Art Here and Now » Drawing and Illustration

An elephant paints a self portrait

Trout Monfalco — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:51:39 +0000

In this post I pondered whether dolphins blowing bubble rings were a form of art. After all they serve no purpose except aesthetic ones – the dolphins are having fun and stare at them. So now we have this video of an elephant painting a self portrait.

Whether methodically trained to do this or not, how is it different than a person painting by plan? If you are trained to paint faux marble, or you paint by numbers, or you watch a show and follow along. What if you’re trained in a style? At what point does this trained mimicry become art, and when is it not? Is this elephant making art? Or is it just trained obedience, like a dog playing fetch?

Graffiti Artists at the Bethlehem Wall

Trout Monfalco — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:54:23 +0000

In Bethlehem, artists from all over the world, including local artists, have been making art on the barrier wall separating Israel and Palestine.

Video from the BBC:

No Art, Only Entertainment

Trout Monfalco — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:18:22 +0000

I’ve noticed for quite some time that most media web sites and newspapers do not have an Arts section. The closest you find is Entertainment. The meaning of these two is of course very different, not because art can’t be entertaining, it can be. But art often has more purpose to it than that. By sticking only to “Entertainment,” the media avoids discussion of any of the other reasons for art, or the cultural criticisms it might be presenting. It takes the easy route, sticking to celebrity gossip and celebrity fashion, and not a bigger cultural context, or inclusion of any artwork whose main purpose may be something other than Entertaining.

If your TV station or newspaper covers only Entertainment and not the Arts, write them and ask why, and ask them to change it (not just the name of the section, but what they cover.)

Some examples of “Entertainment” and no “Arts”:

Some great papers that still have an Arts section:

European and Soviet Retro Science Fiction Artwork

Trout Monfalco — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:32:24 +0000

Very beautiful, from Dark Roasted Blend.

The Future of Science… Is Art

Profile of Designer and Illustrator Qian Qian

Trout Monfalco — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:47:43 +0000

When you do your own work, it’s your own point of view. It’s how you see the world, your own perspective on things reflected in the artwork. But with advertising or marketing, you’re helping other people get their points of view across. You’re just an interpreter.
To me, that’s the fundamental difference between designers and artists. You speak for yourself, or you speak for someone else. They’re separate things, but I think I can do both. They don’t really conflict, as long as you know what’s right and wrong!

Artist Astronauts, Artist Cosmonauts, Artists in Space

Trout Monfalco — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:23:17 +0000

I have all kinds of crazy dreams. I’ve had one of them for a long time, and I’ve never told anyone about it until now. Even for me it’s a nutty one. My secret dream was to be the first artist in space.

I had such a strong desire for this, I think, because all of our missions to space are so technical or militaristic. Yet if you’ve ever known anyone working in space travel (like NASA), you know how poetic they can be. My dream to be an artist in space is nowhere near as crazy as actually trying to get anyone into space at all. There is a certain long term humanity, a looking back on ourselves as a whole, a historic something that runs through these spaceborne intentions — from astronauts and engineers alike. Somehow though, that all gets lost. This is exactly the kind of thing artists explore. For much the same reasons artists are sent into combat, they should be sent into space. (And if you’re asking why do we go at all, isn’t there something better to spend money on? the answer in the short term is always yes. But long term, our planet’s species, including our own, have a much higher chance of surviving if we become interplanetary. This is covered in The Drake Equation.)

My heart skipped a beat when first hearing Laurie Anderson had been chosen as the first artist in residence for NASA. She’s the perfect candidate for this. Unfortunately when she asked “Do I get to go up?!” the answer was “No.” Sadly, she was the first and last NASA artist in residence. Representative Chris Chocola introduced and passed a bill specifically prohibiting NASA from having an artist in residence.

Little did I know that the first artists in space had already travelled long ago. The first was Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov in 1965 and the second was United States astronaut Alan Bean in 1969. Up until writing this post, I didn’t know that a small tile artwork titled The Moon Museum by Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Claus Oldenberg and John Chamerlain was left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 12. There have been many other artist cosmonauts since then, of many nationalities, and many pieces of art flown into space.

This is in fact such a frequently pondered idea that there are several non-profits in existence solely to get artists into space programs throughout the world and get artists creating work for the context of space travel.

And Tate Modern, one of the top museums in the world, has plans in motion to create it’s next museum location in Earth orbit.

Organizations exploring art and artists in space: The MIR Network, The OURS Foundation at Ars Astronautica, and Tate Modern Space.

A great list of artwork taken to or created in space.

Artist-Astronaut: What the Future Told Us, a project by artist Debra Solomon.

Two blogs by on duty combat artists: Fire and Ice and Sketchpad Warrior.

In the Press: The Globe and Mail – Greetings, art lovers. We come in peace and The Times UK – Blast off: artistic adventures in time and space.

Buy related work: In the Stream of Stars: The Soviet-American Space Art Book (by Alexey Leonov and others), Apollo : An Eyewitness Account By Astronaut/Explorer Artist/Moonwalker by Alan Bean, Baghdad Journal: An Artist in Occupied Iraq, by combat artist Steve Mumford, They Drew Fire – a documentary about combat artists in World War II; and work by Laurie Anderson.

Travel to space on Virgin Galactic or Space Adventures.

Japan Ink – Inside the Manga-Industrial Complex

Trout Monfalco — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:54:58 +0000

The current issue of Wired is all about manga – how the industry works and how it conquered America.

Two stories:

(pdf) How Manga Conquered the U.S., a Graphic Guide to Japan’s Coolest Export, the story of Manga in the US told using Manga.
Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex

Read some manga and learn how to draw it in these books, and a favorite from my childhood.

Take a a trip to Japan, it’s beautiful.

Mechanical Turk, Mechanical Art, Mechanical People

Trout Monfalco — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 07:53:01 +0000

I used to flip through the Artist’s Market when I was in middle school. Back then, the prices paid for illustrations from books and magazines seemed extravagant. I didn’t understand until later how little artists get paid for their time and skill.

How about $.69 per hour?

Mechanical Turk is an Amazon project which hands out low-effort, repeatable, internet-based work units to people who sign up to take them on. The task units can be created by any organization or business who’s approved to offer them. The work is along the lines of “look at each of these images and click a box if there’s something red in the image.” The pay is based on supply and demand (of workers and tasks), but overall task completion is paid at very low amounts. This is not covered by minimum wage law because the workers can do the work in their own manner, when and where they want to. This means all workers, in the eyes of the law, are independent businesses, and can accept bids and make proposals of any amount they wish.

At the end of last year, artist Aaron Koblin put a set of tasks up on Mechanical Turk. Anyone accepting the tasks would create a drawing of a sheep facing left for $.02 per drawing. Each person could make a maximum of five sheep, for a total of $.10. Average time to create a drawing was 105 seconds. That works out to $.69 per hour.
The artist had 10,000 sheep created this way, and then flipped them on a new site at the rate of $20 for 20 sheep. The artists were up in arms, but the terms of Mechanical Turk clearly state all work becomes the property of the person requesting the task (like many work for hire agreements).

The larger artwork, The Sheep Market, in using this process showed the effects of outsourcing, the state of worker’s rights in the digital era, and the value art and artists are given in modern society.

Why would a company pay minimum wage if they can pay $.69/hour? Why would a stock photo agency pay a professional photographer for their work if they can get it for $1 per photo? How will artists make a living in a sea of cheaper online creativity?

More:
Salon – “I make $1.45 a week and I love it”;
Wired – The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Isabel Wang’s Blog – The User Generated Sheep Controversy