Goodbye, SaatchiArt!
#116: SaatchiArt, AI (StableDiffusion & @engineeredsoul), NFTs, Chris Drury, #CripRitual Art, Kei Imazu, Art on Paper Fair, Jaki Canterbury & SlowFiber, Jon Iragabon, & Berklee Indian Jazz Ensemble.
HERE & NOW
Closing my SaatchiArt account was complicated, because, over the last half-dozen years, I had posted 64 artworks on site. That means photographing and editing 64 images, which takes time. Then uploading each image with dimensional info, writing short descriptive paragraphs, making sure titles and dimensions are correct, filling out an online form for each artwork, categorizing and tagging it, entering shipping weights, making sure the titles are correct, deciding the sale price and margins, and finally uploading all of the info to the site. And of course they’d love it if you could also re-post and promote that on social media.
Turns out, the platform contained more information on my art than any of my desktop or cloud files did. So, before I could shut down my account, I had to download all that detail, line by line, to an Excel sheet along with each image.
Goodbye, SaatchiArt. Account closed. I sold some art there, though not a lot. Making sales on the platform is a steep, uphill climb unless you are a “branded” artist, arriving with hungry patrons in hand. I didn’t appreciate their unannounced discounts on my art. Oh, and their current preoccupation with NFTs seems questionable (see Dan Olson’s video, Line Goes Up, and Rebecca Watson’s summary in the Rabbit Hole below).
At the least, I learned a hell of a lot about properly packing and shipping art (they would dispatch a truck to my house to pick up and ship my sold art). SaatchiArt put the fear of God into me regarding packing. I learned that people in L.A. County (where its headquarters are) have much better access to proper, insurer-required packing materials than we do here in Monterey. I had to learn it all fast, learn it right, and figure out alternatives when necessary.
But after participating in several small, local art shows and open art studios, I realized that having no connection with a buyer was a big downside for me. With online art market platforms, you sell the art, get a check, but there’s a big blank nothing after that, forever. It was a learning process that makes me more appreciative of local art venues.
I don’t necessarily need to sit down and have tea and a heart-to-heart with a buyer (though that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?) But I wouldn’t mind handling that email myself. I wouldn’t mind seeing faces, and chatting for a few minutes, before bidding adieu to that art that I put my spirit and time into.
Now begins another tedious process of uploading (from my Excel sheet) selected art for sale onto my website—which, truth be known, is not the most easy site to edit. But it’s a change, and I need that.
ART
Brief update: In the near future I will be presenting a Q&A with JC Gonzalez on his Salinas Chinatown art gallery, Urban Arts Collaborative. Date TBA.
Then and Now
Prior to the pandemic, my art focused mostly on abstract shapes in bright colors, although Lachrymose, below, was one of a few in neutral shades (and pale yellow). Here are a couple pieces that I sold on SaatchiArt before 2020:
During the pandemic, I became hyper-focused on detailed line art, mostly in black and white in organic shapes reflecting physiologic or geologic processes:
Covid-19 is still with us. But today, I’m longing for some color, and I miss the squooshy feel of paint. Over the past few years, I’ve created many small works on paper that now seem like studies, perhaps for larger painted works in color. Problem: my studio is my living and work space, which doesn’t provide room for a bunch of large works.
AI?
In a completely different mode, I recently experimented with AI “art” on Stable Diffusion WebUI. The prompt was to show, in the style of Mœbius (Jean Giraud, 1938-2012), the 1960s television cartoon characters Gumby and Pokey strolling through a psychedelic landscape with a city in the distance. Clearly, Stable Diffusion has no idea who Gumby and Pokey are. It seems to be a little confused about the concept of “front” and “back,” and doesn’t capture the visual texture of Giraud’s beautiful dot-dash lines. The process was interesting—fun, even. But I’d never attempt to sell such art. I and my body remain committed to the handmade art process.
RABBIT HOLE
Dan Olson’s detailed lecture, Line Goes Up—The Problem with NFTs, provides an important argument against NFTs. See Rebecca Watson’s shorter overview in There is No Ethical Use for NFTs:
How AI is Changing Art, Creativity, and Intellectual Property, is disturbingly spoken and written by @engineeredsoul for Hackernoon. In my opinion, the Adobe Firefly video (scroll down the page) is just as disturbing.
I’m thinking about how meditation—that process of attending closely to phenomena—is teaching me about the many layers and permutations that make up human experience, including thought. Carbon Sink, by land artist Chris Drury, helps to illuminate those layers, human and otherwise, more clearly.
“A work is never just one thing; the work has layers, if you look at them and think about them, and that’s the point of this work: it has many, many layers. It’s not just about one single issue.” —Chris Drury.
Chris Drury’s Carbon Sink:
See also an article by Kate Yoder on whether galleries can do without oil funding in EO#115. Referring to the “Carbon Sink” installation at U. Wyoming, Yoder notes in Grist:
“For a prime example of how fossil fuel funding has shaped art in the U.S., just head to Wyoming, one of the country’s top oil-producing states. Local oil and gas companies and state legislators threatened to withdraw funding for the University of Wyoming over a climate change art installation on campus in 2011, writes Jeffrey Lockwood, a professor at the university, in the book Behind the Carbon Curtain.”
#CripRitual Exhibition, a multimedia art exhibit at Tangled Arts gallery (Toronto), which supports disability-identified artists and their art:
Kei Imazu and The Goddess Element in Eco Art including “a discussion of the Earth’s generative nature, colonialism, and human impact on the environment.”
NYC “Art on Paper” fair (2023) as reported in The Art Newspaper. And here is a walk-through:
Clothes are something I live with, whether they are worn daily or hidden away in closets and cabinets, like ghosts. I think of the vest my mom sewed for me, and my dad’s 50s era shirt that I wear once or twice a year. I think of clothing I once liked, but never wear: should I toss them or give them away? Jaki Canterbury at SlowFiber in downtown Monterey has other ideas that are making me think differently about clothing, accountability, and fashion. I look forward to checking out this local hive of creativity:
SOUNDINGS
Warning: I am about to get lost in a rabbit hole of jazz, and I’m not sure how many issues it will take to get this out of my system . . .
Filipino American jazz tenor sax artist Jon Iragabon, “the subverter,” is not afraid to enter the chaos:
Dr. Jazz interviews Jon Irabagon:
One of those performances that can rightly be called “jaw-dropping” as well as joyous: Berklee Indian Jazz Ensemble performs John McLaughlin’s “5 Peace Band” featuring Shankar Mahadevan and an amazing group of musicians:
Congrats to me—I got this out before midnight! Thanks for visiting!
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