I have given some thought about why artistvenu works for me. It is fairly simple. First, artistvenu is an artist only community. Second, it is platform where you can develop heartfelt friendships. And third, you can share your artwork in a way that can’t be done on other social media platforms. In those platforms you get the most superficial response to your work with emojis and maybe an occasional brief comment. AV is a place where constructive dialogue takes place about the work you post. Fellow artists provide valuable insight as you can provide the same for them. You aren’t isolated in your studio creating alone. You have means to discuss a work in progress and get help if you are stuck. It’s all about sharing the creative process. Everyone is wanting to improve their work and this is a safe place to have deep conversation about it without the negative noise that can blind side you in other platforms. You want honest input not little hearts. What good are little hearts?
Category: Artist Submitted Post
Drone Photography Day!
I have been holding on to these two rugs since Covid hit. All was going well, great press, wow what a fantastic reception taking visual art pieces to hand knotted rugs made in Nepal!
Well, I have them patiently waiting in a back storage room in a local design firm on the island. When I say back room, I mean total back room! Heat and humidity are a challenge for wool rugs not properly stored. Covid pandemic threw a monkey wrench into my rug business plans with a startup company, Abstract Road!
No problem, challenges are natural for artists. We learn to roll with the punches, roll on to whatever happens next. It is such an adventure! I got a little discouraged for a minute or two, then moved on. The biggest challenge then became, “How am I going to photograph these rugs to auction?”
As usual, I had to wait and find a way to do this. My photographer friend and her husband suggested we use the drone to photograph. Yes, I thought! I was also highly curious to see this photographic process and got really excited about watching the process. We did it out in the parking lot of the design firm on black landscape plastic. Not so fancy but very effective!
This is the process in the photos attached. I will also attempt to find and upload the drone photos. Cataloguing hundreds of photos lately to an external drive has been another challenge! Tedious tasks do not work well with my type of brain! Lots of work, this artist’s life and journey, often little compensation in terms of dollars. The process is the reward. Here’s to us all as we continue to create!
Book Discussion with Denise Gonyea Durak
Ben Nicholson – aware of cubism?
while doing research for my webinar on Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, i discovered that she was acquainted with Ben Nicholson, a favorite early 20th century painter i admire. i came across his very first abstract painting from 1925. as you can see, he was aware of Cubism. but what a wonderful sense of color!
Matisse – a painting that looks like a collage
while reading in an art book i have (“Pictures Of Nothing: Abstract Art Since Pollock” by Kirk Varnedoe) i came across a painting by Matisse that i had never seen. it reminded me so much of a collage – even though it was a painting of an interior – that i wanted to share it. it is “Interior with Eggplants” or “Intérieur aux aubergines”. the fact that all the objects shown are placed on a strong pattern that is totally flat, and does not differentiate the floor from the walls, is very much like “collage space”. i hope you enjoy seeing it!
Laura Sharp Wilson – abstraction using recognition
i really enjoy abstractions that skirt the line between representation and total non-objectivity. it may not seem so, but i do it in my own work, which often owes something to landscape and intimate views of landscape. one of my favorite painters who travels – perhaps more obviously, this path is Laura Sharp Wilson. i acquired one of her beautiful paintings, done on rice paper and then glued down on a dimensional wood backing. i purchased it from McKenzie Fine Art on one of my sojourns to NYC several years ago. i will post one image now, and follow it up with a few further images. i’m thinking of doing a video on her work for my Focus on Abstraction webinar on artistvenu. i hope you like her work as well!
William T. Wiley – Funk goes abstract!
in researching for a webinar i’m working on discussing artists who include representation in their abstraction, i came across an artist i used to adore! i hadn’t thought of him in a long time. he was associated with the northern california Funk movement. a number of his pieces are obviously well thought out in an abstract sense, but the weirdness is in the details! William T. Wiley. Photo courtesy Parker Gallery
Beatriz Milhazes – skirting the line between abstraction and decoration
of course, because the snow is melting a bit, i’m thinking of spring. and i’m also thinking, as you know about my webinar where i will be discussing artists who skirt the line between non-objective abstraction, and abstraction with recognizable “things”. so, paging through compendium of fairly recent artworks, i came across a piece by Beatriz Milhazes – a Brazilian artist. her work also skirts the line between what we may think of as “decoration”. of course, that is another interesting “boundary” to explore. but in the meantime, i’m posting a beautiful piece of hers from the Guggenheim Museum. “The Four Seasons” 1997
Arturo Herrera – collagist extraordinary
i was going to post a few images of the artwork of Arturo Herrera. instead, i’m posting a link to a short preview of how he works. from there you can watch the whole episode on Art21. i always find it very generous of artists to share their thoughts and working methods with others. art21.org
Terry Winters – finding images all around you
artists use all sorts of inspiration when making their work. usually they look around themselves, and pick from what they see. however, many artists go to different sources – infinite choices are available. one of my favorite artists, Terry Winters, did a whole series of paintings in the 1990’s titled “Graphic Primitives”. he was looking at, and thinking about diagrams that “explained” in some way “a method of thinking”, and “how information can be processed as pictorial imagery.” quite a challenging premise, but the paintings themselves (which are very large) a beautiful, and at the same time obscure in meaning.