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Showing posts from August, 2013

A Gentle Man Passes

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Seamus Heaney 1939-2013. R.I.P. Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney died yesterday 30.08.2013. With Roger Cummiskey at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre Foster Place, Dublin. 1999.  Bank of Ireland Arts Centre. A Stroll Through Ulysses - an art exhibition by Roger Cummiskey. Seamus  gave a lunchtime reading and book signing.  We chatted later. Slan, Seamus. Heaney’s gravestone epitaph is revealed. Irish Central, 14.08.2015. The lines are taken from his Nobel Prize speech in 1995. Responding to what the lines meant Heaney told the Harvard Crimson publication the following: “A person from Northern Ireland is naturally cautious. You grew up vigilant because it’s a divided society. My poetry on the whole was earth-hugging, but then I began to look up rather than keep down. I think it had to do with a sense that the marvelous was as permissible as the matter-of-fact in poetry. That line is from a poem called “The Gravel Walks,” which is about heavy work—wheeling

What type of Person are you?

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The cosmetics tycoon and women's advocate Mary Kay Ash said,  "There are three types of people:  1.   those who make things happen,  2.   those who watch things happen and  3.   those who wonder what happened...  You can decide which type of person you want to be."  We artists, in particular, need to be among those who make things happen.  Self-starting,  self-motivating and  self-critical,  we focus our energy on:  thought,  planning,  observation,  quality control and  production.  Difficult decisions--lots of them--are both the joy and the burden of creative folks. "Those who avoid the tough choices of life," said author Robert Brault , "live a life they never chose."

SLEEP

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I picked this up from the net and thought you might like to share. http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-like-you/ Ok, maybe your grandparents probably slept like you. And your great, great-grandparents. But once you go back before the 1800s, sleep starts to look a lot different. Your ancestors slept in a way that modern sleepers would find bizarre – they slept twice. And so can you. The History The existence of our sleeping twice per night was first uncovered by Roger Ekirch, professor of History at Virginia Tech. His research found  that we didn’t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning. References are scattered throughout literature, court documents, personal papers, and the ephemera of the past. What is surprising is not that peop

Less is More

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Reproduced. See bottom. Abstract landscape, w/c. R Cummiskey. In a previous  TAE article  I mentioned that it is best to take a 'less is more' approach when exhibiting artwork at a physical location. I suggested that displaying too much artwork at once can become a 'blur' of visual information that distracts viewers. In other words, gallery visitors will have a difficult time 'locking in' on each piece if too much is offered -- they will be overwhelmed by the visual bombardment placed before them. The same tip can be applied to an artist website. You don't want to overwhelm your website visitors. Less is more! I view thousands of artist websites each week. It is common for me to discover artist websites that are packed with hundreds of art images. This approach is unnecessary in my opinion. In fact, this image hoarding, if you will, can be troublesome for a number of reasons -- I've listed a few below: 1.)  The average artist website vi

AIA-ArtGroup

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Andalusian International Artists Group Artistas Internacionales en Andalucía AIA-Group Artists – Original Art in Spain The artist group was founded in November 2004 by professional and dedicated visual Artists from around Europe and USA, who are all living and working in southern Spain. AIA-Group Artists objectives: * Encourage the members to promote their artwork. * Enhance the knowledge and skills that will assist them in their careers as Artists. * Promote best standards as Artists between people from diverse backgrounds. * Provide a central marketing platform for media, public relations and promotional activities to suit each individual artist member’s requirements. The AIA art group is self governing and has adopted a strict member selection procedure to justify and maintain their objectives combined with their demanding quality ethics. Each selected artist has an established reputation, produces work to the highest marketable quality, to agreeabl

Holiday Fuengirola.

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Leave the Weather behind .  The beach. The Garden. Two Bedroom Ultra modern all electric centrally located homey apartment.   60.00 sq.m. Extra fotos. Directions.   C/ Miguel de Unamuno, 2                                                                                                           Rental rates 2014  -  Work out your charge for rental here. Walk to this apartment.  From train station. General Info Don Francisco Ed Don Francisco - ES Ed Don Francisco - ENG One Bedroom       Chic centrally located homey apartment.  33.74 sq m. Extra fotos . Direciónes.  C/ Jacinto Benavente, Residencia 2 Rental rates 2013-14  -  Work out your charge for rental here. Walk from Train station to one bedroom apartment. General info  one bedroom apartment. What are the three best things about these apartments? Location, Location and Location!  But there are only two apartments! Yes, but they are both in very convenient locations beside

Exhibiting Art in alternative venues

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This is an article that I read recently from a newsletter that I receive from the gallery and thought that you might like to share the information. Showing Your Art in Cafés, Restaurant s, Banks and Other Venues. Red Dot art marketing News. by Xanadu Gallery Owner Jason Horejs Let me begin by admitting up front that I am probably the wrong person to write this post. I own an art gallery and my entire focus is on selling artwork out of my retail space. I am often asked by artists, however, what I think of an artist showing his/her work in alternate venues - cafés, restaurants, banks, etc. The truth is that I have very little experience displaying or selling art out of these kinds of venues. The right person to write this post would be an artist who has had success selling this way. I'm hoping that artist (or artists) will leave their thoughts and experiences in the comments below. That said, lack of experience or expertise has never stopped me from having an op