The Year that was at Art News Blog Wow, that year was a fast one. I'm now convinced that as we get older, time speeds up. I remember back in school, many years ago, the days used to take forever. I used to almost beg time to speed up so I could get home and do whatever it was that I did as a kid. Now I'm wishing it would slow down!

Anyway, a lot of blogs and news sites seem to be reviewing the year that was, so I thought I should do something too. It's also a good excuse to post something as I have been in full holiday mode lately.

Here's some posts of interest from the year of 2006.

• The Triumph of Painting - Saatchi Collection - Charles Saatchi declared that painting is not dead!
• Child Prodigies - A few kids holding a paintbrush made it big.
• Post Secret Book - The blog of secrets became a book.
• Muslim Cartoon Controversy - The world became way too serious.
• Helen Frankenthaler with Gum - A piece of chewing gum made worldwide headlines.
• More on Thomas Kinkade - The painter of light became a few shades darker.
• Tom Cruise and South Park - Tom Cruise gets weirder each year.
• Damien Hirst's New Shark - Damien Hirst started repeating himself.
• Most Expensive British Painting by JMW Turner - Plenty of money was spent on paintings worldwide.
• Painting from Photographs - We debated whether or not painters should use photographs.
• Joan Miro and Copyright Insanity - Google was told to take down their Miro doodle.
• Most Expensive Australian Painting - John Brack - More money and art.
• Download Google Earth - Google changed the way we see earth.
• Artist Makes $25,000 on eBay - Artists can now live without art galleries.
• Karel Appel Dies at 85 - Another big artist moves on.
• Most Expensive Painting by Gustav Klimt - $135 million dollar record for a painting!
• ArtNewsBlog in the Artist's Magazine - Two minutes of fame for ANB!
• Anatomy, Art, and Life - I saw my first body cut up.
• Photoshop Renaissance at Worth1000.com - Photoshoppers having fun.
• Shit Art - Cloaca Machine - Shit was big for collectors of it.
• Selling Art Online - More artists selling paintings online.
• The Scream Returned - Edvard Munch's famous painting returned.
• Hitler Paintings Auction - People bought paintings that may have been by a dictator.
• Texas Art Teacher Sacked Over Nudes - Like I said before, it was a year of taking things too seriously.
• Steve Wynn Elbows a Picasso - And misses out on what was to be a record price for a painting.
• Free Hugs - The world doesnt hug enough!
• Damien Hirst Out of Ideas - Jonathon Jones makes it official.
• Banksy does Kate Moss - Banksy got plenty of media attention.
• Record Price for Jackson Pollock Painting - More money, more money.
• Big Numbers at Big Auction Houses - It was a year of big money.
• OJ Simpson Book Burning - tasteless book of the year award would have went to "If I Did It"
• 50 Works of Art to See Before You Die - The building of a list of works to see (If this hasn't been made into a book yet, I'm sure it will be).
• Grow Your Own Furniture - Furniture builders have been put out of work by mother nature.
• Lost in Byron Bay + Photos - I run away to paradise and came back.

I hope everyone has an amazing 2007.
Many blessings!
Dion  ¶ 9:15 PM 2 comments

  Lost in Byron Bay + Photos Sorry about the lack of updates recently. I went looking for a new place to live and couldn't get the laptop to connect to the Internet. The plan was to enjoy myself during the day, get lots of photos, and do some work online at night.

Having no Internet connection put a stop to the "work" part of the trip, but I still enjoyed myself during the day and took some photos. I didn't find a new place to live though.

Anyway, here's some photos of Byron Bay. It's a small coastal town on the north coast of NSW, Australia. There's plenty of beautiful beaches, forests, tourists!, and a big alternative culture there.
(click on the images to see bigger versions)


On the way up to the Byron Bay lighthouse.


Almost at the Byron Bay lighthouse.


Finally at the Byron Bay lighthouse!


On the way down to the most easterly point of Australia.


There's a black feral goat in this picture. It's actually much steeper than the picture looks, and if he took one wrong step he would have rolled onto rocks and into the ocean.


Here's another picture of that same goat from below. That's him circled in red, so it's quite a drop.


The most easterly point of Australia.


An Australian bush turkey I cam across. He was quite friendly and I spent a while with him.


Pathway onto the main beach in Byron Bay.


The main beach at Byron Bay.

Art News Blog will be back to publishing art news tomorrow.
>> Australian News  ¶ 2:41 AM 7 comments

  Edvard Munch Birthday at Google It's the birthday of the famous Norwegian expressionist painter and printmaker Edvard Munch on the 12th of December. Google is celebrating it with a cool logo in the manner of Munch. It's basically the Scream with a Google logo thrown in, but I quite like it.

I thought Google might have stopped celebrating the birthdays of famous artists after having to take down the Joan Miro logo when they were accused of copyright violations. I hope Google doesn't let copyright nazis ever stop them from celebrating artists in this way.
>> Famous Artists, Internet  ¶ 3:53 AM 6 comments

  Grow Your Own Furniture This story reminded me of the "draw your own furniture" post earlier, and to a lesser extent, the "drawing trees" post.

Cristopher Cattle in the United Kingdom has come up with a way to train trees / plants to make furniture for you. He has an online guide showing how to make a stool from 3 Sycamores. It's not as convenient as popping into your local furniture store for a few stools, as it takes about five years to grow into a strong enough stool. But it's a pretty cool combination of craft, art, and nature.

Here's why Grown-Furniture.co.uk thinks it is a good idea..
Growing furniture isn't going to save the planet, but it can be used to demonstrate that it is possible to create genuinely useful things without adding to the pollution that industry inevitably seems to produce. Trees are self-generating, and grown wooden products need only the energy that the sun gives everywhere. It's free and it's non-polluting. Training and grafting trees as they grow are established traditional crafts, and wood is durable but it's also biodegradable, so it doesn't have to end up in a hole in the ground. I call this Grownup furniture as it's the result of mature thinking. Grown Furniture

I found this story over at the boingboing directory of wonderful, often useless, and mostly interesting things!
>> General Arts  ¶ 2:23 AM 4 comments

  Art Basel Miami Beach The American version of Art Basel in Switzerland is happening at Miami Beach, Florida from the 7th through to the 10th of December. There's a lineup of 200 art galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia showing works by more than 1500 artists from the 20th and 21st century.

"Art Basel Miami Beach is a new type of cultural event, combining an international art show with an exciting program of special exhibitions, parties and crossover events including music, film, architecture and design." Art Basel Miami

ArtInfo is covering the event pretty extensively with regular reports and updates from Art Basel Miami Beach each day. They're all posted here or they also send updates out to subscribers of their newsletter (which is free).
>> Art Exhibitions  ¶ 11:56 PM 1 comments

  Tomma Abts Wins the Turner Prize for 2006 The Turner prize has been won by a painter this year, and if that wasn't shocking enough, it was won by a woman artist!

The Turner Prize 2006 has been awarded to Tomma Abts, it was announced at Tate Britain this evening. The £25,000 prize, sponsored by the makers of Gordon’s gin, was presented by Yoko Ono. With Gordon’s support this year’s prize fund is £40,000 with £25,000 going to the winner and £5,000 each for the other shortlisted artists. The event was broadcast live on Channel 4 News.

I predicted that Rebecca Warren would win the Turner Prize for 2006, but it just goes to show that I am neither psychic nor a good guesser! Tate gallery has a profile, video interview, and painting demonstration by the German born painter up on their website here.

Judges said that Abts created "compelling images that reveal their complexity slowly over time".
>> Art Competitions  ¶ 11:34 PM 5 comments

  Art & Perception + Painting from Photographs I did my first post over at the Art and Perception blog today. It's a community art blog with a growing list of contributors talking about all things art.

I reposted an old post asking the question; Is it OK to use photographs for painting? It's something most painters, critics, and collectors seem to have an opinion on, so I thought it would be interesting to see what others think about it. See the post here (and feel free to share your opinion on the issue)

The blog also has an interesting mix of painters and photographers that seem to benefit from both trades. Rather than drawing a line between the painter and the photographer (as they are different creatures), they look for the similarities that each have.

A recent post is by the photographer Stephen Durbin, where he is asking for comments on his "Ghost Light" series of photographs. He also asks this question..

"I'm also wondering how often it happens to painters or other artists that one is surprised, looking back on a work, to discover something quite unintended. As a painting or quilt or whatever takes more time in the making than a typical photograph, and may entail more active decisions regarding content, is the chance of later surprise any less?"
Steve
>> Photography News, Painting News  ¶ 6:41 PM 11 comments