Support the House Artist Deduction Bill

OK. This is a repost. But this issue will not go away until congress passes this bill.

Most artists are generous people. They often give their time and talent to others with little or no reward. But current tax law discourages artists from donating their art to non-profit organizations. The U.S. tax system accords unequal treatment to creators and collectors who donate tangible works (e.g., paintings or manuscripts) to museums, libraries, educational or other collecting institutions. This severely effects public art collections and non-profit fund raising efforts. While collectors may take a tax deduction for the fair-market value of the work, the artist may deduct only their "basis" value—essentially the cost of materials such as paint and canvas.

For example, I recently sold a small painting, "The Rugged Vase," for $900. If the collector now donates the painting to an educational institution he could deduct the $900. Had I not sold that painting but donated it to the same school, I could deduct only $30, the cost paint and canvas.

On March 13, 2007, H.R. 1524 - The Artist-Museum Partnership Act was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Please urge your congressperson to co-sponsor H.R.1524, which would allow artists to take a fair-market value deduction for works given to and retained by nonprofit institutions.

It is easy to do. Americans for the Arts Web site has more information and a simple form that enables you to quickly write to your congressperson.

Please spread the word!

Story Behind the Painting: The Adventurers

The Adventurers
Oil of Canvas
15" x 10"

My nephews on Flathead Lake, Montana. Life does not get better than being lost in the moment in God's country.

The Adventurers is my salute to my first art hero, Winslow Homer. His paintings of endless summer days, Breezing Up, Snap the Whip, his watercolors of the Bahamas. I love the carefree feeling he created of being out in nature and embracing life. He also had the amazing gift to create timeless and universal images from contemporary life. My hope was to come close to doing the same in The Adventurers.

Before my twenty's our family spent many summers at the family camp on Little Simon's Pond near Tupper Lake in the Adirondack mountains, New York. In 1912, my great grandfather built the compound of five buildings – a main log cabin, three bunkhouses, and a boat house. The camp, we called "Tupper," was home to us for a about a month most summers.

At Tupper, three generations would play, laugh and grow together. It was rustic living. No electricity. No indoor bathrooms (actually one indoor bath reserved for grandma). We bathed in the lake and cooked on a wood burning stove. We read and played hearts by kerosene lamps and danced to original 1920s discs played on a hand-cranked Victrola. We learned how to live in community, be creative and resourceful. It was there that I watched and later joined my grandfather and father as they painted watercolors of the glorious lake and mountains.

After my grandfather died in the mid '70s the camp was sold.

Years later, when we were married, I discovered that my wife's family owned a cabin on a bay in Flathead Lake where she spent her young summers. The Cabin is situated on the lake in a position nearly identical to Tupper Lake camp's main house, relative to the bay. Every time I visit Flathead, I am amazed by its similarities with Tupper. I am also deeply moved by that country's beauty.

The day my nephews commandeered the yellow raft, their sight took me back to my two brothers and I playing in Tupper Lake. On so many levels, this painting had to be done.

I hope you like it. Please let me know what you think.

High Art, Low Art: Who Cares?

Comedian Mike Meyers once said, "there is no high humor or low humor. There is only funny." Critics and social commentators might disagree. But from a comic's perspective that is an essential truth.

The same is true for art from an artist's perspective. There is no high art or low art, there is only art. The distinction between high and low art is best left to the critics and future historians. In time, their judgment is likely to be judged by others as wrong, anyway. The tides of taste are always shifting and fickle.

Artists are doing themselves a grave disservice judging their own or other artist's work as high or low. Hogarth turned vulgar subjects into art centuries ago, as did Caravaggio and a long list of distinguished artists. Daumier's political cartoons are prized museum pieces. And as Walter points out, Rockwell's work, dismissed when created, are now masterpieces of fine art.

As artists we need to do the work, show it, sell it, enjoy it, whatever, just don't judge it on how it fits into a social or historical context. It only leads to self censorship and would be a horrible waste of time and emotion.

-----------

This post was inspired by an an interesting blog by Walter King, BY WAY OF THE DODO: Scott Muskgrove’s Menagerie. In it, among other interesting ideas, he talks about the concept of the line between high and low art - illustration vs. fine art in this case. I encourage you to read it if only for the entertaining writing and art.

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008)

Both the art and graphic design worlds were greatly influenced by Robert Rauschenberg (New Yosk Times article). My wife and I are both artists and designers and have been inspired by Rauschenberg's work for years. Younger artists, especially those doing collage art, may not know the great debt their work owes to his paintings and prints.

Rauschenberg's life and work were all about exploration and change. Never comfortable with the staus quo he pushed beyond the current trends of his time. He once said “I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At the time that I am bored or understand — I use those words interchangeably — another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.”

If you don't know Robert Rauschenberg work, or even if you think you know it, it would be a fitting tribute to him to take a fresh look at the creativity, richness and variety of his work.

Story Behind the Art: "Rue Mouffetard"

Rue Mouffetard
20 x 16
Oil on Panel

Ah Paris! It has been a few years since we have been in Paris but the memories of the beautiful city are intoxicating.

Rue Mouffetard is an area of Paris' Left Bank not far from Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter, that has a fantastic open-air market. The aroma of flowers, produce, pastries, and cheeses fill the air as does the chatter of Parisians and tourists. This display of artichokes was so expertly displayed, with a great sense of color and texture, I could not get the sight out of my mind until I put it on canvas when we returned home. Paris is an inspiration.

In the Studio: White Mums - part 2

White Mums
16 x 20
Oil on Canvas
(stages 5-8, left to right top to bottom)

The mums are coming along just fine. After the initial block in and color lift I contured the vase a bit and worked on the flower pedals. And bottom row the blossoms have become quite yellow. That is all part of the plan. That under painting, along with the in red in the shadows under them (anchoring them to the surface) will be very useful as the piece progresses. This painting will be about the whiteness of the mums, but white is rarely really white, is it?

I will be setting this painting aside for a little bit, while I work on another piece for a while. I like to juggle a few paintings a time on occasion. And now is the time for one of those occasions.

Next Tuesday -- the new painting takes birth.

Passion for Making Art

A thought for the good weekend to come:

"I feel assured I should write from the
mere fondness and yearning I have for the Beautiful
even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning
and no eye ever shine on them." – John Keats, 1818



Mini Mums, 12 x 16, Oil on Canvas

The Essential Skill of Marketing

Being in business, by definition, means you want to profit financially from your work. Marketing is the context in which business happens. It is not sales alone. It involves all aspects of your art business, promotion, client relations, price, sales, etc.

I believe that sales are an outgrowth of marketing efforts. Art sells when people who love the work. Familiarity with the artist often enhances affection for the work. Now, people cannot love the work unless they have seen the work, and they cannot become familiar with the artist unless they know the artist exists. That knowledge can only happen as the results of marketing. Marketing is always happening, bad or good, in spite of our level of marketing understanding or discipline. Bad marketing can be a disaster and destroy your chances of success. Good marketing is effective and in can bring tremendous opportunities for success. Good marketing can also be fun.

Effective marketing is a focused and disciplined skill essential to practicing the business of art. It is very important that marketing become natural part of business routine. Study marketing and practice it. Finding a mentor or a support group of other artists who are comfortable and skilled with marketing to emulate and coach you really helps.

Here are a couple good places to start:
Alyson B. Stanfield's Art Biz Blog
Art Career Advice blog

Artists Take Action: Protect Your Copyright

Congress is considering a bill, U.S. Orphan Works Act of 2008, that would be devastating to visual artist and photographer copyright protections. The bill would require registration with fee for each image - photograph, painting, print, etc. It would also remove current "you create it, you own it" copyrights.

Congress is being pushed by large corporations who would benefit greatly by being able to "use" (read steal) orphaned (unregistered) works. Artists without deep pockets will be fee-ed out of business and/or loose the rights to their own work.

I just took action on this issue and hope you will too. You can take action by sending an email to your senators and representatives. There is more information and a simple prewritten email you can use at the Illustrators Partnership of America site - they send it to the right people, you even don't need to look your congress people up. Very Cool !

Behind the Art: St. Chapelle

St. Chapelle

24 x 30
Oil on Canvas

St. Chapelle, is an older work but it symbolizes much of what I believe regarding creating art and my view of the world. First a little background about cathedral St. Chapelle.

St. Chapelle was built between 1241-1248 on Isle St. Louis in the heart of Paris, France. It was built by Louis IX (St. Louis) to house Christ's Crown of Thorns. The interior was painted crimson, ultramarine and gold. The windows fill the space between very tall and slender gothic arched columns. Today St. Chapelle is on the grounds of police headquarters and heavily guarded. The juxtaposition of a sacred place surrounded by armed police is startling.

The interior space is utterly spectacular. Breathtaking is absolutely accurate. You enter the sanctuary from below by way of a narrow spiral staircase. When you enter the sanctuary you are embraced by awesome beauty. You often hear others gasp as they enter taken by the glorious volume of the space and crystalline sparks of white, red and blue light that pour through those spectacular windows washing every surface and filling the air.

So why a guy on a ladder screwing in a light bulb?
The first thing that struck me was that this young man continues a traditional chore that has been going on in that church for nearly 700 years - the rickety old ladder he climbed looked nearly as old as St. Chapelle itself. I also have a strong affinity for physical work that appears humble but has great value. His simple act is filled with deep symbolic meaning me - bringing light into the world especially in a place so filled with spiritual history. Lastly, from my angle, those amazing windows look as though they reach to Heaven. Perhaps they do.

In the Studio: White Mums - I

White Mums (stages 1-4)
16 x 20
Oil on Canvas

I will be posting the progress of this and other painting each Tuesday.

White Mums features a blue and white vase with white chrysanthemums (of course). Unlike most of the flowers I use, these were not from our garden but store bought from a charming little flower store in the local super market, ha.

I love the way light plays with the surfaces, especially the depth and luminosity of the vase and how it contrasts with the mum's flat, light absorbing leaves and stems. There is also the added elements of the mum's spidery white petals and the glossy granite surface of our kitchen island. Of course this painting hardly looks anything like what I have described. But it will.

The picture above shows the first four steps of the painting. I don't know how many more step there are to go (the is part of the mystery I love about painting). All my paintings start will an under drawing. That is the bones that all else hangs upon. After the drawing come color washes for the background to give me a middle tone, then lifting color for the lights, and blocking in a solid under painting that will give the painting depth and glow at a later stage.

I will be doing quite a bit of color modulation in this piece. My hope is to create a painting that will feel solid yet light and airy, and full of subtle color shifts.

I can't wait to see what happens. When finished I will post a complete painting demonstration on the Michael Adams Gallery Web site.

Beautiful Monday: Why I Paint

Each Monday I will be exploring issues of Beauty. This is an area of great interest to me. Beauty is much more than the superficial and glamorous. It is, among other things, the goodness in creation that surprises with the gifts of joy, tranquility, excitement and even sadness.

My painting is very much about beauty and the process of slowing down life and allowing beauty to engage my inner world, and I hope the world of those people who see my work.

I truly love the subject matter I choose - whether still life, figurative, landscape or flower paintings - but I have found that the fundamental reason I paint is that it forces me to slow down and really gaze at an object to discover the beauty that lies both on its surface and deeper in my soul. The following excerpt from John O'Donohue's wonderful book "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace" helps explain what I mean:

"Each person is the sole inhabitant of their own inner world. Each of us is responsible of how we see, and how we see determines what we see. Seeing is not merely a physical act: the heart of vision is shaped by the state of soul. When the soul is alive to beauty, we begin to see life in a fresh and vital way."

On my way to Scottsdale

I have visited Phoenix, AZ a couple times to visit relatives. This will be the first time to have a chance to visit/scout the art galleries. I have always been impressed that there is such a thriving art community there. Several galleries look as though my work might just fit in the context of the work by other artists they show. My goal is to have my work in a gallery within driving distance of my studio. At seven hours from L.A., Scottsdale is at the limit.

We will see. I will report what I find.