The Colorist

It has been fun watching a goal come together and bear fruit. I set my goal about 3 or 4 months ago to increase my Technorati "Authority". I guess I didn't enjoy watching it take a little dip, and wondered how to add to the pesky little number. As a byproduct, the authority at Pastel has risen, too.

For my humble blog, a "45" is gratifying. If for no other reasons than just to see that there is some readership, and also just to see a plan come together. I get some fun out of reading other bloggers' authorities, as I find new blogs that way.

Now, anyone know where to find that spiffy widget that tells one's Technorati authority on it? I have tried their widget inventory and I cannot find it.

Today I visited all of my cronies at the Spokane ArtFest, which I am not participating in this year. For a news report on the fair, and art fairs in general, visit my blog, The Endless Summer Art Fair, soon. I will cross post half of the report here, as well, with pictures of some of your favorite artists in their booths.

See my posts at the Endless Summer Art Fair to see what I'm up to these days.

I have become Rothko-ized! Now, I am a fully functioning zombie in the Mark-Mode.

Just kidding. I will be "out of pocket", as the hip people say, for the next three weeks. On the road for Bellevue, Park City and Sun Valley. Reports will be posted at
the Endless Summer Art Fair.

You are owed a better end to the Rothko study. Sorry, I'm not ready for the definitive post, yet. I will have some down time between driving stretches, and maybe I'll get to post a little.

The quick things I can share are my pre-conclusions. Greenberg and that whole gang (including MR) were so impressed with abstraction being the break-out style for modern art that they felt they needed to push it to it's absolute limits. I'm not sure if we have reached those limits, yet. The cracks in that infrastructure developed before the Abstract Expressionist school could run its course.

I disagree with the dialectic that insists abstraction is the end-game of art. There are some solid values to abstraction, and it is fundamental to art as a historic continuum, and as a rudimentary part of the formal structure of art itself. I love the stuff, personally.

Rothko was a huge figure on the American landscape, whose color field art did a better job of breaking away from figuration than Pollock's art, IMHO. Not to compare too much, but the lack of line and the forwarding of the element of color are why I say MR is better. Action painting, as absolutely fantastic as it is, is still very dependent (Pollock's work) on the line.

Let's see. Now that I've dug this big hole, I guess I'll have a fine job ahead of me to fill in the rationales! I don't want to leave you with a comparison between JP and MR. That's too far off the mark for understanding the Abstract Expressionists.

Let's leave you with this awesome photo of The Irascibles, a group of artists otherwise known as the Abstract Expressionists, or the New York School. I wanted to photoshop myself in there as an interviewer, but I didn't want a lawsuit from the photographer. Perhaps you'll just have to imagine that part.

Image of the Abstract Expressionists known as The Irascibles.http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/images/abstexp_irascibles_lg.jpeg
"The Irascibles" (photo by Nina Leen, 1950, for Life magazine) Front row, left to right: Theodore Stamos, Jimmy Ernst (son of Max Ernst), Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Mark Rothko. Middle row: Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin. Back row: Willem De Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, and Hedda Sterne.

Note:
Want to know more about Hedda Sterne? Fascinating. She is the last surviving member of this famous photo.

My new blog is about the art fairs of summer. It's called Endless Summer Art Fair, at http://summerartfair.blogspot.com/ . You may go there to satisfy any number of reasons:

1. You are a patron who has seen me at an art fair, and want to do some follow-up research of my art fair life.
2. You are an artist who either does art fairs or who is seeking information about them.
3. You have received an e-mail or a post card from me and want to preview the fairs.
4. You are a rolled-up hippie from the Sixties who thought you would find some cool blog about the never-ending surfer life. If this describes you, go here instead. Peace out, dude.
   

Look to this new blog for promotional info about my summer art fair venues. Who knows? Maybe we'll share a beer somewhere out there on the open road, or if nothing else I may yet get my legs to tan before the summer is over.