Art Lovers discussion
Questions from the Met
>
YOUR Art History
date
newest »
newest »
So nobody wants to share their art life story? Well, I will start but I don’t have much of anything to say. Mine is quite boring to say the least. My parents weren’t really into art so I didn’t have any influence there, my first introduction was from my aunt who lives in Los Angeles, California when she took me to the Getty Museum when I was about 12 years old and I loved it, though I had no idea what I was looking at. I remember seeing Van Gogh’s Irises there and thinking it was beautiful. It seemed so cultured and I felt so mature and grown-up. My aunt was classy and I wanted to be more like her.
I didn’t have any more experience with art until I chose to take the humanities classes in college. I took the 101 and 102 courses and liked them so much so I moved on to take 201 and 202 then a summer semester abroad in Europe. I wanted to be a professor but still as a Freshman I figured that I would probably have to obtain my PhD to actually teach at the college level so I changed my major and didn’t take any more art or humanities classes.
The only other experience with art I’ve had is having the opportunity to live in Italy for almost two years and seeing many more of the museums and artwork there. I loved it and consider it my second home.
Just going to NYC is still on my bucket list and that’s in my native country! I would love to go to Greece one day, too. Well, there are many other places I would love to go.
Your turn!
Great! I can’t wait to hear your story, Ruth!
Hello everyone! I have to say, I’m disappointed ☹️ I wanted to hear from some of you a little bit about YOU. I don’t really know any of you, of course, because we’re all here only online from around the world, but we do all have this one thing in common so I was hoping to get to know about some of y’all’s history in how you came to be interested in art! But again, this is all your choice and if nobody wants to share, that’s okay. When I get a little bit more time later today I will post another question.
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in October, 1946. Showed some interest in drawing at an early age and my mother tried to encourage it by buying a drawing set. I still remember that thing. I think my mother had some talent as well. Never did much with it, though. I remember taking art classes in the basement of the Worcester Art Museum - early-mid 1950's. After a divorce the part of the family that include me moved(1957) to Boulder, Colorado. My last two school years there were at Casey Jr. High and I had art classes both 7th and 8th grades. One of my teacher's is Google-able, a western artist named Verle Mickish, and the other was a local art-teaching legend named Julie Sandoz. One of my "things" hung for a while in the office of the Boulder Head of schools. Never saw that picture again, but I can still sort of see it in my memory. Another painting(an acrylic landscape I think) won a first place(Gold Key) in the Scholastic Magazine national art contest(1959/60?). At the national show in NYC it won an honorable mention and hung for a while in the lobby of the Chrysler Building(or so I heard). Got written up in the local papers(very embarrassing!). I still have that painting. My art interest waxed ad waned over the years and included an interest in photography. In the early 1970's I went through a period of collage making but that was followed by a long dry spell. In 2006 I spent a couple of months in Amsterdam visiting family and went to a LOT of art museums. Loved it. Going to museums has pretty much always been favorite thing to do. When I got back home I followed my gut(?) and started painting again. That lasted a few years, but I've been dormant for a while now as reading has become my number one. I still have the interest, but I don't put any time into it. For a while a few years ago I worked as a security guard in the Bowdoin College of Art. VERY BORING, but my art knowledge ticked up quite a bit. I have a website(still up there I think): www.roughmagicart.com - feel free!
Wonderful, Chris! What a great history! And I love knowing all of this about you. What neat experiences to have honors of winning first place, honorable mentions, being written about in the paper, and even having your work portrayed in the Chrysler Building! Wow! I’m glad you still have that! I hope you framed it? That is really cool of your mother to encourage your talent when you were so young and even be a bit of an example herself. Living abroad would be a great experience. I bet you saw some wonderful museums during that time. So do you speak other languages, too?
Well, since you started out with the talent at a young age, though you aren’t currently steady in practicing it, I’m sure if you picked it up again, it would be like riding a bike and you’d do just as well if not better.
Thank you so much for sharing such a detailed description with a little of who you are and some of your life upbringing in the world of art! It’s nice to know you better, now you are more than just a screen name and a profile picture. 😉
Chris wrote: "Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in October, 1946. Showed some interest in drawing at an early age and my mother tried to encourage it by buying a drawing set. I still remember that thing. I think ..."Chris, I tried to go to your website and it says "this site cannot be reached"...
It goes to Google "Rough Magic Art Gallery" is that it?
Oh! Yes it is! I went to "About the artist" and there is a wonderful picture of you with your dog! awwww, I like your work! Thank you for sharing this!
Oooh, I like:Untitled 5
Composition 1
The Painted Desert
ooh! Composition 5! (how did you do that?)
Composition 7
Red Table
Composition 9
Ok, I like a lot of your work ;)
Composition 9, that's the blue one with the little stars and circles?like that too!
Chris, I saw your gallery when we first became friends here on Goodreads, not sure if I told you what I thought? Well I like most of them yoo ;-)
Heather, maybe a lot of people are on holidays? It's the case at work: the next two weeks I have to juggle 4 (!) jobs...
And it's clear that the great majority of our members are silent ;-)
I just checked and since January there are more than 100 new members of which only three have posted a comment...
And sorry but I have absolutely no idea how you can get hem to participate...
My story is coming up... after cooking diner (only for three tonight, wheh!) And the Pic of the Day and the new quiz...
Heather wrote: "Chris wrote: "Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in October, 1946. Showed some interest in drawing at an early age and my mother tried to encourage it by buying a drawing set. I still remember that t..."yes - just search it in Google. It's still there I checked. or try pgbirdroughmagicart galley
Heather wrote: "Oh! Yes it is! I went to "About the artist" and there is a wonderful picture of you with your dog! awwww, I like your work! Thank you for sharing this!"actually, it's my friend's dog. she created the website for me. Thanks for looking!
My pleasure! I’m glad you posted that, it was really neat to see what you did!
Heather wrote: "Oooh, I like:Untitled 5
Composition 1
The Painted Desert
ooh! Composition 5! (how did you do that?)
Composition 7
Red Table
Composition 9
Ok, I like a lot of your work ;)"
Composition 5 - I had to take a look at it. A piece of plywood with a bunch of wood rectangles glued onto its surface and then spray painted(mostly) with some brushwork. Needs repair as some of the wood chunks have fallen off - RATS!
All right, here we go.I was born in 1958, the year of the world expo in Brussels.
In a little village about a half hour drive from Antwerp were i live now.
My parents, both deceased, were teenagers in the war.
My mother was a seamstress specialized in evening and bridal gowns. She was really into Classical music, a story she always liked to tell went like this:
Her family (2 brothers and 3 sisters) had a yearly subscription for the opera in Antwerp, for them a 20 minute drive with a streetcar.
The last production of the season when she was 18 or so (a couple of years after the war) was Fidelio by Beethoven. It was a Sunday and beautiful weather, the whole family opted to skip the opera and go on a picnic. Not my mother, she went alone to the city and the opera house to enjoy the beautiful music. Her brothers and sisters thought she was mad, but she just loved the music too much and that love she passed on to me. But I love all kinds of music, not only classical.
My father was a simple, but great man, only went to school to age 14 or so (because of the war) and worked all his life for a company called Agfa-Gevaert. You can find a portrait I made of him in the thread “Talent of the Members”:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
As far as I can remember I was always drawing stuff, everywhere I could find the place. So when I was fifteen, I was allowed to go to a school in Antwerp where I had about 10 hours a week art lessons.
I was gone from home from 7 in the morning till 7 at night, but I loved it.
It was there I started to go to museums and exhibitions. One of those that made a lasting impression was a big one in Brussels about Symbolism in Art.
And of course the fortnight in Italy with all the great stuff there in Florence, Rome, Assisi, Venice and more…
Halfway through my first year the etching press arrived and the first etching printed on that press was by me. I think I still have a print somewhere in the attic ;-)
And I fell in love with the graphic arts.
So it was only natural that later I went to the Graphic Academy. Where I had three wonderful years. I posted a self portrait in the same thread I made in the last year just before graduating.
Also in those days I started working as a DJ in a small club in the city and did that for three years (I had to stop because drafted in the army)
After school I spend a couple of years working as a wedding photographer. But cut that back when I started to work for the firm I still work now (37 years) It’s a pre-press firm and I did a lot of different jobs there.
The last twenty years almost exclusively on the Mac. And I also started making drawings on the Mac with a Wacom tablet. It allowed me to keep making very detailed work while my eyesight was declining.
But I mostly stopped when the twins were born: a boy and a girl now 24 years old. Only the occasional practical thing I kept doing, a poster for a neighborhood activity, a portrait of a colleague who went on retirement, birthday and seasonal greeting cards, stuff like that.
Retirement is coming, three or four more years and then I hope I can start again… we ‘ll see.
Dirk wrote: "All right, here we go.I was born in 1958, the year of the world expo in Brussels.
In a little village about a half hour drive from Antwerp were i live now.
My parents, both deceased, were teenager..."
I hope so! Thanks for the story.
Nice and detailed, Dirk! Thank you very much for the information and descriptions! You’ve had a colorful and interesting life. Thank you for sharing that with us!
Art is something I came to via history. I used to find art difficult to read, painting of flowers, landscapes, figures ... sure it was all nice but beyond that I had no clue. Art's not part of my upbringing, and doing it as part of the school curriculum didn't really count. Great fun, loads of mess but beyond that it never got me inside art galleries or looking at book on art.It would take wanting to understand history for me to step inside an art gallery. I haven't looked back since :)
Now, my book shelf has art books alongside the ones about history.
Hey, I like that, Inkspill! A new way of looking at how you came to getting into art—through history. That is a different, yet important, perspective! And you leave interesting, contributing comments, too so you must get a lot out of those books you have. Thank you for telling us your story!
hello everyone!!i was born in 1996 and from a very young age (about 2yrs old) i started drawing..when i was a kid I was drawing all the time and everywhere I could!! Growing up, I showed my interest also in medical studies, because, you know, you have to do something you kinda like for a living as well!! Right now I have focused on painting with acrylics and I'm trying to finish my dentistry studies and my dream is to enroll in fine arts school for a second degree!! If you want to see any of my art visit my Instagram, it's @mel_hellraiser_art ^_^ sorry for the long post!
Melina! Nice to hear from you! It is awesome to know a little bit about you and incredible, IMO, that you combined your art interests with medical (dental) studies. I don’t paint (or do anything else artistic) but I also focused my studies in the medical field so all the more do I commend you for joining the two interests. I haven’t checked out your work yet as I need to do that on my PC and I don’t have access to that right now (my smartphone is pretty dumb). But thank you for posting the link. And no worries about the long post, if you haven’t noticed, I happen to be the one who is long-winded around here lol.
My family was split between science and the arts. My grandmother was an artist who studied at the famous Art Students’ League in New York City in the early part of the 20th century. My grandfather owned a surgical supply business. My father was a professor of Biochemistry. My mother followed both ways. Her degree was in Zoology, but later she went back to school and became a landscape designer. In her old age she carved soapstone sculptures. My first degree was in Geology/Paleontology, and then I returned to college in my 30s for an BA in Art, and an MFA in Painting. There was always art around when I was young. My grandmother had a studio in her home which I loved visiting. There was art hanging in her and my parents’ homes. I’ve always lived in or near Los Angeles, so there was plenty of opportunity for visiting big city museums and galleries.
I taught at the college level, usually studio art, most often drawing. But I also taught a survey course in Western Art History. I showed my paintings and drawings with a gallery in Los Angeles. I haven’t made much art for the last 10 years, though, because I’ve been writing.
If you’d like to see some of my stuff, there are examples of both art and writing on my dreadfully out-of-date website http://www.ruthbavetta.com/ Click on the images for a better view.
Ruth wrote: "My family was split between science and the arts. My grandmother was an artist who studied at the famous Art Students’ League in New York City in the early part of the 20th century. My grandfather ..."Very nice - thanks for sharing.
Just admired your art Ruth. I like the one with the goldfish!
Thanks, Dirk. I love painting reflections and transparencies, and the juxtaposition of beauty and danger.
I don't have much art history to talk about.I was bought up in the world of science .Art..well my mother did some embroidery work and many beautiful crafts and all ,when we were younger..
And I had a very good art teacher for 2 years in high school... generally though art is considered more of a hobby thing..not something from which wd are encouraged to make money from...its just the way it is...
And anyway
.I alwaysoved to draw or doodle...its only since last yeae or so that I have seriously atarted exploring all the online options ...like this group,google artsand culture, books ,YouTube videos and FB groups ,that I seriously started to spend my time exploring the various aspects of art ..from art history to making art..
Though I myself am just the beginner ,u do enjoy the process of learning how to make art or more accurately paint..
Thank you Autumn and Siriusedward! Congratulations Autumn on the art that you’ve sold and I can’t believe that teacher could really have been serious in saying you have no talent when you graduated in art! No way!And Siriusedward, by the comments you’ve made here in the group, I wouldn’t have known that you’ve just begun learning and discovering art, you must be a natural with an eye for beauty.
And Ruth, I don’t think I told you how much I appreciate your story as well. Your grandmother’s history passed on down to you, the love and gift of art. I believe you said once that the ability to do art isn’t just a talent (was that you who said that?) is it something learned? a gift? Well, you have it all... genetics, talented, gifted, educated, and you gracefully share it with us and I thank you for it.
~☆~Autumn♥♥ wrote: "How do I get to Ruth's art? .."
If you’d like to see some of my stuff, there are examples of both art and writing on my dreadfully out-of-date website http://www.ruthbavetta.com/ Click on the images for a better view.
Ruth, I kept thinking last night about your remark about Beauty and danger. So I went back and had a better look and now I saw that the glass was broken! That and the pearl necklace half in the fishbowl gives the impression of domestic violence, was that your aim?
Nothing so specific as that. Just the general idea that the world is both beautiful and dangerous. I’m more after feeling than narrative.
Heather wrote: "Thank you Autumn and Siriusedward! Congratulations Autumn on the art that you’ve sold and I can’t believe that teacher could really have been serious in saying you have no talent when you graduated..."Thanks Heather! You are probably right as I am "old sober sides" and have been all these years. You have enlightened me that he was only kidding me! I take everything too seriously. He was always telling the other students at critique time to note my use of color. I am so glad you helped me....thanks!
Autumn, it’s up to you to decide whether that’s a fire.
Ruth wrote: "Autumn, it’s up to you to decide whether that’s a fire."I am debating about it. We had to run from the Waldo canyon fire so it looks like one to me.
I know we have many artists of different kinds in this group. I believe I'm in the minority as one who doesn't do any sort of art. I can only appreciate the works of others. We have published authors, poets, art history professors, professional painters and sculptors, professional photographers, and I'm sure many other art forms that I haven't named.
I like this question because I'm curious to get to know a little bit about more of you! What kind of art influenced you as you were growing up? What art influenced your childhood? Schooling? Did your parents have any influence on you? Travels? Media? I'd like to hear stories, experiences! Please, share a bit about yourself, it's time to brag! Please, don't be shy!