My show goes up at the end of March.  As the time gets closer, getting into my studio to finish the last painting is becoming more and more of a chore.  This show is mostly paintings from my last show.  But the problem is that after that show came down I’ve been mentally done with it.  Since last summer I’ve felt in limbo.  This month’s show did not offer me enough time to develop a new body of work, but that’s what I’ve been wanting to do.  Painting old ideas is not fun.

So, on the last day of February, less than a month before I install the new show, I indulged.  This weekend was spent hiking along Fall Creek.  When I was living in Nevada City I had the S. Yuba River as a logical home river to work with.  Since being here (now a year and a half) there hasn’t been a home river.  I thought I needed one to replace the S. Yuba and forced a few upon myself, but nothing seemed to stick.

This past fall I paddled Fall Creek.  It was a beautiful, crisp day.  The leaves were changing.  The whitewater wasn’t white, but a creamy coffee color, full of sediment that felt gritty underneath my eyelids.  The run began in a burn area.  Back in 2003 the area burned in the Clark fire.  It struck me as oddly beautiful to paddle through it.  I liked that there was more light and views of ridge lines because of the lack of dense Pacific Northwest trees.  The fire area abruptly ended after a small ledge drop and the rest of the run plunged into lush old growth forest.  The contrast was stark and striking.  Moss covered trees leaned over the creek at angles that made them look as if they were in the middle of a gesture as they ambled across the landscape, simultaneously still and animate.

Months later I learned there was a trail along the creek from a 12 year old boy that I took hiking on Brice Creek.  I meant to go see the trail for myself, but didn’t get there until yesterday.  The water was no longer that thick brown, but a translucent green.  It stopped me in my tracks more than once.  It was such a compelling color that I returned today, camera in hand.

The burn area from the trail is more stark from the trail than the water.  On the creek I felt removed and sheltered from the naked, black trees – the creek is still alive.  But walking through it was a different experience, a much more unsettling experience.  The creek was in the distance, and I was not silently sliding by the dessicated landscape, but surrounded by it.

Downed, dead trees are not uncommon here.  I’ve paddled through many deadened areas, but those are typically clear-cut areas.  Those areas are sick.  But the burn area is anything but dead.  In an uncommon decision, the Forest Service didn’t allow post-fire logging but left it as it was.  Although most everything was brown, it felt dormant, not sick like the clear cut areas.  The frogs were loud.  There was a palpable energy in the land.

Fall Creek has piqued my interest.  I can’t wait to get to know it more.   But before that happens I need to spend time in my studio wrapping up the old project, hopefully with more enthusiasm than I was able to muster recently.  There is such a difference between painting for a show and being able to follow the natural progression of the creative process.  At one time, not that long ago, I felt that same enthusiasm for this body of work.  Fall Creek has put me in touch again with that again.  It all begins with curiosity and a desire to investigate.  It needs to end with it too, otherwise being in the studio becomes  just going through the motions, and doing that is a waste of time.

Artists Should be Compensated for Their Work

“Artists Should Be Compensated For Their Work”

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Submitted by ninapaley on Mon, 2009-09-07 18:11

(Translations: Polski.)

Nina Paley is the author of the freely-licensed hit animated film Sita Sings the Blues, among many other things, and is Artist in Residence at QuestionCopyright.org. She is also a committed Free Culture activist who writes frequently about copyright and how the permission culture affects art and artists.

This phrase comes up in many discussions of copyright: “Artists should be compensated for their art.” It is assumed that a) Artists are inherently entitled to monetary compensation for their Art, and b) copyright is a mechanism for this compensation.

I challenge both assumptions.

Of course, what people actually say is usually “Artists should be compensated for their work”. Below I’m going to distinguish between Art and Work, because confusing the two is exactly the problem.

a) Artists are inherently entitled to monetary compensation for their work.

I agree that artists are entitled to payment FOR THEIR WORK.

WORK is labor exchanged for money. Employer and worker negotiate a fee, the labor is performed, and the worker is paid. Many artists are workers: they are waiters, baristas, truck drivers. They should be compensated for their work, and they are, which is why they work.

Some artists perform a kind of skilled labor for money. This type of pre-negotiated labor is called a commission. Commissioned work is work, and artists are compensated for it, which is why artists take commissions.

But artists are not inherently entitled to monetary compensation FOR THEIR ART.

Art is a gift. An artist creates Art (not to be confused with skilled labor) on their own initiative. An artist “labors” in service of their vision, their Muse, the Art itself. The Muse alone is the Artist’s employer. It’s debatable whether the Artist can negotiate with their Muse before performing the labor — I certainly try to — but like most labor, terms are dictated by necessity. Just as economic necessity forces many workers into hard labor for low wages on their employer’s terms, so does suffering force many Artists into labor on the Muse’s terms. But unlike corporations and human employers, the Muse turns out to always have the artist’s best interests at heart. I’d much rather serve the Muse than an employer; but the Muse doesn’t negotiate a moneyed wage. Monetary compensation is not part of the deal.

The Muse “pays” me in Life. “Do this,” she says, “and you will Live. Turn away, and at best you will only survive.” I do have a choice: I can make the Art, or not. I accept the Muse’s terms. I perform the labor, and receive my “payment”: Life.

ART is negotiated with the MUSE. The “payment” is LIFE.

WORK is negotiated with an EMPLOYER. The payment is MONEY.

If artists want to be paid in MONEY, they should negotiate a fee before performing their work. That is the proper condition for payment. Or they can create work with no pre-negotiated payment, without demanding payment after the fact. That’s fine too. But to then demand payment after voluntarily working on your own terms — that is extortion.

Consider the Squeegee Man. He wipes windshields unbidden, then demands payment. He did the work; does he “deserve to be compensated”? Most would say no; if we wanted our windshields cleaned, we would negotiate this service in advance.

If I decide to sit behind a desk, take calls, devise flawed business plans, and lie, do I DESERVE to be compensated like a bank CEO? No. The bank CEO’s work was pre-negotiated. He gets $25 million in salary and bonuses because that was the deal BEFORE he sat down at his desk and did the work.

Does the bank CEO deserve his compensation? Well, most people are questioning that right now. I’m surprised it’s taken a massive financial crisis for that to happen, but at least folks are asking.

Since we’ve been in a massive artistic crisis for decades, maybe people have given up on asking whether the top .5% of artists deserve their monetary compensation. If I sing and prance around on stage, am I entitled to $110 million a year? It’s the same work Madonna does, and that’s what she makes. But Madonna arranged to be paid in advance of the singing and prancing, and performed it as work.

And if artists deserve to be compensated, then how much do they deserve? Isn’t art priceless? How do you determine how much it’s worth?

We could let the market decide. That could work… IF WE GET RID OF MONOPOLIES. The Free Market only works without monopolies. Information monopolies like copyright destroy that system. I’m all for allowing the Free Market to function, but it can only function without copyright.

Indeed, Madonna is not compensated as an artist; she is reaping profits from her information monopoly — that is, the copyright that restricts her Art. So if Madonna is your model, you aren’t rooting for artists; you are rooting for monopolists. If your mechanism for “compensating” artists requires them to become monopolists and to grow and position their monopolies as monopolists do, then you are championing monopolies, not Art.

Art is not a commodity, it is a gift. If you want to produce a commodity, negotiate its worth in advance. Art is made on the initiative of the artist. Otherwise, it’s commissioned work, which obviously compensates the worker. But the the commissioner is often a corporation or investment group, who will expect a monopolist’s return on their investment. So the pro-copyright argument is simply in favor of maintaining the oligarchy whose elites happen to be the main patrons of art in our age. It’s like supporting monarchies because kings and queens patronize artists.

This may be hard to hear, but: many artists who claim they just want to eat and pay rent are lying (perhaps to themselves). Most artists don’t want a living wage — they want to win the lottery. Suggest to most filmmakers and musicians that “success” is about $75,000 a year, and they’ll turn up their noses. You call that a jackpot? They’re only in it for the millions, baby. If that means working a day job and remaining obscure, so be it. Millions need to be poor so that one can be rich; they’re willing to do their time being poor, so that one day they can be rich at the expense of others. Their turn will come, they think.

I suggest playing a different game entirely, because the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. But those kinds of artists want to play the lottery more than they want their art to reach people.

I do not mean to suggest that all artists have this attitude. There are also those who would be quite happy with a living wage; this is good, because that’s a much more realistic expectation for even a very talented artist. The problem is that our copyright discourse is dominated by the lottery attitude, such that when people say “Artists should be paid for the work” what they really mean is “All Art should be monopolized, so that some Artists can have a tiny chance of maybe getting rich one day.”

The best way for art to “compete” in a “free market” is to flow freely. The Internet makes it easy for an artist to give their work to an audience. It also makes it easy for audiences to return the gift. Giving is quite different from paying or being extorted. Money given is different from money coerced. It is a free transaction.

Not everyone will like a particular work of art. I don’t think people who dislike a work should be obligated to pay for it. Certainly works that offend, nauseate, or bore me, don’t inspire me to support their creators. But works that move and inspire me also move me to support their creators. I am touched by the Artist’s love, and want to offer something in return. Money is an obvious choice: the Artist can almost certainly use it. But it’s not always the right choice. I’m moved by many Beatles tunes, but I’m not inspired to send a check to Paul McCartney. He doesn’t need the money (not to mention he’s a big time monopolist). However, money is almost always an appropriate gift for a non-rich (read: typical) artist. It will be appreciated, and it’s not so personal as to be disturbing or threatening.

The Internet makes it very easy for fans to voluntarily send money to artists.

It’s really simple. Art competes with other art on the basis of quality. The Internet allows it to spread, to reach as many people as possible. Those who enjoy it have an easy mechanism to give back to the Artist if they are so moved. Not everyone will be so moved, nor should they be. Not everyone has to like everything. Not everything can touch us.

In conclusion:

Artists are NOT inherently entitled to monetary compensation for their Art. However we as a society can decide to support the Arts. The problem with this is that 95% of the Arts sucks. Most of us don’t want to be supporting artists that suck, nor allowing government committees to determine what is and is not worthy of support. My NYSCA grant rejection and its attendant comments have taught me never to trust government arts agencies. I’ll gladly accept funds from them, but I’m acutely aware that they aren’t reliably competent to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The best way society can support the Arts is to allow Art to spread, and to continue to encourage giving money to artists. That seems pretty natural to most people anyway, and it doesn’t infringe on anyone’s freedom.

Labor of Love: Life at Alpha Farm

Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts, July 3 – August 29

Kate Harnedy did not take her assignment lightly.  What began as a couple-week visit to provide a photo shoot in the community of Alpha Farm became Kate’s primary residence.  There is an intimacy to her photographs that would be hard to achieve if she had not fully integrated herself into the community as she has.  The images do not have the distance that a photojournalist may have brought to us.  They instead include us in private spaces, quiet moments and the daily rhythms of life on Alpha Farm.

Unlike Lewis Forquer’s photographs (written about in the previous post) more information makes these images more rich.  I had the pleasure of spending July 4th at a picnic at Alpha Farm.  The subjects in her photographs were  readily recognizable.  I had the eerie feeling that I had known them before, that we had all been aquantences.  I watched them move about their home, their movements feeling familiar.  Kate has done a wonderful job of bringing us to Alpha Farm in her photographs rather than just showing us Alpha Farm.  There is a distinct difference.

When Kate fist told me that she was going to use the wood from the barn that had burned down before she got there to make her frames I was wary.  It had the potential of crossing the line into sentimentality.  The benefits of becoming intimately acquainted with a community can also be a hinderance because it’s easy to lose objectivity when you are too close.  However, the simple wood frames seem a natural extension to the images and actually help to place them in the physical place where they came from.  They add another layer to the story that would have been lost if she had chosen to present her images with a more gallery-slick presentation.

Because Kate will be part of the community for some time to come, the project will continue.  I look forward to seeing if the images she captures start to shift in nature as her perceptions of the place shift with time.

Lewis Forquer

Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts; July 3 – August 29

Lewis’ photos are creepy.  Creepy in a good way.  There is something that is off in them, but that’s what makes them so good.  They depict places that give the feeling that something bad is going to happen any second – or has just happened.  But the who and what of the drama is for your own mind to provide.  The scenes have a silence and stillness about them with their absence of human presence that gives them a heightened sense of anxiety, never of peace.

Talking to Lewis as he was installing his show I got the impression that he knows full well just how creepy they are, but not exactly what makes them creepy.  His explanation of the imperfections of the meticulously made fragile models he creates is one aspect.  His reverence of Film Noir and it’s use of light, dark and shadows is another.  But they don’t seem to address the true source of the unsettling nature of the images.  There is something that makes me think that he just doesn’t know why they are so disturbing.  To me this is the strength of them.  If he knew exactly what makes them tick I believe they would start to become contrived and stiff and therefore unconvincing.  They would lose their power and life.

With that said, Lewis does take some of the power out of his own images by the simple fact that he has included some of the models in that show that he has created for his photographic sets. Sure, they are fun to look at, but they demystify the images.  It’s like the magician has told all of his secrets.  It’s a case of TMI (too much information).  My mind switched from creating dramas to inhabit the spaces of his photographs to contemplating his obsession with creating the tiny models.  I appreciate them and their keys to understanding his creative process, but frankly, I’d rather read about the process and let my mind fill in the blanks so my mind can continue to create dramas, each more disturbing than the rest.  Part of the joy of experiencing the photographs on their own is that they ask the viewer to be an active participant.  This is far more powerful than telling me its secrets.

Leah Wilson

June 30 – August 29, 2009

Artist’s Talk: Friday,  July 24, noon

Opening July 3, from 5:30pm – 8pm

Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts

110 West Broadway

Eugene, OR 97401

541-344-3482

Leah Wilson’s solo exhibition of recent work titled, Tropes will be seen at DIVA’s main gallery in Eugene, OR.  The exhibition opens June 30 and runs through August 29, 2009 with a reception for the artist Friday, July 3rd from 5:30pm to 9pm during Eugene’s First Friday Art Walk.

Today every major river in Oregon violates water quality standards.  Most of the pollution in Oregon’s rivers comes from urban and agricultural runoff.  It is easily overlooked as it is not readily visible and the rivers maintain the illusion of health.

In this premier Oregon exhibition of Wilson’s work, she has created groups of paintings based on debris she has found in the rivers of Oregon and California.  The waters claim the debris as their own, slowly changing it over time as if to appear part of the rivers themselves.   Wilson views debris as a bridge between the natural wild areas of rivers and ourselves, markers that we have been here, leaving bits and pieces of our passing behind. She looks for the things that usually go unnoticed, the small things and the slowly changing things.  She is drawn to the distortions created by the river on the debris and of our own perceptions of ourselves and the rivers.

Wilson received her M.F.A from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003.  Her penchant for traveling the world via whitewater kayak has brought her to many countries including New Zealand, Panama and Costa Rica. Guiding and teaching whitewater kayaking has allowed her to spend prolonged periods of time in a boat studying the subtleties of rivers.  Wilson’s paintings have been exhibited at Julie Baker Fine Art in Nevada City, CA and featured at the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival in Nevada City, California, Los Medanos College Art Gallery in Pittsburg, California and the Oakland Art Gallery in Oakland, California.  Her work is in the collections of eBay, Inc., Adobe Systems, Inc., Namco Inc., as well as other corporate and private collections, and her photography has been featured in Common Ground magazine.  She currently resides in Eugene, Oregon.

GALLERY HOURS:  Tuesday – Saturday; noon – 5pm

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT LEAH WILSON’S ARTWORK:  http://www.leahwilson.com

NPR’s Intelligence Squared Debate:

On Ethics, Is Art Market Worse Than Stock Market?

Hear The Debate

• Listen: The Edited Broadcast Of The Debate
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Kevin Wick

Panelists for the Feb. 3 debate included (from left) Jerry Saltz, Amy Cappellazzo, Chuck Close and Adam Lindemann. Longview Photography

 

NPR.org, February 11, 2009 · In the current economic downturn, much attention has been paid to the volatile stock market and efforts to overhaul financial regulations. But there’s another market out there that some say is even riskier for potential investors — the art market.

Critics say a lack of oversight in the art market permits manipulation — by dealers who can artificially inflate auction prices, for example. But others argue that the value of art isn’t determined by money — that the art world isn’t an industry and shouldn’t be treated as such.

A panel of six experts recently argued both sides in anIntelligence Squared U.S.debate. The motion for the Feb. 3 debate was: “The Art Market Is Less Ethical Than the Stock Market.”

Three experts argued in favor of the motion; three against. Before the debate, the audience at The Rockefeller University in New York City voted 32 percent in favor of the motion and 30 percent against, with 38 percent undecided. By the end of the debate, those arguing for the motion had changed the most minds: 55 percent voted in favor of the proposition, while 33 percent voted against it and 12 percent were still undecided.

John Donvan, correspondent for ABC News’ Nightline, was moderator for the evening. Those debating were:

FOR THE MOTION

Richard L. Feigen, the founder of Richard L. Feigen & Co. art dealers, is an active collector of early Italian and Baroque paintings, English landscapes, surrealists, Max Beckmann and contemporary art. He is the author of Tales from the Art Crypt.

Michael Hue-Williams is owner and CEO of Albion Gallery, the only gallery in London to incorporate a major global program that represents leading international artists, including those from emerging markets. Their roster includes artists from Africa, China, India, Japan, Pakistan and Taiwan, as well as many other places.

Adam Lindemann is an influential collector of contemporary art and author of Collecting Contemporary, which was published in four languages. He is an investor and entrepreneur with a background in industries from energy and communications to real estate and asset management.

AGAINST THE MOTION

Amy Cappellazzo was appointed deputy chairman at Christie’s in January of 2008 and has been the international co-head of Post-War and Contemporary Art since 2001. She has been named in the top 15 of ArtReview’s list of the 100 most important people in the art world.

Chuck Close’s work has been the subject of more than 150 solo exhibitions, including many major museum retrospectives, and he has participated in almost 800 group exhibitions. Close was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton in 2000, the New York State Governor’s Art Award and the Skowhegan Medal for arts, among many other honors.

Jerry Saltz is senior art critic for New York magazine. He is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. He has lectured at Harvard, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and many other institutions. He teaches at Columbia University, The School of Visual Arts and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

An article published by the Lincoln Journal Star, Nebraska.

By Kathryn Cover

What defines a culture? This is a big question, especially for Americans who have such a diversity of cultures. When I was in school and learning about all the ancient cultures of the world, we were exposed to the visual arts, performing arts, architecture and literature of a society to teach us about that culture.

What will people be taught about us in a hundred years?

In our current economic distress, government and corporations are all looking for ways to save money. My fear is that the arts will be the first thing to suffer. Schools already have cut back on art classes and music. The performing arts of dance and theater have been cut to the bare bone. We are facing a tough cultural choice, and if the current trends continue, only the children of the wealthy will have opportunities to do art or even be audience members.

This needs to be looked at as more than a fleeting problem. Without the arts being a part of the everyday life of children, it will not suddenly become part of their lives in adulthood. Popular cultural trends of reality TV and Internet videos are fine, but is this how we want to be seen in the textbooks of the future?

Even coming from a lower-income family, I was able to see five or six Shakespeare plays by the time I had finished high school. This was not unusual. Shakespeare in the park, touring programs through our school and low-cost admission to local university theater productions had given me a great exposure.

Many of our youths have never seen Shakespeare performed. What have we done? They will never have that as part of their memory or education. Even if you do not enjoy Shakespeare as a regular part of your life, don’t you think you are a better person for having been exposed to it?

The same is true for all the arts. The visual art classes I took in

K-12 were the foundation of my aesthetic training for what is beauty and what is possible to create with my own imagination. Will we be healthy as a nation if our children are denied this?

Going even further, without support for all kinds of art and artists, art will cease to exist. Artists, like everyone else, need to earn a living. The Sistine Chapel would not have been painted if Michelangelo had not been commissioned to do so. Many of the murals that are in our public buildings for all to view were paid for by our government during the Great Depression.

The majority of artists, no matter in what area they practice, never become wealthy in their lifetimes, but they must be able to pay basic bills or they will find another way to earn a living. The arts will become stagnant and disappear altogether without support. We will actually lose our culture and expression of who we are as a people.

Studies have shown that exposure to the arts at a young age makes our youths better at many other fields, i.e., musicians make wonderful mathematicians.

So what should we do? That is the hard question. Here are a few suggestions.

- Contact government at both the local and national level and let them know you support the arts and art education.

- Go to events. This includes bringing your kids to a concert, a play or an art gallery or enrolling them in classes that will expand their exposure, as well as asking your school to do more.

- Give what you can, when you can. The majority of arts organizations are nonprofit and get their funding through grants and donations. With the large organizations giving less, it is up to us little people to make up the difference. If we all give a little, it becomes a major thing. Five dollars from 20 people is still $100. When you pay admission to an event, that is also a form of financial support.

We cannot count on our government to always do what is necessary for the health of our culture. That job sometimes has to be performed by the average Joe. Support your local arts organization. Support arts programs in your local schools. Let our children have the diversified world that we had.

Kathryn Cover is an independent theater artist and small business owner who lives in Weeping Water with her husband and two stepchildren.