Blog slowdown

On 5/5/08, Scott & Anna Dykema wrote:
Hello,
I have been reading your blog and checking out your site after looking back through some past issues of New American Paintings and have really enjoyed it.
Your blog has been a great read and I hope that it continues. Are you still painting regularly?
I hope you continue.
Thank you
Scott Dykema

Daydream Studios

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Hi Scott - what's up?
Yep - I am still painting. However I have stopped adding to my blog. I realized that I was focusing too much on trying to get outside "success", and I was losing the fun that I used to have with painting. I decided to stop blogging, which I basically was doing as an attempt to increase my notariety. I am lot happier now and am enjoying painting more.

Steve

Case for oil paint tubes

It had recently become difficult wrangling all my 64 tubes of oil paint, so I made this case to hold them a few days ago. I got the idea from this web site. I bought a sketchbox easel, smashed out the innards, and glued some sticks inside to hang the paint from. It works great and I love it!
It took an assload of time - about 6 hours of sawing, sanding and gluing.

More about Ponytail painting

I just wanted to share some more details about my painting of a girl with a ponytail that I finished yesterday. It took 26.5 hours; I know this because with this painting I used an electronic kitchen timer to "punch in" and out when I was working on the painting. I ended up painting almost every individual hair on the girl, using a script/liner brush, the smallest brush type available.

I briefly thought about ironically titling the painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring".

Ponytail painting is done

My painting of a girl with a ponytail is done. It took a lot longer than I thought it would - about 25 hours, spread over 3 weeks. That makes it one of my most laborious paintings to date.

Looking for air purifier

For the current painting I'm working on, I bought several grey/black oil paints from Gamblin. The advantage of these paints is that they are completely neutral - they have no hue at all. The disadvantage of these Gamblin paints, I have discovered, is that they have some kind of very noxious thinner or something in them which stinks and has been making me feel headache-y. I thinking about buying another air purifier, possibly one from Aller Air. I currently have an Austin Air Healtmate Jr. for my living room, but I'd like to get another cleaner to cover more of my apartment.

Aller Air is pretty cool - they actually have the purfiers broken down by what kind of art material you use.

Art is like the Oscars

The Oscars are coming up, and I was thinking, success as a painter is like trying to get an Oscar. Oscars are awarded to what the average voter thinks is impressive or difficult. For example, actors are more likely to get an Oscar for playing a character who is disabled, weird, etc - what the average non-expert thinks is diffcult to do.
So, in other words, to be a successul artist, you have to do well at something the average person thinks is difficult.

Misunderestimated

I realized that I underestimated the number of days it would take it finish my current painting. I thought that I would be able to work on it continuously for several hours. However, I have been only working on it for 20-40 minutes at a time. This is due to the fact that there are only 3 distinct areas on the painting, so I can't just jump to another area while I am waiting for one area to dry.

Next painting

I decided to start thinking about my next painting while I'm still working on my current one -why wait? I am considering painting a hamburger, and some other topics. Some of my ideas would involve a lot of work, so I am not leaning toward those.

Progress on latest painting

I made a lot of progress on my latest painting this weekend. I have done a total of 9 hours so far on it. There is still a decent amount of detail work to do. I estimate about 3-4 more hours.

Too many other people

I was thinking recently about the topic of becoming a rich/famous artist. I realized something - becoming rich/famous is not something that you can sit down, and make happen, yourself. There are just too many other people involved.

There are just too many other people, out of your control, each with their own thoughts, preferences, opinions, interests, etc.

Gallery owners

The general public

The media

Museum curators

Finanical investors

Magazine editors

Art buyers

Perfectionism and art

I am kind of a perfectionist. I am very demanding as to the "quality" of my paintings. It might seem like being a perfectionist would be "helpful"; however, it tends to make my paintings look stiff and, "perfect" - for example, many of my subjects are perfectly centered on the canvas.
As someone I know once said, "But, art isn't perfect."

Not done

I started my latest painting yesterday, and (obviously) it isn't done yet. For some reason, the entire period between when a painting is started and when it's totally "in the bag" is kind of bothersome for me.
Right now the painting looks extremely messy and sloppy, because I just did the first layer of paint. I probably won't be at ease until the 3rd layer, when the paint finally looks smooth and creamy.

Next painting started

I have started my next painting. It will be a picture of a girl's ponytail. It is oil on panel, 12x9". I think I might be able to finish it over the 3 day weekend coming up. It doesn't have a lot of detail.

I have been researching how to paint hair. Painting the large number of hair strands will probably be the most intense part of this painting.

Internal v. external

Last week I talked about how I'd like to start changing my painting goals/orientation. I have become very External (see below). I would like to become more Internal, like I used to be.

External goals / viewpoint
- Trying to get into art shows
- Trying to get galleries
- Trying to get reactions from people
- Trying to sell paintings
- Trying to figure out what critics like
- Studying what art has "worked" before
- Analayzing the "contemporary art world"

Internal goals / viewpoint
- Trying to improve your painting ability
- Painting something you can hang on your walls
- Enjoying yourself
- Finding something fun to paint

"Oh, how creative!"

I have painted a total of about 50 paintings. Most of them get an OK response from people, but a couple of them really seem to impress people. I have been trying for a while to figure out what it is about these paintings that people really get excited about. I think I've figured it out - it's a factor I call "Oh, how creative!"

"Oh, how creative!" is the response that a typical person has to a painting that has some unusual design element to it, that the viewer thinks is an incredible leap of human imagination. For example, my painting Snowed is a painting of a room, where snow has fallen on the furniture, etc. If there was no snow in this painting, the viewers would be bored. However, add the one element of snow, and it's, "Oh, how creative!".

Another example is the painter Josh Keyes. At first I, like many viewers, was very impressed with his paintings. But then I realized that his paintings are actually very simple scenes, with 1 or 2 simple "gimmicks", like cutting off the edges of the ground (see pic below). This is a perfect example of "Oh, how creative!". If you imagine the painting below without the ground cut off, you probably would not be impressed.

Photorealism

Today I'd like to talk about Photorealism - a painting style of where the result looks very similar to a photograph.
I like Richard Estes a lot; he was actually one of the first painters that I liked, when I saw his paintings at about age 12. His paintings are sort of an improved, cleaned, shiny hyper-reality that I find yummy.
However, I don't like paintings where an artist perfectly reproduces a photo, and then seems to want credit/ praise for how much it looks like a photo. I can understand why such artists think they're great - 99% of people are probably stunned/impressed. (see "Wow that looks like a photo!")
I consider artists like this to be very talented craftsmen, but not strong creative artists.

Worth it?

Yesterday I talked about a painting that took almost a year to complete. This relates to a question I have been asking myself lately - is painting "worth it"?
You put many hours of your life into a painting. What is necessary, if anything, for it to have been "worth it"? Does that painting need to sell for a certain amount of money? Do you need a certain amount of reaction from people? Does the painting need to get into galleries and shows?
I must admit that I sometimes feel like certain paintings were "a waste". This is often based on the reaction to the painting; if it wasn't well-received, I feel like, "Was it even worth it to paint that?"

When I first started painting, I didn't really care about how the painting "did" after I painted it - I just focused on enjoying the painting. I plan to start getting back to how I was back then.

A year for one painting?

A while ago I talked about people who create a painting every day. I recently bought a DVD called The Treasures of Long Gone John, which shows a time-lapse video of Todd Schorr painting A Pirate's Treasure Dream. It took him almost a full year to do it.
Can you imagine?? I don't know if I'd be able to do it. My paintings take about 15 hours of painting time each to do. Any more than that, and it starts to seem like too big of an "investment" for one painting. Maybe someday I'll do a larger-time-period painting - who knows.

How the Modern Artist Rises to Fame

If you read this blog, you know that I am semi-obsessed with becoming a famous artist. As a part of this effort I recently purchased a book subtitled "How the Modern Artist Rises to Fame". It was written in 1989 by an art crtic and buyer named Alan Bowness. Bownes studied the history of how various artists became famous, and he has some interesting ideas. I don't know if I agree with them all. Here's a summary of his ideas:

Fame is not arbitary. Fame comes to special, "genius" artists.

Paintings from artists who eventually become famous "stick out like a sore thumb" when compared to other artists. Bownes says their paintings are clearly much better, to almost any viewer.

Talented artists don't really "die in obscurity". If they live long enough (25+ years after they start painting), all talented artists will become rich and famous.

Art critics know what they are talking about, and become very good at spotting great art, after looking at so much art all the time.

Artists almost have to be part of a larger group/scene to become great; they need the competition.

New American Paintings results out

Well, I guess the results for the Mid-Atlantic 2008 issue of New American Paintings are out. I found this blog entry and this note and this note from artists saying they're going to be in the mag. I haven't got a letter either way yet - I optimisticly assume that I am a "runner-up", like last year.

Meet the judges

I'm currently trying to decide what to paint next. I've been mulling this over for a while, and I though of a "weird" solution - how about befriending some art-judges, showing them my painting ideas, and having them tell me what to paint?
This would of course be the ultimate in pandering to an audience.

I have recently been struggling with questions about what I want for the future of my art career, how to make it happen, and what I am prepared to do for it. I am starting to wonder if an artist can have financial success without painting what certain gatekeepers want. Would it really be so bad to paint what I know someone else likes? I was gonna paint something, so why not paint something I know people will like - right??

Painting-to-painting comparison

Yesterday I talked about the art on the show The L Word. There is a scene from a recent episode that I'd like to talk about today.

In the scene, Bette, a high-level art figure, is talking to a character named "Michelangelo" about art. Michelangelo says that he saw a recent show at a local art center, which featured at least 10 paintings that were all better than the Eric Fischl painting Bette owns. Bette considers this for a moment, then concedes that it might be true.

This is what I am calling a "painting-to-painting comparison". It's where you choose a single painting by a famous artist and compare it to a single painting by a non-famous artist (for example, yourself), and determine that you are "better" than the famous/rich artist. I used to do this a lot a few years ago - I'd choose a single painting in a magazine, gallery, museum, etc., compare it with my best painting, and decide that I'm better than this guy, and wonder why I wasn't rich and famous.

These painting-to-painting comparisons are not valid. It's sort of "fun" to do them, to make yourself irritated about how unfair the whole art-world/ fame thing is. For a reality check, how about comparing your worst painting to the other artist's best one?

The L Word

The L Word is one of my favorite TV shows. I am especially impressed with how it incorporates contemporary art. One of the characters, Bette, has had various high-level art-related jobs over the course of the series. She regularly mentions various artists, displays paintings, etc. These could have been various throwaway, obvious references like Andy Warhol. Instead the artists Bette mentions and the art displayed in the show is always perfectly spot-on for the plot or character point the show is trying to make. The L Word must have some kind of expert in-house contemporary art advisor. Excellent work, people!

Cool art

Most people who know me know that I love Prada clothes. So, yesterday I was searching around for Prada stores, and I happened upon what appeared to be a strange store in the middle of nowhere. Upon further investigation I realized that this is actually an artwork callled "Prada Marfa".




It's a reproduction of a Prada boutique, built on the side of a highway near Marta, TX. I freakin love it! This is my kind of art!
Click here for more info/pix

Big break?

Earlier in my art career, I used to believe in the idea of a "big break". I thought that all an artist needs is a one big event, and then they never again have to worry about what art they produce, promoting themselves, sales, etc. (see How to become a famous artist).
I have been watching a lot of movies lately, and I just got the DVDs of my all-time favorite show, Dinner for Five, a talk show about the entertainment industry. I realized this: an artist sometimes gets a "big break" (a job, press, etc.) early in his career. Then the artist must continually keep "snowballing" or working on his career in order to get to a higher level. At any time, the artist can get either "bigger", or slip backwards and become less prominent. For example, even actors that starred in multiple movies slip backwards, and you start seeing them in TV series or even commercials.
So, I realized this applies to my painting career; I'm not going to get some "big break" and be "set for life". Like an actor, I'm going to have to continuously work on my career if I want to be "huge".

Gatekeepers

There are gatekeepers in each of the artistic fields - they decide which artists will get "past them" and have access to a level of success and popularity. Music has record labels, acting has casting agents, and painting has gallery owners, juried show judges, and museum curators.

The thing about gatekeepers is that they use their own likes and dislikes as a basis for deciding who gets past them. One book I read called it "taste buds" - if art "tastes good" to a particular gatekeeper, s/he will let it through.

The thing to realize about these gatekeepers is that there tends to be little relation between what the gatekeeper thinks will be sucessful, and what ends up being successful. I used to work in a record store, and we would receive about 10 albums from the major record labels per week. The labels clearly thought each of these artists would be successful. However, about 98% of these bands quickly vanished into obscurity.

So, is it a good idea to "target" these gatekeepers with your art? Is it better to make your art for the gatekeepers, or for the general public, or for yourself? I don't know - I do tend to target the gatekeepers, after dealing with them for several years and semi-understanding what they prefer.

I like it

I realized recently that I decide what to paint based on my own emotional reaction to the subject. In other words, I paint what I like. I went to the bookstore yesterday to take a look at what subjects/images other people are into. There's a big difference between what's featured, for example, in photography books, and what I paint.
I get the feeling that people look at some of my paintings and think, "what's that a picture of?" Meanwhile, I am having a huge emotional reaction to the image.

Between paintings

Right now I'm not currently working on a painting. I like to use this time to work on various art skills that I'd like to improve. Below is a picture of what I've been doing - teaching myself how to draw heads better.

Planning next painting

I'm currently deciding what to paint next. I have a list of several possible ideas. I kind of want to "take it to the next level" with my next painting, but my current ideas are "more of the same" of what I'd usually paint. We'll see what happens. Since I love to paint, if I don't find something "spectacular" within a period of time, I'll paint something from my idea list.

My dream

Today I asked myself, "What exactly is my 'dream' that would happen to my art career? What is my ultimate art-career fantasy?" Well, I did some web research, and I realized what my dream is.

There is currently a trend happening in the art world. Art "speculators" scout hundreds of artists, and then choose about 1% of them. This 1% then experiences immediate, huge financial success and fame. Waiting lists develop for their paintings, galleries fight over them, and they suddenly start selling for $1000s instead of $100s.

Check out the articles below. I "dream" that this happens to me (kinda shallow, aren't I?)

I just wanted to mention that I cannot discern any difference between the artists in these articles that were selected for ultimate success, and any other semi-competent artist. It just seems like some get picked and some don't. Note that the people doing the picking are not art experts; they are business investors like Michael Ovitz.

Hot art market stokes prices for artists barely out of teens

Warhols of Tomorrow Are Dealers' Quarry Today

First Come the Dealers, and Then the Diplomas

Left / right brain

I actually became an artist through reading the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I was looking to improve the right (creative) half of my brain, found this book, and "the rest is history".

I still am more of a left-brain (logical, analytical) artist. Most of my painting work involves studying, researching, making lists, etc. I would love to improve the free-flowing, creative half of my brain. I'm envious of other artists whose paintings are more imaginative.

They don't get it

I was thinking recently, and I realized that for about 95% of my paintings, people do not get the message or point that I was trying communicate. The only painting that a lot of people seem to "get" is Cheesy Beef Squares. This is probably because Cheesy Beef Squares actually has text within the painting itself that explains the painting.
On my web site, I have a "Notes" section for each painting that explains my thoughts, goals etc. for the painting. I had previously thought that the average person would get all of this info from just looking at the painting.
I guess I'm OK with people just enjoying my paintings at a "surface" level. It does bother me sometimes when people miss what I was going for and think that I'm not that good of a painter; for example - people often don't realize that Heather Is Apparently Frightened of Something To Her Right is a parody - I don't really paint like that.

Art City DVDs

Welcome to my first product-review. I wanted to talk about a set of DVDs called Art City. These are 3 documentaries that I think really give you a good insight into the contemporary art world. The films basically follow around various contemporary artists as they work in their studios, go to openings, meet with collectors, etc. I found it very eye-opening. One of the main realizations that I came away with is that there is very little difference between a "major, important" artist, and an unknown, average artist. In fact, I didn't know which was which until I looked up the various artists from the DVD and found that some of them are in my "Most important artists of the 20th Century" book, and some of them don't even show up in google.
I recommend these DVDs for any artist who hopes to "make it" in the art world.

Winning

Yesterday I talked about how I won a science fair competition. Today I want to talk more about winning / success.

Some people see success in the arts like winning the lottery. One day you are just living your normal life, and the next day you "win" some huge success, having put in very little work. These people think they will suddenly get selected to have a solo show at a museum, for a music record deal, to star in a movie, etc.

I see winning / success differently. To me "winning" in the arts is really more like winning an Olympic medal. Olympians train / work their entire lives, and then are rewarded.

If I told you you just won $40,000, you'd probably be pretty happy. If I then told you all you have to do get the $40k was work at your current job for a year, you'd probably then be pretty disappointed. To me, success is more like a job; you work, and then (hopefully) are rewarded.

More work

Lately I have been talking about the topic of work. I would like to tell you a story from my past on this topic.

In 1986 I won the Atlantic County Social Science Fair, computer programming competition. The fair was pretty big - there were hundreds of kids there from throughout New Jersey, and I had to walk up in front of all of them to accept the award.

But let's step back a bit and talk about how I "made" this happen. The year before, I had entered the same competition. I wrote a computer program called "Geography Quiz" - it showed you pictures of the Earth and asked you questions. I spent about 10 hours on it. For some reason I fully expected to win the contest that year. I had a very rude awakening when my entry had zero impact.

After losing in 1985, I decided to create a major program for the next fair. It would be similar to the movie Wargames - a graphic simulation of a nuclear war. I spent months on it. I went to the library and did research on the types of nuclear missles, cities in Russia, the pyhsics of nuclear explosions, etc. I remember getting to the room at the fair where the computers were running our entries, and sitting next to a "smug" kid who seemed to think he was a shoe-in - just like me the year before. He was in for a similar rude awakening.

As you know, I ended up winning that year. I was completely un-surprised. I again fully expected to win; I had put in about 100x the work of any of the other kids.

The point if this story is about the amount of work people put into their creative works. Whoever puts more hours into their work will most likely be at the top of their creative field. Some people seem to think that their "talent" will carry them; such people will easily be topped by someone who simply puts in a few more hours than they do. People sometimes tell me I'm "talented"; I respond that I could barely draw 7 years ago, before I read over 50 art books and put in 100s of hours of practice.

Factories

Yesterday I talked about how much work there is when producing art. Some artists manage this work by creating "factories" around themselves through which they delegate much or all of the work to others. In the TV show Iconoclasts, Jeff Koons' factory is shown - he is basically a "factory foreman" and idea generator, and the art is manufactured assembly-line style. Damien Hirst also has a factory through which many of his works are completely created by others. This factory tradition actually goes back as far as the Renaissance.
Some artists get to a point in their career where there is a huge demand for *anything* by that artist. Some of these artists decide to take advantage of the situation and produce the largest possible amount of art that can be attributed to them.
I am ambivalent about whether I'd like to be in a position where I'm a "factory foreman". But, it might be cool to just think up ideas all day.

Work

Let me start off by saying that I really hate it when people call their art their "work". This really irritates me! I think it sounds very pretentious. That being said, art is work. Let me bring up another Edison quote:

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Art is a lot of work! I think that a lot of potential art simply never comes into being because no one sits down and does the hours and hours of work involved in getting it from the idea stage to the "exists" stage. Getting the idea is exciting and the completed painting is cool, but in between is work to be done.

New American Paintings update

I contacted New American Paintings last week to find out what was up with the 2008 Mid-Atlantic issue - the results usually come out in December. See their response below. I'm still hoping to make it in this year!

We expect to begin sending out notifications early next week.

Best,

--
Jessica Fortin
Open Studios Press
617-778-5265

Emo

"Emo" is a term for a type of current pop-rock music. Emo is also used is the romance-novel industry; writers and editors try to maxmize the emo (emotion) that is contained in each section of the text.

I think emo also applies to painting. One might argue that the whole purpose of art is to inspire emos in the viewer.

I try to paint images/subjects that I have a lot of emotions about. I find that painting these subjects helps me work through the emos. Below are some of the wide variety of emos that I feel toward the subjects I've painted.

affection

irritation

bad memories

anxiety

nostalgia

"yumminess"

attraction

calmness

stress

excitement

comfort

loneliness

amusement

apprehension

My process

I am looking to make changes to my process of getting an image to paint. Here is what I currently do:

1) I think up a subject to paint.
2) I either take a photo of the subject, or search the web for a photo I like (ebay / amazon.com / gettyimages.com / yahoo images).
3) I "tweak" the photo in Photoshop.

I am getting kind of disatisfied with this process. I feel like there is probably a more spontaneous, creative way to work.

Knifing your paintings

I read that, later in his career, Monet was really bothered by his early paintings. He hated knowing that they were out there. Collectors would bring early paintings to him, knowing that he would slash them and have the collector take a new replacement painting.

I sometime feel like knifing my early paintings. As I get more and more skilled, those paintings really bother me. For now, I'll let them continue to exist!

Here's a related article

Consume / produce

I saw a TV show recently that said that people have begun producing creative content like never before - things like YouTube videos, blogs, etc. Some people (like me) are not satisfied with consuming creative output; we "must" generate some ourselves.

If you like to produce art, I think it's a good idea to voraciously consume all the art you can. I find that the more outside art I take in, the easier it is for me to create art of my own.