I started a daily blog some time ago.  I was posting it on my Blogger site and then would copy that and paste it here.

Doing both!  A lot of work.

If you are reading this, please instead go to my Blogger site.

Click here to be transported directly.

I will still be sure to count the comments made here for the painting contest, which has been extended.

Thanks and sorry for any trouble.

~Alex

My husband and I just purchased an artwork this last weekend that we liked – and we love that we know the artist.  However – we (as in I) aren’t wild about the frame around it.  Mark’s response to me saying that we would need to get a different frame was “But that would make it different from what the artist wanted it to be.”

Hmmm.  I don’t know how much I agree with that.  If someone took one of my sculptures and put it on a different base I would have zero problem with that. 

When it comes to basing my work – it is thought out, sure.  But my intent is to try to make it as undistracting (new word) from the sculpture as possible. 

But once someone owns one of my sculptures if they have another thought that, to them, might improve the piece in the context of it’s new setting, it certainly doesn’t affect the value of the sculpture itself to change that aspect of it…as the base (in the case of my sculpture anyway) is not part of the composition of the piece.

But what if a frame on a painting is distracting and not complimentary to the piece?  (IMHO of course).  Check out this frame around this painting of a monkey.  (No, this is not what we bought last weekend and this is not a piece of art we own).

Artists?  If someone buys one of your framed paintings and wants a different frame or re-frames it themselves, how to you feel about that?

I have been reading a digital copy of Birge Harrison’s book “Landscape Painting” (a wonderful little book by the way) and in it he has a section “On Framing Pictures” and I thought I would share an excerpt from that chapter today.

“…And I re-discovered that fact, which the old masters had discovered so many centuries ago, that there was no material in the whole range of nature so admirably fitted for the surface of a frame as gold or metal leaf.  Next to the mirror, it presents the most elusive of all surfaces.  Semi-reflecting, semi-solid, it is just the thing that fills all the requirements…in a study of the best forms and the best tones of metal leaf to be employed…it soon became apparent that the law of complementaries reigned supreme.  A picture whose dominant note was pink demanded a greenish gold frame, a blue picture called for a tone of pure yellow or orange gold, while a picture whose dominant tone was golden yellow could only be well clothed in silver.  Fortunately, the dominant note of most landscapes is found in the blue or blue-gray sky, and thus the pure gold frame is its ideal casing.”

He goes on to say that generally complex and complicated pictures benefit from a more simply styled frame while a simple picture “…built up with a few broad and powerful masses, will frequently appear best in a rich and ornamental frame.”

But rich and ornamental he cautions, should not be too over the top…

 (I’m paraphrasing of course since the book was published in 1910 and “over the top” probably was not a figure of speech back then).  He maybe had something like the frame above in mind…which is for a mirror..  Seems like the most ornate frames I have ever seen were for mirrors, come to think of it.

Oh gosh.  Here’s a deep thought.  Is the reflection of reality so uninteresting that framing it as fancy as possible is necessary?

I would love to hear from other artists how you frame your work.  Do you make your own frames or do you have a supplier?  If you make your own, how did you learn? and do you have any instruction out on the web that we can check out?  And if you have a supplier, who is it?

Hello art collectors!  What are your frame preferences?

That’s all I have for today. 
Thanks for reading.

I’m off to continue do my best to create a beautiful day.
…and I hope you create – in your own beautiful way –
 your own beautiful day.  🙂
 
~Alex

Every day that I sculpt I have accidents that happen.  Occasionally a sculpture will leap off my worktable and break into several pieces and – since I’m working with clay that is made out of paper and dries in the air – things happen to the sculpture all during the creating process.   For instance, once the sculpture is started and I add clay to a certain area, that new wet clay is placed onto the existing dry clay and while it is drying,  moves portions of the sculpture around.

When I first started working with this material, I tried to correct these “accidental” rearrangements of my sculpture but now I will consider these accidents to see if they actually help the design or make it unique in some way.  I have decided that the accidents are sometimes a form of unique guidance and serendipity and welcome many of those accidents as part of my creative process.

Many artists today and throughout history knew accidents were often a good component in helping them create their works.  Of course some accidents will just feel like a catastrophe!

What do you think?  Do you believe that art doesn’t “just happen” because of perfect planning and perfect control – it also happens by seemingly random accidents sprinkled in?

Check out the quotes below (thanks to art-quotes.com) from artists regarding accidents in their work.  Which is your favorite?

It’s time for me to get to work.  I hope your (and my) art accidents are all good ones today.

~Alex

All painting is an accident. But it’s also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve. (Francis Bacon)

It’s the nasty and the accident that form the foundation for elegance that comes later. (Nick Bantock)

In art, there is one thing which does not receive sufficient attention. The element which is left to the human will is not nearly so large as people think. (Charles Baudelaire)

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don’t really know what we’re doing and when we do, it doesn’t seem to help. (Bono)

Oops! I wonder how that blob of paint turned up in the sky? – that must be how many a bird ‘happened’ in a landscape and how extra leaves were added to overhanging branches. (Jeane Duffey)

Accident is veiled necessity. (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)

Accident is design / And design is accident / In a cloud of unknowing. (T. S. Eliot)

There are many accidents that are nothing but accidents – and forget it. But there are some that were brought about only because you are the person you are… you have the wherewithal, intelligence, and energy to recognize it and do something with it. (Helen Frankenthaler)

We try not to have ideas, preferring accidents. To create, you must empty yourself of every thought. (Gilbert George)

It may have been accidental but you knew enough to let this alone. The intelligent painter is always making use of accidents. (Charles Hawthorne)

The most persistent principles in the universe are accident and error. (Frank Herbert)

I have meant what I have done. Or – I have often meant what I have done. Or – I have sometimes meant what I have done. Or – I have tried to mean what I was doing. (Jasper Johns)

A creative train of thought is set off by: the unexpected, the unknown, the accidental, the disorderly, the absurd, the impossible. (Asger Jorn)

We never learned how to solve problems, create effects, get concrete results. So we hope for, and rely on fortuitous accidents. What we do by accident we call ‘creative.’ (Brian Knowles)

You need accidents, otherwise it is fake. (Sotirios Kotoulas)

Experiment by applying a few strokes suggesting the subject and see what happens… develop the piece from interesting accidents. (Jean-Francis Le Saint)

It was accidental before but now it’s become my method. (Hui Lin Liu)

At first laying down, as a fact fundamental, / That nothing with God can be accidental. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

I throw down the gauntlet to chance. For example, I prepare the ground for a picture by cleaning my brush over the canvas. Spilling a little turpentine can also be helpful. (Joan Miro)

Surprises are the joy of living. Surprises directly touch the soul. Good surprises energize and bad surprises teach. (Alev Oguz)

Accidents, try to change them – it’s impossible. The accidental reveals man. (Pablo Picasso)

When a person is prepared to receive something, a series of accidents takes place. (Irving Sandler)

Every brushstroke has a certain tension, a certain nervousness. Every brushstroke is, in a sense, some kind of accident. (Raphael Soyer)

As soon as you accept the accidental effects, they are no longer accidents. They are necessity – the part of yourself that you could not expect or design beforehand. Thus the realm of your creativity grows wider. (Kazuaki Tanahashi)

The unforseen event, the ‘accident,’ the unexpected all play a very large part in my creative play. I prefer to let the materials suggest the direction of a work. (Burnell Yow!)

10 Paradoxical Traits Of Creative People

Creative people are humble and proud. Creative people tend to be both extroverted and introverted. Creative people are rebellious and conservative. How creative are you?

 The Oglala Lakota tribe has many stories about the wind and this one is my favorite.  Wind is an almost constant companion out here on the Colorado prairie and it can change directions many times in one day – causing clouds and weather to circle us much of the time so that no rain or snow will fall.  We can see it happening from a distance all around us and feel the wind in a big way – but sometimes wind is the only thing that happens.  Seeing the rain and clouds and rainbows that form around us because the wind can’t seem to decide on one way to blow for long – is one of the most beautiful things about where we live.  The Lakota Winds series is meant to commemorate that aspect of our environment.  It is a beautiful way of explaining why there are the seasons of the year and the cycles of the warming, flowering and freezing of the earth.

Before the creation of the world the South wind (Okaga), the North wind (Yata), the West wind (Eya), and the East wind (Yanpa) dwelt together in the far north in the land of the ghosts.  They were brothers.  The North wind, the oldest, was always cold and stern.  The West wind, next to the oldest, was always strong and noisy.  The East wind, the third, was always cross and disagreeable.  The South wind, the next to the youngest, was always pleasant.  With them dwelt a little brother, the whirlwind, (Yumni) who was always full of fun and frolic.

The North wind was a great hunter and delighted in killing things.  The South wind took pleasure in making things.  The West wind was a helper of his brother, the South wind, and sometimes he helped his brother, the North wind.  The East wind was lazy and good for nothing.  The little whirlwind never had anything to do, so he played all the time and danced and made sport for his brothers.

After a long time, a beautiful being fell from the stars.  Her hair was like the light and her dress was red and green and white and blue, and all the colors, and she had decorations and ornaments of all colors.  As she was falling, she met the five brothers and begged them to give her some place to rest.  They took pity on her and invited her into their tipi.  When she came in the tipi, everything was bright and pleasant and all were happy, so all the four brothers wanted to marry her.  Each asked her to be his woman.

She told them that she was please with their tipi and would be the woman of the one who did that which pleased her the most.  So the North wind went hunting and brought her his game; but everything he brought turned to ice as soon as he laid it before her, and the tipi was dark and cold and dreary.

Then the West wind brought his drum and sang and danced before her, but he made so much noise and disturbed things so much that the tipi fell down and she had hard work to raise it again.

Then the East wind sat down by her and talked to her so foolishly that she felt like crying.

Then the South wind made beautiful things for her.  She was happy and the tipi was warm and bright.  She said that she would be the South wind’s woman.  This made the North wind very angry for he claimed that it was his right as the oldest, to have the beautiful being.  But the South wind would not give her up.  The North wind and South wind quarreled all the time about her and finally the South wind told his woman that they would go away so that they might live in peace.  They started, but the North wind tried to steal her.  When she found what the North wind was trying to do, she took off her dress, spread it out, and got under it to hide.  When North wind came to the dress he thought that he had found the beautiful being and he embraced it, but everything on it grew hard and cold and icy.  He heard the South wind coming and he fled to his tipi.  The South wind found only a cold hard thing like his woman’s dress but he could not find the woman so he went back to look for her.  When he had gone, the North wind came again and said to the woman, “I know you are under this dress and I am coming there also.”  So he went to the edge of the dress, but the woman spread it out farther that way.  Then he went to the edge at another place and she spread that side out.  He kept going from place to place and she kept spreading her dress wider and wider until it became so wide that there was no end or side left.

Then he heard the South wind coming again and he ran to his tipi.  When the South wind came again he examined the dress and found that it was truly his woman’s dress and then he knew that the North wind had embraced it.  He called loudly for his woman and she answered that she was under the dress and then he knew that the North wind had embraced it.  He called again for his woman and she answered him that she was under the dress, but that she had stretched it so wide to keep away from the North wind, that there was neither a side or an end to it, so she could not get out from under it.  Then the South wind followed on the trail of the North wind until he came to the tipi where he found him boasting to the other brothers of what he had done.

The South wind went in and reproached his brother.  They quarreled and finally fought and the North wind was about to conquer when the West wind rushed in to help the South wind and they conquered the North wind.  They could not kill him so they bound his feet and hands and left him in the tipi.  The other brothers all sided with the South wind and determined to live no longer with the North wind.  So the West wind went to live where the sun sets, the East wind where the sun rises, the South wind went opposite the tipi of the North wind far as he could go.

The little whirlwind was too small to have a tipi of his own, so he lived with the South wind the most of the time, but part of the time he was to live with the West wind.  The East wind was so lazy and disagreeable that he would not even visit him.

When they were leaving the North wind, he defied them all and told them that he would forever combat them, that he would break his bonds and go on the warpath against each of them.  He said to the South wind, “I know where your woman is.  I know what covers her and hides her.  When I loosen by bonds I will go and try to get her.  I have destroyed the beauty of her dress.  If I do not get her I will again destroy its beauty.  I will fight you forever for her.”

The south wind came again to his woman’s frozen dress.  He called her and she answered, but she could not come from under it, neither cold he go below it for it was spread so wide that there was no end to it.  He journeyed to his brothers’ tipi.  They came and helped him; they warmed the dress, but it was still ugly and like a dead thing.  When his woman found that he was warming her dress, she thrust bright ornaments through it and it was again beautiful with green and red and blue and all colors.

So the three brothers, the South wind, the West wind, and the East wind continued to warm the dress, but the East wind was so lazy that he only worked occasionally in the evening.  Little Whirlwind was too small to do much work but he danced about over the dress and threw things in the air and tried to keep the South wind from grieving over his loss.  The South wind grew weary with grief and work and went to his tipi to sleep and left only the West wind to guard the dress.

Then the North wind freed himself and came.  He and the West wind fought furiously and the North wind was about to conquer and had destroyed all the ornaments on the dress and made it hard and cold.  When the North wind came, little Whirlwind sled to South wind’s tipi to tell him.  He found South wind asleep and could not wake him.  He tried and tried again and again, but could not wake him, so he ran all the way to the tipi of East wind who was sitting looking on at the fight between his brothers, intending to take sides with the one who won.  Little Whirlwind persuaded East wind to go with him and wake South wind.

When South wind was told what had happened he came in a great rage to the help of his brother, the West wind.  They fought all over the dress and finally North wind was driven back to his tipi, but he would slip away at night and embrace the dress and make it hard and cold until he was bound again.  Then the South wind and West wind had to warm the dress again and the woman under the dress had to push the ornaments through it again.  Thus began the warfare between the brothers which continues to the present time.

The boring stuff:

The material I use to sculpt with is made by Padico in Japan and there is only one distributor of it in the US.  It is typically sold in craft stores – although we purchase it in bulk directly from the supplier.  It is made from paper pulp, talc, water, and some binders and whatever else it is – is a mystery- the formula for it is proprietary.

Most sculptors sculpt with chavant like clays – the kind that never dries.  When I started sculpting I used the same.  I hated it.  Sculpting something that is permanently attached by a pipe to a board is frustrating to me, partly because of my eyesight, partly because of my temperament.

The material I use has it’s own unique characteristics and challenges but sculpting with it adds a unique element that makes the sculpture I do look different in bronze than all the sculpture originally made with non-drying clay.   It has a bit of a life and will of it’s own.

I am very nearsighted so I wear glasses or contacts to correct that.  For me it is a very good thing though – for sculpting – because it means that (even though I am of an age where most people need reading glasses to see close up) my close up vision is really really clear at about 9″ from my face.

If a sculpture is attached to a board I cannot see parts of it well.  So I have to be able to hold a sculpture in my hands for most of the time to work on it – this cannot be done with non-hardening clay – as I would just end up burying my fingers in the very thing I am trying to create.

Non-hardening clay is also very heavy and the paper clay I use is extremely light so the long legs of the horses are not too weighed down by their bodies.

The esoteric stuff:

The reason many sculptures are being done at one time is because rather than image just one horse, I imagine them in groups.  I saw the house horse series (look, relax, itchy, leap, watch, and step high) all in one day and made their wire armature forms that same day before I could forget how they were to be.

They were imagined in 2010 and the last one has just been finished.  It seems to take FOREVER to make them this way.  I know galleries enjoy prolific artists – I guess I would not be that – but consider that “prolific” and the annihilation of creativity very often walk together.

I work on them until they are how they are supposed to be and that can take time, most certainly takes inspiration and an uncluttered undistracted mind.  For example, I can re-carve a face 3 or 4 times until I know that is the face that sculpture is supposed to have.

I once was very determined to be a rich and famous artist.  But I have been learning that’s just common ego – doesn’t most everyone in their head think that being a rich and famous this or that is what they must be to be seen and respected in the world as “somebody”?

But polluting what happens in the only time I know I have because I am “working” to get to a place that may never be – also gets in the way of creativity (and happiness)…and is something that could cause the work of any creative endeavor to become stagnant, uninspired, and derivative.

I am asked what is the style of my sculpture.  I respond with – what do you see?  Do you see an “-ism” there?  Impression-ism?  Expression-ism? a school of this or that?  Art is it’s own language;  to describe art with another, different language – is an act of reductionism.  Translate a Haiku written in Japanese into English and you invalidate its beauty.

There is freedom that comes with the belief that the sculpture I create does not belong to me – that it belongs to the world.  I believe all art that is made public belongs to the world and is meant to enhance everyone’s experience of being…here.   That means the world will decide what happens to it until the day it becomes a part of the history of art…long after I am gone.

I consider what I create to be a collaboration and that is the reason why I will occasionally ask collectors, gallery owners, and consider unsolicited comments about my sculpture.  It isn’t that I am insecure that what I have created is good bad or uninteresting.  I only saw what I saw – and made it and there it is.  Where did it really come from?  The absolute truth of that cannot be known.  But maybe I can get closer to it if  I consider and leave myself open to other relative ideas and possibilities…

(this is a reprint of a post I made on my wordpress.com blog site on March 11th, 2013)

“Step High!” just got cast and colored with her patina – and she came out gorgeous!

Step High!  She is the last horse of the first series.  I got the idea for the patina colors when Mark and I were driving to Ketchum last November on the way to see one of our (grown up) children for Thanksgiving.  We were driving by a part of Idaho were there are old lava fields and there was a plant growing in there that looked like it might have been a sage but had branches the color of dogwood branches – sort of a reddish purple eggplant kind of color and then the sage green of the leaves above – so there was this striking color combination of the black lava dirt the purpley red color and the sage green and I thought – I wonder if my patineur could do that maybe with some black veining running through it.  I know I freak her out every time I tell her what I want a patina to be – but she always tries to give me what I have in my head (no easy task) and does just a wonderful job!  Next Step High! will get a nice black marble base and then she will be ready to be previewed for the very first time at Rogoway Turquoise Tortoise Gallery for the art show on the 20th of April!

(this post is a re-print of a post made on my wordpress.com blog on March 6th, 2013)

What could be better than investing in art and receiving a tax deduction in the bargain?  Icing on the cake!  Right now my sculpture is at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum.  Founded in 1978, the museum is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to educating the community about the history and culture of Cheyenne Frontier Days from the event’s earliest inspiration to its present celebration.

On April 20th will be a fantastic show featuring a fantastic book just being released titled “Horse Sanctuary” a book by journalist Allison Milionis profiling thirteen sanctuaries that rescue and care for abandoned or mistreated equines, and in some cases, rehabilitate them for adoption or new careers.  There is a forward in the book written by Temple Grandin and the beautiful photography is by Karen Tweedy-Homes who will be at the show with me to sign the book and offer her framed and unframed photography to the lucky people who can come to the gallery on this day!  Mark and I will be there – of course, and all of my sculpture will be there available to you for the opportunity to, not only invest in some beautiful artwork and receive tax benefits, but help an organization that does such wonderful work on behalf of abused and neglected equines.  A portion of both my art and Karen’s will be donated to Equine Voices.