h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The gallery is at http://www.asterlil.com/ott/schoolhouse/shgallery.htm

I couldn't do a professional shoot with a tripod because the gallery was full of people, and I was accidentally jostled a few times while shooting! Some pictures are badly keystoned because the art was on the floor or because I was trying to get a picture that didn't have serious reflections happening in the glass.

But I DO believe I have caught the essential coloring and characteristics of each piece.

Have a stroll around, and pick out what you think are the best 5 pieces. There is no single correct answer! You can also pick out the five pieces you think have problems or that give you cause for antipathy. And other comments are welcome on any piece.

7 I love the Sujaro and the composition.

11 I get teh feeling that the cowboy is tired after a competitve ride

17 the bear looks confused

18 A soldier back and ready to change into his more familiar duds

21 The sunflower looks ready to harvest.

Lil, I could only find 3 that didn't make me want to throw up!

In order:
1. # 8
2. # 17
3. # 13

The whole "western" motif is overdone, and if I never see another stick horse, I'll be happy. As far as I could see, too many of these pieces were derivative, and quite a few were from the "happy little trees" school of art (what is that guy's name...Bob something?!)

Your stuff, on the other hand, is great. I think I would demand the apple back, however.

Bob Ross, I want to clone him off (He's dead now) and run him for president.

Okay, who said "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like"? I'd put myself in that category. My top 5 in order from most to least favorite:

3 - ox cart
21 - Round sunflower carving
13 - group under Corona sign
11 - cowboy boots
8 - trees

I found out something about myself regarding my taste. I like texture and light. I was amused by the perspective of #8.

But, I wouldn't hang any of those in my house.

And how did Kristina get in there?

I have had a quick look and will post my choices in the morning.

The only one I would hang in my home is 4 - but I am a sucker for open spaces.

I would like to see 13 in more detail - those look like interesting faces.

Ben
*who knows nothing about art, and isn't even entirely sure what she likes*

Lil, I'm so not an expert, but some of these look like paintings from a Walter Foster book - that type of thing.

I liked #10, the pottery bowls. They're the only thing in the exhibit that I would consider buying. My other choices in no particular order are #3, #8, #13, and #19.

I like paintings with life in them - not just a landscape or still life.

Lil -

I liked (in no particular order):
#1 - lower left.
#3
#5
#6
#8

I would buy any of those.

Courtesy

liked 11 but for all the wrong reasons. Actually liked the shutters and would like to see the right hand section cropped and the shutters kept in. Then messed about with in adobe and the colours changed a la Warhol. Think it would look great on a custom car
5 appealed too. reminiscent of an artist I love, Judith Slack, now residing somewhere in the north...very north I think. She does wonderful things with colour and texture and very simple subjects trees and more trees as you have never seen them before.
19 is interesting but for me a little too busy for the space and I'm not sure which period they were trying to capture urban hillbilly? A great idea but the colours a little retro...on second viewing, I think I do quite like it...smudgy fifties feel.
3 is beautifuly crafted remined me of Africa but think it is possibly somewhere down south...loved the colours
But what do I know? It must be as tough putting your art up for critique as it is your writing both are so subjective.
Hated all the frames!
take care
boots

#1 very traditional still lifes, but I like traditional

#3

#8 because I like the perspective, although the trees could have been better

#14

#15

I would love to touch and feel the maple carvings, but I found the colours too dull

The flamenco dancer looked very amateurish, there is no expression, no attitude - I could paint something like that, and I'm not an artist

1 #3 because I liked the use of light and shadow, particularly on the oxen.

2 #13 because the kids look so full of life

3 #11 the sense of movement in the fringing on the leather chaps

4 #1 the two on the left, but I would really like a closer look.

5 #10 I like the centre upright bowl the best and Lil's print.

There's much there that is commercial - that is, pictures that will appeal to conservative tastes. I don't collect that sort of painting. People will buy it to match their decor but that's not art collecting, it's interior design. If I had to choose one of the paintings in that category I would go for No 3, the ox cart. It looks to be very well painted and has solidity and tranquility that I find appealing.

I would be attracted to the sunflower if I had the place to put it but similar things are available at every craft fair you go to.

My list would be

16 - the leaping horses
17 - the bear. The eyes are wonderful.
13 - on the wall
19 - the diner
8 - the trees

I might also like some of the originals of the prints (#12) but it's hard to see them. I wouldn't want the prints.

The ones I wouldn't give house room to are 4 (bison landscape - dreadful composition) and 7 cactus (doesn't hang together for me).

my favorites, in order, are #9 (chickens), #21, #2

i don't have two others that i care for.

Sorry
Nothing stands out and grabs me.

The only ones I'll mention are

21, I appreciate the work that went into it
8, The odd perspective looking up birch trees.


Like the gallery owner I'd also nick Lil's granny smith gourd

[BB]
Not an artist or an art collector as you can gather.

My picks:

#3 The oxcart. This is by a retired Texas judge who lives in Lincoln part of the time. His work is consistently high in quality.

#9 the chickens. I'm with Sporky on this one. The frame is part of the whole, and it has a nostalgic feel, of quilts and folk art on furniture. Chickens under a spotlight. I love it and would buy it for the kitchen. If I had one and it was big enough.

#10 the bowls. Specifically, the two flanking ones. Superb craftsmanship.

#15 the woodland scene. Not the most original, but excellent technique and good feeling.

#21 the carvings. The colors are muted, but that tall wall plaque, I could have two of those flanking a doorway!

Hon. Mention:
#13 the group portrait. This is good, but there is something about it that suggests it was copied faithfully from a photo. Which a lot of artists do, including the late Norman Rockwell. But, for me, it hasn't transcended that photo.

Problem pictures:

#6. The dancer. To be fair, this was the artist's worst picture; all the rest were flowers or buildings nestled in trees, all watercolors. The artist is an amateur, a real estate agent in fact. Her stuff sold extremely well. But the Dancer is flat and anatomically impossible. Only dobermanns have legs like that.

#5. the landscape. Broccoli does not grow wild in the Southwest, let alone to such a height.

#4. The Buffaloes. Technically, there should be something, ~anything~ in this picture that has the same tones as those buffalo, which appear to be clambering over sand dunes on their way to the beach. Buffalo don't live in the desert. Chocolate box art.

#20. The Salesman. This artist also did the Shadow Box of the soda fountain at #19, and he is gaining some regional recognition. Many of his works are like the Salesman one -- kinetic, garish, with no real organisation. The shadow boxes, of which there were several, are cute and technically competent, but they don't speak to me personally.

Comments about other works:

#16, abstract horses, #17, the orange bear, and #8 are by the same artist. I don't care for the stuff but I recognise the artist has pretty good technique. These could go in a boardroom or reception area, perhaps.

#11 is by an artist whose work features regularly in Southwest Artist magazine, and I think he is about to climb the Bev Doolittle curve. All he does is boots and chaps and the bottom half of cowboys

#12 is a clone of #11. As has been mentioned, the cowboy thing is quickly being done to death. I think this is another one working from pictures without transitioning to "art".

#2, the store front. The closer I got to this vivid thing, the clumsier I found the technique to be. The artist has placed the cool colors in the front, the hot colors in back, which has the effect, for me, of flattening the composition. Bold but naive.

#14, the Packers. Technique and draftsmanship, excellent. This is one of about 4 by this artist in the gallery. But there is something self-conscious about the limited pallette which relegates the picture to hotel art, imo.




Number 3 and Number 8 were the most popular, although jurors were far from unanimous. #17 also polled well, and the craft items were generously noted.

But look how many researchers are afraid to express an opinion about art, especially about bad art! That in itself deserves discussion.

I'll post, then I'll read. In no particular order then:

I liked 2 because of the colurs.

I liked 5 for the way it draws you down the read, and for the blurry colouring.

I liked 8 for the dizzying sensation of lokking up while my head was level.

I liked 19 for the choice of back views - I like 'story pictures' - and especially the way the painter had captured the very natural poses/ half movements of the characters.

Then I liked 14 or 3 for the, um colours. Or rather the way the light fell?

1: The heavy workings of the oils, forming a sombre background in all of these paintings, make me think of Dali, don’t know why, perhaps it’s the ‘texture’ which comes through, for me.

2) This one looks and ‘feels’ wonderful. Oils living on canvas.

3) Artistic and moving painting, not to my taste, but what a painting.

6) The dancer, looks like charcoals or inks? As the medium is not known, this is pure conjecture on my part – anyway, the dress spilling petals as she moves, the fragrance of the insinuation of sexual freedom – or could it be blood, elements of pain as she focuses on the geography of her dance?

8) Thread work, like patchwork of a quilt, again not to my taste however a wonderful painting giving us colour in the view of an x-ray.

9) Hens pecking – still life where I can almost smell them, want to stroke their feathers, again the subject matter is not what I would go for but that’s not important, the painting ‘breathes’.

13) A photo on canvas.

17) I didn’t like it but I loved the vibrancy of the colour.

21) There’s that texture again, this time in reality as these are carvings. I would want to touch them, feel the grooves in the artistry of the creation.

One thing that does bug though – the ornate frames, the simplistic use of the element gold in the frames chosen to hold these pieces of art – wonder when there will a time for artists to choose or make a frame that becomes a part of the painting and not just something to hold it together.

Ame

Finally had a chance to have a look at this lot properly...
I like exhibit 21, the carvings, though I did think they were ceramics at first.
Others I like;
the two bowls with the fruit design in exhibit 10.
The looking up into the trees picture of exhibit 8. Many times I've tried to photograph something similar, it's hard to get right.

Now to go and read the other coments in this thread...

Framing -- There are some really interesting comments being made about this. And I realise that I don't know a lot about it, except that I have an intuition that the frame should match or enhance the contents somehow.

The Chickens is an excellent example -- that frame almost continues the art within. It picks up on the wire fence. It repeats the palette.

The frames on my pieces are all stained wood, very simple, no extra carving or filigree. A mahogany stain was applied and then scrubbed off the top of the grain with a wire brush. Thus I tried to achieve a resonance with the ruined wood depicted by the images.

The still lifes with the grapes and pitchers and all, I think they can get away with the ornate gold frames: traditional subjects, traditional frames. The ornate gold frame always says to me, "I am museum quality. I am important. I am serious." I used one once, to frame an acrylic copy of a Renoir that I did for art class.

The talk of framing makes me realise something that turns me off about the orange bear and #8, the trees; it's the framing and glass! The glass especially. My photos bear witness, no pun intended, to the difficulty one has getting close to these pictures without having the reflections of tracklights bounce in your face. And the frame is a very narrow strip whose only function seems to be to hold the glass on.

Does anyone think there are cases here where the frame does NOT match the contents?