Selfless Portraits - Altruistic Art in the Facebook Era

Selfless Portrait by Taylor Barnes

Recently, I came across an article about a new Facebook app, Selfless Portraits. The idea is to create spontaneous, hand-made art based upon the prompt of a Facebook profile photo. In return someone will create a piece based upon your photo. It is anonymous and random which, is very appealing to me.

An artistic challenge - no matter how it is posed - can reinvigorate our commitment to our craft and help us the hone our creative decision making skills as an artist. I can honestly say that how I chose to approach such an open ended project surprised me.

As I reflect upon my process, twenty-four hours later, I feel that this public art experiment was a wonderful, private moment shared by my mind, my hand and my instinct.

As I approached this sketch I had planned to go with color and at the last minute decided I wanted to work in pencil. Color was the natural first choice because of the vibrant tulips but once I made the decision to go black and white I was primarily working with shape, line and shadow. If this was going to be interesting then those elements had better be compelling.

I started with light shading but quickly realized that the man in the photo was more interesting than the tulips he was holding. - His hands carried all the character - full of expression and life, they became the portrait.

The face is barely there as an anchor. The piece built from the foreground to the background. And then I was left with the tulips.

I love to draw flowers and struggled with the idea of making the tulips the only color or at least rendering them. But it was their shape, bisecting the man's face and casting shadows that was far more interesting than the eye-catching color. The shape was the designer's choice. I created an added element that could only have worked in black and white.

When I finished I realized that this exercise in a quick portrait of a perfect stranger had opened up the process and showed me a little more of how my artist's mind works to solve a creative challenge. Patience, the willingness to give yourself over to the challenge one moment at a time, the spontaneity of changing gears when an new creative opportunity offers itself are the elements of process.

I suppose some would call this artistic growth... I call it fun!

The Circle of Design

 

thebubuzz.com

I recently completed the redesign of Boston University's, The BU Buzz — their online student magazine. This job resonated with me more than others because I was working with one of my former students, Leora Yashari who is the fearless Editor-in-Chief. I found myself reflecting upon the impact that out giving, our words, and our actions have on others. When you teach, your students are dandelion seeds taking flight, landing and blooming but a little bit of you goes with each of them.

Leora is no longer my student and yet we can start a new dialog because of the language of design. Design is constant with changing variables. Maybe once it would have been a print conversation and now it is a web conversation but good design is still at the center. The desire to create beauty, symmetry and effective communication spans all generations.

The process of putting this magazine together and watching my former student apply the things I had taught her in a real world setting was gratifying. So please visit this site and see the energy and creativity these dynamic editors are bringing to the web! thebubuzz.com

Think Pink!

Pink is everywhere this week with Valentine's Day right around the corner. This color has been gradually been creeping into my work more and more. It used to be a muted yellow green, then a rich eggplant, which gave way to a vibrant orange. But lately it is pink, pink and more pink! Since pink seems to be dominating my design vocabulary I felt it warranted a closer look.

Painting/sketch from my children's book, "Louise's House" © Taylor Barnes 2013

The famous fashion designer Elsa Shiaparelli created a shade of hot pink/magenta that made her famous in the 50s. Inspired by the color of a Cartier diamond, she said it was, "bright, impossible, impudent, becoming, life-giving, like all the light and the birds and the fish in the world but together, a color of China and Peru but not of the West - a shocking color, pure and undiluted." And the color "Shiaparelli Pink" was born.

Others in fashion has been fascinated with the color pink. Diana Vreeland, iconic editor of Vogue magazine, once proclaimed, ""Pink is the navy blue of India." The fictionalized version of Vreeland, portrayed by Kay Thompson in the movie "Funny Face" sang, "Think Pink!"

There are many shades of pink:   

Blush,  Rose Pink,  Salmon Pink,  Orchid,  Fuchsia,  Hot Pink.

All of them are some combination of red and white. If you examine the psychology of color, then pink is generally the sweeter, slightly more innocent sister of red. 

Pink represents hop… look at the use of pink for the ribbon logo to fight breast cancer, or the "silence = death" AIDS campaign logo. Pink represents girlishness, femininity and innocence. Pink is happiness and love. Red is passion and lust. Pink is youthful and Red is pink all grown up.

But pink has it's moments of sophistication. Pair it with black and suddenly it is very chic. Pairing it with a darker color makes it assertive and confident, yet elegant and subtly sweet.

Pink can be emotional and immature but at the same time it is utterly the color of romance! Therefore Pink is the perfect color to represent the sometimes fickle, sometimes challenging but ultimately unforgettable concept of romantic love.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Somewhere Between Art and Technology...

Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, by Marcel Duchamp 1912

The title of this post, Somewhere Between Art and Technology, is where I reside at this point in my life. I used the famous Marcel Duchamp painting, Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, to illustrate this feeling. The amazing thing about this work was how the intellectual components of the painting ushered in the cubist movement. To think that this painting was done in 1912 astounds me when I liken it to fractal design now. How could Duchamp have been that dialed in? What did he see in 1912 that the rest of humanity did not?

As I ponder this idea I overlap it with the premise of an article I read recently stating that all of society is overlooking the mammoth change technology has brought upon humanity. This is difficult for anyone under the age of thirty to really understand because technology has been playing a vital role most of their adult lives. But as a person who was brought up in an analog age and stands squarely between both worlds, I feel a bit like the figure in the Duchamp painting - fractured and processing information on multiple levels. As an artist I once again relate to this painting as I try to meld my hand work with my love of technology.

As our culture struggles to retain it's humanity while balancing it with the technology it loves, what will happen to artists, writers and creators of all genres? I do wonder if we devalue the artistic process now that so much of it can be duplicated by software. How will we know when something is truly innovative and the product of real talent? As plagiarism is on the rise the line is becoming blurred ethically. Only recently I discovered that a piece I ran on this blog was used in a facebook post which was shared over two hundred times - often without my name attached.

That incident caused me to consider the idea of watermarking my work but ultimately I decided not to. Why? Because I posted it in a public forum because I wanted it to be seen and I wanted it to be seen unmarred by a watermark symbol. That piece was there to be evocative. If I wanted to be paid for it I would have not shared it in such a public venue. These are the decisions that we make as artists floating somewhere between art and technology.

I straddle the world of social media to help dissipate some of the aloneness that the artistic life can create but at the same time I need to manage my addiction. Constantly seeking a conversation, contact with the outside world, or an idea to discuss - social media is at times a wonderful fuel and a supremely superficial level of pontification. Balance... that I what I strive for between Art and Technology.

The End of the World and Angel Visits

Egyptian Angel by Taylor Barnes @ 2010

Of course I have to pose this question now. I tried to avoid it. I tried to ignore it. I tried to discount it. Then today, while getting my morning coffee from the local coffee shop, this is the conversation I overheard:

Young, cute, 20-something girl talking to scruffy bearded 20-something guy:
"I plan to spend the last week of my life in church praying all day. Do you want to come? There is plenty of room in God's house."

Guy: "Nah. If that's gonna be my last week on earth I plan to spend it somewhere in the dessert trippin' my balls off."

This little snippet of conversation got me to thinking about the very thing that I did not want to think about before my first cup of coffee - immortality and our very existence. Lately it seems my world is a confluence of strange spiritual concepts. There is the idea of spiritual self-determination, that my every thought manifests my reality. There is the idea of the universe and it's omnipotent power over all of us and that has a sense of fatalism to it. And then there are angels...

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked me if I would mind if she sent some angels to visit me. I felt like it was a strange concept to wrap my head around but at the same time I have had some profound spiritual events in my life that maybe could only be attributed to the actions of angels... so why not? It seems the angels have a very precise schedule, they travel for 5 days and stay for 5 days. So mine are not due to arrive for a few more days. But I am anticipating this event on several levels.

The days my angels will visit is roughly the week before the world ends. Hmmm - seems advantageous but not the point to focus on. This visit has also caused me to examine intent. Is the power of our intention, focused as a group, so powerful that it can manifest our reality? What does that say about the end of the world? An entire planet of people anticipating and visualizing the end of the world. Meanwhile I have my angels visiting. Talk about a conflict of ideas.

My angels are supposed to give me hope and guidance. I am supposed to make three wishes and let the angels help to manifest them. This is a big responsibility. Remember the fairy tales and the people who squandered their three wishes? I certainly do not want to end up with unexpected consequences to my selfish motives! How I could not wish for the saving of the planet? And what else could I possibly wish for on a personal level that would be so important? A new car, or a trip to Italy seem trivial in comparison to saving the world. I want to be selfish and throw caution to the wind by saying the world will be just fine and we will all wake up on December 22nd to a bright and shiny world. No matter how I rationalize it I still have this idea looming over me... the end of the world.

Intent is everything. So in my quest to come up with the perfect wishes I've come back to intent. The couple in the conversation above represent two perspectives on the end of the world; one is intent upon saving their soul and the other is intent upon living in the moment. Both perspectives are valid to the individual.

Isn't this the energy that art is created from?

My intent is that life thrive and continue every time I pick up a paintbrush. I am hopeful that an audience will be there to appreciate the work when it is finished. My wish is that we love and live well and not at the cost of the planet or others. So I would say, if the angels can manage this, some enlightenment for humanity and a new car for me (preferably one that is not harmful to the environment) would be nice.

Button It!

 Button it!

Often I have uttered this phrase and never stopped to think about the use of the word "button." Even "zip it" would be more contemporary.

Buttons... those archaic remnants from a Amish lifestyle.
Buttons... which gave way to zippers.
Buttons... which gave way to velcro.
Buttons... which are now collectors items...

Buttons are symbolic of how design cycles through our lives as relevant, irrelevant and eventually collectable or discarded and forgotten. How many times have you thought about that Superman action figure or Barbie doll you had as a child and wished you had kept in the box? Or at least not ripped the head off and tried to give her a punk, razor-cut hairstyle?

The next time you loose a button you may wonder if that one button could be the thing you wish you had valued at the time when everybody else took it for granted - and button it!

Goddess of Abundance

 Goddess Abundance © Taylor Barnes

This week I created this image, for a client, to represent a "Goddess of Abundance." I dove into the assignment with particular enthusiasm because I thought, "how great, maybe she'll bring some abundance into my life!"

That line of thinking stopped me in my tracks. What was I doing? Creating an image with the express purpose of meeting my needs financially? How crass, how materialistic, how uncreative of me! But if I am totally honest we are motivated by financial reward because it allows us to do the vanity project that is near and dear to our hearts.

Striking a balance between the monetary goal and the creative goal is the challenge of every illustrator.

Can chasing the dollar corrupt your work? Yes. But it can also cause you to hold yourself to a higher standard because you want to sell your work.

Can chasing a dollar make you compromise your ideas? Yes. But sometimes that compromise is because you are working with a brilliant art director (who is also chasing the dollar) and together you form a perfect synergy that makes both of you greater than the sum total of your individual work.

While I was working on my Goddess of Abundance, I was not focused on the money I would be paid or the attention she might get - I was focused on the process. I pondered every line, the color balance, the mood and the processes I was using. I was involved in the work I love to do.

In the end this little Goddess of Abundance retaught me a lesson I needed to learn again...

Do what you love and the money will follow.