The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: Arachno-capitalist on January 09, 2011, 04:29:04 pm
-
My friends and I have entered a phase where were buying art. Why? Its easier to spend money on art than it is on a girlfriend. Ironically, one of the first pieces we both bought ourselves were pictures of lonely women.
(http://www.oilpaintings-sales.com/images-paintings/michael-austin/michael-austin-red-dress-81930.jpg)
Thats one I have. The one my friend has is the same kind of scene but at a breakfast table.
Now I want prints like this:
(http://www.artinfo.com/media/image/211480/30350625b.jpg)
(http://www.artinfo.com/media/image/211486/Grotjahn-Untitled-Three-tiered-Perspective.jpg)
(http://www.artinfo.com/media/image/211488/Liu-Ye-the-long-way-home.jpg)
(http://www.artinfo.com/media/image/211485/Currin-Shakespeare-Actress.jpg)
Anyone else dig on wall decorations? What is a good venue to discover local artists?
-
'Round these parts, there's a "First Friday" event on, conveniently enough, the first Friday of every month, where the local galleries downtown open their studios from 6 - 10 and offer their stuff for sale. That's how I'd find a local artist here. Dunno if you have anything so regularly-scheduled where you are, but I'm guessing there are plenty of art festivals in the year to attend.
If you're into photography, I have a good friend who is a professional freelance photographer. She doesn't have any of her art stuff on her site, but she has an art-school background, as evidenced by some of her highly stylized wedding shots (http://www.heatherswanner.com/weddings/). She's available for commissions.
Cort knows some artists, he got me some art for the Secret Santa name draw last year. It's awesome.
-
this should turn into a thing where I make you buy my friends' art.
-
this should turn into a thing where I make you buy my friends' art.
well do they do stuff that looks like the above?
-
we have this one above our mantle:
(http://theartgallerist.com/uploads/products/1728/big_Van-Herle_Kissy-Kissy.jpg) (http://theartgallerist.com/uploads/products/1728/big_Van-Herle_Kissy-Kissy.jpg)
(click for embiggening)
and some older stuffy by a friend (http://www.lauranoel.com/index.cfm) that resembles nothing she's got on her website on a different wall
i'm looking for something short, wide, and mellow for above the TV. right now it's just a big gray expanse of wall, but i don't want anything that draws the eye too much. abstract would be fine, a black and white landscape, sure, whatever. just got to kill the boring.
-
Yeah, First Friday in Denver has two pretty big (at least 5 blocks?) areas. I would look for something like that. It is kinda fun, too.
-
Cort knows some artists, he got me some art for the Secret Santa name draw last year. It's awesome.
While I'm a big Project Dispatch fan I don't think it's good for A-Cap since you can't predict exactly what you're going to get.
-
right now the only thing on my walls is this: (http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/31/l_b69747b0a89dcd378edc1abe03b589ac.jpg)
actually, also there are some small posters for the radio station I worked at.
-
I suppose it's no surprise that the vast majority of the original art on my walls is either original comics or pictures of pugs.
-
I usually use either portraits of my kids (taken by the aforementioned photographer) or prints that have some historical significance. My office has a print of Rosa Parks being fingerprinted at the Montgomery PD, for instance, and I really want a print of John Trumbull's The Declaration of Independence for some part of my house. (My mother was a Trumbull, and John is an ancestor of mine.)
(http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5945/decltrumbull.jpg)
I have a few more pieces of art (including the ones I got from Project Dispatch) that used to be in my office, but I had to take them down when I moved the furniture and they're not back up yet. I have to find another place for most of them because I put up some media storage shelves that used to be in our family room in our old house to store yarn on, and they take up the biggest expanse of blank wall in the room.
-
Maybe not so surprising, but generally I'll only hang concert/tour posters. I'm pretty selective, though. Like I only buy posters at the concert (I don't go looking for old concert posters), and I'll only buy it if I like the poster itself (that is, I won't buy it just because I like the band or it was a great show). I couldn't find an image online of the only one I currently have hanging, but this one is going up once I get it framed:
(http://www.thrilljockey.com/img/hdr/TRTS-spring-big-ready.jpg)
Maybe once I grow up I'll get some real art to hang. I have a couple artist friends that I'd love to buy some art from, but that shit's expensive.
-
I love that poster, and, there is a band called Tortoise?
-
Love the second one.
-
We have craploads of art on our walls due to all the artists in the family. I mentioned elsewhere that my step-mom is a (mostly commercial) artist. She has given us a lot of her art (she's relatively widely collected) but she's also given us a lot of stuff that she's collected over the years that she just doesn't have room to show. Most of our stuff is wildlife, because that's what she's into. We have all the portraits and nudes and that sort of stuff in the bedroom, including some prints of Leighton (http://www.art.com/asp/search_do.asp/_/posters.htm?ui=1B0BD261E7DA432791ADC4AF9272BFAA&searchstring=leighton) and Courbet (http://www.art.com/asp/search_do.asp/_/posters.htm?ui=1B0BD261E7DA432791ADC4AF9272BFAA&searchstring=courbet) and some other shit - purely for eye candy. For those who like the animals, we've got some Byron Birdsall (http://www.artiqueltd.com/artworks/list/artist/3) (still pretty reasonably priced, but very masculine, not everyone's taste), John Pitcher (http://www.prints.com/art.php/John_Pitcher/?artist_id=2882) (crap site for him, but my searching, it returns nothing of value) and John Seery-Lister (http://www.artthatsnew.com/artwork/scripts/artofseerey-lester/seerey-lester-all.cfm) (I've got the snow bunting print which is about halfway down. Cool for me because we get snow buntings at work, plus I just randomly found it in a coffee shop and it turns out my step-mom was published by the same house he was long ago). I also collect this guy (http://www.etsy.com/shop/smayorga), because his stuff just struck me and I met him soon after I moved to Portland.
-
I have a lot of stuff, but most of it is not hung except for the wall of artcar posters (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/329365127/). I need to update that picture because the 4 has turned into 14 and there are probably 4-5 more that need to be hung.
-
I have a lot of stuff, but most of it is not hung except for the wall of artcar posters (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/329365127/).
This photo is private!
Hey, when did Flickr get cool again and let me see all my photos? It seems like a year or more ago that they said I was losing my "Pro" priveleges of having as many pics as I wanted up there unless I paid a fee. I may actually go back to using it now.
-
I love that poster, and, there is a band called Tortoise?
That is probably my favorite tour poster, it was a good find. And yes, there is a band (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortoise_(band)) named Tortoise. Rather than try to describe them, I'll just post a a track (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAVfC_FCswI) that is more or less representative of their work on the whole. Actually, it's not, really, but I like it.
I'm pretty sure I've heard their stuff as bumper music on NPR, for what it's worth. I don't know if that's a good thing.
-
My housemate used to do some stencilling and an old girlfriend left a couple of small canvasses when she moved out but the only thing with any staying power on my walls is movie posters. Big ones that you buy from the cinema after the run has ended. My favourite was a 'would the last one to die please turn out the lights' children of men poster that took up most of our living room wall.
Hospital accommodation this year means we're not allowed to hang things on our walls or feel joy though, so that's kind of a drag.
-
Try it now Jaydub.
-
Fixed!
-
Try it now Jaydub.
Try it now! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSBmo8F7N-E)
-
a few of my friends want to get matching tattoos that say
NO WAITING
NO WAITING
NO WAITING
in the style of a barbershop sign on their street.
they are the friends whose art A-Cap should buy. There is one girl whose stuff he might actually like.
I know what Mike has to say about these people, the place they live, and their potential tattoos.
-
I know what Mike has to say about these people, the place they live, and their potential tattoos.
Knowing is half the battle
-
Knowing is half the battle
(http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSvU-etUdbuRgLA0hSxipvE0Vu4TfdLQSMQWXt7cZBSR72hyJVb)
-
I have oodles of art:
Above the writing desk which I typically post from are these (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/2285479702/) three (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/2284677303/) prints. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/2284673367/) I purchased all three at a market in Old Havana. I joked with my husband that we had actually stumbled upon the Black Market, as it was actually illegal in Cuba to sell art without the work being sanctioned by the government, plus while I was picking out art, I was offered drugs by at least a dozen separate dealers.
I have three wall sculptures on the wall in the hall between our two bedrooms: there's "Dearlette" (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347136361/) and "Acorn Boy" (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347746176/in/photostream/) which are both from a series called "The Sleepy Collection" by an artist named Gosia (http://illustrationbygosia.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html) who I met at a "One of a Kind" show when my last play was in production in Toronto. Between "Dearlette" and "Acorn Boy" is a carving I bought at a market in Bali. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347752538/) The two sculptures by Gosia are especially special to me because I got to talk with the artist about why she made them - her feelings of her niece when she was born as alien, fascinating and beautiful, especially when she slept were the inspiration for an entire series from which these two sculpture came. Even better, as Gosia explained this to me, her sister came up pushing a stroller with her sleeping niece in it, and sure enough, the kid looked just like the sculptures (minus horns or imp ears).
One of my favorite pieces of art is an artist's proof by Shirley Brown called "Flinger" (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347754448/) that hangs right near our dinner table. I just loved this one - how it evokes hope and flight in spite of the somewhat morbid subject. The remarkable thing is that Brown took the skeletons of these birds she found (http://www.agsm.ca/articles73.html) and used them as inspiration for an entire show that later got significant of attention, but I bought this AP before the show, as a stand alone piece at a fundraiser for a studio my husband was taking print making classes at.
I got this interesting print "True Love" (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347146779/) by Leslie Supnet who's work is all about introspection and loss. (http://www.takashiiwasaki.info/semaigallery/exhibitions/supnet.html) This was from a local "Art from the Heart" show for inner city artists, where I was also showing some of my own art work for the first time. It was nice because I sold a piece at the same show.
The most recent purchase of art I made was this fantastical piece: Sir Odobenus Rosmarus Portrait (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347526045/) by Angela Rossi, which my husband had on his Christmas wish list. He found it on Etsy. (http://www.etsy.com/people/BeatUpCreations?ref=ls_profile) He hasn't decided where he wants to hang it yet, but I'm looking forward to getting it on the wall.
I've got several more pieces all over the place, like my "Kitchen Demon," (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347143049/) (which is an Indonesian hand carved mask) and my bathroom pastiche of little art pieces (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347141927/in/photostream/) and this odd little collection of an Indonesian rod puppet, Cuban hand puppet and handmade automaton that moves (which was a prop made my a local artist and friend for a show I wrote) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347149055/) I've also got this very odd unsigned empty head sculpture/basket (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347147779/) by a Portuguese artist. The head is full of branches from a tree that was struck down into the street by lightning near our house on the night we moved in, which means I added some weird of my own to the weirdness.
The only piece that's a little bit sad is this one (http://www.flickr.com/photos/side_show/5347144711/). Because of it's size - 4ft tall by 1.5ft wide - I've wanted to hang it above the stairs since I bought it several years ago, but doing so would mean renting scaffolding, which we've never gotten around to doing, so it lives in the closet to protect it from the claws of our cats. I'd really like to put it up. Every time I take it out, I discover a new detail I didn't notice before. I really should get on hanging it.
-
a few of my friends want to get matching tattoos that sayin the style of a barbershop sign on their street.
they are the friends whose art A-Cap should buy. There is one girl whose stuff he might actually like.
I know what Mike has to say about these people, the place they live, and their potential tattoos.
Id be interested to hear from an artist that could do a take on the converging lines art. Im imaging something longer on the horizontal than the vertical to hang over my bed.
-
The only acceptable multi-person tattoos are tattoos that line up together into a pirate treasure map.
-
Now that is some art you could hang on your wall.
-
Id be interested to hear from an artist that could do a take on the converging lines art. Im imaging something longer on the horizontal than the vertical to hang over my bed.
I misread this as applying to Inev's post about tattoos and was trying to imagine where on your body you would want a converging lines art tattoo. The art you already have looks very cool by the way. I've got to admit, I'm more about figural images myself, but the use of colour and movement in those paintings is striking.
-
Cool art SS.
-
I need to get a couple things framed, and was wondering, how important is the quality of framing? I mean, not just aesthetically, but the long term preservation of what is framed. One of the prints is fairly rare and pretty pricey (for me) so I want to do right by it. Any thoughts?
What made me think of this was reading about "acid-free mattings" offered by one of the places I looked into.
-
As I've mentioned, my step-mom is a bona-fide artist (this is how she makes her living, and has for at least 30 years) and she has said don't skimp on the matting. If it's a poster, who cares, but if it's a print you've spent money on, do it up right. Also, in a few years your matting won't be all yellowed, which is nice.
-
What Nabu said is true, but I would also look carefully at the cheaper sites to see if they're also offering "acid-free" mats, but in a quieter fashion. It's my understanding that most professionals use acid-free mats as a matter of course, so don't pay a premium just because one place flies the acid-free banner.
Just because the Subway restaurant advertises that they do not rub the sandwich meats on their arms and backs (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=02112003) doesn't necessarily mean that all the others do. They might, but you gotta do the research yourself on that.
-
Ah, true. Damn, framing's expensive. I'd try to just buy the materials and do it myself but I can't even cut a dang tomato straight.
-
From someone who has matted her own work, I recommend going with a pro. The equipment to do it is expensive, and it's harder than it looks to get those nice bevel cuts.
(My mom has the expensive equipment because she changes all the photos of her grandkids in her house at least once a year -- and there are a LOT of them.)