Art is not a matter of life and death, it's much more important than that!
ARTBREAK is a weekly Art discussion presented by Two Rivers Gallery Communications Officer Cat Sivertsen.
Listen to her every Friday morning at 10.30 on Prince George's Community Radio Station CFIS 93.1 FM.
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Wednesday, 30 July 2008 |
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Last week I talked about a fundraising event on for July 20th called the Artists in the Garden Tour. In that session I suggested that creativity comes in many forms – it is everywhere and it is everyday – like the gardener whose canvas is the earth with plants as paint.
Today I’m going to talk about creativity in a form that we can all agree on. And that is the creativity of children. The creative instincts of children are celebrated, encouraged and are naturally simple. Why .... because children create in order to make sense of the surroundings, to figure stuff out in order to learn. We’ve all witnessed it with grandchildren, children and yes even yourself although it might seem a long time ago - children are so free, so alive and wonderfully at ease with their creative nature.
So get out there and be creative beside children .... they are the ones that really know how to do it !
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Friday, 04 July 2008 |
Following on with my talks on where artists get their inspiration from today I’m going to talk about where you could observe the process and take some away for yourself.
On Sunday, July 20th the Artists in the Garden tour will take place. This is the 6th year that Two Rivers Gallery has organized this fundraising event.
5 gardens with approximately 5 artists in each garden showcasing their work as well as making some on the day. There is a wide range of media to explore like stone, wood, canvas as well as ceramics, glass to beading. This is a great opportunity to meet the artists - talk to them about their work or simply observe the artist being inspired by the wonderful gardens they are placed in.
The gardens stand up as works of art in themselves. It always amazes me that whatever medium an artist or creative person – like a gardener – uses the results are always as individual as the person that made it.
Think about it your garden probably has trees, plants and grass and so does your neighbour’s garden yet it is completely different. Just like a painter, sculptor of potter – same materials and always individual results.
So bring a friend and join in on this self guided tour on Sunday July 20th - visit some amazing gardens. Be inspired by art in nature and the nature of art – remember art is everywhere and it is everyday !
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Friday, 04 July 2008 |
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There is a word commonly used to describe inspiration when it is brought on by the presence of a particular person. And that word is Muse.
A reference I found states:
(The actual word might stem from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "think"[2]) In Greek mythology, the Muses are a sisterhood of goddesses or spirits, their number set at nine by Classical times, who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance.
If someone called you a muse this means that you were the inspiration for the making of an artistic expression in any medium including the visual, musical and literary arts.
Some people think that this only means ‘the body’ as might be represented in a painting of ‘the nude’. The concept of the muse encompasses the spirit, face, voice, thoughts, expression etc and yes even the body. This is because we see the body as the carrier of all human attributes.
As far as I’m concerned a muse is simply the inspirational moments that generate creativity. The muse is of course recognized in the human form but I suggest it can be anything and anywhere.
Who was John Lennon’s muse..... Yoko ONO
Who was Charles Shultze’s muse.... a little dog called snoopy
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 |
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As a practising artist as well as the fund development and communications officer at Two Rivers Gallery – people often ask where do I get my ideas from?
Artists over the generations have different inspirational moments. Some might say their inspiration is the beauty of nature, or the majesty of the mountains, or the treachery of the sea. Or even the tenacity of an ant.
For me I am inspired by my everyday life. By the things around me. By the people I love and even the things they say. For instance the last major exhibition I had started off after a comment made by a friend in a pub the UK. After terrible service by the bartender I complained to my friend and he said ‘oh darling haven’t you noticed that when one gets older one becomes invisible’ .
And that was the beginning of me looking at the concept of invisibility. I experimented with photographs and drawings in and on glass, worked with thousands of glass beads as well as giving glass blowing a go. I worked with this concept for three years and it was done, or the comment was abated, after I installed the work at the Study Gallery in Poole England in 2003. Check out this link and see the work http://www.thestudygallery.org/archive/other/03/6.html .
Inspiration is everywhere and it is every-day. It is always different for everybody.
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Tuesday, 24 June 2008 |
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Last week I talked a little bit more about where abstract art came from. I sited the advent of the Camera and the concept of souvenirs being brought back to Europe by Adventurers to distant continents over 100 years or more ago. Today I’m going to talk about the influence of Japanese Painting on the Modern Era of painting.
Japanese Paintings were totally different than European Painting. The picture plane was flat - in other words it did not incorporate the illusion, and rules, of perspective that European painters had been working with since the first representation of perspective by Italian artist Brunelleschi in about 1415. And the flat or high colour palette used in Japan was considered quite bizarre compared to colour theory and the mixing of paint being used in Europe at that time.
Specifically I refer to Van Gogh’s painting Room at Arles of 1889. It was painted with high, or bright, colour and with broken rules ofnperspective. The perspective, or picture plane, is tipped forward so far that it looks like the bed could slide forward out of the painting. Part of the reasoning behind this might’ve been so that the viewer could see the entire bedroom with all its contents, rather than the traditional painting of the illusion of a room (illusion meaning that your eye is tricked into thinking that it is looking at a painting of the bedroom as you might recognize it in real life).
So the advent of Abstract Painting and the Modern Era of Art was about artists being influenced by the Camera and the NEW world cultural references.
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