Happy Solstice
Weekly Wrap:
This past week I listened to the book Biography of X, joined er posted to CARA, saw the Camille Claudel show at the Getty Center, added dates and sent a poster out for Jennah Vox to promote her Summer singing dates, worked a bit on my current oil painting, and did some cardboard art and tiny playing with paint do-dahs.
Biography of X is the first fiction book I’ve Libby checked out of the library that I’ve considered getting a hard copy. I don’t know where I originally heard of this book released in 2005 but at some point I joined the Libby waitlist and then a couple weeks ago just about the time it showed up on my shelf I saw it at BookSoup on the main display table. It’s not surprising if it is having a moment now as I feel it is incredibly resonant to our complex and conflicting times. I still need time to digest and likely re-read it but I highly recommend checking it out.
CARA—a new image sharing and social network for artists to share portfolios.
I think I was a tad late to hear about CARA which was founded by artist Zhang Jingna as a platform for artist against AI-scraping. And when Meta announced it would train its AI on all user created content beginning June 26, 2024 artist fled to CARA. (An aside/quick rant, this Meta announcement that is opting everyone in to mandatory your work will train our AI is outrageous! And here in the US Meta has made it extraordinarily difficult to opt out and even if one does manage to navigate to the form it’s a weird give us a just reason as to why we can not use your work and then we will see… I assume they will assess how likely one is to win litigation. Like what!?! Where are our politicians? Where are our protections? It is so demoralizing to know how cheaply congressmen can be purchased and how so few care to work for the people and/or understand the times we are presently living.)
Anyway, back to CARA. My experience on it has been lovely, a big lovefest between artists admiring one another’s work and being thoughtful and considerate with their comments. In our outrage sells times it is so refreshing to see a platform that is actually about community and support. I don’t know that I am a natural fit as a lot of the art/artist seem to be industry artists. But how cool is it that there is this LinkedIn for artist space developing? One that is for and about actual art created by actual human beings. So cool!
Claudel Show—this was really cool to see, I especially loved the studies because they had so much life and energy in them. I unfortunately did not know about this artist previously but intend to watch one of the handful of movies about their life and listen to the Art Institute of Chicago’s Lecture on Camille Claudel. The brief bit of digging I did was pretty upsetting, er infuriating, to the way her family and those near her destroyed her. Oh to be a women not in control of your autonomy—what a frightening society! Let’s be careful to protect and fight for ours.
Open call:
Fee: $40
Due: October 4, 2024
Taken from the Bennett Prize website, “THE BENNETT PRIZE, created in 2018, awards $50,000 to a woman artist to create her own solo exhibition of figurative realist paintings, which then travels the country. The Prize propels the careers of women painters who have not yet realized full professional recognition, empowering new artists and those who have painted for many years. The Prize expands opportunities for the public, who may not be familiar with figurative realist painting, to learn more about the creative vision of talented women painters in this increasingly popular genre. In 2018, the inaugural year of The Prize, there were 647 entries. In 2020 and 2022, the number of entries continues to grow.”
The prize is for women painters working in figurative realism. The Application requires a minimum of 3 paintings/maximum of 5 paintings and 1 detail shot.