Joyce Owens: Artist On Art

Creative Artist or unoriginal technician?

There is a lot of pressure on artists. How do you separate your creativity from everyone elses?

If you succumb to trends, and intentionally reflect in your work currently successful artists, are you in a school of art, are you a copyist, are you a sell-out? Or, if you  cash-in, are you just clever?

Retro-racing Picasso series (two views) in N'Namdi collection. These sell very well.

What I know for sure is your art has to be meaningful to people who have the ability to exhibit it/collect it. Should an artist make work that conforms to the work already being shown, or does the artist's heart and mind always need to dictate what they produce? We can be influenced by other artists - this is a long and wonderful tradition...but where is the line drawn between being influenced and outright appropriating aka copying?

 Is there room for all kinds of art? Yes. (OK, that was easy).

But, there clearly is not room in all kinds of institutions. I have exhibited in some museums, but would love for curators to find more ways to include my work. I am still a painter. What about my sculptures...they are paintings on 3D supports. 

I am an artist who works in found materials. I will transform a piece of trash that will not obviously show the origins of the mediums. This is a very contemporary practice that I have used starting in grad school.

 This one sold, too!

This Obama is based on a form that was sent to artists across the country! The results were all distinctly different. So, even "Visions of Our 44th President" has been shown in Detroit at  the Wright Museum and in Miami during Miami Basel.

Wright Museum, "Visions of Our 44th President"

 
DuSable Museum of African American History honoring AfriCobra. The black and white drawing is a piece by me selected because I was influenced by the group.

 

 Cubism sneaks into my work again and again.

 If the art does not relate to an existing form, then how do you know it is art??

 

 

 

"The Art World" : Lottery or One-Armed Bandit!

I could have remained naive or maybe gotten lucky. 

Midnight mask...(sold)

 Most artists I know are unaware of how the art world works...that is, the international art market. Me, too! I just thought I had to learn how to paint. I thought that someone would discover me. Then I just had to get into shows and sort of work my way up. I always liked being in group shows with other artists. For one thing I could be with other artists I like, and for another, someone would show up to see various artists, if not just me!

My "Out of the Box" series, at the Museum of Greater Lafayette in a two-person exhibiton with sculptor Preston Jackson. Speaking is Purdue University's director of the Black Cultual Center Renee A. Townsend.

I didn't know I was in business like any company on the Fortune 500. I needed an advertising arm, too, articles in prestigious publications, placement of my product in certain forums, not just any gallery. I needed to apply for fellowships and grants, also prestige builders that would help my visibility and my sales. I thought I had coined the phrase "artist entrepreneur" but thanks to "Google, I discovered I am not the only one who has used the phrase for several years. I was not interested in the entrepreneur part, but maybe I should have been.

Fahamu Pecou top, Joyce Owens, bottom in the Paul R. Jones collection at the University of Alabama.

A colleague told me some years ago, flatly, with no exceptions, "solo shows are best!"

I had had solo exhibitions. Again, dumb luck! But I did not seek them, and I even turned some down!

Not sure how far away from naive, uninformed, ignorant or dumb I am, today, but I know what I missed and maybe even why.

 When I graduated from Yale I moved back to Philadelphia because I had to, not because I wanted to. I had interviewed for a job in NYC at a university and I had a job in New Haven, but my mother was hurt in a car accident. I went to Phila to help her as she regained her ability to walk and  take care of herself. Then I found a job at the local TV station that was owned and operated by CBS. After my mother improved I moved to Chicago, with no art job and continued to work for CBS, and of course paint. I had developed a decent work ethic in undergrad as I tried to learn to paint and develop ideas and, yes, get into art exhibitions, so juggling work with painting was no problem.

I did receive a call to come to NYC to work but I was in love and decided to stay in Chicago. I was an idiot! I had a lousy boyfriend. And I blew off a really good chance to be in NYC. But I thought I could make art anywhere and did not realize I had to be in New York.

I thought I could be an artist anywhere!  And I could, but not a well-known one. And making art was not enough. What I found out over time is I needed important connections. I have had them for years, but never thought of "using" people to further myself. I always thought that one works and eventually the work pays off in a meritorious society.   But really it is who you know and who knows and likes you.

That sad truth was reinforced in the reading of "Seven Days in the Art World".  I also see it when I look at artists like Geraldine McCullough. She was a wonderul sculptor but not as agressive with her self promotion (that's not a bad word) as say, Picasso was or Whistler.

I was always aware that there are many wonderful artists and I could only hope that someone would consider me in that number. (And, yes, I have been.) What I learned is..."good art" is not the same as "marketable art".  One sad key to this is that as soon as artists die, there is often a run on their work. Anna M. Tyler would often tell me, "You know, Joyce, I don't sell much work". But when she died there happened to be an exhibition that I had curated including her monoprints. Everything sold. Her silent auction piece sold for more than anyone's - not usual.

There is something rotten in the world of art, but there seems to be nothing artists can do about it except play. For me, I make art because I can't stop myself. If you are an artist with other motives, you might try selling cars instead.

 

"Postcards" to "Friendships" at SSCAC

I like to think about what I am doing for a while.

I am not prone to spontaneity.

I like to revise and edit.

 

This piece below is one of 4 that I created for the "Friendships" exhibition... in a very short period of time. I desperately searched for materials in my stash as I wondered how I would come up  with my own interpretation of the theme. I had done art about relationships between women friends. My work mostly centers on race and gender, not who my friends are.

"My Friend Gets Me" is part of the series I call "Friends I know and Friends I Dream Of".

 

So having two back-to-back exhibitions at the historic South Side Community Art Center between Sept. 8 and October 24, 2010 was too much, or so I thought!

The "More than Skin Deep" series (below) was produced for the Sept. exhibition called "Postcard show".

The "Postcard" exhibition stayed up for about 3 weeks, the "Friendships" show closes Oct. 24 after 2 weeks and 2 days!

 

"More Than Skin Deep" series

 Not only was new work required, I also had to submit a self portrait for the traditional opening reception auction that we skipped for the "Postcards" (5" x 7" dimensions, not actual postcards, were required).

 I heard there was to be an October show in May, at a meeting as the advisory committee worked on Chicago Artists Month. A three-month window was tight by my  standards to make new work addressing a new theme. The rules and regs, and that there were TWO shows (not one) was somewhat clarified in July, or so...In the meanwhile I had two shows to organize for my university that I had been working on for over a year and several other invitationals to produce work for, including Not Just Another Pretty Face, a commission-based exhibition going up at the Hyde Park Art Center in November. To shoot the catalog the work was due early.

This is a portrait of the collector Lisa Gaines McDonald's grandfather.

 

I am also in several other exhibitions that I had to complete new work for or submit existing work. I did new work for La Loteria at Columbia Colleges Center for Book and Paper, another new piece for Tool Box Flower Box at Jackson Junge and some existing work for Salvage One through Woman Made Gallery and a show at Connie Gillock's Vinic Wine exhibition. I showed two new works at Gallery Guichard in a competition I had not entered!

"Start Here" is canvas, Arches paper, linen fabric, acrylic paint, copper wire and coconut shell for Tool Box Flower Box at Jackson Junge Gallery curated by Kim Laurel and Fletcher Hayes.

I discovered that the pressure pushed to me think faster!

Another work in the "Friendships" show is "My Friend Has Soul" and is Billie Holiday, a singer whose singing I have always loved.  She is a friend of dream of and would not have wanted a friend who was a drug addict. If I had had more time I could have thought of a better title for the piece, but, despite strict time limits I think I managed to make an art work I am proud to have pushed myself to create!

An Artist's Pain: Being Judged and Juried

"Survivor Spirits" (Joyce Owens) sold out (except for one) at Concordia University...

Of course selling out is no guarantee that your work is good. It means that you touched a tender spot in people's hearts, and you, perhaps, should have asked for more money for the work!

"Familiarity breeds contempt", and other dilemmas artists wrestle with are many...submitting to exhibitions may be at the top of any top 10 list of things we hate to do, but know we must! I will tell you what I know that could save you from too much pain.

Here are a few of the dilemmas:

If your work is too familiar, it is not challenging.

If your work is too unfamiliar, then it does not fit the current discourse.

If there is no continuum, a dialogue with previous artists, then your work doesn't address art history. 

If your work is non-traditional then you may be  unskilled.

If your work is highly skilled then you may be too traditional.

If you work with new media, you may have no art skills.

If you avoid technology in your work may not be contemporary.

If your work fits too well, it is trendy.

If critiqued by a person who just doesn't like your style, then your work will not interest them.

Is your head spinning?

  "Retro-racing History" series (Joyce Owens)   AFROcentric feel to portraits, after Titian, Gainsborough...

How do you know your work is good? Each person who sees it will have a different opinion colored by the viewer's personal experience and knowledge. Should you be discouraged when you:

1.never get into juried shows

2. only sometimes get into juried shows

3. when you always get into juried shows (probably not!)

Many artists produce work that gets routinely rejected by the mainstream. It has famously happened, repeatedly, to artists who are now considered world class. Van Gogh is an easy example. And then there are the artists who are here today and gone tomorrow...those artists like Georges Roualt, who is still known, but not as well as he used to be, relegated frequently to the study of Biblical art...not a bad thing. Jacques Louis David was the cat's meow and got down-sized. Here are underrated artists in an Artnews article.

With art it is a damned if you do, and damned if you don't proposition, with the possibility that if you "do" today, in 20 years, you might be a "don't", and there are multiple variations on this theme.

Possible solutions to rejection, and bad, or no reviews:

1. develop a hard shell

2. take what you can from the comments

3. believe in yourself

4. believe in your work!

5. ask somebody else

6. keep working to improve

7. find like-minded artists and see what they do

8. look at good art! (tricky, but you can trust some galleries and museums...)

Google the juror before you submit to a show

If you are submitting to juried shows there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Jurors have preferences. If you know they make abstract work or are the curator of contemporary art at a museum and you're a realist portrait painter, you may not get chosen (not a rule, but a possibility).

2. So if you research the juror, you could be prepared if you are not accepted, and happily surprised if you are.

3. Jurors don't know everything. I have been on juries where I discovered one or more of the others were not familiar with some fairly common  techniques. 

4. Take chances! You never know when you might be chosen!

5. Make sure you submit good images of your work

6. Follow entry rules and deadlines

Good luck!

American Idol (type) Art Competition

I called for it January 2009. Now I will get the chance to see if I made a mistake! The show airs tonight on Bravo TV called "Work of Art".

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This is what I said back then:

The most easily accessible connection to current culture is television and computers. Where are the TV shows  about  visual  art; how about an American Idol-type Visual Artist show??  The scouts could find the next art star who is not an elephant, a "savant" or a child.

You know things are bad when we can rarely find shows about art on public TV!  Oh sure you can still find shows with the guy who completes a painting during a one-hour show and a great show called Art21 that features internationally known artists and more than on commercial TV, no doubt. Locally, ArtBeat features the arts in some segments during that daily "Chicago Tonight". There are wonderful travel shows that include the art of the region and do a nice job of explaining ancient treasures.

I have never seen a TV award shows  featuring  visual  artists, have you?  We get the Grammys, and The Country Music Awards. We have been hearing about the The Golden Globes, and the Oscars as the producers gear up the the awards season. The various Emmy awards programs honor day and primetime TV.

What about fine arts? Do we get dissed because we don't have unions?

Art publications, the few we have, are mostly national and only fleetingly acknowledge local artists...thank goodness Olga Stephen and the CAC got "Prompt" published.  Otherwise there is not much. Art critics are a disappearing breed, but sports writers abound!

Even the print version of The Chicago Reader, a free paper that we could count on for art has an "Arts and Entertainment"  section that  excludes visual art.  Those listings are  found in "Galleries and Museums".

Oh, yeah, everybody knows P-Diddy. Everybody knows Paris. And that's great, and a part of our contemporary culture. I am surprised by how many people have NOT heard of Kerry James Marshall, Preston Jackson, Faith Ringgold, and others.

If we want people to develop a need for art, a need to visit art institutions, to care about what artists think, the way folks care about Will Smith, Angelina Joli and Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Oprah (who I wish would switch from promoting only authors to including us righteous artists), we have to find a way for people to know about art and realize we are pretty interesting, too.  Even more than that, we are reflections of them! They can know themselves better by knowing us!

AND, that's why we need schools to teach art to all students from preschool through 12th grade!  If you talk to President-elect Obama's new education guy, Arnie Duncan, please let him know that we are ready and willing to teach! Let's resolve to honor our culture, better educate our students  and build artists bank accounts.

"American Landscape" detail, Joyce Owens 2010

If it's not one thing it's another!

For artists there is always another challenge.

Not like slavery and lynching, of course: "The Medieval in America" by Joyce Owens

I started writing about artists' issues in May of 2008 and I really haven't seen a lot of progress during these past two years.  Hamza Walker just won a major honor and cash prize of $100,000.00 that he can use as he pleases. As a curator at the Renaissance Society in Chicago he has addressed issues significant to a range of artists, including artists of color. Kerry James Marshall is part of a major exhibition at Chicago's MCA on the artists studio a citywide project that I wrote for about Richard Hunt's studio.

On the one hand this news is good news. We have a toe in, but the possibilities available have barely been tapped.

At least, in my opinion.

Clearly I think challenges are what art is all about! Dealing with personal and global issues, finding a way to make art, all of that!

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the challenges women artists face and why there are not more famous women artists who are household names, like Picasso or Van Gogh... I lie; I have thought about this for quite a while. Women artists of African descent have an even harder road to hoe!

And you may know that I wonder, and have not yet found the answer to, why EVERYBODY who is creative is called an artist, from chefs to bricklayers to politicians! Not to say these people aren't creative. George Washington was certainly creative, but not an artist. Call them creative, call them artistic, but for language's sake, let's not call them artists!

George Washington portrait saved from the fire of 1812

An artist is someone different than what these other folks do and we visual artists deserve to own this.  If the title "politician" had a better, more agreeable, more generally positive connotation maybe everybody would say, "I'm a politician" as so many describe themselves as an "artist"!

OK< I have ranted about one thing, so let's get to the other! Not just making the art, but  promoting the art.Like I said, if it's not one thing, then it's another!

If you are famous, you may be stuck doing one kind of work, if you are struggling you may decide to do too many kinds of art trying to find your voice, your audience, your money for rent. So in the early days you are finding your voice, right? You learn about a variety of mediums and about supports and the basics of art and design, how to balance a picture, the Golden Mean, the value scale and all about color harmony.

Then you get to the expressive part and imitate others. As time passes you, hopefully, notice your preferences and start developing your own style. And you can't wait to be an artist! For some, they consider themselves artists from the giddyup as they used to say when I grew up in Philadelphia (it's a horsey term, meaning from the very start).

Artistic egos are amazing and intriguing, like people, in general. Some are quiet, introverted and shy and some are loud,  forceful and believe in themselves, insisting that everyone else does, too. Lots of artists exist somewhere in between!

It took quite a while for me to believe I had the skills to consider myself an artist, even when others cheered me on. I still constantly question what I do. I always want to make it better; that only seems natural, though, right?. Some people think, or at least say that their work is great; when I look at it I can can only shrug! It's also shocking hearing folks do that.

Does the public, including art critics, curators and collectors believe an artist is good because the artist him/herself insists he or she is? And is the quiet, non-tooter of his or her own horn likely to be overlooked for the same reasons, that he or she does not toot?  How much is too much. How much should we believe when reading someone's personal website? Where can you go to find out if an artist is good besides hearing it from his or her own mouth, especially since a lot of people don't get an art education?

   Got any ideas, Mr. Washington?

What Do Women Artists Want, Anyway?

Do women want more, and/or better quality exhibitions?

Do women want fame?

Do women want wealth?

Aren't women artists already achieving these goals? If so, what's still missing for women artists that suggests this conversation holds merit? Why are some women still complaining that the art world is not fair to us? 

After all, Faith Ringgold, Judy Chicago, Camille Billops, Louise Nevelson and a slew of other women paved the way and fought these same battles ALREADY back in the 1960's and 1970's. What should we have in 2010 that we don't have yet and why does the fighting continue?

Hey, maybe we just don't deserve more attention.

Is our work good enough?

Do we work hard enough?

Maybe we work hard enough on our art, but not hard enough on networking and schmoozing people who can help us! Maybe we just don't have the right connections!

Maybe we don't help each other when we get those connections!I Often I hear that African American artists segregate ourselves, not going to the "right" discussions, panels, and openings. Not sure this is true, but if so, do women do the same thing?

Sometimes I am told that African American artists are behind the trends; we are mostly working in traditional, figurative styles from the past, and are not contemporary, so our work is not as challenging.

I think this is crap and a lame excuse for excluding segments of artists from a sometimes, lucrative but highly competitive endeavor, especially when I see artists doing figurative work who are not considered not contemporary.

Is this what's holding back women artists? Is the work cliched and traditional?

I don't think so!

The top women artists don't get the money at auction or in gallery sales male artists get, not to mention the fame! 

More and more women's traditional arts are in play on the contemporary scene, from crocheting to quilting to collage and other forms of handmade items that women historically have made...so, it should follow that women would be in the forefront of recognition around this trend. 

Right?

Let's look at another possibility. It's NOT the work but the opportunities to exhibit that work that keeps women artists on the back of the bus.

Should we cast our eyes towards being in charge of the mainstream venues, instead of women only venues and bringing in women artists?

here are some top international museums. How many women run them? National Museums Directors (Smithsonian, etc.), Guggenheim Foundation and Museums director, Tate Modern director, Vicente Todoldi judged this 2009 competition.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in L.A recently chose a new director  for their facility. The Art Institute of Chicago's director is male.

OK I am now looking at random museums. Found my first women director in Minneapolis . We know the director of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art is a woman as well. 

So should the women who run museums and galleries be approached with this concern about leveling the playing field for women artists?

Where is our Michelangelo, our Leonardo, our Kerry James Marshall, our Lucien Freud, our VanderZee?  Yes, the work they produced is undeniably amazing, but women artists are on par both then and now.

The women-only institutions have been around for 40 or 50 years, already. When will this job be done?

Want to be a museum director? Job listings here; check often: http://www.museum-employment.com/jobdir.html

Here is panel member for the CAA conversation on women artists.

Beate Minkovski 

Beate Minkovski is co-founder and Executive Director of Woman Made Gallery.
From 1992 through 2010 WMG has organized 163 group shows, 104
invitational/solo shows, 36 Artisan Gallery exhibitions, and eight off-site
shows. More than 6500 women artists have exhibited their work since WMG was
established. Active with neighboring arts organizations, Intuit and ARC
Minkovski has served on the Community Arts Assistance Program (CAAP) Panel
for the Chicago Cultural Center from 2005 to 2008. She is part of the
Special Service Area (SSA) #29 Commission jury panel for public art in
Chicago's Westtown, and has curated exhibitions for various arts
organizations including the CWCA, The Women's Art Registry of Minnesota,
Women's Work in Woodstock, Illinois, and The Art Center in Highland Park,

Illinois. She is the 2006 CWCA award recipient for achievements in the arts.

Amy Galpin

Amy Galpin is Project Curator for American Art at the San Diego Museum of Art. She worked with Woman Made Gallery for three years as Gallery Coordinator and served as the Illinois Regional Coordinator for the Feminist Art Project. She received her B.A. from Texas Christian University and a M.A. in Latin American Studies from San Diego State University. She is currently finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Her recent and upcoming exhibitions include: Translating Revolution: U.S. Artists Interpret Mexican Muralism (at the National Museum of Mexican Art), Women Imaging Women: A Study of Female Portraiture (at Robert Morris University), and Brutal Beauty: Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite (at the San Diego Museum of Art).

The Panel

Women's Caucus for Art

Investigating the Need for Women's Art Galleries, Exhibitions, and Organizations: From Our Center

Thursday, February 11, 5:30 PM–7:00 PM

Regency B, Gold Level, West Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago

• Chair: Janice Nesser-Chu, Women's Caucus for Art and Florissant Valley College
• Melissa H. Potter, Columbia College Chicago
• Amy Galpin, San Diego Museum of Art and Woman Made Gallery
• Joanna Gardner-Huggett, DePaul University
• Beate Minkovski, Woman Made Gallery
• Dena Muller, ArtTable
• Joyce Owens, Chicago State University and Sapphire and Crystals Artist Collective

Bad Art is winning...this is scarier than politics!

I wrote about the Museum of Bad  Art before. 
Though it seems like a bad joke, the  issue still looms:  "what is bad art"? Or better "What is  GOOD art"?

Is there anyone out there brave enough to tackle this question and name names?

Some of the work in this museum looks like works I have seen  in  galleries and museums  that show "good art".

Here is a recent story that was shown  on NPR's "Weekend America", a fairly new program that airs on Saturdays. I love  NPR  and  have   rushed to my  computer  to  see  photos   of  subjects  they  covered. That's how I found this. I missed the story when it aired, however. Thought maybe you had, too.

Art lovers in the Boston area have a lot of options for their weekend museum browsing. You've got your Museum of Fine Art, your Institute of Contemporary Art, your Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum and scads of little galleries scattered all over town. But what about bad art lovers? Well, they're in luck.

Click here to read more and see some bad art.

Come back to tell us WHAT IS BAD ART for you?????

Some may name Damien Hirst after  his $199 million dollar auction of formaldehyde, spin and dot art. Some are really hating on Jeff Koons, some obviously love him! Your fave  does not have to be rich or famous or even contemporary. Who makes art that should just go in  the trash???? I am very moved by Magdalena Abakanowicz but I have heard people looking at her installation in Grant Park in Chicago in horror (below).

Is there no such thing as bad art; is good art in the eye of the beholder?

Painting above from my "Out of the Box" series. I  hope you don't think it's BAD art.