Yeah I got questions

This week I went to several galleries in downtown Calgary and interviewed some of the curators for my research. I have only interviewed one artist so far, but that is going to change. Here are some the questions I asked:

Artists:

• What do you think of when you hear “traditional art”?
• What mediums do you typically use?
• Do you think painting is less common today than it was about 50 years ago? Or perhaps 100 years ago?
• What is your opinion on digital artwork?
• How would you define contemporary art?
• How do you sell your artwork? (online, galleries, etc.)
• What issues have you encountered with selling your art?
• Do you have another job or do you earn your living just with art?
• What motivates you as an artist?

Curators/Gallery owners, etc.

• What do you think of when you hear “traditional art”?
• How would you define non-traditional art?
• Do you prefer traditional or non-traditional art?
• What kind of art do you think is most popular today?
• How would you describe the audience that this gallery has?
• How do you determine if a piece is “good” or not?

The curators I interviewed were from the Gibson Fine Art gallery and Paul Kuhn gallery. The art in the Gibson gallery was about 80% paintings, but at least half of the paintings were abstract or had non-traditional subjects. The Paul Kuhn gallery was exhibiting the work of one artist, Martin Pearce. His work was all what I would consider non-traditional, as it was made with wax (and abstract). Here are some things from the interviews of each curator:

Gibson:

Traditional art reminded her of landscapes and western pieces.

Prefers non-traditional art, but has to make decisions on what to display based on what she thinks people will buy. She determines what is good by her instinct and knowledge of what generally sells well.

Kuhn:

Thinks of traditional art as European, representational paintings with historic uses. Non-traditional art is the "art of the now," generally having disruptive tendencies in subject matter and materials. Traditional art exists now, but with "tweaks." The audience of the gallery is the general public, although many people don't care to engage in art and learn more about it. however, "the community likes to know that [the gallery] is here." Good art has a lot to do with the artist's motivation (money as motivation generally makes bad art). [when I asked about digital art] there is nothing wrong with it, it is a tool and means to express, but the technology is doing the work that the artist takes credit for.

The artist I interviewed last week was Nadien Cole, a painter who specializes in watercolor (and occasionally uses acrylic). She is also a graphic designer, which is her main job. She was an interesting person to interview, because although here job involves technology, her attitude toward art is very conservative. She believes that painting is here to stay, while digital art is just a fad. She places more value on hand-made pieces that are made for more than just selling. She defines contemporary art as "doing things differently."

While I'm not sure I agree with everything my interviewees said (I believe there is a lot in store for digital art; and I know from experience that digital art requires a lot of skill), their answers provided an interesting insight for my project. I visited some other galleries that I didn't get interviews from, but it was interesting to see how they varied. Some were mostly traditional, others mostly non-traditional. Some seemed more customer-friendly, others seemed more like museums where you can't talk or touch anything. And some galleries were just crap.

As for my most recent paintings, I've decided to not post some of them yet so that they can remain a surprise for the presentation of my project. So far I have done two oil paintings and another acrylic and watercolor.