1999 ALL ALASKA JURORED EXHIBITION

Bunnell Street Gallery  Juror  Clarence Morgan

Homer Alaska      June 1999

photos and text © 1999 Donald R Ricker

Partying with Party for Rousseau

    Wouldn't this painting look fabulous in your music room?

07/01/99   Nice review by Chris Ross in the Homer News, didn't mention me, but did say 'figures nude and otherwise are prevalent' and quoted Clarence Morgan saying 'work seemed to derive inspiration and motivation from personal, internal sources and moral themes' which I will construe as applying to mine!

06/04/99 - 06/30/99 All Alaska Juried Painting Exhibition. Opening reception, lectures, and painting symposium   for first weekend in June.           Juror Clarence Morgan, a professor of art at the University of Minnesota, selected my painting  for inclusion in the exhibit, located at the   Bunnell Street Gallery, 106 West Bunnell Street #A, Homer AK 99603   Here's a chance to see one of my paintings, PARTY FOR ROUSSEAU, made in 1995, that has never been before the public. Just drive north and then west as far as you can on the road system and you'll get to Homer, Shangri-la of the North. .  Contact: Asia Freeman     907-235-2662  Email to: bunnell@xyz.net

    Can't make it?  Visit my site during June to link through to eBay auction offerings of my tabloid sized reproduction of this painting sure to appeal to artists especially.

    The symposium was a total blast, not overwhelmingly pedantic, but not the bare knuckles battle I had hoped for. Lots of great community, fantastic scenery a block from Kachemak Bay, my picture had a brand new baby grand piano situated underneath it and couldn't have looked happier!

CONTEMPORARY PAINTING  (Thoughts after symposium, DRR 6/7/99)
Using paint makes a painting and makes a person a painter.
From there arise the levels of skill which mark the fine artist.
To slop it, to slosh it, to mark your panel, a process of pushing paint.
Repaint it examine the surface properties it's electronic possibilities
Painting is culturally inbound through the tools offered the children
The support of market structures and academia create a flywheel effect
The genetic imperative of the painter hardwired to the source
Embellishing their environments from a metaphysical impulse
And underneath the froth and debris at the top of the pile
The deep running ground of observation and delineation.

Film rules, movies sell, athletes fill stadiums, paintings hang in living rooms.
The automation and consumer homogenization of society adds value to creative work.
But painters sometimes fear their unknown audiences, each other, and the gatekeepers
Needing reinforcement of the knowledge that as progenitors they are most highly valued
Fear of 'they' paralysis of the soul the creation of the marketable the survey of opinion.

All agree that both paintings and painters are important. 
Even when painters become famists, or when the lack of meaning becomes impenetrable
The trust and admiration of art enthusiasts is unlimited and can only be lightly damaged.
That trust brings a responsibility to express a message of hope and spirit in every piece.

The abstract idea of representing additive light with subtractive paint intertwines all painting.
Internally interpreting observation and style elevates representational art beyond the photo.
Self-taught painter influenced by an array of progenitors represents in pursuit of their goals. 
Love it or hate it the majesty of our paradisical planet will influence every painter inevitably.

Materials and manufacture have forced out the oils in favor of acrylic surface tricks, prefab color.
Technological advances in solvents, media, support, and applications are not content.
The dematerialization of image making and digital filters which emulate surfaces
Are exposing photography, expanding painting, and automating the formerly difficult.
Nor are any of these advances content.  Technology new or old must be informed with spirit.

The ubiquity of film, the printing of photographs on canvas, the video, the movie, the poster,
The slide,
Surrounding and illuminating or descrying the motivations of the genuine painter.
The painter can thaw what the photo freezes; the photo cannot paint but only compose.
Only one buyer can own an individual painting. Photo lithography expands possibilities.
In a world population numbering six billion, isn't an edition of 15,000 still exclusive?
The painter's hand, the printer's touch, the publisher's pocketbook, the curator's decision

The isolation of the painter yields the generative solitude required, but also desperation.
The act of creation goes better undisturbed, but the creators crave appreciation.
Those painters who develop their soul will best display their stability in their paintings.

Earning a living from painting requires a second job and a lightning bolt.
Selling paintings for the cost of the frames devalues them to their primary audience.
To be profitable to the painter, each work must cover its costs and the costs of the next.
The base costs of paintings includes materials, production, storage, exhibitions, appraisals.
Documentation costs of photography and slides, advertisements, insurance, entry fees, frames.

Create objects of high technology and high touch that spawn high tech low touch products.
Offer the object at an extremely high price to an exclusive clientele, and offer others products.
Exhibit and charge for exhibits, use auctions to set prices, offer knowledge and personality.
Encourage the market and reward those who respond. Everyone is an expert in what they like.

Subject matters,  defines regionalism by appeal to the memento mentality of purchasing public.
Desire to freeze a moment in memory into an object to preserve yields commissions and sales.
Effort to manipulate colors to create visual interest without meaning both repels and reassures.
Painting is the noblest profession of the creative human spirit, distinguishing humanity.

Just ask me! Or don't even! I'm gonna tell you anyway..

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