Enjoy The Ekphrastic Review’s Writing Challenge With My Antarctic Images

Deadline – April 15
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Ekphrastic writing is written in response to works of art. The Ekphrastic Review is offering its current writing challenge based on my images. The responses are certain to be surprising and diverse. TER will publish the winning responses online this month.
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I chose these twin images because they’re pivotal in dual series of images, one nonfiction and the other fiction – Antarctica Waking & Antarctica Dreaming. It was breathtaking when we saw it. That ice can look like Greco-Roman architecture still astonishes me. Clearly, I see this image / these images in more than one way … and I’m looking forward to reading about how you see them.
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Write about one or write about both, as you like.
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Plus …
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6 Masters On How To Be An Artist

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You can learn a lot from watching how other artists work, especially if they’re working in another medium. Figuring out how you work in similar ways to produce your own authentic works is an exercise in creativity itself. And creativity is like a muscle, the more you work it the stronger it grows.

You’re sure to be inspired by these 6 masters.

Anni Albers
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Helen Frankenthaler
Hannah Hoch
Donald Judd
Jacob Lawrence
 
Find more How To Be An Artist posts here.
Find more in my social networks – Facebook and Twitter.
Get more great  curated content with my newsletter Insights.
 

6 Great Art Museums To Visit In Maine

There’s lots of great art in Maine!

Here are six great museums presented geographically from north to south.

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Waterville

Colby Museum of Art 

A collecting and teaching museum focussing on American art. It houses and displays the largest collection of John Marin and Alex Katz’ paintings as well as Richard Serra’s works on paper.

 

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Rockland

Farnsworth Museum

There’s always something new and old on view at the Farnsworth. The museum has one of the nation’s largest collections of works by sculptor Louise Nevelson. Its Wyeth Center features works of Andrew, N.C. and Jamie Wyeth, which is extended by the Olson House (Christina’s World) in nearby Cushing.

 

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Rockland

Center For Maine Contemporary Art

A contemporary arts institution, presenting a year-round program of changing exhibitions featuring the work of emerging and established artists with ties to Maine.

 

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Brunswick

Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Assyrian reliefs in Maine? And much more! The Bowdoin art collection includes Antiquities, European,and American collections including memorabilia from Winslow Homer’s nearby studio.

 

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Portland

Portland Museum of Art

Significant holdings of American, European, and contemporary art, as well as iconic works from Maine, the museum brings it all to life with unparalleled programming, from special events, family activities, and community conversations to PMA Films, curator talks, and tours of the Winslow Homer Studio—it’s all happening at the PMA.

 

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28ogunquit - The view from the lobby sculpture gallery at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art has captivated artists--and visitors-- for many years. (Dan Gair/Ogunquit Museum of American Art)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ogunquit

Ogunquit Museum of American Art

Celebrating its origins in Ogunquit’s art colonies it acquires, preserves, exhibits, and interprets American art.

Looking for more fun things to do?

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Rockland

Maine Lighthouse Museum

One of the largest lighthouse museums in the United States.

 

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Thomaston

Owl’s Head Transportation Museum

Its mission is to collect, preserve, exhibit and operate pre-1940 aircraft, ground vehicles, engines and related technologies significant to the evolution of transportation for the purpose of education. Special events offer car rallies and air shows.

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Bath

Maine Maritime Museum

It sits on a 20-acre campus on the banks of the Kennebec River in “The City of Ships”. Daily cruises visit some of Maine’s most iconic lighthouses from the water and get an up-close look at Navy vessels under construction at Bath Iron Works.

8 Masters On How To Be An Artist

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You can learn a lot from watching how other artists work, especially if they’re working in another medium. Figuring out how you work in similar ways to produce your own authentic works is an exercise in creativity itself. And creativity is like a muscle, the more you work it the stronger it grows.

You’re sure to be inspired by these 8 masters.

Henri Matisse

Mark Rothko

Francis Bacon

Edvard Munch

Willem de Kooning

Keith Haring

Joan Mitchell

Agnes Martin

 

Plus enjoy 33 Ways To Be More Creative.

Find more How To Be An Artist posts here.

Find more in my social networks – Facebook and Twitter.
Get more great curated content with my newsletter Insights.

6 Great Artists Show You How To Be An Artist

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Georgia O’Keeffe

We all learn a lot from each other.
Artsy has featured a number of useful lessons that can be learned from great artists.
Think of this less about learning to be an artist and more about learning to be more creative.
You’re sure to learn something useful in these six posts.
5 Lessons Creatives Can Learn from Andy Goldsworthy
How to Be an Artist, According to Georgia O’Keeffe
How to Be an Artist, According to Louise Bourgeois
How to Be an Artist, According to Wassily Kandinsky
How to Be an Artist, According to Josef Albers
How to Be an Artist, According to Paul Klee
Remember, superstition is optional – but just for fun check out the strange superstitions of great artists.
The Superstitious Rituals of Highly Creative People, from Salvador Dalí to Yoko Ono
Find more in my social networks – Facebook and Twitter.
Get more curated content with my newsletter Insights.
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Josef Albers

 

The Top 20 Photography Books That Influenced Me

Influential Books of John Paul Caponigro

“Enjoy this collection of photographic books that have influenced me during some of my most formative years.

 

Megaliths by Paul Caponigro

#1

Paul Caponigro – Megaliths

Watching the production of this project from start to finish had a profound effect on me. The book was the culmination of decades of work on so many levels.

Alfred Stieglitz

#2

Alfred Stieglitz – Portrait Of Georgia O’Keefe

These portraits and nudes set the highest standards for me. Deep complex emotional connection. The variety of Stieglitz’ printing was eye opening. Meeting O’Keefe was interesting; I still wonder what it was like for her as an older woman to produce a book on her younger self.

Eliot Porter's Nature's Chaos

#3

Eliot Porter – Nature’s Chaos

Fortunate to see my mother design many of Porter’s books, this one confirmed my feeling that he saw a deeper order in nature before we more fully understood complexity in the sciences.

Christopher Burkett's Intimations Of Paradise

#4

Christopher Burkett – Intimations Of Paradise

Formerly a Gnostic monk, Burkett renounced his vows of poverty so that he could afford film and continue to faithfully transcribe The Book Of Nature. There are so many ways to live life in a sacred way

Dune / Edward Weston And Brett Weston

#5

Edward & Brett Weston – Dune

Dune / Edward Weston And Brett Weston collects works, many never before printed, by father and son showing how similar and how different each artist’s vision was. Working with Kurt Markus to produce this book was eye-opening.

Ansel Adams / The Making Of 40 Photographs

#6

Ansel Adams – The Making Of 40 Photographs

It’s wonderful to read how an artist works and even better to see them in action; I was lucky to do both. I do wish Adams wrote more about why he made each image and what it meant to him.

Jerry Uelsmann's Process & Perception

#7

Jerry Uelsmann – Process & Perception

It demonstrates how process changes perception – and the process you engage is a personal choice. The inside is just as important as the outside.

Edward Burtynsky's Manufactured Landscapes

#7

Edward Burtynsky – Manufactured Landscapes

While Eliot Porter didn’t want to beautify trash through art Burtynsky turns an unflinching eye towards industrial impacts on land crafting a complex statement on land use and ultimately identity.

Minor White Manifestations Of The Spirit

#8

Minor White – Manifestations Of The Spirit

No other photographer is as articulate about the inner experience of making art. His essay on equivalence is seminal.

Wynn Bullock's Revelations

#9

Wynn Bullock – Revelations

Bullock’s marriage of science/physics and art
became as much a philosophical statement as a celebration of beauty.

Kenro Izu's Sacred Places

#10

Kenro Izu – Sacred Places

Izu tries to photograph the spirit of ancient sacred places. When he talks about atmosphere he means more than weather.

Chris Rainier's Keepers Of The Spirit

#11

Chris Rainier – Keepers Of The Spirit

If Edward Curtis met Joseph Campbell you’d get Rainier’s survey of spirituality in world cultures.

Sebastiao Salgado's An Uncertain Grace

#12

Sebastiao Salgado – An Uncertain Grace

Salgado sets the bar high by bringing out the dignity within his subjects no matter how undignified their circumstances.

oyce Tenneson's Transformations

#13

Joyce Tenneson – Transformations

Tenneson’s images remind me of what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Arnold Newman's One Mind's Eye

#14

Arnold Newman – One Mind’s Eye

Beautifully constructed portraits from the father of environmental portraiture.

Harry Callahan

#15

Harry Callahan

The rest of his wrestlessly inventive work intrigued me but his deeply honest extended portrait of his wife set a standard I hope for in all others.

Sugimoto

#16

Sugimoto

It’s minimalism that isnt shallow or evasive; the collection reinforces the concept, creating a context for itself. It asks so many questions? Enough? Not enough? Do all the world’s oceans look the same? Or is it just one ocean? Is it the camera or the artist who makes them look the same? Is it the way we look? How is it that by looking at them long enough I begin to see myself?

 Richard Misrach's The Sky Book

#17

Richard Misrach – The Sky Book

Pleasant as it is this minimalism ordinarily wouldn’t be enough for me. But then he adds the titles of time and places in many languages with a history. Together they grow stronger and placed within his life work as one of many Desert Cantos they grow stringer still. Rebecca Solnit’s accompanying essay is excellent. I learned a lot from looking at this – about art and myself.

Witkin

#18

Witkin

I find Joel Peter Witkin’s work profoundly challenging. I can’t say I love it; I can’t say I hate it. I can say it continually crosses back and forth between self-indulgently expressing his individual perversions and courageously looking unflinchingly into a universal heart of darkness.

Michael Kenna's Night Work

#19

Michael Kenna – Night Work

Kenna’s elegant minimalism is laced with a quiet spirituality that comes less from tradition and more from being in the moment, growing most emotional when he’s in the dark.

Huntington Witherill's Orchestrating Icons

#20

Huntington Witherill – Orchestrating Icons

It’s musical for its flowing compositions and exquisite tonalities. Extraordinary separation in extreme highlights and shadows, no one prints quite like him in.

 

Find out more about my influences here.