Off Line

[PKR]

PTP,

I know many serious artists who remain under the radar. To me not only is it a badge of honor, but also a virtue.

Fame and wealth is not the goal for many, nor is it a judge of talent.

Cal

You only need to look to painters who's talent was discovered after their death for proof.

The psychological makeup of many highly talented people requires a second participant to bring "public success", Lee Krasner & Jackson Pollock for instance.

 

[ForestCap]

Sadly I'm always online.

 

[Calzone]

You only need to look to painters who's talent was discovered after their death for proof.

The psychological makeup of many highly talented people requires a second participant to bring "public success", Lee Krasner & Jackson Pollock for instance.

PKR,

Back before WWII there was this painter Van Me-GAR-ann who was mighty discouraged. The critics wrote him off as being untalented. Van-Me-GAR-ann decided he would exploit some art history and started to paint forgeries of the flemesh painter Vermeer's work. He was rather clever in acquiring vintage canvas, stripping off the old paint, and in baking forged paintings he created in an oven to age the oil paints.

So he released some of these "discovered" Vermeers and became the "darling" art dealer by the very same critics that previously had cruxified him and said that he had no talent.

So WWII breaks out and he is selling forgeries of Vermeer to the Nazi's, and after WWII he is tried and convicted for being a traitor because "he conspired with the enemy."

So to defend himself he reveals the truth that he created all these forgeries, but the critics say that this body of work is Vermeer's best work and reiterate that he is an awful painter and not capable of such mastery.

So in prison he paints a forgery to prove his innocence of being a traitor, and he was eventually released.

*****************

A few years ago a documentary film was made called "Twenty Feet From Stardom." It told the story of the back-up singers. In the song "Gimme Shelter" from the Rolling Stones the words "Rape" "Murder" "Is-Just-A-Shout-A-Way" is what sets the hook of the song that makes it iconic. Remove that part of the song and it likely would have been a dud.

Pretty much the unsung hero's: not everyone gets the opportunity to be a "Rock-Star." Some people do art because it is in there blood, for some it is their life, not everybody can be like a "Rock-Star." Many are excluded.

The art world, the music industry, and the literary world are all gated communities.

BTW "Twenty Feet From Stardom" received an Oscar for best documentary.

Cal

 

[xayraa33]

PKR,

Back before WWII there was this painter Van Me-GAR-ann who was mighty discouraged. The critics wrote him off as being untalented. Van-Me-GAR-ann decided he would exploit some art history and started to paint forgeries of the flemesh painter Vermeer's work. He was rather clever in acquiring vintage canvas, stripping off the old paint, and in baking forged paintings he created in an oven to age the oil paints.

So he released some of these "discovered" Vermeers and became the "darling" art dealer by the very same critics that previously had cruxified him and said that he had no talent.

So WWII breaks out and he is selling forgeries of Vermeer to the Nazi's, and after WWII he is tried and convicted for being a traitor because "he conspired with the enemy."

So to defend himself he reveals the truth that he created all these forgeries, but the critics say that this body of work is Vermeer's best work and reiterate that he is an awful painter and not capable of such mastery.

So in prison he paints a forgery to prove his innocence of being a traitor, and he was eventually released.

*****************

A few years ago a documentary film was made called "Twenty Feet From Stardom." It told the story of the back-up singers. In the song "Gimme Shelter" from the Rolling Stones the words "Rape" "Murder" "Is-Just-A-Shout-A-Way" is what sets the hook of the song that makes it iconic. Remove that part of the song and it likely would have been a dud.

Pretty much the unsung hero's: not everyone gets the opportunity to be a "Rock-Star." Some people do art because it is in there blood, for some it is their life, not everybody can be like a "Rock-Star." Many are excluded.

The art world, the music industry, and the literary world are all gated communities.

BTW "Twenty Feet From Stardom" received an Oscar for best documentary.

Cal

So what you are saying is what is popular in art or music or culture in general is pre-selected for you and not a natural spontaneous event based on sheer talent that makes a break through to the public by its sheer beauty and talent and cleverness.

A book by Dave McGowan I recently finished reading alludes to the groovy late 1960s California rock music scene was a totally manufactured and controlled event.

 

[Dogman]

I think what Calzone is saying--and I ask him to correct me if I'm wrong--is that there are numerous influences involved in making art (or music or culture) popular. But talent, ability and craft are not always in the top tier.

 

[CMur12]

Nothing new. You are probably too young to remember the Spiratone catalog.

I'm younger than John and I remember the Spiratone catalogue.


(By the way, like John, I use my middle name and I have the same first name he has. 😎)


- Murray

 

[PKR]

So what you are saying is what is popular in art or music or culture in general is pre-selected for you and not a natural spontaneous event based on sheer talent that makes a break through to the public by its sheer beauty and talent and cleverness.

A book by Dave McGowan I recently finished reading alludes to the groovy late 1960s California rock music scene was a totally manufactured and controlled event.

I had a graphic design client who, apparently, is/was a painter. I did work for this women over a number of years; we often traveled together on jobs. We had many conversations about art and other topics but, I had no idea she was a painter. She spent a lot of her free time at it, but never talked about it.

I found out about her painting from one of my art dealer friends. She's an instant genius success, after twenty five years at it in secret. I think, since she closed her design shop, she needed money to continue painting and found a dealer. Knowing her, it's about money to pay for her continued painting, without having to deal with corporate clients and business bs. If she was wealthy, she might have never showed her work to the public.

Think about Koudelka, not showing any of his photos to any but his friends for many years. Same kind of hidden talent, that just want's to produce art for the love of making it. This kind of thing is likely foreign to a lot of people. Especially the kiddies who, can't wait to be discovered as geniuses.

 

[xayraa33]

I had a graphic design client who, apparently, is/was a painter. I did work for this women over a number of years; we often traveled together on jobs. We had many conversations about art and other topics but, I had no idea she was a painter. She spent a lot of her free time at it, but never talked about it.

I found out about her painting from one of my art dealer friends. She's an instant genius success, after twenty five years at it in secret. I think, since she closed her design shop, she needed money to continue painting and found a dealer. Knowing her, it's about money to pay for her continued painting, without having to deal with corporate clients and business bs. If she was wealthy, she might have never showed her work to the public.

Think about Koudelka, not showing any of his photos to any but his friends for many years. Same kind of hidden talent, that just want's to produce art for the love of making it. This kind of thing is likely foreign to a lot of people. Especially the kiddies who, can't wait to be discovered as geniuses.

You could be very well right about genius artists in many different mediums that keep their work to themselves and hidden from the rest of the world.
Vivian Maier was one of these until a John Maloof bought her work to world attention posthumously.

 

[Calzone]

I think what Calzone is saying--and I ask him to correct me if I'm wrong--is that there are numerous influences involved in making art (or music or culture) popular. But talent, ability and craft are not always in the top tier.

Dogman got my context. Back in the day when West Broadway in Soho was an important gallery scene, Ivan Karp of OK Harris Gallery was interested in my paintings. I basically took his suggestion to commodify my work as insult because I was an angry 20 year old who did not know how to respond appropriately to someone interested in representing me. I decided back then to work a day-job and to maintain my artistic integrity of scratching my own itch and not massage someone's back. Very blatant for me: do I serve myself; or do I serve others with my art?

Also some people expend their creativity in a commercial manner as a day job. Many of my friends that did that found out that their identity got diluted, they compromised their artistic freedom, and expended their talent making an agency money. At home they were too tired to make and pursue art.

In the art world it works like a gated community: careers are managed and directed; work is commodified for sale motivated by profits; and artistic freedom and control gets compromised.

Ever hear of a recording artist getting a record deal and then having their work "shelved?" How about a photographer like W.Eugene Smith getting blackballed because he wanted to exert editorial control over his work involving Pitsburg? How about Marcel Duchamp's submission of a urinal at the famous Armory Show being rejected. How do we include "counter-culture?" Most times is it not dismissed?

To me going online or posting is playing to a crowd and looking for mass approval through "likes" and "followers." Not sure if this best serves artistic expression which to me is more about an individual dynamic where the primary concern is not mass appeal, but individual satisfaction even if it means only pleasing oneself.

Cal

 

[MrFujicaman]

Cal, it's like high school..there was ALWAYS that one person that went on and on about wanting to be "rich and famous". Me....I'd rather be rich and nobody know about it.

 

[MCTuomey]

But talent, ability and craft are not always in the top tier.

Seems to be true of most of human endeavors, not only artistic ones. The powerful (Cal's gatekeepers) don't graciously concede the advantages of their power to those more talented. Typically, it's the opposite. They seek to control (or marginalize) those with greater talent and ability to avoid disruption of their privileged position.

Commercial acceptance itself doesn't make a work of art better or worse, and the same goes for the artist. It only makes a livelihood better or worse.

 

[Calzone]

Cal, it's like high school..there was ALWAYS that one person that went on and on about wanting to be "rich and famous". Me....I'd rather be rich and nobody know about it.

MFM,

Kinda funny is I have a very wealthy older brother who could be mistaken as a homeless person. Interesting to note that he looks like Pancho Villa even though he is an Asian.

Got a full scholarship to Brooklyn College, but dropped out after a year, joined the Navy and saved his salary during his service on a nuclear attack submarine as the Nuclear Operator. Invested in microwave companies before there were cell phones.

So for a car he once bought this red Toyota that had been repo'ed. The owner took a baseball bat to every body panel before the bank got hold of it. "It is still a new car," he said. LOL.

Later on I worked at Brookhaven National Lab, and the Radiation Safety Offercer looked at my badge for my last name and asked, "Do you have a brother who was the Nuclear Operator at Shoram?" Shoram Nuclear Power Supply was a famous nuclear power plant built out on Long Island for a cost of 2.2 billion dollars that never went online that was built and then immediately decommissioned.

When I told him yes, the next question was, "Does he still drive that beat up old red Toyota?" LOL. Everyone knew he was worth millions, and basically he only kept the job for health benefits. "Health insurance is expensive," he said. Pretty much my brother read the Wall Street Journal at work, because he just had to be on-hand because he was the one with the Nuclear License. Lazy slacker behavior I think runs in my family. LOL.

So while one of my older brothers is UBER wealthy, I am the one in the family that has the rich life. I'm the most educated, and I'm the one with the craziest life. Pretty much am reckless and at every crossroad I always took the path that was hardest and most fraught with risk. Never thought I would be this old. No regrets.

Cal

 

[Ko.Fe.]

All hail to Cal!

I wonder if this was the reason for GW to leave commercial photography.
To avoid blending. In Russian Winogrand is very close to vine grapes.

On the opposite side, Eliot Erwitt was highly ranked commercially and according to him it allowed his amateur photography to be published. Where is his commercial work now? And in opposite his after work photography is well known and alive.

Who was stronger? Winogrand who quit or Erwitt who did it after and between...

Or Allen street photography, book and exhibition are coming. I think his corporate work helped with street photography with very obvious reason. He is using highly sufficient gear not only for street but switched to it for his work. Basically he is new era old style photographer who is using Leica cameras as the only tools.

I also think what for paid photography it is possible to keep your vision, but it is limiting.
Our daughter is one of the first nightclubs female photographers in GTA.
She had her own style, not set of cliches, which reminds me Winogrand events photography.
And she doesn't work for those who demind - do this and such. But it doesn't give her a lot of work, due to her insist to be independent in style and vision.

 

[Calzone]

Seems to be true of most of human endeavors, not only artistic ones. The powerful (Cal's gatekeepers) don't graciously concede the advantages of their power to those more talented. Typically, it's the opposite. They seek to control (or marginalize) those with greater talent and ability to avoid disruption of their privileged position.

Commercial acceptance itself doesn't make a work of art better or worse, and the same goes for the artist. It only makes a livelihood better or worse.

M,

I have had "Art Directors" for print and online magazines ask for "High-Res" image files. When I politely ask definitively for them to define the generic term "High-Res" I don't get DPI and an image size that would be useful information. This is totally lame and IMHO unprofessional. Get up to speed if this is your job.

Also how would you feel if one of your images got printed as a full page in Vogue Italia (out of all the editions of Vogue the Italian edition is rated as having the best art direction) without your photo credit. The file and my name was supplied by my gal who also provided an interview. How hard is it to give someone their photo credit? Shame on you Vogue.

Understand that my gal has close to half a million followers and has become a celeb due to her fashion blog, so I know first hand the other side. Pretty much the photography I do for her gets lifted, reposted, and basically is stolen.

As you see I could make myself sick over the exploitation and abuse, but I would rather be happy and concentrate on being a creative who only needs to impress myself.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

KoFe,

Thanks for the praise, but I'm no hero.

Just trying to express without the bitterness my foolish struggle over the decades. Of course what is right for me does not apply to others.

I have to ask myself of why I struggled all these decades in the arts? My only answers are that art gives my life meaning where otherwise there is no point. I definitely don't do it for money although sometimes I do get paid.

My gal cannot go to any city in the world without getting engaged or approached by her followers, but I find that this level of being widely known as uncomfortable, and it is not for me.

Pretty much I'm happy just being a guy with a pony tail and under the radar. No delusions, I hope. LOL.

Cal

 

[MCTuomey]

As you see I could make myself sick over the exploitation and abuse, but I would rather be happy and concentrate on being a creative who only needs to impress myself.

Cal

Makes sense to me, Cal. The alternative - to oppose the exploitation - would consume no small amount of time, energy, relationships, and money. But then I'm old(er) and appreciate deeply the value of lost time, energy, and relationships.

 

[Calzone]

Makes sense to me, Cal. The alternative - to oppose the exploitation - would consume no small amount of time, energy, relationships, and money. But then I'm old(er) and appreciate deeply the value of lost time, energy, and relationships.

Mike,

I'm right behind you. We don't have time to waste anymore. The point is to be happy, and I am.

Also some old geezer wisdom I gleened from my gal's blog that she started less than 4 years ago. The only digital camera I owned during that time was my MM so we were limited to only B&W photography. If you visit fashion blogs they all do color photography, so what we did was different, although not by choice.

Because of the difference mentioned above "Maggie" (not her real name) got a lot of traction, and trying to do fashion in B&W with a manual focus camera is not easy and was a challenge. "Grey Magazine" decided to do a feature and a cover about "Maggie" early on emulating the B&W photography we started. After that it became quadratic leaps in followers.

So the moral of the story here I learned was, "If you want to stand out don't do what everyone else is doing."

Cal

 

[mpaniagua]

I think the problem is not that it doesn't exist but that it is near impossible to find among the billions of images online. You could spend all your time looking for it instead of making your own images, something I'm unwilling to do. My attention span on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, 500px, etc. is about 30 seconds. And I can't say the galleries are fulling their curatorial responsibilities.

I agree to that statement. There a billions upon billions of images that it make it hard to really appreciate brilliant images, unless you look specifically for a know photography/group. Would rather go shooting that looking at bland photos, trying to find one that inspire, amaze, etc.

Problem is that it pretty easy to make tons of digital pictures now, and even photographer is unwilling to sort and pick a keeper, just post/upload the bunch of it. On analog, because all the effort/cost involved, keepers where easier to sort. Being more careful (because film was/is expensive) usually lead to better though photos.

Regards
Marcelo

 

[kbb]

I am comfortable with the estimate that the subset of "good' or 'worthwhile' or 'interesting' photos, out of the set consisting of all photos shot, is the same size now as it was in 1940 or 1980. The increase in human (and camera) populations means more stuff, and more good stuff, but the overall proportion of good to bad is roughly the same.
The increased availability of cameras and web distribution actually makes it more difficult to find the new 'greats', but they are out there and among us.

 

[kshapero]

Safe travels Bill.

Best,
-Tim

I observe the Jewish Sabbath. 24 hours of no electronic devices, once a week. Otherwise I would be more of an addict than I already am.😱