Article of interest: So You Want To Be An Artist — Part 1

This is a companion article to the one listed above, So You Want To Be An Artist — Part 1. In that article I outlined how you’ll need to master the artists most powerful tool, YOU, if professional art creation is your goal. Knowing  yourself, your desires and where you want them to lead you will be the cornerstone of your artistic practice.

In this article I’d like to discuss where you’ll need to be in order to engage in your visual craft.

Picking the right studio or environment.

Wanting to make Art, knowing who you are and what you’re all about is very important to every artists personal practice but it won’t amount to a whole lot if you’ve got nowhere to engage that understanding. Having a space to create your work is another important step along the path to professional artistry.

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Mastering The Artists Most Powerful Tool

So, you’ve been bitten by the bug, huh? One day, while sitting around calmly reading your favourite authors latest offering you sat up nursing a new welt on your arm, the letters A-R-T blazing in swollen irritated flesh, and proclaimed in a proud and distinct voice “I’m going to be an artist!”

Well, good for you! Welcome. Art could always use a few new afficianados. Why shouldn’t you be one?

Welcome to the first in a series of articles designed to help you, the newcomer, learn about what you’ll need in order to be the professional artist that you want, and know you can be.

This article pertains to the number one tool you are going to need to master if you want to become a professional artist. It will be the biggest weapon in your artistic arsenal. It will guide your hand in everything created by it. It will be a part of every artwork you make. It will make or break your practice, drive you to excel or destine you to languish in obscurity. You will need to understand it, learn how to wield it and bend its power to your will.

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Alcohol.

The invention of alcohol is often attributed to friars from way back near the beginning of the last millenium. History would tell us that egyptians from over 4000 years ago certainly enjoyed their wine and there’s even evidence that fermented beverages were enjoyed as far back as 10000 B.C.

Wherever the truth lies, since its creation alcohol has been at the part of our society. For better or for worse alcohol has been a guest at the party whether he’s wearing a lampshade on his head and telling the best one-liners you’ve ever heard or throwing up all over your shoes.

Alcohol has also become synonymous with the Art world and there are many examples throughout history to support this relationship. Jackson Pollock, famous Abstract Expressionist painter was a raging alcoholic who died in a drunken car crash. Absinthe, a drink distilled with grande wormwood was very popular in turn of the century France with artists and writers. Due to its proposed psychoactive effects it has been blamed for many psychotic breaks. Go to any art opening and I’m sure you’ll find beer, wine and spirtis in abundant supply. Alcohol is ubiquitous.

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For the past two years, Cath and I have been treating ourselves to a nice little getaway in Niagara Falls as our birthday present to each other. Work is not invited. When we first decided to go we were recommended to stay at the Kilpatrick Manor, a lovely little bed and breakfast just minutes from downtown Niagara. Well, we had such an enjoyable visit last year that we decided to do it again this year.

It’s run by the husband/wife tag team of Kevin and Nance.

Kevin is a professional chef and takes care of the Breakfast side of things. He offers three options for breakfast and every day is different. Each selection is gourmet and can be tailored to your tastes. He’ll also talk your ear off about just about anything. From politics to comic books, we chatted about everything.

Nance is the host and the organizer of the house taking care of the Bed side of things. Our room was ready and, since we were return visitors we had fruit,cheese and wine waiting for us when we arrived. Nice touch!

We planned our trip a little after our birthdays this year, the weekend of April 18th to be exact. Last year we were in the stately Chrysler Room. This year we decided to try out the Hunniford Room which came complete with a fireplace surrounded by a lovely sitting area, a king sized bed, bathrobes and slippers and our very our spa jet, massaging shower with mood lighting! Whoo!

We took advantage of the room for an evening, enjoying a bottle of wine or two, a selection of chocolates and the delicious fruit/cheese which had been provided by our hosts. The Manor also had a nice selection of DVD’s available of which we watched a few on our flat screen television, also part of the room.

After spending the first evening in the splendour of the Hunniford, we decided to tour the downtown strip and check out what was going on in Niagara. On our way, we saw a bevy of pot legalization advocates protesting in a local park. All around them were open parking lots and vacant stores. Nothing quite like preaching to yourself to get the word around!

Last year we went around the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum — which I highly recommend. This year we decided to tour the midway taking in Tussaud’s Wax Museum and a few of the other spectacles offered along Clifton Hill.

We really enjoyed the wax museum. There was really quite a lot to see and most of the exhibits were set up with themes in mind. There was the Hollywood room full of stars from today and yester-year. There was a room for the royal family. Cath and I really enjoyed the horror and sci-fi themed area of the museum. There was even a place to take a picture of yourself going over the falls in a mock barrel! We took every opportunity that we had to ham it up a bit and play with the figures. I know we weren’t supposed to but — you only live once.

After having a great time in the waxworks we wandered down Clifton Hill to see what else was offered. If you’re interested in thrills and chills, Niagara has it. They have a working amusement park, movie themed rides and numerous entertainment venues claiming to be so scary they’ve got sign boards boasting how many patrons have had to turn around before making it all the way through! Personally, if they really are as uncomfortable as they say, so much so that I wouldn’t be interested in finishing the tour, I don’t know why I’d pay. So we didn’t.

We carried on towards the Falls and checked out the majesty of one of the world’s most amazing natural wonders. It’s fantastic to have this right in our own backyard. You can get there in an hour from Toronto and it’s free to see so there’s really no excuse not to go.

After taking in the falls we wandered back up Clifton Hill in search of a large video arcade. We found one, the Niagara Falls Museum and Penny Arcade. Cath and I are quite partial to games that require you to kill zombies with a model gun. The House Of The Dead series of games are really good for this. They had the first in the series hidden in the back. We found out that we’re crackshots and spent half an hour playing the game on our original tokens!

After our lust for zombie death was sated we moved on to the shooting gallery. It was set up at the very back of the arcade and was made to look like a wild west frontier. Using a mock rifle we were challenged to shoot ‘light’ at sensors around the scene. Every recognized shot made something happen. One shot would make an animatronic wolf howl. Aanother would make a groundhog pop out of a jar. Cath was awesome! I fear for anyone who would try to duel with her. For every shot she made, she received some tickets that were redeemable for prizes. We had 49. That was almost enough for a plastic soldier man or a novelty kids mirror. We ended up giving the tickets to a family who were busy collecting to get something worthwhile.

After the arcade, we headed to the Canyon Creek Restaurant where we had reservations for a relaxing dinner. I had the prime rib special and Cath enjoyed the salmon on a cedar plank. Both meals went down well with a glass of red wine and we enjoyed the view of the Falls afforded us by our table assignment. A table of ladies beside us mysteriously vanished at one point during our meal. We thought that they had pulled a dine ‘n’ dash but they showed up half an hour later to reclaim their table, I’m sure to their server’s relief!

We picked Canyon Creek as our restaurant for the evening because it was close to the casino. We’d never been in and wanted to see what it was all about. You know the classic look of casino’s in movies that features a bunch of roulette, poker and black jack tables and some slot machines scattered around? This looked nothing like that. It was a room the size of three football fields full of digital lottery gaming terminals. The era of the one-armed bandits is over.

The room hummed. Video terminals were ringing. People were talking. Machines were tinkling. All of this led to a pall of whitenoise that hung over the entire room. Everywhere blinking screens tried to catch your attention. Lights flashed off and on with disarming regularity.

Cath and I set a limit of $20 each when gambling in the casino. We ended up spending $50 between the both of us. I think we kept things pretty modest. I was the first to lose all my money to the video terminals. We tried a whole bunch and we tried all the options that each one offered. The more options we chose, the faster the terminals separated us from our money. I’m glad we set a limit. After checking out the casino for fourty five minutes we decided to head back to the comfort of the Kilpatrick Manor, feeling a bit like quasimodo, holding our ears crying, “The bells! The bells!”

We spent our last evening quietly watching a few movies, enjoying some wine, each others company and the lack of work that a vacation forces upon the taker.

If you’re planning a little getaway to the Niagara region and are looking for a quality place to stay, I’d highly recommend the Kilpatrick Manor. It features spacious and tastefully decorated rooms with large beds and all the ammenities you’d need to enjoy your little escape. They also offer up packages that include a wine tour of the region or a relaxing personal massage held in the comfort of your own room. We’ll keep you updated about our shenanigans next time we go!

For now, that is all. Goodnight.

Articles of Interest: How To Price Your Artwork — Part 1
                               How To Price Your Artwork — Part 2

This is an addendum article to the two listed above, How To Price Your Artwork Part 1 and Part 2. In those articles I talked about pricing your artwork so that you meet your expenses and  include a profit margin. I also mentioned that it would be a good idea to slightly inflate prices in case you had to do a little haggling when facing a client who either has less money or is offering less money than you’re asking.

Now, I gave only one model for pricing, the hourly rate model. Treat your painting / sculpting / drawing work as a day job and price it by the hour accordingly. Using this mode of pricing you’ll always be assured of receiving proper remuneration for the work you put into each piece.

The unfortunate drawback to pricing your artwork by the hour is that pieces of equal size may not be pieces of equal price. In the case of my own work, I’ve got paintings in my inventory which cost several thousand dollars more than others of a larger stature. That price is based solely on how many hours went into each work. The more technical I get with my painting the more time I spend on it. The more time I spend on a piece the higher the resultant price.

From an artistic standpoint this is a fine model. If  I work ‘x’ number of hours I’ll get paid ‘x’ number of dollars.

From a collector standpoint this model may be viewed with a bit of skepticism. If you were in the market to buy a painting, walked into a gallery where two paintings by the same artist were hanging, saw that the smaller of the two was priced at two times the price of the larger, which one do you think you’d buy?

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Articles of Interest: Help! I Have Too Many Ideas!

This is a companion article to the one listed above Help! I Have Too Many Ideas! In that article I talked about learning the virtue of patience, cataloguing your over-abundance of ideas for future reference and giving yourself permission to move on from and come back to unfinished works.

I’d like to talk about a problem that can arise from having too many ideas, too many avenues for artistic expression and giving yourself latitude to follow them all. While having an abundance of ideas isn’t necessarily a bad thing it can be detrimental to your practice in the long run if you’re not focused on one medium. Have you ever heard the saying “Jack of all trades, Master of none”? This can be especially true for the artistically gifted if a specific discipline is not picked for their individual practices.

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Hi all! I wanted to let you know about the launch of a new project of mine. As the post title states, it’s called “The Great Canadian Visual Arts Grant Database” and is, as you guessed, a database of every visual arts grant available in Canada!

At the moment I’ve got just about every major grant from the provincial and federal levels listed. I’m now in the process of searching through all the major cities in every province and all the private benefactors listed online, scouring the web to find every single grant opportunity.

“Why am I doing this?”, you may ask. We’ve got a vibrant and cohesive cultural society in Canada yet so many of our resources are scattered haphazardly across the internet or hidden away on government servers, never to see the light of day. I think it’s time to change this.

As an artist I am generously afforded the opportunity to apply for monetary grants to support my personal practice. Unfortunately I’ve often found while searching for those opportunities that the information I come across is out-of-date, erroneous or the grants and their websites no longer exist.

Being displeased with this outcome I decided to take it upon myself to research what is currently available and put it onto one handy dandy website where every artist, from coast to coast, can find the right grant for them!

It’s simple and clean and all the links work! I hope you like it and I hope you find what you’re looking for. At the moment I’m only listing grant opportunities that have website representation. If you know of anything that I’ve missed or that doesn’t have a website please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll be happy to add a posting with all the pertinent information!

For now, that is all. Goodnight.

Articles of interst: Finding Your Artistic Path

This is a companion article to the one listed above Finding Your Artistic Path. In that article I talked about ways of finding your personal artistic path. I recommended trying several disciplines to find one that works best for you and to spend some time getting to know yourself in order to develop subjects which will be pertinent to your practice.

This article broaches a rather contentious issue and I fought over whether or not to write it. Here it goes…

I thought about the advice I gave in my previous writing and wondered: What if an individual, after all that exploration in Art, after trying all those disciplines and testing out idea after idea after idea was still unable to unveil their artistic path? What if the compulsion to engage in creative free expression wasn’t being satisfied by any of the visual mediums? The one logical answer that came to my mind was that maybe, just maybe, that person isn’t an artist.

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Articles of interest: Finding Your Artistic Path

Hi all! This is a companion article to the one listed above, Finding Your Artistic Path. The emphasis of that article was trying to find the best way to express yourself artistically when you find you’re under the spell of creative compulsion.

In it I suggested trying all kinds of artistic mediums to find one that resonates with you all the while communing with yourself, really getting to know you to see what drives you persoanlly and artistically. This process will eventually lead to a partnership between medium and subject that will allow you to create great Art.

But what if one medium isn’t enough? What if you have so many interests and ideas that just one subject isn’t enough? They may be spilling out of you at such a rapid rate that one idea is intruding on the other. What then?

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I’ve just seen one of the most impressive displays of mixed media artistry at the Meta Gallery in Toronto’s historic Distillery District. The gallery is currently hosting a two man show featuring the mixed media sculpture works of Kris Kuksi and the dark digital prints of Andrew Jones. Hands down, Kris Kuksi has stolen the show. He really should be shown alone. I can’t image too many artists who wouldn’t be upstaged by his artwork. Sorry Andrew.

There’s nothing like being confronted by masterful Art to make you feel like a complete hack. Kris’s sculptures are over the top. Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe them. I know it sounds like I’m blowing smoke up his backside but I can’t help the way they make me feel. His mixed media assemblages are both enthralling and off-puting at the same time. I’d liken the feeling to being entranced by a spiders eight legged dance of death in a beautifully spun web while suffering from arachnaphobia. Watching makes the hairs on your neck stand up but at the same time you - just - can’t - look - away!

Click on a pic for a closer view.

And look you should because you’ll never see the same thing twice. Artwork with this kind of detail and intricacy never gets tired. Made up of found objects, busts and action figures, toy cars, railroad model parts, star wars toys, miscellaneous airplane/train/ship model pieces and even industrial hardware/fasteners Kris’s work will always give you something new to look at depending on where you view it from. From the top, from the bottom, to the left or right each sculpture is made up of a million tiny pieces and will afford you a million different viewing experiences. Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea.

With overtones of the military establishment and the forced enslavement of the working classes to keep it running Kris’s work, beyond being beautiful, has some strong social comments to make. Where is the seat of power? Who has authority to deal out death and will it come for them one day too? Who can escape death and should we really be questing after it so boldly?

Inricate, elaborate, frenetic and engaging the macabre work of Kris Kuksi has a little bit of something for everyone and is worth checking out. He’ll be at the Meta Gallery (with Andrew Jones) until June 14th. Get out and see it today!

For now, that is all. Goodnight.