Balzer Designs

Adventures in Arting Podcast: Hadley Powell: Art Advisor

Our first podcast of 2019 features a conversation with art advisor, Hadley Powell.

On the podcast we discuss her job, her path to her job, art vs. craft, seeing art, being a new mother, and much more!

If you do not see the podcast player above, please click on this link.  You can listen to a podcast anywhere and at any time.  It is a recording that is available to you whenever you'd like to listen.  If you'd like to download it to your iTunes library, click here.  You can also pause and rewind or fast forward as you desire.  I like to listen to podcasts while I'm making art.  It's a little like hanging out with friends while you art.  Please subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or wherever you listen and be sure to leave us a review!  Reviews help other people find the podcast.  Thanks so much!

Hadley’s experience spans from Old Master prints to Contemporary art. She started her career at Christie’s, New York as a specialist in the Prints & Multiples department where she researched and cataloged prints from Rembrandt to Rauschenberg.

 

Working with contemporary art gallery Callan Contemporary at their booth in Miami.

 

Subsequently in the Impressionist & Modern Art department, she worked on the high profile evening sales, where she advised clients buying and selling at auction and assisted in private collection management and fine art appraisals.

 

Installation shot from a client's home in Brookline. Artist: Peter Brooke

 

Hadley received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a minor in Economics from Union College.

 

In the United States Pavilion at the Venice Biennial, artist Mark Bradford.

 

She holds a Master’s degree in Modern Art, Connoisseurship and the History of the Art Market from Christie’s Education, New York. Her prize-winning thesis studied the impact of the 1913 Armory Show on George Bellows's Monhegan Island, Maine paintings.

 

Installation shot from a client's home in Cambridge. Artist: Peri Schwartz. 

 

She resides in Brookline, MA.

 

Giving a talk to the Harvard Business School art group

 

Some useful links from our conversation:

• Art Market Monitor - publication/membership site
• Jeffrey Gibson - artist
• Beatriz Milhazes - artist
• Vitamin C: Clay & Ceramic in Contemporary Art - book

Thanks for stopping by!

All podcasts are archived here.  Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.  And if you like the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes!

Sketching Egyptian Birds at the MFA

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston and spent just about an hour wandering through 3 galleries and sketching. I used one page in my sketchbook and just started sketching birds.

I have often said this, but I think it bears repeating, you don't need a ton of time at a museum to get something out of the visit.  You don't even have to see that much of the museum.  The key, I think, is to choose something to pay attention to.  I didn't go to the museum with the intention of sketching birds.  It's just the first thing that caught my attention.  Once I sketched one, I started to notice just how many different birds were represented in the artwork around me.  So, I kept going.  It was a lovely scavenger hunt and I feel like I gathered some good ideas that I'm excited to explore.

I sketched in the galleries with just a permanent black pen -- FYI: Some museums only allow a pencil.  Then, I sat in the cafe at the museum and added some color with my Peerless watercolors and a waterbrush.  Museums do not like paint in their galleries, but watercolor in a place where there's food is likely okay.  As always, check the rules at the museum before you go.  Most have them posted to their websites.

I took photos of the birds for coloring reference -- since I knew I would be adding color at a later date.  And even so, I didn't try to match the photos exactly.  Take a peek:

I don't think the point of sketching is to create an exact replica.  Rather, a sketch is a representation of an idea filtered through your own hand.  My goal is not to copy other artists, but to learn from them and figure out what I want to take from their art and transform into my own.

I strongly encourage you to start a sketchbook practice -- even an infrequent one.  If you don't have a museum nearby, you can draw things in your house, things at your local library, things at your local mall, etc.  The fun thing about sketching is that you never run out of things to draw!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ansel Adams at the MFA

Let me preface this post by saying it's close to impossible to take photos of photographs behind glass on the wall in a museum.  Nonetheless, I tried.

Last week I visited the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston twice.  Once by myself and once with my family.

Here are a few photos from the exhibit -- which mixes Ansel Adams' work with lots of work by other photographers -- before him, contemporary to him, and after him -- who deal with similar photo subjects:

As I wandered through the exhibit I had that famous Ansel Adams quote running through my head: "You don't take a photograph, you make it." He actually has multiple quotes around this idea. One of my faves: “You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

I'm taking two things away from these statements:

1. Being a good artist is about more than a studio practice. Yes, that's vital. But your artwork is informed by the life you lead outside of the studio. One of my 2019 resolutions is less screen time. I lay in bed yesterday and read two chapters of a book instead of scrolling through my phone. It was great. In order to generate new ideas, it's so vital to live a life!
2. You don't find time for art. You make it. My other 2019 resolution is to make art every single day. Not anything so lofty as finishing a piece of art of every day, but just to make something every day. I'll be posting my progress daily in my instagram stories. And I'm sure that I'll be sharing some of it here on the blog.  I didn't want the pressure of creating "finished" work -- I need creating to be joyful and without performance anxiety.

Thanks for stopping by!

Buying Artwork

I read an article yesterday that fascinated and alarmed me.  You should read it.  It's from The Boston Globe and the title is, "You can buy a painting, but it’s not really yours."

In essentials, some artists retain rights to their work after the sale including -- but not limited to -- banning the resale of their work (and often insisting that the buyer donate the work to a museum later in life), determining how or if a work of art can be cleaned, receiving a 15% commission if the work is re-sold, and so on.

On the one hand, I get it.  On the other hand, wtf?

I'm trying to sort out my feelings and so I've made a list of facts and thoughts to assist the process.

• Artists retain the copyright to their work even after it's sold.  (This is a good article that is very easy to read and understand.)  This means that the artist can sell prints and even license the artwork for sheets, coffee cups, notebooks, etc.  The buyer of the artwork cannot.  They are buying the physical object.  This is something I agree with.
• The Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) of 1990 grants "moral rights" to artists.  From Wikipedia: "Under VARA, works of art that meet certain requirements afford their authors additional rights in the works, regardless of any subsequent physical ownership of the work itself, or regardless of who holds the copyright to the work. For instance, a painter may insist on proper attribution of his painting, and in some instances may sue the owner of the physical painting for destroying the painting even if the owner of the painting lawfully owned it....

  VARA exclusively grants authors of works that fall under the protection of the Act the following rights

  • right to claim authorship
  • right to prevent the use of one's name on any work the author did not create
  • right to prevent use of one's name on any work that has been distorted, mutilated, or modified in a way that would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation
  • right to prevent distortion, mutilation, or modification that would prejudice the author's honor or reputation

  Additionally, authors of works of "recognized stature" may prohibit intentional or grossly negligent destruction of a work."

• I understand that early in an artist's career he/she might sell a painting for a few hundred dollars and then later that painting is worth thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.  I totally understand why this may feel unfair to the artist.  But, I do think that the buyer paid the artist what they asked for at the time and should have the right to sell the work.  The commission idea seems like a kind of compromise -- both buyer and artist make a profit together.  
• I wonder all the time if my hard work will just end up in a landfill.  I suppose the insistence on work being donated to a museum ensures that this isn't true.  But the truth is, most museums have more stuff not on display than stuff on display.  Do I really want my work to sit in a basement warehouse for its lifetime?  Is that a better fate than in the home of someone who likes it?
• Mostly, I wonder why anyone would buy a piece of art under these insane circumstances?  It's not an investment.  It's not even something you can pass down to your children.  I guess it's just something to enjoy in the moment?
• Obviously, the most extreme of these restrictions only apply to super famous artists who are selling work for millions of dollars.  But that's also a question.  Why?  When I sell a painting for $1000, it means as much to me as a million dollar painting does to someone higher up the food chain.

I don't know.  Maybe I've just confused myself more.  What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Adventures in Arting Podcast: Skill Building

Today's podcast is packed with fun art-related talk: my pottery obsession...er, class, the MFA Museum Council, and work by Yayoi Kusama and Cecilia Vicuña.

If you do not see the podcast player above, please click on this link.  You can listen to a podcast anywhere and at any time.  It is a recording that is available to you whenever you'd like to listen.  If you'd like to download it to your iTunes library, click here.  You can also pause and rewind or fast forward as you desire.  I like to listen to podcasts while I'm making art.  It's a little like hanging out with friends while you art.  Please subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or wherever you listen and be sure to leave us a review!  Reviews help other people find the podcast.  Thanks so much!

I will do a long post all about pottery class very soon.  But in the meantime, here is the instagram video I talk about on the podcast with the guy making the little pots.  It's AMAZING (and if you don't see it, here is a direct link).

I also wanted to share two photos from the Yayoi Kusama installation (the first is inside the installation and the second is a photo of one of the "peepholes"):

And this is the Cecilia Vicuña piece:

And here is an historical quipu:

You can read more about quipus here.

Finally, here is a link to the Museum Council instagram account.  I posted a video of the Yayoi Kusama experience to that account:

And a video of Cecilia Vicuña singing:

(If you don't see the two videos above, click through to my blog.)

Thanks for stopping by!

All podcasts are archived here.  Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.  And if you like the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes!