Can I make a request/suggestion:
If someone starts a thread in CS about something like this, can they try to lay down some rules in the OP as to whether the thread should be treated as an IMHO or a Debate? (I.E. can you just mouth-off or do you have to back up what you say)
Sorry about that. I noticed, reading these posts, that no one had seemed to figure out Kinkade’s real talent. Quite frankly, I’ve found that there are some people without any real skills except as pitchmen. Kinkade, along with the three men I mentioned in my earlier post, are examples of that. There is nothing wrong with painting pedestrian paintings, just as there’s nothing wrong with making awful pastamakers or with ripping off old programs to create junk TV. However, the skill used by these 4 men at sales means that I have to deal with their work day in, day out, which is not very pleasant.
Gotta say, I don’t agree. By your logic, then, whoever’s got the biggest mouth is the best athlete? I thought sportsfans had a history of despising players who got big paychecks and had a lot to say but didn’t deliver the goods.
Can’t get my hands on the book right now, but I’ve got this excellent tome on Chinese philosophy that goes into an explanation of ancient Chinese culture and how they revered the farmer. Artists and scholars were tolerated. Salesmen, merchants, people who weren’t connected with the earth in any way? Scum, according to them.
Seems like an appropriate hijack to me. Here’s some suggestions:
The Big Dogs:
www.nga.gov (National Gallery in Washington, DC)
www.metmuseum.org (Metropolitan in NY)
www.moma.org (Museum of Modern Art - and it looks like they’re putting together a big Picasso show)
People Trying to Make a Living (these don’t have the educational narrative, though):
www.art-exchange.com
www.nextmonet.com
www.paletteandchisel.org
(If you really want some tight representational work - this is a terrific organization in Chicago; some of these people are pros, most have day jobs)
www.leetracy.com
(This woman is a teacher and I studied with her one summer - very non-representational and conceptual, and I really love her work - tons of presence. I remember her saying that her husband would complain that a painting was too red, or too dark, and she’d reply “That’s what it’s about”)
A realist artist I really admire & studied with very briefly is Diane Canfield Bywaters. She frequently does gorgeous landscapes through the National Park Service’s “Artist in Residence” program. Her web page is down right now, but there were some links to galleries via Yahoo.
Another conceptual artist - highly skilled - that I studied with for a while is Ron Tanzi. I can’t remember his web page right now, but he’s findable - closer to your neck of the woods, he’s in Seattle.
and here’s some stuff from me - hope this isn’t a huge faux pas, but I felt like sharing http://home.attbi.com/~fessie_web_page/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html
You misunderstood my comment. I was complaining that the skill of these people at promoting themselves results in me being stuck with their work. It was not meant in any way, shape, or form to be a compliment.
No. In fact, you seem to have misread my statement. I complain in it that I am forced to deal with junk products (Popoli’s pastamakers, Kinkade’s paintings, Barris’ programs) because they were able enough at selling them to a point where it becomes hard to get away from them.
Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. I misread your emphasis.
And I really don’t mean to take a swipe at all marketers, just the total charlatans. Back to that eighth level of hell - Fraud.
Thanks fessie, I appreciated the links! Good info and I loved the first painting they show (the hummingbirds) on the American page.
Did you all in fact start a new debate on this subject somewhere? I’d be interested in asking questions of people regarding some of the arguments raised here, such as “what IS art”? “what’s the purpose of art”? and so on.
capybara’s got it underway - the title is
Art discussion-- what is art/kitsch/garbage?
and here’s a direct link (best I can do w/my computer knowledge)
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=178189
Apparently it was. Because there was no racial slur, Lib.
Tell me, can you see your veins? Because your skin is extremely thin at this point.
Lassen-I had a few Lassen notebooks and folders. I like them as notebook covers-NOT true good art.
Of course, I suppose I shouldn’t talk-I do mostly cartoon dolls. (See my homepage)
Not knowing much about Rockwell, I can’t say anything about his attitude. While Rockwell’s work can verge a bit on treacle, I don’t recall him being so damned smarmy as TK.
Kincaide acts as if he’s doing the world a favor flooding it with his paint-by-the-numbers crap. The willingness to fuse his same religious attitude into his artwork makes it just that much more revolting. Remember, you can throw a frame around a used condom and it too instantly becomes “art.”
What sort of art and of what quality are other matters entirely.
Lib, what browser are you using? perhaps a reinstall is required, and this time dont load the Special Edition that inserts racial slurs into text where none where before.
Hey now – Ron Popeil rules! I have it on reasonably good authority that his rotisserie grill kicks ass. Not as great as the hallowed George Foreman grill, but a good product nonetheless. Plus he’s the subject of a really great New Yorker article (warning: PDF).
Popeil has some bombs in his product line (the hair-in-a-can springs to mind), but a good chunk of his stuff is actually good. Let’s not compare him with an assclown like Kinkade, 'kay?
It has been suggested here that some artists are inherently wicked. There is some Scriptural basis for this. After all, it says in the Bible that Monet is the root of all evil.
Ron Popeil is the Thomas Kincaide of mass marketing. His products are often no more than gussied up, underpowered trash. He asserts their worth through the method of “perceived value.”
“Gosh Melva. Lookit all the commercials this guy has going for that pasta machine! That must be a heckuva spaghetti bender for him to afford all that air time!”
If any normal corporation attempted to spend the sort of money that Popeil devotes to airing his infomercials, they’d be broke in a heartbeat.
As a devoted thriftshop junkie, let me tell you about how Popeil’s crap floods the shelves at these places. What you do not see very often are, Kitchen Aide mixers, Wusthof knives, Waring blenders or anything else of extreme quality.
If there is any justice in this world, Popeil’s coffin will be lined with Kincaide’s “art” for him to stare at through eternity. Perhaps we can arrange for Kincaide and all his wallpaper to be fed through one of Popeil’s cheap grinders. If ever two people and their works ever deserved each other more …
Bwahahaha! 
I can just imagine it…Kn*ckers glances at the return address, then opens the envelope. How nice, Carol sent me a card…MY GOD, it’s a Kinkade. How repulsive. ::delicately pushes card away from self with long stick and glares at it:: This thread makes me happy. 
Someone in the Cafe continuation was blasting Anne Geddes with vigor & I felt like a dolt - I, uh, kinda like her stuff! Am I missing it? Have I been hornswaggled?
Admission here - I gave a Kinkade calendar to one of my bosses one year, so I’m sniff guilty of lining his pockets myself. The gift was somewhat retribution, as that boss had defended the buttwipe’s work. See, I gave my other boss a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit calendar.
revenge is sweet
Hey, who was that guy who’d dress dogs up in costumes, photograph them, and then try to pass it off as art? Because what the art world has always really needed was a live-action Dog’s Playing Poker.
Well now I feel bad b/c I think Wegman’s okay. And actually I never did have anything against Maxfield Parrish, and I like a lot of Rockwell (Four Freedoms, anyone?). I don’t have any of these in my home, but their presence isn’t an affront. To me, anyway. I do remember that Rockwell in particular was mocked when I was in art school, along with Georgia O’Keefe (wasn’t sure if that was just sexism talking). But they loved DeKoonig, whom I despise. I always figured the bulk of religious art was illustration in the same way Rockwell is, and in both cases I give them credit for skill at communicating a message.
I’ll even make a little space for Bob Ross; I don’t like his paintings or his technique, but his voice was absolutely mesmerizing and he seemed a kind and gentle soul. It’s just frustrating that he and that Donna Dewberry are the only ones on TV showing any methods and they’re not teaching what even a freshman fine art major would learn.
IMHO, I think that ubiquitous choad (new one!) Kinkade’s work is, visually, orders of magnitude worse than anything else out there.