If you’re looking for a terrific art-related DVD then I have a great one for you. It’s a film by Marion Cajori on artist Chuck Close.

I honestly didn’t know what expect when I ordered this as I sort of did on a whim but it was so good I’m on my third viewing.

I understand that some of you may or may not know who Chuck Close is. For the record he is a contemporary artist who paints people’s faces as his subject matter. if you want a quick overview then head on over to Chuck Close on Wikipedia.

The scenes and closeups of him painting as some of the best I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot!) One segment even has the brush appear like it had a camera on it – who knows, maybe it did but it was so cool to see art via this unique angle.

The film also interviews a lot of his contemporary art friends and colleagues. Big names in the art world, like: Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray, Dorothea Rockburne, Lucas Samaras, Alex Katz, Janet Fish, and other art world heavyweights.

The interviews are really excellent and very well done. As an added bonus you typically get to see them in their own studios so you can get a glimpse of their working spaces and they also feature some of that artist’s work.

If you don’t know Chuck’s story and the many hardships he has endured in his life I won’t spoil that for you. All I can say is that’s it’s immensely interesting. It’s just amazing how productive he is and how he has created an environment to support him.

Also, if you are not familiar with Mr. Close’s process you will be in for a real treat. I was completely fascinated with how creative he is given the methodology he has set up for himself. It’s such an ingenious way of getting the work done. You’ll see.

Finally, the film just left me inspired. To see what he has struggled with and how he continues to paint “portraits” of such raw beauty will downright floor you. I highly recommend it for yourself and/or a gift. It’s that good.

Find it here on Amazon: Chuck Close

Abstract art versus realistic (or figurative) art has been going on for most of the 20th century and continues to today. Is one really better than the other?

I know a lot of abstract artists (I am thinking painters) and I know just as many figurative painters. To me, personally, it doesn’t matter. Art is big enough (again, in my opinion) to encompass both.

A lot of people (including me) have much more of a feel for abstract art but I could really care less what form or style of painting you choose to practice. Why? because it’s really about a type of visual language that you choose to develop and engage in.

So many people tell me, “Abstract art’s crap. It’s just a bunch of squiggly lines on a canvas. Hell, my kid could do that!” I go back a ways so I have heard this (in multiple forms) more times than I care to think about.

Does it bother me? Nope, I don’t care. I know art as an artist (the making of it) and I know the history of art a lot better than most. I can tell you why and who is associated in movements of art from Fauvism to Cubism to Dada to Pop art to Abstract Expressionism to Minimal art to the new expressionism and beyond.

Not trying to brag. I just know this stuff and have been fascinated with it for a long, log time. And, so I know where modernism (The period from roughly 1860′s through the 1970′s) comes from and why it evolved.

To me, it was always the same thing. Paint on canvas. I don’t care whether you’re talking about DeKooning or Peter Paul Rubens. It’s all the same stuff. Pigment on canvas. In my own work I never wanted to hide that. It always felt a bit fake to me.

Why would anyone paint in an abstract manner anyway? Again, as I mentioned, it is a way to create a unique visual language where one can explore other aspects of pictorial space. I never could get at that doing representational work. It didn’t work for me.

I started drawing when I was about 6 or 7 and soon learned I had a kind of aptitude for it. I could create a visual representation of an object in space. I had an innate sense of visual proportion and pictorial balance. Kids even paid me in candy (my favorite, Strawberry Twizzlers, of course!) in grade school to draw pictures for them. I seemed to them (I think) kinda magical.

But as I progressed in my art education I started to see other pictorial possibilities because I started to be exposed to artists like Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne, Degas for starters who began to really question and expand what painting could be. That really clicked for me.

The question for me (and I’m sure a whole bunch of other artists) was, “Now what?” So I could really draw and represent objects in space with real facility, but, “Now what do I do?”

Just trying to represent reality didn’t do much for me. I didn’t just want to create “pretty pictures.” I wanted a much more raw experience. I didn’t want to do coloring book art to impress my friends – that was gone. I wanted to be visually surprised when I worked. And I wanted to acknowledge in a real direct way that I was working with materials (whatever they were – whether it was paint or not)

That became my working methodology – trying to create the painting as I went. To discover. To have the process reveal the painting. Not knowing the end result was fine. That was cool to me. That is still cool to me.

Conversely, what bothered me about representational art was that it can be too easy. That all you have to do is see what’s in front of you and accurately depict it. I never got that. It was too easy. I could already do that.

The problem I ran into and which I think a lot about now is really developing a visual language. I think that trips up a lot of people. You really need some type of visual pictorial vehicle to communicate with. I used to bounce from here to there, different materials, different process and you can really scatter yourself very easy.

Artists like Cezanne and Matisse and Picasso and women artists like Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler (just some examples off the top of my head) provided us with a rigorousness of thinking about pictorial space. They were up for that challenge. And it brought out the best in them.

Bottom line is – whether you work with a figurative language or an abstract one, what does it matter? What matters is that your work can be continued so that it provides you with a vehicle to dig deeper as an artist, to not settle for the easiest solution but to really expand YOUR notion of what art can be. When you can do that – then you start to play a new game. A serious game.

Top Image:
“River” 1989
Joan Mitchell
oil on canvas/diptych
© Estate of Joan Mitchell

Second Image:
“Ville d’Avray” ca. 1867
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art

I used to really get hung up on this, that is, really trying to come up with some creative project/thing that the world has never seen before and that will make me/them instantly rich (and famous).

But, in actuality, most of the wealth created created in the world comes from the reinvention of an existing product or service. Nothing could be more true than in creating art.

Creativity itself is really more reinvention than invention anyway. It’s not something that is just yanked out of a black hat. It doesn’t come from nothing. It’s the art of combining existing elements into new wonderful combinations.

Even Mozart said, “I never wrote an original melody in my life” – He just re-interpreted old fold melodies he heard in his childhood.

One of the most brilliant artists ever, Picasso, was a classic reinventor. He figured, heck, why not USE the rich art history who came before him to totally create new, stunning visual interpretations.

And Picasso knew this. Take a minute to meditate on the wisdom in Picasso’s famous quote: “Bad artist copy. Good artists steal.”

For example, look at Picasso’s reinvention (see above) of fellow Spanish baroque painter Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) This was Picasso’s version of Velasqueze’s famous painting “Las Meninas”

Another example is Manet’s famous painting “Luncheon on the Grass” and Picasso’s re-interpretation of it below.

So how can we use this concept of reinvention as artists and creatives?

Well, if you’re struggling with what to create, then maybe make a list of your own passions. Say painting, Picasso and pointillism. That would be a pretty easy one or sculpture, found materials, bright colors and politics. Make it a game – have fun seeking out these combinations.

What about your studio? Maybe reinvent that. Nowadays, many artist are having live feeds into their studio so patrons, collectors and just interested fans can see them creating live. What about adding a question and answer period at a certain time and maybe include a painting raffle. What about a radical caring for the customer? The combinations are endless. (email me and I can help you brainstorm)

You can do this with anything. Creating is about energetic re-combinations. It’s not about being the the sole-inventor or the true original.

And the beauty of this is that these new combinations will set you apart. No one seems to want to do a quality job with anything nowadays. We see it everywhere. So to re-invent a art product/service to the public, all you have to do is be really conscious of what other people are not doing.

The great Color Field (and in my opinion, one of the most underrated colorists of the 20th century) artist Kenneth Noland died a few weeks ago. I was always a fan of his work as well as the other seminal Color Field painters like Jules Olitsky, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett Newman and Morris Louis.

I always liked the sort of “impersonalness” of it (hey, did I just make up a word?) but it really was fostered by a kind of reaction to abstraction expressionism with it’s bold gestures, bravado, physical paint.

I have had the same thoughts about Ellsworth Kelly’s work as well. It is a kind of painting that seems utterly devoid of human contact. No paint slashing, broad gestures, emotional subject matter.

“Just” large areas of precisely laid color. They feel as though they have no beginning and no end. It just looks liked they just appeared out of nowhere.

Color Field painting is generally associated with “staining” and large fields of pure color. “Staining” can be found in many work but Arshile Gorky was one of the first to use the “staining” technique, creating large fields of unbroken color.

But THE painting that changed it all for the Color Field Painters was a huge painting (measuring 7 by 10 feet) called “Mountains and Sea” by Helen Frankenthaler in 1952. It has the effect of a watercolor but it is actually created with oil paint done thinly and in washes. (see another beautiful work by Frankenthaler below)

Both Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland saw this painting in Frankenthaler’s New York City studio and it had an immediate and profound effect on their own work.

But back to Noland. What was interesting about Noland was that he used “Series” as formats for his output. Some of his major series were called Chevrons, (see image below) Targets and Stripes. This really gave him a structure to explore color and it’s relationship to it’s support.

Really to experience these works you have to see them in person. Reproductions, obviously, give you visual details but it is seeing the scale, the color, the immediacy, the canvas, that Mr. Noland’s paintings really sing.

There is such an unassuming and somewhat strange beauty to his paintings that, to me, anyway, is like no other. Now that is is no longer with us I predict his work will get the due it deserves.

I’m working on my next DVD (which relates to Van Gogh) and have been reading a number of technical reports which give some amazing information on the tools, materials and process of select Van Gogh paintings.

I love these reports. They’re not cheap (yes, you have to pay for them!) but they are utterly fascinating. Keep in mind, whenever I go to a museum, most of my friends and family members take advantage of the many benches to take a quick snooze (i.e.; they could care less about looking at art – but no matter, it’s their loss)

To give you reference to which Van Gogh painting I am referencing – it’s is “A Cornfield, with Cypresses” (see picture above) one of three related versions of this composition, completed in the summer of 1889 not long after he entered the the asylum of Saint Paul de Mausole in Saint Remy de Provence.

A lot of things caught my eye when reading this detailed report (about the 3 versions of the painting pictured) which covers, Cleaning and Restoration, The Materials of Van Gogh’s “A Cornfield, with Cypresses” (including exact pigments used, what support, ground, the likely process he used and more) and The Medium.

I could go on and on (and probably will in future posts) but as I was researching the what ground because as I looked at the close-up of the picture via the National Gallery in London website I noticed, what appeared to be raw linen. The warm linen color looked beautiful behind the cool greens/blues in the swirling sky.

You can check it out for yourself by going to the National Gallery site and using the enlarge feature to actually see this. For your convenience just click this link: Van Gogh Painting: “A Cornfield, with Cypresses”

Come to find out the “pre-made” canvases that Van Gogh often used would come with a very light white lead ground when they were purchased.

It appears, some manufacturers in the 19th century put on just such a ‘wash’ to stiffen the canvas a little, over a layer of (glue) size, the intention being for the artist to apply their own proper thick ground on top.

So, what is fascinating to me is that Van Gogh didn’t even do this. Of course, a glue size is actually enough to oil paint on but it’s not ideal.

I find, many times, even myself fussing over the stretcher (typically I build these myself) but since reading this technical report I have realized that it’s about doing the work.

If a pre-made stretcher, bought off the rack, is good enough for Van Gogh (and has held up quite well over time) it’s probably good enough for me.

The big lesson being: just getting into action. I always had a strange phobia about buying “pre-made” artist canvas from Utrecht, Pearl Paint and all the other art manufactures (and even some of the craft chains) I thought they “appeared” cheap.

Well, since reading this report I have decided to use them and spend much less time building (and worrying about the perfection of artist materials) and spending more time creating and painting.

So I interviewed one of the most successful artists in the world yesterday – Wyland.

For those of you who do not know who he is he is probably the world’s top environmental artist. You can check out his website at Wyland.com.

The interview was great. Funny, I almost immediately liked the guy when we got on the phone. He just sounded relaxed, was courteous (referred to me by name many times) and, at times, very funny – kinda like speaking to my brother.

We covered a TON of stuff on the interview – however the thrust was mostly marketing. I mean, Wyland has a friggin empire! Just go to his site and you can see all the projects, relationships, causes and more he is involved with.

I did want to cover one thing he said (to get the rest of the “secret sauce” to artistic success in the interview you’ll have to wait until the launch of the Art Marketing Association early next year – sorry)

And that one thing concerns your brand. He talked a lot about creating a personal brand. Now those of us in marketing have most likely been exposed to that philosophy before. There was even a book out recently called The Brand Called You (which is excellent, by the way, and highly recommended) which goes into detail on this.

What does that mean – create a personal brand? Well, it really means to use all channels available to you to extend your brand – meaning your artistic niche, your lifestyle, your interests – they are ultimately all extensions of you and your personality.

And, don’t, for a minute, think that you are stuck with your current “personality” – Like people will say, “I’m too shy” or “I’m not that good at speaking” or “My interests are not as flashy as Wyland’s” etc. etc. well that’s just dog poop.

The real secret is you can create your own personality or brand whenever you like. It’s all a creation anyway. It’s not something stuck in you or your DNA. You created your own personality now that is moving and interacting with the world.

If you don’t like your current one then CREATE a new powerful personal brand that supports your new goals and vision. CREATE the person you want to be – much like Tom Hanks or Jack Nicholson or Glenn Close does every time they create a new character on the big screen.

Another excellent book (I’m a pretty big reader so I like to share these “finds”) that goes into quite a bit of detail on creating a powerful personal brand when formulating your own business is by expert marketer, Allen Bechtold, called – Will Work for Fun: Three Simple Steps for Turning Any Hobby or Interest Into Cash.

The book gives you some simple exercises to recreate your own “character” in some simple and fun ways. It really opened my eyes to the fun and creativity of how you can differentiate your business from others.

I really think this is important stuff and deserves your attention. I would start with the books above and then stay tuned for upcoming announcements on the launch of the Art Marketing Association which will have some amazing resources (including the Wyland interview and transcript) from some of the most successful artists and marketers on the planet.

Thanks to the a new exhibition called (aptly enough) Van Gogh’s Letters: The Artist Speaks on view at the Van Gogh Museum in Holland from Oct 9, 2009 till Jan 3, 2010 you can now discover them anew.

More than 120 letters (There are 902 total, 800 of which are held at the Van Gogh Museum) will be on view along side the works that the letters reference. That would be amazing to see. It’s not likely I’ll be in Holland before Jan so I can only imagine.

The letters, by the way, are rarely seen by the public at large due to their sheer fragility and sensitivity to light – so it’s an amazing treat that the VGM has put them on view.

So what’s the big deal about these letters? For those who have not read them, they chronicle via the written word the short, emotional, eventful life that Van Gogh lived with a large sum of them in direct correspondence with his brother and champion supporter Theo Van Gogh.

When I first read the letters many years ago, they were a little hard to get through as the are just laden with struggle, sadness and isolation. But I have recently read them again and I now see glimpses of hope in them. Maybe because I’m trying to, who knows, but I see the hope and the faith Van Gogh had for nature and the beauty of this world.

What also makes these letters really remarkable is how he, at times, intermingled visuals with his writing. They were often included to show Theo (or others) what subjects he was working on and some compositional sketches about them.

This exhibition is actually a culmination of a 15 year joint venture between the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Of particular interest is also a complete accessible (and free) online web edition of all 902 letters to be found at: Van Gogh Letters. Additionally, a new 6 volume publication, Vincent van Gogh – The Letters. The complete illustrated and annotated edition, that comes with all sorts of new translations, notes and illustrations of the more than 2,000 works mentioned in the letters.

These letters really are amazing and well worth investing again with all the new information and research the Van Gogh Museum has completed with them.

I wanted to write a little something about one of my favorite artists, David Hockey, on the occasion of his first exhibition of new oil paintings in New York in 12 years at Pace Wildenstein Gallery.

Lot of people either love him or hate him. They find him too eccentric or too campy or too gay or too something. But you have to admire the pure visual beauty and virtuosity of his work and his prolific output. That he has had amazing success doesn’t hurt either.

The guy has pretty much used any and every media including photography, photo collage, fax drawings, full stage opera stage sets and recently paintings on his iphone among others. But this series of work returned him to oil painting and the landscapes of his youth in East Yorkshire, England.

There is just something brilliant about the freshness of these pieces. This might sound strange to say but I always feel happy when I look at this work. There is just something very life affirming about his work. Reminds me a lot of Mattise who spoke of his art being like “a good armchair”

Hockney began painting plain air in the English countryside back in 2005 – often producing 3-4 canvases a day and painting in all seasons. As Hockney explains, “It’s only having seen a tree’s inner structure, with its branches laid bare in winter,” Hockney explains, that one “learns to experience, and then to render, that tree’s subsequent summer fullness—and then vice versa.”

Hockney devised a intriguing method for painting large scale canvases outside that were impervious to rain, wind and other natural elements. He also did the landscape in multiple canvases which he then assembled and completed in his studio (you can see this with the image above – painting is in 4 panels)

I am always interested to see what Hockney’s up to particularly at the later stages of his career. You can check out some additional visuals of the paintings (which are scheduled to be up through end of December 2009) at Pace Wildenstein.

So I’m always ( guess you can tell by now) fascinated with artist materials. Of course, It’s not just about materials but I really believe they should be studied like a musician studies his guitar.

Funny, I happened to catch a YouTube video the other day of one of my guitar heroes called Mark Knopfler Master Class – Mark Knopfler was teaching a group of up-and-coming guitar players some tricks of the trade.

And it was really fascinating (to me anyway, as I know almost nothing about chords, notes, strings, etc. on a guitar) to watch him. He sees and hears so many things the students don’t. Why not? Simple – he has had a lot more practice – thousands and thousands more hours than them.

But to know your instrument (or your art materials) can and should be part of your artistry. Really take the time to study, test and really KNOW your materials. You want to get to a point where they are almost invisible – then your creative expression can just flow through your materials effortlessly.

I did want to take a look at some of the materials Van Gogh used. Granted, there was not an exceptional amount of precision to Van Gogh’s works. They were not really about that. The were about the immediacy of the moment, trying to capture to changing emotions and moods of nature.

I have had continuing conversation with some of the technical analysts and paint conservationists at the Van Gogh Museum in Holland. They have been exceptionally delightful to deal with.

Like his contemporaries Van Gogh used a combination of soft (ire; marter or polecat hair) fine pointed brushes for detailing and other generally flat-tipped hog hair bristle brushes – up to about an inch wide.

As for supports, he typically painted on plain weave linen canvas, although twill weave linen, cotton, jute and carton supports also occur throughout his work.

I will be getting a lot more into Van Gogh, his materials and process. I am even thinking of producing a DVD on the cool stuff I am finding – so stay tuned.

Probably one of THE most prominent American abstract painters working today, Brice Marden, meditates on Cezanne’s famous “Bathers” series and how his work is informed by the great master.