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Art Quotes and Artists & Art Materials USA 2009

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Not A Flying Saucer

Last night I added two new pages to my Artsnova web site. The first is A Small Collection of Art Quotes which consists of both some funny and serious quotes about art. I’ve been collecting quotes for some time and figured it was time to share some of my favorites.

The second addition - Reflections on Artists & Art Materials USA 2009 - is an overview of the Executive Summary of the Artists & Art Materials USA 2009 industry survey. As an artist, the most interesting aspect of the summary is the information about the categorization of artists and the amount of artwork created last year.

The Illustration

The illustration I used for this post is not a flying saucer. It’s not even a flying sausage. In fact it only flies if flung. This is the result of some Photoshop manipulation of a … well I’ll let you use your imagination.

Tags: art, artist, quotes, survey
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Corporate Gallery Artist’s Reception

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Geometers Dreamscape digital abstract art

In July I was accepted into the Northwest Cultural Council’s Corporate Gallery Program. The Corporate Gallery Program is supported by funding from corporations in northwest suburban Chicago land and involves approximately 30 area artists whose art is on display in 9 corporate art galleries. The public may view the art during each gallery’s normal business hours. Artists display their works - oils, watercolors, sculpture, photography, mixed media (and now digital) - at the gallery sites on a rotating basis.

Upon being accepted into the program, four of my digital art works were put on exhibit at the Arlington Green Executive Centre at 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights IL. The art went on display July 21 and will remain on display until October 5. The four art works that I have in the exhibit are:

Finding My Center of Gravity - an abstract panoramic gallery wrap canvas giclee.
Geometer’s Dreamscape - the abstract shown above.
Butterfly Effect - another abstract panoramic gallery wrap canvas giclee.
Harmony of the Spheres - an abstract similar in style to Geometer’s Dreamscape

Unfortunately I have made none of this art available for sale on either my web site or at Fine Art America. However, I did use a small scale study of Butterfly Effect as the illustration for my blog post Mensa, Algorithmic Art, and Monty Python

2010 Corporate Gallery Artists Reception - Saturday September 12

Following is the text of the reception announcement.

The public is invited to view works by seven new NWCC Corporate Gallery artists at a reception on Saturday, September 12, 2009 from 1pm to 3 pm at Arlington Green Executive Centre, 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, IL. There is no admission fee, and refreshments will be served. Works will remain on exhibit through October 5, 2009; the gallery is open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am-Noon.

Exhibiting artists are:

Gail Baar of Buffalo Grove - Art Quilts

Liz Buckley of Mundelein - Photographs

Dianne Martia of Darien - Mixed Media

James Plaxco of Schaumburg - Digital Art

Donald Stillman of Buffalo Grove - Cellulose Polymer Resin Sculpture

Len Upin of Buffalo Grove - Ball Pen Drawings

Kevin Wisor of Schaumburg- Photo Collages

The Corporate Gallery Program is supported by corporations in the Northwest Corridor. The program showcases regional artists in attractive, modern corporate settings. Artists in a wide variety of media are accepted after a rigorous 2-step jurying process. The Council’s goal is to enrich the life of the community through exposure to the arts where people work and visit.

All art is for sale. A percentage of the sale price is a tax-deductible donation to support the Council, a not-for-profit community agency bringing visual art, music, dance, theater, poetry, and our unique Kids Meet Art program to the northwest suburbs.

For additional information about the reception please call the Council at 847-991-7966, or e-mail nwcc at northwestculturalcouncil.org.

About the Northwest Cultural Council

The Northwest Cultural Council was established in 1988 to respond to the need for cultural enrichment and development in the northwest suburbs and covers an area with a population of 800,000. The organization’s quarterly publication Spotlights is read by over 7,000 people and includes information about cultural events held in the northwest suburban area, focus articles on artists, and the value of art in education.

In addition to their work in support of the visual arts, NWCC also has literary programs and sponsors poetry workshops. It also sponsors a classical chamber music series featuring members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with concerts presented at NWCC Corporate Gallery sites.

The NWCC Kids Meet Art program is a three day arts education program that brings professional artists into elementary, junior and high schools, to introduce students to the various art forms. It offers hands-on, one-on-one training in art, music, theater, writing, dance, and special units on the Mayan and Japanese cultures.

See you at the Artists Reception

If you would like to attend the September 12 artists reception (1:00-3:00pm), you can use the following Google map for directions to the Arlington Green Executive Centre. I hope to see you there.

Ad Astra, Jim

Tags: artists, corporate gallery program, reception
Posted in Abstract Art, Art Shows, Art and Artists | 2 Comments »

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Space Artist Alan Bean Radio Interview

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Cropped version of Astronaut Glory II digital painting

Last night an interview with space artist and Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean aired on WBEZ here in Chicago. The interview, conducted on the PRI program The World opened with Alan Bean discussing one of his favorite paintings - a self portrait titled That’s How It Felt To Walk On The Moon and the emotions he felt walking on the Moon: "It’s an incredible moment. It’s a moment where you feel like you’re the luckiest guy on Earth. It’s a moment where your life is at stake and the people that got you there had better have built that suit right…"

Bean went on to discuss how he went about incorporating moon dust into each of his paintings. The key is a realization that Bean had regarding emblems that had been cut from his Apollo and Skylab spacesuits and presented to him by NASA upon his retirement from NASA.

"One day I was sitting down … and looking up at these emblems from Apollo 12… You know those things are dirty with moon dust. I had wanted moon dust to put in my paintings but didn’t have them and never thought of it being in those patches… If I would be willing to cut them up I could put them in the paintings. And then I would have pieces of my spacesuit in there and dirt from the Ocean of Storms… I hated to cut them up… but I’m using the rest of my life to make these paintings. I think it would be appropriate to cut them up and include them in the paintings."

Responding to a question about moon dust and posterity: "I believe in doing what you can because I’ll be gone in 10 or 15 years but your listeners need to think about this: they’re only going to be here once. Sometimes we think there’s other people around that will make up for what we don’t do. Sure they can, they can mow a lawn, they can drive a car, they can take a job and write an article or something but they can not do what’s in the heart of each of your listeners. And if they don’t do it, it will never be done again until time ends."

The radio interview lasted 8 minutes and audio of the interview is available at Moon Artist - PRI’s The World.

The interview was apparently timed to coincide with the July 16 2009 opening of an Alan Bean art exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum titled Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist on Another World.

To learn more about Alan Bean and his brand of space art, you can read an interview I had with Alan Bean many years ago and visit Alan Bean’s web site. There is also a brand new book of Alan’s space art: Alan Bean: Painting Apollo by Alan Bean I have not yet seen the book but am looking forward to getting a copy.

Check out this new youtube video of Alan Bean talking about his space art.

The Illustration: Astronaut Glory II

The picture used to illustrate this post is a cropped version of a digital painting I created a few months ago as my way of commemorating the upcoming 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. Unsigned open edition versions in a variety of sizes can be purchased at Fine Art America. A small quantity of signed limited edition versions are available on my web site at Astronaut Glory II Space Art Print.

Tags: alan bean, Apollo, artist, moon, painting, Space Art
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Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival

Saturday the kids and I attended the Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival. It was beautiful weather for an outdoor fair. This is the 22nd year for this annual juried fine art festival. Over 150 artists and artisans participated in this year’s festival.

My prime motivation for attending was to see what other artists were up to. I confess to having largely ignored the artists specializing in sculpture, blown glass, jewelry, and pottery. My focus was on the work of the photographers and painters.

With respect to photography, one thing was evident: digital photography has become the dominant form of photography. Photographic works came in three basic forms. The first form was what I would call pure photography which consists of photographs with no apparent digital manipulation. The second category would be photographs in which various types of digital manipulation were evident - at least to someone experienced in such matters. The third category would be photographs that had been digitally altered to resemble paintings - a path most frequently taken by those working with Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter.

I have no personal bias either for or against any of the three aforementioned categories. Rather, the only thing that matters to me is the end product. If someone can take a well composed photograph and skillfully manipulate it to create a convincing painting that is superior to the original photograph, then kudos to that photographer-artist. After all, the final image is what counts.

There were a number of traditional painters present at the art fair as well but for the most part their work, mostly executed on large canvases, was uninspiring. I found this to be particularly true of the abstract artists - though there were a few whose work was inspired.

Thinking back, one thing I don’t recall seeing were any purely digital paintings. Nor were there any artists whose work was the result of a 3D render. Being a fan of space art and astronomy, I was also disappointed to see no space art nor any astronomical art. The closest was a digital photograph of the Aurora Borealis.

Speaking of space art, the reason I am writing this entry so late (oops make that early) is because I spent Memorial Day and this evening (now yesterday) preparing artwork for the Space Art Show at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando Florida. I also created a 13 x 19 inch congratulatory space art card for Peter Kokh, the recipient of the National Space Society’s 2009 Gerard K. O’Neill Award For Space Settlement Advocacy. I do hope that Peter enjoys the card/artwork.

Until next time, Ad Astra

Tags: art fair, photography, Space Art
Posted in Art Shows, Art and Artists, Digital Photography, Space Art | 2 Comments »

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New Abstract Art - Fizzy Goodness

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Fizzy Goodness digital art
Fizzy Goodness, 27.5 by 17 inches, by Jim Plaxco

I just added a newly created artwork to my Abstract Gallery. Titled Fizzy Goodness, this art is my tribute to carbonated, sugar-enriched, artificially colored water. That’s right - soda pop. Or cola, depending on what part of the U.S. or the world you are from.

I can’t claim to be a cola connoisseur. Coca-cola, Dr Pepper, Root Bear, Orange Crush, and Squirt are my beverages of choice - delivering the high doses of sugar - and in some cases caffeine - that my body craves. I must confess that I don’t imbibe very often - perhaps only a few times a month as I really don’t need all that sugar and I try to set a good example for my two kids. To satisfy my desires for cold fizzy drinks I generally resort to simple carbonated water.

Fizzy Goodness is available as both a limited edition and open edition print. For information about the hand signed limited edition gallery wrap canvas in its original size, see Fizzy Goodness Limited Edition Print.
For the open edition print, which is available in a range of sizes, see Fizzy Goodness at Fine Art America. Note that while I personally create the limited edition prints, the open edition prints are produced by Fine Art America.

Cheers, Jim.

Tags: abstract art
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The Cost of Art Appreciation

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Beach Sky Study Digital Painting
Beach Sky Study 1

There is bad news in store for folks visiting the Art Institute of Chicago. As of May 23 admission to this world class art museum will jump 50 to 70 percent. General admission will be $18 for adults, up from $12, and $12 for seniors and students, up from $7 - a 70 percent increase. There is no charge for children under 12. The museum has said that the extra fees charged for admission to special exhibits, like the current Edward Munch art exhibit Becoming Edward Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth, will not rise - at least not this year. According to an Art Institute spokesman, the admission increase is needed to keep pace with rising costs. Note that general admission fees typically make up a small fraction of an art museum’s overall income. In 2006 general admission fees represented 9 percent of the Art Institute’s museum-based expenses. Evidentially endowments, government grants, and donations from private donors and foundations are down for museums in general - increasing the pressure on museums to raise their admission fees.

It was only in 2006 that the Art Institute began charging admission. Before that there was an optional admission donation. This new increase is being justified on the grounds that there are other art museums charging higher admission fees; that it has been five years since an increase; and that the addition of the Modern Wing (264,000 square feet costing $283 million) adds to the visitor’s experience.

For comparison purposes, here are the admission costs of some other major art museums based on information from the article Filling out the picture on Art Institute Admission that appeared in the March 15, 2009 Chicago Tribune:

$20 - Museum of Modern Art, New York
$20 (optional) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
$18 - Guggenheim Museum, New York
$18 - Art Institute of Chicago new admission fee
$17 - Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston
$12 (optional) - Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
$12 - Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee
$12 - Art Institute of Chicago current admission fee
Free - Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Free - Getty Center, Los Angeles
Free - National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Free - Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

For those on a budget, the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as the other major Chicago museums, still offers free admission days throughout the year. Art Institute admission is also free from 5 to 8 p.m. every Thursday and on Friday nights from Memorial Day through Labor Day. There will also be free admission during a celebration of the Modern Wing planned for May 16-22. Note that Chicago residents can get free admission through the Chicago Public Library - fair since the museum is on land owned by the Chicago Park District.

While I sympathize with the Art Institute’s plight, raising admission fees could not come at a worse time. When one considers the costs of transportation, parking, and lunch, a family outing to the Art Institute is no bargain. This admission fee increase could actually result in a decrease in income for the museum since it will probably reduce the number of visitors per year - visitors who often purchase tickets for special exhibits, dine at the museum’s restaurant, and spend money in the gift shop.

And if President Obama has his way, things may get worse for our nation’s museums given that Obama wants to limit the ability of those making more than $250,000 a year to claim a tax deduction for their charitable donations. Interestingly Obama’s plan only penalizes those who give something back to their community and not those who don’t. The net result of this plan may well be to bring about even more admission fee increases as museums attempt to make up shortfalls in other fundraising areas.

My advice: visit an art museum today - before it becomes too expensive to.

Post Illustration: Beach Sky Study 1

I’ve illustrated this post with Beach Sky Study 1 which is an experimental digital landscape painting.

References:

Tags: art institute museums
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Quantum Moon Space Art

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Quantum Moon Space Art Print
Quantum Moon by Jim Plaxco, 26 by 18 inches

I’ve added yet another work of lunar art to my Moon Art Gallery. This time it is a piece titled Quantum Moon. With this particular piece I wasn’t so much interested in the Moon as in working on a new method of digitally painting the image.

The method I used to create Quantum Moon bears some similarity to pointillism but is different in some crucial ways. First the dots overlap - much more so than in pointillist paintings. Second, in traditional pointillism the artist is to avoid mixing colors. Rather, primary colors are applied as dots in such a way as to work with the human eye with the eye doing the color mixing in a process known as optical mixing. I did not follow this method. My primary interest was in the texture that resulted from the application of overlapping circles of color.

The texture that resulted from this overlapping method is not visible in smaller images. However if you go to the Quantum Moon gallery page you will see a link for the “Mare Crisium section of Quantum Moon” which takes you to a full size view of that portion of the painting.

I’ve also made an open edition print version of Quantum Moon available at Fine Art America. The print is available in a variety of sizes with a variety of papers to choose from, including canvas. To see what exactly I’ve made available, see
Quantum Moon Open Edition Print from Fine Art America. The page also provides full size previews for user selected sections of the painting.

I have only just begun selling open edition prints through Fine Art America and have only made four pieces available to date. All four are astronomical art pieces and all four feature a Moon. I wonder if there is any cosmic significance in that?

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Windycon Brief

Monday, November 17th, 2008

Sea Dream - Seahorse by Liz Harper

I spent this weekend in the company of the Windycon Science Fiction convention and confess to having had a good time. In addition to participating in two panels and making a presentation, I also entered six giclee prints in the art show. Of these only half are included in my online gallery:

With respect to programming, in my The 2008 Windycon Science Fiction Convention post I wrote about the panels and presentations I was giving. Personally, the most satisfying was the panel on which Artist Guest of Honor David Mattingly and I engaged in a wide ranging discussion of digital art. Unfortunately our third panelist - science fiction author Roland Green - had to miss the convention due to illness. David offered many insights on his transition from a traditional to a digital artist. I particularly liked that he simultaneously identified the digital "undo button" as being both the artist’s greatest friend and worst enemy.

I also attended a number of panels. Given that the theme of the year’s convention was military science fiction, the bulk of the programming addressed that topic. However, there was ample non-military SF programming. One of the most fascinating was that given by friend and physicist Bill Higgins. His talk How Antimatter Becomes a Plaything of Science discussed the history of antimatter, aka contraterrene, in both science and science fiction. A one page essay written by Bill on the subject appears in the September 2008 issue of Symmetry Magazine - a joint publication of Fermilab and SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center).

Back to the art show, Friday night there was a wine and cheese reception so that convention goers could meet and talk to the artists. While talking to a couple people, I put down my plate of brie and bread and glass of wine in front of my display. Perhaps because I was under the influence of the wine, I grabbed a bid sheet, wrote in the title of Unfinished - Still Life and my name as the artist, arranged/positioned the food and drink and attached the bid sheet to the plate - making it appear that my food and drink were actually a part of the show. What was great is that this did create a fair amount of buzz and folks were coming over to take pictures of it (something I unfortunately did not do.)

Unfortunately none of my six prints sold. I attribute this in part to the fact that my large framed pieces were at the high end of the bid scale vs the many, smaller unframed prints and originals available from other artists. Perversely, the one item I entered into the auction that did sell was, yes you guessed it, Unfinished - Still Life.

The highlight of the art show was the exhibit by David Mattingly of his work with lenticular 3D. Each print is actually the result of creating multiple viewpoints of the same scene, cutting each into small strips, assembling and finally overlaying with a carefully aligned lenticular screen. For more see David Mattingly’s page on depth-view prints

Browsing through the art show there were two other artists whose work caught my eye. One was Todd Johnson, a member of the General Technics group. Todd’s display consisted of a number of Shockfossils - a term of Todd’s creation. These Shockfossils are a form of Lichtenberg figures - created by zapping blocks of acrylic with millions of electron volts and then creating a fracture point through which the trapped electrons escape. See below the video that Todd created illustrating the process of freeing the electrons.

The other artist whose work caught my eye was Liz "Galindorf" Harper. Liz uses polymer clay to hand-sculpt figures and then uses metallic pigments powders applied by hand to color the piece. The colored sculptures are then placed in a shadow box on top of a black velvet backing. The effect is quite striking. I have used a photograph of Liz’s Sea Dream - Seahorse to illustrate this post.
You can see more of Liz’s work at her Astral Dreamers web site.

Now sit back and enjoy Todd’s video about the creation of Lichtenberg figures.

Todd Johnson creating Lichtenberg figure at lunchtime at Fermilab

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The Clouds of Ambera

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

MacDonald Bridge in Fog: Twilight oil on canvas by Ambera Wellmann.
Picture used with permission.

Last night I came across artist Ambera Wellmann’s blog and was captivated by her oil paintings of clouds. In fact I had planned to use one of Ambera’s cloud paintings to illustrate this post but as impressed as I was by her cloudscapes, MacDonald Bridge in Fog: Twilight, shown above, impressed me more - I’m glad I went back to her blog for a second look. To learn more about this painting, read Ambera’s post New Bridge Painting.

One of the aspects of oil paintings that I like is the ability to provide true surface texture, as opposed to the faux texture that is applied digitally to digital art. Photographically these textures allow digital art to look like their traditional media counterparts. Of course some oil artists abuse the oil medium’s capability by either overdoing it or using it inappropriately. With the advances that are being made in the digital realm, it would not surprise me if one day digital artists have access to printers that are able to reproduce the actual surface texture of oil paintings.

As to canvas itself, I have only printed one piece on canvas - Femme Fatale which I have not yet added to my online gallery but did use to illustrate the post Pirates of the Capricon Science Fiction Convention. Artistically, most of the digital art I create is, in my opinion, better suited to either a watercolor paper, photographic paper, or a textured paper.

But enough about the texture of oil paintings and papers for digital printing. I’d rather be looking at clouds so visit Ambera Wellmann’s Blog and check out her great cloud paintings.Ad Astra, Jim

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Gallery of Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Trouvelot astronomical illustration: Sonne III

Earlier this evening while doing research for my upcoming presentation on space art at the International Space Development Conference (see Art and the Promotion of Space Exploration), I was looking for information about Ã‰tienne Trouvelot, an astronomical artist active during the 1870’s. Quite to my surprise, I found a small gallery of his art at the New York Public Library web site. The 15 images are all from his book The Trouvelot astronomical drawings published in 1881 by Scribner’s Sons.

Of the images contained in the gallery, my two favorites are Mare Humorum, from a lunar study made in 1875, and The planet Mars, drawn based on observations from September 3, 1877. To view these and the rest of the images, visit New York Public Library’s Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings gallery.

P.S. Trouvelot is perhaps more well known as being the individual responsible for the accidental introduction of the gypsy moth to North America.

Ad Astra, Jim

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Digital Art and Space Blog
Reflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy

Blog Pages

Blog Categories

Archive for the ‘Art and Artists’ Category

Art Quotes and Artists & Art Materials USA 2009

Corporate Gallery Artist’s Reception

Space Artist Alan Bean Radio Interview

Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival

New Abstract Art - Fizzy Goodness

The Cost of Art Appreciation

Post Illustration: Beach Sky Study 1

References:

Quantum Moon Space Art

Windycon Brief

The Clouds of Ambera

Gallery of Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings

Digital Art and Space BlogReflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy

Blog Pages

Blog Categories

Archive for the ‘Art and Artists’ Category

Post Illustration: Beach Sky Study 1

References:

Digital Art and Space Blog
Reflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy