Monday, November 5, 2007

sf open studio 11.04.07

overview:

glad i went.

as always i am visually overwhelmed after going through building 101 & have little desire to visit the 5 other buildings.

some of my favorite stuff was what i saw when i first walked in. not sure if some of this is because i was fresh or because the better artists make more money & can afford the prime studios or have those studios because they have been at it longer & are still kicking because they are good.

jan, an aib student also, met me there. it was fun looking at presentation ideas there in terms of what we will do in jan 08. there were a few imaginative displays/ideas, yet most were what you would expect for a studio space suddenly converted to gallery mode.

got free guide & collected tons of post/business cards to ck out later. this is useful for graphic design ideas/layouts/solutions as well. some stuff looks great in print & are no big deal in person.

  • saw lame work that was well presented & sold itself well
  • & saw great work that was poorly displayed.
  • in general, most put way too much stuff up. think painting the walls to organize or visually break up space/group could have helped this. renting or building partitions to freestand away from or off of the walls could have improved the environment while increasing surface area.
  • it was interesting to see artist's work that i have followed for years. some went off in directions i did not foresee. most>more of the same.

what was dif from 3 yrs ago:

more encaustic
more big bright murals with a street art/grafitti vibe
less figurative
less photography
more digital that went beyond chessey photoshop filters
less sculpture
less assemblage type sculpture
more organic themes
more square formats (rather than rectangle/traditional golden mean ratios)
more political/anti war
fewer overt gay/lesbian stuff
less functional art
more airbrush
more asian art/zen influences
less graphic type of paintings (large areas/shapes of single colors)
more dripping/runny paint, more glazing
less fiber/fabric arts/soft sculpture

how this relates to me:

saw stuff in the realm of what i have been doing.

does this mean i am "of my time" or just hooked into a trend?

is this good, bad, inevitable?

what should i do about it?

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