Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Artists Magazine

i went on my first diet in 1990. I was 10 years old. At the suggestion of fellow fifth-grade girls, I stowed my mother’s meal-replacement shakes in my backpack every morning and threw out the bagged lunches my father had prepared for me. I’d already bought into cultural messages that thinness equated to beauty and, therefore, value as a female human. I felt high on the promise of a leaner physique that would advertise my desirability, intelligence and refinement. For many years I fought my natural body size, limited the types and amounts of foods I could eat, counted calories, attempted to burn off those I took in and celebrated the feeling of hunger as success. Eventually, I chose to make peace with food and my body. Today, as a…

“Mark Rothko: A Biography, by James E.B. Breslin.” ELIZABETH OSBORNE, ARTIST “Edmund de Waal’s The Hare With Amber Eyes. De Waal, a very talented ceramicist in his own right, traces the history of a collection of Japanese netsuke (miniature sculptures) that managed to remain in his family’s possession despite Nazi looting and other calamities. It’s essentially a meditation on the values and meanings that works of art can accrue long after they’ve left the artist’s studio.” KJELL M. WANGENSTEEN, ASSISTANT CURATOR OF EUROPEAN ART AT THE INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART AT NEWFIELDS “Two books I reread recently were Letters to a Young Poet , by Rainer Maria Rilke, and My Life in Art , by Konstantin Stanislavsky. Rilke speaks to the artist’s need of…

One of oil paint’s unique and useful properties is its affi nity for the layering process. The inventors of oil paint—Flemish painters of the 15th century—noticed a correlation between the way daylight falls on objects, drawing out light from shadow, and the way paint is layered from transparent to opaque. They saw that if shadows were painted transparently, with little or no white paint, and if lights were painted opaquely, with generous amounts of white, then the illusion of three-dimensional form was powerful. Why? Because both daylight and white pigment have a cool quality, whereas shadows and transparent paint have a warm tonality. When you create an underpainting in oil, your color choices can reinforce this property. In this demonstration, I will show how with only white and raw umber,…

In Judy Chicago’s large-scale installation The Dinner Party, dozens of seminal figures in the women’s suffrage and feminist movements are invited to a grand ceremonial dinner and given their rightful place in the artist’s rewrite of Western history. New insight into this milestone artwork is provided in “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making,” an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, where the artwork is on permanent display. Through more than 100 objects, including test plates, notebooks, preparatory drawings and other ephemera, viewers are given an in-depth look at the creation of this multilayered, monumental installation. The exhibition offers a deeper understanding of Chicago’s original goals for the piece, as well as a renewed perspective of The Dinner Party’s relevance today. Chicago, a pioneer in the presentation of feminist…

Beverly McNeil grew up in the South, which has a long tradition of commissioned portraiture. She remembers sitting for a painting her father had commissioned from the portraitist Robert Bruce Williams. “I became fascinated with the process,” she says. “I had always been interested in art, but portraiture, particularly of family members, began to mean something more. I realized that they were painted out of love.” Years later, after McNeil had founded a successful home décor business, she decided she wanted to open a portrait gallery. She called the new venture Portrait Brokers of America. “The shift was very organic,” McNeil says. “I already had a strong sales team—all women at the time. We got good at selling portraits.” Ruth Reeves experienced portraiture for the first time in very similar…

Colorado EAT WELL ASPEN, COLORADO FOODANDWINE.COM/CLASSICJUNE 15 THROUGH 17 It’s not too early to mark your calendar for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, a summer weekend of epicurean wine and food sampling, cooking demonstrations and a host of other food-related presentations and events. Organized by Food & Wine magazine, the event brings together top culinary talents from around the world and highlights the latest in eating trends. Events take place in hotels and parks in and around Aspen, Colorado. Ticket sales will begin in April 2018. New York DRAWINGS BY MICHELANGELO THE MET FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY • 212-535-7710 METMUSEUM.ORG THROUGH FEBRUARY 12 With works from 50 public and private collections, “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer” offers a unique glimpse of the artist’s creative thought process as…

“Will Cotton uses real sweets for his hyperrealistic paintings. In this world, cotton candy clouds and buttercream hills are the norm. Trash Pile, however, suggests a dark side of utopia. A ziggurat of dense chocolate cake slumps and slides like damp earth. Donuts, dipped cherries and whole tortes have been dumped. In this land of unlimited richness, more than enough is clearly too much.”…

LINCOLN AGNEW “THE WELL-FED ARTIST” Lincoln Agnew is a freelance illustrator who currently lives in Vancouver. When he isn’t busy walking in the park or staring at jellyfish, he enjoys cutting and pasting pictures for such publications as Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and The New Yorker. SARAH CHIPPS WELLNESS: “LISTEN TO YOUR BODY TALK” Sarah Chipps, Psy.D. is a New York State licensed psychologist. She is the clinical director at Monte Nido River Towns, a residential treatment facility in Irvington, New York, for women with eating disorders, and she sees clients in her private practice in New York City. She has presented at several national and international conferences on topics such as ethnic diversity, the client/therapist relationship and creativity in the treatment of eating disorders. HELEN OH TUTORIAL: “SETTING UP…

DINE IN STYLE Hatch’s Heritage Collection—a line of tableware and teaware designed exclusively for Twig New York—was inspired by teacups from 18th-century European factories. Seeing each piece as a blank slate, Hatch decorated not only visible surfaces but also the backs and bases of pots, plates and cups. “Imagine seeing the decoration on the base when having the last sip of tea, or the illustrations on the back of the plates in a dish rack,” she says. “It’s traditional with a twist!” “As we move through our daily lives, eating breakfast, sipping an afternoon cup of tea or gathering for a family dinner, the patterned ceramic objects we live with are precious witnesses to our stories.”—Molly Hatch, from her book A Passion for China: A Little Book About the Objects…

COOKING UP GENIUS Before becoming court painter to King Philip IV of Spain, Velázquez “cut his teeth” with tavern and kitchen scenes that combine genre painting and still life. The woman and boy in An Old Woman Cooking Eggs seem strangely detached, but note Velázquez’ dramatic lighting and his masterful handling of textures—from pottery and metals to a grooved and scarred gourd to coarse fabrics.…

One of the most perplexing challenges facing the perceptual artist is the inherent contradiction between the spatial, three-dimensional world being observed and the flat surface onto which that world is being translated. In the years I’ve spent helping students solve this complex puzzle, I’ve found that one of the most beneficial and easily accessible tools is the picture plane. The concept of the picture plane first emerged in the 15th century with the discovery of linear perspective, and it gave painters the ability to create the illusion of a three-dimensional space on a flat canvas, paper or even wall. Using the principles of the picture plane, artists such as Albrecht Dürer built devices called picture nets to ensure the accuracy of their drawings and paintings. (See figure 1, opposite, top.)…

IN AN OLD SHOE FACTORY in New York City’s Garment District, Ron Ben-Israel kneads bright-orange sugar paste. The paste is thick, almost like clay, which he flattens with a roller and cuts with a mold into the shape of a flower. He removes it from the mold and picks the petals out by hand. “You don’t want it to be too perfect,” he says, “otherwise it doesn’t look real.” A very artistic sensibility: To be imperfect is to be real. This alone is something of a contradiction within the baking world, where a recipe is not something one improvises. But that combination of scientific precision and artistic freedom is what makes Ben-Israel’s work stand out. Ben-Israel came to cakes from an artistic point of view. “I went to art school…

HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS: Artists can have economically sustainable careers. Here’s the challenging news: Artists still see themselves as being outside of the usual economic system. Art collectors, organizations and even art schools prey on this attitude, expecting artists to display their artwork for free and provide services as unpaid or low-paid interns and part-time staff. Art schools expect students to pay the same rates to earn an M.F.A. as hopeful investment bankers pay for an M.B.A.—with very different financial prognoses after graduation. Furthermore, many art schools don’t provide professional development classes in the final year, even as electives, for an M.F.A. The nonprofit sector has tried to close this gap with professional development-programs for artists, but these barely scratch the surface of artists’ needs. So, what’s to be done, and…

PORTRAIT/ FIGURE Manuel Rodrigues AlmeidaFilipe AssuncaoTony BaseliciEzgi BeyazitJason BradyElena CaravelaKathleen CarrRosanne CerboAndrew S. ConklinTaylor CorreaKimberly DowKohshin FinleyVincent GiarranoPedro GonzalezGlenn HarrenRussell HarrisJennifer HeinePhilipp HummFrank InterranteStephen JohnstonSharon KnettellKyriaki KrestouAlexandra LatypovaSookyi LeeCarlos Martinez LeonSteven LevinHuaqi LiCharles LillyChin Hsien LinLiu LingStephen MangumDenise McGillLoretta McNairKathy MorrisHannah MurrayScott O’NeilCaroline PoolClaudia PostMark PughKari RajkumarNadine RobbinsDevon RodriguezKyle StuckeyRon ThurstonLauren TildenMark Van CrombruggePhil WalterChuck WeberMike WimmerKatelyn Wolary LANDSCAPE Ingrid E. AlbrechtChristopher BashistaPenny BillingsLinda Brown Kevin BrunnerNathan CampbellJuan CantavellaJ.R. CookRobert CoppenKayla CorbySheila DelimontLyn DiefenbachPaula DunnJean S. ElstonCarla FalbRyan FlanneryGuy FrazerSusan Frech-SimsVincent GiarranoEvan GoldmanAlison GrapesHayley HaddadScott HarrisSteven HillMarcia HolmesJean Sbarra JonesMason Mansung KangSung KimKaren KinderDimos KipourosBob KlingDan KnepperJulia KomskyC.J. LukacsikIhor LytviakAnn Bishop McGregorMaryann MullettTimothy MulliganAnn MustoJanet PedersenMary PettisChristopher PhillipsJohn PompeoIgor RaikhlineJanice ReynoldsCindy RoesingerJohn SalminenMurad SayenThomas W. SchallerJeanne SmithJim SmitherSabrina StilesGeorge ThompsonKatrina ThorstensenJackson Lee Kwong TimGina TorkosCecy TurnerJames W. VoshellElizabeth WeissDenise Willing-BooherTara…

1 Sumptuous texture is a feast for the eye. Head to your grocer and select items with intriguing surfaces—cheeses, crackers, nuts, shellfish, fruits and veggies. Quick, set up a still life before you eat your finds. 2 What's your favorite cuisine—French, Italian, German, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Thai—or something else? What foods, cookware or tableware do you associate with that cuisine? Make those items the "ingredients" for a painting or illustrated recipe. 3 Make or buy your favorite sweet treat to draw, paint or sculpt. Go extra large without fear of calories—check out the dimensions of Mary Ellen Johnson’s sundae (at left)! 4 Let a cooking item from a past generation feed your imagination—but try for a contemporary feel to your setup. No old-style cookware, crockery or kitchen implements on hand?…

all artists, be they fledgling students or seasoned professionals, struggle at one time or another with subject matter. Often artists get stuck because they can’t come up with a “big idea,” or they fear they have nothing to say or that their subject must be something extraordinary. A lot of this thinking can be traced to (at best) a reductive and counterproductive application of modernist art theory—a misconception that art need always be made in a new way or establish some major conceptual breakthrough. That doesn’t sound like much fun—which might explain why so much contemporary art strikes us as forced, if not tortured. We have a difficult time connecting with it; we sense that it’s too knowing and, hence, affected and disingenuous. I suggest that we release our hearts…

JURORS PORTRAIT/FIGURE: David Jon Kassan LANDSCAPE: Jerry N. Weiss ANIMAL/WILDLIFE: Julie Askew STILL LIFE/INTERIOR: Jaye Schlesinger ABSTRACT/EXPERIMENTAL: Betsy Dillard Stroud PORTRAIT/ FIGURE FIRST PLACE “The title I am everything challenges the idea that this woman is a one-dimensional stereotype. She is complex, rich. She contains multitudes. She is everything.”– SARAH MARIE LACY SECOND PLACE THIRD PLACE HONORABLE MENTIONS LANDSCAPE FIRST PLACE SECOND PLACE “My advice to other artists is to fail frequently. This is so very important in painting. I’ve learned more from failure in every aspect of life than success.”–RON STOCKE THIRD PLACE HONORABLE MENTIONS ANIMAL/ WILDLIFE FIRST PLACE SECOND PLACE “Let go of fear, and be persistent. Listen to your soul and paint with true emotion. Find a subject that makes your heart sing so that…