What art school did Jackson Pollack, Georgia O’Keefe, Thomas Hart Benton and Robert Henri all have in common? The Art Students League of New York. I mention Robert Henri because he taught at the Art Students League and wrote the book, The Art Spirit – the inspiration for my blog. Pollack, O’Keefe and Benton all studied there. And I did too. If you’re looking for a place to study painting, sculpture and printmaking without all the rules of a university check out The Art Students League in New York at http://www.theartstory.org/school-art-students-league.htm.
Three Common Questions Artists Encounter
Recently I heard John McCormick give a talk about his life as a painter. He and his wife had a successful studio backdrop business from 1984 to 1999. His client list included Disney Studios, HBO, Apple Computers, Lucasfilm, MTV, the Grateful Dead and the San Francisco 49ers.
I like the answers McCormick shared to three questions he is usually asked when he says he’s an artist:
1. Is it hard to make a living as an artist? Only if you don’t belong there.
2. Do you make a living as an artist? You’ll have to talk to my accountant.
3. Are you famous? My two sons think so!
You can see McCormick’s work at www.johnmccormick.com.
Create Your Own Expressive Word Scramble
About Monotypes – wordledWant to have some fun with a random scrambling of words of a poem or sentence or half of a book? Have you visited http://www.wordle.net yet? Here’s what I got when I pasted in the a few paragraphs about monotypes.
From Robert Henri’s book “The Art Spirit”
Some words of inspiration from the true Art Spirit, Robert Henri.
Art when really understood is the province of every human being.
It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.
When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it, shows there are still more pages possible.
From p. 11 of The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
(Check out the book at amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/2g8cwqy)