Last evening around 9:30 the sounds of Yorkville on a Friday night – date night – lured us out of our cocoon and into the party throng on the street. There’s a vibe down here in the middle of the city. Everyone comes to these few blocks to have fun. The restaurants have lineups and the patios are overspilling onto the street. Young and old have a Yorkville memory of some kind and are drawn back to find that ephemeral joie. Mine go back to the early 70s – The Unicorn, gone, The Coffee Mill, still here and thriving.

We detoured toward Yorkville Avenue first before switching back to the Gelateria on Cumberland. Earlier in the afternoon we’d put a new display in our Nano Gallery – there in the lane way - a painting by artist, Linda Kemp and wanted to make sure the drapery was behaving. It wasn’t. (Note to self…)

Anyway, we decided to have the first gelato of the season. The evening was cool and breezy, but we still had to wait in line for that cup of cold sensory delight. We sauntered along, exchanging tastes and arrived in our little park where we perched on the huge square stones stacked up to create a raised garden. It’s still early for planting, but we are sitting right at the edge of the allee of gorgeous cherry trees in full blossom. Even in the night they shimmer. Looking up through the overhanging branches the rising full moon casts an opal light through the pink canopy.

Just steps away from the street we are quiet in the hush of the trees and are happy observers of life in Yorkville on Friday night. And then all at once I get it! I get why art is so very important to so many of us. I mean, I am sitting on this stone, really in reverie; musing on the past, enjoying the gelato and the company of my love in the present while we chat about our future. I am in the midst of experience – my own, in the midst of hundreds who surround me.

I vaguely thought as I let in the night colour of the cherry blossoms that they would soon be gone if this breeze kept up. I was delighted as one petal blew down, did a spin in the air and topped my gelato like a flag. I no sooner had the thought but dismissed it that we must come back and get a picture in the morning. There was no camera that could capture this experience.

Like the eye, the camera records everything within the frame. Our perceptual filters dismiss this and that until we have an edited experience in real time. Photographers similarly must edit to make their point of reference clear and then sometimes impose technical manipulation to further the clarity of message. Painting, on the other hand, begins with a blank canvas – no information. The artist draws from within his or her inner being, the colours and shapes that depict what they have ‘seen’ in their mind’s eye.

The mind’s eye – unlike our physical recording or photographic eye – sees with all the senses. The developed artist is an observer of life on all planes. An artist, as acute observer, absorbs the totality of experience, wind, light, warmth, colour, hue, tone, texture, pattern, line, mood, memory and context of the moment. And then the monumental task is to draw on that reservoir and interpret that onto a tabula rasa. In a distillation the artist must bring forward the essence so that like drop of rain onto a cactus, the viewer engages in the artist’s suggestions and his or her very being is charged with opening to the communication.

A successful painting is a skilled and inspired communication. It can be abstract – now called non-representational – or realistic or surreal. Our literal and rational mind – so popular these days – is only part of our interpretive sensory experience. Our brain has a trillion hits of information a day that we filter and file in our vast sensory library. A painting by an intuitive and experienced artist will drift like smoke under the doorway of our rational barriers and inform us of a deeper experience of life.

We will be moved. Each of us will resonate to different artists, just as we feel our way into personal relationships. The experience of a work of art is entirely voluntary and subjective. It is an invitation that you will wish to accept or pass on for something more meaningful to you. All art regardless of quality or excellence is communication. As therapy, art is superlative in releasing the demons within so that they can be encountered on a constructive basis. Child’s art is absolutely dear in its innocence and integrity. A talent in his or her first days, can produce attractive works. But art as a language that will continue to speak to us of inspiration or resolution, happiness or consolation, must meet our own complexity of being to truly be an enduring gift to us personally.

A work of art needn’t be large to have a big voice. Nor must it be by a ‘recognized’ artist to be excellent. It can be inexpensive or dear. It’s intrinsic value is in what it gives to us when we see it; how its presence in our room changes the feeling of the space. How we feel familiar with the artist – even if we never meet – because at some level he or she captured something personal within you and you have been understood.

This last thought is very powerful for me. The more we evolve into our technology the greater our isolation. We may be connected and living seemingly interactive lives – pictures of every nuance on Facebook across nations. Our bon mots may be retweeted to thousands, but the great divide is the screen before us where we play out our lives. Clustering with laptops in cyber cafes, I believe, has more to do with loneliness than a cheap wifi connection. Thronging to Yorkville on a weekend has more to do with being shoulder to shoulder than walking with an orange Hermes shopping bag.

We don’t just want to belong to a person or a place – we want to belong to a shared experience. One that, like the cherry blossoms won’t have blown away by morning. Our art is our way of being human together and knowing each other in ways our words could never be adequate to – even if we allowed ourself the vulnerability to speak them to another. Art opens us to ourselves and in that frees us to be more present in the moment.

I probably will take the camera when we go for our Saturday morning coffee on the patio overlooking the park. Along with the picture I will pick up a handful of petals now on the ground. They will be silky and I will let my eyes drink in their pinkness. The moon – in perigee tonight will return in supermoon splendour. All the elements of last night will be there; the lineup at the gelateria, the super cars, the glamourous ones, the laughter, the clinking of glasses, the smokey voice of the songstress – but my moment has blown away on the wisp of memory.

It’s not the memory of the moment I want to keep – I could do that digitally. It is the feeling of the experience – the hardness of the rock where we sat, the softness of the falling petals. How the wind became chill and we joined the moving crowds and took the long way home in the light of the moon – heads close, soft words, arms around each other.

One day I will see a painting that will, like ink in water, drop into my subconscious and suffuse it with this sweet remembered experience.  Until then, I’ll wait.

Cheers!
Marilyn
Follow @MarilynHarding

Popular is to authentic what glamour is to beauty. One is fleeting and contrived while the second is timeless. Paris Hilton to Audrey Hepburn.  The market doesn’t always tell the truth.

I came upon this ARI litmus triad when I was listening to my sons’ music. They are in the process of recording an album of original music – rock and roll – and brought the instrumental CD in for us to hear. The vocals and lead guitar – the fancy stuff – weren’t
down yet – just drums, bass and guitar. But the music was good. Actually it was better than good – and I have been a stern critic when I felt their music was brash and self indulging. Yes, they had a niche with their younger music, but what I heard yesterday blasts them across a diverse demographic.  Art of quality transcends boundaries and can never be pigeon holed.

The music grabbed me by the senses. I was moved and moving. It wasn’t literal. It drew me out and I followed my own inner experience with the rolling melodies and thrumming beat. I didn’t have to be the mama to know that what I was hearing was authentic and original. The music was respectful – both of the listener and of itself. What I mean by that is the music was layered and each instrument had equal balance. It was rich and complex and interesting. There was great detail in the nuances. The pauses as well as the intricate drum fills. There was no rush to the finish, no dangling phrases

As to intelligent, well each song was a complete work. Melody, beat, rhythm, balance, harmony were all mixed with thoughtfulness and consideration for the whole and the parts. It was symbiotic – the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. It was musically articulate with a complexity – evocative cadences that rush forward and recede into the distance – much like a classical piece. And while there was a distinctive signature, each work was singular.

What does this have to do with painting? Just this:

Your experience of a work of art has to be based on your own authority. Your purchase of a work and continuing relationship with it has to hang on much more than someone else’s say so. The art market is a marketing machine. It makes money on itself much like stock promoters sell excitement more often than value. Fundamental valuation is vastly different often from market value. And we all know that market value is as quixotic as a summer thunder storm. So, how do you judge for yourself?

Like music – you’ve just gotta feel it. After you feel it – something lit up inside you when you saw it – try my ARI litmus. Is it authentic, respectful, intelligent?

Authentic: This is not about a certificate. In this case I am referring to the originality and authenticity of the artist’s own expression. Is he or she in the work? Is their question or statement or process of exploration part of their work? Do you feel that there is an underlying objective? Is there a plot to the story?

Not long ago, I was writing a piece and in my search for an image, I googled images and came across an apple. But is was an interesting apple. A painting. It caught me as much in what it didn’t say as what it did say. I was immediately part of the conversation with the apple. Naturally I followed the link to this young artist’s website, dashed through his still life gallery getting more and more excited by his work and his singular expression. Through the link I landed at a gallery in North Carolina and into a conversation with the owner.

He asked me if I had seen this work in person. I explained that I was from Toronto and how I had come upon it. He didn’t have to tell me how exquisite it was in person. I could feel the energy lifting off the computer screen. That painting is mine – and one day soon I hope to own it. That compelling emotion in my deepest knowing tells me the artist and his work is authentic.

Respectful: If this seems an odd value to place on a painting, I will explain what I mean. The other evening we were out walking through the village here in the centre of the city. In a gallery window we saw an eye catching painting. It was tall and narrow, bright white with colours chasing across it in a rush of movement. It was well done and I wanted to know more. We gazed at it a long time – it seemed to be aglow in the darkened gallery window.

Some days later, I stopped into the gallery to find out more about the artist and their work. I was told it was very popular and selling well. At the opening – quite a number of works sold. On the back wall of the gallery was another one of the artist’s pieces. It was instantly recognizable. Bright white with colours chasing across the canvas in a rush of movement. Sound familiar? It was. It was identical except that the little figures of colour were in a different configuration.

While I continued a polite exchange with the owner who promised to email me images, I was already heading for the door. All interest and intrigue had drained from my body. What I witnessed, was something that I feel happens all too often in the art market. An artist is talented, has an authentic voice and then is marketed in a way that stunts their creative growth. They stick with what is commercial and what was once original is now a gimmick. This happens to seasoned artists too.  Galleries support sales not creativity and sometimes artists are stuck in a role identity like an actor.  As a buyer, I want the work of an artist who is still engaged in their own creativity. Simply put, an artist has to respect his/her own work for me to respect it. If I will accept rote work – no matter how big the name – then what does that say about me?  Art is a relationship – do I want someone to pander to me?

Intelligent: A work doesn’t have to be complex to prove its intelligence any more than big words are the only way of expressing big ideas. A haiku is as compelling as a sonnet but both adhere to rules of nature. Balance, tone, harmonic, spacing, cadence, rhythm, texture. All these describe patterns of nature and as patterns of nature these form the language that we humans require to reach a deeper understanding. The more educated, experienced or competent an artist is the greater his ease with this language. He/she will say more with less. An intelligent work will assume that it attracts an intelligent viewer.

An intelligent work is confident of itself and will invite the viewer in to share the experience, interpret the experience, or draw a completely different conclusion from the artist’s experience. But the language has to be there – spelling, grammar and sentence structure are essential to a good read. Talent alone is not enough. Skill, inspiration, and discipline define a greater work. An idea alone cannot fill the pages of a book.

Last winter I was sitting on the sofa chatting with my son on the phone. The winter sun was cascading through the shutters and flooding the room. Above the fireplace was the work of artist Linda Kemp, a client new to me. Linda’s work is non representational and in this particular piece, I am drawn to the colour and the hint of far hills at sunset. But as my eye passed over it casually I was suddenly riveted. There before me picked out in the sunlight were layers and layers of colour, texture and pattern that I had never seen before. Tears literally sprung to my eyes as I witnessed the subtle revelation that this artist had offered me in her care and skilled reverence for the tools of her craft. An intelligent painting will continue to reveal itself over time like the qualities of a worthy friend.

As a culture we live in our heads. Our fixation on computer communities tells us that. So in this high tech world, it is imperative to regain the balance needed for a fulfilled life by reaching toward the creative arts. Music and dance, painting, sculpture and literature bring us back to the centre of our own knowing. Through our collection of original authentic art we express our own individuality and authenticity.  

Cheers!  

Marilyn

As a Reiki Practitioner I understand the power and effect of energy fields. If that smacks of the New Age then think about energy fields of electricity, radio, micro and the tangle of waves that we live with. Some we’ve harnessed and some we have yet to discover. But they are there nonetheless. We intuit energy – get vibes from people or places and we are affected by energy that is either positive, negative, annoying or neutral.

What does this have to do with art and anxiety? Just this: A hands-on genuine work of art has an inherent energy of the artist’s creative process. Studies have shown that a work that moves us in its beauty or complexity causes an emotional response which releases endorphins similar to the sensation and euphoria of falling in love. The work may be abstract or representational. It is not judged by the mind as to what is beautiful or clever – or what even makes sense. The work will emanate a presence that transcends our logical mind and slip into our place of feeling perception – the heart or the solar plexus.

The level of development of the artist and his/her integration of skill, talent, passion and inspiration will determine the clarity of the message we receive. Now, unless the piece is allegorical and has an obvious theme, the message imparted by the artist may not be the message we receive. Art, after all is subjective. What happens is on a subtle level – the channel of communication is opened between artist and viewer to share an experience of a moment in time captured in the work.

Art condenses the experience we all have as human beings, and, by forming it, makes it significant.  We all have an in-built need for harmony and the structures that create harmony. Basically, art is an affirmation of life. (Trevor Bell)

These influences are on a sentient level – a level of feeling and perception. It is the interpretive software of our observing self. But we are also physical beings with a limbic or primal brain. This means that elements of a work will be resonant or dissonant based on our hardwiring to the patterns and harmonies of nature. An animal runs swiftly through the forrest completely attuned to the natural order of the terrain. It will stop short on high alert when it perceives something out of order – smell, sound, shape.

An animal is fine tuned to survival but we are not. Our instincts are overridden by our adaption to urban dwelling. However, when something is in our own space, what we may override in the first place we will subtly let in to our conscious awareness over time. Actually, we don’t ‘let’ it in – awareness of disharmony will ultimately impose itself in due course.

You can probably think of occasions when you have let people into your life, whose character over time through behaviour – subtle or overt – emerged as unpleasant or downright deplorable. The mask drops and what was attractive in the first place has shown its deeper nature. A work of art is just the same. And here, I believe, is the deepest confusion in the understanding of the definition of art.

A painting may catch our eye for its subject, colour, craftsmanship. It may amuse, shock and otherwise stimulate us. But it is over time that we live with our art choices and it is in our private living or work space that we invite them in. Over time a work will prove its character. It will be uplifting, disturbing, tedious or null.

Uplifting:

When you see a fish you don’t think of its scales, do you?  You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water.  If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality.  I want just the flash of its spirit.  (Constantine Brancusi) 

These are works by artists who are devoted to the balance of talent, skill, passion and inspiration. Again, these works transcend genre and may be ancient, modern or avant garde. Art is an expression – a presentation of thoughts and feelings in a language we sense rather than know. But language it is and the more articulate the artist is in using the elements of communication; talent, skill, passion and inspiration the more successful the piece. What is immediately evocative will continue to reveal aspects more subtle and hold its allure. The marketing romance is sort lived and the day to day relationship will tell.

Disturbing:

You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
(Abraham Lincoln)

This is not a judgment of subject or content; some concepts welcomingly jerk us out of complacency and that might be desirable. Challenging pieces that depict struggle or angst can draw us in to the artist’s process and assist us in our own resolution and integration of complexities in our own life.

One disturbing aspect I refer to is the imbalance in the elements of skill, talent, passion and inspiration. The tilt in one element that dominates the other three will inevitably let us down. Our primal awareness will perceive disturbance to pattern and form.  We will inherently detect the disconnect.  

For example, pure inspiration or concept will be too much in the head and is often the art that we just ‘don’t get’ from the get go. If the created work requires an explanation of its meaning then the disconnect of intellect from feelings is exacerbated. As whole or holistic beings this distortion will often play out in our lives in expanding waves of discontent like two mirrors facing into infinity. It can be hard and reflective.

This art usually has more to do with our external life – it’s value is in status or prestige – life as a marketable commodity.  Art as commodity over communication is disturbing as it is marketed counter intuitively and raised in stature on art babble and hyperbole. We are left feeling we have been mocked.

Tedious:

The Damnable thing about bad art is that the insincerity which lies at its roots is not perceived by the artist himself.  (Quentin Bell)

This art often exhibits talent but the artist lacks inspiration – creates from images rather than experiences. It may be skilled and illustrative but show no passion. It may have elements of skill but lack the maturation and devotion to discipline that leaves the communication elementary and uninteresting.  After the first glance the work has said all it has to say.

When passion is lacking the artist’s process is avoided. When an artist isn’t challenged and interested or confident enough in his/her own painting to play with the elements of light and dark, negative and positive space, colour, pattern, texture, in an original and balanced composition then the communication drops like a stone.  We would soon disregard the book which overstates or is neglectful of grammer and spelling.  

If the emerging artist gets stuck in the incomplete stage – which sadly often happens with moderate or even minimal success they will miss a great opportunity for creative excellence and the personal gratification that process and development brings. The potential of an incomplete piece can never be realized. Something is left unsaid or too much is said which leaves the viewer out of the conversation completely.  

Null:

Is not life a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?
(Friedrich Nietzsche)

This is purely decorative art – hotel style. It utilizes the same media as genuine art but its value lies in colour, shape and size. Does it match? Will it fit? These are the criteria. It may pull the elements of a room together but it will lack any resonance. It will merely blend with the wall and soon disappear from notice. It is not a creation but a production and so has no energetic evocation.  These pieces neither detract nor enhance a space – they merely offer a void – a place where something might have happened but didn’t.  A missed chance.

*Original Art?  Art that is created with the deepest respect for skill and tradition, blended with confidence for a singular and unique expression.  This is the art of inspiration, inventiveness, exploration, trial, discipline, devotion and the willingness to endure the process of individuation.  This is art where the tools are used with dexterity and experience to hone a work to its essential communication.  Art is communication and like a well crafted poem opens us to a deeper knowing of ourselves and our world.

Art that explores the edges of our time is the avant-garde of contemporary art.  The ‘avant-garde will necessarily be renamed as it slips past the present on the river of time and the edge will be breached again.  But while it is up there at the forefront, for most of us, it will range from being vaguely disquieting to outraging.  It is the dealer’s or curator’s job to translate the new and find the language to capture the purely conceptual.  We are often affronted or mystified by the art babble. Describing a cow sawn in half is a taxing challenge to create the cachet that will match the price slapped on the piece – should you wish to own it – or even pay to see it.

In a recent film of the Basel Miami Art Fair, a group gushed over an installation which was a tangle of green extension cords.  The curator sought rapport with the artist by expressing that she felt the inherent sadness in her work.  Everyone but Morley Safer nodded in numbed bemusement.  The curator, uber polished in her dress and delivery – strung multi-syllabic words words together with enthusiasm – peripatetic was one of them, but what did she actually say?  No one wants to ask – lest they appear a Neanderthal.

I think that the art world which exists in the stratosphere of modernity and money – the bastion of contemporary art fairs and international auctions – is a tacit cartel protecting its own sanctity. It has its own language: art babble, on which Morley comments is ‘as opaque as spilled alphabet soup’. The cartel’s entrance criteria is absurd amounts of disposable income and its creed; don’t ask too many questions. Its collective agreement? I’ll pretend to believe your nonsense if you pretend to believe mine.

A California dealer confesses in the film, “It’s all theatre”.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that the artist of the extension cords wasn’t sad when she carefully knotted and draped, but does everything that tumbles out of one’s psyche constitute art? Are some tanglings more articulate than others? Are some tanglings best left in the box in the basement? And who decides?

Well, the cartel decides. And what drives the cartel? A great big marketing machine. And what fuels the machine? Desire. Desire for anything one doesn’t have. Desire for anything that sets one above. The desire for superiority. By and large the rarified art world is driven by speculators or status seekers, shares the L.A. Agent.

Koons, like his work or not, has escalated from $250,000 to $25 million over twenty years.

This is not to say that there isn’t some terrific, truly evocative and inspired art being produced and collected by in-tune collectors. As the Los Angeles gallery owner suggested, some collectors purchase art in a ‘organic biographical way’;  it means something to them personally. What I do say is that desire fuelled by money and prestige is an ever open maw and stoking the marketing machine that feeds it means that the pink slime gets thrown in with the prime rib. There is no dearth of artists but there does seem to be a paucity of genuine art. The cartel keeps its secrets and only the discerning see through them.

Marshall McLuhan said “Art … is a Distant Early Warning (DEW) System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it”  If that is so, what can we take from this current epoch?  Well, if we distance ourselves from the hype and sift out the prime from the slime, we might have a collection of artists who portend a future that is most excellent.  (I am ever the optimist).  However, the art scene is more about the marketing of art and less about the creation of art.  And that is a foreboding future for sure.  It means that we’ve not only dropped our aesthetic compass but have crushed it under foot.

I quote Warhol who borrowed from McLuhan, “Art is anything you can get away with”.  And if money equalled truth – Warhol is the proof.  We are no longer guided by inner knowing but by the surging of contrived opinion . Simply put, we have been jettisoned out of our hearts and into our heads. Thoughts rule and feelings are suspect. And if you follow the bouncing dollar signs that seems to be true. But true is never derived from collective agreement – no matter how much money changes hands.  There is value in art that has nothing to do with price.

This is my definition of art borrowed from Aldous Huxley: “The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for awhile, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.”  If you are a collector, no matter how modest, and the works of art you buy aren’t doing that, you have paid too much.

Cheers!

Marilyn

“Picasso earned the right to do anything he wanted,” Andy Rooney

We were chatting in the lounge of The Arts & Letters Club waiting for the dinner gong. Our keynote speaker of the evening was Don Thompson, author of The $12 Million Stuffed Shark and I was anticipating some clarity on my, ever increasing, perplexity in regard to the contemporary art market. I have been trying to understand it but the more I learn the less I know. I do not seem to be alone.  I was happy to see a friend there who has just returned from Europe. My friend is very worldly and you could even say,debonaire kind of man. We touched glasses and I asked if he was looking forward to the talk that evening. His response was like a shot and I paraphrase: “ I would not listen to that man – it is the very antithesis of what this club stands for!”

“But,” said I, “I thought he exposes the craziness of floating sharks as art.” (I have not yet read the book) I began to sense that I was not going to have the “aha” moment I was anticipating. We found our seats at the long trestle tables in the Great Hall, the same room where the famous photo of The Group of Seven was taken seated congenially at one of these very tables.  The film screen was lit and these words dominated the space: The value of a work of art is based on its provenance and its back story. “Oy vey,” I said to myself.

The toughest part to swallow of the talk was that what Don Thompson said is the truth. How we spend our money is a very clear indication of where our values lie – as individuals and as a culture. In fact the first slide that popped up in the talk was a lovely relaxed shot of George Clooney in a black sweater

“What would you pay at auction for one of George Clooney’s sweaters?”, asked Mr. Thompson

“What would you pay if it was stipulated that you couldn’t tell anyone it was George Clooney’s sweater?”

“What would you pay if it had been dry cleaned?”

And on went the rhetorical questions until we were clear that the object of value is redundant.

So strong is the back story, Mr. Thompson opined, that when the first shark deteriorated, the artist, Hirst, replaced it – that is to say Damien Hirst’s technicians (168 on staff) procured another shark from Australia, stuffed and floated it. The replacement went on loan to the MOMA as the original. In this case, it is the concept that is the object – did I really say that?

Evidently, what made the stuffed shark art-esque was not the shark itself (object) but the title. In this case: “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (concept).  This launched it into the vast catch bag description of contemporary art and placed Hirst resolutely into the firmament of stars of the contemporary art world.  Hirst continues to illicit an enormous amount of hue and cry over his various pieces. The formaldehyde series is so successful that it now includes a zebra, a cow and calf sawn in half, a lamb and others. He is the world’s richest living artist.

But this is no ‘one trick pony’, Hirst has produced other conceptual pieces ranging from diamond encrusted human skull “For the Love of God” (apparently what his mother said when he shared his idea), butterflies, a colourful sphincter painting and dots done by others.

Okay – Don Thompson is absolutely right about something else as well: Hirst is a brilliant, world class marketing genius. And he genuinely seems like a happy guy. In fact, in many photos I’ve seen of him he has this enigmatic smile – kinda like La Gioconda – The Mona Lisa. Hmmm what is he thinking?

Here’s my postulation: Hirst and others in his class have happened onto the goldmine of the disassociated head from heart duality that underlies our culture. He has used shock – animals sawn in half;  banality – coloured dots, and ostentation – diamond encrusted human skull and called it art. Somebodies bought it as ‘art’ to the tune of millions and thereby sanctioned the description. Like it or not; want it in your living room or not; Hirst is in the history books as an artist of our time.

If success equals talent then Hirst is talented. If notoriety equals success then Hirst is successful. If money equals genius then Hirst is a genius. If novelty equals creativity then Hirst is creative. Now, if you’re following all this ‘logic’ and still can’t see how he can be the richest artist living in the world today, then here is the last question: If the leading authorities cluster and agree does that make it so?

For the very small percentage of collectors at the apex of the pyramid of the contemporary art market with disposable income in the millions, this is indeed true. The critics have agreed to agree and Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses bring their gavels down on that reality.  For the rest of us who look on with incredulity while the emperor is draped in imaginary finery and rich media coverage the question arises: Isn’t someone going to say this is a naked mockery of art and all it stands for?

Don Thompson confessed, he wrote The $12 Million Stuffed Shark to try to understand the ‘curious economics of contemporary art’ for himself. He revealed it – it is a branding machine. The question that arises for me is how does that branding frenzy filter down into the rest of the market? How do we invest in contemporary art with confidence when there are seemingly no rules or definitions?

Damien Hirst is a self declared conceptual artist. He presents a concept and it’s fulfilment in material and labour is beside the point. Concept is king and concept alone is strictly of the head. It is an intellectual abstraction with no connection to wholeness of being human – the heart and guts, inspiration, skill, perception or talent. Thoughts in themselves are random – bits from the depths of the psyche or from the shallows of the societal cacophony. Not all thoughts are worthy of expression. Not all thoughts are ennobling.

Ah, there now, I have revealed myself. I believe art to be expressions from our deepest human experience articulated in form. The form is intrinsic to the wholeness of the expression so that through the experience of bringing forth the expression, the artist refines the communique. An effective communication may be bold or subtle – a shout or a whisper, but its message will continue to reveal itself over time as it circumvents the censor of the intellect and penetrates the deeper recesses.  The relationship is more of knowing than thinking.

Art that is all idea is as incomplete as art that is all medium and no idea; or art that is all expression and no refinement. Subject, medium, composition, pattern, texture, colour, line, positive and negative space are all intrinsic to a well articulated point of view. Whether realism or abstract, sculpture or canvas, allegorical or surreal, the human being perceives on multiple levels and a successful work will satisfy all of these. And what is a successful work of art if success in not attached to the back story?

Mr. Thompson said that museums will not purchase a work of art until it has been in the public domain for forty years. Why? Because by then the hype and the trends of the time will have quietened and the piece will stand or fall on its own merit. Conversely, an artist may be misunderstood until human consciousness catches up with the artist’s vision.  Time, it seems, stimulates a deeper wisdom of the human condition.

The arts – music, dance, painting et al are creative expressions of humanity, each work is as an individual. And like people, values such as integrity, intelligence, consciousness, deep passion, self- knowledge and refinement in their relative balance and complexity reveal themselves over time and are the foundation of lasting relationships. Choose a work of art as you would a friend. After all, each is an investment in and of your self.

As to art as an investment? Nix says Don Thompson. “Buy a work because you love it”.

Cheers!
Marilyn

If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image. (Francis Bacon)

Recently I was at an art exhibit and one of the guests commented on the featured painting of a streetscape: “That corner doesn’t really look like that. The building is too close to the street.”

He was absolutely correct – but was he absolutely ‘right’ in saying that? A painting is not a photograph even though in some paintings of realism a feather may appear to float out from the canvas. The composition of a painting is the synthesis of the artist’s experience. He/she has necessarily edited extraneous detail and reconfigured placement in order to make a statement that is readily understood by the viewer.

Even the idea of scale from a real life building to the confines of a canvas has distorted ‘reality’. What we are looking at is a symbol. Just as the word ‘book’ is the symbol of the object that we pick up and read.

In the painting now in the Nano Gallery, “The Gooderham Building”, artist Tony Batten has distorted ‘reality’ of the stark city scape of Toronto to create an image of humanity bustling about within the parenthesis of warm terra cotta brick of the Victorian foundations of our modern city. His image – created – is of the warmth, familiarity and humble activities of everyday life near the St. Lawrence Market.

At a time when all of life is towering over us – skyscrapers, information, stresses and demands, this painting tells us we are still very much human in our simple pursuits.

“The Gooderham Building”
Front and Church Streets, Toronto

This landmark structure in the heart of Toronto’s old market area is also known as the Flatiron Building. It has become one of the city’s most beloved heritage structures.

In this luminous painting, Tony Batten, has captured the warmth and charm of Toronto’s heritage against the distant but etherial reality of the modern city.

The warm Victorian brick architecture of the Gooderham Building and the vintage corner wall in the forefront ushers the viewer into the rush and bustle of a busy afternoon near the St. Lawrence Market.

Tony Batten is known for his ability to articulate intricate detail – such as the fire escape zig zagging up the wall of the building while leaving so much unsaid. The viewer is invited to step in and complete the picture – truly engaged and involved. Using the artist’s prerogative, the landmarks are re contextualized to better serve the composition.

For information please contact Marilyn Harding

416-716-2678 or mh@marilynharding.com

www.marilynharding.com

]]> http://www.marilynharding.com/2011/11/07/the-gooderham-building/feed/ 0 http://www.marilynharding.com/2011/09/21/look-who-was-at-the-rome-airport/ http://www.marilynharding.com/2011/09/21/look-who-was-at-the-rome-airport/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:50:49 +0000 Marilyn http://www.marilynharding.com/?p=1780 Continue reading →]]> Welcome Tony Batten to MH Art!

Just over a year ago when preparing for Helen Lucas’s exhibit, Floral Renaissance, at the Carrier Gallery, curator, Rosa Graci was chatting about a trip to Italy that the Centro Scuolo of the Columbus Centre was planning later that month. It was the day after my birthday and short weeks since I had moved from King City into the heart of Yorkville. I was not listening.

Over lunch in the lovely gardens at the Columbus Centre, I politely asked the reason for the trip. Rosa was enthusiastic about taking ‘her artists’ all of whom had exhibited at the Carrier and introducing them to a gallery in Spoleto, where director, Alberto Di Giovanni, had sponsored a gallery dedicated to Canadian Art. In fewer than seven days, I was on an airplane with a suitcase stocked with a wonderful selection of paintings by Tom Miller. There were few words at Pearson Airport and as I filed onto the plane – all by my ‘onesy’ – I was certain of my lunacy.

And there at the Rome Airport, amongst the tired and travel worn group at dawn, stood Tony Batten, tall, composed and in a bright red windbreaker. I confess, I did not know his pedigree which you will discover is more than impressive and I did not know the breathtaking sensibility of his works until much later. What I did discover was a charming raconteur, a brilliantly informed historian, a willing travel guide (if you tag along – even uninvited) and a hysterically funny story teller. I am privileged to call him friend.

Back home I discovered his passion for the arts, his tireless volunteerism for the National Ballet and many other cultural and art events. I not only saw his wonderful canvases but we now have one of our own.

What you can’t see on a computer screen is the light and motion that sparkles and dances off this canvas and infuses all of Tony’s work.

We are delighted to now represent Tony and look forward to letting you know of his upcoming exhibits and shows.  See Tony’s Profile and Gallery.  To stay in touch, sign up for our Life as Art Bulletin (to the right) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

In my friend’s manicured back garden, the tiles of the circular patio are evenly spaced. The rich green grass is neatly edged and a cushioned mat under bare foot. Spilling over the wrought iron seating and table is a glorious Japanese Maple in radiant red. Charming bright coloured bird houses hang from its branches and have already been occupied in early spring.

In the border along the wooden fence, roses rise up over the last leaves of tulips and the dogwood is in full bloom with its unmistakable four square creamy white petalled flowers. Draping branches of variegated leaves frame the lovely flowers.

But it is the brilliant orange poppies that draw me over and I gingerly step onto the soft earth to get closer to reach out and draw the mammoth blossom closer. The long slender blue-green stock feathered in fine green hairs ends in a verdant pod opened to hold a cup of tissue fine petals the size of two palms with splayed fingers. Deep within, the purple-black pleated stamen, a flower within a flower is surrounded by dozens of sepals dusted with deep purple pollen that cascades down and is captured in the bright orange bowl.

I am drawn in, as fascinated as a bee or hummingbird. The detail; the textures, the colours, the perfection, the patterns both please me and put me at ease. I am at ease as I witness the wonder of nature – the folly of mismatched colours (would you wear them together?) in symmetry and harmony.

In my revery I am reminded of a watercolour class many many, okay more many years ago in the perennial garden of Dr. Curtain. She was the benefactor of the Carmichael Art Group in Thistletown, Ontario – a suburb of Toronto. At seventeen, I was allowed to take the last week of school off (when all the field sport events were being played out) and attend a week long art class.

In that garden seated with a handful of students of all ages, I faced my blank paper. Paper wetted, stretched and taped, I leaned over my board and stared at the cluster of Papaver orientale – bright orange Oriental poppies with deep purple centres. They waved languidly in the late June afternoon. I stared some more. The gardens were a riot of colour and texture, but it was the harmony of crushed tissue orange balancing the purple black orb as it bounced heavily in the breeze that fascinated me.

I don’t think I ever painted the poppies. I tried day after day. I became frustrated with the inability to duplicate them on paper with the realism of a camera. I wasn’t talented in drawing and my attempts were probably lively blotches – impatient imprint of purple into a still wet orange centre bleeding all over the place.

Why is this important to share? Because in my naivete I was missing the whole fascination that the flower offered. The flower was not asking to be replicated – we can do that with seeds or a camera. The flower was tantalizing me with its mystery. A mystery for my heart and eye alone. How did I feel about the textures of stem and petal? How was I moved by the contrast of colour? Where was my head on a summer afternoon while the rest of school was in grey tiled halls? What could I say about my experience in my painting of a poppy?

How could I take the notes of colour, texture, pattern and line to create a song that might be hummed by others? As it happened I couldn’t. My creativity is in word not paint. However, as someone said to me today, all the creative arts are interchangeable; they come from the same place. They just need to be tweaked here and there – from pallet to dance floor.

And where is this place they all rise from? The heart. The soul. The unconscious. The true artist speaks, sings, paints, writes, dances or acts from the heart. When we act from the heart we are the instrument of pure creation. Our mind, ego, judgement slides away as our hand grasps a brush or our mouths open in song. We articulate the poppy in rhyme or watercolour by suspending our self definition long enough to engage with the nature of the poppy – tissue fine petals, heavy purple stamen dancing in the summer breeze.

The artist captures that interplay and shares an experience both ephemeral and concrete, emotional and rational. In a painting, as viewer, we stand before a canvas and are transported beyond mind, ego and judgement and enter into the experience of the artist and subject. If the artist has been true to his/her heart then we will feel the authenticity of the experience. The painting may be abstract or realistic, the truth of the communication and shared experience will float right over and by our filters and judgement sentries to lodge right in our soul. We will be moved – or not.

Most of us don’t dedicate our lives to exploring the scintillation of shadow on a wall, the sparkle of sunlight on water, the purpling of distant mountains. We don’t have time. We are up at seven, work out, feed the kids, dash to the office, plug into the machine, check our emails and ride through to day’s end. We have barely enough attention to smell the coffee let alone the roses – wherever they’re hiding out. But we all long for meaning, depth, richness, beauty, love.

An original work of art by an artist who blends skill and intuition will not only be a source of constant delight, but a therapeutic interlude right within your own four walls. It will become as familiar and soothing as a hug or as challenging and inspiring as an anthem. When you have the opportunity to relate to a painting on an emotional or visceral level and then have the privilege to own it and make it part of your living environment, you will enjoy a dimension to life not experienced in any other way.

Fashions and trends change but the face of one you love is ever welcome and comforting. A painting that you have befriended and welcomed into your home is an investment in your own happiness and well being. Your painting may depict a lovely memory – like the view of the distant morning-still Muskoka lake through the foreground veil of pine bow and cones that recently transported me back to age five.

Your painting may be an huge canvas of rounded orbs in varying shades of orange as radiant as sunlight and as sweet as the promise of juice in your mouth. Your painting might be vibrant turquoise backdrop with a broken stock of vermillion geraniums propped in a blue can that lifts your heart. Your painting might be of a weathered skiff pulled onto a rocky shore that reminds you of simple adventure.

Your painting might be the tearing apart of wrapped paper and curling twine that reveals a book, or tulip or Chinese bowl. Your painting – when it chooses you – will whisper, sing or shout, but it will speak in a language you understand.

The caveat is this:  Art is rarely silent.  If you choose to live with an original work of art by an artist who has attained a level of experience and training and creative articulation, you will not only derive pleasure but be reminded in a most gentle and subtle way that life is so much more than we think it is. A great work of art will call out to you, like those poppies did when I was young, to find your own unique expression of life. Like me, you may not be a painter, but you are authentically you. Surrounding yourself with art will call you to live from the heart and express your soul’s purpose – as a CEO or a gardener.

Find a piece of art that ‘turns you on’ and make sure you take it home with you. It is the everyday pleasures of simple creation that will ever sustain us in this turbulent world!

Somewhere into the second week of a recent trip to Italy I stopped taking pictures. I was overflowing with wonder at the beauty and antiquity everywhere I turned. Marble statues crowded frescoes cheek by jowl with paintings surrounded by fine marquetry carvings and giltwork. And that wasn’t necessarily in the gallery!

Farmers markets on cobblestone piazzas teemed with ripe tomatoes and green beans and pomegranates. Beside the farmer his neighbour nimbly carved from a roasted boar’s head for a hungry lunch crowd. Craggy faces and sun browned arms waved greetings across the way. But for the sleek modern wheels – Mercedes and Vespas scooting up and down and along tiny laneways flanked by high ancient walls, the scene could have been 500 years ago.  It is sublime.

History matters here. Beauty matters here. Art matters here. Life matters here. We in the west know that shops close for lunch and siesta in Europe, but we may not understand the significance until we experience the frustration of not shopping at will. We in our world of twenty-four hour drug stores and supermarkets have a major adjustment when we see something savoury or lovely in a window and we can’t get at it.

Shops open and shops close – sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. Posted hours in the window are merely suggestions of hours of operation. If you want it you will come back. Maybe you’ll discover you don’t even need it or want it by the time you get back and find the shop open. So much in our world of instant is impulse. We are a disposable culture here. What I have to have today I will toss in Goodwill tomorrow.

Pharmacies there, interestingly, are also in most cases homeopathic. Shelves are not chock a block with rows of bright packaging with warnings, but offer a few selections of small number. Shelves are spare – suggesting that ‘here is what works for most people’. And over there – essential oils, scented soaps, waters, salts and all that makes us feel better – all over. What imbues the quality of a mundane moment with memory or sensuousness.

Sensuousness pervades Italy. The sky – deep cerulean blue – touches down on sleek white marble figures reclining in the sparkling waters of a tumultuous fountain; on stone towers dark with centuries of dirt; on municipal buildings arching up curved shoulders of pistachio green or soft ochre pocked with age and the glamour of years.

The kaleidoscope of fields – grapes, olives, lavender undulate over the rolling hills – verdant green, silver blue and purple graced by this same blue sky with high white clouds. The hills recede into pastel mists and lean into the faint mountain scape beyond. Cypress march up hills and pose in silhouette. Umbrella-like Stone Pine trees and lush oleander hedges grow with exuberance.

Soft hued stone villages spill, perch or cling to hillsides each with its ubiquitous church spire, castle tower and central piazza. But in their absolute charm and head turned from modernity, they cannot hold their young who, charged by the media, clamour for the faster pace of a brisk age – paved roads, glass towers. We travellers marvel at the ancient doors and window boxes spilling with geraniums and herbs – lace blowing in the breeze.

If you stop for a moment at the base of stone steps racing up and disappearing around a stone walled building, you can almost hear the hoofs of horses sparking off the stones. These walls breath ancient. Age is venerated. Old men and women, white haired with canes navigate long walks straight up or down 45 degree inclines from piazza market or church to home. They glance with annoyance or wonder at the throng racing from one site to another – video camera raised overhead on ‘auto’. They must wonder what we are in such a hurry for. These sites have been here for centuries and will continue for centuries more.

Buildings are made of stone – older than time itself. Their building required the vision, tenacity and patience of generations. Even the Medicis had to start small and wait for the trades and the slow boat bringing Chinese silks and tapestry for the walls of the palace. Roads had to be built after the drawing was done and the marble chosen from the quarry. Horse or mule-drawn carts dumped raw Carrerra marble outside Michelangelo’s studio. Marble is natural and flawed on occasion. One wrong tap … Start again. Patience, perfection, reverence.

Pigments of paint were made of crushed semi precious stones and minerals of the earth – including gold – eternal elements. When cleaning some of the ancient and medieval art, restorers were at first worried that the process had somehow altered the pigment into unnatural brightness. Further studies showed that these gorgeous rich shades will outlive any Giclee print’s claim to a mere 200 year integrity.

My most sublime moment challenged my slight vertigo and got my heart pounding. Rounding a corner of a lovely wide walkway curving along a mountainside in the village of Spoleto, I glimpsed the edge of what would take my breath away. It was an aqueduct of ancient Roman style. Nearly seven hundred feet across and three hundred feet high over ten arches, it was truly a monument to time, patience, engineering, ingenuity and grace. I walked across it to the crumbling monastery on the far side. Gushing from the hillside was a cascade of water that spilled down the hillside to the river far, far below. I was at once humbled and lifted up.

And what is ridiculous? I returned home to the very trendy heart of Toronto, the village of Yorkville where I live – in the middle of TIFF week – the Toronto International Film Festival. From our sixth floor window we watched a rooftop parking lot transform with red carpet, lights and silver candelabra to a media hub – replete with champagne accessorized little black dresses.

Paparazzi from all over the world stopped traffic for twenty minutes to surround a tinted windowed car to furiously snap pictures – only to shout when the SUV moved on, “Did anyone see who that was?” Streets were shut down and the onlookers struggled to get a glimpse of someone – her? Anyone! Do I deny the beauty and allure of these stars? Hardly. But I do question our cultural rampage after something as transitory as a film about manlike machines that wreak havoc and destruction.

Sure, films can have a message. Avatar did, but the one about the war won greater honours. The irony is that both these films are now available on DVD. Their shelf – theatre – life is over. Their message – yesterday’s news. And what of beauty? Once ‘whatshername’ ages, she will be discarded like a scratched DVD.

We live in cities of smooth straight streets and towering mirrors. Concrete. Glass. Rigid. Cold. Reflective. But what exactly does all this reflect? Our preferred interiors are stark and monochrome. Our art? Whatever matches and is inexpensive so it doesn’t hurt to send it to Goodwill when we are bored or change the scheme.

For me? My life is my own eternity and personal history. Do I want a Botticelli on my wall? Not necessarily. A work of art is a moment in time. Sensuous in its movement from heart to hand to brush to canvas. Give me a stroke on canvas made with passion, a colour not maybe true to nature but true to the artist’s heart. Let an artist tell me a story in which I can share. Warm my rooms with colour and life; my every moment with wonder and delight. Beauty is its own worthy pursuit. If I can age surrounded by beauty then I can age with grace and pleasure.