Thomas Kinkade

Well... not a fan, but you most certainly mastered your craft. Even so, I would never have named you The Painter of Light... but rest in peace, Thomas Kinkade. The world is lessened by your passing.

Thomas Kinkade dies at 54; artist was called the 'Painter of Light' - latimes.com

Still... the idea of selling reproductions as art disturbs me.

About a month ago I had the "reproductions vs. art" discussion with some friends. We were sitting in a local diner that had Kinkade-ish prints spectacularly framed and hung on the walls. Like a fool, I mentioned my disdain for the practice of treating prints of paintings as paintings... I then had to try to put hours and hours of thinking about this into a coherent statement during the 25 minutes our meal would take. I wasn't eating, so at least I didn't have to give up chewing time.

One of my companions said that he was in favor of "Kinkadeing" since it put art in the hands of people who couldn't ordinarily have art (of that quality). He thought it was perfectly fine for an artist to create originals and photograph/scan them to create printed reproductions AND call those reproductions art.

Leaving alone the fact that Kinkade prints weren't cheap enough for the people he was referring to to purchase, I tried to explain my view on the whole idea...

I believe that for most artists selling reproductions of their work do so purely for a financial reasons, not for some altruistic desire to put art in the hands of less-affluent patrons (an exception to that, I suppose, is the ego boost of having your "art" purchased by people and the warm glow that it creates deep down inside you).

For the most part, I have no issues with the practice of selling reproductions. It's hard to make a living doing art. But I believe that the artists who sell reproductions as if they are art are making a mistake. In fact, I think it's the biggest mistake we make - plus it's a bit like snake-oil... 

The primary reason it is hard to make a living making art is that we have a predominantly ill-informed/under-informed audience. They already don't see making art or being an artist as a realistic career. Unless they are among those who idolize artists (and this group is just as likely to be ill-informed), they tend to think we're all dreamers and misfits who have yet to "grow up and find a real job." They don't recognize the validity of an art career or the benefits of having art in their life. They don't know how to determine the amount of work that goes into creating art or the monetary value of that work.

So we have an audience, a client base, a market, that has no method for determining the value of the work we want to sell (for me, being unsure about the cost/value of something makes me less likely to purchase it). Selling reproductions as art compounds the problem by cultivating the point of view that art should be inexpensive. 

Someone said to me that I only felt this way since my work (they meant mosaics and sculptures) do not work as prints (no one is confused thinking a photograph of a sculpture is a sculpture or even art). While I will concede their point, my argument is not a sour-grapes point of view... I do make art that could be sold as reproductions - my encaustic abstract art would make fabulous giclee prints...

I guess I just think that the only visual artists that should be selling prints as art are the printmakers...

Artist in Residence

My 4th graders are doing amazing work on their mosaics.

Mosaics being made by one of my five classes of fourth graders.

I have five classes of fourth graders at Goodview and Jefferson elementary schools (one class on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday and two classes on Thursday). The Artist in Residence program is funded by a Laird Norton Family Foundation grant.

In the classes on Wednesday & Thursday of last week and Monday & Tuesday of this week we talked about mosaics and looked at several images of old and new mosaics. After the talking and looking I gave them grids and colored pencils and had them plan out their mosaics.

I gave them some Latin vocabulary terms: tessera/tesserae, andamento, and opus regulatum, which they had no problem with. Amazing kids.

Today the Wednesday class started the tile work (the others will start next time I meet with them). Some got pretty far. Some are taking it a bit slower. They will have one more class to finish them up. I think most will finish.

In May there is usually an art show with the students' work from the Artist in Residence program. The last few years it's been at Saint Mary's University in our wonderful Lillian Hogan Davis galleries. We're going to hang all 110 mosaics together, salon-style. It should be an impressive display.

Packaging

I admit it - I'm a packaging geek... a sucker for a excellent product wrapper, one that is clever or extraordinary in some way. I love brilliant design.

Thanks Barb for the wonderful chocolate bar. It smells sublime. I've not tasted it yet - I wanted to savor the wonderful visual aspect for a while first... and I'm hoping that along with the organic part that it's also fair trade... I'll have to look that up.

This lovely, simple package is printed with soy inks on recycled, unbleached cardstock that has a nice "tooth" to it. There's no glue used in the outer wrapper - it seals, or rather closes, using a tab and slot. Very nice.

Oh, yeah. I like the idea of being fearless.

One day at a time

I’ve been avoiding this blog… mostly because I’m still wandering about in the land of loss, pain and disbelief. I’m beginning to wonder if anyone intimately touched by violence, anyone left bereft by violence, ever really leaves this place fully.

---

We thought at the beginning that Aaron had shot Jude and then himself; that was the first report we got. Later on we discovered that Jude had shot Aaron – during an episode of domestic violence – and then killed herself.

I tell myself that I don’t understand, that I’ll never understand, why Jude – and for that matter, Aaron – had to die like that. But I think, if I’m honest with myself, I can all too easily understand.

There comes a point when abuse and violence boil over and all the sane responses flee and all the possibilities narrow to one, single, destructive option.  And while none of us will ever really know for certain what happened, I believe with all my heart that Jude did what she did because at that moment, a moment that probably seemed like a hellish eternity, there was only one possibility.

People talk about abuse victims like gossips over the back fence with a particularly salacious story to share. They wonder why women stay with abusers. They wonder why we don’t just leave when he hurts us… I can tell you. Abuse makes us vulnerable. It’s like the wind in the desert, eating away at your strength, your will, your ability to make rational decisions. It eviscerates the you that you thought you were. Pretty soon you’re like one of those gravity-defying formations – at risk of being toppled by the next big blow. You’ll grasp at any promise, at any and all the insufficient apologies, trying to shore yourself up. You’ll do your damnedest to make things work because you know – you really know – that you’re not nearly strong enough to walk away.

Some of us eventually find a way to leave... too, too many of us do not.

---

I understand why it’s called heartache…

About the time it seems that I’m doing better I discover that the unbelievable pain is still there – it grabs me and throws me to the ground again, leaving me broken and defenseless.  People keep trying to give me solace. I love them for it, but…

---

I am so looking forward to the day when my thoughts of Jude are the kind of happy memories that everyone tells me I should be thinking.

I love you Jude. I'll miss you forever.

Remembering Jude

Jude was clever, kind, stubborn, generous, opinionated, gentle, loving, smart, beautiful... She laughed a lot at herself and rarely at others. She took in strays (animals and people) and loved them unconditionally.

We tell ourselves we are here because we loved Jude. We are really here because Jude loved us. Whoever Jude loved was her family and family was everything that made life good and worthwhile. So, all of you who loved Jude, and all of you who were loved by Jude, are family.

Everyone in this room has lost a grandmother, a mother, an aunt, a sister, a daughter.

It's hard to lose your grand-mama, especially when you haven't really gotten the chance to know her. Grand-mamas are so important to little boys - they keep them honest, they keep them happy, they teach them love, unconditional love. They teach them that the world existed before they came along, but the world is so much richer now that they are here. All of us have to help keep Jude's story alive for Malachi, so that even though his first-hand memories of Jude fade, his knowledge of her, and his love for her does not. And perhaps more importantly, making sure that her love for him does not fade from this world.

 It's hard to lose your mother, especially a mother who loves you as deeply and as truly as Jude loves you. I can tell you Zaviara, that from the moment she knew you were coming, you filled her heart with joy, and her entire being with hope and love. Never doubt that you meant everything to her, that you were her pride, her treasure, her great gift to all of us. We are so lucky that we have you. We love you.

It’s hard to lose your aunt. Aunties can be like a big sister, guiding you, keeping you in line while inspiring you to see yourself as better than you think you are. They love you without reserve. They protect you from the world. They can get you thinking new ideas and doing new things. They can inspire you and stay connected with you during that time in life when you know for certain that all adults are stupid… your aunt is rarely stupid in your eyes, and never far from your heart.

It's hard to lose your sister. Who loves you more than your sister? Who drives you crazier than your sister? Who's got your back more than your sister? Who is more proud of you than your sister? When you are right with your sister, there's nothing that can defeat the two of you. And man, Jude was a powerful sister. All of you, all of Jude's sisters and brothers by blood and by love's choice, you are some of the most fortunate siblings in the world. You get to keep her faith in love alive.

 It's hard to lose a daughter. I didn't give birth to Jude, but she was my daughter, and I was her mom... one of them – extended, blended, complicated families are like that. Many of us in this room spent years raising our children together, sharing the responsibility of their care and nurturing. Watching them grow into splendid adults with families of their own. Our children are our legacy, our dreams for the future, but it's more than that. Our children are our truest expression of love and faith and hope for the world and they should not leave this earth before we do. It's not supposed to happen that way. But it has. We've lost our daughter. Our hearts are broken and our souls riven. All we can do at this time is hold out our arms to each other in love and help one another try to heal.

 Jude came to Minnesota for a few months last year. I was happy to see her and to get to know her again. I learned anew how amazingly aware of the world she was, how beautifully she saw things, how fully she lived. She brought Zavy and Malachi up to visit for a while, giving us the pleasure of their company, sharing them with us, making them a part of our lives.

 I now recognize that brief time as the sublime gift that it was.

 Jude never left my presence without giving me her biggest smile and telling me she loved me. I’ve made a promise to myself that, moving forward, I will be sure to say "I love you" to those I care for, as often as possible, in honor of our beautiful Jude.

Jude's memorial service

is at 3pm (EST) on Monday. If it's possible, please think of her - and us, her large family - for a few moments at that time, with love for each other and hope for the world.

Things like this aren't supposed to happen

I'm having trouble breathing past the tightness and the pain. Jude is dead. Now my family has a Jude-sized hole in it. And it really hurts.

Tomorrow is her birthday. She would be 37.

Your children are supposed to live much longer than you.

I didn't give birth to Jude, but she was my daughter... extended families are like that. The strange, difficult combinations and permutations can give us lovely connections that would not have happened otherwise. The pain of the relationships that don't quite work is sometimes offset by the joy that an extra son or daughter or sister or brother brings.

Oh, Jude was clever, kind, stubborn, generous, opinionated, gentle, loving, smart, beautiful... She laughed a lot at herself and rarely at others. She took in strays (animals and people) and loved them unconditionally. Family was everything for her.

She loved her husband. And I believe that he loved her too, but he also hurt her a lot. She came up to Minnesota last year to get away from him. She told me she felt really good with the decision to leave, that she loved him immensely, but couldn't handle the the violence. It seemed like she was in a good place about it all. She hoped to find a job and stay up here.

The job didn't quickly materialize. And I think he started calling her, making promises. He must have convinced her that it really was going to be different. Maybe he said he'd get therapy, seek counseling... I don't know. Jude didn't tell me and after she went back our conversations were mostly Facebook posts - short, funny, trivial... I didn't want her to feel like I would criticize her for a decision I might also have made if I were in her situation...

I guess I'll never understand why anyone would ever hurt someone they loved.

Today we found out that they are dead. We think that sometime this week he killed her and then killed himself.

I really, really cannot believe this happened. Oh, fuck, it hurts. It hurts.
What I really want to do right now is gather everyone close and take care of them, protect them.

Jude - I love you. I can't stand it that he took you away from us.

Mosaic Process - Working With Stone

I've had a few people ask about my process for working with stone in mosaics recently.

Creating a mosaic with stone differs from other mosaic work mostly in the way that you cut the tesserae.

How I do it:

Disclaimer - I am not an expert, yet. I'm just telling you what works for me.

Most of the stone I use starts out as floor tiles. They run from 7/16" to 5/8" thick and are usually 12" x 12" in size. Sometimes I'll get the smaller ones, but there is more waste per piece with them since I trim off all the outer smooth-cut edges.

Top to bottom: 3 shelves of cut stone tesserae,
uncut stone tiles & slabs, bins of cut-up chunks

I cut the tile into manageable chunks - trying to get the chunks as rectangular as possible - with a hammer and hardie. I don't like manufactured edges to show in my mosaics, so I cut the stone to the point where the tessera has the "footprint" that I want and then I turn it sideways and cut it in half. This allows me to turn all the manufactured edges down and have only the hand-cut, irregular edges showing.

Hammers & Hardies, left - steel hammer & hardie for cutting stone,
right - carbide-tipped hamnmers and hardie for cutting glass

Stone cutting process - note the progressively smaller cuts. The two
small pieces on the top of the stack are ready for use in a mosaic.

You want to develop enough control that the force of the hammer-fall is transmitted just to the stone. There are two methods of swinging the hammer: to pivot at the elbow joint, or to pivot at the wrist. I try to isolate the pivot in my elbow joint. I find that it saves my wrist from the shock (important since I have some joint issues from earlier injuries). It also feels like I have more control and I don't fatigue so quickly.

When you're using a hammer and hardie it's important to avoid striking the hardie with the hammer as much as possible. It really dulls both the hardie and the hammer when it happens. I get the best cuts when I focus on making sure that I strike the stone exactly above where it rests on the hardie - so that the hammer tip is directly above the cutting edge of the hardie.

If I'm working with a very crumbly stone (soft limestone/sandstone) or stone that is prone to irregular cuts (heavily veined marble), I'll cut the tessarae using the hammer & hardie down to a certain size and then use my compound tile nippers or a CHEAP pair of glass tile nippers - not my Leponitts or my Montolits - to make the final cut. I have to admit that feels a bit like cheating... but I don't like wasting material and time.

I usually mix stone and glass in the mosaics. I like the rough stone and the smooth and shiny glass side-by-side. I also like the contrast between the subtle, muted colors of the stone and the more intense, pure colors of the glass.

Dalle de verre and found glass

The glass is usually dalle de verre with some smalti and the occasional weird found glass.  The dalle de verre is cut using carbide-tipped hammer and the hardie. I also use a chipping hammer to distress the surface of any larger blocks of glass and also to create shards to use in the mosaics.

Carbide-tipped hammers and hardie. Top: chipping hammer. Bottom: cutting hammer

Cutting dalles.

The carbide tips are more brittle than the steel surrounding them. It is important to always strike the glass with the hammer lined up straight with the hardie just in case you pass all the way through the glass and strike the hardie.

This is what happens when your carbide hammer strikes the hardie unevenly.

The chipping hammer isn't used with the hardie. The cut piece of dalle de verre is laid on its side and you strike it with the hammer at an angle, trying to catch just the edge of the piece of glass. This process takes off the manufactured, flat surface and creates a more visually interesting piece of glass.

The top of the smaller piece of dalle de verre has been distressed using the chipping hammer.

I use mostly Wediboard for substrate. For the stone mosaics I use the 5/8" instead of the 1/2", mainly because of the finished weight. I have a local (well, within 150 miles) supplier for the wediboard, Cole Papers in Minneapolis. They don't list wediboard on their website, but they do sell it.

I use thinset mortar to adhere the stone and glass to the Wediboard. I've been using Mapei Keraset mortar, mixed with a 1:1 mixture of water and Mapei Keraply. I'd use Laticrete products, but I can purchase the Mapei products locally.

I color the mortar with Gamblin dry pigments or Sheffield Tints-All. Lately I've been mostly using the Gamblin but I stay away from the cadmium, chromium and cobalt pigments. I don't have a safe ventilation system for using them.

Desert Mosaic Update

I've finished the desert mosaic.

Desert One, 11" x 17", Marble, Limestone, Sandstone, Glass

I still need to frame it. I usually do a very minimalistic frame, usually a small strip of oak that I paint with satin black acrylic.

Photo Inspiration

Desert Mosaic Update

Spent the last few nights working on the desert mosaic. I think I will get it finished tomorrow.

At 14 hours

At 18 hours

At 22 hours

I tipped it upright for this last photo so that the texture was more apparent. This is mostly marble, with some onyx, limestone, sandstone and glass shards.

Be sure to click on the images and view them in a larger format.

Desert Mosaic Progress

10 hours into it:

This has been a productive weekend - in the studio and out (the only thing I should have done that I didn't was finish the laundry).

I'm cutting some more stone right now. I'm getting faster at working with the hammer & hardie. I need to time cutting a 12" tile so that I can accurately account for the labor that goes into a mosaic.

Desert Mosaic Update

I've started laying in the tesserae on the first desert mosaic. It seems to be coming together well. My only worry is that I will need more variety of desert-colored stone. If there wasn't several inches of snow on the ground I'd go beach combing or climb up sugarloaf and gather some stone.

When I was cutting up some of the stone I had on hand I found one tile that was a deep rusty orange. It was only a 6 inch tile, but I got as much usable stone out of it that I could. I used almost half of it to do the large swath that you can see in the photo.

I may end up visiting some of the tile stores around here to see if I can find more desert colors.

Desert Mosaics

It seems that much of my art work is inspired by place these days - place, or the environment, the world around us.

Tonight I started working on a set of desert-inspired mosaics. I've done a good number of pieces that are about water and these next two or three will be about the lack of water. I spent a lot of our hike in the Mojave a couple weeks ago thinking about how I would represent a desert in a mosaic- not the Mojave, per se, but the idea of a desert...

Tonight's work was mostly selecting and cutting stone - sandstone, marble, slate and onyx (tans, browns, oranges, reds and grays) - and choosing glass (reds, oranges, blues, grays and black) that will blend well with the stone I have selected.

The small piles are individual sandstone rocks that I picked up in the Mojave. A couple of the rocks have a really cool layered coloring - I think it's from baking in the relentless sun out there. The outer surface of the rocks have a patina-like coloring that is very different from the inner parts.

Catching up

A few images of recent mosaics.

These two new mosaics are going to be in a multi-artist show at LaChica Art & Music in Las Vegas in February. The show theme is nature-inspired abstracts.

Red River, 12" x 12", glass, marble, slate, coal

Inkling – the Seed of an Idea, 8" x 17", Dalle de Verre mosaic, limestone & glass
two views - normal lighting and backlit

 Along with a old favorite

Tales from the River, 3.5": x 3.5 x 8.5, glass on driftwood

I have two additional shows coming up. One in April at the Page Performance Center, and a show with one other artist at LaChica in June. So I'm working in the studio every evening.

The Highest Good Is Like Water, 12" x 12", glass & marble.

I'm hoping to have at least 12 pieces for the April show and 15 for the June show.

Testing Slide Notes

Abelisto showed me a new app for creating lists and notes. You can share the notes in a number of ways, including posting to Blogger. So this is my test using Slide notes to create and upload a post.

The River Mosaic

I've been working on the river mosaic the last few evenings and I've reached a point where I thought I'd share a few photos of it.

The River Mosaic, 12" x 60", Emperador Medium marble, Smalt, Dalle de Verre.

One of the contiguous marble sections is completed. There's a bit of the glass started - I did that on the night that the Winona Daily News photographer came over to take photos for the story they ran on the front page of the paper last week.

I've been playing with varying heights of tesserae and interfering with the andamento...

Table-level view from the right end of the piece

Table-level view from the left end of the piece

I'm going to take a short break from working on this one to do two small mosaics.

Christmas Tanks

This caught my eye when we were in Linton (IN) visiting family for Thanksgiving - or maybe that's Tanksgiving...

A tank with Christmas lights - even Christmas-light flames coming out
of the tank's gun barrel.

It seemed a strange, surreal, mixed message to me.  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All and tanks...

The Dalles Arrived!

After several calls to Kokomo Glass, I finally managed to get some dalle de verre ordered -- probably way too much dalle de verre for my budget, but what the hell...

They came today. Lots of blues & greens, some nice blue-greens, a couple amber-browns, a yellow, a blue-streaked clear, two nice purples and a deep red circle dalle.

A photographer for the newspaper came by tonight to take some photos for a story about me that will be in the paper soon. He wanted action shots, so I cut some marble, some smalti and some of the dalles up.

I had a pretty good mixture of cut glass (smalti & dalles) that I thought I would mix a bit of blue thinset and did some work on the river piece so that he could photograph that too.

Normally I'd have cut a lot more glass before starting this, but it seemed like a good idea for the photographer to get some photos of this part of the work too.

Now that I've got the glass I needed I can work  on this mosaic in earnest.

New Mosaic Project

This is an experiment. I've taken this photo with my new phone and creating this post with it too.
I won't be writing lengthy posts this way, but if it works well I'll probably use it now and then