A bit more towards a General Manifesto of Experiential Realism

Making up a personal Manifesto is dead easy! All you really have to do is list your likes and dislikes! Making up a General Manifesto is much trickier as you really have to think about what the words mean.

Take the word "Realism", for a start. Realism links up with previous Realist art movements. According to Wikipedia, "Realism is a visual art style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. Realists render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in verisimiltude. They tend to discard theatrical drama, lofty subjects and classical forms in favor of commonplace themes." It also states, "Gustave Courbet is credited with coining the term, which pins "Realism" (capital R) down to the 19th century. However, realism (without the capital) links with "realistic", which now links up with every artist who as ever depicted something which looks like the "real" world! And this is far too broad a definition to be useful.

"Realism is a visual art style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see."
This, at least, is of some use. The advantage here is that when the content of the picture depicts - or appears to depict - the real world, the the artist is using a visual language with which most people are familiar. It makes the artwork instantly accessible to the majority of people, not just a few, specialist, "art trained" connoisseurs. I want my work to be accessible to the majority, not just a tiny proportion of the population. So I can use this to make up a clause:

"Experiential Realism depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see."

However, note the use of the word "depicts". An artist uses paint, reality uses real light, real trees, real grass, etc. So an artist has to use his skill and knowledge of his medium to persuade the viewer that what he is painting really exists. I would go slightly further. If an artist paints an apple and the viewer sees a painting of an apple, then the artist has failed. When the viewer looks at the picture and sees an apple, then the artist has succeeded! The medium is not the message, merely the means of transmitting it.

So I think that the clause can become:
"The Experiential Realist artist uses their skill to represent the actuality of what the eyes can see."

The Realist art movement of the 19th century also links up with a number of other "Realisms", which are worth looking at as part of a general search for enlightenment. Note, "Realists render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in verisimiltude." This is something I have a lot of sympathy with. It also links up with "Social Realism" and "Socialist Realism" (which was more specifically linked to Communism). However, both Social and Socialist Realism were linked to particular political aims and ideals. For my own part, in depicting everday places and events I have no motive other than I think that they are worth celebrating. So if I was to use this part of the definition of Realism as another clause, I think that it must become:

"The Experiential Realist renders everyday places, characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in verisimilitude, as being of interest and importance."

Note that this definition does not exclude the painter of the natural landscape. I enjoy - occasionally - the world of nature. But as a painter, I am more more interested in the way that people interact with their environment! That is just my personal bias, so it has no part in a general definition.

"They (Realists) tend to discard theatrical drama, lofty subjects and classical forms in favor of commonplace themes." Classical Realism is a late 20th century art movement which placed "a high value upon skill and beauty, combining elements of 19th century neoclassicism and realism. My problem with this movement is not that I decry skill, but that the classical style makes you too aware of it. Hence the skill, rather than the subject, becomes the message. It is the same problem as the one that I have with Photorealism. Also the "high value" placed on "beauty" means, to my mind, the acceptance of pre-existing ideals of beauty. I want to challenge the viewer to see beauty where they might not always have previously considered it to exist, frequently in the ordinary and mundane. So it might be fair to add the following:

"The Experiential Realist finds and depicts beauty through their own experience."

Another art movement worth considering is "Magic Realism". In some ways, René Magritte is a good representative of this style. The paintings are incredibly realistic - at least, at first glance - but then involve surrealist/magical/mystical elements. The bit which I find useful is the notion of a mystical or transcendental element. I do not feel any need to introduce incongruous elements into my paintings of the Experiential Realist type. For me, the magic is in my own awareness of the original scene or situation and in my attempt to transmit this to the viewer. But I am not sure that, as yet, I can define a clause to properly express this! However, perhaps it is possible to say that:

"The Experiential Realist allows their awareness of the situation and circumstances of the subject to influence their perceptions and the way that they expresses them."

By this I mean the sort of thing that I wrote about some time ago, in my blog, " Thinking about Painting", the manner in which we "scan" a scene, focusing on different things at different times. Things that we pay particular attention to can appear brighter and sharper, etc.

In all, I appear to have ended up with four clauses for the General Manifesto that I think I can stand by:

The Experiential Realist:

• Uses their skill to represent the actuality of what the eyes can see.
• Renders everyday places, characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in verisimilitude, as being of interest and importance.
• Finds and depicts beauty (and ugliness) through their own experience.
• Allows their awareness of the situation and circumstances of the subject to influence their perceptions and the way that they expresses them.

Of these, it is the first two that make a direct connection with Realism. However, I think that it is the last two which tend to mark the difference between Experiential Realism and pure Realism.

Towards a General Manifesto of Experiential Realism

I was reasonably happy with what I wrote last week as a Manifesto for Experiential Realism. Later, however, I realised that, although it reflected my own views, it would not do as a General Manifesto - which would include other artists who think the title of “Experiential Realism” sums up something important about the way that they work. This was prompted by my making a search for the term on the Internet. I already knew that the term was being used in philosophy, as that was where I adopted it from as the name, potentially, for an art movement! However, I also discovered that a couple of American artists had spontaneously used the term with reference to their own work. An American artist, Aaron Schuerr, used it as a title for one of his blogs and another American, Dough Rugh, used it as a descriptive term within another blog. I cannot be certain that either would agree with the way I think about it, but it seems to me to be worth considering in greater detail my own understanding of what “Experiential Realism” means.

In order to do this, I am going to start with what I have already written, expand and clarify it, as best I can. It is, perhaps, easiest to start with the negatives. I wrote:

I reject:

• 
  Art as decoration, as wallpaper.
  I remember watching an interior decoration programme, I think that it was called “60 Minute Makeover”. The team needed something to add a splash of colour to a wall, something which would match the furniture and the rest of the colour scheme. Someone took a blank canvas, splashed some paint on it to form an abstract pattern and, voilà, instant piece of Abstract Expressionism - which matched the wall perfectly! This may be rather an extreme example, but a lot of people do buy art because it will match in with their décor. It may be rather arrogant of me, but I want more for my art than that!
• 
  The possession of art as a means of establishing intellectual status.
  I am not opposed to the various other movements of modern art, such as Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, Post-Modernism, etc., as such. However, I am left with the uncomfortable feeling (hopefully untrue) that many of the purchasers of such work do so to establish, at least in their own minds, their status as intellectual beings, capable of the superior aesthetic understanding required to appreciate such work. I believe that the only genuine reason for purchasing art should be the depth of the feeling that the piece evokes in the prospective purchaser. Provided that such depth of response is present, the type of the artwork is immaterial.
• 
  The Media as the Message and The display of skill as the purpose of art.
  In the end, I decided to lump these two together. I suppose that I was very much thinking of the Photo-Realist and Super-Realist art movements. There is a good example by Richard Estes online.
  “Diner”, (1971) Oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 50 in. (101.7 x 126.8 cm.) It is of course, beautifully painted! But I find myself asking, what would be the difference between this and a photograph produced to the same scale (if one such a photograph existed)? It does not seem there could not be that much difference, since the apparent object was to paint in a photographic manner. Therefore the value of the painting – as art – had to be in the fact that the medium was changed from photography to painting. In other words, this was the painting skill itself being presented as art. It could also be said that, in this case, the media, paint, was the message. Looking at the painting, I do not find myself interested in the place represented, so much as the means by which it represented! I am distracted by the quality of the painting!
• 
  The idea as art.
  Essentially, this is Conceptual Art, but also the work of artists like Damien Hirst. I would consider his diamond covered skull, titled “For the Love of God” to be in the same vein as the Dadist Marcel Duchamp's “Fountain”. Duchamp's piece was a ready-made urinal which he elevated to art by signing it “R. Mutt”. Damien Hirst's skull was a ready made skull, which he elevated to art by having it covered in diamonds! Duchamp mocked the establishment by the cheapness, in both price and effort, of his “readymade”, Damien Hirst mocks it by intrinsic value of the diamonds with which he decorates his own “ready made”. Duchamp was outside the Art Establishment looking in, Damien Hirst is inside the Art Establishment looking out. In some ways, complete opposites, but on the same line! However, the most important part of both items is the idea behind them.
• 
  Other people's conventions of beauty and ugliness.
  I think that a large part of the value of any creative person is their individual viewpoint. So what I mean by this is that every artist has to find out for themselves what they consider to be beautiful or ugly. Truly original work makes new conventions, rather than simply repeats old ones.

I have one major problem with all the points that I have listed above (even though I believe them to be valid) – and that is their very negativity! In the end, I think that it is more important to know what an Art Movement is for, rather than what it is against. So I hope to explore this next week.

My Art - A Personal Manifesto for Experiential Realism

"Quoile River, near Downpatrick"
December 2007-February 2008.
Oils on canvas, 70 cm x 50 cm.

For some time I have been trying to form my own ideas about the “why” of art, the role of art in today's world. Then I realised that this was far too big a question for me, since art covers such a multitude of activities and fulfils an important role in such varied circumstances. In the end, I decided that the question I needed to answer was, “Why my art?” What is it that I am trying to do, what is it that I think of as being important and what do I reject.

In a previous attempt (18th, February, 2007, to be exact) to understand my own art, I considered the way we look at things. We do not see objects and scenes in the rigid way that a camera records them. We move our heads (and we have two eyes, giving us stereo vision, which means that sometimes one eye can see what the other can not), our eyes can appreciate a much greater range of colours and shades than a camera normally records and we look at different parts at different times, mentally blending our observations into the one perception.

Although not intentionally distorting what I am seeing, when painting I quite automatically incorporate this way of viewing into the result. Perspective - whilst appearing to be essentially correct - will be "adapted" so that vertical lines may no longer be precisely vertical, angles may change to make the view more dramatic or to reveal a greater area (as from a different viewing point). One of the rules of human observation is that one "notices" more that which one is interested in, so colours can appear more vivid and objects larger! Everything one is interested in is in focus because one automatically focuses on the part which is being observed. Based on this, I have named the way I work as “Experiential Realism”, meaning that the realism of the painting is tempered and modified by the way that I experience the scene.

The result of this thinking is:

A Personal Manifesto for Experiential Realism

I reject:

• Art as decoration, as wallpaper.
• The possession of art as a means of establishing intellectual status.
• The media as the message.
• The display of skill as the purpose of art.
• The idea as art.
• Other people's conventions of beauty and ugliness.

I embrace:

• Art as the conveyor of meaning.
• Art as a stimulus to feeling and emotion.
• The use of the illusion of depth in painting.
• Depth of meaning in art.
• Art as a teller of stories.
• The beauty that I perceive and experience, without reference to the strictures of others.
  
• I embrace the beauty of the ordinary, the every-day activities of people in their everyday surroundings, the beauty of the ordinary street, the ordinary house, the ordinary shop.
• I embrace the portrayal of landscape as it is, part natural, part man-made.
• I embrace the portrayal of the world of today as it is, a mixture of old and new.

Thomas Spencer.

Historical Comment:

In art history, Realism was a late 19th century art movement which was concerned with the accurate and apparently objective description of the ordinary, observable world. The Realists attempted to depict the lives and appearance of ordinary people. Social Realism developed from this, in the early 20th century, as a movement particularly concerned with depiction of the poor and thus it criticised the social environment that caused the poverty and misery. Essentially, whatever their value as works of art, Social Realism was a form of propaganda endeavouring to change social attitudes. The original Realists were also propagating a view, although a rather simpler one, that the lives of ordinary people were just as suitable a subject for major works of art as the lives of the rich and powerful.

Both were reactions to prevailing viewpoints, as is my own. My point is that the realistic depiction of every day life and places is still worthy of depiction in serious works of art. It is not simply the domain of the hobbyist and the part-time painter. And has certainly not been made defunct by the advent of photography! However, I think that such painting has to rise above mere mechanical recording, which is why I prefer the term, "Experiential Realism", as referring to my type of art. My depictions are influenced by my experience of the scene and this is determined by both my physical and mental characteristics.

Nb: This Manifesto should not be taken as meaning that I consider other types of art as necessarily unimportant and unable to fulfil important functions – or even that I cannot appreciate them! Just that they are not important to me, within the context of my own work and intentions.

Downpatrick Exhibition

The exhibition in the Downpatrick Library Gallery opened last Wednesday (6th February) night. It is in support of the Harmony Community Trust, Glebe House, Strangford, and was opened by one of the local politicians, Margaret Ritchie of the SDLP. It went well, but I was a bit disappointed with the attendance, only about thirty or so. However, two of my five paintings are sold, so that is a start. It is a good exhibition space, basically one large, well-lit room, at one side of Downpatrick Library. Hopefully, because of its position next to the library, this will help there to be a reasonable number of further visitors.

Because of the need to get my paintings ready in time, I went for producing five small landscapes. They were quite successful (and I am pleased with them), but the exhibition made me aware of how many others are producing work in a similar format. I think that I need the larger formats in order to stand out. Also, paintings of towns and buildings are relatively rare, so I think that my paintings of town scenes also stand out for that reason.

The more that I see work of local artists, the more convinced I become that the truly memorable work is nothing to do with either skill or technique. It seems to me that most of the work which has reached the history books has done so because it encapsulated something personal about the artist's life and times. Much of the work I see is attractive, some of it is highly skilled, but I am not convinced that it rises above the decorative. It is not that I am knocking decorative work as such, but I feel the need for something more.

For more photos, see ArtMagic; Downpatrick Exhibition.

Just a note!

I don't have much time for a blog this week. Rather annoyingly, I had some problems with the computer. First, my computer couldn't work my DVD drive. It turned out that this was because I had updated my iTunes player, which I had to uninstal. Problem fixed! Next, day, I found that I could not connect to the Internet. Suspecting that this might be connected to the previous problem, I reinstalled my broadband connection. I managed to mess that up a couple of times before all went well. I love computers - but sometimes they can be very annoying!

Two new landscape paintings.

"Corner on the Newcastle to Ballynahinch Road",
December 2007.
Oils on canvas, 25 cm x 30 cm. (11 hours working time)

There is a small, local exhibition coming up and I agreed to submit five paintings. Just got the last two finished, to my relief! There are, I think, quite nice, although not what I would consider major paintings. The weather has been poor recently and does not encourage much work outdoors. I am very much looking forward to warmer weather, when I can start spending much longer outside working on paintings.

I have quite a few paintings I want to get finished. At the beginning of January we had - for us - heavy snow (i.e., about 16 cm, which fell in the one night and lasted about a day). As always, it caught us unprepared. My wife and I were travelling to Ballynahinch and were about 15 miles away from there when it started. So, naturally, when we were just a few miles from Ballynahinch we got stuck (with a lot of others) at the first serious hill. It was only when some of us drivers got together to give cars a push that we were able to get moving again. No chance of help from the police or the road service as they were all snarled up around the town itself, nobody able to move on any of the roads leading in or out of Ballynahinch. The one good thing about being stuck where we were was that when, after several hours, we got moving again, at least the traffic chaos in Ballynahinch itself was beginning to clear and we were able to get to our destination! The other good thing was that the snow was still there in the morning, so I took several canvases up into the town and was able to sketch layouts on to them. I think that I should, potentially, have a couple of good paintings, although they will have to be completed from the photographs that I took at the time.

"Horses in a Field", December 2007.
Oils on canvas, 30 cm x 25 cm. (14.5 hours working time)

Wavy Lines and Op Art

This is an exercise I found useful with first year (secondary school) pupils, both to hammer home lessons about colour mixing and to link it up with a little art history. The exercise starts by drawing a very wavy line down the middle of an A4 sheet of paper.

Further lines are added, trying to keep them evenly spaced from the first one. If a loop is particularly big, a section of the new line will have to be "broken off" and left inside the loop.

This process was continued until this side of the page was completely filled with lines, as evenly spaced as possible. The process was then repeated for the other side!

The next stage was to fill in one of the spaces between the lines down the middle with either a primary or secondary colour. The next space was left blank and the one after that filled in with the next secondary or primary colour in sequence, ie., red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (and back to red and through the sequence again if necessary). It doesn't matter where the sequence is started or in which direction they are gone through, as long as the colours are kept in sequence.

The process is then repeated to the other side. (Note that, although I have completed the sequence on the left side, it could just have easily have been completed by going through the same colours again in the same order - so instead of purple, I would have filled in orange again, etc.)

The final stage is to fill in the remaining spaces by mixing the two colours on either side of each space.

Some pupils would put in the colours a little differently than others and sometimes interesting results were created when pupils misunderstood the instructions somewhat. If the results were visually interesting, I never told pupils off just because they did not follow my instructions exactly.

The exercise could be done with paints or colouring pencils and I would set a version of this for homework, which could be completed using different shades of lead pencils and no colours at all!

It should be obvious that there are strong connections to Op Art and the work of artists like Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely. I encouraged my pupils to investigate this for themselves and to experiment along similar lines. I gave all pupils a small handout on Op Art and encouraged those who could do so to search the Web for more material.

These are some useful links that I have found.

Op Art:

Artcyclopedia

About.com: Art History

Wikipedia

Bridget Riley:

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The Tate Gallery

Queensland Art Gallery
Victor Vasarely:

http://www.vasarely.com/

Wikipedia

Fondation Vasarely (in French, but excellent pictures)

Thumbnail Sketches

If any one is seriously interested in Art History then, to my mind, a really important skill to master is that of creating "thumbnail" sketches. This doesn't mean that it is not important to get good quality images wherever possible. There are many sources available online. (One excellent one is Olga's Gallery. For a full colour version of William Turner's, "Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway", see http://www.abcgallery.com/T/turner/turner26.html.) However, a thumbnail sketch is not merely a reminder of the painting, it also helps you to analyse it and understand its composition. For it to be successful, you have to think about what you are doing, about what it is really important to show, yet it is also fast to do!

In order to improve your understanding of a piece of art work, it can also be useful to make a large, detailed study of it (as in my study of the horse cave painting). But sometimes this is unnecessary, even a waste of time, when (in some cases) a much simpler thumbnail sketch would give you all the insight you need and would get across whatever point that you wish to make!

Colour Theory

As I described in my last blog, I found it useful to start Junior pupils with a look at pre-historic cave painting. This lead naturally on to a discussion of how paints are made and then on to a discussion of colour theory. In primary school, some (but not all) of my pupils had completed colour circles. However, I never found the colour circle a particularly good way of explaining how colours mix, so I came up with my own system inspired from Venn diagrams. I gave my pupils an A4 photocopy of the above blank template. The Venn diagram at the top had to be filled in using just three colouring pencils, a yellow, red and a blue.

As with oil pastels, if the colours are to mix well it is important to start lightly. I told my pupils to fill in the lightest colours first, starting by filling in the yellow circle lightly, then the red and finally the blue. Then this was repeated several times until the pores of the paper became completely clogged with colour. Done in this way, the mixture which created the secondary colours worked well. (NB: If a pupil filled in the first colour heavily then, where another colour was supposed to overlap, the pencil tended to skid over the first colour and very little of the second actually stuck to the paper!)

For the middle section, pupils were also allowed to use a black and a brown pencil. In the final section pupils were allowed to use orange, green and purple pencils, simply because of the "cleaner" quality of manufactured secondary, colours compared to their own mixtures.

Note for teachers (in particular): If you wish to use copies of the above sheets, go ahead! They are copyright free for private and educational use. However, it would be nice if you would let me know if you find them useful.

The full Colour Theory lesson (and better quality images) is now available at my website (http://www.artmagic.uk.com/) at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/artmagic/page169a.html and the one on Cave Painting at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/artmagic/page170.html

Art History – Cave Painting

My copy, in oil pastels, of a cave painting of a horse. The original is in the Lascaux Caves in France and dates from around 15,000-10,000 BC. I picked oil pastels because I thought that the broad pastel effect would be the closest to the results produced by the original, pre-historic, artists. When working with oil pastels, I like to start by using the colours in a very light, sketchy way. I keep going over the drawing lightly with different colours until the grain of the paper is largely filled in and the pastels begin to “skid” over the surface. I then use a conical “stub” of paper, rolled to form a hard point, to blend the various shades together. (If you work too soon and too heavily with one particular colour and the paper grain becomes clogged, it becomes difficult to modify it by blending in other shades.)

When I first started my website (http://www.artmagic.uk.com/), I intended to include a series of art lessons, for the possible benefit of both students and teachers, simply because my retirement seemed to otherwise waste a great deal of my experience. (Whether or not the lessons are actually any good is, of course, another matter entirely.) The problem was that, as I became increasingly busy with my own painting, this project has gradually been falling by the wayside. So a change of strategy is called for! What I intend to do is to write up my thoughts on these lessons, as they occur to me, as part of this blog. Afterwards I will tidy them up and incorporate them into my website as time allows.

With regard to Art History, what I hope to do is to take personal “snapshots” of the various periods and movements of Art History. In particular, I hope to provide links between the sections, to show how one influenced or grew out of another - or, sometimes, simply how similarities exist without there being any other connection at all! There is no intention to cover movements in detail - others have already done this and much better than I can! My intention is to create a series of “pegs” that a more detailed study can be hung upon at a later date. For this reason, I am including links to web sites that I found particularly interesting and useful (if you can suggest others that would be particularly appropriate, I would be grateful if you would e-mail me with your recommendations).

This is my first attempt – a look at Pre-Historic Cave Painting. I found this to be a useful introduction to art history for my 1st year pupils (Secondary School). The French Ministry of Culture provides a great virtual tour of the caves at http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/, which, with the aid of a data projector, I found very useful – and the pupils loved it. The site also has a lot of good follow up material.

Paintings like the original of the horse (at the top) have only survived because they were created in nearly inaccessible places which have been protected from the ravages of the weather. But these places would have been even more difficult to get to thousands of years ago, with no more than primitive lamps and torches to show the way. The paints were created from the materials available at the time, such as coloured earths, charcoal and chalk. The effort involved in collecting these, carrying them down narrow passages deep into the earth and then creating the paintings at the other end should not be under-estimated. To justify such effort, the paintings must have been of considerable importance to the people at the time.

It is likely that there was a 'magical' purpose behind this act of creation, although not perhaps not in the way we might think. I cannot believe that people who were intelligent enough to create such works of art were simply indulging in wishful thinking, i.e., that they thought that by showing the animal pierced with arrows and spears, this would guarantee a successful hunt. I think that the process would have had to have been one of identification with the hunt and the animal being hunted.

When a person totally immerses themselves in a subject, the creative process swings into action. Solutions to problems come to mind without the need for conscious thought, both mind and body tune up for action. I am completely certain that the process of creating these paintings resulted in the participants becoming better hunters - because we still make use of essentially the same process today! This is exactly what a sportsman does when he 'psyches' himself up for a competition. He devotes himself to thinking exclusively about what he has to do, he may run through the act repeatedly within his imagination and, usually, he is surrounded by the paraphenalia and trophies associated with his sport. (Evidence of past success helps to create a mental environment favourable to future success.)

When we do something like this as a group, we often go to a special place dedicated to that purpose. This may be a clubhouse or even a place of business, but whatever its ostensible purpose, its ritualistic aspects are likely to be revealed by its furnishings. These are quite often portraits of earlier sporting or business 'heroes' or perhaps framed certificates, the equivalent of battle honours in military establishments. At one time or another, often without realising it, most of us have been in such environments and participated in group activities designed to promote a group identity and to enthuse us to greater efforts. I doubt if we have really changed that much from the days of prehistoric man.

What Happens to Prices?

In my last post, I included a jpg of a small painting of mine, which I priced at £120 plus P&P. But that is not the end of the story with regard to pricing. When I first started, I calculated the price purely on the actual working time. Since I was working directly in the street, I didn't even consider preparation time or time taken selecting my subject, working out my idea, or anything else. This gave me the freedom to sort myself out at my leisure, but is not a practical way of working out how much one needs to make from a painting, simply because the actual painting time is so intense. I certainly could not keep up a 40 hour week consisting purely of painting! However, in reality the painting time is interspersed with the need to sort out canvases and materials, to travel to a specific site, to get set up, to clear away and even for things like eating and drinking! All of these have to be allowed for as well.

The example I gave, "Drumlins near Ballynahinch, Co. Down, N. Ireland" was a particularly simply one to create. The site was close by, the painting very straightforward, expenses incurred were minimal. Hence the price calculated is also a very basic one. If someone living nearby saw it and bought it at that price, P&P would also be eliminated and, with a minimum of inconvenience I would receive a sum of money which, whilst not going to make me rich, would be a useful aid to my general maintenance and well-being. (P&P costs to somewhere else in the world will depend on the type of secure packing needed, carrier costs, insurance, etc. But since I have not yet sold any work in this manner, I have not yet got a clue as to what this entails. Essentially, I will be waiting for the demand to arise before I worry about it!) However, I am also getting together a number of landscapes for a group exhibition in February. Already started, these required me to go out of the way to select my subjects, so some extra time will be added in. Some will take longer than others, so this will also effect the price. In addition, I will have to get the work framed, allow for the commission charged by the gallery and the effort and time involved getting work to and from the show. Some of the work may not sell, so I have to allow for the fact that I will have to keep this work until sometime in the future when another opportunity for a sale may arise. So (a lot of guesswork is involved), here is an attempt to recalculated the selling price required for the same small painting if I put it in as part of an exhibition.

£120 - to cover working time in production
£50 - average cost of framing
£40 - to cover an averaged 2 hours collecting and delivering times (guestimate)
_____
£210 total so far.

Galleries charge differing amount of commissions. A local show might only charge 20% of the final price, but a commercial gallery commission could be 60% of the list price. At 60%, the final list price would be:

£525!

Some galleries would charge less commission, but I believe that this sort of estimate gives a ball park figure for the sort of pricing that a painting of this type and size would require in the general art market around here.

But I am still not going to get rich - at least if my work is all sold through galleries on this basis! However, on a more optimistic tone, if substantial amounts of my work start to sell at gallery prices, this will start to increase the value of my work generally. The main advantage of selling through galleries is that my work can, potentially, reach new buyers that otherwise I would not have access to.

Pricing one's artwork.

"Drumlins, Near Ballynahinch, Co. Down, N. Ireland", November 2007.
Oils on canvas, 30.5 cm x 25.5 cm. (6 hours working time).
£120 unframed, plus postage and packing.

Pricing one's artwork:

This is not an attempt at advising others on how they can price their own work, just my own musings on the subject, with an invitation to others to comment.

It seems to me that this is always going to be a thorny subject. Price yourself too high and you are unlikely to find buyers. Too low, and, effectively, you end up subsidising your buyers. You can, therefore, only continue to produce artwork if you have other means of support. This also makes it difficult to raise your prices in the future because you have firmly set yourself in the bracket of amateur artist. Of course, one way out of this dilemma is to find a dealer who likes your work sufficiently to promote it, but this has the disadvantage of meaning that you have to be able to fit into a recognised slot in the art market.

My own case is slightly peculiar. Because I taught art for many years, my skills and knowledge of the subject are quite highly developed. However, because I was concentrating on my teaching career, I have built no reputation for myself as a professional artist and established no slot for myself in the art market. Indeed, on leaving teaching, my morale was so low that, at first, I had difficulty in believing that anyone would be interested in anything that I might produce!

Because I have a pension, I do not rely on selling my art to cover basic living expenses. However, as a mature person with commitments, neither can I completely devote every moment of my time to my art career. Essentially, the two aspects balance each other out. My pension covers my non-art commitments, but my art work has to sustain, through sales, my ability to produce more art work and to develop my career as an artist. I also have no desire to subsidise my buyers. If my work is worth buying, then it is worth the buyers paying a realistic price for it!

I decide that, as an entry level-artist, without an established reputation, that the best initial policy was to price myself as a skilled and professional craftsman. However, I also had to allow that non-commissioned work, which might not sell immediately, would involve marketing expenses which also had to be covered. I therefore decided to that the price of my art work would be calculated according to how long each piece took to be produced, at a basic rate of £20 per hour. Since commissioned work brings in cash as soon as it is completed, I give a discount of one third on all commissions.

This is not great money, but it has been adequate to allow me to establish a local reputation - which is keeping me busy with a steady flow of commissions. This , in turn, has meant that I have started to build up a reserve of non-commissioned work for sale at exhibitions. For the immediate future, commissions take priority, because these are what allow me to keep going. For the longer term future, the non-commissioned work is vital, because these will allow me to establish both a wider reputation and higher prices.

From a pricing point of view, non-commissioned work can be split into two categories. Relatively quick work, such as small landscapes and people studies (which therefore carry relatively low prices) and more elaborate and impressive pieces, such larger landscapes and studies of towns (which are time-consuming and thus have to carry larger prices). Landscapes have proved popular in the local market and, as they carry the full price tag, are more profitable - providing I can wait for the financial return! Larger, more elaborate pieces, have to sell between £1,400 and £2,000 if, even on my present pricing system, they are to be worth doing. Since a smaller percentage of the population is prepared to pay this sort of money, this means that I have to gradually become better known to attract the right sort of buyers. However, by their nature, the larger pieces are more impressive so, eventually, this should happen.

There are limits on how much work that I can produce so. hopefully, a point will be reached when I cannot fulfil the demand (to a small degree, this is already happening). This means that I can afford to discourage some buyers by asking for higher prices. If I am getting higher prices, than the value of existing pieces is also likely to go up and so my work should acquire an investment value, which in turn should boost sales. This is clearly a delicate balance, but the big advantage - to me - of higher prices is that it gives me more freedom to select the sort of work I want to do and to experiment with other media (for example, I have planned some pieces of sculpture that I would like to be able to cast in bronze). Greater financial freedom should also bring me more freedom in terms of where I can exhibit and thus widen my potential market.

All of this is calculated entirely from the point of view of the money required by me, personally, in order to be able to continue to produce work and expand my own art career. However, a time should come when established, commercial art galleries find my work desirable purely from a business point of view. The difficulty with this is that galleries have to factor in their own profit margins, so an increased selling price will not necessarily immediately reflect in more money for myself. What would make this worthwhile would be if the gallery was promoting my work into new markets and could reach further afield. It would also lift the burden from me of having to organise my own exhibitions! In the longest term, this is probably the way that my career has to go, since eventually it would result in the greatest freedom to concentrate on producing the work I want to. However, it is not something that I am feel any urgency about. Galleries have their own concerns! If they see a profit in promoting my work, I think that this will make them keenest to do so!

From an artistic point of view, I am happy with what I am doing. I know my work to be unique and I believe that it offers something special to the various people who have bought my paintings. I just want the financial freedom to be able continue expanding the scope of my art. The above writing encapsulates my thoughts on how I can establish this greater financial freedom. If anyone reading this is also a working artist, I am would be interested in their comments and curious as to their own approach(s) to promoting and financing their careers.

Jokes and understanding Contemporary Art

I was just reading an article, "Young at Art", from the Sunday Times Supplement (2/12/2007). The main part of the article was about how the paintings of a young girl of four had been fetching prices of about 300,000 dollars. Later, some evidence came to light which seems to indicate that it was not simply all the girl's unaided, unprompted work. However, it does raise the question of how the value of items of art can be established - which also raises the question of how they can be understood, particularly if they are non-figurative.

It seems to me that an important tool is to apply the same rules to understanding art that you would apply to understanding humour. Much of the best modern work – that I believe is liable to last – I would associate with inventiveness and a sense of fun (whether or not ostensibly meant so by the artist). A joke shares something with a work of art: it twists things so that you look at them in a new light, often juxtaposing things that you would not normally think of as going together. In this light, Damian Hurst's diamond-coated skull can be thought of as a rather obscene joke about the art market - and how much some art collectors are prepared to pay - rather than a profound statement about death. The crack in the floor of the Tate Modern works well as a visual joke - which is why it appears to be attracting many fascinated visitors - but perhaps not so well as a deep statement about the separation of developed and under-developed countries and alienated minorities.

Jokes - like art - can be thought-provoking, witty, simple or complex, cynical, satirical, in good or bad taste, offensive, upsetting, re-assuring and - sometimes - just plain bad! I think that this way of understanding art is obtained from one's first reaction to the piece - without reference to what the artist might say about it. Just a feeling about what the piece is saying based on what the piece looks like, the materials it is known to have be made from and the context within which it is presented. Looked at like this, Duchamp's ready-made "Fountain" (a ceramic urinal which he signed (R. Mutt"), can be understood as being a work of art, but also a rather unpleasant and deliberately offensive joke on the art-going public of the time (1917).
If you decide that you appreciate the "joke", it is then worth considering other factors in order to decide if its purchase (presuming it is purchasable) represents value for money. In a recent TV programme about the Frieze Art Fair (“Imagine: How to Get On in the Art World”), the presenter, Alan Yentob, bought a sculpture, one of an edition of three, by George Henry Longley, at £3,500. It represents a play on the idea of a ladder. Longley transformed it by sealing off the ends and changing the five rungs by using a diamond cross-section. The final piece in, presumably, welded metal is painted bright red. When you take it that the dealer is probably getting at least half of the final price and taking into account the difficulties of making the piece, the cost does not seem unreasonable. Displayed against a white wall in a room of Alan Yentob's house, the ladder made a striking display and, to me at least, made art historical connections with a whole type of contemporary art. Hence I think that it was a very reasonable, if not earth-shattering, purchase. Witty enough to be interesting and decorative enough to work in the context of a private house. Not the sort of work that I would want for myself, but one that I can appreciate in someone else's house.

The big question, I think, is to establish whether or not you can laugh with the work of art, or whether the joke is on you!

Contemporary Art and Exhibitions

"Two Women Talking", October 2007.

Oils on canvas, 30 cm x 40 cm.

My art exhibition is now over and I am pleased with the results - some sales and enough commissions to keep me busy for much of the year to come! Perhaps more important, in the long term, was that the reaction from visitors was very good. This is important because it encourages me to think that I am on the right track with regard to the type of work I am producing.

However, I have reservations with regard to the number of visitors that I was able to attract. I had about 130-150, which wasn't bad for a one-man exhibition in a small town. Some of my visitors either knew me personally or had a particular interest in art already, so it was not surprising that they enjoyed the exhibition. The particularly encouraging part was that I also had a number of very casual visitors, not particularly interested in art, but who reacted very favourably once inside. The discouraging part was that I did not have more of these casual visitors! I suspect that this was not to do with me personally, but rather that there is a general reaction from many members of the public which prejudges an art exhibition as likely to be boring!

A lot of contemporary art relies on its ability to shock, puzzle, bewilder and/or intrigue the spectator. But these effects are subject to the law of diminishing returns, which means that the increased search for the new and novel nevertheless has a decreased response from the viewer. This, I believe, has resulted in an alienation of the public. To some degree, the gap is filled by hobbyists and by those artists who are prepared to paint simply to suit popular tastes – primarily decorative landscapes. The difficulty with this, is that the quality of the work is often not high. Even if the painting is technically good, it is rarely intellectually challenging. The result is that the popular art going public tends to be confined to the artists themselves, their immediate friends and relations, and buyers who are simply looking for something decorative to hang on their walls.

I do believe that the way forward is a re-engagement with the familiar. By familiar I mean traditional media, oil and watercolour, etc, and traditional subjects, landscape, portraiture, etc. But a painting should not simply be a demonstration of painterly skill. Within this context, the role of the artist – I believe – is to make the viewer re-examine and re-evaluate the subject matter. The apparent familiarity is the tool which persuades the viewer to consider the artwork in the first place (instead of dismissing it out of hand, the “I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like” syndrome). But it then needs to take the viewer further. Above all else, it needs to build the expectation that the viewer will find future work interesting – and worth the bother of going to see!

Preview Night

The Preview of my Art Exhibition was held on Thursday, 11th October. It went very well, approximately 20% sales on the night, but more important was the feedback I got (very encouraging) and the general "buzz" (which was excellent). I also got several commissions for new work. All in all, a very successful night!

My Art Exhibition

I have been very busy this last couple of weeks. I am putting an exhibition of my art work for the last eighteen months. Hard work, but also quite good fun.

On Thursday, a photographer from one of the local papers came to get some photos for an article on the exhibition! I have put up posters around the town and, of course, a lot of individualised invitations have been sent out, but getting the local press onboard is likely to be critical to the success of the show.

"Experiential Realism" as a modern Art Movement

I have been looking for an art term or title that describes what I am trying to do. The best that I have been able to come up with is, "Experiential Realism". The term already exists in philosophy as developed by George Lakoff, of the University of California at Berkeley.

In philosophical terms, Experiential Realism accepts the existence of the real world and that its nature determines much of how it is understood. But the philosophy also reasons that our understanding of the world develops from the nature of our own bodies and our upbringing. For example, (if I understand this correctly) if people from two different cultures looked at a tree, they would both be able to accept its reality, but at the same time - influenced by different cultural attitudes and personal experiences - they would also perceive it somewhat differently.

In art terms, Realism was a late 19th century art movement which was concerned with the accurate and apparently objective description of the ordinary, observable world. The Realists attempted to depict the lives and appearance of ordinary people. Social Realism developed from this, in the early 20th century, as a movement particularly concerned with depiction of the poor and thus it criticised the social environment that caused the poverty and misery. Essentially, whatever their value as works of art, Social Realism was a form of propaganda endeavouring to change social attitudes. The original Realists were also propagating a view, although a rather simpler one, that the lives of ordinary people were just as suitable a subject for major works of art as the lives of the rich and powerful.

Both were reactions to prevailing viewpoints, as is my own. My point is that the realistic depiction of every day life and places is still worthy of depiction in serious works of art. It is not simply the domain of the hobbyist and the part-time painter. And has certainly not been made defunct by the advent of photography! However, I think that such painting has to rise above mere mechanical recording, which is why I prefer the term, "Experiential Realism", as referring to my type of art. My depictions are influenced by my experience of the scene and this is determined by both my physical and mental characteristics.

Slieve Croob sunset, Co. Down, N. Ireland

“Slieve Croob at sunset, from the Saintfield Road, Ballynahinch."

Oils on canvas, 20” x 30”.

It has been awhile since my last post, but I have been thinking a lot about what I am trying to do with my painting. In one sense, my aim is completely straightforward, I am trying to record what I see as "realistically" as I can. But the realism is the one of my perception and experience of the scene, not as a camera would record it. The above example illustrates the point. I decided to create this painting after seeing the sunset from this spot whilst driving between Bangor and Ballynahinch. I took photographs to assist - but these could not actually record the play of light the way I was seeing it. If I photographed the sky, the ground was under-exposed, and even if I allowed for this so as to photograph the land, the contrast was still too great between parts which were illuminated by the setting sun and the areas of shadow. However, I could see details within the shadow, the highlit areas and the sky as I scanned the scene. Hence my experience of the scene was as a whole.

I started the painting by, as is my custom, sketching in the composition from observation - but under normal lighting conditions. Some of the filling in was then done with the assistance of photographs - but modified by my memories of the scene. When a similar sunset occurred, I returned to the site to attempt to check details from observation - but I found that the way the light fell on the canvas was so extreme that it largely made this impossible. In the end, I simply used the experience to refresh my memory of the colours and shading and then completed the painting in the studio.

In fact, I am very pleased with the result. I believe that it portrays the "truth" of my experience of the sunset in a way that is impossible for photography to do.

Latest paintings!

I have been rather busy since my last blog, so this is primarily an exercise in displaying my latest paintings! They are all on 24 x 18 inch canvases, as I find this a very convenient size to work with. I am continuing to get requests to do paintings, but it is going to be more difficult to work from observation now that winter is approaching. For one of the paintings that I am working on at the moment, I found that I had to work from the back seat of my car, parked on the opposite side of the street from the building which is my subject. I have a variety of lightweight shelters (the most useful of which is a large fisherman's umbrella), which can cope with rain quite well - but not when combined with strong gusts of wind!

“Charles’ Papershop, Ballynahinch”, September 2006.

“Market House, Ballynahinch”, September 2006.

This last one was a commission from the Ballynahinch Regeneration Committee.

“Ginesis Café, Main Street, Ballynahinch”, August 2006.

Thinking about painting!

“38 Main Street, Ballynahinch”, July 2006.
Oils on canvas, 24” x 18”.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the "why?" of what I am doing. Initially, when I started painting again, it was simply to get myself, without stress, back into the habit of working on my own art. But, as I became involved with the mechanics of what I was doing, it became clear that straightforward "observational" painting is really not either straightforward or simply to do with observation!

A normal photograph of a scene will do three main things:

1. It will record the scene with strict regard to linear and aerial perspective - the view is recorded from one precise point, straight lines will appear straight, objects will diminish in size with mathematical precision according to distance and more distant objects will appear to be hazier and bluer.
2. Colours, because of the limitations of film design (or printing ink, if using a digital camera) will be be distorted. Some colours, usually the most vivid, will "out of gamut" and cannot be reproduced exactly - and so will be muted.
3. There will be variation according to the depth of field. Anything at the same distance as the object focused upon will appear to be sharp. everything in front or behind will appear to be blurred. (By using a very small depth of field, a photographer can deliberately use this to isolate his subject from the background, so that his subject appears sharp and everything else will appear hazy.)

But this is not actually the way that a scene is viewed in reality. We move our heads (and we have two eyes, giving us stereo vision, which means that sometimes one eye can see what the other can not), our eyes can appreciate a much greater colour range than the camera can record and we look at different parts at different times, mentally blending our observations into the one perception.

Although not intentionally distorting what I am seeing, when painting, I quite automatically incorporate this way of viewing into the result. Perspective - whilst appearing to be essentially correct - will be "adapted" so that vertical lines may no longer be precisely vertical, angles may change to make the view more dramatic or to reveal a greater area (as from a different viewing point). One of the rules of human observation is that one "notices" more that which one is interested in. So colours can appear more vivid - and the perceptions can then be reproduced by using the full range provided by good quality paints! Everything is painted in focus because one automatically focuses on the part which is being observed.

The final result of all these adaptations is that, I believe, a painting can be much more "alive" and truer to actual perceptions of a scene than a photograph can ever be!

“Kitties Entry (Harmony Way), off Main Street, Ballynahinch”, July 2006.

Oils on canvas, 24” x 18”.