Marla

So I mentioned the four year old artist I was learning about for my art class in my last post. I thought I'd share a couple of her paintings here on the blog. Her name is Marla Olmstead and she is now 9 or 10. When the documentary about her and her art was made she was four and had made over $300,000 on her paintings. I'm not sure if any of these are recent or were done when she was four. I do think they are beautiful and interesting paintings. Makes me wonder if I could get Noah to do some abstract art for our family room. Or heck, maybe I should do some myself!

School and Such

Life has been kind of busy. I'm enjoying my art class. I got to go to a museum and analyze some art and listen to all of that classical music. This week I get to watch a documentary about a four year old who briefly became the latest art sensation and then was torn down after it was discovered her dad may have been the one doing the art. Then I get to tear apart the four year old myself. Should be fun. Don't worry, the four year old will never see it and I will be nice. It's kind of cool having an online class. Instead of going to a lecture and trying to participate, which would mean me sitting there, occasionally having something to say and trying to get up the courage to raise my hand and properly articulate my thoughts in front of a large class (it's not as bad as when I twenty but I'm not completely cured), we have discussions that we are required to participate in. So I can think out what I want to say beforehand so I don't sound like an idiot, then post my thoughts on the subject of the day. Then if they don't care for my opinion, who cares. I don't know any of these people. Here's a sample for you. Me analyzing whether minimalist art is indeed art or not:

I like to think I’m open minded when it comes to art. I’m down with Pollock and the abstract expressionists and fauvism and even a blank canvas painted white. But the truth is I’m not completely open minded about what art is. While I don’t care for Fanny Sanin’s Acrylic Number 2 as it is a little too 1980s stylized for my taste, I can still accept it as art. That's easy for me. But when someone like performance artist Yves Klein covers women in paint and has them smear their bodies across a canvas I have a hard time calling it “Art” and an easier time calling it “A Gratuitous Cry for Attention”, or at least “a lack of imagination”. When Martin Creed sets the lights in an empty gallery to go off and on to a timer and calls it art, I can’t easily jump on board. But I believe that art in general is an individual expression. So I can accept that Klein’s art and Creed's art is art because they are claiming it to be art, it doesn’t have to be something I like or understand.
I do believe art is an individual expression. There is value in trying to open our minds and find art wherever someone is attempting to make art. When someone uses an unorthodox or even “grossly simplistic” means to express themselves in an artistic way, such as the white on white of Robert Ryman’s “State”, I believe there is more to it than meets the eye. That there is a purpose and intent to the art and it’s more than mere laziness or lack of talent. I liked the demonstration at the Gene Davis Exhibit where they allowed patrons to try to make their own striped artwork with the colored metal strips. The physical process and the mental process is usually more than we understand or at least take the time to understand. So if I believe art is an individual expression it isn’t hard for me to believe that even the simplest of Minimalist paintings is indeed art.

So it's a fun time. I also started guitar lessons a couple of weeks ago. Lesson #1 was great and I was a natural, naturally. Lesson #2? Well, there wasn't much natural about that so I think I've got a lot of practice ahead of me. But don't worry, I will soon be on my way to becoming the corner sidewalk troubadour my community has long needed.