Is This Poetry?

Look again at this drawing of signs found on an Olmec carving. Art Decoded’s September 20th blog mentioned the Science article that suggested this stone may be the oldest Olmec writing found. Dated around 900 bce, it not only pre-dates the writing we’ve already found, but also suggests there must be much earlier writing around—if only we could find it.

But in a recent report from Brown University, another look at the stone reveals that some glyphic symbols are arranged in a way that suggests poetry. Repeated glyphs might represent repeated sounds like those used in poetic couplets. Here’s an example:
There was a Young Lady of Norway,
Who casually sat on a doorway;

Can you spot the repeated glyphs? This might be an interesting exercise for artists—create symbols for concepts and arrange them in a visual poetry.

Easy Tips For Planning Your Art Work

We’ve seen those funny cartoons showing an artist with his or her thumb in the air, or making frames around things with their hands. What’s that all about? They’re using two simple and immediate ways to check their compositions! Use your hands to check the composition of this still life.



You can use your thumb to add or subtract something. Place it over the small dark bottle then look at the picture as a whole. You’ll see how the whole thrust of the picture shifts to the other side. Now “put the bottle back” by removing your thumb and you’ll see how the picture rights itself.

Now make a “frame” of your hands and play with changing the size of the canvas. Notice that if you eliminate some of the table, the bottles appear uncomfortably crowded.

One more easy way to check your composition is to rotate the work in all four directions. Sometimes you’ll be surprised to see that a “hole” or blank spot appears in one position—a blank spot you didn’t notice when you had it “right-side up.” That blank spot is a clue that you need to spend a little more time composing that area. How? Make a nearby shape larger. Add another related shape there. Take something else away on the opposite side. The possibilities are endless, but many must be tried, because that blank spot is telling you something important.

L.A. Got Banksy-ed

What's that live pink elephant have to do with the British tagger Banksy? Isn't he the guy whose chosen animal is the rat--symbol of those other repugnant creatures like graffiti artists and unkempt, baggy-pants teens? Well, maybe both animals are what Banksy's all about. If he sees the rat as representing those obnoxious outsiders who are constantly criticizing, carping and condeming society's conventions and mores, the elephant is also a potent metaphor. It's the "elephant in the dining room," the hugely important family issue that no one is willing to confront and air out during communal time around dinner. It represents what society cannot or will not face--the great issues that so deeply affect the artist. His subversive art challenges the injustice and cruelty he sees all around him. "Essentially, it's about what a horrible place the world is, how...pointless life is." Scanning the blogs and articles about Banksy's "Barely Legal" show, people were certainly focusing on that elephant. But they didn't seem to really get the point it made.

See photos of Banksy's L.A. tour at

http://flickr.com/photos/45208212@N00/

Olmec Writing Tablet Found!

Around 3000 years ago, the Olmec people of ancient Mexico were thriving in their homeland along the Gulf lowlands. Here they built some of the earliest New World cultural centers with pyramids, massive stone altars and colossal heads, and here they established the foundations of Mesoamerican civilization. Now there’s one more accomplishment of the Olmecs that can be added to their list of innovations—writing. That’s the conclusion of scholars after the discovery of a spectacular engraved stone tablet found in a rock quarry.

Although the tablet, dated around 1000 bce to 900 bce, is relatively young compared to the Old World civilizations like the Sumerians and Egyptians, it nevertheless puts these New World people among the ranks of cultures that established a “full-blown written language,” said archaeologist William Saturno of the University of New Hampshire. The 26-pound tablet is the size of a legal pad, and is covered with 62 symbols arranged horizontally. There are 29 distinct glyphs, some repeated up to four times, that create what appears to be a kind of text.

It’s not surprising to scholars that there’s evidence of the Olmecs having a writing system. After all, they were skilled observers of the sky, had a calendar, and understood the idea of zero. And for people who figured out how to make paper around 1500 bce, it would make sense that writing might be a reason for it. For more information, visit The Los Angeles Times.com

Close Call for Ancient Rock Art

Only a few days ago some of the world’s oldest rock art was set for destruction because of a multi-billion dollar gas project in Australia. But a ruling on Sept. 15th by the Indigenous Affairs Office ruled that the pipeline had to be rerouted, saving hundreds of carved petroglyphs in Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula. This area contains thousands of pieces of Aboriginal rock art that’s 4000 to 40,000 years old. Already vandals have shockingly defaced ancient artwork up to 20,000 years old with graffiti and painted images.

Spokesman for the Wong-Gooo-Tt-Oo Ngarlama people, Wilfred Hicks, condemned the wanton mutilation of the ancient pieces because these images may be considered the Aborigines’ Bible. For the tribal people they are equivalent to stained glass windows or frescos on the walls of cathedrals. “If we went into a church and sprayed all around the church, we’d be put in jail for it.”

The argument echoes similar concerns of native Americans who protest the removal of skeletal remains from tribal burial grounds, only to be stored in museum warehouses. What kind of ruckus would be made if native American archaeologists began to disinter skeletons from graveyards in Salem or Boston?

Combine your Interest in Pre-Columbian Art and Digital Technology

The Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research (FLAAR) is dedicated to the research and promotion of art and architecture from ancient Latin America. It is committed to educating the public using the best available digital and educational technologies. Recently they’ve been expanding their digital imaging center in Guatemala, and have made incredible advances in photographing and printing complete pictures of the designs on ancient Maya artifacts using digital cameras and new HP large format printers.

The color prints are extraordinary, showing minute details of carved and painted pottery vases. The enlarged images are printed on paper rolls 36 inches wide and 100 feet long. The designs on circular ceramic bowls and vases are scanned so the images on their curving surfaces are printed onto flat paper to be studied more easily. These color digital prints are called “rollouts.” Because the small details can be enlarged to 36” high by 72” long, the enlargements make it easier to see amazing details that reveal information about Mayan gods, iconography, rituals, daily life, and key details about the ballgame.

Students who are seriously interested in Mayan studies including archaeology, architecture and art, and/or want to learn this new digital imaging technology can apply for volunteer opportunities at the FLAAR Digital Imaging Center in Guatemala City. For more information, visit Maya-Archaeology.org.

Graffiti Guerilla Artist Banksy to Tag L.A.

The satirical British guerilla graffiti artist Banksy will hold a three day “extravaganza” in Los Angeles this weekend. The notorious artist has already embarrassed Disneyland when he placed a hooded figure representing a Guantanamo detainee inside the fence of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride. It took Disneyland officials 90 minutes to find it and close down the ride to remove it.

Other stunts included sneaking in “alternative” masterpieces into major art museums and galleries. It took three days for the British Museum to notice his fake cave painting showing a man pushing a shopping cart.

Be on the lookout for his “vandalized warehouse” event this weekend. Wonder when someone will decide that it’s more profitable to salvage one of his images rather than paint it over as common graffiti.

Students! Artists! Sell a Painting Every Day!

Perhaps artists like Duane Keiser and Peter Togel have started a trend that will soon have art galleries’ attention—they’re bypassing the gallery establishment and selling their works directly to the people via their blogs and auction sites. Consider this scenario: You’re a young artist who looks around your studio, apartment, hometown, etc., then you make a postcard-sized painting of some scene—a still-life, landscape, your self portrait, etc. You announce that it’s available on your blog, upload an image of it, and offer to sell it for $100. Someone who wants it clicks to bid, and voila! it’s sold. Painting, selling, packing and shipping takes a few hours of your day, but you have an income and time to create more and larger works.

Duane Keiser did just that starting in 2004 when he launched his daily blog. Eventually he’d post the artwork and within five minutes “someone in India would buy it.” Check out his blog at DuaneKeiser.blogspot.com or get inspired by Justin Clayton whose paintings on eBay auctions allowed him to quit his job to become an artist. Go to JustinsPaintings.com.

The Grim World of Chinese Art Fakes

You can own your very own copy of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” for a mere $51—AND it’s painted by a Chinese art academy graduate! Spiegel Online reports that in the Chinese town of Dafen not far across the border from Hong Kong, between 8,000 and 10,000 painters toil in factories cranking out five million oil paintings every year. One factory owner who runs a “model company” mass-producing famous paintings aspires to create an oil painting business based on the McDonalds fast food model. Art works can be “made to order” because the motifs are based on customer suggestions—bare-breasted women, heroic horsemen, for example. You can even get a copy of Gustav Klimt’s portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer with the face of your girlfriend.

The business is so booming that small shops crammed into the top floors of stores have piecework painters painting 12 hours every day, working on two paintings at a time. They copy from small photographs and can crank out 20 to 30 copies a day. They’re paid by the finished painting, getting about 30 cents per copy. Think about it, though...that’s a better wage than Vincent got for HIS “Sunflowers.”

Yay! The Munchs Are Back!

It was a scary day in the Munch Museum in August 2004 when armed men ordered museum goers to lie on the floor as they snatched two of the world’s most treasured paintings—Edvard Munch’s “Madonna,” and “The Scream,” one of the most reproduced works of art. But now, two years later, the paintings have been recovered, thankfully with little serious damage. While the paintings were gone, visitors were able to see another version of the “The Scream” at the National Gallery in Oslo, and some sketches and pastels based on the well-known theme of a despairing man with skull-like face and gaping mouth holding his head in his hands beneath a swirling orange sky. Equally ominous is his sensuous woman in “Madonna,” surrounded by a painted framework of wriggling sperm.

As Norwegians celebrated, police were mum about exactly how and when the paintings were recovered. Last year six men were arrested in connection with the theft and three were convicted, but officials would provide no details about their investigations.

The Munch Museum has been under criticism because of its lax security that allowed two of the country’s national treasures to be stolen. This wasn’t the first time “The Scream” was taken. The concern for the safety of art treasures in Norway resonates with the recent scandal over the stolen art from the Hermitage where security and conservation concerns were laid aside so employees could get comfortable only by opening the windows.