Essential or Non Essential?

I saw this on Facebook, and just had to share. It was posted in Singapore in April. Right when their shutdown began. 

In case you are wondering what a "Hawker" is... it's a hustler. Someone that runs errands for people, or quick venders. In the U.S. Doordash and Uber would be considered "Hawkers", as well as food trucks. 

The best part is the comments, after someone broke it down:

I agree with A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. An artist literally does so much, and they get very little credit for it. All advertising, package design, clothing, theater, music, websites are all artist made. 

Who defines what's essential or non essential anyhow? It seems crazy that sports are play, and become essential. Tests for covid are available for people that play sports. Somehow those that are in the arts suffer. Even though artists had to make commercials, ads, merch, gear, and videography for all the sporting events. 

Another Artist is Gone

The ten + years I've been teaching I've had some artists I talk about in class pass. It happens. More and more are leaving the scene.

Maybe this means I'm getting old, or it could be that the artists just left the scene way to early.

I talk about Robert Rauschenberg. I don't talk about him because his work is amazing. There are some pieces he did that I love, and others that I roll my eyes at. The pieces that are all one color are the one color I roll my eyes at. The Erased de Kooning was an interesting story. At least there was a solid point to it. He wanted to erase a master's work to call that art. You can argue if that's art, or simply an act of destruction. De Kooning was looked up to at the time. Rauschenberg took a bottle of Jack Daniels to his house, knocked on the door, and hoped de Kooning wasn't home. He was. Rauschenberg asked if he could erase one of his works, and call that art. De Kooning said, "Yes, but it has to be a difficult thing to erase, and one that I'll miss." Rauschenberg took weeks erasing something that had all kinds of colors, and media. It's hanging in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

I talk about Rauschenberg because he was a problem solver. He was the type of artist that didn't start with much. When you have nothing, you have nothing to loose. He was willing to take risks. That's what I admired about him. He talks in the video Man At Work about walking 1 block around New York to find supplies. When he couldn't find enough he'd walk another block. From Rauschenberg and my own father I learned that you don't need fancy things to create. It helps, but it's not necessary. He went from a nobody to having his work in Guggenheim Museum. In his later years he traveled the world to work with other artists. He decided that the world we live in is too divine and small. "We have to start thinking globally." - Rauschenberg said

Source for Artwork

Another artist I talk a lot about is David Bowie. I teach hands on art and design, but his thought process was amazing. If you've never watched it, watch the movie Inspirations. It's expensive because it's not being made anymore, there are clips on YouTube, and they have ones that are used on Amazon that are more affordable. It doesn't just feature Bowie. There's Chihuly (glass blowing guy), Lichtenstein (pop-art dot guy), Tadao Ando (Japanese architect), a famous dancer, a famous choreographer, and Nora Naranjo-Morse (a Native American artist). Listening to these artist talk about how they get inspired makes me feel inspired EVERY TIME I watch it. It's so sad that Lichtenstein and Bowie have both passed away. They had such drive to make work. Not for others, but for themselves.

Mica checking out a Lichtenstein in Chicago. His work is so amazing in person!

 

Part of the movie Inspirations:

David Bowie played Andy Warhol in the movie Basquiat. He sure did a great job! I like some of his music to. I don't listen to it all the time, but my favorite song is Under Pressure with Freddie Mercury. 

Who inspires you and why? They can be alive, or no longer living.

Mr. Plagiarizer

I went to pick up the boys at Grandma and Grandpa's house sometime last week.

Isaak was coloring this:

It's cute right? Me and a lot of other people thought so. I said, "Wow Isaak that's a really good drawing. I love it!" He smiled and said, "Thank you!" 

Rubber bands are his thing. He puts them in almost everything he does. He's a collage artists, or a sculptor. Not really an illustrator per say. We'll see. He may loose interest in the arts all together like his big brother Mica did.

I posted his little master piece on Facebook. People thought it was cute.

Then the other day I said, "I really do like that airplane that you created."

He said, "Ya I just colored it, and added the rubber bands. I found the drawing in Grandma and Grandpa's closet."

I guess there's nothing wrong with what he did. It's no different than him coloring an image out of a coloring book. It's just that I should ask him next time, "Isaak did you create all of this?" before I claim it's my son's work.

My guess is, that it's my oldest nephew's drawing, and Isaak's coloring.

Isaak needs to sit in on one of my copyright lectures. HA HA When you think about it most works are from something inspired by, or something changed from something else. Does that even make sense? 

Dale Chihuly hasn't blown his own glass for years, and his work is in tons of art galleries. He's estimated to be worth $10 million dollars. He draws what he wants, or tells glass blowers what he wants, and they create it for him. Then he decides if he wants to put his name on it.

Ironically his eye patch has something to do with a glass accident. He got in a car accident, which took his eye. Source

Andy Warhol didn't like getting messy. He to had others paint, and do screen prints for him often.

In fact he hired someone to pretend to be him and go on talks for him. Source

Visual artists aren't the only ones that steel, or borrow from others.

Weird Al Yankovic has borrows from others all the time. Beat It became Eat It. He's found himself in trouble with the law a few times. He's always been let off.

Source

The beloved Disney most certainly takes what they can get for ideas. You'd think with their movie Beauty and the Beast, and the musical that they came up with, that it was their own idea. No worries, it's an old story, so they had full access to it. Now if you think of Beauty and the Beast you think of the Disney movie, not the classic story tale.

They also have their stuff out for a limited time only, and all the other times keep them in their achieve. Source

The singer, song writer, piano player and creator of the Lilith Fair Sarah McLachlan had to go to court towards the beginning of her career because she copied her stalker's words in a letter he sent her. Many mistook the song Possession as passionate love song. When in fact many of those words came from her stalker. She went to court only to find out her stalker had hung himself.

Once I belonged to her fan club. That was before they used her song in a sad puppy commercial. Source

What is original anymore? It's difficult to define. Especially when you're an art teacher. You want works to be original. It is true that designers are given copy, and photos to use to get the job done. It's also true that big named, fine artists hire someone to do the things that they don't want to do. Then they slap their name on the work, as if they own the whole thing.

If I have problems defining original works. Try explaining that to a 5 year old.

By the way I'm not bashing these artists. Sarah McLachlan was once my favorite singer.

Emerging Artists

Tonight we went to an art opening. We went early because I made chocolate and lemon cakesters and chocolate cake balls.

The boy's were so good! Isaak looked snazzy with his tie on and Mica had on his cool black hat. They both got many compliments. Mica assisted one of the gallery members with getting the food, napkins and cups out. I kept asking if he was in her way? She kept saying that he was in fact helping. I was smart this time and brought a portable DVD player for when they got sick of walking around. They just sat there all nice, ate and watched The Little Engine That Could. It wasn't until the very end that they were ready to leave.

Daddy's the one with dark brown hair.

Daddy constructed the show. There were many artists that submitted work to a program called Emerging Artists. Six were picked. The six artists get a chance to show their work. The audience gets to vote on which one is their favorite. The winner gets to show in their gallery for free, for a duration of time - not sure how long. Daddy helped get the word out with fliers and such, went through their artwork, picked the 6 winners with a small panel of gallery members and helped set their work up. A lot of work was put into this! I'm proud of him for all the time and energy he put into this with successful results. It was really hard to vote! I liked a lot of the artist's work! I made the poster below in one night for him. It was to hang over the ballet box.