skipping a bit…more excerpt. [One question is in normal text and should be in bold, btw: "Sounds like you're talking about community...social network?"]
..and finally: she also want to do a NYFA Prep Nite!

it's an original artwork, guys!

We’re selling only the ten color images, which are ink on paper. But maybe Swan will also wanna make facsimiles of the b&w’s if you talk to him real, real nice.

more at 45projects.com

To purchase, write to: contact@45projects.com; or call: 347/967-5915. Or contact me at left.

The Art Bum will not be Televised!!

(Read up about Lawrence Swan on his site, and in the bloggisphere here and here.)

buy it while supplies last....

And our buddy, Chris Spinelli, is the featured artist at Element Editions‘ classy e-commerce site:

"Inbred," Digital print on Arches paper w/hand additions

And let’s not forget that I’ve got a Lawrence Swan project in the works. Very affordable, at $200.00 a pop for an original—not an edition:

Art Bum Mini-Comic #8

Stay tuned.

Now: What do you think of the short statement, below it?

Not bad at all, right? Only, here’s the pet peeve of the day: Lists. Of Stuff. Too much Stuff. don’t do it!

Thing is, this is an anomalous example, ’cause clearly Roybal’s work is about that conglomeration of stuff. She’s right to give us a sense of its vastness, its diversity.

I’d stop at listing 5 things, tops, usually in your artist’s statement. (And even that’s too too much.) Here, we’ve got 11. Um, OK. Lettin’ that slide. why? rules can totally be broken in statements.

But, as for verbs, I’d take out “arranging” and “shaping” maybe and see how it read. And I’d take “frequently” out of the first sentence. Why be tentative?

Otherwise, nice. 20 X 200 (and sites like it) are a good places to read short-and-hopefully-sweet product (Oops! I mean art) descriptions.

Check out what Beckman’s site says about itself. Now, that’s a statement.

Can't argue with that.

Artist’s should believe in their art just as passionately as dealers believe in collectors. Or something like that.

About 3 years ago, I conceived of a place that doesn’t exist, and named it “the market project.” This ‘project’ would turn the art world on its ear; it would be a new way of doing business. Artists and curators and dealers and collectors would all be part of a giant consortium—a constellation of arts professionals, if you will. And all would be equal.

Roberta Smith (my favorite arts journalist)

People in one branch of this constellation (to sloppily mix my metaphors) would get folded into the whole, their skill sets appreciated, and used to non-competitive, mutual, and personal benefit.

Roberta Smith--as depicted in the "Fortress to Solitude" show by Phong Bui

Critic and Dealer and Practitioner wouldn’t jockey for prominence. No sir. In my ‘project,’ everyone would make a profit. And they’d all, somehow, be regulated by me. Well, at least for starters.

"Prostoglandin synthesis regulation" courtesy of nugo.org

It’d be easy, right?

I consulted friends, business people for feedback. I had a business card made up; I made ‘themarketproject’ my e-mail address; and so generally, whenever I did some cool, art-centered, artist-empowering, Sarah-empowering thing (like run my own artist-writing collective–”CoLab”–as I did, for a time) I considered it my quiet little branch of ‘the market project.’

I continued to do all sorts of boundary-blurring projects, both creatively, and to earn a living. Ghost writing and consulting for a longtime photo collector and dealer. Collaborating with my artist-writer group on a show. Lecturing artists on how write about themselves. Going to artist’s studios and writing for them, empowering them. I’d help artists get grants, get into good schools, get their act together. I’d give my opinion to any dealer or curator or rich collector who asked on what was worthy, and what was dross.

All the while, watching print journalism die.

Why write on pieces of paper anymore—I asked myself? The Internet is where it’s at. Why must I help artists write proposals for tiny shows in not-for-profit spaces with no heat or hot water, when I can CREATE A GALLERY AROUND THEM.

Actually, that latter idea wasn’t mine at all. It came about when I had a chat or two with a fine artist and graphic designer whose work impressed me in his studio. (Now he’s my business partner.)

Turns out, he’d be willing to create these spaces ‘for’ me; I just have to choose the art. He’d be willing to work with me: as long as we make a profit all ’round.

Is this ‘the market project’ come to life, or what?

After a data- (as in, visual data) finding foray to Paula Cooper, the gallery in which I later mounted “The Space Between Us” was born.

works by artists Chris Spinelli and Erik Sanner, 'installed'

After a data-finding mission to the Lower East Side’s envoy gallery, et al, the next show at 45projects—”The Guilt Show”—is currently being, um, hewn. In zeros and ones.

I figure out what works in the art world; I figure out what doesn’t—but should. I try to combine them. That’s my plan for now.

The boundaries are totally blurring. And the limitations are falling away.

I don’t believe in limitations. Do you?

45projects.com.

The borders are hand-painted; the central image stays the same. More or less. Hence, you’ve got “border” acting as visual reference to the passage of time. What better way to allude to spending a year in the studio–which, according to the website description, this series is trying to do?

Writers try to get time to pass “realistically” in their prose. But you can do it with visual motifs/devices, as well.

Evans calls/subtitles the series “A Year of Magical Thinking.”
Using a literary reference feels spot on.

(Full disclosure: I haven’t seen them in person. But they sure do “read” Online just the same.)

But wait, there’s more…paper, and more affordable work. Really affordable, actually, at what the artist tells us is around $600 ($680 if framed).

C’mon, you know you want one.

Bold, graphic. And within reach of those with shallower pockets. Fine said she wanted her new solo turn to include good work that’s Recession-worthy. Brava.

(Image above culled from the famous–and now, totally Internet-searchable, Pierogi Flatfile. So click here and see 100’s more bargains for yourself. Thanks, Pierogi.)

Artist Randy Wray, whose work I used to enjoy following in the early ’90s, runs the site, I hear. It’s got an interface that’s simple, easy to read. And the work is graphically bold and well-suited to the medium — namely, feeling OK about looking at artwork on a screen no bigger than your head. Well done.

Check it out here. Element Editions.