For My Artist Friends: Rich and Rewarding Insights Directly from the Mouth of Picasso

Public domain.

"When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso." (1)

This isn't the first time I have been to Wiki Quotes, but it is the first time I've explored it. For years, whenever I looked for a Picasso quote I would find the same few, like how it takes a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child again, or this one from Life Magazine in 1964:

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

At Wiki Quotes I found a gold mine of Picasso quotes, and furthermore, they reveal deeper layers of this man who by virtue of his fame became a caricature of himself. Here is a great insight from that page as regards understanding Cubism, or any other contemporary art movement.

Cubism is no different from any other school of painting. The same principles and the same elements are common to all. The fact that for a long time cubism has not been understood and that even today there are people who cannot see anything in it, means nothing. I do not read English, and an English book is a blank to me. This does not mean that the English language does not exist, and why should I blame anyone but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing about?

The highlighted part is rich. A lot of people don't "get" modern art or abstract art. As Picasso points out, there is a language to some kinds of art, and if you are not well-versed in the language,  it may not speak to you.

Here is another insight.

Picasso in front of his painting L'Aficianado, 1912. 

I also often hear the word 'evolution'. Repeatedly I am asked to explain how my painting evolved. To me there is no past or future in my art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was. Art does not evolve by itself, the ideas of people change and with them their mode of expression. (Paris 1923)

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When I read this next quote I thought immediately of Dylan, whose lyrics at times have been often considered obscure and not easily understood. As many Dylan fans and scholars have repeated over the years, Dylan doesn't like to or feel it necessary to explain his songs.

It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.

Here's Picasso's response when asked to explain the symbolism in Guernica.

...this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse... If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.

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Here's another interesting observation about understanding a painting.

Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don't they try to understand the song of the birds? Why do they love a night, a flower, everything which surrounds man, without attempting to understand them? Whereas where painting is concerned, they want to understand. Let them understand above all that the artist works from necessity; that he, too, is a minute element of the world to whom one should ascribe no more importance than so many things in nature which charm us but which we do not explain to ourselves. Those who attempt to explain a picture are on the wrong track most of the time. Gertrude Stein, overjoyed, told me some time ago that she had finally understood what my picture represented: three musicians. It was a still life!! [Boisgeloup, winter 1934].

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(1) As quoted in Life with Picasso, by François Gilot, 1964, p. 60
For more details on the quotes cited above, visit Wikiquote Picasso.

14 Quotes for a New Monday Morning

For most, our two biggest influences are the people we meet and the books we read. Interestingly, I've always felt that the books we read are just the same as meeting people, except we encounter them in another form. Ideas, expressed in words, are inexplicably powerful as they are transmitted from mind to mind.

There is no direct relationship between the various quotes on this page, other than that they spoke strongly enough that I wrote them down. Each stands alone, though some pair nicely with others as well, adding insights by casting new light from a different angle.

"Once you label me you negate me."
--Kierkegaard

"Fiction makes you think; propaganda tells you how to think."
--Amy Tan, from the chapter "required reading and other dangerous subjects" in her book The Opposite of Fate

"I can't imagine being a writer and having others dictate to me what I should write, why I should write, and whom I should write for. And this is the reason I consider myself an American writer: I have the freedom to write whatever I want. I claim that freedom."
--Amy Tan, ibid.

"We live in an era in which appearances seem more important than reality."
--Gordon Marino, The Existentialist's Survival Guide

“I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.”
--Herman Hesse, Demian

“If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.”
― Amy Tan

"It is a mistake to intend to write only very important things in a journal. That is not its justification."
-- Andre Gide

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
--Howard Thurman

"If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."
~-John F. Kennedy

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web."
--Pablo Picasso

"Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone."
--G.B. Stern

"I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious."
--Albert Einstein

"Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us."
-- Wilma Rudolph, Olympic Sprinter

"Your life is what you see in front of you."
--Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

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And now, it is time to make your mark.

This Weekend in the Twin Ports and Nearby -- Art, Authors and More

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. 
~John F. Kennedy

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.
~Pablo Picasso

This week's Sotheby's auction generated over $158 million in revenue, and happened to be items from one person's collection that was being sold. Of special interest were two pieces by Mark Rothko that together fetched more than $75 million. The most expensive of these was painted in 1970, the year I marched off to college. This piece went for almost $40 million.

This Friday another Second Friday Art Crawl is happening here in the Twin Ports, though with a somewhat different circuit this time. But first... one of the major arts events of 2014, the 60th Arrowhead Regional Biennial, and it will be an exceptional show to take in. Some truly great work, even though it is affordable.

THURSDAY EVENTS

DAI 60th Arrowhead Regional Biennial Reception
The 60th Arrowhead Regional Biennial, started in 1919, drawing talent from across the Upper Midwest. Juried this year by Diane Mullin, senior curator at the Weisman Art Museum, the exhibit will feature 26 works with awards announced at the opening. A special companion exhibition, From the Collection, will open the same night at North Shore Bank of Commerce (NSBC), with a free shuttle running between venues. NSBC has long been a vital partner for the Biennial, both underwriting the exhibitions and collecting work. The bank celebrates this milestone year with an exhibition featuring 57 works by 46 artists collected from past Biennials, offering a unique opportunity to explore the Biennial’s history of excellence. The catalog will be unveiled at both locations. John Steffl, who assembled this collection, may have left his name off the marquis but his fingerprints are all over what has taken place at the NSBC and much of the good work we have enjoyed over the years.

Also opening at the DAI will be "Drawing at the Horizon," featuring work from George Morrison, and "Meaning of Home," by Jo Wood. Morrison's exhibition will explore his process, featuring drawings, notebooks, and source material for his masterpieces. Jo Wood's bead and fiber landscapes celebrate her connection to Nature. She has exhibited throughout the United States and is in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society (St. Paul) and the Mayo Clinics (Rochester).

This is a must see exhibition, even if you can't make it to the opening reception Thursday.

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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf will be performed Thursday through Saturday at Teatro Zuccone.

And there will be another Tim Bouvine Book Signing Thursday as well from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the Bookstore at Fitgers.

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FRIDAY EVENTS

Phantom Galleries Welcomes Broc Allen
A good place to begin your Friday evening art crawl in the Twin Ports will be in the New York Building at 1410 Tower Avenue in Superior. The opening reception for this new show featuring work by Broc Allen and Michael Smith will include an artist talk. Time: 5-7 p.m.

Plys with Purpose is this month's theme @ the PROVE Gallery in Duluth. No word yet on whether there's an opening at Washington Gallery, but you'll still have more to see if you make it to Trepanier Hall for the Leah H. Yellowbird ~ Art Show. More details here.

Then, hop in your car to the top of the hill for Lenore Lampi's 2-Day Holiday Sale. Lenore Lampi does awesome ceramics work.

Now if you happen to be in Minneapolis and are looking to see some art there, Erik Pearson is putting on a Do the Dow Open Studio event. Just sayin'.

As we get closer to the holidays, there will be plenty more opportunities to BUY LOCAL.

Meantime, hope I see you there.

Top Right: "Looking Up" by Ed Newman

Picasso's War Years

I woke this morning thinking, among other things, about where Picasso went during World War II. When the Germans occupied France, did Picasso just continue working in his studio?

A quick Google search reveals that he went to Rome, and continued painting. During the war his
paintings were more somber, with images of death being part of the subject matter. He was in his early 70's there and fathered two children with painter Francoise Gilot.

It seems impossible that the artist could have moved all his work out of France at that time, so what became of his studio? Some answers can be found in this 1999 article from The New York Observer in which Hilton Kramer critiques a new Picasso exhibition at the Guggenheim, or rather, critiques the artist himself in a column cynically titled, "Everybody Loves Picasso, Even Critics and Nazis."

It's a biting piece, and an interesting read. Writes Kramer, "Like certain soap operas that periodically introduce new faces while recounting the same old stories again and again, Picasso exhibitions now offer the museum-going public the comfortable familiarity of an oft-told tale. We don't go to these exhibitions in a state of suspense. We already know the basic scenario: The hero, a seductive scoundrel, is more likely than not to behave badly, but he can nonetheless be expected to triumph in the end. It is not only that so many women succumb to his charms; all of society does likewise. Hardheaded intellectuals melt in his presence; Nazi Gauleiters show him every courtesy. No matter what his failings or offenses may be, in art or in life, Picasso will be forgiven everything in the name of genius and celebrity. That is the script, and we know it by heart."

The title alone is dripping with sarcasm. It reminds me of the final cut on Dylan's latest CD Together Through Life. The song is titled, "It's All Good" but once your cranked into it you know he means just the opposite.

As for the artwork to be seen at the Guggenheim show, Kramer goes on to disparage its quality, calling it "second and third rate Picasso." In other words it is art by a famous hand, but for the most part not significant.

If unfamiliar with the span of Picasso's work in its entirety, here's a quick overview of the various seasons in the life of this influential painter of the 20th century.

In the meantime, make your life a masterpiece.

Artists and Money

The other day I came across a list of which modern artists' works were worth the most money. I don't recall every name, but the top of the list was Picasso and third on the list was Andy Warhol. Not surprisingly, both artists took very deliberate steps to increase their net worth, and David Galenson points this out in an excellent article called Arti$ts and the Market which appeared in The American on Sunday the 5th.

The article pulls back the veil as regards what artists are really like, if not all then certainly many. His article begins this way:

Many in the art world cling to the myth that financial gain does not motivate artists. This is not only bad economics, but bad art history.

In an era in which many previously forbidden subjects, including race, sex, religion, and drugs, have become favored themes for artists and critics, the nexus between money and art remains perhaps the last taboo subject for many in the art world. The origin of this prudish distaste lies six centuries in the past—the myth that artists work not for economic gain but solely for the love of art was one of the very foundations on which the image of the modern artist was created. The rise of a competitive market for art in the late nineteenth century began to bring the economics of art into the public domain, as some critics began to cite high prices as evidence of artists’ success. Yet it was not until the 1960s that an important artist successfully broke with the myth of the artist as ascetic, when Andy Warhol created a new image of the artist as avowed wealth-maximizer. Although Warhol’s model has now been emulated by a number of important contemporary artists, many in the art world still cling to the myth that financial gain does not motivate artists. This is not only bad economics, but bad art history. A brief historical overview of the relationship between artists and the market can lay bare the attitudes that have led to this curious fiction.

Galenson provides readers an overview of how artists once were artisans who formed guilds and how they evolved to the modern image of impoverished idealist who paints out of passion.

What I remember about Picasso is that he burned some of his paintings in order to stay warm through one particularly cold winter. He exemplified the poor artist who kept his ideals and made good. At least, that is how he appeared to me as a young art student. But here is what Galenson observes:

It is likely that no artist painted more portraits of dealers. During the early period in which he was establishing himself as a leading artist, Picasso painted the dealers Pedro Manach (1901), Clovis Sagot (1909), Ambroise Vollard (1910, 1915), Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1910), Wilhelm Uhde (1910), Léonce Rosenberg (1915), André Level (1918), Paul Rosenberg (1919), and Berthe Weill (1920). In 1918, he also painted portraits of the wife of Georges Wildenstein and of the wife and daughter of Paul Rosenberg.

Early in his career, Picasso told Kahnweiler, “I’d like to live like a poor man with a lot of money.” Yet Picasso was careful to keep private his considerable interest in the material rewards of art, and it did not become part of the colorful image that made him the epitome of the modern artist for a vast admiring public.

My recent Aha! moment with Warhol was that for him it was always about the money. It dawned on me that he wasn't kidding when he said that he could make 4000 masterpieces in one day, as opposed to Picasso's 4000 in a lifetime. If you visit major galleries and collections, you can find Warhol is everywhere. When I visited the Wynn collection in Las Vegas, the climax of the presentation was a Warhol piece of Mr. Wynn, which he was most delighted to talk about. Do you hear an echo here?

The rest of Galeson's well researched piece is worth your time, especially if you are a serious artist, and you can find it here.

In the meantime, if you know someone with a lot of money who desires an original portrait, well... faces are my current specialty and I'd be happy to oblige. Let's make some memories.

Picasso's Last Thought

Pablo Picasso was undoubtedly the most influential artist of the 20th century having produced more than 50,000 works in a variety of mediums, including (mostly) painting, sculpture, illustration, lithography and others. He was a creative force who stretched the boundaries of what could be, and he was constantly innovating.

In 2007 New York's Whitney Museum curated a collection designed to show how Picasso influenced American artists. When this exhibit was taken to the road we were able to see it at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was impressive. Each room of the gallery contained a Picasso work and a variety of ways that same piece showed up in others' works after having been blended into their own imaginations, reformulated and reiterated in new forms, often quite consciously.

I remember my own first brush with an original Picasso. Actually, it was a whole room full of early Picasso's at a museum in New York City. I was left breathless. As a young painter, I was awed. The beauty, the unveiling of technique, the wonderful painterliness, the simplicity in complexity. All served to inspire.

When Picasso died on April 8, 1973, I was in my apartment just off the South Green at Ohio University. I was sitting on the floor leaning against a wall. Though half a world away, I knew he was departing. The drawing here was Picasso's last thought.

Get In The Game

On Sunday our pastor preached on this theme, saying that it's time to get in the game. The message resonated with me because it seems like there are simply too many people content to sit in the stands and watch as spectators. Or to sit on their couches or their duffs or whatever... waiting for the next thing to happen, instead of making it happen.

Life is for living.

The message Sunday was about Christians who expect the clergy, pastors and priests to do the work of ministry. But this blog post is intended to prod all of us to get get passionate about making a difference in the world. There are needs all around us. And each of us has different abilities or strengths. It's time to get out of the stands and into the field of play.

Maybe your thing is business. Excel in that and you can employ others whom you train and help get into the career game. There are a lot of talented, smart people who have been hurt by this past year's economic turmoil. If you can make money and employ even a few of these good people you will have made a huge difference.

Maybe you're an artist. By creating and sharing your work you inspire others with creative gifts. Don't quit. Stay in the game. We need art, lest the entire Western world become a sterile white walled environment with no character.

If you're a musician, follow that passion and let others be swept up in the music. Music can help people forget their pain. Music can fill the long voids in a sorrowing heart. Music can inspire action... or reflection. Music can make people laugh and smile. Stay with it. Find new ways to share it. We need your gifts.

Writers, don't despair. There are some who will say it's all been said before. Yes, this may be true, there's "nothing new under the sun" on one level. But on another level, we need your voices, your words, the prismatic revelations of your hearts on paper and/or monitor screens. Nothing new? Every moment in time everything is new, and this world is exploding with newness. New stories being experienced, new stories that need to be told.

Journalists, stay in the game, because the politicians need watchdogs.

And if your calling is to the political arena, don't despair at the ethical contortions and inefficiencies of government. At all levels we need people with good hearts who have the courage to get in the game and stay in the game. Don't give up. You can make a difference....

Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Derek Jeter, Pablo Picasso, Mother Theresa, Jack Nicholson... we know their names because they were not spectators in life. There are millions of others who are lesser known, who are also seriously pursuing their callings or dreams. We do not know their names, but we see the fruit of their passion.

If you're just watching, and drifting... wake up! There's work to be done. Get stirred and make a difference. Get in the game.