Artist Max Kutz’s Mood Swing Collection consists of two original acrylic on canvas works; Midnight and Sunrise. These are the original works, not reproductions, are hand signed by Max Kutz, stamped by Maximum Art Studios, and include a certificate of authenticity. Mood Swing - Midnight is dark and introspective, drawing on the feelings and moods present in the darkest hours of night. Are we looking into a body of water, into the sky, or does it represent something more interior to the viewer? Let your mind wander through Mood Swing - Midnight and see what is finds. In contrast, but still complementing Midnight is Mood Swing - Sunrise. As the day breaks, the dark and muted tones give way to the bright colors of day. Sunrise incorporates both dark and bright tones to perfectly capture the feeling an mood of early morning. Mood Swing Collection http://maximumart.com/mood-swing-collection/ |
by Guest Writer Welondon Epyxa At first art seems to be limited to music, painting or literature. But if we see sports as a human activity that creates emotion and beauty, models the human body and personality, we could understand why it is also considered art. Sports can express all the human feelings and emotions as does the artworks. Like art, sports bears ethical values either is about the effort harshness, the personality harmony, the sense of justice involved by the rules, or people relationship. In the history of universal culture there are many significant moments when sports and arts interfere:
Sculpture
One of the 24 Iliad song is dedicated entirely to an athletic competition.
And to convince yourself, look to the performance of any world champion, no matter the sport! The Croatian sports passionate can read awesome sports news in Epyxa and learn more about their favorite players. More than that, sports means the joy of living and a way to reach your physical and mental limits and this is really an art. During the depression, many art galleries were forced to close, and artists had to finance exhibitions out of their own pocket. Following established models of artists collectives in Mexico and the Soviet Union, artists' co-ops were formed to collectively share costs, make exhibition decision, and handle the function of running of the gallery. With the division of labor, artist members had to share responsibility, decision-making, expenses and operation of running the gallery. A hybrid form exists today, run by artists but surviving on a combination of fees and grants and artists membership fees. Co-op galleries are either nonprofit or for profit, allow artists to interact socially as well as artistically. Collaborations, contacts, networking and friends are produced from affiliation, and is often seen as a temporary forum or a stepping stone to other opportunities. Co-op galleries are most beneficial in smaller communities, where otherwise no opportunity to exhibit work would exist. With the surge of online sales in art, this too is changing. Becoming a member of an online gallery for a small membership fee is much less expense for the artist, and much smaller work load. The exposure is tremendous by comparison, with visitors coming from around the world. It also offer opportunities for artists who otherwise would never be exposed to the world market to show and sell work. This type of co-operative arrangement should be considered part of an artists over all marketing plan. Guest Post by Dan Merritt Offering excellent weather and thousands of visitors daily all year long, Key West, Florida attracts artists and buyers that would make most cites green with envy. Flourishing in both two and three dimensional works of art, it offers over 45 galleries to choose from in the lower keys. The largest part of the art represented is seascape of one type or another. It is after all a small island, claiming only about 8 squares miles of land and is home to about 25,000 people. As a tropical paradise there are also many beautiful spots, flowers, animals and interesting people, so you will also find an abundance of other subjects such as figures, still life, abstract, and fantasy art. With so many different galleries to choose from in one small area, and with prices ranging from many thousand of dollars to just around $30 it is a buyers dream. For the higher end you may want to check out Key West Art Gallery, Wyland Gallery of Key West, and James Coleman Gallery. For more modest prices, Island Style Gallery, Key West Art Center, and Guild Hall Gallery. As an artist you have many opportunities to find a niche that works for you. Key West also offers a daily 'Sunset Festival', from about an hour before to about an hour after sunset. The large waterfront area known as Mallory Square, is turned over to performing artists and photographers, painters and printmakers to show and sell their wares. This just may be the place to pick up a wonderful and unique memento of your journey. The Sunset Festival board governs who and what is allowed to be there and the artists and performers pay a small daily fee for their spot. There is no fee for spectators, the entertainers perform for tips, and the visual artists sell their paintings, prints, and photographs for any price they see fit. Basically it is a juried art fair every night. If you produce works that can sell for the prices that this market will bear ($10 to $50), then the 'Festival' is and excellent opportunity to pick up $500 or $600 a week, for a few hours selling time 4 or 5 days a week. There are many artists of all stripes already in the area. If you are thinking of Key West as a place you would like to live, work and sell your art, I would recommend throughly researching likely markets before making the move and find out all the rules of the co-ops or galleries that would seem to fit your work. A room with a bath averages about $1000 a month, so it's not cheap, but if you create top quality work you can easily make living expenses. Other jobs are available as well, but think minimum wage when you are calculating your costs. You may want to consider Stock Island as an alternative place to live to lower your costs. A vehicle will probably be necessary, or at least a bicycle to get you to the Sunset Festival and downtown art galleries. Public transit is available, but spotty at best. All in all Key West can be a very pleasant place to create and sell all types of art, whether you are a well established artist or just trying to break into the market and build a name for your work. The Florida Keys are an unusual area for the United States. Being the only truly tropical place in the country gives them a different prospective. And being hundred miles down at the end a single road that passes over dozens of islands gives Key West a feeling all its own. For many years it has intrigued artists. The weather is fine most of the time and offers strong southern light that will change your pallet and your artists eye. Many famous people have made Key West home for at least awhile. John Audubon, Ernest Hemingway, and even presidents like Truman, Kennedy, and Clinton have chosen to spend a good deal of time here. Art of one form or another, has been a major attraction for decades, and is not slowing down any time soon. A proudly 'eccentric' lifestyle has developed over the years and may just be the place to get your creative juices flowing. Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain by Betty Edwards was my first introduction to the “creative side of the brain”. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Until I studied this book I had no idea where creativity came from. I just did what I did, and never really thought about it. It drove me crazy trying to figure out why some days my creativity was unstoppable, my drawing skills were exceptional, and I felt I could do anything. Followed by days that I couldn’t put a creative thought together, my drawing skills tanked and I felt like I was wasting my time. Some Techniques For Forcing Your Creativity Into Action This led me to look at studies in psychology and how the brain works. I needed to understand the process and what was going on inside me that could produce the consistent results I wanted. In part 1 and 2 of this article I talked about what goes on in the brain during creativity and insight, but what I really wanted was strategies of how to get there. In addition to sketching, I found the following very helpful. If you are stuck, you can force your brain into thinking more creatively. Overcoming an assumption about anything can cause this to happen. It allows the right brain to take over and wander though the landscape, looking for treasure. The right brain is much more sensitive, and can more easily make connections that previously were not there, developing an insight, finding the treasure. Mundane tasks help release the gate keeper. First define your issue. Then stop doing what your doing, and put the problem into the back of my mind. Go do a mundane task. Dishes, sweep the floor, pull those over grown weeds in your garden. It doesn’t matter what the mundane task is, just something that doesn’t challenge your mind. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Doing nothing activates day dreaming and occupies your mind and takes you off task. Avoid doing a demanding task that refocuses your mind such as a crossword or doing your taxes. The point here is to let the problem you are working on meander through the right side of your brain, not get off at the next exit. You are turning inward, cutting off the distraction of your inner voice telling you it can’t be solved. This will increase your creativity. It will allow your right brain to make the connections it needs to make. Put on some music, or go with complete silence. If you choose music, choose it wisely. Familiar tunes bring back memories and emotions that can distract you from what you want to achieve. Take a long drive if you can. Driving is automatic, and allows the creative side of the brain to work it’s magic. Do something completely different. If you’ve been painting, try writing. Julia Cameron recommends starting your day with writing in her book “The Artists Way”. Try it. Even while in the creative process your brain can become fixed, and doing something different usually releases the fixed position. It helps make new associations and approach problems in a different way. Try doing something you do often, in a different way. Ask yourself: “How many ways can this be done?” You might be surprised what this can accomplish. Mediation works great at removing the mental handcuffs. Focus on the in and out of your breathing, monitoring the lengths of breaths. But this can be a real challenge for many and I’m one of them. So instead I do mindful mediation when walking. I notice each step, the sound it makes and how it feels to walk. You can also practice it while doing house hold chores, mowing the lawn or doing any daily activities. Focus 100% on that one activity and you are being mindful. You will be amazed at what you now see that you have never seen before. How will you know when you reach the creative part of your brain? I always know when I’ve reached the creative place in my brain before an insight happens, because I feel peaceful, and a calm washes over me. The next step is usually the spark of enlightenment. Try a few of these techniques and see how they work for you. Cold press paper has texture, with small bumps and groves that hold the water and pigment. It also absorbs the water quite quickly. Cold press is a good choice when you want to convey texture in your subject, such as rocks or trees. Some manufacturers such as Arches also offer a rough paper. Hot press is super smooth without any texture. The pigment or water will not be absorbed as quickly as cold pressed, but instead will tend float on top of the paper, allowing you to play around more, like re-wetting edges of pigment. If you plan to add pen and ink in your process this would be a good choice. The weight of a paper is also something you should also think about when choosing your surface. A light weight paper will buckle with water or pigment that is added. If you work very wet, you will want to use a heavier paper. The importance of acid free or archival paper cannot be stressed enough. Have you ever wondered why old newspaper clippings tend to yellow with age? As an artist, if you want your originals to look as clean and crisp as the day you created them for all time, choose acid free paper. Art speaks to me in a way that sooths my soul. Whisperings quietly to my inner self, allowing my senses and imagination to walk hand in hand with creation. Art can be a mystical experience for both the creator and the viewer. If you are fortunate to own a painting that gives you this entangled energy, you are blessed with a pleasure that is difficult to describe to those who have not walked this path. I suspect that this is partly the reason so many are drawn to international art shows such as the Artists Project in Toronto. If you missed it, an opportunity was lost to see work and meet the artists who created it. The artists speak of the creation energy that compelled them to put brush to canvas. They have experienced the mystery of creation, and interpreted it for you, expressing it so elegantly in a visual form. Anya Droug interprets personal sequence of episodes; segments; moments that are otherwise ordinary and could pass by unnoticed and places them on canvas. People, emotions and objects experienced and explored on her journeys are analyzed through her work. A sculpture, a fragment of architecture, a person glimpsed on the street. www.anyadroug.com Jennifer Zeitz is an artist who lives and works in Toronto, Canada, who recently showed at the Artist Project. Her works in red stopped me in my tracks. I had to pause and immerse myself in the luscious pallet she has chosen. She has an entire series of painting titled “Red” which in case you haven’t noticed yet, is the color of this article. www.jenniferzeitz.com Dage is exclusively dedicated to her painting. Her work is the result of a quest. Her paintings are studies and experiments of her attempts to capture the elusive; energy. She tries to capture the essence of life, the energy that lies within us. Her subjects are also selected based on the emotion and energy that emanate from them. www.dagearts.com Jodi Shuster has a passion for color. Her love of movement and gesture found expression and sustenance from countless hours of life drawing. Her paintings combine these elements, with the gestural strokes expressing her joy and spontaneous reaction to the subject. www.jodishuster.com Suzanne Burden works with Red, one of her favorite colors. She boldly states “it creates conflicts within me between my judgement and my self-confidence. My collection of paintings 'Reds' was born from a desire to imagine myself in a world where red is admired and accepted for only its beauty while exhibiting its spirit and its purpose for the emotions, senses, and feelings.” www.suzanneburden.ca Next time you come across a chance to view art first hand, and meet the artists, take it. You may just experience the sublime. When you come across a work of art that demands your attention, stop and spend time with it. Talk to the artist to gain the insight you so desperately want. Art connects us in ways like nothing else. Understanding the Creative Brain: What’s Going On Inside? The right brain is your creative side. The pathways are formed differently. They cover a larger area and meander like a winding road. The right brain takes you through forests, past lakes and farmland, on a slow Sunday drive in the country, a place to smell the roses, where you can stop for a picnic beside a lake and enjoy the warm summer sun on your skin. The right brain is independent and pretty much on it’s own to figure out it’s own way, which is what it’s built to do. There are no rules on the right side of the brain. It is built for intuition and insights. The right side of the brain usually takes a back seat and goes along for the ride. When the left brain tells us to run, because the pretty tiger is going to eat us, we listen or die. The left brain is the dominate partner in the collaboration. It acts much like a super highway, getting you from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’ faster. There isn’t much scenery and there are lots of exit ramps to get you to a gas station or a place to eat. The left side of the brain is where our education, business and pretty much everyone lives most of the time. It’s easy to teach 2+2=4, but not as easy to teach how to draw a tree. The left is where we focus our energies most of the time, where we learn to interpret what we think, see or hear. The left side of the brain is filled up with easy to follow rules. ‘I’ before ‘E’ except after ‘C’; measure twice, cut once; floss and brush daily; put the milk back in the fridge . . . This side of the brain is built for speed, giving you the most information in the shortest amount of time. It can only work with what it has. There is no innovation, just reaction. The trick is to stimulate the right side of the brain into action, by forcing the left brain to take a back seat. In Part One I talked about sketching, as a solution even for the non-artist. In Part Three I will give you some other suggestions on how to accomplish shutting down the gate keeper that stands guard so firmly in all of us. What’s the difference between a graphic designer, a web designer and a print designer? • Graphic designers is the general term given to both web and print designers. Not all web designers do print, and not all print designers do web. Many do both. Print and Web is a completely different skill set. • Not all web designers know all the programs. They may be great with Dreamweaver, and know nothing about Wordpress. • Not all print designers know all the programs. They may be an expert with Photoshop, and stumble when it comes to a vector program. The Job Has Changed At one time in our history a graphic designer had to have drawing, lettering and in a vast amount of creative skills in addition to technical skills. This is no longer the case. Graphic Design has made the transition from right brain, to a left brain profession. It no longer requires the designer to be able to draw, or even understand the difference between tracking and kerning. However, some designers are very good at creative development, and can also do production design, (the technical stuff.) Trust Working with a graphic designer is a trust issue, so if you don’t trust them, then find someone else. There are lots to choose from. I would suggest working locally. That way you can meet face to face, and get a better read for what’s going on. That being said, when I freelanced as a graphic designer, I had clients across north America and handled work at a distance without any issue. I still do the same for illustration and have never run into any problems. Ask Questions Make sure the designer understands what you are asking for. Ask the designer for input. Can they offer any improvements? What do they suggest? They are working for you and they want to help. After all, why would you hire someone to do a job, and then not let them do it? Tip: Make sure you ask to see samples or portfolios, web and print. Confirm the links work and take you to a real business, not to another site trying to get you to buy services. How do the sites look? Do they seem like they are a cut and paste job from others work? Ask how they created it, what programs they used. Ask how they came up with the idea. Ask question. Make sure you know what skills you are buying, before you buy. They love to talk about the work, so don't be shy. Skills Graphic design is a highly skilled profession, that took years of training, and a considerable investment. So please don’t insult them by expecting it for under minimum wage. If you want them to work for you, a fare wage must be on the table. One last thing, a web developer in not a web designer. If you are stuck in your old way of thinking, your creativity is blocked, and you just can’t seem to think beyond the scope of your experience, you may just need a little help thinking creatively. The Brain Has A Gate Keeper The best method I’ve found for shutting down the gate keeper and allowing your creativity to flourish is sketching. It’s guaranteed to work to solve any problem I am trying to solve. Not just the visual ones, or ones that concern the painting I’m working on, but any problem that I’m trying to solve. My sketches often have notes in the form of single words or phrases written on the same page. Unrelated thoughts or ideas that materialize as I sketch. Evidence of the process at work. Sketching is especially good because of it’s immediacy. I carry a small unlined note book or a sketch book with me at all times. Always at hand, and easy to reach, I would never think of packing for a trip without including my sketch bag in my carry on when I travel. It’s contains graphite pencils, eraser, sketch book, watercolor pencils, ink pencils and a brush with water in the handle. If you are not an artist, and feel uncomfortable picking up a sketch book for fear of the gate keeper standing over your shoulder, try instead to draw the alphabet. Start with the letter ‘A’ and work your way to the end. Do capital letters and small letters, write in your own handwriting, then print, then try different looks and styles and flourishes. Try different words, and try your signature. Any lined notebook will do. No need for a sketch book, a special calligraphy book, special pens or pencils. Anything at hand will work. Draw the letters, the words, your signature. Cut out words from magazines in different font styles and put them in your notebook, and practice drawing them. It keeps you from just making the letters the way you usually would, it focuses you on drawing the letters the way you see them, not the way you think you see them. Turning your sample styles of lettering upside down will completely free your mind, and remove your preconceived notions of what that letter is supposed to look like. It will focus you mind, and shut down the gate keeper, allowing you to think creatively. On the surface it may look like you are creating a drawing, but in reality, you are working on another project or idea. This is the Chameleon working it’s magic. The illustration is an example of the results of shutting down the gate keeper. I was commissioned to create an illustration for an advertisement for a small community museum. The building itself is a museum piece, and they wanted only a painting of it for the ad. The ad was about getting people into the museum, not just the building. I wanted to convey that by putting people going up the steps and through the door, but there was still something missing. Since the painting had to show the outside of the building, my personal challenge was to show why they should go in. I didn’t want to do the cliche of putting pictures of artifacts like a frame around the image. So I added the ancestors. The ones who once owned the possessions the viewers were going to see. My client was very happy with the result. When I showed the curator she said “I thought we were just going to get a boring picture of the building. I didn’t expect this. It’s fantastic” |
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