The picture is of my new website: www.allalonetogether.com  New blog posts will be at the new site.

The basic idea for this site is “community blog”. Plan was to set up a place where a smallish group of similarishly styled artists could share their works with each other, as well as, pool our efforts to create a site that offered a steady stream of new stuffs to see.

The idea began forming last year, beginning of the fall I think. I started taking a serious look at the “online art market”, talking to a lot of other artists already well involved online and realized the potential. I’ve had a website since about 2002/03, I’ve tried etsy now and then, blogged now and then, but never put a real concerted effort into it. Seems obvious now, but, just putting a website up and hoping someone wanders by is not an effective plan.

What I noticed while talking to other artists online and checking their “online presence” is that everyone has a blog, and a website, and an etsy, and and and whatever else. These are all fine, but either isolated on a lonely island, or buried in a massive un-filtered crowd. The personal blog/website is too small, the facebook/etsy is too big, either way you get lost, either searching or trying to be found.

The internet in many ways is like a perpetual flood. There is more then you could ever possibly look at every second. Could you imagine the internet without search engines? The most valuable service on the internet is some kind of filter, a filter you like somehow. I visit many mp3 blogs, if they cover a particular genre of music I like and I know they are going to add new content regularly, I will bookmark it and quite possibly continue to visit for years to come.

I haven’t been able to find art blogs that I liked in the same way I’ve been able to find mp3 blogs. So I thought I’d make one myself. The group is already made up of a variety of different artists working in various mediums, but I hope there is a cohesive thread between the work displayed and that visitors will find they enjoy not just one contributor but hopefully all.

The scale of the group is designed to give the members a sense of connection that a billion random twitter followers can’t give. It’s also there to provide viewers with plenty of cool stuffs to look at, without having to sift through a massive pile of whatever like some kind of landfill.

I don’t believe that my filter is better then anyone elses, but it is a quality check, a purposeful collection and just the right size, and if other people dig it, all the merrier.

And finally a big thanks to Lauren of thehauntedhollowtree.com she listened to me go on about the idea for months and helped get it up and running.

Russian Circles – Empros  darker and heavier and even more impressive then ever. 

Cicada – Pieces (2011)
Genre: Modern Classical / Post-Rock / Cello
Country: Taiwan

The Dangerous Summer – War Paint   great songs, great lyrics, listened to this a million times already

Capsule – No Ghost  probably my favorite find this year, very interesting style in the over-populated “post-hardcore” world

Wolves_Like_Us_-_ Late Love  groovy post-rock or something like that, it’s very good whatever you call it

Darkest Hour – The Human Romance   best metal band, still. 

Wye Oak_-_Civilian 2011  very mysterious laid back rock stuff from maryland

defeater-empty_days_and_sleepless_nights  hardcore but there are some acoustic tracks at the end that are incredible.

Daybreak-Self_Titled-2011  aussie punk

Of Mice & Men – The Flood [2011]   heavy duty hardcore

I feel like I understand the “art world” after reading this book. At least some more of it anyways. Wolfe takes satirical, humorous, and critical aim at “modern art” and gives a quick and enjoyable re-telling of the history of 20th century art. Originally published in 1975 Wolfe’s re-telling ends just before I was born. I’d love to know what Tom sees in the art world of 2011, but for accurate historical perspective, we might have to wait another 30 years to find out what’s happening right now.

What is so valuable about Wolfe’s view on art is that he lampoons the ever so serious world of art, artists, dealers, magazine covers, and all the rest of it, and he does so with knowledge. I could tell that he really enjoys art, and this wasn’t just a target for his humor. He explains the early decades of 20th century art as simply edging towards “flatness”. From abstract expressionism to action painting, to pop art and op art and then finally pure conceptual-ism, each stage moved further away from the roots of realism and illusion and depth in painting towards the “holy grail” of a perfectly flat art, the kind that could exist on a piece of paper, like a typed word… a painted word.

The “joke”, that “thing” that the in crowd “got” about modern art, had nothing to do with how it looked, it was completely the theory behind it. Wolfe makes the point that if MOMA were to do a retrospective on 20th century art that it would just be massive reproductions of the articles written about the paintings, with, maybe, a small thumbnail of the paintings, just to show that the theories were real, as in they did produce more then the flat words on paper part.

The pattern is that each new “wave” trashes the last wave, everyone involved working so hard to figure out the next “big thing”, who can come up with the most complex non-understandable, “thing” that nobody else can “get” so we can all feel special in that nobody gets what we’re doing because we tried so hard to make it impossible and impenetrable. It’s sad to think that so much of art can be explained by such a childish race towards expendable fashion trends.

I’m sure many of the writers of the theories and the artists of the art were genuinely engaged and cared about what they were doing… but was Pollack really that great? was there no one else? right time, right place, right stuff? Someone like Norman Rockwell, whose painting is on the cover of the book, or Andrew Wyeth, ignored by “the art world”, were they really that bad? or just not following the trends. Nothing agitates the cool kids more then someone that doesn’t care to be a part of their clique.

Towards the end of the book Wolfe makes the point that this move towards “flatness” and pure theory was also a move away from the personal, and the evocative, pop art being the most obvious example of “art” that had nothing to say about the maker or to the viewer. And I wonder… where did this terrible fear of personalized art come from? why is it so taboo to be evocative in your art? how did any level of realism become the worst mistake. Even when realism does come back, it comes back as photo-realism, bland scenes of nothing in particular created in a purely technical fashion.

Is painting a pretty vase of flowers the most radical thing possible these days? …only if you could also write several hundred books about how amazing it all was.

Art and Fear is, I think, one of the more popular and well-known art advice books, and for good reason, it is good, and it’s short. Even so I only just recently finished reading it, after having it for about 8 years. This book was recommended to me by the first art teacher I had during my undergrad experience. She was a 1 class, 1 semester, adjunct that only had a BFA herself, but because she knew the head of the sculpture dept….quite well… I liked her anyways, enjoyed the class, she gave me her number on the last day of class. I remember I asked something about her poems… and she showed up with dozens of them, that she had handwritten, just for me to keep… she also brought over a few movies, and we watched Harold and Maude… I was about 22 and didn’t “get” any of it. doh!

But anyways, I have read the book now, and I get it. Art and fear is mostly about the personal struggle you have with yourself when making art and pursuing a career in the arts. Much of this could be applied to any challenging endeavor but I do think that art making forces you to deal with yourself in a specific and personal way, a challenge that I suspect surprises and trips up many. Fact is there are not many supports for artists, it’s hard to find any one or anything that can genuinely make you feel confident that what you’re doing is worthwhile. Art in general may be one of the most extreme ways of asking for acceptance from strangers possible.

Does anyone care if you make art again? even if they do, should they? why? Does anyone really need another pretty still life? does anyone really need another avant-garde installation? These are all good questions, and they are all debilitating as well. When I first started making paintings I was terrible, and continued to be terrible for years, but at that point I really didn’t know enough to have many fears and so I just kept on keeping on and made it through those early stages, and even had a pretty good time. And right there I think is the answer to art and fear, I started because I wanted to, continued because I enjoyed it, and wasn’t worried about the outside world and it’s opinions. It could be called self-obsessed or naive, and at some point you do need to take heed of the art world, but I think that clueless beginner point of view still has the answer to the fears and still holds the power to get stuff done in the face of all the reasons not to make anything.

Lucy in the sky with flowers, Unknown 24" x 30", Oil on Canvas Acquired from trash in Boston

Yesterday I saw an article on the BBC about MOBA, the Museum of Bad Art. I’d never heard of such a thing and at first I thought it sounded kind of mean to find “bad” art and put it on display for laughs. However, I had to take a closer look, just because the images are quite striking. What’s interesting to me about these paintings is that they’re not horrible, there is evidence of some ability, and some care, yet, somehow always poorly planned and doomed to be a twisted “what the hell is that?”. If the paintings at MOBA were simply beginner works, or very badly done, it wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t be entertaining; to really be bad, it has to meet some minimum level of “good”, so that it’s open to assault.

It seems from the MOBA website that most of these paintings were found in the trash or by “anonymous”, the creators or the recipients had already decided it was “bad” and so it seem harmless to poke a little fun. I have to wonder who is in charge of deciding what is “bad enough” at the museum, and then if their personal bias and taste factors into the final decision. Is it bad enough? is it too good? is it so bad that it’s not funny?

If you spend any time around Painting I type classes you will see plenty of very odd paintings, half baked ideas executed with a little bit of ability here and a total lack of knowledge there. It sometimes amazes me how I can find paintings in a gallery that show great skill and yet completely fall down in other, perhaps, obvious ways. But this is part of the development process, and as someone who has made hundreds of paintings, and half started poorly thought out ideas hundreds of times as well, I’m sure I have some candidates for the Museum.

The best part of these images for me is that they are unique, and they throw your expectations for a loop. Like you can almost make out what the intent was… but not quite, almost makes sense but it’s still a mystery, it makes you think, and for me at least, it makes you look and those are real achievements no matter what the original intent. It’s even got me wondering if it’s possible to make bad art on purpose… something I might just have to try.

Originally published in 1973 this book might be a bit out of date, but I’ll bet that the art business world operates in much the same way today. The author takes a hard, journalistic, look at how the high end art world really works, between museum directors, dealers, collectors, and how actually, living, working, artists fit, or don’t fit into the equation.

Burnham follows the plight of the Art Workers Coalition, and focuses on the 50′s and 60′s when Art was suddenly massive big huge business and many artists were wondering what Warhol was doing that they weren’t. Burnham gives a great deal of “behind the scenes” type accounting of the socio-political workings of the system that creates financial booms like pop art and how the price of certain artists work can increase 17000% in a short 20 years.

The short of it is that the art business isn’t any different then any other business you can think of, and no more or less noble. Fact is that art is seen as a way of increasing ones prestige, after you’ve made that first billion, it’s time to start feeling like you deserve it all by buying a Matisse for 30mil. Collecting art is also a nice way to “park” a large chunk of money in a nice safe “investment”, because, of course, the value of art, only ever goes up, only up… I seem to remember hearing that… somewhere before… what was it, lollypops? higher education?

The book paints a pretty cynical view of shady dealers, tax loopholes, collectors that are merely interested in self aggrandizement, museum directors chasing fads and spending millions of public dollars on stuff the public doesn’t seem to care about. Burnham also draws the conclusion that the ultimate judges in the art world are those millionaire collectors that the dealers fawn over, the museums cater to, and will buy whatever they’ve been made to believe is “good”.

Critics are possibly even worse paid then artists and are often hired by a dealer or curator interested in promoting their own exhibit, the better the pay, the better the review. Museum boards are packed with friends of friends and uncles and sisters and gallery owners give shows to brother in laws because… well it’s pretty obvious, and wouldn’t it be much stranger to think that somehow no one knew each other in the art world? Is it really essential to be in NYC to have an art career? Or it is just more convenient to make important fuckfriends that might be useful somewhere down the road.

So what does it mean to get a good review? What does it mean for a museum to want your art? What does it mean for a collector to start buying your art? I think it means you get some money, I think that’s all it means. A point that Dunning made in Advice to Young Artists was that gallery owners are not the judges of what is “good” and what isn’t, there isn’t any test to take that qualifies you to deal art, or buy art or open a gallery. A rejection from a gallery simply means they don’t think they can sell your work, and maybe they’re right, but it doesn’t mean anything about the quality of your work.

The high end art world is one I have no direct experience with. It’s possible that things have changed since Burnham researched her book, but, people are people, business is business, and I’m not connected enough, or dead enough, for that world to care about what I’m doing, and I think we’ll get along fine with that arrangement.

The more experience I get with the “professional” business side of art the more amazing it seems to me that it works at all, or that I’ve been able to even succeed on the minor level I have to this point. No one is going to buy one of my paintings because of a review they saw in an art mag, or because a dealer is pushing my stuff, or because I’m in a famous gallery, I’m not; for the sales I do get, there’s no other conclusion then the people just really liked it, not because they were told to, or because they want a sneaky tax write off, but they actually might just like it. And given all the other reasons for art exchanging hands, I’m very happy that my sales might reasonably be attributed to an honest connection through the medium of art. 

First, this is the best Art advice book I’ve ever come across. I don’t remember now how I found it, but I picked this up quite a few years ago when I was, realatively, much “greener”. I loaned it to a friend and only just this month, after something like eight years, read it over again. For me it was very interesting to re-read and discover how much of this book I incorperated into my own point of view, and then the other parts of it that, now, make much more sense after having gained some more experience in the art world.

Dunning was an acedemic, he taught at 3 different universities, and had an MFA in both painting and sculpture from 2 different schools, he was like a super student and super teacher. Of course, he promotes the acedemic path as a result, but he doesn’t deny that art school is not for everyone, or always necessary, but he makes a strong case that it can be a huge boost for just about anyone serious about an art career.

I’m not going to be able to pack all the good advice into one blog post, and it wouldn’t work as well out of context anyways.

For me, this time around, the comments about the business side of things stood out most for me. Dunning refers to a study done on students at the Chicago Arts institute that tracked a large group of students and their success during and after graduation. Probably the most informative and possibly the most depressing bit was that of the 6 most successful in the group, all of them rented studio space in the city and threw regular, weekly, parties, and all of them reported that this was very important to their success and feared what might happen if they left or stopped participating in the political side of things.

Dunning also writes about how small the art world really is, that to “make it” a serious artist has to move to NYC, Chicago, or LA, that galleries in other cities are not capable of launching an art career. I don’t have the personal experience with these major cities, but I’ve gleaned the same principal from working around in the relatively much smaller pond I now inhabit. The “boutique” type galleries as Dunning calls them are simply not worth the effort of dragging your stuff down to them as they are not in any position to attract serious buyers and sales that can lead to regular sales.

It’s no revelation but the fact is that, just like any other business, art sales have less to do with the quality of the product then the effectiveness of the marketing. And that in the gallery system, or the acedemic world, it’s who you know, who knows you, who you haven’t pissed off yet, and so on. It’s a bleak view, but one that clears up some of the mystery around, “that guy got a show?!?”, “how can that sell for 4k???”

The book is not all gloom and has had a very positive effect on how I’ve approached my art, even years later I’m finding more good advice is Dunning’s book. 

One night a few months ago I got an email from my friend Dave Higgins about entering the Arnot Art show, the deadline was coming up and I thought, sure, why not. I picked out a couple of paintings people seemed to like from this year and paid application fee. I don’t buy lottery tickets so I had to spend that money somehow. To my surprise a month or so later I got an email of the list of pieces accepted into the show, and both of our names were on it. Dave seems to be quite good at entering and winning these shows, but for me, it was the first time I’d been accepted.

A couple days before the opening, on October 15th, neither of us had heard anything more from the Arnot, and Dave, having previous winning experience knew that they informed winners before the event, so we both assumed we hadn’t won anything and as anti-social artist types thought, let’s go late, and then leave early. ha So we got there and the awards were already being handed out, we found a place to watch from the second floor and were only there for about a minute before Dave’s name was called and he had to run back downstairs to get his award.

The awards were all handed out and we were milling around with the rest of the crowd, saying hi and so forth, when Tom Gardner got my attention from across the way and seemed to say something about me winning and giving me the thumbs up… I didn’t know what he was trying to say for sure, and I hadn’t won anything, I didn’t know what to make of it… but I was convinced enough that I thought I should go find Rick, just to be sure. And as soon as I started looking for him, he was looking for me, and sure enough my entry had won one of the first prizes that was handed out, before we had got there.

So for two guys that thought they had won nothing and showed up late, we were both surprised, and both won something. The show runs until Feb. 4th so there is plenty of time to check it out for yourself at the Arnot Art Museum.

Here are a few of the other pieces that caught my eye at the show:

A dress made out of mostly eggshells!

close up

http://jenniferhecker.net

8/31 – I’ll follow you.

9/3 – first layer

9/7 -

24×30 inch oil painting by Chad Smalt 2011

and you can follow me.

8/31 – Hi mom

9/2 – First layer.

9/6 -

9/7 -

20x24inch oil painting by Chad Smalt 2011

Thought it might be fun to do a little progression series again, and to include some close ups to, hopefully, improve the “online art viewing” experience.