Painters Block

"Art is a business". That was the primary message at an information session I attended a few months ago at school when a few gallery owners came to OCAD.  I guess it is a business, the production and selling of goods- luxury items I suppose. It's the business part of art that pays the bills, but its also the same part that makes me weary of making new art. Maybe I'm just making excuses.

If an artist is supposed to keep on top of art history, contemporary artists and movements, new trends in art,  local galleries, big galleries, galleries for new emerging artists, gallery owners, art aficionados, web presence (blogs and websites), advertising and branding yourself, keeping on top of "customers", shipping and handling, installation, price lists, storage, overhead, profits and art making, there really is no room for anything else. It's a daunting task and I wonder if its right for me.

I've put a lot of time, effort, and money into making art, but apparently there is a whole other side I've neglected to think about. I know I should just make some art and worry about this after, but I just find it so frustrating. The more I think about all of the things that lay ahead of me, the more I wonder if I can handle being an artist. I don't want to make anything if I have to constantly worry about how to please the "customer" and how I can sell more. If pleasing people is my career of choice, I would just stay in retail.

Although art is a business in so many ways, art's initial purpose is not to be sold but to be contemplated on.

No one ever told me that being an artist would be easy, but does it have to be so unattainable?

Upcoming Events

So I just want to let everyone know of a really cool event I will be attending tomorrow. It's called Art Battle and it's taking place in downtown Toronto on Queen. Basically what happens is two groups of four artists have twenty minutes to create a painting and the audience votes which one is the best. Then the two winners duke it out. All of the losers paintings are ceremoniously destroyed. All of the paintings are auctioned off, and those that are not sold are ceremoniously destroyed. Last time they sold 9 out of 10 paintings! And 75% of the money goes to the artist. Check out their facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/artbattleto?ref=ts  and their website at: http://artbattleto.com . They will also be featuring The Keyhole Sessions, "Life drawing with and edge". Check them out at: http://thekeyholesessions.com/tag/life-drawing-toronto .

Now here is the best news of all! I WILL BE TURNING 21 THIS THURSDAY! I'm not really doing anything special, just getting a sweet ice cream cake and eating it with some close friends. But I think it's a noteworthy event!

Things I Should Have Posted Earlier

So I was looking through some of my pictures on the computer and realized there were some school projects I never posted. So today I will post them!

The first image is acrylic on canvas. It was actually the first project for my abstract class. The assignment was to abstract from nature, so I chose the human figure as my muse.

The next image is a painting for my Critical Issues in First Nations Art. Our final assignment had to be a work of art regarding one of the issues we talked about in class. This piece primarily has to do with land issues. One of the things I found interesting while studying Issues revolving around Aboriginal people is that many of the issues have to do with land rights. The land is so important because not only is it part of the identity of the First Nations people, but it's part of the "Canadian identity". ("Canadian identity" is in quotations because whether or not Canadians have an identity or what that identity might be is debatable ).
The bands going through the piece act as a reference to the profile of soil- suggesting that this piece is about land. Also, within the layers of "soil" I have embedded lines from The Indian Act that had to do with land rights. The Indian Act is probably responsible for the majority of the restrictions that affect the First Nations. Embedding lines from the Indian Act is significant because in a way I am burying this document, suggesting the Act needs revisions, or needs to be replaced.

The last two photos are the same project I did for my Critical Views in Painting class. I compiled images from a few fashion magazines and created a story (about 30 pages long) from the images. The whole idea was to re- contextualize glamorous images and juxtapose them with a strange story. Although I had a lot of fun with this one, it took a lot longer than I expected.

Athlete vs. Artist

So I just came back from a run on a glorious day in the GTA. And when I say run, I mean half jogging half walking. By no means am I athletic, but I want to have some kind of a healthy lifestyle... even though "running" once a week probably does not mean I am in shape, it still makes me feel good about myself.
Anyways, I had an idea of something to post here while I was out. Comparing an athlete to an artist. While both are talented in their own fields and must practice to maintain their skills, they are essentially different. Athletes usually lead a healthy lifestyle and are always in good shape. However, as they age they do not perform the same way as they once did when they were in their "prime". An artist does not necessarily lead a healthy life (the stereotype being a crazy hedonistic lush) but their skills only improve as they age (that is if they regularly practice). And although I would love to be in better shape, I am happy to be an artist instead of an athlete.
Speaking of practicing, I've included some paintings and drawings that I did in the past week. These, once again, were done for pure enjoyment and to "warm up" after lazing about for the first few weeks of the summer.
The first one is a small oil painting on wood of a little bronze boot I found lying around in my basement. I havn't used oil paint in a while so I decided to try it out on a small scrap of wood I found.
The second painting is also oil on a piece of scrap wood. This one was actually supposed to be a still life that I set up. But I became frustrated with it, and I just painted this angel candle holder I found.
The next are a bunch of popcorn drawings (with charcoal) on 18x 24" paper. I was watching "Coco avant Chanel" which is a pretty good movie, even if you're not into fashion. Now, I like slow movies, movies that are considered "boring". But the film was aesthetically pleasing and moody and so it kept my interest. Anyways, I had some popcorn left over that I didn't want to eat. I remember doing drawings of popcorn in school at some point. It's pretty challenging because they are so intricate, but it's definitely a good exercise and you come out with some neat drawings.
The last one is also a popcorn drawing, but I used white gouache for the light parts and charcoal for the shadow. This one is done on stained paper I had lying around from first semester.
Anyways, I should go shower. I guess I could have waited to write this entry, but it's what I felt like doing. :)

If You Like Things That Are Good...

Last Friday I went to the 95th annual OCAD grad show. I wish I gave myself more time to look at everything, but the evening came to a close before I had a chance to explore the entire school. There was a wide range of work and a lot of it was very interesting. I had originally written a long post about the event and I deleted it by accident, so this time I'm just going to post some cool websites. Unfortunately not everyone has a website or blog, so I'll note some artist's names too. I'm not going to post any photographs because I'm not sure how appropriate it would be to post other people's work here.
Susie Park- http://susieparkart.com
Winnie Truong- http://www.winnietruong.com/work/work.html
Liza Lacroix- http://lizalacroix.tumblr.com
Karen Grosman- http://karengrosman.blogspot.com
Jasmine Hum- http://jasminehum.ca
Evin Collis- http://www.evincollis.com
Dianne Davis- http://diannedavis.ca/home.html
Hugh Scott Douglas- http://hughscottdouglas.com

Other cool pieces I saw were from:
- Andrew Delatolla
- Alison Collings, "My Brother and I"
- Kieran Brent, "Trip Wires"
- Andrew Frneyhough, "Death of Space Age"
- Jennifer Globush, "Price of Gold"
- Jennifer Austin, "Memory Loss"
- Tina Lam, "Dijon, Narcissus No.2"
- Andre Ozga
- Maya Gallarday, "IMG_0809"
- Tara Westermann, "Transformography"
- Darren Rigo, "Tea"

Quickies

Today I spent some time at home doodling. I havn't really done anything artful since school ended so I decided to do some quick sketches just for fun.
The first drawing was done on some news print with coloured graphite on top of an old gesture drawing.
The second one was a traced gesture drawing that was coloured in. To me, it looks like a robot- superhero.
The next four are drawings of stuffed lambs on newsprint with coloured graphite.
Although none of these took very much time to make, they were a lot of fun. And I love an excuse to draw my stuffed lambs! 

Spring Cleaning

Yesterday I was going through a bunch of really old art and came across some assignments I made in my first year. Now I'm not one to throw things out, especially things that I make, but at this point it's a matter of space. I found quite a few pads of gesture drawings and figured I really don't need all of these. I kept most of them and salvaged some mediocre gestures as well.
I absolutely love gesture drawings- I love creating them and I love looking at them. There is something about its immediacy that breaths life into the drawing. Gesture drawings are energetic and interesting. I've always been fond of "incomplete" drawings and paintings, I think it lends itself more to the conversation of process. It's the process of Art that artists fall in love with, not necessarily the finished product.
I think I may try to use my gestures for something, I don't know what though. I've included some photo's of some of the gestures, they're all 18x 24 on bond paper with charcoal. 
The last drawing was in pretty bad shape in terms of the proportion and stuff so I doodled on it with pen and threw some paint on it for fun.

Upcoming Events

This isn't going to be a traditional posting of my work. Instead I'm going to post an important event that's coming up in Toronto. It's the Grad Show at OCAD; this is where the fourth year students display their work (after slaving away at their thesis projects). http://apache.ocad.ca/events_calendar/eventdetail.php?id=1896
It's a great way to see new emerging talent and to see what my school has been up to. It opens up on Thursday and ends Sunday, I will be attending on Friday to catch the Aboveground Tent Event! I rarely get a chance to go to the tent event (a great sale from a great art supply store), which is going on from Friday to Sunday. So that's pretty nifty! https://www.abovegroundartsupplies.com/
And in other interesting news, OCAD (the Ontario College of Art and Design) is changing it's name! The president, Sarah Diamond wanted it to be "The University of Imagination", as horrible and childish as it sounds, but instead it will be "OCAD University", which isn't so bad. I think the name change will take place sometime this week. I'll try to take some pictures on Friday to show everyone the cool happenings in Toronto.