THE LADIES ROOM

   
Art school in the 1970s and lots of art history courses. Something missing though: the mention of a single female artist. Finally, finally in a modern art class she was mentioned: Mary Cassatt from the 1870s, an American artist who studied alongside and held her own with the French impressionists. One woman mentioned. A real bummer.

    During those years I also took a visit to the Pasadena Museum of Art (now the Norton Simon Museum), which is a top rate museum. Unless she was hidden in a back corner somewhere, we didn't gaze upon a single work by a woman artist. It felt like a slap in the face to me as an art student, and I never forgot it.

    But in 1973 as I wandered away from a Picasso exhibit in LA, I came upon some large paintings of beautiful organic designs, and all around the edges of the paintings were writings by the artist which expressed female viewpoints. I read them with much delight! I had accidently stumbled upon the works of feminist artist Judy Chicago. OMG: a woman's work being featured in a major art museum! I always remembered that experience, and years later I was thrilled again when in 1979 her monumental installation, "The Dinner Party" showed at SFMOMA, attracting long lines of viewers that reached out the front door.

    In the years around that time Americans also became fascinated with the exceptional talents of two female artists whose bodies of work were produced in the 1930s and 40s, Frida Kahlo, and Georgia O'Keefe. This acknowledgement was certainly better late than never.

    So thank goodness that these women finally opened the flood gates, and now in the 21st century one does not think twice about a woman artist showing in any gallery or museum. Some examples here of fine work by local women artists:

by Sally Baker of Sebastopol

by Mandy Bankson of Santa Rosa

by Wendy Brayton of Sebastopol

by Sylvia Gonzalez of Petaluma

by Jane McDonald of Petaluma

                                                                

DEPICTING NATIVE AMERICANS

    Your family group is very large. Wondrous stories have been passed down from generation to generation about the nature of existence, what is good, what is bad, what happens when we die. Beautifully costumed celebrations happen every season. Gambling games help pass the time during the long winters, and joking is encouraged. Sounds like an admirable way of life.

    Although you have horses, you do not have the wheel. You move your home several times a year by dragging and carrying all your possessions across the plains. Sometimes you do not have enough food. You struggle not to freeze to death in winter. Your neighbors twenty miles away might be plotting to kill you. Foreign intruders are bringing diseases and more than half your village dies.

    Still want to romanticize the 19th century lives of the plains Indians? How about honoring who they really were, and showing sensitivity to their descendants, most of whom are trying to balance the honoring of their ancestors with living in the 21st century American culture. Those whose families have chosen to remain on the reservations that were established back in 1890 mostly live in deep poverty, with substance abuse and gang activity rampant, as in this photo taken at the Rosebud Reservation.

    18th and 19th century paintings that depicted Native Americans were mostly Anglicized images. 

Photographer Edward Curtis famously captured Indian portraits, as in this photo of a Washoe woman, but many of the scenes he photographed were highly staged. Indeed most of his better known photos were actually taken in the early 20th century.

And recently a very popular painting was "I am Crow" by artist Kirby Sattler, which actor Johnny Depp used as makeup and costume inspiration in the movie "The Lone Ranger". It turns out that the non-native artist pretty much just imagines his images "in the spirit" of Native American culture.

   

     In the 1970's a contemporary California Luseino Native American by the name of Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) made a breakthrough in the art market, with his contemporary styled yet Native American themed artworks becoming very well-known and in demand. He paved the path for other contemporary Native American artists.

    Those of us who love Native American art can help the cause by searching out today's Native American artists (easily done on the internet) and purchasing their works, such as this one by California Quechan artist, Victor Curran. 

    Beware of "Native American" items from China. Also, one can view authentic historic photos by going to the websites of the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian, and find photos such as this one of a Lakota village. 

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.