New Amazon Art Marketplace Has Launched

Amazon.com, Inc. has announced the launch of their Amazon Art marketplace showcasing 40,000 artworks from more than 4,500 artists and over 150 international galleries and dealers, making Amazon Art one of the largest online collections of original and limited edition artwork for purchase.

Artists without physical gallery representation can dramatically expand their market and reach more clientele when they sell in the Amazon Art marketplace via online galleries accounts on sites such as Zatista.

ArtFinder Artist Blanca Cajal Exhibits in Cordoba, Argentina

Artists around the world follow and read the Artist Marketing Resources blog. “I’ve subscribed and I find it fantastic!” wrote Maria recently,  asking for our help to promote Latin American artists (mostly from Cordoba-Argentina) in Europe.
Screen Shot 2013-07-29 at 8.31.30 AM
                                                                                                                                                                            Invitation
Blanca Cajal is one such artist, currently exhibiting in Cordoba (Argentina) in a gallery show opening August 1st.

BLANCA CAJAL
“MUNDOS POSIBLES” (Possible Worlds)

Opening: Thursday 1st August 17:30 hs

1st to 30th August 2013
Visit: Monday to Friday from 8 to 21 hs

WHERE? Hall of the Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física (FaMAF)Av. Medina Allende s/n , Ciudad Universitaria, CP:X5000HUA Córdoba, Argentina

Find and buy Blanca Cajal paintings on ArtFinder https://www.artfinder.com/blanca-cajal
 Screen Shot 2013-07-29 at 8.31.49 AM

Your Art on a Beer Bottle Label? Submit

This opportunity is one of thousands researched by Artist Marketing Resources and provided to our artist-readers. For more art licensing opportunities click here.

Collective Arts Brewing puts your art on their labels.

Are artists compensated for the use of their work? Yes. Each artist selected will receive $200 (Canadian) as compensation for the use of their work.

•  Work will be featured on beer bottle labels as a limited production run. Each label includes artist’s name and a link to a biography featured on the Collective Arts Brewing website.

•  Beer drinkers can scan the labels using the Blippar app, allowing drinkers to engage with your work and view information about you on their phone/tablet.

•  Each artist will be individually featured on the Collective Arts Brewing website, Facebook and Twitter.

•  A certificate of participation, including a bottle with your own label is provided to each artist.

•  Collective Arts Brewing will support and promote artist events when feasible (requires discussion) by providing online support and beer for the event.

•  Opportunity to be featured at Collective Arts Events throughout the year, like gallery openings or artist event.

 Read the full submission guidelines here

 

Artist Nadine Robbins Gets Her Painting Printed on Wood

6 Well Fleet Coctails, painting on canvas, Nadine Robbins

6 Well Fleet Cocktails, painting on canvas, Nadine Robbins

Last month, we published a blog post about a company that prints your art on wood. Artist Nadine Robbins read the post, watched the video embedded in our article, and then decided to give Prints on Wood a try by ordering a sample print of her painting.

Nadine's painting printed on wood

Nadine’s painting printed on wood

Nadine Robbin's painting (above) printed on wood.

Nadine Robbin’s painting printed on wood (view 2)

Nadine Robbin’s says: “The painting prints out a bit dark but has a really nice silvery sheen to it. I’d probably use a brighter painting next time. Could be very interesting for pastels/watercolors.”

Like her painting and want to see more? Visit her website:  http://nadinerobbinsart.com

Follow Nadine Robbins on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/RobbinsNadine
Twitter: @RobbinsNadine
Google+ link to Nadine’s full image post: https://plus.google.com/u/0/112807126566758001793/posts/Qiw3d8hoG3B

Artists Join In Building a New Kind of Community in Braddock, PA

There is a rumor going around the arts community that the Mayor of Braddock, who himself lives in a warehouse space, will give free studio workspace to professional artists to bring them to his decaying town. Braddock, Pennsylvania may be the poorest, most rundown urban area in the United States, where you can buy an empty house–and there are plenty to choose from–for less than five thousand dollars. Braddock sits on a river’s edge and is about a twenty-minute highway drive from Pittsburgh.

I sent the mayor an email just yesterday, requesting details on opportunities for artists, and will post a follow-up here when I learn more.

Some Braddock projects:

Major public art projects and a Community Center.

The historic and first Carnegie Library in Braddock has a screen print shop program and Braddock ceramic studio program with a unique water filter project.

The Unsmoke Art Space in Braddock is an exhibition space with related projects, including independent Small Press publishing venture Braddock Avenue Books.

Braddock Redux, a project  to mobilize like-minded people of all ages from both within and outside the community for the betterment of the Braddock through training opportunities, art initiatives, green initiatives, employment opportunities, the creative re-use of existing structures, and through the flexibility to respond to other opportunities that arise. http://braddockredux.org/

Into the Furnace a writer-in-residence program in Braddock, PA. Into the Furnace offers an adventuresome creative person, whose work and work ethic can benefit from the energy Braddock has to offer, up to 9 months of creative work time at their urban residency. http://intothefurnace.wordpress.com/.

Unsmoke provides space for the local office of the Berkeley-based company Bibliopolis. Bibliopolis provides complete e-commerce website development, technical support, and hosting as well as database services for the used, out-of-print and antiquarian bookseller.

Next door to Unsmoke sits the Roadbourne custom furniture design warehouse where craftsmen and women work from reclaimed wood and other materials.

New Guild Studio in Braddock specializes in restoring and reimagining liturgical art. Check out what they do at www.newguildstudio.com

Braddock Farms grows organic produce on 10 acres of reclaimed urban land, supplying herbs and vegetables to regional restaurants.

Fossil Free Fuels has made and fueled biodiesel since 2005 for those who want your fuel from a deep fryer instead of deep in the Earth.

Remix to Earn Commissions on Juicy Canvas Site Sales

Sign up to become a Juicy Canvas innovator –earn commissions. Sign Up for the Private Beta : juicycanvas.com/curators-remixers/

This video shows you how it works–

Exchanghibition Bank Projects: Artist Exhibition Interactive Performance Series

Exchanghibition Bank

Exchanghibition Bank

I received this amazing email recently. Enjoy! and perhaps reading will spark ideas of your own.
*
hey Marie Kazalia
I noticed this page of yours about Money and Art – http://pinterest.com/mariekazalia/money-art/ – and thought you might be interested in my Art as Money project, so decided to send you some pics, text and links…….
anyway
here below I copy-pasted some links and text
A bit over two years ago I started my own bank as an artist – the Exchanghibition Bank. It’s a traveling bank booth, which pops up at many places. Some of them are cultural, such as the Rijks-, Boijmans and Stedelijk Museum, or Paradiso. Others are very public, such as Amsterdam Central Station, Occupy, or even shopping centers. Visitors can exchange their money for our banknotes of Zero, Million, Infinite, and others.
Short 90 second video showing a bit more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6d0CvhFSto
The bank has also traveled to the Burning Man Festival in Nevada, which is based on a gift-economy and where money doesn’t exist. Here our customers could sign a Spiritual Karma Laundering contract to bring their spiritual Karma debt back to Zero, and would get a Zero banknote in return.
Last summer we built another project in the Nevada desert – the Transformoney Tree. It’s a tree which has the Exchanghibition banknotes hanging as leaves from its branches while the tree itself got covered in real banknotes, glued onto it by participants. People turned those banknotes into art, by drawing and painting on them. I think it would actually be great to make the tree come to Zurich and organize workshops where bankers could turn money into art and glue it on the tree 😉
Money Tree

Transformoney Tree

Money Tree

Transformoney Tree

More information about the banknote with value LOVE can be found here: http://blog.artasmoney.com/bank/can-love-be-the-root-of-all-money/

Here’s a video of a talk I gave at the Boom Festival in Portugal about money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MKhbFJBpkU
And here’s an interview from a few weeks ago when we did a whole week of events and performances in Berlin with the bank:
The website of the project is http://www.exchanghibitionbank.com and the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/artasmoney
I enclosed pics of performances with the bank, the tree in the desert, some banknotes (all the originals of the banknotes are real paintings……) and
some black and white drawings.
So far. I guess that will give you a bit more to explore 😉
Yours Bankingly and Dreamingly
Dadara
CEO and Founder Exchanghibition Bank
In a 2nd email he sent– and here by the way is my new project Like 4 Real, which I started working on website went online yesterday: http://www.like4real.com
Do you dare to take the Red Like?
All the information about is on the crowdfunding site (yes, it’s all about the money………)
*

blogexchangebankinterior

blogExchanghibitionBankbooth

Banknote, Charlie Davis

Banknote, Charlie Davis

Hellsheart Call for Entries: Get Your Art Shown in a Feature Film

blogBrooklyArtCallFilmbaphellsheartblogad

CALL FOR ENTRIES //

You must be a member of BrooklynArtProject.com to upload submissions. Membership is free and open to artists globally.
SIGN-UP HERE 

Deadline: July 10, 2013

Get your artwork shown in a feature film and a Brooklyn, NYC art exhibition http://bit.ly/17y1HLG #callforentries #hellsheart #brooklynart

How To Enter

1. Your piece should explore any of the following themes: Hell, Afterlife, Spirituality, Love, Symbolism, and Catholic Iconography. Feel free to make a new piece or submit one you already have. Any size.

2. Upload the artwork to BrooklynArtProject.com and include the tag#hellsheart. You must be a member of BrooklynArtProject.com to upload submissions. Membership is free and open to artists globally.
SIGN-UP HERE 

UPLOAD YOUR SUBMISSION

blogBAP_HellsHeart_CallForEntries-1

New Book: ART-WRITE, The Writing Guide for Visual Artists

blogArt-Write-Cover

ART-Write, The Writing Guide for Visual Artists, written by Vicki Krohn Amorose, helps guide artists through the process as they write their artist statements, exhibition announcements, press releases, cover letters, blog posts, biographies, social media posts, and much more. Author Vicki Krohn Amorose has a writing background that includes professional positions as Educational Media Writer, Advertising Copywriter, Art Instructor, and Art Gallery Manager.

I read a print copy of her book, which is also available for Amazon Kindle readers and other readers, and found it an excellent resource guide for artists, and much needed! I glided through the chapters, thanks to the no-nonsense writing style of the author. I will return to the book again and again for the writing exercises and prompts.

Author Vicki Krohn Amorose (VKA) agreed to answer questions about her book for the artists who read the Artist Marketing Resources (AMR) blog—

AMR: Vicki, let me share an excerpt from an artist statement sent to me recently —“My work explores the fragility of the human form to delineate cartography of imagined histories and understand the body as a cynosure.”  The word cynosure is used frequently in contemporary art writing. Should artists use a word because others use it? Besides those *at the moment* words, I sometimes read exhibition announcements written in a style copied and re-copied from decades past. How can artists avoid extremes–the miming of the latest or staying stuck in the past? What is “Art Speak” and how does ART-Write, The Writing Guide for Visual Artists help artists to write about their work honestly and in “plain language.”

VKA: I am wholeheartedly opposed to artists using “Art Speak” in their written communications, and the word “cynosure” falls into that category. Art Speak is the vernacular of elite Art-Worldlings, often invented and repeated to impress each other. When writing about your own art, the question shouldn’t be, “Do I sound erudite?” Rather, it should be, “Does my writing help the viewer to see, and does it encourage them to look again?” Art Speak tends to have the opposite effect on the reader/viewer; people furrow their brows and walk away.

I think artists continue to echo phrases because it’s difficult to find comprehensive, current instruction on this subject. I wrote my book to help fill that deficit, and my “no-nonsense” writing style was very deliberate. We can write about the complex subject of individual art in clear, straightforward language.

AMR: The writing exercises in ART-Write, The Writing Guide for Visual Artists helped me think of new ways to write about my work. Please explain the purpose of the writing exercise for artists who say “I don’t explain my work” or “I can’t explain my work.”

VKA: It’s so common to hear artists resist in this way, and I believe this comes from confusion about what is required of them. An artist statement is not a full translation of a visual concept into a written document! Of course you can’t do that, it’s a ridiculous idea. The exercises are designed to bring about the thinking required to connect with an audience. Thinking about your own work can spin off in a thousand directions, so the prompts are a way to reign-in the confusion and develop truthful sentences.

AMR: When and how should artists “name drop” in their writings?

VKA:  Referencing another artist is tricky, because you always want to direct the viewer’s attention to the work in front of them –your work. If you want to mention an artistic influence, make sure you describe how you were specifically inspired. Don’t just “name drop” to fluff your credibility.

AMR: Do you prescribe a structure for writing an artist statement?

VKA: Yes, structure in writing helps to hold the reader’s attention, and I give examples of 3 different structures. These are not complicated. One structure is storytelling. Both art and storytelling are deeply rooted in the human psyche. People find connection through stories.

AMR:  And how do artists know when to put personal details into their statement or instead put those personal details into their bio?

VKA: Again, we come back to what is directly in front of the audience. The artist statement says: “People, meet my art.”  The artist Bio says: “People, meet the artist.” Unless the work in front of the audience is biographical or humorous, keep those details out of your statement and put them in your Bio.

AMR: Can artists buy a book directly from you?

VKA: Yes, and I welcome comments at http://www.artwritebook.com. Thank you for your interest in my book, Marie. I sincerely want the information to reach the visual artists who need it.

Seep, painting by Vicki K. Amorose

Seep, painting by Vicki K. Amorose

Financing New Work; Artist Karen Fitzgerald On The Success of Her USA Project

Financing New Work

Over the past seven years, I’ve been incorporating gilding into my work.  Gold is embedded in the core of our civilization, its dynamic energy often signals something beyond the purely physical.  The precious metals I gild with indicate a quality of energy that expands beyond our physical world, a quality that is metaphysical and transformative.  As a traditional painter (in that I apply paint to a substrate, embracing the long history of pictorial space)  gilding processes brought a new focus to the work, as well as integrating a new level of language into my work.

Let's Become Like Birds, 2013, 48" diameter, oil with 23k gold, red gold and moon gold on MDF panel.

Let’s Become Like Birds, 2013, 48″ diameter, oil with 23k gold, red gold and moon gold on MDF panel.

For several years I had an idea in the back of my mind to do a suite of work gilded exclusively in different types of gold.  It’s one of the more expensive materials to work with; I knew I had to find a funding source to support the new work.  I’d investigated the crowd-funded phenomenon and decided to see if it might work for me.  My project launched on February 18, 2013, with USA Projects.  It closed on April 27, having raised over $8,000, from nearly 100 supporters.

The Watchman He Lay Dreaming, 2013, 48" diameter, oil with moon gold and 23k gold on MDF panel.

The Watchman He Lay Dreaming, 2013, 48″ diameter, oil with moon gold and 23k gold on MDF panel.

The backstory is a bit deeper than the facts suggest.  I began seriously preparing to do the project in September of 2012.  I wrote a grant that included a much more modest aspect of crowd-funding, as well as working with a different organization.  The grant was unsuccessful, which suggested to me that I needed to up my game if I was to get to the ultimate point of funding the materials needed for my new work.  I began putting together a set of “perks” – essentially, gifts I could give donors who supported the project at different levels.  I created an edition of etchings as a perk.  I assembled an inventory of original works on paper that could fit the perk levels.   Finally, I began to draft the text that would convince someone to send me money.   The project ran during a time when I was doing a great deal of consulting work – without being at the studio, I was able to spend up to 3 hours every day working at the funding goal of the project.

Little Sun, 2013 7" diameter, oil with 23k gold on prepared paper, 19"x16" overall.

Little Sun, 2013 7″ diameter, oil with 23k gold on prepared paper, 19″x16″ overall.

“From the Core” is now in full production.  To date I’ve created a dozen works.  Each piece explores an aspect of energy that resides at the core of our selves.  Dreaming energy, transformation energy, the energy of the sun and moon, oppositional energy; energies we experience and negotiate, navigate and attest to.  For several months during the Spring I was flooded with the energy of feeling very “normal”.  As an artist, I have often experienced the pull between studio time and money – they are some sort of co-equivalent, an Einsteinian reality for all artists who pay as they go, keeping themselves afloat and their studio work moving forward.  For several months, my “normal” landed outside that potentially explosive co-equivalency of money/studio time.  I had both, simultaneously.  I could simply work; pick up the phone and order supplies, not think about juggling finances to afford what I’d just requested.

Little Pink Moon, 2013, 7" diameter, oil with 18k gold and copper on prepared aper, 19"x16" overall.

Little Pink Moon, 2013, 7″ diameter, oil with 18k gold and copper on prepared paper, 19″x16″ overall.

So, I’m curious.  I’m wondering if you think these new paintings look like they were produced in the lap of luxury, the lap of “not lacking in financial support”.  Do they look flaccid in their comfort zone?  Or do they stand up, their strength apparent.  Like the mocking birds throwing themselves into the air, wings flashing along with that cascade of changing song, I think these new paintings do that.  Their voice is one of oceanic gladness.  They come from that core of the imagination that returns all of us to the core of joy we had when we were children.

-Karen Fitzgerald © 2013


Karen Fitzgerald’s studio is located in Northern Long Island City, one block from the Socrates Sculpture Park.  She frequently provides basic gilding workshops at her studio. Fitzgerald Art website www.FitzgeraldArt.com

Did Fashion Designer Rip-Off Artists?

I learned in Maria Brophy’s newsletter article an-open-letter-to-jeremy-scott-did-you-rip-off-artist-jim-phillips, that a popular Santa Cruz California artist, who has licensed his work to several companies, appears to have had his work copied (some with changes in the artwork) and printed on clothing by a fashion designer–unknown to the artist!

This High Snobriety article contains many details and images of the clothing printed with artwork side-by-side with the Jim Phillips licensed art.

What I learned from the Ted talk in the video below, is that there are many industries that cannot copyright their work. Here is a video transcript excerpt:

“You know, it’s not just the fashion industry that doesn’t have copyright protectionThere’s a bunch of other industries that don’t have copyright protection, including the food industry. You cannot copyright a recipe because it’s a set of instructions, it’s fact, and you cannot copyright the look and feel of even the most unique dish. Same with automobiles. It doesn’t matter how wacky they look or how cool they look, you cannot copyright the sculptural design. It’s a utilitarian article, that’s why. Same with furniture, it’s too utilitarian. Magic tricks, I think they’re instructions, sort of like recipes: no copyright protection. Hairdos, no copyright protection. Open source software, these guys decided they didn’t want copyright protection. They thought it’d be more innovative without it. It’s really hard to get copyright for databases. Tattoo artists, they don’t want it; it’s not cool. They share their designs. Jokes, no copyright protection. Fireworks displays, the rules of games, the smell of perfume: no. And some of these industries may seem sort of marginal to you, but these are the gross sales for low I.P. industries, industries with very little copyright protection, and there’s the gross sales of films and books.” (Applause) It ain’t pretty.”

Watch this video for some eye-opening information–

Artists Can Avoid Customs Holds and Duties: Apply These Codes When Shipping Your Art Internationally

Recently, I shipped several of my sold paintings internationally, and wondered why my packages were always held by customs even on expedited shipments.

Perhaps you’ve had this experience–buyers, and you the artist, scrambling to get the details on how to get your art released from customs. Phone calls trying to discover why the shipment was held up. Wondering what additional information they require. What can I do next time to avoid all this? Is there a protocol for sending artwork to buyers outside of the country you are based?

It can be quite a complicated puzzle with a simple goal of delivery to your buyer. Then I learned that I can avoid customs hold-ups by apply a trade tariff code to the outside of my shipping box.

The trade tariff codes starting with number ’97’ alerts customs worldwide to the fact that the item is an original work of art and is therefore exempt from import duties.

For instance, if you are based in the UK and are sending overseas please mark your package clearly with Export code: 97011000

If you are based outside of the UK and are sending your artwork to a customer within the UK mark your parcel: Commodity Code: 9701100000.

Any other variables – say you are sending from USA to Finland or between any other countries then mark you parcel: Export code: 970110

It is really important to use these codes,  otherwise items can get stuck in customs!

New York: Photographic Artist Ventiko–Entering Her Version of Reality

Ventiko is the most extraordinary photographic artist I have even encountered! Her photos look like Renaissance oil paintings, and amazingly enough the elaborate sets for her photo shoots she constructs herself, often from mountains of newspapers, or hundreds of milk cartons. In this article about her processes, some of her lighting secrets are revealed as well. This full article was a published on the VASA blog:

http://vasa-project.com/blog/2011/05/new-york-photographic-artist-ventiko-entering-her-version-of-reality/

New York: Photographic Artist Ventiko–Entering Her Version of Reality 

Ventiko’s photographic images remind one of paintings by master Renaissance artists like Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Raphael. Ventiko creates the sfumato and chiaroscuro-like painting effects in her photos by skillfully directing photo lights on her portrait subjects amid rich shadows.

Ventiko credits development of her photographic style with the influences of a Black and White photography course and an in-depth art history course, both completed during her first year at John Herron Art School, where she slept days and “obsessively worked on prints” each night in the computer lab or in the school darkroom.

The following year, Ventiko began working as an apprentice for her Maestro, photographer Tony Clevenger.  Ventiko describes her apprenticeship with Clevenger as “a lucky period in my life. Maestro taught me how to be an assistant, but more importantly he taught and encouraged me to become a photographer. Loading Polaroid backs,120 and 220 rolls, 4×5 sheet film, and running an E6 processor were daily occurrences. As was sweeping the floors. The greatest gift I was given was trust, because he taught me how to use the Dynalite strobe lighting system and a film Hasselblad camera and then gave me these tools to take home and experiment with.”

It was during this Dynalite strobe period that Ventiko began constructing sets for her portrait subjects to occupy, incorporating everyday found objects, clothing and drapery.

“After mastering the Dynas, Maestro taught me how to use Broncolors, and a year and a half ago I purchased some of my own. When I moved to New York, settling in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, my images darkened–both visually and metaphorically.” 

One of Ventiko’s dark images, The Nightmare, which won an award on the art news site ArtSlant, can be viewed in a portfolio of her artwork on her website www.ventiko.com

“The Nightmare investigates relationships depicted in Christian art from the Gothic to Baroque epochs. It is not based specifically on any one work, dream or nightmare. I hope the image is beautiful so that the viewer is disarmed and open to the meaning of the work,” Ventiko stated.

Another of Ventiko’s images, Gyspy, depicts her muse, which Ventiko described meeting.  “My oldest friend Jaybird and I dressed up and went to see Armen Ra perform on his Theremin at the Gershwin Hotel. Fifteen minutes into the performance, from my peripheral, I saw light enter the back of the room and as the doors opened a figure in black ascended the stairs. One of the only seats open was on the second row from the front on the aisle next to me, where she took her seat–a tall brunette wearing a short black dress, black veil and black leather opera length gloves, oh my. So not to be rude, I didn’t acknowledge her presence. Fine, I was nervous. After Armen Ra finished his piece, he left the accompanying stereo playing and walked out of the room. After the silence became uncomfortably awkward, I turned to Gypsy and said “hmmm…is that it? It’s a bit unfinished don’t you think?” To which she replied “Well, no, that is what makes it wonderful, leaving an element of curiosity. (Perhaps I ought to tell you that Gypsy lives her days in the body of a man and at night she comes out to inspire me.) We continued the conversation in the lobby. Thank heavens Jaybird was there to give me the courage to ask Gypsy if she would allow me to photograph her. She said she would and we exchanged information.”

Their meeting led to an outing to Jamaica, Queens, were Ventiko and Gypsy found a sparkly red taffeta ball gown for their upcoming shoot. “The red ball gown was the first article of clothing that we purchased together. Seeing Gypsy try the dress on moved me deeply, as she was wearing her daily costume of a man.”  Ventiko began to question “what is right, what is wrong, who says so, and why something is accepted as truth. For the first time in my life I related on a personal level with someone’s struggle with identity and the shame and guilt brought on by others, and that coincided with my self-acceptance and self-expression.”

Ventiko kept the gown on displayed in her studio. One day, leaving the studio, walking outside in her trash filled neighborhood, “some discarded newspaper took to the air via a gust of wind. That was my Eureka moment. It was then that everything made sense. I wanted to both clean up the trash in the streets, and create something beautiful and representational of my life.” Thus began Ventiko’s late 2008, mid 2009 newspaper project and the creation of the first newspaper costumes.

“The newspaper project started small. I was collecting newspapers from the neighborhood bodegas’ trash piles (The New York Post or The Daily News) and keeping only the black and white pages. To maximize the amount of black and white pages, I started collecting The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal from the city’s

bodegas late at night and schlepping them back on the train.  These newspapers represent the values of the Machine and by manipulating each page of black and white print I visually exercise my Civil Disobedience against the accepted societal norms. After I had accumulated copious amounts of newspaper, it then took me three days–twisting and manipulating the” norm” into something that is desirable– to create the paper skirt for the photograph A Display.”

In Ventiko’s loft, the newspapers she had collected became an organic sculpture that she lived with, and in, for 9 months. “During that time the newspaper set continued to reshape itself into a variety of forms–it was a dragon tail that became a centipede that took over the hallway, until finally cremated in a 20 ft trench in Montauk.”

Another photo set Ventiko built in her studio, came about when “a friend of mine tipped me off that a woman emptying a storage unit in Long Island was giving away props and costumes for one day only.  I rented a car and dashed out there and was rewarded with 4 parachutes, army netting, bags and two red velvet deco style chairs.”

Ventiko then located some free sand (hauling not included) and built a set in her studio using  two of the parachutes suspended from the ceiling along with the army netting, and created a ten by ten foot sand pit. “The set became a fixture of my life for several shoots during a three week period. When it was time to strike the set, my two cats were quite disappointed, as they hadn’t needed to use their litter box in quite some time. Perhaps you might be interested in the story of the octopus I got down the street for the photograph Julia? Let’s just say the result was a great holiday card and very nasty infection…for me.”

Ventiko is currently creating new work in two very different series. “In the fall of 2010 my mother began chemotherapy and eventually had a mastectomy to treat her breast cancer.  This awakened in me many emotions that had been suppressed. The photographic works I am currently creating are a continuation of themes and motifs introduced in Tenebrism– birth, death, rebirth, loss, suffering, pain, remorse, shame, humility, guilt, fear etc.  Recently I created Le Mort inspired by Le Mort de Marat by Jacques Louis David.”

In her second series, Ventiko creates wearable costumes out of recycled milk cartons from a nearby elementary school. ”The costumes have been used for both performances and photo shoots. Currently I have two full body dresses/robes, halos, collars and panties made from milk cartons and am constantly creating more. I must create something with my hands or I feel unfulfilled and restless,” Ventiko explained. “Each day I must do something related to photography.  That can be shooting, editing, research, visiting museums, galleries and art fairs, processing information gathered, or creating sets.” When a portrait subject steps into Ventiko’s studio, they enter her version of reality. This reality is most often accompanied by the classical music of Erik Satie, costumes, wigs and assuming a character. “The set, people, props, costumes, make up, and posing are created, chosen, decided upon, applied and directed by me. In the final stage, I create a work of art by using my camera, as if I were a painter, to capture the composition I have created from the vision in my mind. The final image is a portrait of the essence of the individual free of constraint.”

 

Cleveland: Chris Kulcsar-an artist who uses sound

I just wrote and published an article on the work of Cleveland, Ohio sound artist Chris Kulcsar, that includes three embedded videos of his unusual sound and performance art. The article  was also published on the VASA-project blog.

Cleveland: Chris Kulcsar – an artist who uses sound

“In my work I mash up seemingly separate multimedia elements with the intent of creating a body of work that implies a post-historical fabrication of coherence. This poses a problem as I am offered a dizzying array of outside sources to pull from.”
from Chris Kulcsar’s website http://www.chriskulcsar.com

Most of Chris Kulcsar’s life he’s made art and played music, but in just the last few years has made the leap to combining these two activities. While attending graduate school, with “the prodding of instructors and colleagues” Chris was made to realize that skills gained from his band life– recording, organizing events, performing– could be applied to his artistic practice.

Older technology, such as cassette tapes and players, as a medium interest him– “digital doesn’t distort well, but with analog the imperfections, hisses, pops, & distortions are all built into the process”.
Chris Kulcsar is also interested in technology as a cultural marker, he commented– “During the course of my installation at Spaces (Cleveland) I watched as patrons in their early 20’s struggled with the cassettes and the players. This was something I hadn’t anticipated and I’m still processing its deeper ramifications”.

“To interact with the tapes open all 3 in different windows and play and pause to make your own mix”.
Instructions found on Chris Kulcsar’s website.

Try it here, by clicking *play* on all three videos above.

“The panda project dealt with issues of identity and how people put on roles and attitudes. The basic idea is that panda’s don’t exist and they are actually people wearing panda suits. In ancient times the modern equivalent of stoners got together and created the panda idea/costume as a way to get  away with being lazy .  The have existed, almost as a cult, ever since.  The project entailed drawings, videos, and performances. I abandoned the project in the summer of 2008 because I felt that pandas had become overly saturated in pop culture via the Beijing olympics and some kids cartoon. In the video in question that particular panda has found evangelical christianity and he’s giving it a test drive.”