Art Thoughts 2009!

No, I haven't forgotten about my promise last year, around this time, to do a weekly mini-essay on an artwork at the Barnes Foundation...called Art Thoughts. Though many weeks were really tough on my discipline, I did finally get to number 36, and I plan on plugging away on this project in the new year, until it is done (week 52: the equivalent of a year's worth of weekly essays).

So, next up is my reflections on one of the Toulouse-Lautrec paintings here at the Foundation: enjoy! I will have it up by Friday, early-afternoon at the latest.

After this project is finished (probably by mid-March), I hope to begin another series of these miniature art-essays. If anyone has read these, and thought, "I wish he'd write about ____", or "I wonder if he's ever thought of ____", please send those ideas my way, and I will consider them.

As the series went on, I realized how much I was becoming interested in how what I was seeing at the Foundation resonates with much older artwork, and conversely, more contemporary artwork (for example, the Jacques-Louis David + Bonnard, and the Vuillard + James Castle). This might be a focus of a new series. It's hard to not use such an immediate source as that right outside my office door!

In other arenas, I made some informal resolutions with myself this new year: firstly, to pursue my small business ideas; and secondly, to pursue my artwork with more gusto and determination, becoming more assertively and boldly self-promotional. I've heard too many stories, yes even in Philly, of artists who simply befriend gallery and arts professionals, talk about and ask for a project or show, and end up getting it...seems they've learned the lesson of "ask, and it shall be given you" more quickly than I have.

Additionally, I hope to be more resolute in my posting updated pictures of current work in the studio. For now, I just updated (slightly) my website www.gierschickwork.com with some new images and news items, so go and check that out.

Here's to success in 2009! >clink<