David Hockney's Bigger Message

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I don't know whether to love or hate this book for being so inspiring. Many times while reading it, I had the impulse to close my gallery, stop writing this blog, and return to making art. Martin Gayford's A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney chronicles discussions between the art critic and artist over a ten year period, giving the reader unique access to this inventive artist's process and his ongoing experimentation with new media. Why does this book make me want to make art? Because Hockney has never stopped seeing, has never lost touch with the primacy of making marks and striving to represent reality in ever more vivid and inventive ways.

Whether working with traditional oil paints or on an iPad, drawing is at the heart of what Hockney does:

"I thought one of the saddest things ever was the abandonment of drawing in art schools . . .You can't teach someone to draw like Rembrandt, but you can teach them to draw quite competently. Teaching someone to draw is teaching them to look. When it was given up, I kept arguing with people. They said we don't need it any more. But I said that giving up drawing is leaving everything to photography, which isn't going to be that interesting."



Gayford and Hockney's conversations range from Monet, Turner and Constable to printmaking, theater set design, fax machines and copiers. The contrast between the landscape of Hockney's current home of Yorkshire in Great Britain and his Los Angeles home of 20 years is as central to the discussion of Hockney's development as an artist as are the new mediums he embraces. When the iPad was released in early 2010, he immediately started investigating the possibilities, making daily drawings of the Yorkshire landscape:

"This is a real new medium. You miss the resist of paper a little, but you can get a marvellous flow. There are gains and losses with everything. So much variety is possible. You can't overwork this, because it's not a real surface . . . You can put a bright, bright blue on top of an intense yellow. But you still have to think in layers as you do with lithographs, watercolours, any kind of prints. But there are other big differences in how you can work. The iPad is like an endless sheet of paper. You can adjust scale for ever."



A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney is a fun and insightful read, richly illustrated with reproductions of Hockney's and other artists' work, as well as photographs of the artist working. We see Hockney at the height of his artistic powers, bringing to picture-making the accumulation of a lifetime of seeing, working, studying and always moving forward.

As for me -- am I going to close up shop and return to making art? Not today, but I could try to carve out some time every morning for an iPad drawing . . . or wait for the feeling to pass.

Click here to buy from Amazon.com

Upcoming at Offramp Gallery

May 6 - June 3, 2012
Chuck Feesago: Retention

Opening Reception: Sunday, May 6, 2-5pm

May 6 - June 3, 2012

D. Jean Hester: A Rope Let Down From Heaven

Opening Reception: Sunday, May 6, 2-5pm

May 19, 2012
Joe Santarromana: The Rememberers
Special Screening: 7pm

June 24 - August 5, 2012
Lou Beach: Stories & Pictures

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 24, 2-5pm

 

In Praise of the Intensely Visual: Fishes, Birds and Artists, Oh My!

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If I had to define my mission as a gallery director and blogger about all things art-related, it would be to put the visual back into Visual Art. Rarely am I interested in conceptual art where the visual is secondary, non-existent, or in a state of forced servitude to an idea. It bores me senseless and even makes me angry. I also have little patience for bad drawing and painting. I don't want to be shocked, grossed out or repelled by overly-slick work. I want a heightened visual experience, well-crafted work that speaks to me viscerally, raises my consciousness or makes me see in a new way. I want to leave a museum or gallery with a sense of wonder and discovery, not the grumpy state I often find myself in. I want that feeling I used to get sitting for hours on the floor of the college library pouring through art books.

Now that I've put forth my manifesto, I want to talk about a book and a video that both fit the bill.

The book is Taschen's Tropical Fishes of the East Indies, a volume of natural history illustrations from the early eighteenth-century. The original drawings for this eye-popping catalog of marine fauna were made by Samuel Fallours, who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company. Fallours swore that all the original colored drawings were done from life and were faithful to nature -- even the mermaid! Lucky for us, Fallours was an imaginative artist with a bent toward the fantastic. Brilliant colors and fanciful flourishes make these images a triumph of science-meets-nature-meets-imagination.

57. Sorte d’Ican Svangi, Pterois antennata (Bloch, 1787), Spotfin Lionfish
    58. La None bardée d’Amboine, Pygoplites diacanthus (Boddaert, 1772), Regal Angelfish
    59. Rouger Piquet, Coris gaimard (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824), Yellowtail Coris
    60. Le Harang Rayé, Lutjanus bengalensis (Bloch, 1790), Bengal Snapper
    61. Petit poisson, Gomphosus varius (Lacepède, 1801), Bird Wrasse
Courtesy Taschen

The book itself in printed on heavy textured paper and faithfully reproduces an original manuscript down to the smudges and bleed-through from other pages. An accompanying booklet contains illuminating essays on the history of the plates as well as an appendix identifying each specimen. Buy this book for your collection! You won't be disappointed.

390. Femme de Mer, Syrene, ? Dugong dugon (Muller, 1776), Dugong
Courtesy Taschen 

Click here to buy Tropical Fishes of the East Indies from Amazon.com

The Rememberers: Art & Memory

  

Los Angeles artist Lisa Adams' work also draws from nature -- fractured, impure, urban, twenty-first-century nature. Working from her studio in an industrial area of the city, Adams' has created her own wildlife sanctuary in the form of a window bird-feeder. Joe Santarromana uses it as a jumping off point for his beautiful video vignette of Adams, part of his series The Rememberers: Art & Memory.

Click here to learn more about Lisa Adams

Click here to see more of Joe Santarromana's The Rememberers Series

Somewhat Related Animal Videos

I want to end with two video clips of nature's marvels. The first, Moonwalking Bird, shows the brilliantly colored male manakin bird strutting his stuff a la Michael Jackson! The second captures the first ever footage of the barreleye fish -- complete with transparent head.

Upcoming at Offramp Gallery

May 6 - June 3, 2012
Chuck Feesago: Retention

Opening Reception: Sunday, May 6, 2-5pm

May 6 - June 3, 2012

D. Jean Hester: A Rope Let Down From Heaven

Opening Reception: Sunday, May 6, 2-5pm

June 24 - August 5, 2012
Lou Beach: Stories & Pictures

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 24, 2-5pm

How to Conquer Your Creative Demons

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from Amazon.com

Creative Block. We've all had it. I'm trying to work through it as I write this sentence -- negative thoughts, distractions, rationalizations, avoidance and procrastination all dance before me, trying to get me to do anything but write. It's a beautiful day. I should be outdoors gardening, not hunched over my keyboard. But here I am. I sit down, drink coffee, play with my cats, play a couple of games of Scrabble Blast, and eventually start to write. Everything else melts away and I am magically "in the zone."

In his 2002 book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles author Steven Pressfield defines the powerful enemy that keeps us from doing what we should be doing, and names it Resistance:

"Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. . . Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet . . . To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be."

Just how powerful does Pressfield think this enemy is?:

"You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. . . Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas."

Pressfield takes the reader on a journey through the many manifestations of Resistance, from self-doubt and procrastination to fear, identifying and offering advice about how to overcome them:

"Grandiose fantasies are a symptom of Resistance. They're the sign of an amateur. The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come. . ."

I found Pressfield's short chapter on Resistance and Fundamentalism particularly interesting. While he may be over-simplifying, I think he's on to something: 

"Fundamentalism and art are mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as fundamentalist art. This does not mean that the fundamentalist is not creative. Rather, his creativity is inverted. He creates destruction. . . To combat the call of sin, i.e., Resistance, the fundamentalist plunges either into action or into the study of sacred texts. He loses himself in these, much as the artist does in the process of creation. The difference is that while the one looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen. . . When Fundamentalism wins, the world enters a dark age."

The following video shows how one artist got over her creative block.
 


The War of Art is packed with wisdom, wit, humor and advice, and delivers that kick in the pants we all sometimes need to get off the couch and get to work. Whether you're an artist, writer or entrepreneur, whether you read this book cover to cover or pick it up and read random bits, The War of Art will help you recognize and work through your creative demons.

Click here to purchase The War of Art from Amazon.com

Upcoming at Offramp Gallery

March 4 - April 15, 2012:
John M. White: Recent Works
Opening Reception: Sunday, March 4, 2-5pm

May 6 - June 3, 2012
Chuck Feesago: Retention
Opening Reception: Sunday, May 6, 2-5pm

May 6 - June 3, 2012

D. Jean Hester: A Rope Let Down From Heaven

Opening Reception: Sunday, May 6, 2-5pm

June 24 - August 5, 2012
Lou Beach: Stories & Pictures

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 24, 2-5pm