Revisions

I rarely go back into a piece with changes once I consider it finished. I am usually on to something else and can easily distance myself from a painting that only days or weeks before had me completely captivated. 10 years ago I finished an 18 piece series called Red, Yellow, Blue. I remember that I had to quickly frame the work for an exhibition and have shown it several places since.

Recently, I was asked to donate a piece of art to the Fayetteville Museum of Art for a fund raising event. As I looked over my work, trying to decide which to give, I suddenly wanted to rework a few of the pieces from Red, Yellow, Blue. This series was an exercise in color recollection in which I paired colors and their given name with other colors to see if it stirred any other emotion than is typically expected. For example, I painted the word Red in a blue color. I worked with spray paint, acrylic paint, and charcoal and used all three primary colors (Red in red, red in yellow, red in blue, etc. as well as several small study blocks). The result was pretty cool, especially the pieces in which I used charcoal to bring out specific parts, blurring the lines between foreground and background. At the time, I decided to leave a few without any charcoal added. Over the years I always consider those the "weaker" pieces.

So a couple of days ago I decided to revise one called "Red/Blue". I'm pleased with the end result. Perhaps this will be the piece I donate to the museum...


Before


Reworking...


...reworking...


Finished

Fayetteville Observer News Article

Bitter Fruits Exhibition

Bitter Fruits
A study of woman's role as object in art
At Altered Esthetics

Please join us for the opening reception
Friday February 1, 7pm - 10pm.

The history of art has largely been written by works that resulted from and served to perpetuate the male gaze. These works tell us a great deal about the roles women have played in art and society, and also about how women are viewed today. Altered Esthetic's February exhibition, Bitter Fruit, will examine how contemporary artists--both male and female--deal with this shared history, and where it has left us. We hope to illuminate the issue through a selection of work that comments not only upon this history, but upon the possibility of a future located outside the conventional narrative history of art.
The Bitter Fruits exhibit will feature sculpture, painting, photography, and performance art from over 80 artists.

Show Runs: January 31 - February 28, 2008 at:
Altered Esthetics Gallery,
1224 Quincy Street NE
Minneapolis MN 55413
612.378.8888

Image features: "Nude" by Leslie Pearson, 24"x 36", Charcoal on paper, 1998

See the on-line show

Saatchi Online? Oh, why not...

Last Thursday morning I sipped my coffee and flipped through the 2007 Coeur d'Alene Art Auction catalog. My father-in-law is a collector of Western, Wildlife, and Sporting art and often deals with this particular auction, which is held annually in Reno. Although I have never really been interested in this genre (artists who specialize in cowboy, Indian, pioneer, cattle and horse subjects), it's an unbelievably profitable market. As I listened to my father-in-law talk about living artists such as Robert Abbett, whose work sells for $30,000. to $40,000. and Roy Anderson, whose paintings fetch $40,000. to $50,000....and others who sell for much more; I could literally feel myself being sucked into a spiral of negative thoughts..."you are a nobody...you are a child playing a game among masters...you are lucky if you get a show at the local arts council...your annual sells are only $xxxx...you call yourself a professional artist?"
Then, like an angel, my mother-in-law pops in from the kitchen with a newspaper clipping from the Wall Street Journal. A Work in Progress: Buying Art on the Web -- Saatchi Online Offers a View of Nascent Internet Market; Seeing 500 Artists in a Night.
Having lived in England, I am familiar with the well-known art collector and the influence he has in the art world. As I read the article, a load lifted from my shoulders; I was no longer a nobody among masters, I was a nobody among many other nobodies just like me, trying like heck to make it as an artist. The following is an excerpt from the article:
"In August, the staff asked a randomly selected 1,000 artists on the site how much art they sell on the site per week; the 41% who responded said their combined sales amounted to $30,000 a week. Last month, his staff [Saatchi] posed the same question to a different group of 2,000 artists on the site; about a quarter replied, and their combined weekly sales topped $88,280.
...Regine Freise, a set and stage designer from Berlin, says her realistic portraits had been turned down by at least 40 Berlin galleries before she posted a few on Saatchi's site in May. Within 24 hours, she had sold one, "Teabreak," for around $1,300. She has since sold two other paintings to a Swiss collector, bringing her art sales on the site so far this year to about $5,600, up from "none" the year before. "I'm just amazed," she says.
Nicole Asendorf, a recent art-school graduate from Cottekill, N.Y., posted her work on Saatchi's site over a year ago. In March, she found her first taker: Ugallery.com, another online art-selling site, which has since signed her to a contract to use their site to sell her abstract paintings for anywhere from $20 to $1,200 apiece. (Ugallery gets an undisclosed cut of her proceeds.) Total sales so far: just over $1,200 for 54 paintings, she says, adding, "I just want my stuff to sell."

It wasn't so much the hope of actually selling my work through Saatchi that made me smile, it was the feeling of comradery among emerging artists. Needless to say, I have hitched my wagon to the Saatchi website: Saatchi Gallery Online. What do I have to lose?

I'll have some mash potatoes, some corn, a wing, and...2 tickets to Rome

At this time last year I was in Italy visiting my friend Katrina Nichols. She was stationed at the Army base in Vicenza as a broadcast journalist with AFN. We started our day at the chow hall for a Thanksgiving feast like I'd never seen before, complete with an ice sculpture and a live turkey.




By the end of the day we were walking the streets of Rome, taking in sights like the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain. As an artist and life long student of art history, I was most thankful that day for an opportunity to lay eyes on two truly amazing masterpieces by Caravaggio at the Cerasi Chapel of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo. These were The Conversion on the Way to Damascus, painted in 1601, and The Crucifixion of St. Peter (1600).

The Conversion depicts the moment recounted in Chapter 9 of Acts when Saul, soon to be the apostle Paul, fell on the road to Damascus. He heard the Lord say "I am Jesus, whom you persecute, arise and go into the city."

For the Birds, Fine Art Takes a Back Seat to Sign Painting

by Bette R. Than-you,



With December's studio rent due and a shortage of art sales, North Carolina artist Leslie Pearson resorts to sign painting for a little extra cash.

"I'm a little shell shocked," admitted Pearson, who usually boasts sales of $100,000.00 or more annually. "I expected my solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to do a little better than it did; most of my shows in New York sell out during the opening reception."

While Pearson has been incorporating bird imagery in many of her recent paintings and mixed media works, these signs might just put her over the edge. She's painting four, 7ft Big Birds for some new daycare centers opening up in the Fayetteville, NC area.

"When I got the call about doing the signs I had to laugh," said Pearson. "I mean, the thought of painting so many life size Big Birds is pretty funny. I thought it was a prank call at first; believe me, I nearly peed my pants. But when the daycare administrator told me about all those little kids who kept getting lost on their way to the Rumpus Room, I knew I had to do something to help."





In the dog-eat-dog, competitive art world, it's rare to find such a high profile artist who will do this kind of "good will" work. In this case, Pearson is no different; like I said, she was short a couple hundred bucks for her studio rent.

If you or anyone else you know would like to have some signs painted, Pearson can be contacted at..., oh, excuse me, Pearson has asked that she never be contacted about painting any more signs.



Editors note: The Onion will not be held responsible for any medical expenses associated with readers who ask Pearson if she can tell them how to get to Sesame Street.