I go for the Coffee...

...but stay for the friendship.

Linda Tharp and I have become pacing partners in the world of art. Taking a concept from the "straight" or not-art business world, we are helping each other to move our art careers forward.

This involves keeping honest to the goals we just created as part of the Artist as Entrepreneur Boot Camp (more about this later) at the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Linda and I are very different types of people and very different types of artists. This partnering has the effect of making us both stronger. As well, I feel we are at the beginning of a new art movement. Not defined, by painting style or concept, but by a new way that artists view themselves and how artists view their place in and their value to the world.

...and the coffee is good and hot and attractive.

Unfinished Business

This video turned up as part of a course I am taking on Abstract Expressionism. It is provocatively symbolic. It announces the room where the Rothko's given to the Tate by Rothko will hang, without showing any of the works.

The backstory is this... Rothko repudiated his agreement to provide 600 square feet of paintings for the the new Four Seasons restaurant at the Seagram Building in New York. Rothko later gave nine of the paintings that he had intended for the Four Seasons to the Tate, insisting on an exclusive room for his paintings. On the morning he died, after slitting his arms, creating a a pool of blood roughly the same size as and as abstract as his own paintings, the works arrived at the Tate.

At the request of Rothko, The Tate, like the Phillips Collection, has created a special room to view the works. This video was created to announce the "Room."

We might all agree the color and luminosity of Rothko's works have a transformative power. As distillation of human experience, his works are not just abstract exercises. So...can this video be re-contexturalized as a post modern abstract exercise? An "abstracted" commentary, devoid of color, luminosity, and human experience, on the packaging of art?

Stripped of all content, yet referencing it, Rothko repackaged and absent — an unfinished installation and unfinished Beethoven too. How modern can you get?

Secret Language

Abstract painters always seem to talk about painting as language and the individuality of mark making. I have come to enjoy the secret coding of the walls and sidewalks of New York. These particular ones are clustered in Chelsea.

Two planets...you know what they are...

Many times Kurt and I independently photograph the same things. Recent examples:





Remember OPEN CALL for Videos on Broadway.

Francoise Gilot

Thinking back to good things about last year. I saw the artist who started me on my artistic path at the age of twelve, Francoise Gilot.Here I am at Francoise Gilot's opening at BLT Gallery. Below is one of her gorgeous monotypes.

Rarely Seen Art!

Yesterday I was stuck on a subway train. A train broke down in the station ahead, and there were trains behind us at the last. Unable to go backward or forward into a station, after quite a delay we rolled slowly, connecting to the offending train, then exiting by walking car to car through both trains. It was a perfect blog opportunity for tunnel art you never get to see. Ah, rara artis!

Videos on Broadway Open Call

OPEN CALL Point us to your artistic videos to be considered for exhibition at the Videos on Broadway exhibition space. We are looking for artists, young or old, serious or funny, etcetera or etcetera.

Videos on Broadway is a new project created by Susan Shaw to showcase contemporary art video to a diverse audience in New York City. Videos on Broadway provides emerging artists an urban location and video monitors to showcase their video art. Using a glass front building on the famous street of Broadway, we will give both the artist and the public a unique and free experience to contemporary new media.

We will show new work by artists from around the world. Videos on Broadway will use film and video to reflect the artists personal interpretations of social, political, psychological and spiritual themes.

The video below was a proof of concept test. The viewers are watching a rough cut of Susan Shaw: Nightcar. It was freezing yet people still stopped to watch. How great is that? We are still putting together the funding to be able to this right i.e. including things like announcement cards but we are nowhere without you. Please point us in your direction. E, W, N, S...

Joyous Day!!!!

I am the happy recipient of a glorious painting by Cora Cohen and it's arriving today. It's called Green Drips but drippy it is not. It is a glorious enmeshing of color and brushwork and as Cora would say, "...full of air." And you know what? I'm walking on that air!!!

Stargazer

I'm always interested in how people market their art. I saw this piece by Linda Scott, sitting in a field and pulled over to look. It's positioned on a road leading to the Hamptons, a place where people might have yards big enough to host a monumental sculpture. I liked too that her URL was front and center. Let's just hope that the birds aren't too critical.

Jim Inzero

Another friend from the line was Jim Inzero. (Great name right?) He works in encaustic creating soothing sail/shore landscape paintings. He posts his work on a blogspot blog leveraging the software to create a nice personal site. The painting below is "Spring Lake" encaustic on wood panel, 15 in x 20 in. He is like his paintings—warm and laid back—and was a great line buddy.

Jobs for Artists

The local pharmacy is doing it's bit. Obviously a representational painter — this is your brain on drugs.