doreyme

Far away + long ago...

 

american vs canadian photography

There are so many fabulous American photographers out there, past + present, it's scary.  And recently, I've been wondering why.  Not that we don't have any, we're the land of Jeff Wall (one of my teachers at NSCAD)  +  Edward Burtnsky + Fred Herzog  after all, but en masse, really the Americans have it all over us.  Then I realized, duh-uh, maybe it's because they have America.  They have the American flag.  American presidents.  American money.  They have American movie stars. Hollywood.  Florida and all those tanned old rich people. New York!  They have Texans.  Tony Lamas cowboy boots. Wacky religious cults.  Millions of evangelists. Strange churches and banks.  Hawaii + their shirts.  Route 66. Gun stores. Cacti. Los Vegas. And all those highways + big cars. They have Coca-cola.  Huge war monuments + military graveyards.   New Orleans. We Canadians are truly disadvantaged. 

behind the scenes

Everyday I try to post a new painting for the Daily Painters site (top right hand side of this blog), along with 162 other artists. Mostly American, some European, a few Canadian. Usually less than half post something a day.   Sometimes I will post something I painted that day (usually watercolours) other times paintings I've worked on for some time (usually oils on wood.)   Artists who participate can see(behind the scenes)  how many people have clicked onto a painting to look at it closer.  The "clickings" are arranged, for us, the artists, in 3 colour groupings.  Red, the least amount of viewers, orange, middling, green, hot.  So it's always interesting to see which works are most popular.  I'm not overtly influenced by the results but I do find some of the results surprising + interesting.  Eg. of these two.  2729 people came to the Daily Painting home pages ite on Feb 22, 09. Of those 240 people clicked on to this painting + of those 28 when to look at more paintings in my gallery view.  This watercolour was a "green".  It was over the group average.  The second painting, however, was a "red".  It was posted on March 6. Of 2045 people who came to the homepage, 67 clicked on that painting, the oil on wood and of those 27 when to look at more of my paintings.  So what do I conclude?  Nothing really.  I can never guess what "the people" will like...whatever they do, is interesting, but I follow my muse, the eccentric rhymes with witch in any case...

separated at birth?

here's what Sarah Palin thinks about global warming + polar bears  + same sex benefits + other things

in Toronto

the streets are paved with gold.

tonight, belatedly, I made Easter dinner for many people. Turkey.  It was really, really good.  Crisp on the outside, moist in the inside.  I stuffed it with chestnuts.  Dates.  It was so delicious everyone at the table said.  But I think I'm going to follow fellow Canuck Pamela here and never eat meat or fish again. Even salami.  Will this affect my art?  Will I start dressing like Pamela?

speaking of hares...

bunnies + all that Easter stuff, etc. I've forgotten about Joseph Beuys + his attitude towards hares, vs humans + his art + art + revolution in general. Re: the transformative nature of art " At the Galerie Schmela in Dusseldort, on 26 November 1965, Beuys, his head covered in honey and gold leaf, took a dead hare in his arms and quietly carried it round the exhibition of his drawings and paintings, 'letting it touch the pictures with its paws'. Then he sat on a stool in a dimly lit corner and proceeded to explain the meaning of the works to the dead animal, 'because I do not really like explaining them to people', and since 'even in death a hare has more sensitivity and instinctive understanding than some men with their stubborn rationality'. I didn't get Joseph Beuys when I was a callow young art student. I thought he was uber cool but I didn't get him.

time out for my muse

she is tired + somewhat discouraged. She works me hard but I'm not sure we're communicating clearly lately. She tells me not to worry about $500 hydro bills. Oh, where is my Trust Fund Muse? Oh, yeah. I don't have one. Sound of a small violin playing.

I've been such a

Now I feel silly + embarrassed. One (okay, me) doesn't paint for other's approval or praise. One (okay me) just follows their rhymes with witch Muse where ever She takes them. It's more like "get out much"? One (mememe) paints more or less in solitude (except for assistant Angus who'll say anything for a dog cookie) . so thanks, cyberspace friends for writing your kind comments. Winter seems less cold + I'm not talking global warming unless that's a euphemism for the lovely community of like minded people keeping in cyber touch, globally.

reason#3, Loving art a moral quality

"...a picture of Titian's, or a Greek statue, or a Greek coin, or a Turner landscape, expresses delight in the perpetual contemplation of a good and perfect thing. That is an entirely moral quality--it is the taste of the angels. And all delight in fine art, and all love of it, resolve themselves into simple love of that which deserves love. That deserving is the quality which we call "loveliness"--(we ought to have an opposite word, hateliness, to be said of the things which deserve to be hated); and it is not an indifferent nor an optional thing whether we love this or that; but it is just the vital function of all our being. What we like determines what we are, and is the sign of what we are; and to teach taste is inevitably to form character." John Ruskin, "Traffic".

reason #1: Art allows people to convey or demonstrate deeply held feelings and beliefs as well as moral, ethical, and political sentiments in socially acceptable ways.

from Alan Bamberger, an online art consultant. (I haven't thought this out or anything. I'm looking for other people's reasons. I'm trying to figure this art thing out. In my heart I think art is really, really important...but right now, I need to make my brain understand that so I'm looking around to what other people say + think.)

artists are the penultimate whores

Their every thought, their every tear, aesthetically repackaged for public consumption. Perhaps that's why I love animals, they don't repackage. That's not to say it's not difficult to be an artist. It takes a certain dumb bravery to commit to one brush stroke or flick of a pen over another. Even configuring a blog is a slog, entailing too many choices, Geneva font or Ariel, an underlined or bold trackback. Each choice then public, ripe for ridicule or indifference.link

I could use an iMuse

paintings as wall bling

the art of affluence

a picture is worth a thousand words

Thank you for trying to give me directions, but it's too confusing to me. Would you mind drawing a map for me?