What is an artist? First of all, he is a collector. He makes that which he cannot afford to buy. - Pablo Picasso
It’s been a long time since I fell head over heels for a painting, and I didn’t mean to fall in love with this one - but I did. Enough that I dared to email the artist and ask the price. (I don’t know if you know this, but artists will often let you buy a painting in installments.)
I first saw the painting several months ago. I stumbled across it somehow and loved it enough to make it my computer wallpaper, but then I couldn’t remember where I found it. A few days ago, I found it again.
It’s not even unreasonably priced ($1200). It’s just too much for me, right now, in this stage of my life. But I really, really wish it was mine, so I could look at it every single day for the rest of my life. Even if I was dying, I wouldn’t mind if I got to look at this painting while I was sick.
Ever been struck like that by a work of art?
Yep. Saw the painting entitled “Vision, Revision, Division” (ninth painting down on the page below) in a Seattle gallery in 1993, and ten years later, upon earning my doctorate, I tracked down the artist in Port Townsend, WA, and bought the painting for $1200. It now hangs on my living room wall in Wichita.
http://www.stephenyatesart.com/Gallery.asp?GalleryID=6904&AKey=8C9B24VR
I plan to become rich enough so I can hire someone to steal this from the Gugg3nh3im in V3nice. (”3″s used for “e” to throw them off my track. {cackles with glee}).
Sus–that is a lovely painting….push us artists, girl, push us! You know, if you ever got the pix (and I got the time since I have this bangin’ new job that uses a lot of it) I think a nice painting of you and the boys would be nice…..go thru your photos and see what you’ve got….
Ya well I wrote to them, I guess they don’t take credit cards ’cause I never heard back.
I get that feeling anytime I walk into my living room. Wife has a BA in fine arts. I reframed most of her school work and hung up the best ones. 8 paintings, a couple of stone/wax lithographs. Sometimes I just sit and look, no TV on, no music.
In 1983, when I was working at a crappy waiter job making maybe $200 a week, I spent $150 on a really beautiful silk screen print of stoneware.
It’s in my office right now, I’m looking at it while I write this.
Art is good.
Good art is even better.
If you love it, go for it.
I have a poster for the 1985 Chicago Jazz festival that’s quite vivid, a print by a Canadian artist, Benjamin Chee Chee, and a sketch/watercolor of the beaches of my home, Northwest Indiana, from an artist friend of my grandmothers that very simply, starkly, gets the feel of the place just right.
I’m just coming out of a short, sharp job transition, and to celebrate a new, better paying job in the near future, I’m finally going to buy a Clemens Kalischer print of John Lee Hooker I’ve wanted for a very long time - quite humorous, well done.
And when I pay that off, if the cash flow is still good, I’ll finally break down and see if I can buy a certain Native People’s mask from Canada that I’ve been lusting after forever and a day.
i’d prefer the painting without the people, frankly.
and if you’re in philly and want some good deals on art, this friday 12/7 at PAFA:
* 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.: The 14th Annual Academy Print Sale, held in the print shop located on the sixth floor of the Academy’s Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building, features cards, etchings, lithographs, stamp prints, and woodcuts by Academy students as well as demonstrations on different printmaking techniques by Academy faculty. All prints are priced under $100. (free)
http://www.pafa.org/academyFirstFridays.jsp
“Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper
Fills me with a sense of nostalgia,