Ruminations of a frustrated artist!

You know the saying "Just do it!" Such wise words, so hard to follow but today I did! I did it!

I think finding this website "The Flinty Hard Road" and reading it made so much sense to me and brought me back to the place where I know I'm not alone..... the arts is a hard career choice.... probably the hardest! I really related to the heading "Fabulously successful, penniless and deranged" particularly the 'deranged' bit!

Lately I've been well, let's say "occupied" but today, I bit the bullet and "just did it!" and boy does it feel good. I went to the studio and prepared all those canvases that have been patiently waiting for me. There they are now, all virginal white, covered in that clean clear pure pristine coat of gesso. They wait for me now to pour forth all my energies onto them..... sigh! What a good day's work!

The weekend saw another exhibition of works open to an assembled throng of art lovers, purveyors of fine art and wine, some really decent and genuine people amongst them..... the wallets remained firmly locked and who can blame them for today's economy sees most people worrying about their retirement plans as their super funds vaporise before their disbelieving eyes. Not so for us artists, we don't have the luxury of retirement plans. We'll be painting until we're blind and hanging around hopefully for a sale.

But we do have the luxury of filling our lives and walls with wonderful art that others can only dream about! Not for us, those dreary prints and commercial crappy decorator pieces, don't they make you cringe!

 At least 3 people promised to buy work.... ah that's nice and I remind myself that despite the current downturn this year, I have had some sales and offers that other artists would be glad to have.

So to get into the studio today and back to my virginal white canvases was a joy! My mind started to focus immediately as I imagined the images starting to appear. I could feel the paints calling to me from their tubes to squeeze them and spread them luxuriously across each virgin in turn. Ah what a pleasant day!

It's going to be good year after all! There's so much to do and so much opportunity lying right here at the doorstep.... it reminds me that "everything you need, is right there in front of you!" So watch this space as the year rolls on.....

"Flooding of Twin Lakes" Oil on Canvas

Here's one that I would like to see painted up into a large work...... hmmm.....

So keep painting out there!

Strange New Ideas!

I was wandering in the mind this morning....hmmm...as I often do. The topic I was wandering around was the idea of digital images and the lack of understanding of this new art form here in Oz.

The reason for me wandering off into a maze of thoughts and ideas around this topic was brought about by a conversation with the curator at the gallery in Canberra where I currently have a show. One of the offerings on hand is of course, a digital print otherwise known as a Giclee Reproduction. Now this seems perfectly obvious to me as an extension of my artworks but to the average punter, it is a frightening thing to think that someone can make a copy of a work and then print it in "how many" copies?

The curator was asked whether it was a lithograph? Does the print method make a difference? Lithographs can be reproduced ad-infinitum also and the artist rarely has a hand in making them either.....that is if they are as complicated as the painting I am rendering in a different format. The buyer still needs to trust that the edition is limited as the artist says.

But why are we so afraid of new printing methods here? I felt that perhaps there is a feeling that artists should be keepers of past technologies, masters of secrets long forgotten, the shamans who will bring forth those ideas when a society collapses......hmmm? Is that why here in Oz we are so afraid of the 'new media' or is it a completely philistine lack of knowledge.

When I went to Florence, the biennale had 2500 works there to ponder and amongst them were a great number of artists working in the new media. So prevalent was digital technology that there were works, not only on canvas, but reproduced on paper, aluminum sheets, glass, plastics and polyurethane surfaces and on and on. These were fascinating to look at! They challenged you to look further into the new.......

So for the life of me I can't understand why here we still think that working digitally is something of a fraud; not 'real art' is it?

I hope for the sake of all the artists out here in Oz pushing the boundaries and seeking out the new (which is what I thought artists did?) that the art voyeurs start to look in wonder at some of the wonderful pieces that new technologies are allowing us artists to pursue! They are artworks just the same as the old and true!

Anyway I feel better now, do you?