Barbara Mink

I'm introducing a new piece at the forthcoming State of the Art show, in conjunction with the Light in Winter festival. Flatter, less textured, more emphasis on line, but still in the relatively narrow color palette of white, black, beige, hints of red. I do love going back and forth between large and small scale as well as differences in texture and line; the one thing i don't do well is stay in one place.

The other Paris exhibit was at the Musee de quai Branley, the controversial primitive art museum near the Eiffel Tower. An exhibit called Upside down Arctic was a multimedia installation featuring fabulous masks and tiny detailed inuit sculptures and talismans, all over a thousand years old. Air conditioning and fake snow may have been a bit kitchy, but the ambient animal sounds and creaking ice made the whole thing work. Good discussion with my friend James Siegel, anthropologist, on the role of masks in ancient cultures and how they fit in (or don't) with the aesthetic of an art museum.

Sitting in CDG airport in Paris, languishing as flight home delayed five hours, a good to to reflect on some of the art experiences this past week.I was especially impressed by an exhibit of Jacques Villagle, specializes in incorporating ripped advertising posters (ripped by others) into large-scale collages with acrylic paint. In the retrospective at the Beaubourg I was really struck by one period in his output which came close to Abstract Expressionism; heavily textured paintings because of the paper and words, but pulled together with large color fields, a la Rauchengberg, Clyfford Still, Rothko. I think I'm going to try incorporating words and pictues along with the photo transfers I did last year, perhaps a good way to reinforce the texture of the acrylic medium.

Sigh. It IS odd, trying to launch a new business venture in the midst of a worldwide economic recession, but I guess one does what one must. The giclee prints on canvas I've had produced locally came out beautifully, I think; the big oils and acrylics scale down nicely, and they ARE an affordable alternative to the originals. But people are understandably wary of laying out money right now, so... we'll see.

It's hard to believe almost a month has passed since my last post during Art Trail; everything was subsumed bythe excitement and triumph of the election. Now that I can think of other things, I'm thinking about the different attractions of abstract and representational painting. I do love realistic renderings of people and still life arrangements; but I really enjoy the freedom and complexity of abstract improvisation. The materials take on an interesting new role , more like a partner than a medium to be bent to your will. The resulting layers of color and texture are fun to explore over and over again; a different experience as a viewer, and certainly a different process as a painter.

I was sitting at State of the Art Gallery yesterday, during five hours of pouring rain, and was amazed at how many people stopped by despite the bad weather. The Ithaca Art Trail show, which comes down next week, is a particularly good one, I think. It's amazing how many people live and work as artists here without an official gallery affiliation. Ithaca's central isolation and small population is a challenge, but it's a great place to produce; and a great place for people to visit. Many of the member sales in the gallery are to visitors from elsewhere. High hopes for my new online venture!

I grew up as my father’s painting assistant, helping lug his huge Expressionist canvases to various shows, going with him to sketch at Niagara Falls, minding the booth at the outdoor art fairs where he exhibited his work. I loved painting and sculpting myself but I didn’t get a lot of encouragement; art was my father’s domain. As I moved into adolescence I found different creative outlet for myself; acting in theatre, radio and on television; making jewelry; sewing clothes; painting glassware. Ten years ago I woke up on a January morning with the irresistible urge to paint. I don’t know where it came from or why it showed up on that particular day, but before the urge could pass I reached for my young daughter’s watercolors and began painting. I went through an entire pad of paper and that was that. I was painting. My first formal art class was in botanical illustration, which was wonderful for teaching me about close rendering, but I found that I couldn’t keep my irises on the page

Coming soon ! I will be offering high-quality, limited-edition Giclee prints on canvas of selected paintings on my site. If you are interested in a particular image please let me know and I will include it in the process. These limited-edition prints will be offered in a variety of sizes at affordable prices. I have hesitated to offer prints of my oil and acrylic paintings, but the new advances in ink-jet printing has convinced me that offering high-quality prints on canvas would be a way to make artwork more accessible, without devaluing the original work. Buying a limited-edition giclee print is considered investing in fine art. If you're wondering whether to buy an original oil or acrylic painting or a print, my feeling is this: if you feel strongly about being part of the contemporary art scene and want to have art works you can hand down to your children, buying an original makes the most sense. If you cannot afford it,and you still want to have a piece of art in your home

10/18/2008 I was very touched yesterday at Art Trail to have a dear friend say how she had felt a real sense of loss when I stopped doing watercolor flowers and moved to abstract oils and acrylics, but now she loves the abstracts as well. This is someone who is much more comfortable in the representational world, so that ability to broaden one's appreciation meant a lot to me. It also fits in with my philosophy about moving forward with painting rather than repeating whatever is succesful ad infinitum. It's scary, but I do believe that if we don't experiment we never grow.

10/13/2008 Two interesting questions kept coming up during this weekend's Art Trail: " where do your images come from" and " when do you know it's done?" Knowing when a painting is done is a common question whether you do representational or abstract art, but it does seem more relevant for abstract art, since there is nothing in the physical world I'm trying to mirror. For me the answer is as broad as the question; it's more an intuitive sense that the balance of line, colors, defined shapes, layers of textures, all feel right and in proportion. Sometimes I think a painting is done before it really is. When that happens I go back and either add or radically change the whole thing, but I can never really judge until I've left it for a while.

Art trail has become as exciting as the start of school used to be when I was a kid. For two weekends in October more than fifty artists open their homes and studios to complete strangers. Many people come from around the region and just browse, reveling in the chance to see how art gets made, or where it originates. Others come specifically to buy, knowing that this critical mass of availability is a unique opportunity. Whatever the motivation, it's totally fun.

But not really, I suppose. I've been actively painting for ten years, but this is the first time I've written a blog and reconfigured my website for online sales (www.barbaramink.com) . Ironic, of course, now that we're entering what could prove to be an economic disaster; but I do think that one of the things that makes us human is a love for beauty and a need to fill our nests with things that make us feel happy. Paintings certainly do that, so here's hoping.