circle
We came across this tree stump on our recent vacation on Vancouver Island.
Then I found Rick Chapman’s photos of circles at Conscientious.
You are browsing the Blog for Other artists Archives - Page 29 of 30 - Marja-Leena Rathje.
by Marja-Leena by Marja-Leena print show in Seattle
SUPER-SIZED: the BIG print show featuring works by Chuck Close, Helen Frankenthaler, Graham Gillmore (from BC, Canada), Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell, William Kentridge, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Kiki Smith and others, will be at the Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, WA, USA from May 14 – June 12, 2004.
Have a look at the works on the gallery’s excellent website. Worth a trip to Seattle!
by Marja-Leena Krakow Triennial winners
Speaking of award-winning printmakers, here are some more that I’d like to tell you about.
As I have written before, the Krakow Print Triennial in Poland is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious international print competitions. They publish a wonderful big catalogue which is distributed to all participants, after all the traveling exhibitions are over and the works are returned.
So, I was thrilled to get one earlier, from a family member who went to see the show in Oldenburg, not far from her home. Though I knew who won the Grand Prix, (a friend who lives here in Greater Vancouver, Canada), I had not seen the prize-winning work until I saw it in this catalogue: Davida Kidd’s digital print called Navigator. Then I found it on the Triennial’s excellent and extensive website, along with the many other fine award winners’ works, so that you can have a look too. (Click on the images to see larger.) Davida received a free trip to Krakow for the award and will have a solo exhibition at the next Triennial in 2006, as is customary. She has won many awards for her work but this is perhaps the best – congratulations!
UPDATE March 21.05: Krakow Print Triennial’s website has been undergoing renovations and these pages are no longer available. I’ve updated their link above. They now have a new site Icondata where some of Davida’s works may be viewed under World Prints – Canada.
by Marja-Leena Award-winning Estonian printmakers
In some recent correspondence with friends Virge and Loit Joekalda in Tallinn, Estonia, I learned that Virge has won her country’s prestigious Eduard Wiiralti Young Artist’s Award for 2004. They sent a large format PDF catalogue of the Awards, which is so inspiring that it has made me want others to see it. A few examples can be seen here. One of Virge’s drypoint prints is on the bottom of the page.
The link to download the catalogue (PDF) is on the middle of the page. Though it’s quite large, it is worth a read and a look at the various award winners’ works. The English introduction begins on page six, including an explanation of the triennial award competition, and some descriptions of some of the works and their creators. Here is what is written about Virge’s work:
To a large extent, the title ‘Organograafika’ (organic graphics) could be applied to Virge Joekalda, whose energetic, as if flowing, simultaneously emotional and powerful forms reflect the dynamics of nature. Virge Joekalda has preferred dry-point technique for years; for the accomplishments in this field, she won a prize at the World Print Festival in Ljubljana in 1998. However, once again it should be pointed out that not her previous achievements but the works ‘Minu aed VI (My Garden) and Metsik aed I and II (Wild Garden) (2003) with their elegant laconism, successful colour resolution and direct expressivity gave her the Young Artist Award. Look for her gorgeous prints on pages 29 to 31.
Interestingly, the first award winner in 1998 for Senior Artist was Vive Tolli, whom we met at an art opening in Tallinn in 2002 and learned that she was Virge’s teacher! See her work on pages 18 & 19.
Digital printmaking is on the leading edge in print competitions around the world, so it was not surprising to find that the Young Artists’ Award in 2001 went to Ulle Marks and Jyri Kass for their “Jalg I-III (Trace)”, who “used a sensitive language of the human body. […] The same works were granted the Gyor Prize at the VI International Drawing and Graphic Arts Triennial in Gyor, Hungary, in 2001. Their cooperative works were also awarded at the Krakow Print Triennial in 2000, and at the Tallinn Triennial in 2001.” See pages 24 & 25.
And, congratulations again, Virge!
by Marja-Leena on creativity
As mentioned in a couple of my recent posts, there has been a lot of discussion on why we make art, and this has led me to think more about creativity. Cassandra wrote a few days ago (scroll down to April 14th entry) about her thoughts on writing letters, books and blogs, and about creativity. I like these wise words:
“There’s also another side to how we view creativity, and the way we put certain types of achievement up on a pedestal. If we insist on seeing creative work as heading toward specific public goals, and Art as being defined by these big monolithic accomplishments – the book, symphony, masterpiece painting – we will not only set ourselves up to fall short, but we run the risk of being blind to the art that exists in everyday creation, in the thoughts and creative acts that arise when we lift our eyes from a book, or making a meal, or stop to hear a bird song. All those things need to go into our “big art”, if that’s where we’re headed, but they are also important ends in themselves, as blogging and letter-writing remind us. I think we need to remember that, not only to validate what we are doing but because so many people are also doing this process — of perceiving and thinking and expressing or remembering — everyday, without ever writing anything down. It’s important to remember that their thoughts and perceptions also layer throughout life to create masterpieces: wise, perceptive, interesting people, without whom the world would be so impoverished.”
by Marja-Leena Life as an Artist
I have just found an artist’s blog that has really piqued my interest. Ivan Pope in the UK does multimedia installation work that is very different from my printmaking, but his clear descriptions of his life as an artist who blogs, mirror much of my own. I like this Dear Diary:
“It occurs to me that this blog is like a Diary […] purely a look at the stuff that I do, the work that I make and the things that surround me.[…] I’ve spent the last week recoiling from making work. I think I burn myself out in phases, then some consolidation. Plus, there is always a lot of other stuff around to get on with, paperwork, kids, work, school.[…] My mind goes on making work, but my body sort of abdicates. It tries to get back to it, but there are too many things in the way. And some big fears.”
And Doing the art thing :
“This blog is supposed to get me thinking about, considering, the minutae of my life as an artist.[…] I intend to have a career in art myself,[…], I know the value of the market, the PR expert, the phone-pickerupper, the booster. Up to a point artists have to be all of these things to themselves, and its a very hard trick to play. Almost the best that you can hope is that you have such a belief in your work that boosting it, telling the world about it is easy and first nature. If this is true and it works, then someone will come along to pick up the job. Oh, and to do the paperwork. Please.”
by Marja-Leena Why Make Art?
Anna Conti in her Working Artist’s Journal (April 7/04 entry) brings up this perennial question that we artists are always asking of ourselves:
“Why make art? What is it good for?”
She writes: “I don’t think we’ll ever know. The compulsion to make pictures, sculptures, stories, or music has been part of being human since prehistoric times. What changes are the explanations we come up with to explain or justify our behavior. We have to come up with an explanation that will convince people to leave us alone so that we can keep making art. Or better yet, an explanation that will convince people to support us in making art.”
I particularly enjoyed all the quotes from many well-known artists answering this question.
UPDATED Jan.2014: Anna Conti started a new blog in 2006, and we lost her older pages and comments. Hence the link no longer works and has been removed.
I am also sorry to have lost the excellent comments I received here as they did not transfer with my blog’s recent move to WordPress. Time takes its toll even in the blog world.
by Marja-Leena Hockney again
Over at studio notebook*, on April 5/04 Carolyn wrote about her reaction to David Hockney’s book Secret Knowledge.
The book is about Hockney’s research into how the Old Masters utilized optics as a tool to create their works. “The thesis I am putting forward here is that from the early fifteenth century many Western artists used optics – by which I mean mirrors and lenses (or a combination of the two) – to create living projections…to my knowledge, no one has suggested that optics were used as widely or as early as I am arguing here.”
Hockney experimented with these processes himself (“The camera lucida is not easy to use” he explains).[…] Over and over he states the use of these tools by no means diminishes the talents of the masters that painted them.
Still his theories have some critics out of their minds. [..] Chuck Close agrees with Hockney though and says of course an artist would take advantage of the available technology. [to] “Close, who paints from photographs of faces, it was self-evident that any artist would use every tool possible to make the job easier even if art historians don’t want to believe it.[…] some people are amazed that their artist heroes have cheated.”
“Good food for thought” indeed. It’s not a new subject though it’s still hotly debated, especially now with the advent of digital technology in photography and other art media. In fact, recently Hockney was in the news complaining about the “death of photography”, which, to me, rather contradicts the statements in his book.
* studio notebook no longer exists, sadly, so link is removed
by Marja-Leena The Ainu
Feeding my fascination for ancient as well as the indigenous cultures of the world, I was excited to find at the rich Mysterium** a post about the Ainu: A beautiful audio-visual presentation on Japan’s Indigenous Ainu people, their origins, art and religion. This was put together by the Arctic Studies Center of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Astonishing examples of Ainu sculpture, which to me look remarkably similar to the Northwest Coast First Nations’ totem poles next door to Vancouver on Burnaby Mountain Park. The more than a dozen carved poles were created by Ainu sculptors Nuburi Toko and his son, Shusei to commemorate the goodwill between Burnaby and its sister city, Kushiro, Japan. The spectacular setting inspired the Tokos to imagine it as Kamui Mintara, or Playground of the Gods.
The poles represent the story of the gods who descended to earth to give birth to the Ainu. Animal spirits such as whale, bear, and owl adorn the tops of the slender poles that are bunched together in groups of twos and threes. A killer whale and a brooding raven stand apart from the rest, looking west over Vancouver and across the Strait of Georgia towards Vancouver Island (and Japan).
Have a look at these photos of these gorgeous works in their stunning setting.
** updated Feb.29.2012 – this site no longer exists so link has been removed.
by Marja-Leena Snow Show Architect wins Prize
Recently I wrote about the unusual Snow Show in Finland. Today I found a link at studio notebook* (March 31st post) to artdish* and the following article:
Zaha Hadid selected for architecture prize;
Her recent sculptural work on the rocks at Finland’s snow show
Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid was selected to receive the esteemed Pritzker Architecture Prize for 2004. Hadid, 53, is the first woman to be honored with the Pritzker in its 25-year history, which will be awarded at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, in May.[ – ]
Hadid had also been a participant at the recent snow show* held in Rovaniemi, Finland, this past February. In her collaboration with Cai Guo-Qiang, a pyrotechnical artist from China, Hadid created a massive ice sculpture that looms out of the snow like a colossal-sized igloo. But, wait, where’s the fire, you ask? New York Times writer Alan Riding mentions in his article, “A frozen landscape of mysterious designs” (2 Mar 2004), that Guo-Qiang set fire to parts of the sculpture in a performance entitled “Caress Zaha with Vodka.
For more info and stunning photos of this annual event, check out the snow show*. Congratulations!
* Links now dead and have been removed.