More of the Same

The Challenges Female Artists Face Mid-Career.

A good long read about why it’s so exhausting to participate in the art world. Especially if you are a woman.

“Being an artist now is…almost 50 percent celebrity-ness and charm, and in order to get past that, you have to have really strong work,” said Fox. “Men’s charm, aka sexiness, lasts up until they’re 55, whereas women aren’t sexy after 40, 45, and there’s a huge flirtation thing that goes on in the art world that has to do with charming curators.”

So not appealing really.

Painting at The Alice

Grace Rosario Perkins has an painting exhibit up currently at The Alice Gallery.
Every time I see a painting show I like I will post about it immediately.

I wish I had taken better photos, the installation of these abstractions hug the walls and take over some of the flooring. I always appreciate someone working out of the confines of of our typical canvas square.

According to Rosario Perkins her work is autobiographical in nature and eludes to landscapes.

As per The Alice website there will be a closing reception and reading 9/1/18.

The Alice Gallery Hours: 12-7PM on Saturdays
6007 12th Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98108 (the second floor).

PS Root around on the artist’s website, she’s done some interesting collaborations. For instance this one called We Belong Together.

50 Northwest Artists

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I purchased a book at Third Place Books when I went there about a month ago that is called 50 Northwest Artists.

It’s a book that I looked at a lot in my 20s, and it was something that I think I felt was going to be my life. When I saw the Fay Jones show a month ago, I kind of felt the same way. What I think I am getting at is these people made art and lived a quiet life and it worked out. Now, I feel like it is impossible to do that with out the chaos of keeping up with the internet, going to all of the openings, keeping up with your peers, giving a shit about what is going on in New York, and the Frieze Art Fair. I couldn’t even read the brief article in Vanity Fair about Frieze. It is apparent that no matter how I try, I don’t care.

Originally when I wanted to paint again, it was with the thought of returning to painting the flowers in my backyard, painting Bonnard-esque domestic scenes that are not trying to impress anyone. Joan Mitchell. Although sadly she did care.

When i bought that book, I wanted to meditate on what it originally meant to me to want to be an artist and I guess almost will myself back there.

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Cars and Painting Easel

I hate to do this to you but there is a current car commercial treading in so much ridiculousness you have to see it.

“A woman has a surprise for this man. For his birthday, she got him a painting easel. She decorates a wall with his paintings. Luckily, their Subaru takes him places he’s always wanted to go.”

The official tagline for the spot is “Confidence In Motion”. I immediately thought of a piece Nicole Eisenman made a long time ago containing as many images as possible depicting the concept of an artist in woman’s fashion magazines.

(I think that was from her exhibit at Jack Tilton).

Speaking of Eisenman, I was incredibly bummed to find I am missing her exhibit Matrix 248 that is currently up at Berkeley Art Museum by just a few days. Her Tea Party painting and the story behind it is pure Eisenman.

Back to my original thought, curious what prompted the Subaru spot? The paintings kind of remind me of Dana Schutz.

 

The Persistence of Painting in a Digital Age

Tonight, at the Capitol Hill Arts Center is a panel discussion on “The Persistence of Painting in a Digital Age“, part of John Boylan’s Roundtable Conversation Series. Guest panelists include Elizabeth BrownDrake DeknatelBilly HowardMargie Livingston.

According to Margie Livington’s site the theme of the night is:

A conversation about the survival of painting into the 21st century. Why does this ancient ritual of covering big stretches of cloth or wood with oily pigments still captivate both the artists and their audiences? How has painting maintained its power in this age of information overload?

More information can be found at Art Dish forum:

The event will take place at the Lower Level, adjacent to the CHAC Lounge, a nonsmoking bar in the basement of the Capitol Hill Arts Center at 1621 -12th Ave, Seattle WA just below the sign for Crave.From 7 to 9 pm. Admission is free.

Capitol Hill Arts Center
1621 12th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
206.388.0500 

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Down south in Portland this evening is also the kick off broadcast for a new season of Eva Lake’s Artstar Radio at 5pm. For those of us tuning in via computer, KPSU is now archiving their broadcasts for one month.

According to the Oregonian:

Radio these days isn’t the sound salvation, as Elvis Costello once sang, but it does have Artstar Radio, Eva Lake’s weekly chat show on KPSU (1450 AM). The show is returning after a summer hiatus . It’ll now air on Mondays at 5 p.m.

Lake has a fine lineup planned for September and early October: On Sept. 12 the artist and director of Chambers talks with Mark Smith, who has a fine show up at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. That program will be followed by artists Jesse Durost (Sept. 19) and Scott Wayne Indiana (Sept. 26). A&E contributor Harvest Henderson meets with Lake Oct. 3. — D.K. Row

As a tie in to our first post today, Eva had a great radio interview with Jacqueline Ehlis last spring discussing the validity of paint in a digital world, check out the transcript here, its good stuff.

Incidentally, tomorrow is Eva’s birthday and she will be celebrating it with us fine folks here in Seattle! If anyone wants to meet up for birthday drink, shoot me an email…. for those of you who don’t know Eva, she is considered a triple threat in Portland, not only is she the creator of Artstar radio, but is an accomplished painter, runs the recently opened Chambers gallery and maintains an amazing website. I think that is actually a quadruple threat.

The end of art – or just First Thursday?

Here is an odd-ball lecture competing against First Thursday activities in Seattle this evening. The Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is presenting their 2005 Psychoanalysis in Everyday Life Lecture by art critic Donald Kuspit.

“SPSI is honored to present Donald Kuspit, Ph.D., one of America’s most distinguished art critics. In addition to his numerous publications, awards, and accomplishments, Dr. Kuspit is professor of art and philosophy at Stony Brook University in New York, a contributing editor to Artforum, and has completed the course of study at the Psychoanalytic Institute of the New York University Medical Center.”

Relish the subject matter or not, the title of Kuspit’s last book The End of Art seems a little over the top (or worst beaten to death:”the sky is falling, no never mind painting has just died again”). However, how often is there the opportunity to hear what an intellectual heavy weight like Kuspit has to say in our own back yard?

Relish the subject matter or not, the title of Kuspit’s last book The End of Art seems a little over the top (or worst beaten to death:”the sky is falling, no never mind painting has just died again”). However, how often is there the opportunity to hear what an intellectual heavy weight like Kuspit has to say in our own back yard?

The lecture takes place at 7:30 P.M. on Thursday, December 1 in Kane Hall,Room 120, on the campus of the University of Washington.The event is free and open to the public co-sponsored by the University of Washington Division of Art History. It is the fourth in the annual “Psychoanalysis in Everyday Life” lecture series, established by Felice and Pierre Loebel, M.D., focusing on the ways that psychodynamic concepts can inform, illuminate and influence everyday life.

Kuspit has also produced a large coffee table book in 1998 on Chihuly. Large grains of salt will be offered at lecture door.

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In other parts of town, galleries across town (whose real competition will actually be the rain) will be open late tonight for First Thursday parties. One of everyone’s favorite- Fay Jones has an opening at at Grover/Thurston Gallery.

Jim Demetre asks on artdish’s forums:

Is there any artist in Seattle more admired and critically acclaimed than painter Faye Jones? None come to mind.
Head down to Occidental Square to see what she is up to at present. If any of you readers care to let the rest of us in on what these paintings are about, I can guarantee that an interesting debate will ensue. I have some ideas of my own, as you might suspect.

also in the area:

Art Patch Gallery presents:Tea Room: Far And Distant Places

An illuminated installation of works on paper and other mixed media work by Singapore-born Seattle-based mixed media artist Heinrich Toh. Inspired by memories of culture and tradition, Toh examines identity, displacement and assimilation that comes from relocation and travel.

ART PATCH GALLERY
Tashiro Kaplan Building
306 South Washington St, Suite 102

and many other exhibits opening up including Jeffrey Mitchell at James Harris that I am curious about.

if you are in the Tashiro Kaplan Building tonight, come up to the second floor to say hi to everyone at the Shift Studio as we kick off our New Members opening- right across the way from Art Patch.

Stealing Beauty

TRIUMPH

Weighing in on the new exhibit The Triumph of Painting, The Guardian recounts all things Saatchi in a week long spree of articles.

Waiting in the wings, Dana Schutz will be featured in Saatchi’s part two of Triumph. Wow, how does she do it, success right out of the starting gate? *

Angle Magazine, way back in 2003 stated.” At twenty-six, mere months after her graduation from Columbia’s MFA program, Schutz has her paint-stained running shoes poised on the fast track of budding international stardom. It couldn’t happen to a nicer painter.”

Pointing more to the recent future (2004), Index Magazine interviewed Schutz about growing up in the midwest and having the benefit of an art teacher mom. Still no assessment of how someone shoots cannon ball fast into fame, so soon after dipping their big toe into NYC.
*Still muddled? Here’s your answer, on Columbia’s own web site: could it be connections?

Schutz does mention the reason she arrived at limbless figures the previous year was from being “really tense.” Perhaps it was reading commentary left on Dennis Hollingsworth’s blog, accusing Schutz of stealing ideas (!).

You most certainly know some thing is up if Eric Doeringer is making bootlegs of your work. Doeringer was recently on the radio program Studio 360 explaining his bootleg project. As he says on his site,” So far I’ve only had a couple of artists demand that I stop selling my Bootleg versions of their work.” Doeringer, who sets up shop bookseller-like, outside of big gun galleries is hardly more of a threat (with his 8″ x10″ reproductions) to an artist’s career than the postcard reproduction you can buy at your local museum. Who pray tell is doing this demanding?

doeringer