied ONLY IF full credit is given by including the email journal@studionotes.org and the URL <http://www.studionotes.org> ### studioNOTES Box 502 Benicia CA 94510 ======================================================= ======================================================= Do you know others who might want to receive this? Forward your copy to them so they can subscribe, too: sej@studionotes.org. (We do not sell, rent, share or otherwise divulge the names or emails of our subscribers.) |
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