"Paintings With Personality"

Uros Islands, Lake Titicaca, Peru I, 22x30, watercolor.

I painted this from a photo I took of the floating islands, high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Altitude - 14500 feet.

            My iPad died this week, a major event in my life. I still have my laptop, but I miss my iPad. In my sorrow, I began to think of days gone by when there were no computers. In the small California town where I grew up we went to the library if we needed information. When we made a phone call, we picked up the handset to hear an operator say, “Number please.” We would give her (always a she) a three digit number followed by ‘please.’ For example: 913 (my best friends number) ‘please’. Music was from a radio plugged into the wall or on a record player, also plugged into the wall. Some homes had black and white televisions with big tubes and even bigger antennas sticking up on their roofs. There were no thoughts of computers or the worldwide web. ‘Google It’ were words that did not exist.

            My (soon to be) 95 year old dad was born in 1920, the year after the great flu pandemic that killed approximately 40 million people worldwide. Besides technological advances, we have gone from a killer flu pandemic to the discovery of penicillin and the polio vaccine, organ transplants, test tube babies, cloning and in 2014, human clinical trials for an artificial kidney that can be worn.

           The Art World wasn’t stagnant during that time. Paris was still the center of world art in 1920 and Cubism, Expressionism, Dadaism and Surrealism were the best known art movements. The Surrealist painters were especially significant with their ideas of subconscious images and senseless painting.

           Through the influence of Alfred Stieglitz, photography became accepted as a fine art in the United States. The Ashcan School made its appearance in the early 20^th century. They were known for urban realism, especially scenes of daily life in the poorer neighborhoods of New York City. Precisionism was the first modern movement to originate in the United States. Precision painters were also known as the Immaculates.  Georgia O’Keeffe’s work is a part of the Precisionism movement.

            New York became the world art capitol in the 1940’s when Europe was in chaos from WWII. The art movement at that time was Abstract Expressionism. In the 1950’s, Neo-Dada and Assemblage became the new art movements. I was more familiar with Assemblage because in the Bay Area of California artists were cleaning up the beaches by collecting anything and everything they found and making sculptures right there on the spot, for passersby to enjoy. Even a little ‘valley girl’ like me heard about those sculptures.

            Pop Art came along after Neo-Dada, then Kinetic Art followed by Op-Art, Conceptualism, Minimalism, Feminist Art (art made by women about women’s issues). Next came Photorealism, and in the 70’s and 80’s, Graffiti Art. In the late 80’s and early 90’s Graffiti artists began renting studios and exhibiting their work in galleries.

            There has been very little excitement in the art of the 2000’s. Postmodernist Art is still prevalent in the United States. Americans seem to buy and sell art just like any other product. Painters suffered through the recession and as the economy began to revive, Chelsea happened and art fairs appeared everywhere. 9/11, two wars, and corporate excess have formed the United States today.

          Going back to where we started, much of our art has entered the digital age. Many artists use digital technology to more quickly plan a painting, photographers use it to enhance their photography. Digital art is not easy to market and not likely to be taking over the art world any time soon. At present, digital is a supplement to fine art. As for my (much missed) iPad, I ordered a new one and it should be here in a few days. Saved by Amazon, online and worldwide!

Does anyone remember the Burma Shave signs on America’s roads? Comment below.

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