Browsing: artists

Letters Aldeburgh, 2016 watercolour on paper 6.25×9.75 inches by Kieran Williamson at age 14 (b. 2002)
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A recent study published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has reframed the vulnerabilities of the risk-taking, reward-seeking brains of adolescents. Now, it seems, those teenage brains are actually powerhouses of creativity. After all, we can’t develop new ideas or build skill without taking chances. Innovation requires a near-absence of caution — once considered a weakness in young people, but something scholars now believe could be a teen’s greatest creative strength.

Letters Buried Undergrowth by Hadia Hassan
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Hadia Hassan, a fourth-year honours visual art and anthropology student at York University in Toronto, is working on a research study of online communities. As an artist herself, Hadia is especially interested in how artists use the Internet to further their art practices, connect online and even shape their creative lives. The Painter’s Keys, she says, is interesting because of its many long-time artist, student, curator, collector, dealer and educator subscribers and The Letters’ 21 years of evolution.

Letters Ray ink drawing by Anthony Jenkins
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I was putting the title The Red Canoe on the back of a painting when my friend Joe Blodgett walked in and said, “Nice painting, too bad about the red canoe.”

After a couple of single malts I was looking at the painting through Joe’s eyes. I was pleasant enough when I urged him to go down to the smokehouse to get our smoked salmon, and while he was gone I took off the final varnish and hauled that canoe out of my picture.

Letters Blue Landscape (Paysage bleu), 1958 colour lithograph on Arches Wove Paper 22 4/5 × 29 7/10 in by Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
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“This is why you must love life,” says Bernadette Fox, the artist-turned-wife-and-mother in Maria Semple’s 2012 comedic novel about art, failure and the domestic cage. “In one day you’re offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you’re using the word calve as a verb.” Bernadette, a once-lauded star-chitect is languishing in the suburbs of Seattle, unable to put her finger on the cause of her erratic behavior, anxiety, sleeplessness and misanthropy. She loves her husband and child, but something has gone terribly wrong with herself.

Letters 24.7.2015, 2015 Oil on color photograph 4 3/8 x 6 5/8 inches by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932
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Earlier this week, a person whose opinion I respect came into my studio and made some remarks about the surface quality of my paintings. While deeply encouraging, the following day I found myself longing to make my work better. Ways of refining an already technical process suddenly became apparent to me and, like a door opening to an unknown room in my house, the new idea expanded in discovery and play.

Letters The Hunter (Catalan Landscape), 1923–24 oil on canvas 25 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches by Joan Miró.
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With the unmistakable breeze of authority, Dad said, “Never underestimate the power of a little pressure.” At the time, I took it as many aspiring artists would — that production pressure was a gift from the outside world, a reprieve from the echo chamber of your solitary room. But what he meant was that you need to put pressure on yourself. By doing so, you override the helplessness of creative dependency on external minders and convert yourself magically from a reactive artist into a proactive one. Here’s what I mean:

Letters Blue Cloud Wright, slaughterhouse worker Omaha, Nebraska August 10, 1979 by Richard Avedon (1923-2004)
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Our eyes move toward those things already on our minds. A man passionate about model railroading, for example, is likely to look at a painting of a locomotive. But deeper cues move our eyes. Some of these stimulants are with us from birth and are a part of our psyche. Others are learned, selected and personalized by life’s preferences.

Letters When the Big Ones Eat the Small Ones (2015) Acrylic on canvas 120×60 inches by Marcos Raya (b. 1948)
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Artists with integrity and high standards can fall prey to a particularly nasty condition. It’s called “Prior disappointment syndrome.”

Failed works of art and even disappointing passages, particularly recent ones, can haunt and disarm your current work. You may have noticed when returning from a holiday, you sometimes paint freshly and well for a few days and then the old decay sets in. If you’ve ever experienced this situation, I’m here to help you understand why the decline happens and what you can do about it.

Letters leonardo-da-vinci_horses
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A subscriber wrote, “I need help with ‘developing ideas.’ I have to show I can do this in my portfolio to apply for art school and although it is an admission of a lack of imagination to ask, I really need a structure to help me. I have to do more than supply completed works. I know that artists get ideas while working, but how do I develop themes and explore subjects?”

Letters Working Title/Artist: Leap into the VoidDepartment: PhotographsCulture/Period/Location: HB/TOA Date Code: Working Date: 1960 photography by mma, Digital File DP109274.tif retouched by film and media (jnc) 12_14_11
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“Curator,” one of the commonest words in the art vocabulary is hardly mentioned in the art handbooks. According to the Oxford Dictionary it’s derived from the noun ‘curate’ — officially “the assistant to a priest or a clergyman appointed to take charge of a parish during the incapacity or suspension of an incumbent.” In historic law a curator was a guardian of “a minor or a lunatic.” These days it’s the person in charge of a museum or art gallery. In our business we generally think of the curator as the chooser of what’s going to be seen by the public.

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