Monday, November 25, 2013
Cold and Rainy
Today is a great day to be inside and that is exactly where I've been doing all day. I'm not a fan of dark and cloudy days, but they do serve a purpose for me. Those days allow me to appreciate the beautiful bright sunny days even more.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Will Brooks Art Survey
If you have read my blog entries: "Why I Want to Create My Own Art Universe Parts.1&2," it's clear that I'm ready to branch out and explore other opportunities for people to be able to enjoy and collect my art. However, I need your help. I need to know how a sampling of the general public views art. If you would liked to help me out, please go to the link and complete the quick 14 question survey. It is completely anonymous, so please give as much feedback as you would like at the end of the survey. Thank you in advance for your participation.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Why I Want to Create My Own Art Universe Part II
Another reason I want to create my own Art Universe is to make original, personal, and authentic art more accessible to a wider audience. Real art. I was busy doing research for the business side of Will Brooks Art and found myself checking out the "art" that was available from Z Gallerie. I kept scrolling through and clicking here and clicking there when I decided to investigate some of the artists they were selling. I thought that maybe they were on to something being able have their images licensed out to such a large store chain. Well, what I found was a bit shocking. MOST of the 'art' Z Gallerie is hocking is made by artists who don't even exist. Here is a list of 'artists' I'm alleging are complete fabrications created by either Z Gallerie or World Art Group( a publication company that seems to be the source of all of Z Gallerie's "art" stock:
Google any of these 'artists' and see what comes up. This is 2013. Any artist big enough to have their images licensed out to such a large chain certainly would have a website of their own wouldn't you think?
This is some of my competition- cheap, trite imagery either created on a computer by anyone or in some art sweat shop in China, India, Brazil or any other populous country with a substantial poverty problem. This is not art and it angers me that it is being sold as such. Art is more than decor. It's also more than an investment. Art is meant to enrich our lives. It should make us feel, think, and dream. Places like Z Gallerie cheapen 'art' as much as the big art fairs do.
My art is essentially the visual story of my ongoing life. It is a direct reflection of how and what I'm thinking about. It's how I study people and the world around me. It is authentic and created by a real person- me. Please keep reading and please support REAL artists.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Busy Researching for my Next Blog Post
I'm currently working on my next blog post: Why I want to create my own art universe. Part II. It will contain a very interesting exposé on the companies that hock 'art' along with decor in their stores. Check back tomorrow to read all the juicy details.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Why I Want to Create my Own Art Universe Part I
I have been trying to come up with a 'manifesto' of sorts to describe my distaste for the Art Machine and culture then decided I needed to revisit the past a little to provide some insight and context for my opinions on art.
Then I started thinking back to my Art School days. Some of my least favorite times were having to get up in front of everyone to defend my work. I always found that to be a strange practice. The student has to get up and first explain the How, Why, and (sometimes)What. That was the easy part. Then came the Q&A and verbal dismantling of the student's work by fellow classmates and the Professor. Everyone talked about their work using $5 dollar words or phrases that none of us EVER used outside the art critique. I never understood the reasoning for critiquing work that did not have a clear objective such as accurately representing with paint on canvas a bowl of fruit on a table. Professors and students would regularly offer up what they'd had done differently TO MY PAINTING. I took 95% of all that wasted time and conversation with a grain of salt because I knew I was on to something. I was finding my artistic aesthetic and I was defining what art meant for me.
Needless to say, I did not agree with the trajectory that Art School was trying to force me into. Here's the basic pattern that has been repeating probably since the 1940's. You go to Art School and get your B.A. or in my case B.F.A. then you are expected to 'go out and live in the world' to gain more life experience in order to GO BACK to school for a Masters. For those of you who do not know how this system works, a Masters program is essentially a scam to squeeze more money out of a student and set them up to become just one more artist ensnared in the Art School-Gallery-Museum system. To get a Masters, you simply do the exact same work you would be doing outside of the school walls except you get to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the opinions of the Professors of whatever school you attend. A Masters candidate only has two choices(unless gaining a Masters is just for pleasure or self-satisfaction): 1. Graduate and hunt for low level assistantship jobs etc. in a highly saturated market full of other Masters graduates. OR 2. Work a conventional job doing whatever while constantly requesting galleries to review your portfolio. Both routes rarely provide success or satisfaction for the artist. Nothing about Art School focused or encouraged the notion that an artist COULD actually want to be an artist. It's quite a closed system. Two ironies of the art world: 1. Success is seen as selling-out. 2. A 'self-taught' artist is more highly prized in this pretentious world than a trained and skilled artist.
Let me make one thing very clear. EVERY true visual artist is self-taught. I've put crayon/pencil to paper for as far back in my life that I can remember. As I got older, I took the art classes that public education provided. I watched various painting/drawing shows on PBS- some designed for children and some designed for adults. I watched both. My High School art teacher, Mr. Ronald Nugent or "Nooge" as we sometimes playfully addressed him was my first art hero. It seemed he could represent anything on paper realistically with speed and precision. I admired and was envious of his talent. At that time in my life, making art meant drawing, or painting(I was really into watercolor and ink) a subject(s) as realistically as possible. My parents always encouraged me by buying me "How to draw whatever" books, buying me paint and canvas when it was possible and constantly made me feel that being an artist was just as legitimate as any other "I want to be a ____" dream.
Everything changed after I completed my basic drawing and painting classes in college. I was told that representational artwork was passé and unintelligent. To my professors, Abstract Expressionism seemed to be the be all and end all of art. Abstraction obviously meant you were more intelligent because all of these artists we studied wrote pages and pages in defense of their art. My immediate thought was that this was too heady and basically just B.S. After taking two Art History courses from one of the most thorough teachers I've ever had, I gained the ability to appreciate more art than before. Exposure is everything in education. I kept painting away trying to find my voice. Along the way, I discovered I did not like Brown. Brown is not a color- it's a mixture. It's also not neutral. Browns are made by mixing complimentary colors together in various proportions to get the variety of Browns that are available. I also discovered I didn't like 'mark making'- just stabbing at paper or canvas with nonsensical "energetic' lines. I found I appreciated color and shape over everything else. Then I discovered Matisse the second time. The first time I was introduced to Matisse was through learning about his fauvist paintings. I was never a fan. I found them to be poorly executed and too busy. Then... I discovered his cut paper. My imagination went wild. The Blue Nudes became the starting point of what would become my current style. There was still something important to me that was missing. The story.
This is my most basic process when I create my art: Most of my work typically starts from photographs- nearly all of which I take myself. Then I spend some time thinking about how I felt when I took that picture, or what was happening when the picture was taken. I think about what could have been going on in the mind of the person(if figurative) or the state of mind of the other animals I paint. Then I start laying out the image on paper in my sketchbook. I try a few things. I play with placement, cropping, and I love the horizontal format. I think it gives my work a cinematic quality. My goal and challenge to myself is to reduce and edit the image down to what I decide is the minimum required to get my point across. My hope is that the initial image is "Wow" enough visually to catch attention. Then, the story is given in the title in the form of 'Western Haiku'. Again, it's about reducing to the essentials. Sometimes the narrative and/or piece is personal. Other times the titles come straight from my imagination. After people read my titles, my hope is that they hang out for a bit and ponder. Maybe the imagery reminds them of something in their lives. Maybe they can relate a piece to something in their lives that makes them happy.
I'm not trying to explain the universe in my art. I'm not trying to be political in my art or make some sort of great philosophical statement. My goal is to create something of beauty that clearly communicates the message. My hope is that in the process, my art is a positive addition to people's lives. I want my art to contribute to happiness, lightness, and sometimes laughter. Ultimately, Visual Art is just that- visual. It shouldn't require pages and pages of mental masturbatory word vomit to communicate a point that was SUPPOSED to have been communicated VISUALLY from the start. People are going to like what they see or not. No amount of B.S. explanation can circumvent personal taste. My struggle is how to survive and thrive in a society that already places little value on art while doing so independently outside of the Art Machine. This will be a big part of my story. Keep reading and I will keep writing.
Then I started thinking back to my Art School days. Some of my least favorite times were having to get up in front of everyone to defend my work. I always found that to be a strange practice. The student has to get up and first explain the How, Why, and (sometimes)What. That was the easy part. Then came the Q&A and verbal dismantling of the student's work by fellow classmates and the Professor. Everyone talked about their work using $5 dollar words or phrases that none of us EVER used outside the art critique. I never understood the reasoning for critiquing work that did not have a clear objective such as accurately representing with paint on canvas a bowl of fruit on a table. Professors and students would regularly offer up what they'd had done differently TO MY PAINTING. I took 95% of all that wasted time and conversation with a grain of salt because I knew I was on to something. I was finding my artistic aesthetic and I was defining what art meant for me.
Needless to say, I did not agree with the trajectory that Art School was trying to force me into. Here's the basic pattern that has been repeating probably since the 1940's. You go to Art School and get your B.A. or in my case B.F.A. then you are expected to 'go out and live in the world' to gain more life experience in order to GO BACK to school for a Masters. For those of you who do not know how this system works, a Masters program is essentially a scam to squeeze more money out of a student and set them up to become just one more artist ensnared in the Art School-Gallery-Museum system. To get a Masters, you simply do the exact same work you would be doing outside of the school walls except you get to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the opinions of the Professors of whatever school you attend. A Masters candidate only has two choices(unless gaining a Masters is just for pleasure or self-satisfaction): 1. Graduate and hunt for low level assistantship jobs etc. in a highly saturated market full of other Masters graduates. OR 2. Work a conventional job doing whatever while constantly requesting galleries to review your portfolio. Both routes rarely provide success or satisfaction for the artist. Nothing about Art School focused or encouraged the notion that an artist COULD actually want to be an artist. It's quite a closed system. Two ironies of the art world: 1. Success is seen as selling-out. 2. A 'self-taught' artist is more highly prized in this pretentious world than a trained and skilled artist.
Let me make one thing very clear. EVERY true visual artist is self-taught. I've put crayon/pencil to paper for as far back in my life that I can remember. As I got older, I took the art classes that public education provided. I watched various painting/drawing shows on PBS- some designed for children and some designed for adults. I watched both. My High School art teacher, Mr. Ronald Nugent or "Nooge" as we sometimes playfully addressed him was my first art hero. It seemed he could represent anything on paper realistically with speed and precision. I admired and was envious of his talent. At that time in my life, making art meant drawing, or painting(I was really into watercolor and ink) a subject(s) as realistically as possible. My parents always encouraged me by buying me "How to draw whatever" books, buying me paint and canvas when it was possible and constantly made me feel that being an artist was just as legitimate as any other "I want to be a ____" dream.
Everything changed after I completed my basic drawing and painting classes in college. I was told that representational artwork was passé and unintelligent. To my professors, Abstract Expressionism seemed to be the be all and end all of art. Abstraction obviously meant you were more intelligent because all of these artists we studied wrote pages and pages in defense of their art. My immediate thought was that this was too heady and basically just B.S. After taking two Art History courses from one of the most thorough teachers I've ever had, I gained the ability to appreciate more art than before. Exposure is everything in education. I kept painting away trying to find my voice. Along the way, I discovered I did not like Brown. Brown is not a color- it's a mixture. It's also not neutral. Browns are made by mixing complimentary colors together in various proportions to get the variety of Browns that are available. I also discovered I didn't like 'mark making'- just stabbing at paper or canvas with nonsensical "energetic' lines. I found I appreciated color and shape over everything else. Then I discovered Matisse the second time. The first time I was introduced to Matisse was through learning about his fauvist paintings. I was never a fan. I found them to be poorly executed and too busy. Then... I discovered his cut paper. My imagination went wild. The Blue Nudes became the starting point of what would become my current style. There was still something important to me that was missing. The story.
This is my most basic process when I create my art: Most of my work typically starts from photographs- nearly all of which I take myself. Then I spend some time thinking about how I felt when I took that picture, or what was happening when the picture was taken. I think about what could have been going on in the mind of the person(if figurative) or the state of mind of the other animals I paint. Then I start laying out the image on paper in my sketchbook. I try a few things. I play with placement, cropping, and I love the horizontal format. I think it gives my work a cinematic quality. My goal and challenge to myself is to reduce and edit the image down to what I decide is the minimum required to get my point across. My hope is that the initial image is "Wow" enough visually to catch attention. Then, the story is given in the title in the form of 'Western Haiku'. Again, it's about reducing to the essentials. Sometimes the narrative and/or piece is personal. Other times the titles come straight from my imagination. After people read my titles, my hope is that they hang out for a bit and ponder. Maybe the imagery reminds them of something in their lives. Maybe they can relate a piece to something in their lives that makes them happy.
I'm not trying to explain the universe in my art. I'm not trying to be political in my art or make some sort of great philosophical statement. My goal is to create something of beauty that clearly communicates the message. My hope is that in the process, my art is a positive addition to people's lives. I want my art to contribute to happiness, lightness, and sometimes laughter. Ultimately, Visual Art is just that- visual. It shouldn't require pages and pages of mental masturbatory word vomit to communicate a point that was SUPPOSED to have been communicated VISUALLY from the start. People are going to like what they see or not. No amount of B.S. explanation can circumvent personal taste. My struggle is how to survive and thrive in a society that already places little value on art while doing so independently outside of the Art Machine. This will be a big part of my story. Keep reading and I will keep writing.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Let's talk about Kitsch.
Historically, I've thought of macrame owls, or decoupage as Kitsch. Odd Nerdrum declared himself a Kitsch painter and not an artist. He doesn't see it in opposition to 'art', just a different system. He basically describes 'art' as a heady system that doesn't take into account the human condition. In a way, I agree. "Art" has become largely inaccessible to the majority of the public. One reason is that they can not relate. People like to relate. I guess according to Odd Nerdrum my work could be included in the 'Kitsch Movement'. I strive for an emotional response from viewers, and many of my pieces are figurative. I have had a very strong interest in the Human Condition most of life. I study people. I listen. I try to learn and understand. This is one of my motivators for making art. However, my art is above Kitsch. My art may be often light, bright, and sometimes humorous, but it is also more than just wall decoration. What are your thoughts on the Kitsch Movement or art in general?
Dawn of the Kitsch Movement
Dawn of the Kitsch Movement
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
"New" Old Art
Maybe some institution will produce a show of all the works in their entirety.
Art Treasure Trove
Art Treasure Trove
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Raymond Loewy's 120th Birthday
This man was a fantastic designer. He understood that the must successful visual compositions require equal parts curve and straight line. Tension makes everything interesting. Also, Deco is one of my inspirations for the art I create.
"Father of Industrial Design"
"Father of Industrial Design"
Monday, November 4, 2013
Banksy in NYC
To Banksy or not to Banksy?
Banksy is an artist art critics love to hate on, but why? Is it the simplicity in which his message gets across? Is it his success? I think he's clever. What do you think?
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