Is Photography Becoming Painting? Duh.

When painter Paul Delaroche stood before an early Daguerreotype and exclaimed "Painting is dead!" he had no idea that one day a  little organization calling themselves "Adobe" would make him eat his words.  Nowadays, painting is far from death, and it's photography that is regressing back towards painting.  The images above, of Estonian model (and chess champion/entrepreneur/politician who's awful caught-with-her-mouth-open Wikipedia photo I don't feel bad about publishing since homegirl's got a zillion things going for her) Carmen Kass, are a perfect example. Start with a tall, thin, good looking girl who photographs well, add an Adobe Photoshop artist on a high-powered computer, and you end up with a digital painting of a supermodel (and a beautiful Dior advertisement).

When un-retouched Steven Klein photos of Madonna surfaced earlier this year, the blog-o-sphere exploded with criticism of the singer-dancer-adopter-of-African-babies' aging face as well as shout-outs to her well-maintained 50-year old face and form. Regardless of how you think she looked, it should really be shocking that "un-retouched photos" caused such a stir. Aren't photos supposed to be un-retouched? Wasn't photography invented as a way to preserve images of the world around us as it actually existed? Argue as much as you like about how photography even in it's purest form will always distort reality (and I'd tend to agree with you), we've entered an age where photography doesn't even resemble reality.

I'm not trying to tell anyone that re-touching that evil or otherwise.  I'm just saying that its interesting to think that photography, once thought to be the culmination of man's efforts in painting, is moving closer and closer back towards traditional painting every day. 

This New York Times Op-Ed piece thinks we should legislate retouching, as is being considered by the French:  http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/09/opinion/1194838469575/sex-lies-and-photoshop.html

Was Abe Lincoln re-touched? See a History of Photographic Tamering:  http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/

So you wanna see Madonna un-retouched? We won't tell: http://theblemish.com/2009/01/calling-all-photoshop-experts-madonna-needs-your-help/

Why I LOVE Yahoo Answers.

You find things like this--weird artwork and a bunch of people giving their opinions about it.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApxlnqZBLai4GSp1JqUoMp6MxQt.;_ylv=3?qid=20090529120206AAxiYJz

Cute and Affordable on Etsy: Kelly Neidig

All of a sudden, every artist I come across whose work I like is from Portland, Orgeon. Case and point: Kelly Neidig, artist and president of the Portland Open Studios. Ms. Neidig makes adorable little abstracted landscape paintings which are available on Etsy for under $100. These colorful, graphic squares give you big oil-painted bang for your buck.

Website: http://www.kellyneidig.com/

Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5005874

Cute and Affordable on Etsy: Rebecca Shelly

Looking at art on Esty is kind of like going to a thrift store: if you've got the energy to dig through all the junk, you'll find some really beautiful things.  Scrolling through seemingly endless mediocre (and worse) paintings of fruit still lifes, CUSTOM PORTRAITS OF YOUR PET!, and sunset and palm tree landscapes makes finding something really beautiful as exciting as finding a Prada skirt amidst racks of acid washed jeans and polyester suits.

Enter Rebecca Shelly, a young painter from Portland, Oregon creating beautiful, leafy abstractions which combine naturalistic description with biomorphic areas of flat color.  A number of her paintings are available for purchase on Etsy at wonderfully affordable prices. Currently featured on the Cover of the Portland Review Literary Journal,  Ms. Shelly is an artist on the rise!

Website: http://rebeccashelly.com/

Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5093283

My Teachers Set Me Up for Failure: Kid Paints and Other Stuff

I am currently volunteer-teaching (ah, the great money-making options for artists) an art class for 9 year-olds where we are making Audubon-style bird watercolors. Things seem to be going well--let's just say that the Peeps are starting to look more and more anatomically correct--and we are now entering the coloring phase of the drawings where a we've come across a little snag. Unfortunately, it was not until now that I realized that watercolor sets for kids are like a cruel joke. Who came up with these colors?? I understand that kids are attracted to bright, primary colors, but how are you supposed to paint even kind of realistically with a basic set as a kid? Nothing in the world comes in these colors except for Grimace and Smurfs. And lets not start on the futility of the white watercolor... just to highlight the fact that you screwed up and can't fix it.

Unfortunate experience in hand, I am now proposing a new kids watercolor line up: venetian red, yellow ocher, naples yellow, alizarin crimson, ultramarine, cerulean, burnt umber, and cobalt violet. It might be harder to make fuchsia, but at least you (and/or your students) could botch your way through almost anything. I maintain that it would be better than the box pictured above.

Let me end this rant with a little story to tear at your heart strings: earlier this week, I watched a child get teary eyed realizing that she had to paint a song sparrow (made up of 6 or 7 different shades of pale but saturated brown) and there was no brown in her watercolor box. Yeah, I suppose that I could have sat there for twenty minutes to figure out all the nuances of the crummy little colors to come up with close to the necessary hues, but I am not getting paid to volunteer all day (insert diabolical laughter fading into crying jags).  All I am saying is, can't we do better? Think of the children.....(music swelling)

Giclee? How about Gi-cliche?

One of my BIGGEST pet-peeves in the reproductive fine art print world today is the use of the word "giclee" to mean "made on an inkjet printer." Why? Mainly because the term giclee gives us no information about the printing process, unlike older photographic terms like gelatin silver print, platinum palladium print, chromogenic print, and even some of the newer terms used to refer to prints made on inkjets like archival pigment print or digital c-print.

According to the ever-helpful Wikipedia, the word "giclee" is derived from the french "glicer" meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray," and was coined by a printer wanting to differentiate Iris proof prints from the finer art prints being made on the same printers. The history here, however, is somewhat superfluous to me because I have absolutely no problem with the coining and early use of this term. My problem is with the fact that such a clearly nonsensical and euphemistic word has gained popularity over more clear and to the point terms (like the aforementioned archival pigment print and digital c-print). Is the public really that easy to fool? Would we really rather hear some bastardized French-sounding gobbledygook than a clear, concise description of the printing process?

In addition to all this, "giclee" just kind of sounds gross when you say it. And it sounds like that awful JLo movie "Gigli." Gross.

Ishmael and Ahab's Wish List: Michael Cohen's Scrimshaw

Who watches Antiques Roadshow on PBS, because I must confess that I watch every week. Maybe once a month, a nice piece of scrimshaw appears.  For those who are not hip to 1800 sailor slang, scrimshaw is bone, teeth, ivory, shell, etc., etched by hand and then colored by rubbing has ink into the depressions. It is generally considered craft as it was historically done by sailors/whalers while on voyages during moments of idleness and sobriety (which may explain why there aren't tons of these things floating around).

As it turns out, scrimshaw is still alive and well and Artist Michael Cohen is generating some really marvelous versions. First of all, I just gotta say, it has to be very hard to create such fine detail and shading. Just looking at older examples from history, it is clear that Cohen's work is leaps and bounds above your average deck hand. As for subject matter, there are some departures but I would argue that its intent is still the same.  Maybe there weren't pin-up vixens on early mariners' pieces, as it wasn't socially appropriate to show full bloomers and exposed bustle just anywhere (luckily now you can pay a fortune to have Christian Lassen paint a babe snuggling with a tiger and a stallion on top of your Camaro). It's expected that tastes will shift over time and even the oldest of art forms will take on new subjects. What isn't expended is to see someone with all the skill that Michael Cohen has, really elevating a historical craft-form to fine art.

Pick one up for the man in your life: http://www.michaelcohenscrimshaw.com/

Holy Craft, Look Out!!!! It's Extreme Craft.

If someone asked you to define art as opposed to craft, what would you say?

That is one of those questions which I tend to roll over in my mind while showering (isn't that where all the good ideas come from?). I really don't have an answer to this question; I think it really all boils down to context. Dada's 'Readymades' are certainly very functional and Judy Chicago's Dinner Party is made up of traditional craft elements, and at the same time Tiffany & Co. make vases, lamps, and other chotchkies fabulous enough to be considered art. Maybe the only difference is in the price tag (not that Tiffany's is cheap...). Sadly right now, I can only afford to buy craft, and the non-Tiffany kind at that (yes, I am still waiting for my Obama-bucks).

What with these muddled definitions of craft and art and their mutant, degenerate love children, we need to consider the Extreme Craft Blog brought to you by one, Garth Johnson. Here "craft" is defined as follows: art masquerading as craft, craft masquerading as art, and craft extending its middle finger. Frankly, I think that covers a good chunk of what you see in a gallery or museum. Tara Donovan or Tom Friedman could fit into those categories on quite a few occasions, not to mention countless community based, guerrilla works. Extreme Craft covers all of this. It is an excellent read... not to mention a fount of information if you need to find a groomer who can make your poodle look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (you can't handle the truth!!).

Take a gander: http://extremecraft.typepad.com/

If Penelope was a Painter: Dionne Simpson

Last fall, while working at the International Caribbean Art Fair in New York, two exciting things happened. One: I got to meet the famous director/Haitian Art collector Johnathan Demme, and two: I discovered the work of Jamaican-born and Canadian-bred artist Dionne Simpson. The fair itself was a poorly-attended let down, but Ms. Simpson's work was anything but.  Beginning with your average canvas on stretcher surface, Simpson doesn't simply pile on the paint, but rather pulls threads out of the canvas (thus, the classical reference in the title) and adds a variety of materials back into and on top of the screen she creates.  The photographs of her work simply don't do the delicate surface justice; let's just say they look so good in person I seriously thought about blowing a chunk of my savings on one, but sadly for me and my walls, poverty and practicality prevailed that particular day.

See more here: http://dionnesimpson.com/