Linky - Linky- Greety

Casey Klahn in Studio

The post title is blogger slang for saying "greetings" to the visitors coming in from Alyson Stanfield's ArtBizBlog, where she has a post entitled: Artist's Blogs to Fall in Love With.

Casey and Vincent at a Paint Out

So, welcome if you're new here. My blog is a process-type space where I post about "Colorist Art", in a new and modern sense. Also, things that I enjoy, such as art history that isn't too stodgy. An example would be my posts on Vincent van Gogh (who I interview here).

You know, there are precious few photos of the old keener, van Gogh. He hated the camera so. Here's an image he allowed me to have of our virtual visit in Paris, but only of his back.

Vincent and Moi Hold Forth

Another popular subject here at The Colorist is the medium pastel, which I favor. Here's a post about my chums in the pastel world. If you like, see my post about the founding pastelist herself, Rosalba Carriera.

My art can be viewed by clicking on My Artworks.

Now, I'll be going back to Alyson's blogs list and finishing my tour of bloggers to love!

Figure Drawing

Lead Climber
11" x 6.75"
Graphite on Paper
Casey Klahn

The figure used to be my primary subject back in my drawing days. This one of a rock climber, drawn from the imagination, was done about ten years ago.

Why don't I do the figure now? When I decided to go full time, and professional, in fine art, I reasoned that I had not explored the landscape very much. Also, my knowledge of color was shaky, I felt. So, the colorist landscape developed as my "growth subject".

The figure is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of artistic subjects. Nothing expresses so directly to the viewer what an artist is saying than the human form. As far as mastery is concerned, the lack of it is never more obvious than in a rigidly drawn figure. Rendering the human form is basic to my own "inner artist". Without it, I would always wonder, "can I draw?"

As I slowly move my studio to it's new location (across the lawn), I hope I can uncover some more of those old drawings and share them. I like what they say about process and my own philosophy of art.

Reaching for Motivation

Photo credit: Lorie Klahn

Finger Crack,
Leavenworth, Washington

It's good to reach back in the memory files for personal motivation. I have so much to do, and the progress feels like one inch at a time. Packets, printing of materials, follow-ups, planning, and (Oh Yeah!) art all vie for their place in my priorities.

Ah, for those halcyon days of granite climbing in fair Leavenworth! Adventures galore in the stunning North Cascades! Concerned only for gravity and friction, sun, wind, snow and rain!
The impossible was at hand, in those days. Maybe it still is today, huh?

This is a great Hollywood style photo taken by my wife and climbing buddy, Lorie. Too bad I never could figure out what that rope was for.

Content Poll

What subjects speak to you here at the Colorist? Which one is your favorite? Based on my past stats, one subject that was superstar great was Vincent van Gogh. The pastel medium gets high marks, but I think it's a narrow segment of this audience. What about my art process (the only area where I can claim any authority)? The truly strange among us read here for jokes about royalty and their pet monkey.

Where do you come down on the content of this blog? Vote the poll to the right top margin, please. Your friendly author will make every effort to consider these. If you have other ideas, post a comment here.

P.S. : My quick thinking readers have pointed out to me that they cannot vote for "subjects" in the plural, as the poll only accepts one answer. I'll have to go back to the code and change the word to "subject" because I need a hierarchy showing the most popular on down. Thanks for voting and sorry for the mistake.

New Blog Banner

Thanks for your patience as I test these new blog banners. I am trying as hard as possible to get one that doesn't require scrolling, but so far this one just needs a minimum of that.

Not sure about the font, but we'll rest on this for a while.

Addendum:

Why post a new banner design at 3 AM? Obsessed with graphic perfection? Maybe. Or, maybe it's just that my Kindergartener has a bug from his first week at school, and slept in our bed, and then wet same. So, I already was up nursing my sore shoulder, anyway...you get the picture.

The new banner really needed to be a "no scroll" banner, anyway. I only worry, now, that people can't see the first post because of the mega banner being in the way. Hmmm...I wonder if I can re-do it until the sun comes up?

Casey Klahn Fine Art

Casey Klahn Fine Art

You are invited to see my web site, post-makeover. I spent an intensive week of online fussing, with a group of about eight other artists and crafters, and moderators Alyson Stanfield and Patricia Velte. The professional and peer critiques were useful, although when I went about giving crits to my peers, I felt like a drive-by shooter. The whole process ends up well, though.

If you're after a "from scratch" professional design for an art website, I highly recommend Pat's White Wing Designs. She knows her stuff and will make for you, I am sure, a very spiffy web presence.

The free side of the house would be to go to Google Page Creator and "do it yourself". My Google web site is here and here. Notice the links are dead because I am not using the tool as a web site. What I have done there, is to create some extra pages to link from my web site, which limits the number of pages I get.

Then, I also favor my own choice, which is a template site (like the blog). It is Fine Art Studio Online. Not much money, and relatively easy even for an old fart like myself.

Try Two Point One

The Colorist
New School Color
Casey Klahn

Now compare this one. Thanks, Kristina!

Two Point Oh

Let's try this one, with a Colorist American landscape in there, instead of an abstract. And, with a white frame.

Is the whole graphic presentation more coherent?

New Tagline

The Colorist
New School Use of Color
Casey Klahn

Your responses are requested. I am re-tooling and re-working my website, and this collage resulted in an effort to post a descriptive image of my blog. The word "Artspeak" in the old tag line was a stumbler for many - especially because I use a lot of artspeak, myself!

Anyway, the goal has been to communicate my art philosophy in process. The less "wordy', the better, I feel. What are your critiques of the collage, and of the tag line: "New School Use of Color"

Bring Your Own Tissue

My son started Kindergarten today. See the post and pictures at Endless Summer Art Fair, but keep a hanky close by.

I am taking an online class this week related to the art business, through Alyson Stanfield. I will still try to have a post or two, but patience, dear readers...

Mailing Large Fine Art

Unwrapping the Big Strongbox

Logo

My artwork, Large Tri-Color Forest (framed size is @42" x 35" x 2.5"), needs to be shipped to Dayton, Ohio. That's half way across country! In this post, I will detail the professional method for handling this big task.

Full of Foam

Masterpak is the company where I get my puncture proof, and properly insurable boxes. The product itself is known as The Strongbox. Basically, the heavy corrugated cardboard box has two sandwich layers of egg-carton foam, and a cunning middle layer of foam that is die cut both on the rank and file.

They do cost a pretty penny, in spite of the advertisement to the contrary, and they are also expensive to ship EMPTY. The insurance people would frown hard, in the event of a damaged frame, if you don't do your part as an artist to use the professional materials at your disposal.

Mark for Size, Then Rip Along the Die Cut Line

Clean, Shrink Wrap the Frame and Update Your Business Card

Almost Ready

I Add Bubble Wrap

My patrons pay the shipping for the art, and I pay for the box itself, and the return bill for getting my expensive Strongbox back. Also, I charge the patron for the insurance in case of damage or loss to the artwork. In the event that the art is damaged in shipping, I will eat the insurance cost and, of course, refund the patrons for everything.

So far, I have had good experiences with shipping framed (glazed with glass) art cross-country. My carrier, until they screw up, is FedEx.

My strategy in shipping is to use next day air, since the fastest method involves the least handling. As a good example of the perils of slow shipping, I received permission from my kind patrons in Ohio to ship the box itself from their company (based in New York, but shipped from Mississippi) at the lowest rate to save myself money. They were fine with that, but the Strongbox did arrive at my door with a thick layer of dirt on it. Luckily, it was shrink wrapped and the cardboard was sufficiently clean.

I have explored kid glove shipping, but the expense is way prohibitive. Even if my works of this size went for $10,000, I still wouldn't be able to afford the custom shipping offered by carriers such as FedEx or UPS.

If you live in a large, Metropolitan center, there are services available that handle the shipping of fine art, door-to-door. Look into that yourself, as I am going to continue to live in my nice, remote corner of the planet, thanks.

Lastly, I phoned FedEx to pick-up this big item at my door. It's the quickest method, and it also allows me to have a second person here to handle the load-up of the clumsy large box. The weight is nothing to speak of, but the size is difficult to manage. When the delivery guy shows up, I will make out the return bill to put in the box, and the shipping bill to Ohio. Then, the 2" inch tape gun, and a layer of shrink wrap. Don't forget the prayer!

I'll let you know the results in the next few days.

Postscripts:

1. The art and package arrived beautifully. The art is hanging in my patron's office, and the big box has been returned via FedEx.
   
2. Apparently, the Strong Box is not made in Tupelo, Mississippi and the tag pictured above is not correct. The box is manufactured in New Jersey, somewhere, and I will be updating that picture soon to reflect the actual source of manufacture.
   
3. My personal opinion, based on my good results to date, is that these boxes are well worth the price. I am also getting a refund on my shipping cost for the original ship of the big Strongbox. It turns out that the shipping rate is not cheap, but fair compared to other really big packages that one gets.

When Bloggers Meet

Meg Lyman, of CrashOctopus fame, stopped by on her family vacation. She was driving between the Spokane Airport and Leavenworth, Washington.

She got the inside scoop on my art fair summer, and I'm afraid had to step around a lot of construction in my new studio. I heard how her Pittsburgh show went, and a little bit about her pastel work.

Everyone Loves a Good Mystery

Home, Sweet Home

While everyone does love a good mystery, the insurance adjuster is less pleased with not knowing the source of my basement flood. We had a service vacuum out the 6 inches of standing water, and after a few days of being at grandma and grandpa's house, we have the water hooked back up and are trying to get the house back in order.

Does the cistern have a surplused service to the house that broke? The pipe from the well might have failed somehow. An underground body of water might be pushing against the basement wall. The pipes and interior walls all look good. It has been a hot, dry summer. The never-ending joys of home-ownership just keep giving and giving.

So, I did what any home handyman would do, and began the process of functioning every appliance or service in the house one at a time, just to rule out internal sources of this enormous inflow of water. Ta Da! The bathtub! Our lovely, antique, claw foot bathtub holds water just fine. But when the plug is pulled, the whole shebang pours into the basement. I never thought I'd be happy to see a flood, but resolving the problem is a relief.

There is a personal and human component to the artist's life. Especially with one's studio being at the home. And with small children, a career-person wife, and the rigors of rural life...well, let's just call it a full plate.

I'll try to bust out some time for a report on my framing soon. You'll understand if it takes a few extra days, though.

PS: On the blogosphere news, I expect Meg Lyman to drop by today. Her dad lives in Eastern Washington, and she is visiting from Georgia, where she is the CrashOctopus.

Pipe Wrench

Hold on just a bit more, folks. Yesterday, after essentially a month away from home, I started the task of putting the house back in order for a series of visitors soon to come. For some reason, I needed a tool from the basement, and guess what I found?

Water! Six inches or so, standing in the basement. O, the joys of home ownership! We spent the night at Grandma & Grandpa's farm, since our water is off now. The kids slept on the floor. Poor Lorie went off to work at her usual 5 or 6 AM, but at least she had a shower at her mom's.

Did I mention that Grandma & Grandpa are in harvest? Those of you with a little knowledge of the rural life know how stressful a time that is. We just added some more!

Anyway, I'll be at the computer very little. Maybe I'll have to bust out that old tool we used to call a pen and pencil, and write my posts the old fashioned way for a while.

Blog Direction

Slowly, now, I return to the land of blogging. My art fair blast is through for a while, and I am re-entering home and studio life in beautiful Davenport, Washington.

Family life, the never-ending maintenance cycle of our old house, and soon-pending guest visits are priorities, now. The blog will be a little less so. But don't worry. I always have something to say.

Katherine Tyrrell has asked for a (detailed!) post on my framing, which you have been able to view at the Endless Summer Art Fair for the past several weeks. That will be fun and easier for me now that I have some photos to show of my framed work.

New directions with my art are on the docket. Also, I wish to continue with my Abstract Expressionists. Perhaps they will need to be interspersed with my personal stuff, since I have so much to post on. Also, look forward to seeing my posts on "our men" here in the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest School (Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, etc.).

Stay tuned, kind readers.

New Look

It's a new day at The Colorist. Since my art is mostly "sold through", I get to begin the process of finding my direction anew. Do I have more "colorist" works in me? If so, what will the focus be? I have a number of ideas, including advancing the blue-centric series, and creating a series of works based on a new color wheel that I am dreaming up. Then, for the future I am thinking of a yellow series.

While the market has a say in my direction, I very much feel that the direction I will take won't be slaved to it. The new directions have more to do with artistic seeing, based on spending a lot of hours looking at my works hung together at the art fairs. I loved the newest set of all blue works, including Blue Wandering, which is now featured in the "stuff" column at the right of this blog page.

It has been so long since I functioned these template tools, that I have forgotten how to format jpegs to "fit" properly. After a few failures, I discovered a very cool detailed view of the image, which you see as a tall image there that I'll entitle "detail". I think I'll leave it up for a short while as a good example of some scratch marks, and scumbling details of my technique. Enjoy it while you can.

Back

Back from Summer Camp with the family and done with the fairs (I think) for the year. Will post here soon.
I am eager to get caught up on everyone else's blogs, too!
KC

Out of Pocket

My Booth

Home via the Sawtooths in Idaho

Like all of you, I have the summer to enjoy. I'll be "Out of Pocket" for another week while my family and I go to the lake for "Family Camp".

See you next week!

Where the Action is

See my posts at the Endless Summer Art Fair to see what I'm up to these days.

Art Theft and Vandalism

How creepy is it to steal an artwork? Is it a crime against society, in some way? This interesting theft happened recently in Bellevue, WA. I wanted to go in and give the owner a hard time, since he's fun to talk to - but I noticed the gallery had been re-flagged under a different name. That, in itself, can be sad. Maybe the organized thieves saw the new owners as vulnerable, too.

I did suffer an organized serial theft of a couple of my works a few years back in Tacoma. Am I flattered in a back handed way? Maybe a little, but not amused in the least. I was compensated by the venue both times this happened.

Interesting blog on Art Law (also has some good input on the kissing incident):

http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/search?q=bellevue

Road Trip

Not a Yard Kitty

One of the challenges of living in the country is this neighborhood cat. As I was pulling out from home, my in-laws drove by and stopped to let me know that they spotted a cougar by my house the day before. Only, this one spanned the whole lane of the highway. That makes him @ 7 feet long from nose to tail!

The things I gotta worry about while I'm gone on my road trip...

Tune in here for an update.

Shout Out

This is a shout out to Mike and Susan to say thanks for having me over to your lovely home in Bellevue. Enjoy the Great Magenta Horizon, and it was wonderful to meet you.

Road Trip

See my post at the Endless Summer Art Fair to see what's up.

Rothko-ized

I have become Rothko-ized! Now, I am a fully functioning zombie in the Mark-Mode.

Just kidding. I will be "out of pocket", as the hip people say, for the next three weeks. On the road for Bellevue, Park City and Sun Valley. Reports will be posted at
the Endless Summer Art Fair.

You are owed a better end to the Rothko study. Sorry, I'm not ready for the definitive post, yet. I will have some down time between driving stretches, and maybe I'll get to post a little.

The quick things I can share are my pre-conclusions. Greenberg and that whole gang (including MR) were so impressed with abstraction being the break-out style for modern art that they felt they needed to push it to it's absolute limits. I'm not sure if we have reached those limits, yet. The cracks in that infrastructure developed before the Abstract Expressionist school could run its course.

I disagree with the dialectic that insists abstraction is the end-game of art. There are some solid values to abstraction, and it is fundamental to art as a historic continuum, and as a rudimentary part of the formal structure of art itself. I love the stuff, personally.

Rothko was a huge figure on the American landscape, whose color field art did a better job of breaking away from figuration than Pollock's art, IMHO. Not to compare too much, but the lack of line and the forwarding of the element of color are why I say MR is better. Action painting, as absolutely fantastic as it is, is still very dependent (Pollock's work) on the line.

Let's see. Now that I've dug this big hole, I guess I'll have a fine job ahead of me to fill in the rationales! I don't want to leave you with a comparison between JP and MR. That's too far off the mark for understanding the Abstract Expressionists.

Let's leave you with this awesome photo of The Irascibles, a group of artists otherwise known as the Abstract Expressionists, or the New York School. I wanted to photoshop myself in there as an interviewer, but I didn't want a lawsuit from the photographer. Perhaps you'll just have to imagine that part.

Image of the Abstract Expressionists known as The Irascibles.http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/images/abstexp_irascibles_lg.jpeg
"The Irascibles" (photo by Nina Leen, 1950, for Life magazine) Front row, left to right: Theodore Stamos, Jimmy Ernst (son of Max Ernst), Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Mark Rothko. Middle row: Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin. Back row: Willem De Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, and Hedda Sterne.

Note:
Want to know more about Hedda Sterne? Fascinating. She is the last surviving member of this famous photo.

Art World Currents

Jane Kallir, in The Art Newspaper, has given us a well-rounded essay on the four pillars of the art world gone askew. I always read these things very critically, as I am very free market oriented. She does a balanced job of describing some of the ills of over-feeding the art world's money hole. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with capitol, IMHO. Money is indeed the root of all evil, but it is not the evil itself - that requires man's imprinteur.

Given Miss Kallir's authority as a NYC gallery director, I had to yield to her knowledge on the steep drop-off from the super-heated art auction market to the next levels down. I still feel that the value of art overall is improved by the unimaginably high prices spent at auction, but the facts also speak that the middle market and lower market (hello) are "becalmed".

Is it any wonder that I had a whole month on art criticism? The need for knowledge is suffering, and it seems that the general understanding of this is spreading. If I, as an artist, must strive for originality, then the academic and critical strata of the art world must risk a little, too.

Thanks to Katherine Tyrrell for linking us to this great article.

Urgent Help Needed - Book Pricing

Rip from my book

The book is about ready to go, although the customer service at MyPublisher is telling me to wait while they figure out why I had a mis-print on the spine of the "proof". I'm going to push it forward anyway, since there have been so many changes to the book, it will "send" as a new book with a new file name, anyway.

I need your help,. dear readers, on pricing. Maybe a few of you will wind up buying a copy, too. Here's your chance to "open source" solve the pricing issues I have.

The "wholesale" to me is going to be significant, even with the standard discounts that MyPub offers, and with grouped shipping. I had originally had a retail in mind of @ $49 for the 8.75" x 11.25" linen hardcover. The catch comes when I realize that it will be competing in the broader book market, but it only has 29 pages. It features 35 images, 32 of which are in color, and essays about my art process. Prints of my Colorist American Landscapes are offered nowhere else. And, at that price, I will be earning in the single digits. Call it cheap advertising!

I looked up Wolf Kahn (my sage) on Amazon, and his (much longer) hard bounds are retailed at @ $45, but of course they are older now and get discounts to about $30. My venue, though, will be the art fair and not the bookstore or Amazon. I think I'm going to be OK with the mid forties price, especially with the perceived demand that comes with standing in front of the artist in his booth and in the presence of an installation of originals. The package has "whollop", to coin a phrase.

In the fully steamed department, I see Amazon sellers trying to unload their Wolf Kahn opening catalogs for greater than $100! Don't get me wrong, it's a free market, and it is perfectly legal. But please! Those are ( I know in a commercial setting) given free as a token for attending the gallery during his shows. Is no one polite, anymore? Well, I'll get off of my soap box, now, especially since my English is deteriorating...

Your opinions on my price? Could it be a little more? Or, is $45 too much and they will just languish, in your opinion?

BTW, the text in the rip above is new for the book, and I share it here:

"The fact that one usually begins with drawing is already academic. We start with color," Mark Rothko.

The great Abstract Expressionist, Mark Rothko, has taught us a great deal about color. Don't begin with a subject at all, but rather a color composition. He found it imperative to kill the subject completely, but my approach is to devalue it by repetition.

I have been influenced by the idea that, instead of using a three hue palette such as red, blue and yellow, an artist may arbitrarily choose to function using a two color base. Say, red and blue.

Here's an analogy to help you understand my two-color theory. When I was heavily into mountain climbing, we approached ski-waxing theory by simple numbers. There was the three wax system: Red, Blue and Violet, perhaps - each color was for a different snow temperature. Some wanted five waxes for the ever-changing Cascade Mountain's temperature conditions. I wound up devolving to a two-wax system: Red and Blue Extra. Similarly, the artist may wish to see two halves of the color wheel, and think of the blue side of yellow and the red side of yellow. This is as opposed to seeing three "rote" and separate hues, and instead viewing something like a continuum. The advantages may be that the artist will focus more on the split of each hue, and get a better use of every color (even yellow!).

By the same token, consider a two color system where we have a red-influenced blue and a red-starved blue.

In my current series of blue-centric works, I am discovering the freedom of the one-color composition! How much can I learn about the enduring color blue? What is the importance of line to the one-color work? The same question may be asked of form. The pastel: "Blue Wandering" is in many ways a break through for me. I have added more cobalts, and found new avenues to drive abstract shapes down. The "exploding" violet trunk would never have worked in a multi-colored palette.

Am I traveling two roads at once-a monochromatic one and a limited color-theory one? Perhaps that's what artistic license was invented for.

Don't Kiss the Paintings!

Conservators worldwide are shuddering.

Glass interface, anyone?

Book Report

The book has arrived via Fed Ex and I was surprised at the quality! See my "book report" at the Endless Sumer Art Fair blog.

Der Farbenkünstler

Der Farbenkünstler

That's the German for The Colorist. This is a shameless post to try and net more readers from Germany. Do you ever look at your StatCounter and groove on all of the places that your readers come from?

I notice a number of things about my StatCounter. It doesn't catch all of the lurks out there. I wonder what the percentage of captures to misses is? It reveals that my audience (all of our audiences, probably) is heavily balanced with Americans. No doubt, the English-language is responsible. But, the plain fact is that Americans are "hooked-up" to the Internet in large numbers.

Speaking of English, the UK, is a large percentage of my non-American readers. Also a goodly amount of New Zealanders and Aussies. But, that stuff makes sense, given language. Canada is a little under-represented, but one forgets that Canada has a large land-mass, and a small population (my idea of heaven on Earth).

Now, this is interesting. I have a very good amount of Italian readers, and a fair amount of Spanish. Also Romania, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Poland, France, you get the idea. In fact, Europe is very well hooked-up, as they say. But way under-represented is Germany. I think that's odd, given the size and economy of Germany. Where are you, German readers?

I wonder sometimes if the German ISPs just do a really great job of hiding their referrals. Any ideas out there?

So, I am trolling for German readers here, as an experiment. I can't wait to see what happens. BTW, it has been said that Berlin is a world center for modern art, which is another reason for my curiosity about this.

I might as well list some of my other fun "hits" from the StatCounter. Those who read here that have mega-audiences, like Katherine and William, will be bored silly by this. But my readership is pretty modest. I am pleased when I see the ticks of page loads go over a hundred, and the Unique Visits go over 60 or 70. My averages are 70+ loads and 40+ UVs. I suppose a guy could spend more time on promotion, but that would come out of my content-producing time. To say nothing of my time in the studio!

Other interesting hits:

Brunei ( I have a "brush with fame" relating to the Sultan, but I'll save that for another post)
Anywhere in the Middle East
Russia
The Ukraine
Korea
Japan (not surprising)

My favorite all-time visit came from the Guggenheim Museum in Venice. That was a spit-your-coffee at the the CRT moment. In case anyone wants to know, I am open to the Venice Biennale...anybody? Anybody?
(Sound of an echo chamber here)

Clyfford Still

The Denver Post has this on the current DAM installation about our Abstract Expressionist, Clyfford Still. The city of Denver will have a Still Museum, targeted opening: 2010.

http://www.clyffordstill.net/
The definitive site
http://www.albrightknox.org/ArtStart/Still.html
An interactive bio on the old boy
http://www.clyffordstillmuseum.org/
the proto-museum of CS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyfford_Still
Worth a read. I discovered that he has a Spokane connection, which makes him a local boy, sort of
http://www.artandperception.com/2007/03/610.html
This research led me to a nifty art blog called Art and Perception
http://www.clyffordstillmuseum.org/news/NYT-200703-18.pdf
NYT article relating to a Time Capsule of Still's art-very unusual stuff

Museum Installation

Dream big, everyone.

Podcast

Artist and art promoter William Lehman, of Artist's Hideout, has a Pod cast that samples art blogs and other tidbits.

Pods scare the heck out of me, and I have no Earthly idea what a pod cast is, and even less of an idea how to rip it to this space, but I'll leave you with a link to his post.

Atonement and Automatism

Atonement
Soft Pastel
7" x 5"
Casey Klahn

Many cuts from this blog made it in my new book/portfolio. Here's a new quote, though:

Gesture and intuition combine in my abstract art. Intuition, not intention. Color choices are simply not derived from nature, but from internal sources.

"Automatism" is an old term that could be applied here. Drawing for drawing's sake, without idea or content. Color has it's own intrinsic purposes and reasons - ideas of it's own.

Am I controlled by my medium? Perhaps, but no more than most.

What are my ideas? To express color as the dominant element in the formal qualities in painting. Color can be the strongest element, and I think that in this age we have yet to plumb it's complete depths. No content; no meaning. No subject, other than red and blue. Yellow, green...these are my subjects.

Automatism.

Book Project Update

The book project is on the front burner. Better not say: "burner". That reminds me too much that today will be another 100 degree Farenheit scorcher. Where I come from originally, it's much like I think the Northern U.K. is: the "foggy land" of myth. 70 degrees was considered hot, and we still put on our coats to go outside. We didn't have seasonal clothing, given that we only had one season!

I reviewed Lulu, MyPublisher and Blurb, but found some areas wanting. Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools has this great comparison of POD outfits. Here is a UK blog that did an extensive test of 3 brands of photo book. Mavie did a wedding book review between MyPub and Blurb. She agrees that Blurb's pages are too lightweight. WeddingBee has a user that loves her MP book. I felt Specifically, the business plan of Lulu is nice, but their printer is the same quality as my in-home printer (dry ink). They receive high marks from the world of writers seeking to publish and distribute their novel or whatever text-centric vehicle they choose. Hello, Twenty-First Century!

I did find this tidbit: you may browse for creative commons images to use on this page at Lulu.

Another issue is formatting. The various POD, one-off (meaning that you may print one book at a time), services have you download a simple program with templates. You drag and drop your jpegs, and the formatting is easy-cheesey.

Me being a fan of monkey-business, and always trying to re-invent the wheel, have decided that the next time I do a layout, I want to do it all myself. This method is also necessary for me when I produce low-quantity layouts such as a brochure for my packet or for my booth. I'll cover self layout issues that I have researched, or suffered personally, in a future post.

Blurb and MyPub use a much better printer, the HP Indigo 5000, which is a 7 color liquid ink offset look digital printer. Much better choice for image-centric books. Also costs more than Lulu, and for good reason, I think.

I am, so far, pursuing MyPublisher for a few reasons. The day I went to "pull the trigger" on laying out my book, I couldn't get the Blurb download to work, had trouble with my member log-in, and also didn't like the paper stock in my example book from Blurb. The photos "bled-through" from the reverse side of each page! They use an 80 lbs. paper, apparently, but the example book they sent me seemed lighter than that.

So, I spent all day Sunday early morning to late night formatting my pages for MyPub, and am just in the clean-up stages. Especially trying is my slide list. Unlike some complainers on the web, I found their interface pretty easy. All text pages, partial text pages, 1-6 images per page, no problems. Photo uploads - easy.

I also have a reader in Valhalla, NY (MP's address). The MYPublisher product, if I understand it correctly, is printed in the USA. The UK people who tested it on their blog, referenced above, did receive theirs from the US.

I cannot find any information on self-pricing or marketing a MyPublisher book, so I am currently in limbo on this. I resist the low quality paper and reverse bleed-through of Blurb, which also won't even download to my computer, so they're a non-starter, anyway.

Now, I am in the throws of Googling everything and anything on MyPublisher, etc. The research continues...

Review of findings:

1. Lulu uses dry ink printing, poor for images
2. Those that use the HP Indigo 500 are best, like Blurb or MyPublisher
3. Complaints exist for all of these publishers, with a wide variance of satisfaction. There is ample evidence of people happy with the quality of MyPub's pages and photo quality.
4. Most will use these services for "vanity" publishing, which means essentially not for profit purposes
5. MyPublisher is not savvy to the for-profit guy like an artist trying to publish a portfolio style book
   
6. A few bad eggs come out of the basket from time to time, such as page cuts off, photos not present or flipped, even wrong address delivery

Addendum: I pulled the trigger and ordered an 8.5" x 11" tome that will be 22 pages and contain about the same number of images. The hardbound volume, with shipping, comes in at just short of Fifty dollars (I opted for 2 day air/UPS). If I re-order after I approve this draft, then shipping will be cheaper for a multiple purchase. I think the final book may still come out to retail too expensively, at whatever plus @ $40. Hopefully, the margin on softbound can make up for that. On pins and needles, folks...

Blue Series

Blue Wandering
14" x 10"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

Untitled: Red, Gray, Blue

Untitled: Red, Gray, Blue
8" x 5"
Original Pastel
July 1st, 2007
Casey Klahn

Remember we were talking (in my post: Color Field Painting) about Rothko and the Abstract Expressionist's desire to take their art to the final or ultimate expression of art. The critic Clement Greenberg was an influential voice for the art movement that would take abstraction to absolute and near-absolute expression.

The Encyclopedia Britannica offers some insight here into Greenberg's reasoning for going whole hog into abstraction:

The intellectual justification for his approach had been articulated a few years earlier in two essays published in Partisan Review. "The Avant Garde and Kitsch" (1939) was a manifesto in which Greenberg made a sharp distinction between "true culture" and "popular art." He asserted that quality in a work of art had nothing to do with contemporary social and political values. "Retiring from the public altogether," he wrote, "the avant-garde poet or artist sought to maintain the high level of his art by both narrowing it and raising it to the expression of an absolute…." This was necessary, he argued, because of the ways in which modern society had debased high art into kitsch. In "Towards a Newer Laocoon" (published in Partisan Reviewin [sic] 1940) Greenberg explained the necessity for avant-garde artists to break away from the traditional dominance of subject matter and place a new emphasis on form.

We're still emphasizing form, or formal qualities of art, today. I was talking with another artist the other day who takes after Andrew Wyeth, and he was extolling the abstract values in all styles of painting that succeed. My friend, Stan Miller, was saying that one of the great artist's patrons insists on hanging a large Wyeth upside down. The abstract composition is that good, even though it's a "realist" work.

Studio "Event"

Studio, Meet Terry Ludwig

Sometimes when I spend a week or more at the farm (that's my house in Eastern Washington) even small events seem a little bigger than they ought to be. A package at the door from UPS? You'd think it was Christmastime.

In my studio picture above, taken with the point-and-shoot that I call "Sparky", the keen of eye will spot a nice overview of my current works. In the upper left is a small Rothlo Response; upper right see a medium sized work of my Colorist American Landscapes; at the lower left is a color study in my sketch book.

Groovy stuff, but the big news is that I just got my new set of pastels! I know, I know - I told you I was house happy!

I have been meaning to try Terry Ludwig's pastels for some time now, and I had just discovered that my ultramarines seem to be scattered about between my studio tray and various plein air boxes. I am working in all blue landscapes, and couldn't seem to put all of my intense ultramarine blues together.

My first-line sticks in blue are my own homemade and my Diane Townsend Terrages. I'm pretty sure I can't find the time to get down to the basement and roll some blue sticks any time soon, so I decided to give Terry's pure tones set a shot. This set is the Maggie Price Basic Values Set of 60. I can use the colors in his set to register the colors that I want to make myself (excuse meter: moderately high). Note the nifty color chart they included for registering the colors. Nice touch.

I really thought that I just made the order online yesterday, too. It's as if the diligent staff at Dakota have an underground pipeline right to my door. I'd better go out in the yard right now and probe for that secret cover they must have over the hole...

I gotta get out of the studio for a while!

Color Field Painting

Untitled: Red, Gray, Violet
5.5" x 4"
Original Pastel
June 20, 2007
Casey Klahn

This is one of my recent Rothko responses. I did another two this morning (photos are pending).

Let me share the following quote from our author:

"Art therefore is a generalization. The use of the plastic elements (editor: the artist's tools) to any other ends, which are most usually particularizations and descriptions of appearances, or which serve the stimulation of separate senses, are not in the category of art and must be classified in the category of the applied arts." Mark Rothko

Rothko indicates that abstraction is the ultimate end "type" of art, which is a main theme in Abstract Expressionism. Obviously, art has moved on from then (the Forties and Fifties through roughly the early Seventies), and artists are producing realist work again. We'll get into DeKooning later, who had to explain to his peerage why he went back to the figure instead of pure non-figurative abstraction. Link here to Wiki on abstraction, and here to ArtLex definition, which you must scroll or page to under the letter "a".

Anytime you say that "thus and such" is the last word on something, you get into trouble. I don't blame the AEs for looking for the ultimate definition of art, since the urge to be your best is what takes even artists to the top of their field. Certainly that happened for this group of American painters in the post-war years.

And, since they insisted on being "of the age", they did feel apocalyptic overtones to their time. Think: Atom Bomb. Pollock brought that up in a famous quote, and the times also were influenced by the overwhelming and then-present effects of the Second World War. Of course they needed an end-all art, since maybe they were in an end time.

But, when you get over the apocalyptic hump, you return to the studio and make some art. Will it be realist, or abstract? There are shades of each, and abstraction can be at the level of the idea, not just the subject or style of a painting. Today we live in a post-abstract world, where new things have to be created for art to flourish. Is there something new for abstractionists to say? I think so. What about realists. Of course there are new things to say!

William Lehman has a good brief on the whole mess at his post: Design VS Art.

Links:
http://www.artlex.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art
http://www.artisthideout.com/design-vs-art/

Fear My Avatar

There must be a gremlin in my Blogger site. In order to get my inexplicably lost avatar back, I had to post an image to Yahoo, then Flikr, then Photobucket, and nothing would "take".

I suspect blogger, but now I'm afraid to delete the "Avatar" post for fear of offending the Blogger Gremlin.

BTW, Photobucket does have a slick method of copying a URL, HTLM or whatever for each photo. It looks easy to use, except on the Blogger side I can't confirm that!

Rothko Response Revisit

Untitled,
6.5" x 4"
Original Pastel
10 June 2007
Casey Klahn

Here's a "bump" of this one, taken with the D80 instead of scanned. I have completed a few other Rothko responses which I'll be posting over the next few days.

Still wrestling with the great artist's philosophy (Mark Rothko). Amazon solicited a review today, since I bought it from them. How slow can I be?

Actually, I'm getting up at 4:30 AM these days in order to get some studio time before the "Daddy Day Care" opens at shortly after 7. Maybe the old guy's art philosophy is starting to sink in, after all.

Seen in My Comments

Here's a comment that I wrote to Terri at my other blog when she wondered what I was up to these days:

...I wanted to start 50 drawings and now I have an idea to turn this blog ( 100 Paintings) into abstracts, but my regular stuff is so engaged at the art fairs that I think I want to go back to staying focused.
And, my reading of the Abstract Expressionists is proving to me that a unified content in my art expresses a better philosophy of art. Not that I couldn't express my art philosophy some other way. It's just that a unified "look" keeps me focused on growth and getting better. It's coherent, like, ya know?
And, being at the art fairs lets me see my work all at once in one place (instead of packed in boxes at home). It creates quite an impression.

A unified corpus of work makes a powerful statement to collectors and gallerists. Even the casual observer sees it, as well. My art has stood with similar (not the same, but closely styled) palettes and subjects for about two and a half years, now. It makes a big difference.

Art of This Century

What I Bought Myself in Seattle

After reading a very interesting post on Rothko, links and all, I am getting more and more Rothko-ized by the day. Because I want to create a few really excellent posts, I'll be taking a little time to write them well. Be patient, dear readers.

In the meantime, I'd like to share with you the recent addition to my art library:
Peggy Guggenheim & Frederick Kiesler, The Story of Art of This Century, by Davidson, Rylands, editors. Link. AOTC was the famous gallery that Peggy Guggenheim established in the Forties and where she was instrumental in launching the careers of many (if not all) of our Abstract Expressionists. Kiesler was the architect of the far out gallery space that became a hang-out for the avant-garde of the art world.

I had the strange experience of (unknowingly) visiting the location of the famous gallery at 20 West 57th Street in NYC. The actual place (Washburn Gallery ?) is a story or two above the Ameringer-Yohe Gallery, where I went to pay hommage to Wolf Kahn's pastels. During the same trip I bought a book at the MoMa that identified the location's place in history, and I thought about the serendipity of my chance visit.

Mug Shot

Casey Klahn, Keeping Cool on the Coast
CrashOctopus Beanie on Display

Gallery Run

On Monday, after the fair, I did a gallery "run" through downtown Seattle. It's like a gallery walk, only a lot faster.

I'll let you know what I saw a little later. Of course, I had to duck the flying fish!

Hey, Everyone

As brief as it gets:

I am here in Edmonds at the fair. All is well and it's raining like crazy. May get the good gallery referral I have been after.

Untitled

Mark Rothko,
apparently without a cigarette in his hand.

Welcome to Katherine's readers. We have been spending a great deal of time on the Abstract Expressionists, who are a major influence on my own art. Jackson Pollock came first (complete with movie review) and we are still in the middle of studying Mark Rothko.

The Rothko book from the grave has been a terrific influence on me . It has helped to widen my own philosophy of art. I'll need a little more time to be able to write about it though. In the meantime, I refer you to the best review of the book that I've read by Sheldon Nodelman in Art in America.
A quote from Nodelman:

Art and philosophy, for Rothko, are parallel enterprises, the only two human activities that aim to articulate a totalizing representation of human reality. They alone have the full capacity to "generalize"--a term of great significance to Rothko--i.e., to ascend from particular experiences toward universal truths. For Rothko this reality was dual-natured, objective and subjective, embracing equally both the circumstances of the world in themselves and the human experience of and imaginative response to them. The artist's mission is to reduce all experience, external and internal, to its essential unity. Rothko insists on the need to keep this goal firmly in view and to differentiate between true art--an activity defined by artistic intention--and its pseudomorphs proliferating in the contemporary world, all those appropriations of its techniques and languages for merely instrumental ends that we now call "visual culture."

Links:

The Artist's Reality, Rothko
Abstract Expressionism Timeline, Met Museum
Book Review, Nodelman
Front Page of Art in America Magazine

Response to Rothko

Untitled,
6.5" x 4"
Original Pastel
10 June 2007
Casey Klahn

This is a response to my Rothko research. I'd like to do more of these.

I know it looks moody to some, but you have to remember that my personal response to gray is 180 degrees opposite yours. I grew up under a cloud, you see. Gray is my comfort color!

When thinking Rothko, I think of Myth and Tragedy. Those were two of his benchmark meanings for art.

Endless Summer Blog

My new blog is about the art fairs of summer. It's called Endless Summer Art Fair, at http://summerartfair.blogspot.com/ . You may go there to satisfy any number of reasons:

1. You are a patron who has seen me at an art fair, and want to do some follow-up research of my art fair life.
2. You are an artist who either does art fairs or who is seeking information about them.
3. You have received an e-mail or a post card from me and want to preview the fairs.
4. You are a rolled-up hippie from the Sixties who thought you would find some cool blog about the never-ending surfer life. If this describes you, go here instead. Peace out, dude.
   

Look to this new blog for promotional info about my summer art fair venues. Who knows? Maybe we'll share a beer somewhere out there on the open road, or if nothing else I may yet get my legs to tan before the summer is over.

Rothko at Other Blogs

Black on Gray, Rothko, 1969/1970

Sometimes our peerage out in Blog-land have more valuable resources than the web at-large.
What follows are some very interesting links for our artist, Mark Rothko, from unlikely sources:

1. O SECULO PRODIGIOSO
A very nice, clear collection of jpegs from the Rothko corpus. A must see.
I particularly like Tentacles of Memory, which reminds me of a Mark Tobey type of work.

2. A not-as-yet published monograph about Rothko, by French author Geneviève Vidal. She considers that Rothko, by his universal dimension, is "the painter of our becoming".

"Monumental dimensions, a totally frontal perspective, and loud colors characterized their output." Vidal

3. Looks like I've found my Thinking Blogger award recipient: Lessons in Art Appreciation, by blogger "Outre". Her live journal may be on hold, but she has given us a shotgun blast of artist after artist after artist. I like that.

"the fact that one usually begins with drawing is already academic. We start with color", is a Rothko quote that she brings to us.

4. If you will be in Israel soon, visit the first Rothko retrospective, co-curated by our editor, Dr. Christopher Rothko. Also has input from Rothko's daughter, Kate Rothko Prizel. The announcement is as follows:

The American Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art is pleased to announce that the first retrospective exhibition in Israel of works by Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970) will be on view from March 29 through June 30, 2007 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s Sam and Ayala Zacks Pavilion.

I just signed up for an e-mail alert for Mark Rothko entries on Google. Watch out, world.

Links:

http://www.jewishculturela.org/2007/04/03/
first-rothko-retrospective-exhibition-in-israel-on-view-at-
the-tel-aviv-museum-of-art-through-june-302007/

http://oseculoprodigioso.blogspot.com/2007/03/rothko-mark-expressionismo-abstracto.html

http://perso.orange.fr/vidal.genevieve/rothko/

http://community.livejournal.com/the_art_lessons/4685.html

New Picture

Casey Klahn

Messing around in Photoshop one day, I created this over a photo of myself. At first, I just filed it under: "whatever", but when I saw it yesterday I did like it.

It may or may not "read" better than the B&W of me at the easel that I used before. The full-faced images that Corrine Bayraktaroglu (Jafabrit), Nicole Caulfield and Maggie Stiefvater use are the best ones for really showing the artist's likeness. Why do I feel the need to have a "funny" looking image for my profile and comment icon?

Running...

Light in Branches
Casey Klahn

Thanks to all of my great friends and readers. While I'm so busy at ArtFest in Spokane, I'm running at full speed and my comments and e-mails are piling up.

On the first day of the Spokane Museum of Arts & Culture and Spokane Art School Artfest I was presented with a Juror's Choice Award. Three "Best of Show" awards are presented in Spokane, and mine was in the paintings and fine art category. While it's always an honor to get merit awards at my regional juried fair, this one is especially exciting because of the person who juried the awards. This excerpt from a web page:

AWARDS
Juror Michael Monroe, Director and Chief Curator of the Bellevue Art Museum, former Curator-in-Charge of the Smithsonian American Art Museumʼs Renwick Gallery (Washington D.C.), and the past Executive Director of the American Craft Council, will select winners of over $3000 in media specific monetary and gift certificate awards. Selections are made during the first day of ArtFest.

Mr. Monroe's expertise is in the area of modern art. I have been informed by the museum staff that this one needs to be in my resume with his name.

Now I just have to figure out how to write that one up. You know me, I'm a big name-dropper and all.