Wall Vision Art Galleries (ART IDEAS)

Art Ideas is a series of conceptual ideas for changing how we operate as artists and how the art world functions as a whole. All ideas are freely given and welcome to anyone who might be able to pursue them. The Revolution Begins With Beauty.

One of the problems that a gallery owner faces is that they get inundated with artists asking to be seen yet there are only so many days in the year and only so much wall space to utilize. If you consider the average gallery may do twelve shows a year that does not leave much leeway to host a large volume of artists.

There is a hell of a lot of work that goes into showing a new artist. A gallery must, out of necessity, show that artist for at least a months period of time if they wish to have the work seen and the buyers become interested.

Mastering Symmetry in Art

One of the biggest problems I find that face people that want to become artists is symmetry. I spend a lot of time looking at other peoples art, evaluating it, discussing why one piece works while another one doesn't. And most often a bad piece of art is deemed bad not because the colors are off or the composition is unclear, but because there is no symmetry. 

There is a natural flow to a perfect piece of art. Lets look at the classic Mona Lisa.

No Photo is a Bad Photo

In this day and age, it is so easy to snap a photo that we forget the value of them. For the amateur any given photo means it is pretty much disposable, to a professional photographer the best images are precious and to be taken care of. To an artist who is also a photographer every photo should have meaning, whether poorly shot, hard to see or blurry.

I see more and more people calling themselves fine art photographers, but they think with a professional or even amateurish point of view. I teach to students and interns that no image is valueless unless it is nothing but one solid color. 

Protests and Activism as an Art Form (ART IDEAS)

Art Ideas is a series of conceptual ideas for changing how we operate as artists and how the art world functions as a whole. All ideas are freely given and welcome to anyone who might be able to pursue them. The Revolution Begins With Beauty.

In today's world there seems to be a protest about something almost every day. Most have valid reasons for doing so. Believe me, I think protests are one of the most important forms of public expression we have. 

But what I think what is missing is the form of the protest. A mob milling around shouting just incites more violence rather than less. It often seems that this form of protest ends up having its message totally lost in the maelstrom of emotions. 

Travel Stipend Grants for Artists (ART IDEAS)

Art Ideas is a series of conceptual ideas for changing how we operate as artists and how the art world functions as a whole. All ideas are freely given and welcome to anyone who might be able to pursue them. The Revolution Begins With Beauty.

There are a lot of great opportunities out there for artists. But many of them come with the stipulation that you get yourself and your art to the place its being shown at your own cost. 

Art residencies are good about making sure the artists travel costs are taken into consideration. But say you want to enter a piece of art in a juried competition that is a thousand miles from where you live. Even if you are well suited to enter that competition, the cost may be past what you can afford.

The Elder Gods Saga - Learning to Match Art to Verse

There is something very magical to me about using the written word in art. I would hazard to say that anytime one creative discipline is merged with another, that it becomes something new and amazing. 

The Elder Gods was my first attempt at matching written verse to art. There were five pieces of art created first and then I made an attempt to create a poetic saga, that merged the five pieces into one ongoing story. 

The First Burning Man I Ever Attended as an Artist, I Wasn't At

When I was in my teens (I'm 51 now) I became a coordinator for Hands Across America. For all you young ones, this was a one-day event that tried to create a people chain, holding hands from one side of the United States to the other. My role was to organize and coordinate people going from Lansing Michigan to the staging area in Peru, Indiana. We had one mile to fill, and even though I was only 18 at the time, I pursued it with gusto. And you know, we did it. Our mile of that thousands of miles of people had no gaps and stretched out through Peru into an Indiana cornfield and beyond. 

I couldn't tell you how many people we brought down there and I recall very few of the details of the event now. But there is one thing that sticks with me to this day; the hours right after the event ended. We'd all worked so hard and so long to bring it about, and we'd all become very close. And we just didn't want that feeling to end. 

Sort of Understanding the Assimilation Art Movement

This page is an accumulation of notes and concepts regarding Assimilation Art. Because its a work in progress it may take me years to put it together, but as I devise a working set of parameters I will add them here. Check back often for new information and I truly welcome your comments and participation in this emerging art form.

~Grey~

Assimilation Art - Is the merging of two or more distinct art forms into one or more new forms. In some ways it is similar to mixed media art. Assimilation art may yield multiple end products where mixed media usually results in one piece of finished art. Assimilation art may produce multiple finished art pieces spawned from the same original work that are all different. Assimilation art may also take one art form and morph it into something new. For example, the artist creates a photo series that morphs into a painting based on that photo series that again morphs into a sculpture, etc etc.

The technical Greek definition of morphology means "the study of shape". At its very basic definition this is assimilation art. You are studying the shape and how it changes over time and how it can take on new shapes and forms.

What is the Purpose? When Artists Are Compelled to Create

I create just because I am compelled to do so. A friend asked me a simple question one day regarding a project I was working on. It really made me think. He simply asked "what is the purpose?" Was I creating them for a specific reason? Like a show or an auction? 

I thought about it a moment and responded "I create them because I have no choice". There was no better answer. I was not creating for a show. There was no grander purpose in mind for anything I was making. I just felt compelled to create and as always an urgency to not stop.

Wood Preparation for Deadwood Sculpting - Tutorial

If there is one thing that is plentiful in this world its bits and pieces of deadwood. It is a great source of material for art that is cheap and relatively easy to find. My primary source is driftwood, but there are many more. 

I often talk about the the later phases of building deadwood sculptures, but I don't often talk about preparation. Preparation is the most time consuming part of deadwood sculpting. The steps are numerous depending on the type of wood and the desiccation of that wood.

Cathedral of My Dreams - The Sanctity of the Artists Studio

My studio is a sacred space to me. I expect anyone entering it to treat it with no less dignity than they would treat a church or holy place.

I am as far from a religious person as anyone could possibly get. My view of religion is that its similar to a library with one book in it where you go in read the wisdom in the book and then turn around to find the door to the library locked and barred with a big sign reading YOU MAY NOT LEAVE! You've eliminated all the wisdom this universe holds because you may only read from that one book for the rest of your life.

Developing a Steady Hand as an Artist

One area in which new artists in particular have a hard time with is developing a steady hand. This was an area I struggled with for some time when I first became an artist. I tried different techniques but I found that working with a stylus was one of the most effective ways for me to gain a steady hand. Unlike a brush, there is little room for messing up when doing stylus work. Its precision taught me a lot.

Unfortunately there are not a lot of art projects that require a stylus unless you are a calligrapher or a mapmaker or something that takes precision. In those cases you probably already have a steady hand. I turned to an area of stylus art that is sometimes overlooked to help me with steadiness. The art of "illumination". 

The Lost & Found Indian - Creating An International Artists Database (ART IDEAS)

In 2014, before I began the Immortal Artist blog, I wrote a short piece on Facebook about lost artists. I've reposted it here before I discuss a follow up to it.

Being an obscure artist, it always bothers me to find art whose creator is lost in the mists of time. On our bathroom walls hang two such artists and I sometimes take a moment to google different search patterns to find out a little of who they were. With only a last name as signatures, I am usually fruitless in my searches. But today I stumbled on the right combination of words to find one of the two artists and at least give myself peace as to who they were. I hope someone will do the same for me some day in the distant future. I am guessing that my mother knew her, as they lived in the same town and had some of the same interests. Here is the artists obituary and the beautiful painting done by her hand. I'll keep working on who the other artist was

#Hashtag Art - Artists Learning the Power of Hashtags

Recently in an online chat we discussed the benefits of hashtags for promoting art. The whole hashtag system can seem perplexing. Why should we bother with them? Isn't it just cluttering up anything I am posting online? 

The answer is "NO". It can in fact push awareness of your art to a much higher level. 

Consider this. When I make a post on Twitter without a hashtag I can expect typically about 120 impressions with that post in the first few hours. This means the number of people that potentially viewed the post are 120. Now if I add a hashtag to that same post the numbers change. 200 impressions in the first few hours is easily achievable. Hashtags allow us a much broader audience who may interact with us. If you are posting your art then you want as high an interaction as you can get with potential viewers. 

A Message in a Bottle - The Art of the Secret Message in Art

Having been born on an island, the stories of messages in bottles thrown from an ancient ship or perhaps a lonely castaway on a desert island has always set my imagination on fire.

As I grew older the concept of secret messages, cyphers and hidden clues in meaningless objects was a constant thrill. 

Art has always been a great medium for this. DaVinci was well known for sticking hidden meaning in much of his work.