Good girl produces (good) art

This week I watched the final episode of “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” on the Bravo channel. Normally I dislike competitive reality shows, but I’ve enjoyed watching these 14 artists compete for $100,000 cash and a solo show in the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Because I love art but have no formal training, this show gives me insight into the current criteria for what is “good.” Each week a panel of judges brutally tells the artists what they liked and didn’t like about their work. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Good art can be:

about the materials

about skill

about the subject

about the viewer's reaction

The other day I kicked off a new piece of my own art. For several years, I’ve been recreating famous paintings by using torn paper. I project the image onto the canvas to get the main shapes just right and then carefully study the original to fill in the details. Sometimes I recreate the entire painting, but most frequently, just a part of it.

Here is the original I am copying – Princess Hyacinth by Alphonse Mucha.

Here is my progress, so far. I just have two days’ work done on it.

A few times, I've used the same materials (paint and paper), scale (jumbo), and technique (torn paper on canvas) to create my own subjects. For example, recently I collaged a garden rose, currently for sale at the Phoenix Village Art Center.

A professional artist once told me that my best work was this quirky, little, white shadow box thing. I don’t even know what to call it. It is something I never show to people (well, it does light up, so it draws attention to itself!).

Inspired by a book I'd read called, “Time Off for Good Behavior,” this blonde-headed doll from the dollar store was painted gold and tied down with wire, to keep her from being good all the time.

I placed her in a wooden box with a short string of mini Christmas lights.

Then I wrote down short phrases from the book that reminded me of myself (in a bad way) and using beeswax instead of glue, affixed them to the wide, flat frame.

I created this good-girl-in-a-box as a sort of therapy. I was really tired of being good all the time. I realize now that this looks like a sexy bondage thing; it wasn't meant to (although believe me, being good is a sort of bondage).

All I can say about all this is that I hope I live a really long life. There is much to learn about the things that interest me, art being among the most important.

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