Archive for the ‘Arts’ Category
The world of arts and culture is such a vibrant and constantly evolving place that it can sometimes be difficult to keep up to speed with the latest art news and events.
New concerts, exhibitions and performances are constantly springing up, sometimes at very short notice, and if you take your eye off the ball for a second you can end up missing out on some great events.
But with the arts industry thriving and with exciting new events taking place left right and centre, how can arts lovers stay up to date with all the latest goings on?
The simple answer is to turn on your computer and get online. Indeed, there is a vast array of resources out there on the internet for arts and culture enthusiasts wishing to stay informed of all the latest developments.
The internet has totally revolutionised the arts industry, and is now the first port of call for artists looking to promote their events. It is also a fantastic way for art lovers to keep their finger on the pulse.
A huge number of websites offer up-to-date industry news and updates on new events, with many of them offering special arts calenders to keep you in touch with the areas that interest you most.
Many such sites allow you to sign up for daily, weekly or monthly newsletters which provide details of concerts and exhibitions in your area, and sometimes offer exclusive deals and information on ticket prices.
In addition, certain sites give you the chance to sign up for text message updates on the latest events. This is great if you find yourself at a loose end and need instant inspiration about which gallery or event to visit.
Social networking websites are also a fantastic platform. By ‘making friends’ with your favourite venues and arts venues, you can get the inside track on all the latest events, including lesser-known ones that you might otherwise never hear about.
Podcasts are also an excellent tool, and many venues now use these as a way of speaking directly to their clients. For art lovers, podcasts are great because they are usually free to download, regularly updated and provide all kinds of interesting information about the latest news and events in the flourishing arts industry.
Art fairs are taking place all over the country, and are especially popular during the summer months. Affordable Art Fairs is a contemporary art fair founded by Will Ramsay in 1999. The aim of the fair is to make contemporary art accessible to everyone, not just millionaires and the well off. In 1996, Mr Ramsay opened ‘Will’s Art Warehouse’ in south west London to bridge the increasing interest in contemporary art and the London gallery scene.
By concentrating on relatively unknown artists not carrying a premium for reputation, the gallery was able to offer works from £50 – £2,500 from a stable of over 150 artists. The response to Will’s Art Warehouse encouraged him to take his approach to the next level, and in October 1999, he launched the first Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park. 10,000 visitors took advantage of the ease of buying, breadth of choice, affordable prices and user-friendly approach.
Will launched a second event in Battersea Park, London in 2001 to showcase the Spring Collection, with different artists from the previous collection. The art fairs now fetch over 23,000 people in London to enjoy the art exhibited by 120 British and international galleries. In the same year, Mr Ramsay launched a fair in the West Country and it now takes place every May in Bristol.
Affordable Art Fairs, or AAF as it has been branded, has also become something of a global phenomenon with fairs taking place in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, New York and Singapore, while affiliate events include Sydney and Melbourne. Globally, 650,000 people have visited an Affordable Art Fair, buying over £100 worth million of art.
The invention of the computer is perhaps the critical achievement in the technological evolution of the human race. Through computing (and the internet) we have brought the world – and the peoples of the world – to our very fingertips. And the power and flexibility of computing has adapted itself to every application—especially entertainment: Just as the television rapidly became “must-have” entertainment in every home, computers have become our most engaging and captivating playmates.
Almost from the very beginning, computer games have played a crucial role in bringing astounding computing power to the common people. The yearning for better entertainment has fuelled a race for not only more powerful CPUs every year, but more sophisticated graphics and sound cards—both of which are necessary for the best and most immersive experience in what are increasingly complex and realistic game worlds. Even so, rarely can contemporary hardware realize the latest game’s audio and visual potential to the fullest.
(That said, there is an interesting movement among very small ‘casual games’ such as those produced by SandLot Games, to combine an excellent game with excellent game art, but without requiring the staggering computing power necessary for 3D animation, thousands of details, and attention to physics. An excellent example is Tradewinds Caravans, which uses a library of hundreds of beautifully illustrated male and female characters).
Increasingly sophisticated computer graphics and animation software and technology have also allowed man to realize their flights of fancy in a way that was once the sole province of movies and television, and share it worldwide. Early game art involved static pieces of art, little more than scanned artwork to represent people, places, and things– though the artwork is of much higher quality and produced by veteran artists under strict art direction (such as Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and especially Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI–which boasts almost 1,000 beautiful historically inspired illustrations of male and female warriors, courtiers, and commoners in a feudal China setting). Since then, video games have quickly taken imagination and player engagement to new levels with lifelike animation and attention to light, shadows, gravity, and other laws of physics.
Science fiction and fantasy has always captivated adults and children alike, and video game makers have cashed in on the ability to vividly represent in digital art and digital animation what was once described in words and left to vague imagination. Where once words in books had to excite our minds to fill in the blanks, now computer games challenge us to take in all the sights and sounds. And the truly original and innovative game art and concepts in some games expose us to new sights and even new ways of thinking.
Fantasy stories have enthralled us for centuries with magical and supernatural themes, creatures, and settings; and timeless favorites drawn from mythology and classic stereotypes continue to be re-envisioned in countless ways by different artists and in different games, making the familiar at once identifiable yet new again and again.
With the computer to bring fantasy artwork to life with digital art, video game makers were quick to realize that all the beautiful and incredible artwork could only be enhanced with compelling, touching, thrilling stories. And with the interactivity a computer allows, game players can feel they are part of the story, and indeed determining its outcome with not just choices, but with varying combinations of strategy, strategic and fast thinking, experimentation and problem solving, and of course (but not always) good hand-eye coordination – typically with escalating levels of challenge, forcing the player to grow and improve.
Throughout this evolution, however, the highest quality in digital art and sound for the most vivid experience of fantasy artwork and fantasy game worlds has been foremost. Perhaps as never before, people judged books by their cover, so to speak.
Storytelling combined with increasingly realistic digital reproductions of human protagonists have tried to catch up with the sense of identification and investment we have when we are caught up with the characters in a well-written novel. The lifelike characters – how they move, how their faces display emotion, how they wince with pain – all contribute to an immense involvement on the player’s part, and many games were quick to adopt a first-person point of view for even more immersion when 3D became mainstream.
And combined with the interactivity and choice available in computer games, people could participate in a story as never before. In such games as Heroes of Might and Magic V, players from all over the world engage in discussions of how to best ‘build’ a powerful or simply interesting character, combining considerations such as game play strategies and innovative and unexpected combinations. And some games offer much more choice in how the heroes develop, sometimes orders of magnitude more. All further enhanced by dynamically changing the character in the game with artwork for weapons, amour, and other equipment.
As in movies and television, art and story direction is an invisible component that affects us immensely even though we may not be consciously aware. Even in the early days of computing, the better games showed strong art direction, and with storytelling and the visual experience increasingly important, the art departments of larger video game companies are typically overworked and must outsource simpler or less critical artwork. Just as on the static covers of fantasy novels you can expect to see fantasy art involving unrealistically gorgeous and buxom women, and ruggedly handsome men with flat abs. In a computer game there will need to be more variety to populate the game world with more than just heroic-looking protagonists, however, and in fact, in some games (such as Spellforce), players can choose an “atypical” look for the character they will control. In Spellforce, the game developers were careful to add a mix so that your hero can be old, scarred, and even balding – not necessarily the most traditional look in a starring role – adding to the sense of control, involvement, and “ownership” of the game experience.
Even if you do not play computer games, you can still at least experience and enjoy the beautiful artwork through screenshots and fantasy art wallpapers. Women fantasy art predominate, of course, but also popular are “cool” looking characters of all sorts — typically characters decked out in a stylish combination of fantasy weapons and armor. And as with contemporary fantasy artwork that finds its way onto the covers of novels, there’s a gratuitous amount of bare skin, enough to be sexually evocative, and sometimes just a skimpy piece of clothing away from soft pornography.
Art news isn’t featured much but now with the election in process, whichever party leads the next government, the key issue for arts will be funding as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport faces budget cuts in 2011-12.<br><br>
With the UK general election taking place on 6 May, the governing Labour Party’s election manifesto includes detailed commitments to the arts, unlike that of the centre-right Conservative opposition. Indeed it figures as one of the “50 steps” which the Labour Party promises for a “fairer” Britain—the summary of 50 national commitments which conclude the manifesto.<br><br>
The party states it will give “operational independence for major museums and galleries, with more lottery funding returning to the arts, sport and culture after 2012″. To implement this, new legislation will ensure “managerial and financial autonomy” for national museums.
In a surprise move, Labour also says in the manifesto it will “give public institutions new rights to borrow works of art from the national collection, so that more people can benefit from access to our national artistic heritage.” This is a new commitment, and although very vaguely worded, it refers to the Government Art Collection. The manifesto also includes a renewed commitment to free admission to national museums.
The Conservatives have only a single sentence on the arts in their manifesto. This promises that the proportion of National Lottery funding going to the arts will be reinstated to the original 20%. Previously, the Conservatives had also promised more independence for national museums, although this does not figure in their manifesto.
The Liberal Democratic manifesto is the most detailed of any of the three on the arts. It promises to “maintain free entry” to national museums, to “open up the Government Art Collection for greater public use,” and to “reform” the National Lottery by changing the tax system to benefit the arts.
However, whichever party firms the next government on 7 May, the key issue for arts will be funding. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will almost certainly face budget cuts in 2011-12, and the question then will be how DCMS will share out to the organisations which it funds.
Inspired Art are delighted to inform you that Simon Pontin has joined our team! An artist with an already established strong track record and making some fantastic art to buy online, Simon is a great addition to the team.
We are always on the lookout for new artists who will inspire you to buy online art and in Simon we are certain you will love the quality of his work. It is our goal to give our customers the opportunity to buy original art online, and from a trusted gallery, that is why we work very hard to ensure you have the best artists available to select from.
A professional artist and also having been a professional musician as a bass player it is clear that artistry and creation is in his heart. With collections in Greece, South Africa and Edinburgh the worldwide appeal of Simon’s work is clear for all to see. Currently he has work on display at Inspired Art and also in New York.
“My aim as an artist is to produce as much quality, experience based artworks as possible. I loosely adhere to the principles of Transpersonal Art. I believe that art is, in its archetypal form, a means for Man to transcend the obvious and the physical, manifesting the spiritual reality of himself. I believe that through the process of creating my work, and the materials and meditation employed, a transmutation of substance occurs. This process is a spiritual journey, a process of cleansing and healing that even though mostly misunderstood by myself, leaves me with a sense of connection to the world around me, and a general feeling of well being.”
Simon’s work is in high demand and this is partly down to the process used to create his work “Some pieces evolve over many months, even years, the ageing and deterioration of substances and materials manifesting the creative process over time.” If you want to view Simon’s work in more detail then you can do so here Simon Pontin Art.
Everyone at Inspired Art would like to make Simon feel very welcome in our team and we hope our Inspired Art Club members are as happy with Simon’s work as we are.
Join the Inspired Art Club? Join The Club Members of the club receive regular updates on Inspired Art and the new artists we have onboard.
Vesna Milinkovic is the creative mind behind the abstract art pieces that don the walls of the Vesna Art Gallery in London. A visit to this gallery will certainly give you some much needed inspiration and be an experience that is uplifting to the soul; a healthy dose of these is most welcome in this day and age. Better yet, especially if you are not a Londoner, you can invest in one of her paintings on canvas and have this liven up a designated wall in your home.
Spiritual art Vesna has been in the making for the past quarter of a century. This self-taught London artist has been steadily producing abstract art pieces that are themed on love and freedom. Her art captures the very essence of her life’s passions and feelings. With every stroke of the brush Vesna progressively creates a work of art that addresses a facet of human spirituality. Regardless of the individual interpretation one thing is for certain – your eyes will be treated to visual delight and your soul will be uplifted by the experience.
What is it about spiritual abstract art that makes it so effective an uplifting medium? Art, in general, is known to have a constant influence on our subconscious minds. This influence can either have a positive or negative effect on our energies depending on the type of art we are focused on. The sound conclusion from this observation is that you can only get depressed by an equally depressing art piece and vice versa. Spiritual abstract art is in itself both beautiful and uplifting and through the positive energies it helps us achieve we actually experience positivity in our well-being and health.
Luckily, the works of this London artist are not restricted to the physical Vesna Art Gallery; you can take an online visit of the same just by logging on to VesnaAbstractArt.co.uk. Here you are assured of getting the same inspiration regardless of the medium that Vesna has used to create her pieces – ink on paper, acrylic on paper, or acrylic on canvass. Not only can you view these pieces online but you can also purchase a piece or pieces that have struck a chord with your soul. The pieces can be in the form of giclee printings on canvas or created on environmentally friendly paper. In the event that you fancy purchasing a painting on canvas but feel that what’s available will be too large for the space you desire to display it on, you can conveniently customize the dimensions to your preferred size.
For an artist who has never been in a formal class to study art, Vesna Milinkovic has surely managed to muster this expressive form of abstract art in such a way as to evoke inspiration in the soul of everyone who beholds it. Spiritual art the Vesna way is a perfect blend of the artist’s ideas of freewill and liberty and the concepts of design which she incorporates from her formal training in the subject. Not only is it possible for you to experience the inspiring rewards of spiritual abstract art, you can now shop for actual pieces in an easy and convenient way. Just click here: VesnaAbstractArt.co.uk.
Nestled on the western shore of Otsego Lake – James Fenimore Cooper’s “Glimmerglass Lake” – in historic Cooperstown NY, the Fenimore Art Museum presents a perspective on the heritage and history of America through art. The beauty of the museum setting and the museum’s expansive galleries are matched by the quality of the collections it houses, including some of the nation’s finest examples of folk art; landscape, history, portrait, and genre paintings by some of the best known American artists; more than 125,000 historical photographs; and the renowned Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of Native American art.
The Fenimore Art Museum is that rare art museum where one can see diverse collections of American art in rich and eclectic exhibitions. William Sidney Mount, Thomas Cole, Gilbert Stuart, Benjamin West, E.L. Henry, Eastman Johnson, Thomas Waterman, John Wesley Jarvis, Grandma Moses and Ralph Fasanella are all represented in the museum’s holdings.
Comprising nearly 850 art objects, the Native American art collection is widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier collections of American Indian art. Representing a broad geographic range of North American Indian cultures, including Northwest Coast, Woodlands, Prairie, Plateau, Plains, Southwest, California, The Great Basin, Arctic and Subarctic, The New York Times described it as “a collection any museum in the world should envy.”
The exhibition explores the extraordinarily diverse forms of visual expression in Native American heritage. Organized by geographic culture areas, the objects were chosen both for their high artistic quality and to provide insight into the complex cultural, aesthetic and spiritual meanings embedded in the art. The objects span 20 centuries dating from pre-history to today, and celebrate the continuing vitality of Native American art.
Fenimore’s folk art collection is one of the nation’s largest and finest. Begun with extensive gifts from Stephen C. Clark, the collection includes a variety of paintings, ship figureheads, quilts, weathervanes, trade signs, cigar-store figures, carvings, and decorated stoneware, all created by American folk artists. The oldest piece in the collection, a seven-foot-long panel on which Hudson River Valley painter John Heaton depicted the Martin Van Bergen farmstead in 1733, is considered to be the earliest scene of everyday life ever painted in this country.
The fine art collection contains some of the best examples of American landscape, history, and genre painting. The works of Hudson River School painters are well represented and include Thomas Cole’s Last of the Mohicans and Asher B. Durand’s Hudson River Looking Toward the Catskills. Historical portraits include Gilbert Stuart’s Joseph Brant, Ralph Earl’s Baron Von Steuben, and Benjamin West’s Robert Fulton.
In addition to the permanent collections, the Fenimore Art Museum has won critical acclaim in recent years for its exhibitions showcasing American masters such as Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, Grandma Moses, and John Singer Sargent. The museum’s traveling exhibitions program has reached hundreds of thousands of people across the country.
Dr. Paul S. D’Ambrosio is Vice President and Chief Curator at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY
About Us:
The Art Project is based out of Vancouver, BC and was created by two guys with a passion for art and the World Wide Web. The Art Project has created an environment with the artist in mind. It is a space where artists can set their own price, submit art pieces that they choose, and control many aspects of their own content without the hassle of building their own site. The Art Project is also a place where artists are not paying high art gallery fees which in turn allows buyers to get the best possible deal on amazing art, and the artist are compensated for their talent.
The Project:
The Art Project is a project that will let the artist display their work to the world. To aid the Art Project with marketing and promotions, we have teamed up with online marketing experts Fogg Industries to give artists the greatest internet exposure possible. This project was developed by artists for artists and is a place where an artist can be in full control of their art by choosing which art pieces to display, as well as how much they wish to charge per piece.
If you would like to sell art online at the The Art Project please see the submit section of our site. Or if you are looking to buy art online check us out too!
Why Choose The Art Project?
We have several unique programs:
1) Unique homepage gallery that features 3 artists per month.
2) Gallery Events
3) Partnership with Googles Picasa and Flickr.com for maximum online exposure
Also
- Over 30,000 website hits a month
- The artist decides the price that their art is listed for
- Great section for art collectors that want to sale their collections online
- Two unique and flexible payment plans Either cheap monthly rates or 20% commission* on sold art
- Partnerships with websites such as whole9, flickr.com, picasa.com, Artists in Canada, the Art Ads Network and Art in Canada guaranteeing maximum exposure
- Amazing organic Google search rankings, many of our artists and collections are on the first page of Google!
- Manually reviewed and updated ensuring that only high quality art is submitted onto the website.
- Buyer pays the shipping so the artist does not need to worry about extra shipping fees
- Easy submission and sign up
- Updated blogging
Thank you for using our site!
*The 20% commission only applies to online sales, art displayed in gallery events are subject to high commissions based on the gallery.