So let's get talking: how our conversation can save art

Still Life of Fruit                                     

Between DIA's selling of art and the scandalous reports on this year's Venice Biannual, the art world is seemingly not about art, but taking on a reality show like persona. Yikes! Forget the struggles and escapades of history and human nature. I just want to talk about art, the artistic process, and the conceptual theories that arise (and can be about history and human nature, but far from some reality show). Whoever made the conversation change, hear me now, let us return to the old ways of conversation. How to pass on histories, expressions and opinions without a conversation? Grab your coffee or tea, and I will go first.

Artist: Elizabeth Ozborne: http://elizabethosborne.us/index.php

Decades ago, I remember watching Elizabeth Osborne paint with watercolors. She sat posed with three things: a cup holding brushes, a cup of water, and paper. She worked gently on the paper. After some time, objects would appear on paper, almost alive. Painting is my personal respite from photography. Painting offers more direct control and considerably less technology, and I am able to have the tactile experience with paper. There is something more about working with a piece of paper for days creating a unique work versus the feeding of paper through a printer that has the capacity to reproduce the same work on demand. I once thought that this made for easier photography; now, I am unresolved wavering for a more intimate experience. So, I return to looking at Osborne's work for renewing this sense. She brings me back into my childhood to that one afternoon I watched her paint.

                                                    E. Osborne

Conversation Points:

Art and process are for all ages.
The depth of influence is immeasurable.
Art is a lifelong experience.
Painting.
Osborne's work over her lifetime and her changes.
Osborne's current publicized abstract work reminds me of the early abstractionists- Rothko and Hoffman come to mind.
Painting's influence on photography.