Archive for May, 2010
Defining “Contemporary”
The term “contemporary” connotes the zeitgeist of the current times. This is an interesting concept, as often it takes time to conceptualize what the trend is, and by the time it has been correctly analyzed, there is often a new movement coming to the fore. Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of art.
It is mind-blowing to consider that the pieces of art that we consider classics were contemporary in their time. And as this cycle continues, our contemporary art, such as abstract expressionism, will undoubtedly be referred to as classic by future generations. With the intrinsic fluidity of temporality, it is a constant struggle for critics and laymen alike to accurately define what is contemporary.
Bob’s Auto Repair Shop
Today turned out to be a beautiful day! And, since it is Monday, my art friends were meeting.
There was a red building on a nearby road that one friend was particularly interested in painting, so we all agreed to meet there. It turned out that this small building had been a car repair shop many years ago, but with its fading red paint and growing vines, was a great point of inspiration for a landscape painting.
The Web Site
I’m the first to admit that the landscape painting that I do is not in the traditional representational style, and not everyone is excited about it. So I decided to build a web site in order to find a larger audience.
I began building the site, but at one point was getting a large number of calls suggesting I try to get my money back. The inference was that the builders of my site were involved in fraud of some type. When I mentioned these calls to my mentor, she never called me again – leading me to believe there really might be fraud somewhere. I abandoned the site and contracted with another company to build me one. The difference was that with the new company, they did a lot of things I had formerly done myself, and if I wanted something done I had to ask them to do it, and this took a long time, sometimes.
When I joined the mall www.easyplacetoshop.com it became necessary to have a site where I am able to adjust all parts of the site myself. I’m not sure how all of this will work out, but I may have a different web site soon.
Getting Ready for Mother’s Day
Today was a lovely day – temps in the 70s and with full sun! I did errands in the morning, but when afternoon came, instead of doing landscape painting, I did landscape rearranging.
A week ago I had purchased some pansies, those gorgeous little plants, to spark up my flower beds. Today was the day they found a new home! Also, I have several small azaleas which are beautiful in early spring, but by now are “has beens”. My trusty trimmers made quick work of them. I didn’t lay brush to canvas, but my front lawn looks ready for Mother’s Day!
Unexpected Events
Today was expected to be an easy day – a dental appointment and painting with a friend. The dental visit was for a regular cleaning and that went fine.
Then I stopped by the ball field where my friend, Val, was supposed to be landscape painting. She had scouted around to find the spot she wanted and was just getting started. She had only a 5″ x 7 ” board to paint, and said she would be about half an hour and would meet me at my house about a mile away. It took her 1.5 hours to get that little painting done!
She brought some paintings for me to photograph and crop, then put on a disk so she could enter a competition. Everything went fine until time to burn the disk. I had done this before, but we struggled for 2 hours, and she finally left, disappointed at our failure. A while later, I did find the right sequence, so she has her disk and only has to mail it tomorrow!
Painting at Leslie’s
On Mondays, I have a standing arrangement with my friends that we will do landscape painting. However, the weather didn’t cooperate today so Leslie said she would set up a still life if we wanted to go to her house. It was a good thing that we did as the day turned out very humid and uncomfortable.
When I arrived, Leslie was gathering flowers and later set them in a vase on a cloth on a coffee table. We set up our easels and began in air conditioned comfort. Later, her husband even brought us lunch! Now, it doesn’t get much better than that!
The net result was that Leslie and Suzanne turned out very fine paintings, Betty joined us for a while and shared art info, and agreed to take paintings tomorrow to Ocean City for their next show. And I was less than happy with mine!