Last night, as usual, Sam and I went to the art walk.  I brought my camera, but didn’t feel like taking any pictures of the “Scene.”  Why?  Because I finally did it.  I finally bought a mirrorless SLR camera on Wednesday to replace the old Canon powershot.  I had been waiting for a long time for three reasons, #1 because I thought more of the mirrorless cameras would be released this year (there were rumors last fall, apparently completely false, that Canon was releasing a mirrorless SLR in Q2 of 2011) #2 I thought the price would drop on the older ones  #3 they’re expensive.

Well, they’re still expensive, but the first two reasons didn’t come true.  With a whale-watching tour next Saturday, Manhattan in May and likely Thailand in October – I figured I might as well get the financial pain over with and make the purchase.  After going and reviewing the Olympus PEN in person twice and the Sony NEX three times, I decided on the NEX.  It is smaller and (contrary to a lot of critics) I actually LIKED how the clickwheel operated, it seems smoother to me than the old punch punch punch punch button method of they Olympus (which is very similar to my Powershot’s manual operations mode).

So – knowing that the pictures to come out of the NEX would be 100% better than my lens-scarred weary Powershot, I couldn’t muster the energy to attempt a shot with the old Canon even though I still had it in my pocket.

Most of the art was crappy as usual on the walk.  However, Branch of Life had a bunch of great stuff at his/their booth in the Art Park.  Sam and I bought several plants and I “commissioned” a few custom pieces to pick up next time (more on that next month).

Sam bought three of these little guys for her dining room table and I bought one for my office desk (seen here from my cel phone camera…at my office desk…):

I also bought a large “bright light” piece for my dining room table.  I took some bad photos with the Canon (see – I used it after all!) in the dark when I finally got home:

I guess you can’t really tell the scale in the photo, but the “pot” (bowl?) is about a foot in diameter.  It was a really hard choice, there were several great pieces, but Sam convinced me that the dark bowl with the gold filaments was going to look best in my dining room (with the mid-90s theme).  I also liked how this one was already flowering.  After we first saw the booth at the art walk Sam and I did some investigating, looking for these plants/bowls/etc.  Although all these plants can be found at local nurseries, the quality of plants sold at Branch of Life are near perfect.  The nursery succulents, by comparison, look downright ugly.  Oh, and they really aren’t expensive either.  The big bowl was only $25, and the smaller office one (maybe 5 inches on each side) was only $8.  Although he didn’t say why, the proprietor even gave us a small discount on top of that (maybe because we were buying a larger quantity than most people?).

After that we went across the street to eat from the food trucks.  The mediterranean place I liked last time was gone.  I walked through two different parking lots before settling on a $5 slice (chunk?) of pizza.  However, this was a huge letdown as what looked like a pizza oozing with cheese and grease turned out to be a big hunk of dough with a thin layer of cheese painted on top and no more than “hint” of tomato sauce.  Blegh!  Costco Pizza ($9 for a large greasy cheesy great pizza) continues to amaze me.  Later we walked by another parking lot with food trucks farther away and – there was the Mediterranean truck.  Grumble…

Lastly we stopped by the Hive.  Unlike last month I failed to woo a buyer for my piece, but I admit the painting probably wasn’t as good as last month.  I actually don’t like these “theme” shows as much as the regular ones.  I feel the artists are constrained a little bit and we don’t see their best work, myself included.  Moreover this “theme” group show seems to be a fad in the art gallery industry right now.  Last year I remember a Stanley Kubrik themed show at the Copro.  A few weeks ago we saw the group show Tribute to John Hughes at Gallery1988 in Venice.  Tonight the Culver City Gallery1988 is opening a group show (curated by Craola Simkins no less) focusing on Watership Down.  Now, I understand why this is a good idea from the gallery owners’ perspective in the short run.  Take established selling artists with fans and put “added value” in their work by making the meaning obvious and immediately relevant to every viewer.  Clearly these pieces are easier to sell.  However, I believe their long-term worth will suffer since these are less original than the artist’s other work.  Think of it like cover songs.  When Piddly Pum Puffy Diddy Daddy remixed the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” it sold well.  It was all over Mtv and the radio.  In 2011 do you think anyone is still choosing the Puff Diddle version over the real version?

Of course there are exceptions to this rule, like when the original is lackluster and incomplete like the original Homogenic album version for Bjork’s All is Full of Love, which pales in comparison to the remix used for the music video.  Covers can also be better than originals.  For example, I consider the reworking of Tears for Fears’ Mad World by Gary Jules to be superior to the original for three reasons: #1 the original has an ambigous meaning, while Gary Jules’ version was intruduced to the world in the last scene of Donnie Darko – which was entirely fitting and puts the lyrics in better perspective.  #2 Gary Jules’ version is actually much quieter, focusing on the theme of sadness and his singing is in less of a monotone than the original.  #3 the original is knee deep in 80s techno music sound effects, which, while cool and new at the time, sound terribly dated and silly now.

Now, apply all that to art.  Of course, that isn’t really relevant is it?  These artists aren’t covering other artists (hey, wouldn’t THAT be an interesting show?), they’re covering other source material.  Perhaps a better example would be the movie industry fascination with regurgitating existing material.  What was a better movie, Transformers (any of them) or Inception?   Case closed.

Now, ironically, there is a fantastic group show opening in Seattle today (of course the only person I know in Seattle is getting wet from tsunamis in Hawaii this weekend) that consists entirely of original work.  And that work, mostly because it is original, is miles above what is on display at gallery1988 tonight in my opinion.

Anyway – there was my group show “theme” rant.  Perhaps it only perturbs me so much because the Alice in Wonderland theme gave me such a headache – having to quit and start over on a painting for the first time in a long time.

And here is how the painting in question turned out:

Here is a painting by the alway great Larkin, The Dodo:

The following piece by Frost Newton was amazing in the amount of detail.  He was able to put such teeny tiny lines in there with acrylic paint – I really wish I could crack that secret technique!

This piece by Sze Jones was masterfully drawn, but as a painting it honestly seemed incomplete, I could see more of the pencil sketches than the actual paint.