Is gallery art better? I think not.

Today we heard about the art practices of sculptor, Dion Hitches, and the ways in which he manages the business side of his gallery entries.Selling art is just as important as making it, and you need to plan your business well. While explaining this to us, he also explained the differences between private art commisions, and public art projects. I soon began to pick my favorite.

Basically, a private art commission is when somone makes a private order for a particular artist, to get a piece of art specially made for them. When you are responding to a commission, you must always make sure that you are getting a good deal on their deposit, prefferably 50% of the cost. This is aspecially important incase there is a problem getting the full ammount payed to you later on.

The difference between private commisions and public projects, is that a public art project details entering your pieces of art into a gallery space to be shown and sold. There are no deposits made on the artworks because nobody has chosen to buy them yet. Basically, it is as if you are putting your items into a very expensive shop, for sale. A private commission is much more immidiate when it comes to making a sale because the person buying has ordered you to make it in advance, practically guaranteeing a sale. In public art spaces, it may take up to 10 years to make a sale, as your art floats from gallery to gallery. As Dion Hitches told us, his piece "manatepatupiahere" only sold after 7 years of being in many, many galleries.

Another key difference between public and private projects, is that private projects tend not no be anything special. Usually when an artist is comissioned to make something they are merely extending their actual art practice, or in other words, regenerating old designs to fit into the needs of the consumer. When an artist is making a work to place in a gallery space, it is generally a fresh, new idea. They will still need to think about what type of art will suit particular kinds of galleries, however it will still be something new and eye catching so that their art will be accepted into the gallerys show. There is no need to worry about acceptance within private commissions because the consumer has already chosen you, the artist, and paid for half of your art piece. This might often mean that you are spending a lot more money at a gallery, than when doing a commisioned work because commisioned works do not always require time making small mock ups, or wasting materials on failed trials. You already know roughly what you are going to make. When working for a gallery space, there can be a lot more time and money involved - mock ups, mistakes, trial and error. You could often put a lot of money into a project, and because there are no deposits being made, it may NEVER sell. You are initially taking risk, and in the end, you could possibly earn nothing.

The narratives within these two types of art practices can be very different. While a gallery work can be a lot more personal to yourself, having your own ideas put into it, A commissioned work can be much more personal to the person you are making it for, fitting it into the consumers own ideals. The people involved in the development of narrartive within a gallery, is yourself. What are your own ideas used to drive the making of your art? How will you chose to portray this? In a private errand, the ideas come from the consumer, and you are the one who will be portraying these ideas. Developing these concepts comes from talking to the consumer, and finding out what they need the artwork for (where it is placed?), and what it will mean to them once it is made.

Also in terms of differences, I found as Grant explained to us in his own ideas on "art", he does not think that something is art, unless it has been publicly displayed. In cases such as this, it could be partly true, because there are only a limited ammount of eyes who will see the piece. It is not shown in the town square, or an uptown gallery, and often it will be overlooked as art because it will be sculpting the landscape of the garden, or enhancing the walls in your home. The art will begin to cross over into the realms of decor. When Hitches sold his first artworks, he noticed that people were not buying his art as art. They were buying them to match their drapes. Even when the art begins to move from gallery, to home, this can definatly occur. Sometimes, we do not always care about the preciousness of an original gallery artwork.

So, I then began to ask myself. Is a regenerated commision made for a home, really so different to a fresh painting, newly thought up for a gallery? They both contain meaningful ideals, and sometimes they may even look similar. Why should I care? It still matches my drapes.

Archival art is not for everyone.

Todays lecture detailed the work of tutor, Steve Lovett. His work as it seems is a collectionary repertior of people and places from his past. Steve likes to work with the idea of people and dialogue, and the way in which this can connect people and places together in a kind of linking web. Viewing some of his works, I could see that a lot of his works were quite archival based in terms of using his own family photographs and such.

Well, If I were to ask my self about the word "Archive", and what that particular word means, I would have to say that it was about collecting. Keeping groups of things together from different parts of time, and storing them away. Photographs, little nick nacks or trinkets, or old clothes from people who wore them in the past. Archives to me are very hoarded. whether it be about your life, or history in general, nothing is thrown away. It is all kept together in groups. I would say that Archiving things would also need to be in some sort of basic order, be it alphabetical, numerical, or even in the order in which these events occured. Although as we saw today, not every archive is ordered. Boltanski was an artist who clearly kept a lot of his work unordered, having tins of random reciepts and bus tickets all crammed together in stacks of rusty biscuit tins. You cannot find anything.

In Steves work I definatly saw an element of archiving. He has kept pieces of his past and turned these into works of art. This very much reminds me of scrap booking. A way of archiving our past. Putting our old photographs, postcards, pieces of hair and articles into an album, and making these into small heirlooms. In Steves work, he has done the same by copying, old photographs from his childhood and from where he grew up, and added to them with print and paint.

For me, I do not see a trend between archives and artists. Neither do I see Autobiographical trends. Not all artists take their past and make it onto art. infact I have only seen a moderate ammount of artists who keep bits of their past and express it in ink ect. Artists like Bauhaus do not use any elements of their past in their work. Bauhaus merely takes shapes and adds further meaning to them. There is no representation of his childhood or past, or even any kind of archival quality added to it. Infact, One of my favorite artists Josephine Wall (image above) is someone who has never used a biographical element to her paintings. All of her works are based on the imaginary.

I do not think that I like the idea of making my art based around a documentary of my life. This is because my own life has never been an inspiration for me. Perhaps my past intregues me a little more, but I am perhaps more interested in the pasts of others. Better still, I would rather not make art that is archival of the past hardly at all. For me a faked archival look can be pretty - vintage looking borders and old documents. However, faking the past in photoshop, by taking old papers and manipulating them is probably as far as I will go. Grunge is something that I enjoy. The stains of life? Not so much.

broad spectrums = lesser knowledge?

Today we were enlightened by the practises of Deborah Crowe. Artist, tutor, and in her mind a "practitioner".

Deborah uses a wide variety of materials ranging from the use of textiles, wire, flax, photoshop to produce digital collaged works, and the use of various other drawing mediums. As Deborah progressed within her art making processes, she began to realise that she wanted to make works which were in a three dimensional world. she wanted works which stood on their own. This was her transformation from using flat flax, and moving into the use of wire to make larger, three dimensional works. She spoke of her thoughts about art, and that she did not see herself as an artist. This was because she did not specialise under any kind of profession. She has knowledge within a wide range of things, and practices them. Hence, her self description.

For my own art practices, I feel that it is crucial to realise what it is that I am enjoying the most, and also what I am absolutely best at. For me, if I know that someting will not take me far in my practices, I usually begin to narrow down my options a little further. For example, I am not mesmerised by jewellery making. For someone who has decided to become unspecialised in my own opinion may lack crucial skills picked up from a specific subject. By specialising, it gives you much more time to practice within one subject, and learn even further skills, to push your learning and understanding of it even more. If you were unspecialised, I would think that someones understanding of say, Digital Photography, (along side several other ideals) would be lesser to a man whom has purely learnt how to use a digital camera and photoshop. These things may come more natural to him because of his constant practice. I do not believe in doing everything for the sake of doing everything.

HOWEVER, although I say this now, I am bound to contradict myself immensely because I also do believe that having a slightly broader spectrum of learning can also be a plus in terms of individuality. You will know more skills, and be more likely to make newer and more unusual works. You will have the freedom to open your mind and create almost anything you think possible. I merely think that having too much knowledge can possibly be a downfall. I also feel that in my own art, I will eventually specialise, although I would have atleast one or two other subjects to back up my art practice because specialising within perhaps a couple of practices can be a very good thing indeed.

Old treasures to find new concepts

In today's lecture we had Mary Curtis come in to talk about her art practices with us.

As a jeweller, Mary is a collector. She likes to collect objects, and images of objects that will inspire her own work. She sees them, and thinks a lot about the way in which these objects are similar and at the same time, very different. Each of these objects have a sort of relationship with eachother as groups, and often the objects themelfs become a part of her own work too.

As she develops and forms new ideas to inform her own work, she often goes back to look at other jewellery made in other era's of time. This is to get new concepts and thoughts about her own art practice through other's ideas. This is definatly something useful to do, especially when you are not brimming with ideas. Many artists go back to think about art in historical periods, be it 1960 or 1860. By looking, it gives you so much opportunity to develop and re-arrange someone elses concept, to create your own fresh idea.

An example of this is the very small era called "post-modernism", where apon artists looked back and revived the use of heavilly ornamented objects. The Memphis design group, took old designs in furnature, and highly decorated them to form a very new concept, much different to the just passed modernist period of dull whites and blank spaces. Their concepts were new and they came from looking at the old. Seeing an idea and re-working it to make it their own.

I would definatly use this idea at times to form my work. There are some very interesting items out in the world's past which I like. Often the items which intregue me the most are displayed on programmes such as "The antiques road show". Small ornate pill and snuff boxes are something which I find to be inspiring to me. Vintage books are something which I like aswell because they always seemed to be very decorative with their borders. If I were to re-make this, I could scan in old images, and work them into my own art. Op shops also give me inspiration not only because of the objects themselfs, but also the atmosphere of going into an old shop. You are delving into a small piece of time, where there are old treasures, and piles of old books to be found.

dope hat

I viewed this video and used it as inspiration for my moving image piece, as I have always found it to be very interesting. There is always something new to see.

Art - a gleaners paradise?

Frances Hansen came in to talk with us about her art and processes. We also viewed a short film about gleaning. Or in other words, the job of picking up scraps after a harvest is finished. Also, we took a trip to the city in order to view a few galleries, in particular two rooms.

When Frances began to talk about the materials she likes to use within her art, it intregued me that her processes were very similar to that of a gleaner. The first step she takes whenever she wishes to make art is to collect. She spoke of often visiting second hand stores or even local dumps to find these materials. Often her materials were pure rubbish. Cardboard, pot plant tags, plastic slips or bags. Retro whicker trays were a favrite. Things that people would usually think little of and throw away. But not Frances. As a gleaner, people collected items which had been disguarded due to breakages, faults, or purely from being old stock, using them for their own personal use. This can include food, furnature, or other items of interest, mainly because they were poor, or had little money for new items. Frances was being just as economical. By gleaning for the materials she needed, she took pleasure in knowing that the objects she has gathered from the dump or local op shop would now have a brand new life. An extended life, transformed into pieces of art. They would no longer be adding to the dump.

As we viewed the two rooms gallery, another artist we viewed who enjoys collecting materials to work with Judy Darragh. Most of her Art is compiled from gleaned objects. There was a large installation work composed out of hundreds and hundreds wine corks, dipped in various colours of paint. She too, makes new life from dead objects.

I read about this artist in detail from the two rooms website, http://www.tworooms.org.nz it states - "Throughout her career, Judy Darragh has brought to our attention the flagrant waste of the consumer society by using our left over debris to make witty sculptural assemblages and installations shamelessly reeking of sentiment."

Her art is a representation of our gluttonous wastages. It amazes me at how many bottles of wine must have been drunk to equate to the ammount of wine corks she had collected from the streets to create her artwork with. The image above is a photograph compiled of small toys that she has sprayed silver, and dripping with various melted acrylic sheets. In Franceses case, her cheap materials come to a big advantage, selling her two dollar trays for over 100 dollars a pop! All she has done is add her own personal element to each tray. Now Thats what I call a profit! If we all decided to waste less of our waste we too could make cash from trash, and save the environment all at the same time! Couldn't we?

For me, my art does not come from the street. Although I decide not to scrape the contents of my bin onto the road, I do not have a large obsession with saving the world from plastic whicker snack trays. To be Frank, I don't give a Bob's arse about the planet. Nor do I wish to use up the very last drop of paint before starting a new tube. However, I must say do enjoy the feeling of history that can come from an old object. It leaves me to wonder what type of person may have previously owned the object and why. Occasionally I might collect and use old materials, or dirty burnt paper, but this is merely for effect. I love the feeling of layering papers together, or painting over many layers so that you can see each part. This a reason for my liking towards watercolours and ink. They can be as opaque or as transparent as I wish. I can build my layers as many times as I want, and over anything that I want. There are also many techniques involved with watercolours, which is something that I feel to have such flexibility is wonderful. Restrictions always annoy me. For me, freedom is the key to my art. If I wish to paint with mud, so be it. YOU wont be stopping me.

lifes a mistake, so draw it.

Today we had a lecture from a local artist Emma Mclellan, speaking about the progression of her artworks over time. She has always had a liking towards animals, and her earlier highschool works depicted animals with a perculiar human nature to them. She prefers to work with print media in a loose freeform style, and her works are often multilayered over canvas, paper or wood blocks. She does not like the strained cleanliness of traditional printmaking where you have many restrictions, need to be perfect, and imperfectionless. She prefers these imperfections, and mistakes.

I noticed that she had made many works titled with the name "chimera" in it. (chimera series II above) I decided then to research the name since I have never heard of it before, and found that this was the name of a great fire breathing, mythological creature. It too, like most of her works was made up of several different types of animals - lion headed, goats body, with a snakes behind. In animals, variation would be key to shaping and creating some of the worlds best creatures, even if not as extravagant as some of the worlds mythological wonders.

Emma's inspriration is mostly drawn from the intricate wallpaper designs of 17th century artist, William Morris. He works mostly with animals and nature, creating busy winding designs for a commercial use in furnature, curtains and wallpapers. Another inspiration point for her are the many bestiarie books where apon artists have tried to depict newley discovered animals with great difficulty, as the artist is often merely listening to the adventurer's descriptions. The depictions of the the animal itself would have become much more distorted, and more fantasy like as the artist would have never seen these amazing creatures themselfs. who knows? perhaps the adventurer was being a bit buff and made a few of the scariest ones up! Horses with long twisted horns, a rhinocerous with strange armour-like skin. They were playing god by creating all of these fantastical creatures. She enjoys these because they are not what they are supposed to be. They are not perfect, and much like her printing style, they have flaws.

Emma's idea is to take these old designs and strange drawings, re-print them, and make them her own. In doing so, she had used Photoshop to scan in and manipulate the beasts , creating strange new hybrids. She then used the print screen process to print her beasts and pieces of wallpaper over previously painted or sanded down surfaces. Like Morris, she also enjoyed printing on fabrics. Traditional printing requires you to take one large sweep, printing the entire image, however she does not print in such a way. she prefers to print small sections of the wallpaper over her work, making her prints irregular and imperfect. This links into her own ideas on life, that it is never perfect. there will always be a flaw within it. even our own brains are imperfect when it comes to remembering exactly what something looks like. The old bestiarie books may have looked rather different if our minds could imagine the perfect image of an animal and draw it just so. Luckilly todays screen printing process does not require the largest brain to duplicate images, however even so, there may still be a few mistakes.

This is a reason why she loves the manual techniques of printing. With the hand, your picture is open for so many man-made flaws. Off-set ink, wrong colourations, sizing difficulties. Imperfections that cannot always be helped. She also prefers not to have the restrications of traditional printmaking. Most techniques limit you to printing on paper. Screen printing hardly limits you at all, being able to print on plastic, fabric, glass ect. making the results of the print even more unpredictable. This is what can make a print so unique. Like life, her art will always vary, and change.