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A ‘real’ artist again

With my published books being ousted from the Artisans on Main Gallery, and my photo prints priced so low (when compared to the surrounding matted reproductions of paintings), it is clear that the majority favor the laborious one-of-a-kind works. There is, of course, the famous quote from Groucho Marx:

I sent the club a wire stating, “PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER”.

 

Belle River Shore

Still, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em…I have decided to see if the artisans group will accept me as a member. In the next week or two…I aim to submit a set of acrylics to be ‘juried’. I decided a couple weeks ago to use up all my resources in hardboard/panel-board and set out to paint 18 pictures all at once…all in thick acrylic and all done entirely with palette knife in an impressionistic style. I first laid out two 4′ x 8′ sheets of plywood on sawhorses in the garage (the truck has been outside for about a week and is probably getting irritated an being ousted), laid out all my ‘canvasses’, and went at it…all at the same time in a round-robin, production mode. For specific inspiration I grabbed some of my postcards and photo-magnets. First I put down a layer of white acrylic as a primer and then went around laying down a single range of colors at a time…first blues, grays, and whites to represent the impression of skies and clouds…then greens and yellows for grass and trees…then reds, browns and whites for beaches and fields…and finally whatever was left–purples and pinks for lupines and grey-greens for beach plants (dusty miller?). It was more fun than finger-painting back in 1st grade!

Continue reading “A ‘real’ artist again”

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Now in the water!

Today the boat finally got launched. This year’s problems were relatively minor…one tire continued a slow leak after being re-seated and had to be removed a second time…the wind-vane (brand new) broke off when the mast top swung over the wharf before I had the boat tied up. Oh, one of the mast step rungs snapped off as I was climbing up to remove the mast-raising hook. But on the positive side, the boat floated free the first time and the mast raising went without a hitch. The early-morning rain stopped and the day was sunny. The wind was out of the northwest, which didn’t interfere with the launch or the mast raising. 

Still, even with my wife’s help, I am exhausted. There are so many memories of things that went wrong I continue to wonder what will be next. Perhaps by Sunday I will have the halyards up and the sails attached and actually be able to go sailing!

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Its official–no books

Books are not art in the context of the Artisans on Main Gallery. The politics of this particular motion notwithstanding, it seems sad that the definition of art sits in the hands of some 20 folks who all seem to be painters, sculptors, or quilters. Worse yet, the collective view of paintings seems to be that the best style is represented by most of the paintings…acrylic, oil, or watercolor in a highly realistic nearly photographic form. It struck me that there are no abstract works (unless you count quilts) and virtually none that are not fairly detailed. Perhaps that is what sells…although very little seems to sell in any given week. 

I recall hearing about a very snooty… that’s the only word I can think of…group of people who juried for an art gallery back in Indiana. The standards were so high that no watercolors were accepted which used opaque white paint anywhere…white had to be achieved by the white paper showing through…either by careful avoiding of the area or by using masking fluid and removing it later.  That is always the risk of rigidly defining art. The very same issue plagued the impressionists who were denied a presence in the salon in Paris.

My writer friends who produced the books (which are soon to be removed from the gallery) would argue vehemently that their works are art, just like the earlier argument that religious poetry is not unique in having a ‘spiritual’ content. Perhaps this is just a sifting process so that the true bias of the active ‘members’ will be seen. As one email hinted recently, perhaps the group has become too selective and critical and will end up without enough members to continue.

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Synchronizing with the ferry

Here is the ferry departure schedule from Wood Islands for the rest of the Summer:
June 29 – Sept. 3  6:30, 8:00, 9:30, 11:15, 13:00, 14:45, 16:30, 18:15, 20:00
and here are the departures (and arrivals) from the other side:
8:00 (9:15), 9:30 (10:45), 11:15 (12:30), 13:00 (14:15), 14:45 (16:00), 16:30 (17:45), 18:15 (19:30), 20:00 (21:15), 21:30 (22:45)

Basically the two boats make the 75-minute trip on a steady basis with about 15 minutes to unload/load at the ends. Since the cars leave the area like there was a fire on the boat and other cars race up for the boat at the very last minute, the impetuous traffic times are well defined. For making the 2-mile trip to the ramp, the best starting times are 6:30-7:30 (no arriving traffic at the first run) , 8:15-9:00, and 9:45-10:30. 

As I indicated in the last post, the high tide on Friday is at 11:15 but ‘high enough’ runs from about 9 am to 1 pm. I think the best time to make the road trip is about 8:30, since that should allow up to 3 hours at the ramp to get the boat in if any problems were to spring up.

I don’t anticipate any issues with the fishermen since the lobster season ended two weeks ago and the traps should all be home by now. I’d better check to be sure there isn’t some other fishing activity that would be in the way.

Bringing the empty trailer to Graham is a longer trip but it will be empty and light. To avoid any traffic burst I should start out before 12:30 when the ferry arrives from Caribou, NS.

This sounds like a lot of trouble to just launch a boat, but with a 15′ width and no wish to in any way impede traffic or become involved in an accident, careful timing is critical. Since most of the serious boat problems have been associated with launching or retrieval, those are the high-stress times and my goal is to ‘never make the same mistake twice’!

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They’re gone!!!

The young starlings…fledglings…have left the nest within the last two days. Finally I can launch the boat without doing harm to young birds. It also happens that the high-high tides are falling this time of month (6.9′) from 9:30 tomorrow (Wednesday) through 12:00 noon on Saturday. I think we’ll target Friday…11:15 is the high and that means the boat can be trailered to the ramp sometime in the morning…at a time to miss the ferry traffic…with plenty of time to extend the tongue and get the boat floated while the high tide lingers long enough to allow the trailer to stay safely up from the drop-off at the bottom end of the ramp.

The entire process takes several hours between extending the tongue, floating the boat, resetting the tongue, motoring the boat over to the wharf, raising the mast, and bringing the trailer home. Actually I intend to bring the trailer to Graham, my handy machinist/welder, to fix the width as well as adding a cradle/roller to align and capture the bow when bringing the boat onto the trailer again. Being about 15′ wide, I don’t like to have it on the road any more than possible, but it is no worse than much of the farm machinery one encounters here. I will try to be careful to pick times when ferry traffic is not racing along toward or from Charlottetown.

Probably I’ll have 8 weeks for sailing, barring any ill-aimed hurricanes.

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Still waiting

The !@#$%^&* starlings grow up very slowly! How I wish the mother starling an empty nest so I can begin using the boat. I have now missed the full-moon higher tide cycle as well as the one two weeks before that. Winterizing will take on a new importance next fall.

The enforced idleness did have some good results, however. I discovered and fixed some minor rot associated with the cockpit seat backs. Perhaps I can use some of the time to devise a better latch system.

Also, since one strand of the back-stay has broken, I want to add some short reinforcement cable around the area. I bought some stainless cable to eventually replace the back-stay, which is in the shape of an inverted Y, with two stays that go straight (and separately) from the deck to the top of the mast. That would give me redundancy on all four sides so any one cable could fail or come loose without allowing the mast to come crashing down.

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Cameras and the Tattoo

We spent all day yesterday and most of the night attending the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo…a marvelous three hour+ performance of precision marching and bands as well as dancing and gymnastics by groups from both Canada and countries including the France, Switzerland, Estonia, Britain and the US. It was held in the Halifax Metro Centre and was wonderful both for the acts and their precision interleaving so that there was never even 10 seconds when there was not some event going on…the groups entered and arranged themselves in the dark side as another act was going on at the other end.

What a wonderful photo opportunity this would have been with all the color and pageantry except for one thing…on the tickets and plastered over all the entrance doors was the notice: No Cameras, Video, or Recording Permitted. Now, as a photographer,  I respect an organization’s desire to retain ownership of any  images, etc. etc. But it turned out the notice was unenforced. There was an endless string of flashes coming from the audience across the way from us and no doubt on our side as well! I kept expecting the ubiquitous ushers to at least warn people if not confiscate cameras or escort violators from the performance. Nothing of the sort…even when a particularly delicate acrobatic performance was preceded by a warning to avoid any flashes for fear it would endanger the performers, the end of the announcement was immediately followed by a flash. Continue reading “Cameras and the Tattoo”

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What is art?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

What would be simply an academic discussion has become a more significant issue which boils down to, “Are books a form of art?” Perhaps I should give some background. I volunteered to put my matted prints in the Artisans on Main Gallery. One of the organizers suggested I investigate wire racks that she had heard were at Habitat for Humanity. The only ones left were quite unusual ones, but I found one assembly that could fit several rows of pictures on 4 sides with about a 3′ x 2′ footprint. Since Wood Islands Prints has long ago branched into publishing, I decided part of one side of the rack could be dedicated to showing (and offering for sale) (only) the books I have published. After all, laying out books and editing pictures for insertion is a sort of art. Well, this has been a bone of contention from the first week. I think the ‘spiritual’ nature of some of the books was a problem for one individual, but when someone pointed out that many paint-artists would view their works as having spiritual dimensions, the next move was to argue that any books are not an appropriate item in an art gallery. I think block prints would start to push that boundary since they are a form of printing, and the term ‘artisan’ seems to me to have a somewhat broader use. Part of the problem is that the ‘artisans group’ had no defined membership nor any mechanism for deciding such issues. Nevertheless I expect my books will be voted out. As one of my professor associates said decades ago in another context,

The intensity of the argument is inversely related to its importance.

As I commented here some days ago, there are thoughts of setting a minimum price for items based on size…is it fear of being undercut by other artists?…I’d like to purchase 212 square inches of art today. Since all of my matted prints are priced far below suggested thresholds, I am thinking of preempting any vote, shaking the dust off my feet, and moving everything to the boutique across the street (if as I am told, the owner over there is now open to taking them). Then I don’t have to spend a day cutting mats or could even drop the photography classes…I don’t wish to do that at this point, but the climate does not enhance the desire to help.

One good result of this kerfuffle is that I have decided to resume painting. I realized last night that all the paintings on display in the gallery are quite realistic…nothing even slightly abstract hangs on any of the walls. Since I really enjoy painting with palette knife on big surfaces, I have set up today to do a whole batch of pictures with a goal of being quite abstract. Half the garage is full of about 20 hardboard panels and I am going around to all of them in a round robin fashion carrying out steps to create pictures that are abstract but slightly scenic. If it was good enough for Turner, it should qualify now. So far I have done the skies…or at least the first draft. With acrylic paint the dry time is fast enough you have to keep going if you want the blending that can come while paints are still wet…perhaps an hour vs days with oils! I am intrigued at something after Pollock, but there isn’t enough wall space to hang even one of those! My intent is to offer up the best these for the jury process of the gallery…if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

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Addendum on Tom Rath’s book

The illustrations for Tom’s next book are charming. Here is one that shows the donkey meeting a cow…apparently a very startling experience. Greg MacAdam has a web site reached by clicking here. I was incorrect in the last post…Greg is a free-lance political cartoonist for the Graphic.


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Tom Rath: next book

Having just gotten the copies of his revised KittenCat book, Tom has just sent me a draft of his next children’s book (or series, perhaps) about a donkey. In the first one the donkey (I believe his name is Don-key Oatie, groan) wants to be a cow but discovers he has a very useful role protecting the young calves in the pasture from coyotes. 

An outstanding feature of this new book is the illustration work by Gregory MacAdam…a student at UPEI, I believe. He has used pen and ink line drawings filled in with water color and has captured the nuances of the story with great clarity and appeal.

As a publisher I face the usual questions about format and layout. Tom would like landscape format but none of my small-batch or POD printers seem to support that except for a one-at-a-time photo-book printer (Photo Book Press) who begins at a price of about $56 per book…not a price to capture the children’s book market. I hope I can talk Tom into the 8.5 x 8.5″ square format from Lightning Source or else a severe post-printing trim on vertical height from Instant Publisher. 

As the final test of the potential market, seeing the draft, my wife says we will have to buy a copy to take to the grandchildren.