Gallery Proposal: Artists of a Certain Age [ACA]

I suppose it has something to do with my having turned 74 last week, but that would be too obvious. Perhaps a better explanation would be that I have grown tired of stumbling across titles such as “Best Young Artists Under 30” or under 40, or 15, or something equally as foolish. 

They all remind of my students’ occasional declaration that something “had to be so” since they had believed it “all their life!” A span of something between 18 or 28 years. An interesting perspective of “all one’s life”. But there were moments of rational exception. I once knew, between marriages, a young woman about half my age, more lover than friend as it's turned out, who actually wrote, and had published by a well-known house, her “coming of age novel.” Being a bit smitten, obviously I was biased, but it was well done. Still not to put too fine a point on it, here was “a coming of age novel,” penned by an exceptionally bright young woman who really hadn’t finished that stage of her life yet. “Best Young Artists Under 30,” has that same sort of not-quite-finished taste to it. “Better set the timer, for another decade hon,  and we’ll take another peek.”

I mean come on now, Bob Dylan had to wait until he was 75 before he received the Nobel Prize for literature.  I don’t know if they were running a list of “Best Young Writers under 30” back in 1971, but Bob didn’t win. Sometimes you have to wait for the good stuff to roll around. Bob did. The point is that some galleries, influencers, and “taste-makers” of various stripes might better serve the art world by setting the timer for another decade and then returning to take a less hurried look.

But I’m drifting again. The point is that many artists, from many genres, don’t really begin to produce their “best” work until later in their lives. Consider the notion that one needs to live a significant part of a life before one is really ready to make a meaningful artistic comment upon that life.  I spent more than 50 years as a performer, artist, creator, author, researcher and educator of varying ability before I began to produce, and continue to produce on occasion, what I would begin to consider “some of my best work.” I had to reach “a certain age” before presuming to make meaningful comment on what had gone before.

So I would like to propose, either as a stand-alone space, or as a contained unit within a larger entity, a juried gallery called “Artists of a Certain Age,” which would feature just such “long view works” produced by Artists of a Certain Age - let’s use the traditional retirement age of 65+ until something better comes along. The works would be available for acquisition as either traditional “hang on the wall” works, free-standing sculptural pieces, non-fungible tokens, or whatever meets current market styles and taste.

Obviously ACA would eventually seek to acquire works from a wide range of artists from a wide variety of “ACAers”.  But I would like to propose a selection of my own works as a possible representative core of offerings - having a plethora of options to choose from. I will include copies here in this proposal some of my self-selected “best works” mostly from my last active years as a Professor Emeritus in the Communication Department at NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.  

I will wrap up the proposal with a copy of my last “formal” resume from my academic career for those who may comforted by that more traditional structure.

It is important to emphasize that this is, as the title of the post indicates, a proposal. It is one I hope finds its way to reality. Hence, if you have friends, entrepreneurs, gallery owners, or other acquaintances who might be interested in making ACA a reality, this would be the time to contact them and encourage their participation.  Obviously, if you yourself are an ACA, pre-publication submissions are encouraged. [I know, I know, as mentioned above it is a slippery concept. Some entities mandate "certain age" for retirement purposes - 65, 72. Others which should, like the Supreme Court and most universities, allow one to stumble along well into one's dotage. I'm going to put this on the back-burner until things become "more real." But when in doubt - submit.]

ACA Representative Gallery

The news, no doubt unintentionally, offered a delightful place to start providing some examples. On February 27, 2020 then President Trump when asked about this new affliction Covid-19, declared, “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle - it will disappear.”  Medical reality notwithstanding, I chose to use this mythologizing of Covid as an opportunity to imagine what a range of “Miraculous Covid Critters” might look like.  These are free-hand 19x14” pen and marker “imaginings.”

Miraculous Covid Critters

This is how I envisioned the entity that started the whole thing. A flighty little critter. 18x16 inches. Hand drawn and colored.

These images, also 18x16 hand done, are how I imaged the little infectious critters running around inside us. I never did get around to images of the vaccines.

Pen and Marker works.  These works are again free-hand. Like the “Miraculous Covid Critters,” they were created by drawing “cartoons” of the images which were then “filled-in” with a variety of markers. These images were just for fun. Stimulated I guess by the free-form critters above. The Harlequin Bottles measures 3x4 feet. Got a little carried away there.

Harlequin Bottle

But that excess didn’t really deter me. This next work, Giant Iris was a bit of a transition piece - half free form and half manipulated photos. 36x39 inches.

Manipulated Photos. All these works started life as digital photos. Often taken while traveling. Originally I chose them as photographs - selected for what I considered their photographic quality and composition.  But then they started to surprise me. I’m not quite sure why I opened the images in Photoshop, but I did. And I discovered, as you have if you wandered down that path, that there are images within images within images.  And you can erase pieces of them.  I remember being stunned to learn, back in some art history class, that all those gleaming white marble statues - the David, Venus de Milo, etc. - had all once been brightly paint.  Discovering Photoshop’s ability to turn color photos into black and white images begging to be painted was no less staggering.  So using  that application I “erased” various portions of the image. I then created designs for those newly vacated spaces which were again “filled-in” with a variety of paints and markers. I realize the capabilities of various graphics applications currently far outstrip my imagination, but I am currently content.

I’m not sure that the gondoliers would make of what I did with their Gondolas on the Grand Canal, but I had fun! 36x12 inches.

I’m not positive where in Venice this is. I’ll check. OK, 24x36 inches. “To the right when you cross that big bridge.” Is about as good as we can do right now.

And then much of the silliness is mandated by artistic by the mood of the artist.

Here are a few random examples:

And of course, literally dozens more I am leaving out, although I do want to note that the Iris image right above is somewhat unique. It started as a photo that was “erased and painted” and the “rephotoshoped” that allowed me to use Photoshop’s clarity to create that very sharp-edged image.

The Resume

A somewhat artificial but traditional barrier that often stands between an artist and an audience is the resume - a paper that seeks to answer the question "What have you done for me lately?" The longer you remain in an occupation the more creative and strained the work becomes. I was going to include one of my last such compositions here as illustrative of the genre. However as that would necessitate shifting applications which has the potential to destroy everything else here, I will send in a separate message.