« On Painting

ARTIST-ART

Sweatshop Challenge: assembly line fine-art painting

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Originally posted on August, 18, 2007

"Dancing Tree", oil on canvas, 65cm x 50cm, August 2007.

In case you missed it, a couple of years ago attention was drawn to one of China’s most unique export businesses, fine-art painting (see link and also link). Or, more accurately put, cheap art. I am sincerely happy that tens of thousands of poor Chinese painters have found employment. I am not happy that they are doing this for near starvation wages. One painter estimated that he earns 18 cents U.S. for a painting that may sell for several hundred dollars in Europe or in the U.S. How’s that for sweatshop labour?

Read the rest of "Sweatshop Challenge: assembly line fine-art painting"

Posted in Artist-Art, Painting | Comment

Excellence vs. Not Cheating

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Originally posted on July, 21, 2007

What do painting and sports have to do with each other you ask? Writers, or, at least people used to write about painting. Not much anymore. You can only beat dead horses for so long. Today, people do write tons about sports. Of course, there are plenty of problems in the sport world. There always has been. You have to ask the question: “How much the writers contribute to the proliferation of these problems?

Read the rest of "Excellence vs. Not Cheating"

Posted in Artist-Art, Painting | Comment

Recent Thoughts

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Originally posted on June, 24, 2007

Hopefully, as we become more intelligent, our intellect leads us to more enjoyment. Asking questions is a process of refinement and simplification. In a natural way it leads to understanding that it is the process itself that is the important thing: direct experience with life. This implies that we have a direct experience with the natural world.

Artists and children have much in common: curiosity and the spontaneous joy of discoveries. I want you to do a little experiment. Please go get a piece of paper and pen or pencil. Now sign your name as you always do.

Read the rest of "Recent Thoughts"

Posted in Artist-Art | Comment

Big Answers

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Originally posted on June, 15, 2007

I guess that I never was educated out of believing in answers. All of us, when we were little, did not become nervous when the teacher put a problem on the blackboard. We KNEW that she had the answer. Somewhere along the line most of us forget that life is like that. There could not be a problem, or a question, unless there was a pre-existing answer. It cannot be otherwise There are many complex explanations as to why we forget this. One often overlooked reason, is that much of what shapes and underlies modern reality is not sensible. Buckminster Fuller wrote about this. He talked about the changes in industry during the first-world war. The new technology became invisible. (And when the masters of technology reached the point where they no longer understand what was going on? Then what?) Another big reason why we devalue our innate intelligence is our poor understanding of what art is and how it functions.

Read the rest of "Big Answers"

Posted in Art, Artist-Art | Comment

« On Painting