The Art World
I’ve added a new category to my blog, "How - The Art World", as I think it’s important for artists to understand how they fit into the greater art world, both past and present and future.
I don’t have an art degree so I’ve always felt at a disadvantage in this area but over the past year I started doing some reading - artist biographies, articles on art history, magazines about the larger art world. It has definitely helped me understand where I fit into this world and where it is I want to go with my artwork.
In general, I think quilters tend to be too narrowly focused on quilts and quilt history and I think this narrow vision is a contributing factor to the slow acceptance of quilts as fine art. If we don’t understand what we want to fit into - how can we expect to fit in?
In addition to reading books about art history I’ve been reading more art and artist blogs vs. quilters blogs (I’ll update my blogroll in the sidebar soon). They are really quite fascinating and one of my favorites for an interesting glimpse into the New York City art scene is by gallery owner Edward Winkleman. He has quite a following and the comments, mostly by artists, are almost more interesting than the postings at times. Thursdays are particularly interesting as he often hosts an open thread about a topic of great interest.
Today’s topic was about what to include on ones resume, read it here. He answers a lot of questions in the comments and I’d consider it a must read for any artist. As with anything you see on the net, I’d suggest you filter what you read based on your own standards and needs.
He brings up some topics I’m going to discuss further but it’s late and time for bed. Two blog posts in 1 day, plus 8 hours of the day job, 4 hours of quilting, weeding my garden and an evening conference call with India (can you say offshoring- turns the day job into a night job) - time for some sleep.
Posted by Lisa in: The Art World
Tricia McKellar said,
June 30, 2006 @ 5:57 am
Thanks for much for the link to Edward’s blog post about resume/bio writing– birth year and place? I’ll ponder it…. Maybe it adds context….
Tricia McKellar
Born: 1965, Beirut, Lebanon
Work/Live: Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, USA
Should that be “Work/Live” or just “Work” or just “Live”?
shan said,
June 30, 2006 @ 6:19 am
Lisa,
I really appreciate this post. As a painter, I’ve often wondered why the art quilt world seems a bit separate. I’m a big fan of Faith Ringgold who seems to cross the boundary well. Her piece “Dancing at the Louvre” is one of my all time favorites works of art.
Anyhow, I loved Ed Winkleman’s post yesterday. I printed a copy of my resume and looked at it with a new editorial eye. Eliminating some of my lowlights places greater emphasis on my highlights. His advice on this topic, while not universal, was pretty solid.
Linda said,
June 30, 2006 @ 7:01 am
Lisa, would you please post suggested readings too? Books one can take to bed, in the car, to the beach.
I bring home arm-loads of art books from the library, to study paintings. When I hit a fallow period, I reread Annie Dillard’s “A Writer’s Life, ” the best description of being an artist I’ve found.
Lisa Call said,
June 30, 2006 @ 11:32 am
Tricia I find the year thing rather odd about artist resumes also. How about “current residence”?
Shan - I agree - a few of his points were hard to accept at first but I do think it was pretty solid advice. I’m going to revisit my resume also. I think it was amazingly generous of him to answer all those detailed questions.
I think art quilting has grown out of the traditional quilting world as of late. Faith Ringgold is not a good example of this. I started in the traditional quilting world and it is was difficult to leave that world behind - I felt like a traitor. They very much have a group mentality. It’s nice - but it’s not the art world.
Linda - I’ll try to post some good books I’ve read. One book I really enjoyed recently was the DeKooning biography that came out a few years back. I’ll try to post a review of it soon.
Sheila Barnes said,
June 30, 2006 @ 5:13 pm
I agree about the narrowness of the quilt art world. I thrive on stimuli from many segments of the art world and you’re right about that helping a person to figure out how one fits. And yes, that guilty traitor feeling when you leave behind the cozy quilting world…
I just had a look-see at a local Abstract Art Exhibit which only had a few fiberart pieces. No artists statements posted with the pieces but I did notice a notebook which turned out to be filled with each artist’s bio, statement and resume. You better believe I was studying them to see how “real” artists present themselves in the art world. Thanks for the link to more info like that.