I am going to China! and doing a spot of fundraising :)

Posted on | 8/14/11 | No Comments

Art model resource

Posted on | 3/7/11 | No Comments

I didn't plan to post again today but I came across this excellent resource and thought I should share it. I'm sure many of you are aware of how difficult it is to find how quality art models, particularly if you are too broke (like me!) to pay for your own live model. This site has both male and female models and photos taken at 360 degrees (from every angle) of the same pose. Each set has around 24 hi res photos for only around $4. So, if you are as serious as I am about anatomical drawing, you definitely should check out this site.

Rainforest Art Projects

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Updates!

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Coming next week

Posted on | 3/4/11 | No Comments

Just checking in to let you all know that I will be one of Pepon personal helpers assisting with set up on Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 from 9-5pm. :D & I will be taking a few days off here because I am also preparing to fly from Albuquerque to Puerto Rico on Wednesday the 16 so I'm taking this next week to get as much work done as I can.

I will, however, have a ton of new articles, how-tos and reviews for you next week. I'm working on about 30 articles for the blog right now that I will be adding periodically so expect some new content soon.

Sorry about the wait regarding artist of the week. Josue is busy with his band "Ser.es" but as soon as he answers the interview questions I will post them here. In the meantime I am preparing 2 more artist of the week specials. One will be about a carver named Scott Garcia and the other is El Moises.

Introducing: El Moises, Artist of the Week February 14-21

Posted on | 2/17/11 | No Comments

More of Moises' art! and an update.

Posted on | 2/14/11 | No Comments

So, today was the first day of set up for the show. It was exhausting but a lot of fun. I took a ton of photos of every step of the process so you all can see what goes into setting up an installation of this scale. It will be a few days before I get a chance to edit the pics and write the post, so expect it next weekend. See more art below:

Announcing Feb. 14- 21 Artist of the Week: El Moises

Posted on | 2/13/11 | 3 Comments

Hello all!
Today I am happy to announce this weeks Artist of the Week is El Moises (image is of the artist with a piece):

516arts show update

Posted on | 2/7/11 | No Comments

I contacted Rhiannon Mercer, the assistant director of 516arts and told her of my interest in helping to set up this show and specifically with Pepon if possible. She is making up the schedule today and I will definitely be participating with set up in some way although I don't yet know if I will meet or work with Pepon personally. I will try to get some kind of interview with him if at all possible. Excuse my fan girl behavior but I'm super excited :D
I will keep you all informed of everything that happens. Here is some of Pepon's art for you to enjoy in the mean time.

For your convenience!

Posted on | 2/6/11 | No Comments

I'm working hard to clean up the look of this blog, create good content and use decent hacks to make the blog easier to use. Check out the new share buttons I've installed to make it easier for you to show the blog to your friends.
Let me know what else I can do to make this blog better using the contact me button on the left side of the page. :)

Pepon Osorio at 516arts in Albuquerque, New Mexico Feb.19th - May 14 2011. OMG!

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So, through a fluke of fate or luck or gods know what, I entered the wrong search parameters into google when finding links for my last post and randomly discovered something amaaaazing. The local gallery I love/hate and volunteered at is participating in "Latina/o Visual Imaginary: Intersection of Word & Image" a show running from February to May as part of the "East Coast/Southwest—Latino Literary Imagination: Narrative Voices and the Spoken Word" biregional conferance. By some vile quirk of fate this show opens just 2 days after I leave Albuquerque forever to return to Puerto Rico, before moving to China. This sucks, to put it lightly and has got me a bit down. I cut ties with this gallery in disgust with some of the IMO crappy shows they were doing about a year ago and boy am I regretting it now. I am trying to suck up to a few pertinent people to see if there is any way I can help with the installation this but I'm not counting on it. I will let you know if I manage to participate though and will try to get an interview with Pepon Osorio if possible!


If you want to learn more, go here for more information. I can guarantee you that this show will be excellent so you should definitely go in my place! Let me know if you attend and gimme all the details!

Concept art: is it really that lame??

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 Today’s musing is going to be about concept art. I know many people outside the art world do not see the value of concept as art but I am absolutely convinced that art is no more than a pretty image without an “idea” behind it. So today I am going to tell about how I met Pepon Osorio (with no clue of how important he was) and fell in love with installations and concept art.

Art as commodity: Hirst & the value of "art"

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How the way people speak of art shows arts role in culture

Posted on | 2/4/11 | No Comments

I have recently been reading a lot more art news in an attempt to make better posts here on Vagary Art. During some of this reading I came across something that interested me greatly. In a regular newspaper, not an art magazine or art blog, I came across the description of a recent art show in which the artist is described as “creating a dialogue (with the public)” (traer un dialogo). This struck me since it is a phrasing and concept I have never come across when reading English daily newspapers or even in regional art newspaper (although it does come up in arts magazines).  Essentially the idea behind this phrasing is communicating to the common people, not the high art world, that they have a role to play in art. By viewing a piece, they are participating in a “conversation” with the artist or creating a discourse. This concept accepts the influence of viewers on art, a piece of art on other art and society in general while it invites the viewer to respond in turn instead of simply viewing the piece in a vacuum.

The responsibility of being an artist?

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 Image by Theresa Canino for Primera Hora:

 I recently read in Autogiro that Antonio Martorell, a well known Puerto Rican artist had chosen to remove his art from the Puerto Rican Supreme Court in protest of the current political climate there. This brings in a topic that I think I have sort of broached in my other posts: the socio-cultural responsibility of being an artist. Is it our place, as creators, interpreters and communicators of culture (art), to act/protest in an attempt to change society/culture/politic policies?  Is it like that poem:  When they came for the jews, I did nothing… when they came for me, there was no
one to do anything (I’m paraphrasing). Do we, as artists, have a responsibility to use art to make political/cultural/social statements?

See Martorell's art after the break

Coming soon: Artist of the week

Posted on | 1/30/11 | No Comments

To art school or not to art school: the value debate

Posted on | 1/23/11 | No Comments

 Selling Art to the Community, Or Applying the Principles of Publicity to the Department of School Art

Should art outlast the artist?

Posted on | 1/22/11 | No Comments

The role of art in the rehabilitation of youth offenders

Posted on | 1/21/11 | No Comments

inside/out: a Guide to Arts & Arts Education Resources for Children and Teens in San Francisco
I was a volunteer guide/translator and then an intern at a gallery in Albuquerque by the name of 516arts a few years ago. This gallery is (was?) a non profit and focused on education rather than sales. They had a very strong education program. I think the coordinator has since left the art world, overwhelmed by the same sense of disillusionment that attacks so many young artists. But before then I learned a great deal from him. One of his (in my opinion) most important projects was a program he set up with a local juvenile detention center to have groups of these young boys brought to the gallery. These were as far as I know, low level youth offenders, not say, murderers or repeat offenders, so they had field trip priviledges. Sadly, the man from the detention center told us that around 80% of these kids were back in the center before a year had passed. This was seriously crushing for me even though I only saw most of these kids once and I was only able to participate maybe 4 times. Today I am going to describe what we would do and why I believe in this type of project and it's role in the rehabilitation of offenders. I also believe it wouldwork with adults and I hope I get a chance to pursue it again at a later date.

Using animal bones in sculptures

Posted on | 1/19/11 | No Comments

Incorporating animal bones into your art piece may serve as an interesting way to make a statement or start a conversation about topics that might not otherwise come up. Because of the nature of bones (and really any bodily fluid or part), a great deal of significance is typically attributed to pieces that use them, whether that was the artist's intention or not. This is something to consider before you begin. Expect that your piece will automatically make a "statement" on a subject if there is a natural connection. Use this to your advantage by making a meaningful piece of art.

How to paint in sepia

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Vere Foster's painting for beginners: Facsimiles of original studies in sepia
A course of sepia painting: First series
Sepia, an interesting style done in shades of brown, is most commonly seen in photographs and some colored pencil drawings, but it can be particularly effective and attractive in painting. The most difficult part of painting in sepia tones is finding or mixing the colors, otherwise it would be virtually identical to converting colors to shades of gray. The major difference being that instead of black you will have the darkest red-orange-brown shade at one end of the scale and white at the other.


Step 1

Creating an animated movie.

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Creating an animation is a simple but labor intensive process. Be prepared to spend days, weeks, months or even years drawing (either by hand or using a digital application) to make an animation that lasts only a few seconds. While it can be a bit of a hassle it can be a satisfying experience to create an animation like those of Hayao Miyazaki, creator of My Neighbor Totoro, or Walt Disney.

Step 1

Integrating art into a college prep curriculum

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Oftentimes, arts education falls to the wayside when it comes time for students to prepare for college. Art programs are usually the first to be trimmed from budgets, although statistics show that students that participate in the arts (e.g., music, theater, dance and visual art) are more likely to succeed in school. Susan Sclafani, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education, considers art education to be "Vital to young people's success in school and in life." The arts can be integrated with even an ambitious college preparatory course with relative ease.

Step 1

What is the nature of art?

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 What is the nature of art?
It seems that there are two different views from which to approach contemporary art. You have one side where all people expect is essentially a pretty image that they can use to decorate space or a wall. On the other hand there is a sort of expectation, in what you could call the more "real art" world, of "deep" meaning being embedded into a piece of art, when in reality that "meaning" is imposed by an external source (by the viewer, reviewer, gallery, etc). I think that this is a throwback to one of the original uses of art (or what we now call art) as a means to show God, for example the prototypical Venus: a wide hipped mother Goddess with pendulous breasts. She was not "art" to the people who made her, but a visual reminder or representation of their gods. Now however, this human tendency to add meaning where there is none is taken advantage of by hustlers and salespeople who market art for the masses. Despite this easily manipulated trait, the art world remains active and possibly because of these hustlers, it remains fresh and ever changing.

A friend once told me that conceptual art is what is made by writers with no talent. I think this is an interesting concept. "Bullshit" is well known facet of the art world. You can find it everywhere from the titles of pieces to excessively long and detailed descriptions of the art and even in how people speak about it. Strangely enough, talent is not a prerequisite for becoming an artist. It is more important for the creator to speak or write well and have the skill to communicate ideas. Essentially the making of art is the practice of making ideas tangible and in some cases physical.