Just Sing

I enjoy hearing from collectors about how they live with my work. A recent purchase from my gallery online was for an image of a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher. It isn’t a picture about the bird however. It’s an image about joyful singing on a beautiful spring day. After Donna C. from New Jersey received her matted pigment print she sent an email to thank me and to let me know “that beautiful singing bird is looking great in my music studio (where I teach voice)!”

In my work the content of the images are rarely what the image is about. I’m more interested in the meaning of the objects in an image, what they stand for, or the emotion they elicit. Birds may serve as metaphors for many things, but joyful singing certainly seems like a good one.

 

Listening to the Audience

At a recent art festival in Virginia, I met Judy. She entered my booth and was drawn to a canvas giclee that I had made of an image of grasses. The image is part of a series I began last summer using antique lenses adapted to new cameras. It is a very etherial series and one that speaks to my aesthetic. Judy was also drawn to a framed print from the same series which hung on my display walls. It was a picture of a meadow of daisies (titled appropriately — Daisy Meadow) rendered softly against late-day light and also made with one of my antique lenses. Daisy Meadow was the piece she wanted and she wanted it as a large canvas.

I took her order and as soon as I returned to my studio, began working on the new canvas image. I hadn’t had this piece done on canvas before but thought it would work well. In fact, I think this new series I’m doing lends itself exceptionally well to larger canvas giclees. Still, I was very pleased when she wrote to me after receiving her artwork. She told me, “it is absolutely the most beautiful picture!!!! I love it!.” In a follow up email, Judy speaks to the piece having “so much depth.” The picture is “soft and inviting,” she added.

I always listen to the people who purchase my work, they are my best source of feedback. From them I get insight into my work and even the business of selling art. It is the interaction with collectors that makes being a full time artist most fulfilling.

Daisy Meadow can be purchased as an art print or canvas giclee directly from my on-line gallery – here

“She Will Be Heard”……

Looking at a picture like this one of a female cardinal, it is very hard not to attribute a human behavior to her. This beautiful bird with her glorious coloration – I mean look at those amazing “eyebrows” – is definitely speaking her mind about something, right? I don’t think we can help but see the image that way, it is human nature.

This new piece will be limited to 100 archival pigment giclee prints in the size of 8″x10″. It is available on my website HERE

 

Collector Chooses Robin Picture

Easy Pickins – (c) Paul Grecian

Everyday personal experiences with nature are the foundation to our larger appreciation of the world we live in. Recently a collector of my work named Sandy, shared a story of her affection for the common American Robin. She was interested in a piece that would celebrate her experience of caring for a Robin until it could fly away. I selected two pictures from my collection of images and offered her my first printing of either one.

Happily, Sandy selected a piece in a walnut frame that I will be shipping to her. Her choice was the image I titled Easy Pickins depicting an American Robin on a fruit laden tree. The price for the framed print which includes a nicely finished dust-cover on the back with a pocket for the Certificate of Authenticity, is $129.00. Visit my website for a full selection of available works by clicking HERE.

 

 

Shared Story

I always appreciate a collector sharing a story with me about an experience with nature. Recently, a customer told me about her experience with a common bird — the American Robin. I have always been fond of Robins as a sign of Spring; I also think they are an attractive bird, and very much enjoy their melodious song.

Fruitful, (c) 2017 Paul Grecian

Having had purchased my bird work before, this customer asked me about my experience with Robins. That request motivated me to reconnect with some previous images of mine. As a result, I am introducing two new prints. The first piece is titled Fruitful and is of a Robin sitting on a richly fruitful branch. The second piece is titled Easy Pickins which is of a Robin framed by the branches of a fruit covered tree. Click on the names above to see them on my website.

In both images, the Robin is the clear

Easy Pickins, (c) 2017 Paul Grecian

visual element of interest. Both images are also about the bounty of nature which birds rely on to meet their needs. The Robin is not an exotic bird, it is however, one with which we all have some memory and relationship during the year. These types of relationships, the everyday experiences with nature, are our most important.

Winter Stores

Winter Stores, (c) 2017 Paul Grecian

Winter is a wonderful time of year to work with cardinals. The contrast between the brilliant reds of the bird and the clean whites of the background allow me to make very pleasing images. I am always trying to include a third element though, and in this case that third element was these blue berries. Red, white, and blue in winter.

Food sources are part of my strategy for working with birds during the winter. In addition to being a draw to birds, I like the visual element of small round shapes in an otherwise minimalist piece.

I am currently printing this new work to be matted to 16×20 inches, a standard frame size. I also offer the print framed with a UV-Protective, Reflection-control glass available on my website HERE

Readymades at 100 Years Old

I recently finished reading two books about Marcel Duchamp. The first was Marcel Duchamp, The Afternoon Interviews by Calvin Tomkins, and the other was Marcel Duchamp, Appearance Stripped Bare by Octavio Paz. Both were good reads although the Paz book was difficult going in parts.

Both books of course dealt with the important art history significance of Duchamp’s Readymades. I’ve struggled with my personal feelings about whether a Readymade is art, and from what I understand Duchamp did as well. But it does seem that 100 years later now, Readymades are at least institutionally recognized as art and artists continue to work in that mode. I remain ambivalent.

One of my fundamental problems with Duchamp’s notion of Readymades is the idea that selection alone of something by an artist is sufficient for that thing to be considered art. More confusing still is that for Duchamp the “selection” process had to be one of absolute indifference to the object, even to the point of employing methods of chance. If that is the case then their is no artistic intent, and for me that means there is no art. There is no human element to a chance selection process. One need only create a random number generator with assigned objects in order to create (or “select”) a Readymade. That is not a human endeavor and so not art.

Still, the concept of a Readymade is useful to artists and art appreciators in order to force some floor of thought to the question of “what is art?” I do feel that I have a clearer concept of art, and I understand the history of the question better.  It may be though that the question itself is the useful part, and not the answer.

There are a number websites from a variety of sources for further reading on the subject. There is also some real misunderstanding on those sites which I find amusing during this 100 year anniversary of the Readymade.

If you walk into my booth at some future show and see a pedestal with what looks like an upside down, camera , signed …………….