Degas and Manet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2023

This is for all of you who sneer at AI as unoriginal copies made with an unworthy artistic tool. I went one last time to the Degas/Manet show at the MET and was struck by how many times they attempted to copy each other. I decided to take up the challenge and do my own "copies" in my own universe. I started with Manet's Ham, thinking it might be easier, then moved on to Degas hat shop. I tackled Manat's painting of Mary Cassatt at an exhibition, Degas' bath, and finally Manet's painting of Morisot grieving--a heart wrenching painting. I think I succeeded in this homage especially in the one of Morisot in grief. I put myself in there thinking of Kurt. AI ain't bad...it's just another tool in the paintbox. Remember R. Mutt?

P.S. I forgot to mention that as I was working on Degas' bath. I kept getting blocked by the AI program refusing to render the image saying I wasn't meeting their community standards.

 

 

Bella Roma — Love letters in paper.

Going back to my beloved Rome next week. Looking for more inspiration for my work. I need to revisit the sources for a body of works in paper that I created two, three years ago. You can see there is quite a variety in the techniques: marbling, painting, working with charcoal, using copper pulp, doing dye transfers and more.  I was pushing paper in a lot of different ways as I learned more and more. Dieu Donné helped me with all of this. No concept was too weird for them to help me figure out a way to do it.  They didn''t even kill me the first time my dyes and charcoal migrated through the pellons to  add surprise color to many sheets of paper. They just gave me the most stained and worn out pellons, used metal sheets between the layers and washed those disgusting pellons in detergent so I could use them again. 

I will also get to visit again with Roberto Mannino, an italian paper maker. He does drawings on the paper he makes. Going over and over the lines until the graphite looks like silver, And he does very interesting installations. Last time I got to visit his studio which was great because I love his work.

Of course working will not stop me from eating pasta and artichokes and strolling by the Tiber. What a pity. Lacrime di coccodrillo.

Procrastination

I think all of us procrastinate at some point in our studio practice. I have been reading a book about how writers and artists get themselves working, titled Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. It was a gift from another artist friend, Linda Tharp. I usually procrastinate by cleaning my studio. Below is a wonderful video by Tom Sachs, that addresses that part of my studio practice.

A Belated Fourth of July

I had a wonderful Fourth of July. The police directed and redirected us so that a normal fifteen minute trip took an hour and a half. It was raining. We missed the parade and saw only the last three floats. Being the eternal optimist, I went out looking for photographic opportunity. Perhaps channeling Robert Frank's The Americans, a book indelibly burned into my brain, I took these photos.

Sibyl says Rome

I'm off to Rome for a month long resinency, departing in two days. I thought this new work seemed symbolic and appropriate. The piece is a work created  entitely on paper using linen and cotton pulps . i think of her as ths Sibyl, dispensing wisdom I don't understand but entirely appropriate for the beginning of a journey. 

Warholize me! Obamicon me! Sue me!

Copyright and Fair Use PARTS 2 and 3




"Steal this blog," or rather "Sue this Blog," might be where we're going next in the continuing saga of Fair Use. Copyright infringement lawsuits directed at bloggers and other online publishers are on the rise. According to the New York Times, the number of suits rose more than 500% in 2007. These legal disputes are symptomatic of the ease of “sharing” and the Internet’s link economy. Many web sites post excerpts from time to time, including this one. At what point does excerpting from an article become illegal copying?

The courts have not provided much of an answer. In the United States, the copyright law provides a four-point definition of fair use, which takes into consideration the purpose (commercial vs. educational) and the substantiality of the excerpt.

As Mr. Ardia, whose Citizen Media Law Project is part of the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School said, “New modes of creation, reuse, mixing and mash-ups made possible by digital technologies and the Internet have made it even more clear that Congress’s attempt to define fair use is woefully inadequate.”

For now, Web sites are defining it themselves. Sites like Alley Insider and The Huffington Post are ad-supported businesses that filter the Web for readers, highlighting what they deem to be the most meaningful parts of newspaper articles and TV segments.

The Huffington Post, co-founded by the author and columnist Arianna Huffington, is perhaps the star of the excerpting debate. Ms. Huffington’s editors are especially adept at optimizing the site for search engine results, so that in a Google search, a Huffington Post summary may appear ahead of the original article.

Read the full article in today’s New York Times, it is our future.

See Yourself as Others Sue You




Adding to this is the current rage for portraits "in the style of" that you can create yourself. There are thousands of sites today where you can have your snaphot turned into a "Warhol" for $69.95 canvas wrapped and like they say in the commercials "sofa-sized. " Or perhaps you would prefer an original "Fairey" courtesy of Pasteboard Magazine. To be continued...