Here I go again - terminology. The word ' artist ' applies to musicians, dancers, writers, sculptors, architects, painters, etc. From now on, let's refer to those who paint as ' painters '. To do otherwise "...is incorrect and assumptive ". ( Jake Mol in the Watercolour Gazette, Nov/Dec '05 ).
After all, this is The " Painter's " Keys.

I recall going to Brussels a few years ago and seeing paintings by this guy called Rene Magritte in a style completely unlike that of the Rene Magritte. As it turned out the two painters were one and the same. The first painted all those text book iconic images before WW2; the second continued to paint throughout his lifetime in the 40s and 50s. Just goes to show that successful artists can become prisoners of a certain style

Thanks Bob (see comment further up the page). I agree. Painters are painters. In my view, many people who call themselves "artists" are indulging in "self-marketing". There must be something about the "artist" status that makes it attractive, but there's also a lot of hype.
Likewise "musician". I have personal experience of this. I am a trained musician, but also an opera singer (for which I also trained for many years). The terms "musician" and " opera singer" are no more synonymous than artist and painter! As an opera singer one tends to have a reputation for being less musical, less adaptable, more temperamental etc. - and there is almost no differentiation in people's minds between a soloist bearing the brunt of a performance by singing leading and crucial roles, and a member of the chorus who appears as one of many with only marginal responsibility. As a musician, one is taken (more) seriously! I suppose it's really a case of calling a rose a rose (rather than a flower).

Now commenting on the letter! I visited a big Rothko retrospective in Hamburg in June. It was a remarkable experience. Up till then I had definitely been sceptical, but I was impressed by the sheer persistence of that painter's quest for self-expression. Rothko hated his work to be called most of the terms in Bob's letter. He insisted that the works were the result of extreme pain and distress. He tried to make galleries show them in rather dark spaces. Some of them are really impressive and one huge one I sat in front of for a while (and other visitors marched past) seemed to jump off the wall. Others had rather strange and unpretty colour combinations and jarred on me. Maybe that's what he wanted.
As Bob wrote, agents and gallerists jump on what they think will sell. The result is that painters have to cater for current trends shown and accepted in their own work by repeating it ad nauseum.
Comparing it again with music: the theme and variations type of composition enjoyed great favour for centuries. In fact, no musical competition can get on without repetition. But at least in music there is finality and new beginning.
100 almost identical landscapes remain almost identical. A kind of déjà vu sets in. After a while, the painter involved even starts teaching others how to do it (viz Bob Ross) and before you can turn round, everyone is doing it with more or less skill - but the value of their "artistry" is decided by commercial values. Warhol didn't invent the soup can, but he interpreted it in such a way that it became known as art. A consummate piece of self-marketing!
And since the general public desires guidance and recognizability, it's no wonder Monet is the waterlily guy, Cézanne the fruit and veg guy, Renoir the pretty lady guy, Cassatt the kid lady, etc.
Make a list of painters and define what makes them who they are. It's an eye-opener.

Getting a certain "look" is something most emerging artists I know struggle with. If you examined such an artist's body of work (work that hasn't been tossed, burned or painted over), you'll see such a variety of "looks" that you'd think the artist had a split-personality complex. My own work is that way. However, when I put together a show, I go through my oeuvre and pull out pieces that share a common subject, medium, size and style. This puts before the public a subset of my work that can be interpreted as the work of a professional.

For someone who has achieved definition, it can be dangerous to change. A Rock'n'Roll guy named Rick Nelson was invited to play at an oldies but goodies night in Madison Square Garden. He didn't have the right haircut, which was bad enough, but when, after a few tunes, he tried to play a Rolling Stones tune, he was booed off the stage. In Madison Square Gardens, wow.

He later wrote a song about the night that became popular called "Garden Party" And at the end, his words were that if he couldn't change, "I'd rather drive a truck."

I don't show more than half of the paintings that I do, because they don't fit in with my usual labored but identifiable subject.

And, yes, we must tolerate "Artist" just like Rap Artist, haha and ugh. A friend started introducing himself using one word, "Painter" and everyone figured he was a house painter!

3,000 emails!

There are four artists (read "painter" if you wish) we are speaking of here: There is the artist you think you are, the artist you wish you were, the artist you want others to think you are, and the artist that you are.

Seems to me, if you spend too much time thinking about all this, you may never find out who the last one is! Being aware that there are eyes out there looking (or not) at your work is a good thing. But even actors don't spend most of their time in costume! It's the sweaty stuff that moves beyond "image" or "look."

I found “The Look” serendipitous given I have been spending the last week “branding” my friend John Hiscock. As you may remember I am “the Mad Poet who lives in the woods reciting rhythmic sermons to trees and rocks” (a quaint but not all that marketable brand) who writes poems for painters. (I also write poems for beautiful woman, but that is another story… or maybe not.) Anyway the below is a sample of a poet branding a painter while explaining Ekphrasis. I am starving to death as a poet. Do you think I could feed myself by charging to “brand” painters? The relationship between painters and poets is a time honoured one, and maybe I need to catch up to capitalism…. or not.

See poems for John’s paintings

Ekphrasis

John Hiscock stands present. His toes are rooted in rock. Standing in the landscape his brushes carve down to touch sacred bones; they cut as deep as iron ploughs in rough fields stirring up songs of Mother Earth. Eyes become visionary clouds circling in the ferment; his deft strokes are as light as owl feathers in a smooth predatory dive.

Imagine an old oak tree standing in front of an easel and you will see John Hiscock. John did not grow up in the landscape, the Canadian Shield grew into John and now the landscape of our rebirth speaks through him. Old fences stand with solid resolve. Ghostly stones pile up in whispering congregations. Lost meaning returns. Mossy skies become a rising Atlantis. Red water converges with a horizon of golden leaves.

As a poet it is an honour to work with John Hiscock. I have known John for many years and have watched his parallel art growing for decades: Our separate sprouts broke earth in search of sun; always we wanted to place my hymns with his stain glass windows. Finally our complimentary leaves have spread with overlapping hue. Spoken light with painted shadow entwines.

Plato describes paintings as objects that stand before us alive; however, when we query these paintings about themselves they mock us with a majestic silence. In contrast; written words, while they seem to speak with intellect, if asked further about what they actually say they just go on and on and on repeating the same old damn thing forever. Ekphrasis is the dialogue created between a poem and a painting. Ek-phrasis “out - speak” is to take the painting outside of itself and to explore its essence: Where the visceral presence of visual art ends, the non-presence of intellectual language begins. Put them together and transmutation happens. Frozen images begin to move. Words unfold wings of multiple meaning.

Jim Larwill bores people to sleep with repetitive eloquence. John Hiscock is a dumb genius. I write poems for John’s paintings and eyes open, they dart back and forth between image and word. Ears perk. Audiences begin to mutter. People break into a conversation. A dialogue is born.

Landscape painters objectify. They look at the world and re-create it as a fixed object in a definable frame. Often they fall in love with colours, they even make love to canvas with brushes. Titillating the flow of form they get excited as they taste experiential drool in their mouths as they strive to paint a transcendence of subjective experience through creation of fetish object. Sometimes they succeed, but often they fail, especially when creation of a beautiful object is the only goal. Once the painting is further targeted by galleries, by no fault of its own, monetary value begins to sink the depth of a painter’s visions. Now marketed as a magical mountain; beauty is turned into a commodity and put into a box; spirituality is sold as a framed forest fetish. Object art is alienated from the heart-beat of the painterly subject; however, incantations of love sung next to a painting is a poet’s prayer calling the People’s spiritual heart back to the surface.

Ekphrasis is as old as cave art. Painting and incantation are born of the same cradle. The Alpha spreads colours on flickering rock as the Old Omega sits in shadow flames howling. The dream pack gathers. Ekphrasis is the Shield of Achilles on the tongue of Homer. It is the Canadian Shield chanting Shamanic vision. Take the finger, fist, and palm of my poems and let them dance you into John’s Hiscock’s expressive world of People’s Art.

I generally recognize a "style" rather than a "look" in an artists painting. Regardless of the subject matter a persons style comes through. If, however, an artist wants to create something that sells that is a different matter. You are now commercializing your work and it is a job. It is now a profession and a livelyhood. Nothing wrong with that but it does smack of contrivance. Just like the artist who makes prints, tee shirts, post cards, etc from his or her work. Only to make a buck....no more and no less.

Ahhh, the "look" also known as the "signature style" etc.etc.etc. this letter reminds me of an article that was about are you working for your gallery or are you working for yourself? There are many, many, many marketing consultants now that will tell you all about how to develop and keep your 'look'...and there is a lot of talk about finding a gallery that will not drop you if you change your look...many artists find they are in trouble with their current customers if they stray from their look. They may be terminally bored but they will keep cranking out their look.

Thank you for giving an authoritative voice to my ongoing conundrum. In a recent exhibition, people asked if my body of work had been created over a span of time. It had not. To my mind the pieces hung together. We each have our individual "artistic handwriting." If you are curious, you can see the ongoing genre/style dilemma at http://nancymoskovitz.com.
Fortunately, some artists....Duane Keiser comes to mind....market their own work online while broadening brand constrictions. Despite being know for his groundbreaking daily paintings and similar subjects on giant canvases, Duane Keiser now offers landscapes.

The 2007 Murakami show at MOCA Los Angeles exemplifies the "branding" issue. Talk about commodification, signature style, and marketing! Most tellingly, the show was titled c.Murakami. The artists had recently collaborated with Louis Vuitton, and within the exhibition was installed a Louis Vuitton store, selling $850 purses, and gallery-goers were lined up to purchase them.! Murakami had designed a CD cover for the singer Kanye West-----guess who performed at the opening. Talk about the hybridization of famous brands!!

I had an epiphany the other day regarding "style" or "look".
I was looking at a painting I had done in 1988. I was a seminal work at the time. As I stared at it, looking on it anew so to speck, I realized that even though twenty years had passed, my "style" hadn't changed one bit. My technique had improved along with my drawing, but that painting looks like the work I now do. I was amazed that after all the ground I had covered, I was standing in the same spot twenty years later artistically speaking. All the time spent developing my "signature" or "style", turns out it’s all there in that painting made in 1988 as it is in my most current work. I had come full circle and ended where I started. What is odd is I'm not sure now if I've grown or just honed what I do naturally. I don't know what to make of it. I'm still absorbing the whole idea.
Though some painters change subject, do they really ever change their personal style? One creates a large body of work, over years and when I line them up, I found ME in the first one as in the last one.

One of the reasons I so look forward to this bi-weekly letter is because for too many years I have felt isolated! It is exciting, invigorating to know that 1000's of "artists" - painters, sculptors, photographers and creative people read and ponder this letter! I feel connected to a larger world of creative people and that can only be good.

Though nothing can replace real human contact, this letter lets me feel like I am part of an illuminating conversation about art. Something that barely ever happens in my day to day activities. I have suggested this letter to many people who crave this very kind of conversation!

I would like to suggest that you continue to find a "common thread" in the questions that people send you to discuss in your twice-weekly and, tell us when it IS a common thread. It's wonderful to ponder what others are thinking about and this letter never fails to raise my aspirations.

As for consistency vs. exploration - the day we all decide that art has one answer is the day art ceases to exist.

It never ceases to amaze me how little the general public has to know before a global brand like Mark Rothko is so easily recognized.
But as an artist who is dedicated to building their brand, I do have to admire any artist who has done it...
Many of these artist have crossed over to the familiar by having their work not only in galleries, museums and corporate collections, but also on everything from calendars and catalogs to posters and everything else that has nothing to do with art.
I want to be known as a painter who has a through line with their art. My art speaks of my loves and things that make me happy.
Following the endless and mindless weather vane of what is or is not "IT" in this world just leads to one thing....Really really bad art!!

I feel that, for artists, trying to be consistent with a" look" is going to lead to a dead-end. We are, after all, human beings, not machines producing handbags. We need to paint what excites us while being aware of what the excitement is about. That way, we express our own individuality. If we become hung up on keeping to some preconceived style or subject, we could end up just plagiarizing ourselves and producing decorator art - bland and emotionless. Ultimately, we all want to get better and better and we are responding to what is happening in our lives so there is bound to be some kind of change. Our ultimate audience could be one that isn't even born yet - and the paintings lurking unsold in the corner of a studio because they don't have the same "look" could end up being the most desired.

Yes, I'm still there in my work too, even the drawing I did when I was two years old.

RoberT youR coMMents aRe aLwaYs righT oN!!
YoU aRe truLy aN aRTisT's ArtisT
i aM inspireD bY yoUR insighTs...
ThaNk YoU MucHo

You are right in this letter, and it's depressing to me, because I like to do a thing a few times and then go on.
However, I do think each person has a "style" anyway, no matter what they are working on, abstraction, realism etc. I base this on classes I attended in college. The instructor always had us show work and critique each other (only positives or kind suggestions allowed). After the first few classes each of us knew who painted what without looking for the signature!

Someone mentioned earlier that horrible phrase "the hallmark of the amateur". Well, I'd rather be a hallmarked amateur than churn out repetitive work for the rest of my life simply because people "expect" it. People do that every day on Ebay. I've been hallmarked for thirty-five years; I've painted landscapes, flowers, and a few abstracts in all kinds of media, but I'm settled now as far as media are concerned. I have a website and have tended to sell the same kind of work from it (again, what people "expect").....in order to produce more abstract experimental stuff I have simply set up a new, quite separate website with it's own identity. No-one collects my work so I don't have to "oblige" the public. Life's too short and I want to try painting lots more ideas before my time's up.

Here in Scotland, the current look is the wee white croft in a more-or-less abstract highland or agricultural landscape composed of blocks of intense hues squirted and scraped and slashed seemingly straight from the tube. Everyone's doing their version of it. The many privately-owned galleries on every street corner are only too happy to fulfill the demand---dare I say craze?---for this lurid look, while I suppose artists are laughing all the way to the bank, and who can blame them?

There are hopeful signs of resistance, though: at one of the country's biggest artfests recently, I noted a sign in a gallery to the effect that "(famous artist) has moved on to new work and will no longer be producing white cottage paintings, so please don't even ask for them." I thought, Yesssss!

Too many of those white cottages around and the price of real estate in Scotland may go down!

On a visit to the Chicago Museum of Art, I sat in front of a Mark Rothko painting for a half hour or more, wanting to understand it. After a while I felt the colors wash over and through me. It was a permeating sort of experience and answered my questions without words. Something in me changed that day and I am grateful for it.

I have heard the comment but have not found attribution: "If it looks like what you expect art to be, it probably looks like someone else's art."

I find it very interesting that a disscussion of artists painting a consistant style or subject matter has come just when iI needed it most. I have been tolld by juriers that I am inconsistant and have not discovered my style because I paint in so many mediums and so many different subjects. I have always thought a painter should be able to paint any subject and use what ever medium to express their vision.

Along the same topic of “style or look”- Those who came before with a new style or look were anonymous until what it was they were painting took hold and became the “signature” of that artist and the current flavor everyone since has been trying to copy.
Velasquez, Monet, Van Gogh, these artists weren’t painting to collective style; they were trying, unsuccessfully at first to do something new. Every form from abstract to impressionism while still unknown was looked upon as weird and un-sellable, until someone or a few people with influence believed in it and started to exhibit it and show the art world it had worth. The likes of Rothko, Monet, Pollock and Van Gogh and many others couldn’t get arrested until people began to accept these styles as legitimate art. We tend to forget that every new art form that has been created was met with disdain and uncertainty at first. Up until then the only acceptable style was classical art because that is what we had grown up with and understood. Fauvism, The Ash Can School, Cubism and Impression, Expressionism and every other style was looked upon as junk.
My point here is that artists set the trend. The creative mind of the artist creates new styles and looks not gallery owners or the general public. Repeating what was leads to a dead end. If your style or look isn’t in vogue, keep at it. If you must paint the norm to get by so be it, but keep your originality at all costs. YOUR style can be the new thing every artist from today on will be trying to paint for the next hundred years.

My neighbor is a painter. He paint's walls. I am an artist. Luckily Bob Genn's web site doesn't have any Nazi rules for terminology.

This letter helped me to not second guess myself. I have just completed 3 large portraits of 1960's Icons. Two of them the biggest ever for me at 36 inches square.
My good friend and a mentor explained that I have to make them more funky-- or more realistic-- to get THE LOOK.
Seemed to me I had my own LOOK but wondered is she right?
Since it didn't occur to me to change MY LOOK for THE LOOK-- maybe I'll muddle through in my own way.
What I know about MY LOOK is that no matter what I try there is a sweetness of spirit in my work. I do not mean sticky sweet-- it is rather an extension of my a-muse-ing personality.
(As expressed by our Open Studio gang at The Conn-Artist Studios & Art Gallery www.Conn-Artist.com
So what's a girl to do?
I may experiment with her suggestion but wonder if I am fixing something that ain't broken? Or is it?
I will try to attach "The Greatest"....to see what others think or you can look on my New Oil Paintings page.

This letter confused me. As an artist, I have learned that we must experiment outside of our confort zone in other mediums, other techniques in order to grow. I enjoy the experience of creating in various mediums. I like the variety I have in my artwork and find that it offers diversity and attracts a diverse range of interested viewers.