Saturday, December 19, 2009

Postscript & Prequil: Focus, Focus, Focus

"I start a picture and I finish it." - Jean-Michel Basquiat

The previous evening I had attended the annual holiday bash for the Fairbanks Watercolor Society. This is one of the few hyperactive groups in the community with proactive members who routinely organize workshops and their own exhibitions. Interesting in the context of the recent gallery closures, and points up again the crucial skills of collective efforts in self-promotion, especially when seen against the failing business model for artists (literally now also for the owners) to rely upon galleries to do all the work: as per the recording industry's collapse after missing the boat with the digital revolution, visual artists need to embrace alternative methods in getting their work out there and earning a living.
I opened up this vein of fatalistic thinking ("why" "what's it good for" etc.) right before the drawing class' final critique, and while en route to campus had an epiphany over a small item posted on the bulletin board at the cafe. It fits in well between yesterday's mullings and the next, final post on teaching, where I unsuccessfully attempt to tie everything up in a Grand Unifying Theory, but basically what it'll all come down to is this...

... at the very least you'll be able to draw a much better flier to sell your used car:


"I like boring things." - Andy Warhol

4 comments:

  1. Hi, it's a very great blog.
    I could tell how much efforts you've taken on it.
    Keep doing!

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  2. You're so funny Jamie. Don't most of your epiphanies have some link to coffee?
    Kim

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  3. Ah yes - one of a few indispensable creative juices: sometimes lack of which is epiphaneous.
    And actually, I'm not really knocking the flier: of all the visual clutter (99% of which is snapshots of vehicles) on the bulletin board that was the one that caught my eye.
    Looks better than my truck at least.

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  4. Yeah, The flier is kind of like a sign with misspelled words. It gets your attention, you know exactly what they mean so the message has been communicated but it makes you want to correct it somehow.

    Happy Solstice!

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