Tips for Artists from ArtSlant

ArtSlant, a most up-to-date news website on art events and artists in the great art cities of the world is an amazing resources for artists and art lovers. Periodically, it gives marketing and promotional tips for artists, often witty:

How Not to Get a Gallery

Some tips:

1. Keep your art in a closet so no one can see it - because you know it is so good that the world will discover it anyway. Maybe posthumously.

2. Don't visit any galleries. But if you must go, pretend to be a buyer. Gallery staff treat buyers so much better than unknown artists. Then leave before they realize that you are the talented artist they have been trying to track down for months.

3. Avoid contests, juried shows, artist calls, and any requests for portfolio reviews. If they are so easy to get into, they must have very low standards.

Or:

Thinking of Promoting Your Art?

hmmmm - here are 10 things you could do instead:

1. Take your partner to the movies - go Dutch

2. Convince someone to pay your bills

3. Cut your own hair (30 mins, plus 4 hours to get it fixed)

4. Buy a sweater (see #2 above)

5. Pick wild flowers and hand deliver to your mom

6. Wash the dishes

7. Organize your bench

8. Plant a vegetable garden

9. Cancel your phone service

10. Go to a bar

No more dishes washing, yeah!

A Wonferul Art Gallery of the People - City Art Gallery, San Francisco

Today is the first Friday of the month and many galleries have openings in the evening. One of these galleries in San Francisco is a very eclectic and extremely vibrant one - City Art Gallery.



City Art Gallery is a cooperative gallery, owned and operated by local artists. The idea of making artwork accessible and affordable to hundreds of potential art buyers each week attract numerous local talents. In addition to selling their art, these artists understand the importance of belonging to a network of peers who promote and support their creativity. City Art includes artists who have never before show their work in a gallery setting and members with established art careers. The gallery does not insist on exclusive contracts with the artists, and it boasts a wide range of artistic mediums and styles. Almost 200 local artists are members of City Art Cooperative Gallery.

City Art Gallery also have well curated theme shows several times a year. The past popular ones include "Naked August", "Sacred and Profane", "Erotic", "San Francisco", San Francisco Opening Studio, and "Holiday shows" in different months.

This month's show is "Green". Opening reception: 7-10 pm, 2 April 2010.
Location: 828 Valencia, Between 19th and 20th, San Francisco, next door to the famed 826 Valencia: The Writing Center.

One can also join the gallery on Facebook and follow it on Twitter.

Below is a sampling of artwork by some of the artists who show at City Art:

Michael Barbee	Staci Batchelder	Michelle Blomstedt	Robin Bordow	Carol Nelson Ceres
Ryan Darcey	Alex Darocy	Angelo Di Pietrantonio	Michele de la Menardiere	Richard Dodds
'Spot' Scott Draves	Marisa Escolar	Tedda Hughes	Kytha Gernatt	Katie Gilmartin
Robert Grüttner	Joshua Aaron Guthals	dk haas	Niqui Hill	Glenn Hummel
Adam Krammer	Mike Kimball	Victoria Q. Legg	Maria Carmella Luna	Dan Lydersen
Celia Marais	Lorinda Menchavez	Leslie Morgan	Kevin Mosley	Hadley Northrop
Sandra O'Brien	Rebecca Peters	Camille Porter	Marina Vendrell Renaut	Brad Robinson
Heather Robinson	Will Russell	Hiroko Sakai	Lilia Scott	Betsy Sergeant
Colin Sjostedt	Lauren Shahroody	Matthew Felix Sun	Trish Tunney	Antonio Torrez-Solis
Delve Withrington

My Hero Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz (July 8, 1867 – April 22, 1945)

Today is the birthday anniversary of German painter, printmaker and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz's birthday. She is one of my favorite artists, despite my aversion of her dark images when I was a child.

She was well known in China, largely due to the introduction of a very influential left wing writer, LU Xun, who was active in the 1930s. What I saw in her works, when I was little, were nothing but scary images of the hollowed eyes crazy and demonic figures. I couldn't stare at those screaming images long to contemplate the meanings and beauty hidden.

When I grew older, and more experienced, I became drawn to her works like moth dancing around fire. Her works exert an enormous influence on my thoughts and my works. Her unflinching approach to human miseries due to poverty and war, was the epitome what an artist ought do.

More than 100 years after her birth, 55 years after her death, the world has not learned the lessons from her time and ignored her eloquent and often searing accounts of the sad human conditions in the first half of the 20th century. The misery continues, therefore the duty of artists to document and to illuminate continues.






















Killed in Action




















Woman with Dead Child