PSYCHEDELIC BEST FRIENDS

    In 1991 a Louisiana born artist named George Rodrique opened a little gallery in Carmel By The Sea, and unintentionally started an art movement. I will call it the Psychedelic Pet Movement. He painted homages in blue to his dearly departed dog, Tiffany. The following year Absolut Vodka used one of his paintings in its print ad campaign, and the funny blue dogs became an industry.

    Ever since then there have been psychedelic pets, predominantly dogs, filling galleries across the country. I totally enjoy these works, but what's the deal? Yes, we love our pets, but why do we need to see them as from the height of an acid trip? These artworks are fun indeed, but our pets make us smile all the time anyway! We love and cherish our children, but do you see lots of psychedelic portraits of them? What is it?

    Local artists participating in this happy movement are Lauri Luck, seen at James Snidle Fine Arts in San Francisco, and Mylette Welch, who shows at Graton Gallery.

    Christine Kierstead's works can be found at Riverfront Gallery in Petaluma.

     Angela Bond and Rachel Fisher are represented by galleries in Canada.

    The ancient Egyptians had it right!  Bow wow, Man!

   
    

STRANGLED NO MORE

    Artists first became able to make a living by producing art when civilizations came to the point where there were those who had obtained so much power and goods that they wanted to show off to and intimidated their competition by appearing in luxurious apparel, and living in pretentious abodes filled with lavish items. Like it or not, it was the war lords, kings, and religious powerhouses who were the first patrons of the arts.

    As more of the world's populace eventually became relatively prosperous, artists were able to produce art that interested themselves personally. Beginning around the late 18th century, along came many more portraits of ordinary people, scenes of everyday life, and works that were simply abstractions.

    But even with this shift in the purpose of art, there still was for the most part a stranglehold on the art market. Along with the wealthy, the power players became the galleries and museums. Right up until this past decade, a handful of people at museums, and those who owned high end galleries held a tight grip on the decisions of whose art was to be seen publicly in any meaningful way. Artists had to ingratiate themselves to these people, if they could even get their attention at all. This was also true for the music, film, and literary worlds.

    Thank God for the digital age! Artists in all of these venues can now easily get their works seen by many thousands and even millions of people. Any artist can reproduce their work with ease so that they have the possibility of actually making a living by their talent. The worlds of curators, producers, editors, and critics are forever changed, and I'm sure they are grieving that loss of power.

  Most artists today are using digital methods for superior reproduction of their works. Featured above is photographer Lance Kuehne of Riverfront Gallery in Petaluma. 

    Painter Susan Ratkey Ball shows at Graton Gallery. 

A drawing by designer/architect Obie G. Bowman of Cloverdale.

    I've heard it said several times in the past few years, "Never have so many fantastic tools been put into the hands of so many untalented people". Well, I feel that the overall outcome of digital imaging for our culture will be a growth of creativity and expression for many more people than was possible before, and that is a really good thing.

I'VE SEEN NAKED WOMEN!

    The human body has many beautiful and interesting lines and forms, and viewing and studying it is a wonderful way for artists to hone their skills. In case of fact, the art department where I studied had a great over dependence on the use of nude models, mostly females of college age. I always had a feeling that it was laziness on the part of the professors, an easy way to keep the students occupied. Nonetheless those studio exercises were a valuable way to gain proficiency at rendering forms.

    What is always humorous though, inevitably at every art exhibition or festival, the viewer will find at least one young male artist whose works certainly are not paying homage to the art world tradition of thoughtful interpretation of the human form. Instead his works will nearly scream, "I've see naked women!" or "I've had sex with a woman!" as if he was the first young man to discover these things, and he must share the news. Funny young men.

    I dismiss those artworks as adolescent, and choose here to give a shout out to a few artworks depicting nudes which honor the beauty of the human body. An enduring global symbol for this is the 1504 seventeen foot tall marble sculpture of David by Michelangelo. Nothing more is needed to say other than awe inspiring and timeless.

    Next, we think of American artist Andrew Wyeth as producing unforgettably detailed images of American scenes, but he was also exceptional at delivering graceful images of the female form, as in 1969's Overflow. 

    And looking to more current and local work, San Francisco was the launching point of artist Andrew Ameral, whose 2005 Anna could not be lovelier to gaze upon.

    Underneath our clothes we are all interesting figures in one way or another, and art can remind us of that.

VIEWER OR VOYEUR?

    Is Miley Cyrus selling so much music because of her songs or because so many people like watching her new outrageousness? I'm guessing it is the latter, but actually that's ok. If that's what the people want, and she's giving it to them and making tons of money in the meantime, then both sides are happy.

    Unfortunately it is the same in the fine arts. I first was irritated by this side-showing of artists' lives back when I was an art student. Sitting in lecture halls, I wanted to learn all about the world's great artworks. The more art history courses I took, the more I found professors going on and on about the artists' personal lives, all the gaudy details as if it were a painter's Entertainment Tonight.

    Of course one cannot fully separate the artist from the artwork, but I believe that artworks should speak for themselves. This is an artistic concept that I am unable to let go of. If the artist is the star, and not the artwork, then the exhibition becomes like a circus; hype and flash just to get the viewers in. To my mind the artwork is everything.

    Be honest. Would you care at all about this work by Pablo Picasso if you weren't told all your life what an important artist he was, and about his turbulent personal life? It looks like Warner Bros. on LSD.  How about this Jackson Pollock? Would you care at all about this piece if there was no movie made about his life, and you didn't know that his works are selling for stupendous prices?

    Here's one by Andy Warhol that speaks for its time and for American pop culture. Andy is/was as hyped a personality in the art world as any can be, but the work stands up to it.

And Monet: everyone knows this artist's name and that he was a leading French impressionist, but damn it, this piece is so beautiful. Again, its quality stands by itself, which is absolutely as it should be.