Perspective
posted by Keith at 12:00 PM
This image won an honorable mention last year and was sold
Anyway, I went to the fair this year and walked through the fine arts gallery. The entry categories in the show were oil, pencil, ink, mixed medium, watercolor, sculpture, a few other traditional mediums, and computer art. I wish that I could remember the exact numbers but I do remember that there were a little over 600 accepted entries and 18 of those were in the computer category. Computer art was about 3% of the total that was accepted.
I might have missed something, but when I walked through the gallery hunting down the computer art, the only fractal based art that I could find were 2 pieces in the judges section (yes, the judges have a section in the gallery to display and offer for sale 2 pieces of their own art). Let's say that I did miss an obscure fractal and assume that there was one in the gallery, aside from the judges. That's about 2 tenths of 1% of the total art in the gallery. This is typical of the previous years. Along with my 2 submissions, there was usually only 1 or 2 other pieces of fractal based art in the gallery.
Our online world leads us to believe that "fractal art" should be a household phrase. In places like DeviantArt we have hundreds of fractal loving contacts from all over the world, but I wonder, where do we fit in the big picture of the art world? It looks like the current version of Apophysis is heading for another 15,000 downloads. That seems like a lot, but in the big picture, is it really a lot? Judging from what I saw in the fair, it isn't.
From my perspective, this means that fractal artists are a tiny spec on the world of art. I don't mean that to be a positive or a negative. It is what it is. For me this means that any public display of fractal art is a big deal and we should take advantage these displays as much as we possibly can.
But then again, maybe not. This is digital art after all. I haven't printed a single photo since buying my digital SLR. Maybe digital art will always be relegated to viewing on the computer screen. Maybe we don't fit in a traditional public display. There are people who do display their digital art on big LCD screens. I don't know how I feel about that.
Maybe, with perspective, none of this matters :-)
What is your perspective on this?
Keith
4 Comments:
"From my perspective, this means that fractal artists are a tiny spec on the world of art."
From my very limited real world exposure, I would have to agree. I recently joined a local artist group and at a recent meeting of about 60 artists, 1 knew of fractal art, 2 knew of Rendo and DA, and the rest were totally unaware.
I count this a a huge plus. To me this means that the market is wiiiide open.
You are right about Fractal art being "a tiny spec". Many people who do see my work think that its painted or something. I've given up explaining that fractals are Mathematically based, because a lot of people find that too challenging (Math = Scary). Usually I just say that they are abstract designs generated by computer. Not a great description but close enough for most.
I'm in the process of getting my work printed and framed for a fund raising auction at a local school in November.
Its all a huge experiment to see what happens. Turns out that printing the work was the easy bit. Whilst it was not cheap, framing is incredibly expensive. Its all one steep learning curve. Perhaps I'll post later about the success (or otherwise) of this particular venture.
It's true that there aren't very many fractallists to be seen at art festivals. And, consequently, not very many people get to see any. Here's one upshot to that, maybe: A fractallist is pretty much assured that his work will be unique and VERY different from ANYTHING else at the show. Rare pieces could (should?) command a higher selling price than a lot of the other "same ol', same ol' stuff at the show that there are a hundred boring examples of, couldn't/wouldn't they? Just a thought I had - what do y'all think?
I think that we maybe see this dearth of fractals at shows sometimes in a bad light, Like they aren't at shows because they aren't "good enough" or aren't considered "art" by the mainstream muckymucks and we sell ourselves short. (read - blue-light special at DA - lol) I think it might not be either of those things. Maybe you don't see many because the "talent" or ability we have is something that is very rare. Not because we/I are neccessarily God's gift to the art world but just because fractals can be hard to do and programs like UF, XD, or FE, etc are hard to understand for many. If they are digi-artists that is.
I've pretty much written off - bitterly at that - any dreams I once had of trying my hand at art shows. And this could be, for others, a second reason you don't see many. It takes a bit of $$ to do it "right" for one thing. I and many of us could swing that, I reckon. But the biggest thing required is TIME. Time to travel to these shows. Time away from work. LOTS of time away from work. And that is something I don't have because I'm not retired - and don't have any misconceptions that I ever WILL be retired in the almost storybook fashion many hope for. Or at least was for the generation preceding mine. My parents and in-laws. But that starts to get sorta political, so I won't go there very far...;-) And I'm certainly not the type to quit my day job to be a "working artist" based solely on the reception of my art at internet image mills. Got bills and I like food - a lot. lol So you have a rare skill made even rarer by the other things that are needed to hit the road with your art.
The 'net doesn't seem to be the place to do it either. Nobody has any $$. If they had the kind of money it took to buy expensive luxury items like fine art, they certainly can afford to do something more than sit in front of a pc all night for entertainment like I do, ya think? The trick is to figure out how to get your work seen by this 2% of the population and I'd give my best texture layer to find out how to do THAT - lol
Rick
From what I've seen, digital art in general is poorly represented at galleries and shows (with the possible exception of photomanipulations). I don't think that's solely because the "art world" (tm) is still coming to terms with digitally-created art but because, by its very nature, there is no tradition of printing for real-world display.
Traditionally-produced art is, bar mounting and framing, ready for display. Photography has a long history of printing behind it and let's not forget that until relatively recently a print - or projection of a transparency - was the only way the average Joe or Jane could view photographs.
Getting prints of fractals which are faithful to what one sees on the screen can be difficult (and mistakes can be costly) and puts many people off getting them done.
It's interesting that we can see how many people have downloaded the current Apophysis: 15,000 sounds a lot but is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of people who create using traditional media. I suspect that even if you added up all the people who currently use any fractal progam, they are still a tiny subset of the large set of "artists". (And I find it fascinating that so many people seem to take up fractal art but only for a time - just look at all the dead websites out there!)
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