Wrapping up 2011

Radishes, 20 x 20 cm, oil on canvas, ©2011 Julie Galante. [SOLD]

2011 has been a wonderful year for me and my art career. I’ve painted more than ever. My paintings have found their way onto the walls of so many new collectors. I’m ending the year full of ideas for future projects. Things are good!

For 2012, I’m looking forward to keeping up my momentum in the studio. They say that an artist should have three exhibits’ worth of work on hand at any given time, and next year I’d like to actually do that. I’m also planning to explore new avenues for exhibiting and selling my paintings both in person and online. I’m excited to see where my art takes me next.

I am so grateful to all of you who have visited this blog and followed my progress during this past year. Thank you! And I’ll be back with more paintings and posts after the holidays.

Tags: daily painting, oils, painting, still life, thoughts, vegetables

On being a doer, and an attribute portrait in progress

Woman with MacBook Air (work in progress), 80 x 60 cm, oil on canvas, ©2011 Julie Galante

I am loving my current project, a big series of portraits with modern technology attributes. The first four or five portraits should be complete and up on my website within a week or so. My goal is to have at least twelve finished by the end of August. This will be a stretch, but I’m optimistic that I can make it work.

I started thinking about people I call ‘stallers’ and ‘doers’ during a recent meeting with my creative group. I have met a lot of creative people in my life. The big difference between those who are wildly successful and those who aren’t has very little to do with talent or the quality of the work they’re capable of; the difference usually lies between stallers and doers. Stallers can have great artistic talent, but that doesn’t really matter, because they don’t produce much art. What they do produce, few people see. And when it comes to pursuing ways to show or sell their art? Forget it. Stallers are too busy coming up with excuses to take advantage of opportunities that fall in their lap, much less opportunities that they themselves create.

Doers, on the other hand, are less talk and more action. Their artwork gets shown because they find places to show it. Their novels get published because they go out and find publishers. Their freelance careers are flush with business because they hang out their shingles and find ways to attract clients. I love doers. Stallers make me kind of crazy.

In my creative group, we have both kinds of people. The doers set themselves bi-weekly and yearly goals that are ambitious but attainable, and then they go out and exceed these goals with infectious enthusiasm. The stallers set goals that are theoretically easy to reach, but they won’t achieve them anyway. The one thing they produce that is elaborate and thought-out is their list of excuses.

The good news is this: stallers can absolutely become doers. Most of us have probably gone through a period of being a staller in our lives. What matters is how long we let it go on. I have definitely spent time as a staller, but today I’m a doer.

Are you a staller or a doer?

Tags: attributes, oils, painting, thoughts, work in progress

Flesh, portraits, and Lucian Freud

Detail of a work in progress, oil on canvas, ©2011 Julie Galante.

Another big-name artist died this week: Lucian Freud. Figurative painters are in the minority in today’s art world, especially ones creating truly new, interesting things. I tend to seek them out and study their work; they comfort me against fears that nothing new can be done with paint and a visual reference. Freud is especially inspiring in that way: his portraits and nudes depict such a a glorious, unique duality of fleshiness and globs-of-paintiness.

Just last month I spent a good deal of time ogling one of his self-portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

(As an aside: I really wish more countries had national portrait galleries.)

(As another aside: Did you know that Freud holds the record for highest price paid for a painting by a living artist?)

I have read a lot of obituaries and recaps of Freud’s career since his death. They’ve mostly made me wish to be an artist who can afford to pay models properly and have them sit for extended periods of time. Another effect they’ve had is on the skin I’ve painted this week: I’ve noticed a bit of a turn towards the fleshy in my portraits-in-progress (of which there are currently about six). I’m not exactly sure how this fits in with my style. I’ll be sure to show you the results.

Tags: art world, news, portraiture, thoughts, work in progress

Dreaming up some art influences

Two paint tubes, two brushes | 15 x 20 cm | oil on canvas | €85 | ©2011 Julie Galante

Last night I dreamed I was interviewing for something art-related. The interviewer (a stern older man) asked me what artists influenced me. I struggled to answer this, tossing out the first names of artists that came to my head, even though they weren’t amongst my favorites, and in some cases I couldn’t picture their work at all. At one point I kept saying “Peter Fischli and David Weiss” over and over, even though I knew it was the wrong answer. Then I finally stumbled onto a better answer: Giorgio de Chirico. I started describing his work and what parts appealed to me. (Oh yeah, and this was all in German, and I didn’t know the German word for “mannequin” but the interviewer corrected me, but now I forget what he told me the word was. I wonder if it was the right one.)

The interviewers seemed pleased with my answer, and told me it was good that I had stopped telling them what I thought they wanted to hear. I thought that was odd, given that my earlier attempts to name my influential artists were bad not because I wanted to tell them what they wanted to hear, but rather because I couldn’t think of anyone else.

At least I wasn’t naked.

So, does my subconscious think the art world wants me to be more like Fischli and Weiss, when really I want to be more like De Chirico? Yeah, that sounds about right.

Artists: What artists do you list amongst your influences? And do you have weird stressful art world dreams, or am I the only one?

Tags: daily painting, oils, painting, still life, thoughts

A series is born

So just the other day I was whining about how hard it is for me to work in series.

Work in Progress: Scott with MacBook Pro.©2011 Julie Galante.

Now suddenly my studio is full of related paintings in progress, and I have six more models lined up. I do believe I’ve found myself a series.

I’ve been thinking about traditional portraiture and the use of attributes for a while now, and all these thoughts finally percolated into an idea I wanted to pursue. I am really enjoying the the focus and excitement I feel as I define the project and put together this group of paintings. So this is why artists work in series!

Tags: attributes, oils, painting, portrait, portraiture, thoughts, work in progress

On portraits and attributes

Jessica, 60 x 80 cm, acrylic on canvas, ©2007 Julie Galante.

I’ve been thinking a lot about attributes recently. In portraiture, an attribute is an object included to help the viewer identify the subject, or to communicate something about the subject. Artists’ self portraits often include paint brushes or a palette, for example. Catholic saints are often recognizable because of their attributes, such as St. John the Baptist’s hairy cloak or the many arrows poking through St. Sebastian’s body. In traditional portraiture, a scholarly lady might be depicted with her hand on a stack of correspondence, a sailor with his arm resting atop a giant anchor. Attributes can be subtle or obvious, literal or symbolic.

Jen, 40 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, ©2010 Julie Galante.

While strolling through the academic portraits in Munich’s Neue Pinakothek recently, I started thinking about how I could incorporate attributes into my own work. With few exceptions, my portraits tend to depict the subject alone and out of context. I rarely include a distinguishable background, and even clothing details are usually left out. If I were to set out to include this traditional part of portraiture in my new paintings, how would I do it? Would I be literal, choosing an object from the subject’s daily life? Would I let my subjects choose their own attributes, or would I assign them myself? Would I make these attributes about description, aspiration, or something else entirely?

What if I just chose the object that a person spends the most time with? For many of us in today’s world, that would end up being a piece of technology: a cell phone, a laptop, an ipod. But even for those most connected to their devices of choice, would this be the item you chose to define yourself? Could an ipad be symbolic of something more noble or abstract, such as a love of learning, or games, or communication?

What about you? If I were to paint your portrait, what would your attribute be?

Tags: attributes, painting, portrait, portraiture, thoughts

Puttering around the studio

This has happened before.

I have a big, several-month expanse of time in the studio ahead of me. Time to buckle down, get productive, take my art seriously. I’ve been playing around long enough; it’s time to make a Series Of Work. Time to paint a bunch of big canvases, sticking to a similar subject, or a similar theme, or hell even similar colors might do it. All real artists work in series. Time for you to start.

Like a stubborn child I resist. I start lots of different unrelated canvases, different sizes, colors, feelings. I re-work a small self-portrait, paint some dark red cherries, and start four different-sized canvases with scenes from unrelated places. Or I don’t paint at all. But you need a series. How are you supposed to be taken seriously as an artist if you don’t produce many paintings that look eerily similar to each other?

Time and again, pressuring myself to produce a series gets me nowhere. I can’t decide if this is because A) I am being too easy on myself, undisciplined, letting my fear of failure stop me from doing what I should be, or B) I am being too hard on myself, and the way I work now is the way I work best, and it’s the way I should continue to work.

The only thing I have figured out is that this approach isn’t going to start working for me any time soon. So what’s the alternative? Spend the summer painting any and every idea that catches my fancy? Try it all and see what I end up with? I can’t decide if that’s a good idea or not.

But it sure sounds fun.

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PS – My first-ever newsletter is slated to be sent out next week. Sign up for my mailing list now to make sure you receive it. It’s sure to become a collector’s item.

Tags: thoughts

Happy creative 2011

Christmas market at the Chinese Tower, Munich | 18 x 24 cm | oil on canvas | @2010 Julie Galante. [SOLD]

Happy new year! I had intended to start my new year by diligently posting my art goals for the year, but a couple crazy things came up this week and that just didn’t happen. Best laid plans, yada yada yada. I’ve basically come to the conclusion that instead of goals for the year, at this point I need more short-term goals for my art. And my first short-term goal was to spend an intensive month in the studio, building up my inventory. I was all set to make this my January.

And then a few days ago we got a phone call that resulted in some last-minute travel booking (one of my most honed skills, I must say). Suddenly, I will be spending most of January in Scotland. I am thrilled about this, especially since I’ve never been there before. But it does take me away from my studio.

How are you spending your January?

Tags: Christmas, Christmas market, cityscape, daily painting, Germany, Munich, oils, painting, thoughts

Easels and organizing

I had my parents bring me some small display easels from the US (all of the ones I’ve found for sale so far in Germany are ugly). They are perfect for displaying my daily paintings done on canvas board and hard board, which will come in handy in my studio (collectors often visit so I like to keep as much work on display as possible) and for a home show I have coming up in a couple months. Now to get my hands on a few dozen more, and I’ll be all set.

As I mentioned in my last post, this week is all about wrapping up 2010 and getting excited for 2011. I have been reorganizing my studio, gessoing over some old canvases, assessing my inventory, and thinking about my priorities for the coming year.

I think I’ve decided that January will be dedicated to some pretty intense studio time (interrupted, as always, with a little travel), since one of my ongoing excuses for not showing my work is the fact that I don’t really have a complete body of work on hand to show. I am not good at sticking to the same subject matter for long enough to fill a gallery. In 2010 I focused more on small daily paintings; while I want to continue making them in 2011, I also want to refocus on getting a group of larger cityscapes done.

What are you up to this week between holidays?

Tags: thoughts

To join or not to join

Since visiting Munich’s new Brandhorst Museum this weekend, I’ve been trying to justify buying myself a membership to the Munich art museums. For €90 you get a year pass to several of Munich’s best art museums (plus a couple in surrounding towns, as well).

Without the pass, I am unlikely to spend €90 on admission to these museums in the next year. But with it, I will be incentivized to go to them more often, in order to make sure I get my money’s worth. And wouldn’t it be great to have an excuse to go to the museum more often?

Do you have a museum membership? If so, tell me how wonderful it is to help me justify this purchase…

Tags: museums, thoughts