I promised you last week I’d show my first new painting soon, and this is it. This is the first of a new look that I want to make my signature look. This painting of an old phone booth (remember them?) out in the desert is the first in the series. The title is “Doesn’t anyone have a quarter?!”
I would ask you to subscribe to the NY Times if only for their Art Sections on Fridays and Sundays. I feel so tuned in to the international art world in their pages.
Today there was an ad for the Adelson Galleries and their new show of Jamie Wyeth’s work. His new series is titled “The Seven Deadly Sins,” and he uses seagulls as his painted protagonists. My favs are “Pride” and Gluttony.”
Plus there are many other paintings of gulls doing what gulls do, plus several of Andy Warhol that Jamie probably pulled out of the attic to extend the show. Several of these might not be for your children’s eyes.
The show, at least on my computer, is very good, and I think you should check it out at www.adelsongalleries.com
If I was the boss of the world, I would ask for your help in selling my balls. That is the series of sports-related paintings I’ve just finished. There are 12 in the series and I may do more. The paintings are oil on 30″ x 30″ x 2″ panels, and they star, well you know what. Football, baseball, etc. There is one puck and one horseshoe but the rest live up to the series title.
The series is very design-y and very high color. It would look great as a group in a sports bar or a private home. Actually, you can see them here on my website. Just go to my homepage, click Artist and then Balls, and there they are!!!
After studying all the galleries in the art magazines I get monthly, I have selected 21 galleries that appear to sell the type of art I create. They stretch from Laguna Beach to Denver to Dallas to Scottsdale to NYC.
The packages to the art galleries go in the mail tomorrow complete with a CD, a glossy printout of all 12 along with my Artist Resume and my About the Artist sheet, and a cover letter on my artist stationery, of course.
Drop by again. I’ll let you know how this goes.
I would demand that you see the new John Nieto exhibit at Sander’s Galleries, 6420 N. Campbell Avenue at Skyline Drive, right up behind Diana Madaras’ Gallery. I have seen his work before in homes of my friends, but he has gotten better and better with every canvas! His work tilts heavily towards paintings of coyotes looking at you, or dancing past you, but each is a full palette of color coming at your saturated eyeballs. And speaking of eyeballs, can he ever paint coyote’s eyeballs!!!
Nieto boldly dashes oranges next to greens next to reds next to blues, and all accented wih passages of white - and all applied thick and juicy. They told me they are acrylic, but they look like oils. Very exciting stuff.
I don’t know how long the show will be up, but it’s worth a visit.
I would ask if you are opposed to the Iraq war, and if you are, I would recommend you visit www.joerebholz.com Although he works digitally in his computer (yes, I am prejudiced towards the old fashioned ways ) he has an exciting body of anti-war work for you. Check him out.
I would order you to go see the new Robert McCall art exhibit at the UA’s Museum of Art. It was terrific, and McCall and his wife, Louise, were both there. I think he’s 88, but sharp as two tacks.
McCall is a true visionary, who researchs the future of space travel, and then paints it. He was the official artist for Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001, and has been NASA’s artist since the early days. I recommend seeing this show 100%. I will probably have to go back at least twice to begin to see all that he has envisioned.
I do not know why the university put this in a small part of their upstairs gallery instead of the larger downstairs room, but still it’s a tremendous show.
Why do artists say the title of my art is “Untitled.” Why do artists do this? Don’t they know what they have created? I could not do a piece without giving it a title, a name. Titles help identify a work. Titles help sell a work. Titles can be as creative as the artwork itself. So, for God’s sake, artists, title your work!
I could talk about Carl Heldt all day. I’ve know him for years. U of AZ instructor for 18 years. Freelance artist when I had my ad agency. And a terrific human being. If he ever become famous, I will be rich, because I own so many of his artworks.
Carl has been collecting scraps of wood for years, and he has been fashioning this debris into some of the loveliest sculpture you will ever see. Good sized pieces, some up to five feet square. And he has over 70 pieces stacked up at his ranch studio! He’s great at creating, but like so many of us, not so interested in marketing.
Carl is in his 80’s and his son Aaron recently told him that Carl had better start selling his huge collection before Aaron had to get rid of it in an estate sale. So Carl has started marketing his work.
To see his work, contact Carl at 743-0205
SAAG is the Southern Arizona Artists Guild. I have been a member two years now. We meet the first Saturday of every month at the Home Town Buffet on Oracle at River Road. The meetings are fun, and there is always an art-oriented program that yields kernels of knowledge. Attendance yesterday was about 80 with about 8 men. I think I am one of the few members that is seeking gallery representation. It’s mostly ladies, several of them very accomplished who teach and show their art frequently.
Part of each program is “Members Musings,” wherein anyone can get up and talk about anything art-related. I had not planned to talk, but it occurred to me that they might like to learn about blogging. I am an expert, having been blogging now for a week.
Only one other member acknowledged that they have a blog. Afterwards I asked her, and she said she hires an editor to help her. I will have to check out her stuff to see what she’s talking about. The other 78 people there didn’t know much about blogging. So I told them the general idea of it. Many wrote down my website when I gave it, but I have not had a comment yet.
The program was “How To Do A Portrait,” taught by our member Mo Greene. He is very accomplished and gets lots of commissions. The class was good, I took lots of notes, and will use his tips when I paint Sherie next week.
Yesterday I went to the UA Museum of Art for a public art drawing class. There were about 15 of us, students and townies. The instructor was a painter on the way up name of Turner Davis, a local artist who has a show on at the museum. His thing is fantasy, mixing people and animals and sea creatures in unlikely and unexplainable situations on large canvases.
The UA supplied art boards and canvas chairs and we sat around Turner in the actual museum where his work is hanging. They also paid three human models to pose for us, and a local museum of stuffed animals supplied a dozen dead critters for us to merge with the models a la Davis’ canvases.
Turner started the event with a drawing of the male model in front of us. His style is different from any I have seen before. Using charcoal sticks he laid down the outline of the man very quickly. Then he blackened the background around the man until his entire sketch pad was very dark, then he went over the lines again, correcting dimensions and changing the drawing. Then he blackened the entire figure, though the outline was still darker than all the blackness around the image. Then, to bring out the figure, he used an eraser stick to lighten the inside of the lines, and the model came to life. It was very effective.
Then the three models went to different parts of the room, and we could pick any of them to draw for ourselves. I wanted to draw the woman, but she was dressed in all black that gave you nothing to draw but a blob. I selected a mature man who sat down next to a stuffed fox and I pictured the two of them looking into the future together.
I though it came out well, and Turner said he thought I had captured it.
Nobody makes books like Taschen. Especially an art book. When you hold a Taschen book, you know you have something special. Heavy paper. Studly. Many, many illustrations, and most of them in color. So when I bought “Expressionism” yesterday, I knew I had something for my permanent library. And a great reference source. I recommend this one. Barnes & Noble. Under $6 on their Bargain shelves.
My poet pal Ned Mackey sold me on doing an ad in the annual program for “Sons of Orpheus.” I followed my own advice and kept it simple. How’s this?
To See Earl Wettstein’s AMAZING ART…
I like it. One of the best ads I ever wrote.
But we’ll see if it pulls.
I just got word that an artist friend of mine, Jim Waid, is having a show next month in Chicago. This is in addition to Jim’s work currently in the Riva Yares gallery in Phoenix. You can see an example of his newest work - much more narrative than ever - at www.jeanalbanogallery.com Jim paints big in acrylic, and his work makes you feel good. What a concept!
When doing a painting, remember that a viewer of your art wants to be rewarded when they get up close, when they get to that center of interest.
Just when I though I had every printed book by my art hero Wayne Thiebaud, I see in the NYTimes this week that there’s a new book about the man and his masterpieces. It’s called “Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud.” They list it under Children’s Books, which considering how much fun his paintings are, seems only right. I’m going to BN to get my copy tomorrow.
Tattoo parlors would be required to give potential clients a 3-day cooling off period, and to post publicity describing the odds favoring tattoo removal. Same for piercing salons.
In the next week I will be showing the first in a new series of paintings - my “Contemporary Americana” paintings.
We would sign on to the Kyoto Treaty.
We would gradually move towards zero population growth in the US within 30 years by rewarding families with two children or less, and not rewarding families with three or more children.
I would scrape off all of New Orleans that sits below sea level, move it inland, and make the Ninth Ward a wetlands.
Public facilities would be required to build three women’s restrooms for every men’s restroom.
We would not undertake President G.W. Bush’s wasteful Mission to Mars. Instead, we’d use the money here at home.
I would insist on paper trails for every vote.
I would end the Electoral College system. It can allow the wrong people to win the election.
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