Our new Digital Library

Our new Digital Library, as presented in Sketches, is a series of doors, which is a useful

metaphor. Doors are about the wanderings of our individual artistic journeys, our progression

into the world of fine art. What exactly is fine art? Wikipedia offers an historic explanation at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_art, and for the modern world it is about personal

expression. What names should we put on these doors? Of course we want doors that lead to

discussion and guidance on painting in oil, acrylic, encaustic, watercolor and ink. A video of

our upcoming March demo will even make you wonder if a new door might be about the

imaginative use of discarded linoleum. Our artistic experience has sent – or will send – many of

us though doors like these into the expressive worlds of dance, poetry, sculpture, writing and

music.

Our pragmatic needs say there should also be doors about the effective use of abstraction, alla

prima, plein air and marketing. How about a door about sharing of our artistic excitement?

That door should be labeled “art league involvement.”

Jeff Harold has initially offered these descriptions:

• Door One so far has eight YouTube videos about oil painting, more than five

hours of video which include painting techniques of Carvaggio, DaVinci, and

the Flemish artists.

• Door Two has a video on essential watercolor skills and another on intuitive watercolor,

which lets the paint take you on a tour.

• Door Three gives you seven Artists Documentaries and art related video shows.

• Door Four has a virtual tour of the Barnes Foundation Collection and four Barnes

Takeout art talks.

• Door Five has an art website to explore.

• Door Six is art related Netflix shows.

• Door Seven has Hulu art shows, and might include Amazon Prime art videos.

It’s up to our members to recommend more videos and suggest names for these and more doors.

Send them to Val Brandner at sketchit@yahoo.com. Much of our future Member News will be

about where our members see this Digital Library growing.

What’s in your artistic journey?

Message from the President: 

Finally, the answer – What is Art?

It’s the start of a new year and what better way for an artist to start it then to have a definite

definition of what art is or isn’t.

First, what started all the hubbub in the first place. Going to the great Internet to find a definition of

art resulted in the following definition: art is the expression or application of human creative skill

and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be

appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. QED (that’s math for end of proof), sort

of. This narrows it down to your basic mediums like oil, watercolor, acrylic, sculpture, etc. But if

this is the case, how did we end up with a banana duct taped to a gallery wall being declared art and

selling for $120,00 with a “third edition” expected to sell for $150,00?

Let’s go back to 1917 and Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp was on the board of the Society of Independent Artists. The story goes that the Society sponsored an exhibit that was not juried and had promised that every work submitted by its members would be displayed. Why Duchamp submitted a urinal from the

J. L. Mott Iron Works has several theories. One goes that he did it as a practical joke. Another one suggests that he was encouraged by a lady friend. He did submit the piece, but under the name of “R. Mutt”. The rest of the board refused to show this “artwork”, not knowing the true name of the artist. This caused a stir in the art community and eventually leading to the idea of “concept as art” or “conceptual art” being a legitimate artform.

This led to other “conceptual” pieces such as “Vertical Earth Kilometer” by Walter de Maria. With

the help of an industrial drill, de Maria dug a narrow hole in the ground exactly one kilometer deep,

inserted a two-inch diameter brass rod of the same length, then concealed it with a sandstone plate.

A small hole was cut in the plate's center to reveal a small portion of the rod, which is perfectly

level with the ground. The result is a permanent work of art that people are forced to imagine but

may never actually see. (By the way, this piece is still available if you want to buy some conceptual

art. You’ll have to pay the moving costs.)

And then we have the banana and duct tape. Back to the Internet dictionary where we find the

definition of conceptual art: art in which the idea or concept presented by the artist is considered

more important than its appearance or execution. In other words, anyone can call anything “art”. I

got out of bed this morning; anyone want to buy that for $100,000 (I’ll throw in my PJ’s as a

bonus)?

So, I lied. I don’t have the answer to what is or isn’t art. But I have to say that asking if something

is art seems every bit as useful as asking how many fairies can you fit on the head of a pin.

Enjoy the new year, and if anyone asks you what is or isn’t art, you can safely give them a knowing

smirk, blink of the eye, and say “I could tell you but then, being an artist, I’d have to conceptually

kill you”.

Jeff Harold