When will Americans feel avenged for 9-11

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "'Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq,' said Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in a report published online by The Lancet medical journal."

The Question is. What will it take US to feel better after 9-11?

ArtsJournal: Modern Art Notes

ArtsJournal: Modern Art Notes: "Uh, Blenda, a board's job isn't just to believe whatever the CEO tells you"

It seems that Tyler Green and Andrew Taylor understand the role of non profit board members. Why is it so hard for large and small groups to do their homework? Perhaps these jobs should be subject to outsourcing too!

Guardian Unlimited | Arts reviews | More visual arts reviews

Guardian Unlimited | Arts reviews | More visual arts reviews

Here is a question for the United States art press. Why is the Guardian so good? The web site is full of interesting news and has no ads. What a refreshing look!

Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/22/2004 | Art in ball fields? Mayor isn't saying

Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/22/2004 | Art in ball fields? Mayor isn't saying: "The city will find a home for the Barnes Foundation art gallery along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Mayor Street said yesterday, but he was noncommittal over whether the gallery ought to be built on the site of two heavily used ball fields near the Museum of Art."

What? The Barnes might have new angry neighbors? I thought the reason they wanted to move was because they couldn't get along with the people who live in Merion. Why is it that they can't get along with anyone? Perhaps they should start talking with the community as a larger whole and stop trying to just impose what they think is best. Could this be a common problem with many non profits like the Getty and others mentioned by Tyler Green on MAN?

The Artful Manager: Andrew Taylor on the Business of Arts and Culture

The Artful Manager: Andrew Taylor on the Business of Arts and Culture: "Catching a clue from The Cluetrain Manifesto" Andrew Taylor brings good perspectives to the art world.

One reason I stopped going to "art openings" is that I got tired of the lack of conversation. To stand in a room of friends or strangers and have no one to talk to is very boring. If all people have to say to me is "hello" why bother. I can look at art anytime I want. If I see something in a friends studio where we can have a beer and talk about what they are doing it is much more meaningful. The internet is my window into the art world. It lets me choose what is worth spending my gas and time to see.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/20/2004 | Barnes looking at ball fields

Why is Philadelphia so afraid of creating something important. While other cities are building landmark art buildings all the cultural leaders of our region can do is rehash the past. Penns landing is a failure so they seem to think that by stealing the Barnes from its home the public will care. They should desolve the trust entirely and form a museum of art if that is what they think will give them an audiance. What will the impact be on those other museums that will loose attendance? What studies have been done?

Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/20/2004 | Barnes looking at ball fields: "If it wins court permission to move its multiplicity-dollar gallery to Center City, the Barnes Foundation is considering building its new building on the Van Colln ball fields across from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, two city agencies have confirmed."

Museum fees

Should Museums loose their non profit status? The movie industry has no problem making money which then gets reinvested in new work. What if the art industry was forced to do the same thing. If we want art to be available for the public then it should be for free like a library.... The issue raised by John Perreault is very good. We all pay somehow.

ArtsJournal: ARTOPIA: "Unfortunately, some of us fear that the new $20 admission fee will be a barrier to the young, the poor, and the retired. For those who go often and can afford to become a member, the museum will still be a bargain. But that doesn't seem quite fair, since MoMA benefits from its nontaxable, nonprofit status; the money the government does not get from MoMA has to come from somewhere. (Guess where: ultimately from me and you.) And yet...MoMA, like other museums, needs ever more income."

CASFS - Apples Whitewashed tree trunks

CASFS - Apples: "Place the bud union (the point where the scion is budded or grafted onto the rootstock), which appears as a visible swelling, 2'-3' above the soil. The bud union scar should face north or away from the prevailing wind. In hot areas, the trunk should be whitewashed to protect it from sun damage until a canopy of leaves is in place."

The New York Times | Talk Back: God and Man at Stanford

The New York Times | Talk Back: God and Man at Stanford This is funny! This church could be seen as a sign of distress, as raping mother earth, or a host of other symbols. Why would it surprise an artist that conflict might occur?

Perhaps it was dropped by a tornado.

Loss

artblog

On a December day many years ago I felt a similar loss when my wife, a rising art director met her death when an out of control trash truck hit her car head on.

There are never words that can sooth the pain of death.

Why do we accept so many traffic deaths?

Daily work

I wake up each day around 5 am and have my first cup of coffee, check the morning news, read my email, dump the spam and think about what I'll do today.

If I have a carpentry project then I load the tools and drive to the job.

I wish that I had the funds to hire a model and make a new sculpture. My ideas have everything to do with understanding living breathing human form. To study the structure of the human body is all I want to express. The larger prime concept is that of finding the complex relationships that involve humans in context in our contemporary world. Human anatomy is not a purian study but a social anthropology about life. We are the same after all as the Greeks and Renaissance people.. What has changed.... the tools we make and how we use them.

Scaled Composites, LLC: composite aircraft design, prototyping and flight test

Scaled Composites, LLC: composite aircraft design, prototyping and flight test
The beauty of this is that its form functions!!

The Artful Manager: overbuilt?

The Artful Manager: Overbuilt?
Andrew Taylor in his blog posses an interesting question. This view of the Arts industry needs to be thought of very carefully.
My democratic view is that culture should bubble up from the individual creators. What we have now is culture that is imposed by the wealthy few who decide where to spend their resources, i.e. the Barnes mess.

This is akin to what is happening in the national space program. NASA is stuck with a large technology that is unmanageable while a small team of designers is leading the way based on Burt Rutans' inventions. Funded by the profits gained from the spread of the computer technology it seems that creativity has more flexibility in the hands of a few.

The art world is full of visual tinker's inventing new forms of art, see the Carnegie International review on artblog, which push the creative envelope. What is the funding for this art? Will it be collected and end up in a Barnes like foundation fifty years from now? Only a rich collector will decide that.

ArtsJournal: ARTOPIA

ArtsJournal: ARTOPIA
This is a great discussion of what it is to be an artist. Are all artists disabled

ArtsJournal: Modern Art Notes

ArtsJournal: Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green has a great take on the installation of Dan Flavins art at NGA.
When do the works of an artist just become props in a museum? What are the ethical requirements to respect the ideas of an artist? Do museums think that they are more important than the artist in their position of aesthetic value?

How does the public learn to see what the artist saw or thought?

"In every painting, as in any other work of art, there is always an IDEA, never a STORY." Jose Clemente Orozco

Sunday Morning

Cloudy, quite and warm. The start of a beautiful fall day. No rest for the weary who stayed up late watching the F1 race live from Japan.

Working sculptor

Today, yard work. The last few weeks I've been working on painting the outside of my home. Long needed maintenance that should help the mood of my neighborhood. I've noticed many fixing up this fall. Is it a plan to move on or just a desire to make the Home feel better in the face of war and ruin?

My hope is to find a way to take a painting trip and find the top one hundred locations for landscape in the USA. Any suggestions?

Working sculptor

Saturday morning a warm pink glow to the morning sky.

Barnes Cultural Impact on Artists

This is the real deal. What is it that those who support the Barnes move hope to gain promoting the Philadelphia art world? Are these the same folks who want to cut artist funding of the NEA and have never supported the Barnes? Where is the art that was supposed to be in the Kimmel music box? Where is the will to support the 1% public art law?

Will moving the Barnes be good for the galleries who need sales to fund living artists? It is a long way from the Parkway to Old City or Walnut Street. When the city cuts funding for the arts does it deserve a new art museum just to fill empty hotel rooms? Why do art managers continue to use children as an excuse to justify visual art? Should it not be up to parents to bring their children to the cultural world.

It would be better if artists were supported in their communities where they work. Why not create art economy zones. Art is a living language. That is what Barnes loved!
Art tourism from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Barnes help wanted

I just have a strong desire to find the Truth about things. I think that far
to much is being spent on dead art and more should
be spent on living artists. Who will replace Monet for the next
generation? Art appreciation for the masses can only be good for artists
who want to be rewarded for their hard work. Where would medicine be if
we were still using Argoyl?

The Barnes plan. What is the Barnes collection really worth?
"The collection of about 9,000 pieces is valued between $25 and $70
billion. In addition, The Foundation has an archive of about 8000,000
documents which chronicle the development of the programs, the
collection and the organization. "
Help wanted