Art Stuff Newsletter

the art newsletter about YOU....

OK, let's dive right into the next 7 web sites. If you haven't shared your web site with the rest of us send it to me and I guarantee it will be in the next newsletter.

Web Sites

Let's start off with the unusual oil and pastel paintings of Fort Lauderdale artist Greg Little.

I met this guy Karl Shefelman in the dog run the other day. A film maker and damn good draftsman who's worked for some of the top film producers in the business doing these things called story boards .Check him out here.

Karen Miller paints the countryside around her - in this case the beautiful landscape of northern Colorado. On her site there is a link to a children's book she wrote and illustrated.

Carole Cooke also paints the Colorado landscape. But she lives in Pagosa Springs and paints the glorious mountains down there.

This must be old home coming day or something. I've got yet another Colorado artist. Here's a guy I've known for 20 years - Stephen Day.

One of the top figurative artists in the country is living right here in NYC. The well known Eric Fischl.

I've always loved the abstract collage works of Texas artist Mary Wilbanks.

Miscellaneous

Jon Kalish of NPR interviewed me a few weeks ago about "Artists Make Money By Forgoing Traditional Galleries". Here's a link to that interview.You can either read it or click on a link there to hear it.

I just got back from the Francis Bacon show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (yes I left my dog home for 2 1/2 hours). One of the images that I found most interesting was a photo of his studio. Think you're messy? Check this out. I also learned that he painted exclusively from photographs. Hated having people in his studio. If you've seen his work it's pretty apparent that he didn't just copy the photos but put much of his imagination into those paintings.

Julian Schnabel has a huge building called the Palazzo Chupi in the West Village a couple of blocks from where we live. That huge red building is his. He was trying to sell two of the apartments in that building for around $30 million each and had no luck so he decided to try and sell both for $30 million! Another factoid: apparently he's a bit claustrophobic. So he took the huge freight elevator in the building and decked it out as an apartment. Why? Just in case the elevator ever got stuck and he had to stay inside for awhile.

The idea occurred to me one night to offer a two for one special also. This had nothing to do with Schnabel's offering and I'm not sure why that idea popped into my head when it did, but I decided to act on it. I made the offer on the Teresa Vito Bordeaux workshop and the response was incredible - and still is. This means that if two people come to the workshop together, whether painters or not, the first person pays full cost and the second one is free! Well, almost free. Check out that page and read about the details. Only a couple of rooms left. Three days are scheduled out of town as painting and/or touring days: Medoc, St. Emilion and St. Estephe. Beautiful villages and outrageous wines!

Patricia Andre, who just happens to be coming on the Bordeaux trip, is the inventor of the View Catcher, a tool for the studio painter and especially the plein air painter. You can see it here and/or email her. It's incredibly helpful for composition design when you're outside being assaulted by a million competing images.

Here's the first paragraph of a story that appeared in the newspaper a few weeks ago: "A former art dealer to the stars has been slapped with new criminal charges - including ripping off the estate of actor Robert de Niro's father." I placed the word 'new' in italics because this gallery owner was also accused back in March of scamming millions from investors and consignors. to continue with the article "the latest victims include Robert de Niro Sr, and artist who prosecutors said was stiffed out of more than $1 million when Salander-O'Reilly Galleries pocketed money from sold paintings that should have gone to his estate." Anyway, the gallery pleaded not guilty so we'll see what happens. Famed Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said: "the moral of the story is, be careful who you consign your artwork to".

Here's a site that show lots of de Niro Sr's abstract expressionist works. Don't forget to click on the images to see larger versions.

artist quotes

Marge Levine (no relation) tells me that her favorite quote is from Jean Parrish: "I do the best I can but some
paintings just bark at me. The dogs always sell first."

Speaking of Francis Bacon: "The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery".

Here's a heck of a quote from Max Beckmann: " My heart beats more for a raw, average vulgar art, which doesn't live between sleepy fairy-tale moods and poetry but rather concedes a direct entrance to the fearful, commonplace, splendid and the average grotesque banality in life".

William Blake: "I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me".

Odilon Redo:; "While I recognize the necessity for a basis of observed reality - true art lies in a reality that is felt".

Andrew Wyeth: "Artists today think of everything they do as a work of art. It is important to forget about what you are doing.. then a work of art may happen".

Phil Levine Workshops, Inc.
69 bank Street #102. NY, NY 10014
phone: 212-414-8875 fax: 866-501-6873
e-mail: philiplevine@earthlink.net