Over a Pepsi light

[Patt Legg]

Alicia,

The cows are white with black spots. Or could be black with white spots

Which goes to show us, I suppose, that like the spots on cows, art is still in the eye of the beholder - all depending on one's perception. Bravo!

In painting them, that is quite the decision too.

Cheers!

[Margaret Port]

Yes, I know about Ken Done. He has a large store in Cairns (where I live). I have seen documentaries about him where he laments his lack of recognition as a 'fine artist' because he is commercialized.

Australians seems to appreciate messy paintings, which I can't do. Whip out a painting in a couple of hours and you can be sure to sell quickly and to win art prizes. If I even look like painting something which I think might sell, my son very smartly tells me I am "selling out".

I am reasured that I am on the right track every time I log on to this site. I love this site!
I have managed to raise three art snobs who absolutely refuse to have a reproduction anything in their homes. Originals or nothing! My daughter was quite insulted when a relative arrived at her new home with some framed prints. Fortunately all three are accomplished artists so they aren't restricted to empty walls.

[Steven Sweeney]

Australians seems to appreciate messy paintings

I lived in Sydney for three years and worked quite hard to discover exactly what the Aussie sensibilities toward visual arts were. The Art Gallery of New South Wales, with its very substantial collection of the sort of art that would be appreciated by anyone who visits and enjoys SOG, was always jam-packed with people, and deservedly so, whereas across the quay, the museum of contemporary art was generally full of echoes and a collection of "pieces" that pretty much explained the echoes and the precarious financial picture of the museum. So there was hope -- at least until the Archibald exhibition (for those unfamiliar, an annual portraiture contest with substantial prize and notoriety) was hung and the "winner" selected, almost always a piece that perhaps we might here just charitably characterize as "messy". (But the People's Choice was almost always, again, of the caliber of the work of SOG artists.)

It was my discovery of the "unmessy" Australian Heidelberg School (late 19th Century impressionists) that perhaps more than anything else stimulated an interest strong enough to convince me that I should quit doing what I had been doing, and begin serious study of painting. And indeed, when I returned to the U.S., I published an article (Spring 2001) in the Classical Realism Journal on the Heidelberg artists and, particularly, Sir Arthur Streeton. (The Journal is available through the American Society Classical Realism, see www.classicalrealism.com )

Unfortunately, Streeton's originals are unavailable to me, so I settled for reproductions (though for reasons unknown to me, considering Streeton's stature in Australian art history, I never found any that did any sort of justice to the originals, which I viewed in Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne.) On the other hand, I had access to the original work of the fantastic Australian plein air painter Warwick Fuller, and one of his paintings hangs on the wall of my much-missed house back in the U.S. I feel privileged to have both the Streeton reproduction and the original Fuller.

Perhaps, Margaret, you'd be willing to give an Aussie's viewpoint on the allure of Pro Hart's work. His P.R. hype machine would give Kinkade quite a run for his money, and though Hart's works are original (by which I mean merely that they're not reproductions), they are unconscionably overpriced, despite the fact that he's surely done virtually the same simple little knife painting a thousand times. I even encountered gallery employees who were at a loss to understand it, but of course they weren't complaining. I'd be quite more satisfied with a Streeton or Tom Roberts reproduction than a Hart original, any day.

I did rather enjoy some of Ken Done's work, but I don't have any originals, simply because -- and perhaps this comes full circle and "proves" the majority position in this thread -- I couldn't possibly afford them. But I do think that his incredible commercial success, not unlike Kinkade's, is part of the bone that seems to get stuck in the throats of detractors. I don't get that part.

My wife does, however, have a Ken Done golf polo shirt, and it's quite lovely(!).

Cheers,
Steven

[Doreen Lepore]

I'm sure I'll regret saying anything about this, but sometimes we can't resist living dangerously. I've been reading this and seen my own sentiments echoed and felt that rather than be redundant I'd just stay out of it. If Mike wants to drink Pepsi Lite, it's his business!

However, my objection to what Kinkade is doing is not that his paintings are not technically good (although too swooney for me), not that he is unbelievably successful and I'm not, but that he is leading unsuspecting people down his primrose path and some day when those people who spent over $100,000 on their "collection" find out their "investment" didn't appreciate, they will be out all that money when they could have used the money to wisely invest (with some help) in some original work. Now he's bringing religion into it too, I saw him say "My wife & I pray over each painting." Must be his next marketing segment.

So try drinking seltzer with a slice of lemon or lime in it next time.

[Michele Rushworth]

Steven, I was struck by your remark, "the museum of contemporary art was generally full of echoes."

My husband and I were fortunate enough to take our first trip to Paris last year and of course we visited the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay with its magnificent collection of impressionists and the like. The Orsay was packed and the Louvre had hours long lines to get in.

Across town, in a grubby little commercial neighborhood stands a huge monstrosity of a building housing the contemporary art - and it was MUCH less crowded. Not quite echoes, but a lot of almost empty rooms. Hmmm...

[Steven Sweeney]

some day when those people who spent over $100,000 on their "collection" find out their "investment" didn't appreciate, they will be out all that money when they could have used the money to wisely invest

I sold a house in '95 and ran into that same problem. I wasn't misled, I just gambled that the value of something I liked and, so, purchased, would increase, but the dice rolled a different way. There are folks around right now who are gambling fortunes in confidence that traditional realism is "back". It's been suggested more than once that some of the more prominent (and wealthy) of those people aren't so much afficionados of realism as they are shrewd (or at least, hopeful) investors. It's risky, but more power to them. I hope they take a shine to my realistic paintings (or even my reproductions) before the market crashes. (Just some inside information between us, my paintings are absolutely guaranteed to increase in value by over 800% in no time at all.)

Gone again, see you after the next 3,000 miles.

Cheers,

[Mike McCarty]

I never get the last word. Living with a seventeen year-old daughter gives me little opportunity. Even my dog, a female minpin, won't let me have the last word. I say "Get out of the laundry basket" she gets out and then gives me a barkish groan. I say "And don't let me catch you in there again". She looks back and gives a barkish groan. "Don't say another word", I say. She gets to the end of the hall and, you guessed it, a barkish groan.

Having some knowledge of how corporate America thinks, I'm going to come out with a prediction. The CEO's, CFO's and all the other O's which make up the multi-departmental organization which is T.K. Inc. may be feeling a little vulnerable. They might think "We are all making a good living riding this single horse. What if our horse breaks his leg?"

I think what will come next is a protege, a young phenom. A discovered, anointed person who will become part of a very small T.K. stable of inspirational artists.

[Margaret Port]

Regarding Pro Hart, perhaps, Steve, you saw the carpet ad he made where he squirted sauces and stuff all over an axminster. I don't think they published prints of it, although his work is on plenty of things like collector plates, I think. I don't have so much a problem with him as he belonged to a group of painters who worked out of Broken Hill (mining town right in the middle of Australia in the desert). They were all naive type artists who did manage to depict something of their area.

He had a protoge(?) called Dean Vella (you can search him on the net) who paints very colourful studies of flora and fauna, and who has a gallery in Cairns. He uses some kind of thickening agent to apply great thick globs (up to 1 inch thick) of acrylic paint to his canvas. He recently sued another artist and a fifteen year old girl, in Cairns, for breach of copyright. He claimed the globule of white which he daubed on his vases as a highlight was his invention, (among other stuff which I can't remember offhand). He stated his income as around $1.5 million in 2000. He won the case. The other artist handed over about 75 paintings which were destroyed. The other artist then appealed to the High Court and the original decision was squashed. Now I hear that there are several people suing him for loss of 2 years earnings.

I find the whole conflict between "modern" and "traditional" very frustrating. Particularly in portraiture, it is easy to pass off lack of skill as "modern", whereas if you attempt realistic and get it right, every person who has a face is an instant expert and looks for perfection in every eyelash.

We had another competition set up in Australia called the Doug Moran Portrait Competition - $100,000 prize. The original idea was to encourage traditional portraiture. This idea worked for the first few but recently the prizewinners look the same as the Archibalds. Hmmm, messy pays, off with the glasses and out with the sauce bottles and brooms, I think!

[Steven Sweeney]

I don't have so much a problem with him as he belonged to a group of painters who worked out of Broken Hill (mining town right in the middle of Australia in the desert). They were all naive type artists who did manage to depict something of their area.

Margaret,

I spent time at Broken Hill, and Silverton and White Cliffs (my kids and I flew with the postman, to over 30 stations in one day, and the kids got to walk out onto and across the wing, props spinning, with a mailbag and put it the the box, or cupboard, or old refrigerator, at the end of the red-sand runway, assuming the sheep all ran away and none of the kangaroos ran toward the plane (the way deer do in the U.S.); and I visited an artist whose studio is in one of the mines below surface at White Cliffs.) And the original Warwick Fuller painting I purchased was of Silverton. Though I purchased it near my home in Turramurra, it was of cockatoos in Silverton, and I just had to have it. I consider it precious to me, and I was somewhat embarrassed to purchase it for a pittance. (Perhaps instructively, here, a reproduction of that painting would have been of no interest at all to me.) I'll mention in passing that I consider returning to Australia in retirement. What utterly endless fun, and incredible material for paintings!

Concerning your copyright story, I remember that I forgot one, and as "luck" would have it, it involves Kinkade. The article I wrote about Arthur Streeton originally had a title that evoked his century-old Australian moniker, "Painter of Light", and so naturally I used that in the title for my article. I was told by the editor that the publisher had requested a change to my title, because we might get into trouble with this "Thomas Kinkade" guy, who has actually trademarked the phrase "Painter of Light". That was the first time I ever held anything against Kinkade, because as between him and Streeton in painting light, there is a grand canyon.

Cheers from stateside. I intend to Christmas in Sydney. Would you kindly arrange good weather?

Steven

[Sandy Barnes]

I have been pouring over copyright law recently and found this excerpt on www.jjkaufman.com, an excellent resource for the laws regarding art and the sale of such.

"What does copyright protect?
Copyright is a form of intellectual property law that protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."

Seems like a very gray area to me. There is another topic on his site that is titled "How different is different Enough?" Worth a read.