Artists Unite Issue

As a kid, when I would come home with grades of 98%, I would hear from my folks, “What happened? Did you spell your name wrong?” Fffffsssssssssss…the sound of my immediate and complete deflation.

Recently, when I got a grant, my mother’s reaction was, “Well, it’s better than a kick in the pants.” At least that was less caustic than the response from my father years earlier upon learning I’d received a large fellowship for my artwork, “I guess it beats getting a poke in the eye with a stick.” Well, yes, it certainly did, but his comment was like getting that poke in the eye just the same.

While they did not support my career choice, it’s not as though my parents hated my guts. Perhaps they felt that withholding praise would push me to work even harder, or maybe they believed that encouragement would result in an inflated ego. Whatever the reason, the result was that I became expert in enumerating my shortcomings and found it exceedingly difficult to appreciate any of my own accomplishments.

When I came across a blog post that suggested taking time to “celebrate your wins,” [via: art biz blog ] it caught my eye. Like many people, I self-evaluate and make new lists this time of year, but mostly that has to do with picking up on things left undone and setting goals, and hasn’t necessarily included crediting myself for the year’s “wins,” nor thinking about how I might build upon those successes moving forward.

Congratulating others is important and joining in celebrating their gains is truly great fun but there’s also value in acknowledging your own efforts and advances instead of getting lost under an avalanche of could haves, should haves, and might haves.

So my friends, it’s time to toot those horns. Bravo to all of us who have continued to be creative throughout 2007! And boatloads of praises for all who have found ways to get out there and PARTICIPATE! I have yet to meet the person who could convince me that there’s any advantage to life lived on the sidelines. Going somewhere requires opening the door, after all.

Happy New Year, and wishing you all a healthy, productive and rewarding 2008!

All best,
Sky Pape

For reference, below is the list of suggestions I looked at to get me going on acknowledging my wins—it’s geared towards visual art, but can obviously be adapted:

How did you promote your art?
What did you do to enhance your online presence?
What technological skills did you learn or improve?
How many people did you add to your mailing list?
Who were the top ten cool or influential people you met?
Did you create a new business card, portfolio, or other marketing piece?
What medium or skill did you attempt or master?
What did you try that was completely new?
What did you try that was uncomfortable, but helped you grow?
What new art events, galleries, and museums did you visit?
What resources did you discover?
How did you improve your studio habits?
What books did you read to help your career?
What seminars/workshops/lectures did you attend?
What organizations were you involved with?
What grants/honors/awards did you receive?
What articles were written about your work?
What submissions did you make?
Where did you save a wad of money?
What was the single best thing that happened to your art career in 2007?

P.S. And while you’re making lists, why not think about this:
-Three things you admire in another person or people.
-Three things you can feel good about yourself.
-Three things you wish someone would tell or say to you.
-Three things you should or wish you could say to someone else.

Continuing the dialog that will hopefully result in some kind of relief, one of these days…

Leonard Lopate Show: To Stay or To Go Tuesday, December 18, 2007We look into how the high cost of living in New York City affects artists. We’ll hear from some who’ve left…and from others who decided to stay.
NYC Artists: Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?As rents keep rising, New York is an increasingly difficult place to be a working artist. We look into the pros and cons of staying and toughing it out. Artist Estelle Levy has decided to stay, while artist Deborah Beck has recently moved away. Professor Joan Jeffri is director of the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia’s Teachers College.

podcast on iTunes; or see www.wnyc.org for archived listening.

There were a few other galleries we visited when we went to see the Morris Louis exhibition at Paul Kasmin the other day.

Ross Bleckner’s show at Mary Boone was a real let-down. Anyone who remembers Bleckner’s 1995 Guggenheim retrospective (at the age of 46) will know that this guy can really paint. There was meaning behind the size of his large-scale canvases. Paint was handled both sensitively and sensuously, often luminous and ethereal, as he reflected on subjects like AIDS, cancer, and the cosmos. The paintings in this show, however, deliver nothing of that earlier power and mystery. They come across as purely decorative, large for the sake of filling large wall space in the gallery, and presumably in the homes of name-brand collectors.

Nearby, at Lohin Geduld Gallery is a selection of paintings and prints by Kyle Staver of bikers, their chicks, and their pets. This is only the second solo exhibition at the gallery of Staver’s work, and my first introduction to it, although presumably she’s been on the scene for some time having earned her MFA from Yale in 1987, and been the recipient of some notable awards, including one from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.

Lohin Geduld has been on our radar as a gallery that is consistently showing high-quality work by accomplished and often under-recognized artists. Perhaps under-recognized because their work is individual enough to resist simplistic categorization and trends.

Staver’s linocut prints are delightful and inventive. I was amused again and again by her variations on the appearance of a plume of cigarette smoke. The paintings give a slight nod to Matisse, but filtered through Staver’s idiosyncratic palette and feel for light. Her confident brushwork, manipulations of scale, space, and light, give these works depth on an abstract level that strongly supports and adds interest to the dramatic narrative tableaux. There are elements of these works that border perilously on the edge of being too sweet, yet Staver saves them from that fate with the fresh, loose application of the paint and the unusual palette in the paintings, the variety and boldness of her linocuts, and the direct simplicity of her monoprints. This show is up until December 22nd, and the gallery is worth putting on your route next time you’re in Chelsea.

Walter Randel Gallery is one we hadn’t visited before, although it’s practically right next to Paul Kasmin. The space is not typical for Chelsea in that it is warm and intimate. There’s a bench in the middle of the small gallery to encourage visitors to stay a while and contemplate the work. The show “Facing the Wall,” recent abstractions by Ted Kurahara, promised a powerful, stark, visual expression based on the practices of Zen meditation. Unfortunately, the actual work failed to deliver. Although I believe they were made with integrity and true intent, it is impossible to look at these paintings without thinking of Agnes Martin, a comparison that does not work in Kurahara’s favor. The use of ruler-drawn pencil lines lacks the fragility, movement, and delicate precision that comes through in Martin’s work. The “thoughtful and meticulous layering of paint” seems more mechanical than meditative. I am used to looking at “paintings of nothing,” and in fact, I frequently seek them out because I find great meaning in such work. The press release states “These works are doors of discovery and windows of vision - an outcome of “facing the wall” through the act of painting for more than 60 years.” While I have great respect for the artist’s persistence and dedication, it would seem that by “facing the wall” he has unfortunately painted himself into a corner.

William Carroll’s exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery is an understated treat. The smaller room of the gallery is filled with tiny (think 4″ x 6″) acrylics in grey-scale on paper, inspired by observations during long walks through the boroughs of New York City. It is wonderful to see Bill Carroll’s work grace the walls of this gallery, where he served as director for many years before leaving to further pursue his artistic education and career.

These modest images convey so much that is magical about New York — the quiet that is to be found amidst the din, the forceful, poetic, and sometimes humorous lumping together of architectural and urban forms, the light, and the many facets of this city’s distinct personality, a living force that exists independently from its inhabitants.

Carroll has, with a gentle and unfussy brush, managed to walk these works into being, and the result of the meditative practice of walking are these straightforward and soulful recordings of his observations. Pared down as they are, these small paintings are clearly derived from an open-minded and attentive awareness of the artist’s surroundings. A as a collection, they form a loving portrait of a magnificent city. Up until December 21st.

[images from top: Kyle Staver, Bad Dog on Sparta Road, oil on linen, 68"h x 56"w, 2007; William Carroll, NYC 241, acrylic on paper, 7-1/4" x 5", 2007, copyrights retained by the artists]

Perfect 8 is Reviewing Art & Writing Related to Empathy and Objectification.
Perfect 8 (New York City NY) Call for Submissions – No Fee:

Perfect 8 magazine is looking for artwork and/or writing, which encourages empathy and deals with issues relating to objectification. The 3rd issue of Perfect 8, “Beneath the Skin”, will focus on artistic reactions to popular magazines and advertising. Works that comment on, expose, or offer a constructive alternative to objectified and/or glamorized imagery will be reviewed for publication and exhibition.

Perfect 8 is also looking for mock magazine covers, advertisements and centerfolds that relate to the above theme.

Please view artworks and read the mission statement found at www.PerfectEight.com before submitting work. If your work clearly relates to the mission, please forward writing and/or jpegs (no larger than 72dpi 500 x 500 pixels) to Diana@PerfectEight.com no later than December 30th.

Robert Zuckerman received a terrific review in the New York Times for his role of Finkelbaum in the “Puppetmaster of Lodz” at ArcLight Theater.

Zuckerman, a Washington Heights resident and frequent advisor to Artists Unite, also heads the theater team at the New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA). Congratulations to this tireless worker for the arts and artist.

“The Puppetmaster of Lodz” continues through Dec. 23 at the ArcLight Theater, 152 West 71st Street, Manhattan; (212) 868-4444.

If you need a break from the materialism of the season and are seeking something more ethereal, perhaps something spiritually uplifting, daresay even sublime, then I’d recommend visiting Paul Kasmin Gallery to view the six huge canvases by Morris Louis on display there until January 19th. Saf Dalet, shown here, is only one of the luminous and passionate pieces painted by Louis during the astoundingly prolific, inventive period shortly before his too-short life ended at age 49. (Louis was over 40 when he arrived at his mature style, and in the five years before his death, he reportedly made some 600 paintings). At 94 1/4″h x 135″w, this canvas and the others are so visually vast they immediately and completely absorb and embrace the viewer. You may get a miniscule idea of its beauty from the reproduction, but this is truly a case where the in-person experience is de rigeur. A further surprise is that these pieces are not in museum collections — half are from private collections, and half from the artist’s estate, so seeing them is a rare opportunity indeed.

Concurrently, there is an exhibition of Morris Louis’ work at the Hirshhorn Museum in DC, up until January 6, 2008.

The text from the Hirshhorn exhibition underscores the incredible feat of how Morris Louis made these enormous paintings, explaining that at the time, he used the dining room in his house, a mere 12 x 14 feet in size, as his studio. He worked on unstretched canvas, and frequently was only able to see the part he was working on, rather than the piece in its entirety. For the complete text on Louis from the Hirshorn, click here. [An interesting aside is that Louis credits a visit to Helen Frankenthaler's studio in the early fifties by himself and Kenneth Noland as pivotal in the development of his work.]

Breathtaking. Beautiful. Original. What more could you want, except to wish that he was still alive and working? In spite of his broad influence on other color field painters and artists who have followed in that vein, few, if any, have soared like this.

Worth noting: Paul Kasmin Gallery gets extra points not just for having a lovely space, but for staffing it with courteous, pleasant, and helpful people. No Scrooges or Grinches here.

The end of the year is often a time for reflection and assessment. Is it still possible to imagine peace? Yoko Ono does, and delivers a very personal and moving message.

Tomorrow will mark the 27th anniversary of the death of John Lennon, a true pioneer for peace.

Take this opportunity to let the NYS Budget Office know that you want the NYSCA budget increased in 2008-09.

The 2008-9 budget hearings across the State had Alliance Regional Captains represented at each of the six Town Hall forums from Buffalo to Brooklyn.

It’s not too late to make your voice heard! Send a message to the Budget Office now urging an increase to the NYS Council on the Arts’ grants budget to $60 million.

This increase, from the FY07-8 level of $49 million, represents an expenditure of just 58 cents more per person in New York State. When adjusted for inflation, a $60 million budget does not even restore the NYSCA grants budget to the FY89-90 level of $55 million.

Use the Online Advocacy Center to send your message to the Budget office. It will take 2 minutes. We have written a letter for you, with several options, or you can edit it to personalize the facts.

We can make a big impact in the budget hearings and put the arts high on the agenda if you send an email.

PUBLIC HEARINGS REGARDING THE NYS 2008-09 BUDGET - WEBCASTS
Read Submitted Hearing Testimony Here:
PUBLIC HEARINGS REGARDING THE NYS 2008-09 BUDGET - TESTIMONY
If you have any questions, please contact:
jkweiner@thealliancenys.org or marisacatalina@gmail.com