This is one of the options for your $350 dollar site.

Artists don’t need more paintbrushes, they need a decent website. The team behind Chicago Art Magazine can build artist websites for only $350! For a flat fee of $350, plus $4.99 a month for GoDaddy hosting, an actual human being who knows a lot about art and making websites will whip up a simple, 6 page website for you. We’ll show you a few options to choose from, and we’ll pull it together in one professional looking, customized website package.

Have a lousy former web designer you can’t even find and can’t even begin to think about how you’d start to rebuild? Included in the package is complimentary “find your old admin and shake them down to get the passwords back” service.

People keep saying “it’s easy to build your own website”. We beg to differ; we’ve found that for most people, it’s something of a pain in the butt, they feel they have paid their previous web designer too much for too little, and don’t have the foggiest idea of how to design a site. Even site building tools, like WordPress and Weebly, still have a learning curve and it never goes as smoothly as they claim it will.

This is the completely awesome slideshow that you could have online

If you sign up and pay in advance, we’ll email you an awesome colorful letter that you can print out and not show up empty handed and look like a schmuck without a gift. 

We will only take 5 orders in 2011, so first come, first served.

For more information about Chicago Artists Month and the visual arts community in Chicago, visit www.chicagoartistsmonth.org and www.chicagoartistsresource.org.

FEATURED EVENTS

ANNUAL PULLMAN DIA DE LOS MUERTOS ALTAR WALK

October 30, 4-7pm

BELLE PLAINE OPEN STUDIOS

Open Studio: October 1 & 2, 11am – 7pm

BOLT RESIDENCY OPEN STUDIO TOUR

October 7, 6:30-8pm

CARRYING ON TRADITIONS: NATIVE AMERICAN STORYTELLING & VISUAL ART

October 7 – 10

CARTOON INK!: EMERGING COMICS IN CONTEXT

September 3 – October 15, 11am-6pm

FILTER PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

October 12- 16

FORM IN FLORA

October 7 – November 4

JAWACHIC

October 22 & 23

KICK OFF CHICAGO ARTISTS MONTH

September 30, 7-11pm

NORTH PARK ART WALK

October 8 & 9

RIVER NORTH AND WEST LOOP GALLERY TOURS

October 8

RUTH HORWICH AWARD PRESENTATION TO RICHARD HUNT

October 25, 5:30-7:30pm

THE RED THREAD PROJECT®: STITCHING STUDIO

October 2 & 11

WPA 2.0, A BRAND NEW DEAL

October 1, 11, 15-16, 23

FEATURED ARTISTS

Each year, Chicago Artists Month spotlights a group of artists who embody the range of talent and diversity of the community. They all are associated with exhibitions or events where you can meet them or see their work in October. They are recommended by the organizers of these programs, and represent just a handful of the many artists participating in Chicago Artists Month.

CHICAGO ARTISTS MONTH 2011 FEATURED ARTISTS INCLUDE:

LINDA BEIERLE BULLEN

CHRISTINE SIMPSON FORNI

CARLOS JAVIER ORTIZ

ANDERS BREKHUS NILSEN

LORRAINE PELTZ

ANNA KOH AND JEFFREY HANSON VARILLA

SHARON OKEE CHEE SKOLNICK

VIVIAN VISSER

SARAH BELKNAP & JOSEPH BELKNAP

THOMAS LUCAS

LINDSAY OBERMEYER

DAVID JONES

In our “40 over 40” series, we’ve been highlighting artists over 40, most of whom occupy the “emerging” or “mid-career” status. However, a lot of more established artists have been continually nominated by you, our readers, so we thought it would be fit to briefly mention those renown practicing artists in our city who have set a precedent for how we make art in Chicago today. So here are the “Heavy-Hitters over 40,” who’ve had so much written about them throughout their careers, that I don’t think I could possibly add any more to what’s already out there:

Kay Rosen

In the local news recently, world-famous artist Kay Rosen will be the next artist to install in the Chicago Loop Alliance’s Pritzker Park. Rosen is known for her large-scale works which manipulate words both formally, and in their connotation. More recently, Rosen has been exhibiting a range of smaller works which employ found materials, prints and video.

Julia Fish

The subtle, two-dimensional works of Julia Fish are delicate renderings of pattern and the domestic space. Using the home as a realm for exploring the formal aspects of our everyday lives, Fish’s works avoid being overly feminine (as is the case with much work about the domestic), while striking an expert balance between form and meaning.

Richard Rezac

Fish’s husband, Richard Rezac, is another master of the aesthetics of the everyday, and his largely three-dimensional works are as visually pleasing as they are elusive. Challenging the machismo of the Minimalism of art history, Rezac’s works hint at the forms of familiar objects, while at the same time impeccably crafted.

Gaylen Gerber’s highly conceptual practice is one that is unlike any other in that the artist so frequently departs from the sole authorship of his works. In Gerber’s most well-known works, he often cooperates with other artists to finish his own pieces, and even provides wall-like installations on which other art is exhibited.

Barbara Rossi

As a painter, a Chicago Imagist and a top-notch educator, Barbara Rossi continues to keep the tradition alive. Rossi’s paintings contain the vernacular of the cartoon, like her contemporaries, but adopt a clean but playful aesthetic.

Jim Nutt

Fellow and prominent Imagist Jim Nutt will always have the contemporary art community in Chicago torn. Whether you’re exhausted by the relentless coverage of his works, or whether you feel his oeuvre always warrants revisiting, Nutt’s contribution to Chicago’s place in the national art scene is undeniable.

Gladys Nilsson

Almost always spoken about in the same breath as Nutt is his spouse, Gladys Nilsson, whose Imagist practice has continued to evolve, pushing narratives, compositions and palettes to even more complex places than they had been in the 60s.

Karl Wirsum

There’s also no getting around the impact of Karl Wirsum. The straightforward figure-ground relationships of his works and the cowboys, aliens and machine monsters that are ceaselessly his subjects help define the signature style of the Imagist painter.

Ted Halkin of the “Monster Roster” has a vast multimedia practice, which in recent years has led to a body of work that combines the bold lines and pictorial flatness of the Imagist tradition, with subtle neutral palettes and delicate reliefs in his investigations that range from the narrative to the abstract and formal.

Frank Piatek, of the same generation, early on distinguished himself with the ambiguous territory his works traverse. With a practice dedicated to refined representations of knots, Piatek’s works evoke a range of interpretations, from the spiritual to the abstract to the biological.

Phyllis Bramson pushes the figurative tradition in Chicago, making her mark as both an active exhibiting painter and a dedicated educator. Her complex pictorial scenes are able to incite feelings of delight and uncomfortable-ness in her viewers, combining notions of innocence and decadence, fantasy and sexuality.

Philip Hanson’s practice embraces not the gritty, the pedestrian or the grotesque of many of his contemporaries, but an encompassing romanticism illustrated through both style and subject. The floral and architectural imagery in his works are often joined with carefully selected text, seamlessly supplementing both composition and meaning.

Richard Hull

The abstract paintings of Richard Hull are exceptional examples of the ways in which content, gesture and genre can parallel one another, all within the same picture. Hull’s more recent paintings engage the notion of boundaries within the rectangle of the canvas and within self-referential visual language, even nodding to the boundaries of physics.

Jim Lutes

In 2010, Jim Lutes was included in the Whitney Biennial…for the second time; the first, in 1987. Lutes is known for exquisite tempera washes, layering transparent colors upon one another, obscuring hints of representational imagery with this accumulation of gestures and marks.

Judith Geichman

Another abstract painter on the Chicago scene is Judith Geichman, whose works are evidence of the tactile, physical qualities of paint as a medium. With drips, splotches, daubs and pools, Geichman’s paintings revel in the natural qualities of paint, while culminating in grand and sophisticated end products, which always seem to evoke a multitude of interpretations.

Michiko Itatani

As intensely a dedicated educator as she is a painter, Michiko Itatani successfully traverses a multitude of narratives in paintings which, though often executed at a monumental scale, are inviting and meditative both in mark-making and in palette.

In tough economic times Robert Casterline sees the silver lining in art investing. Anyone interested in diversifying their portfolio and beautifying their walls can request the grab bag of services Casterline can provide. He is a collector, an art dealer and an investment broker whose rolodex, if he had one, would be fatter than his client’s wallets, which enables him to acquisition some of the most sought-after art in the world. He has owned galleries across the country including in Miami, Los Angeles, Aspen and New York.

On January 27th Casterline opened the latest installment of his Museum Works Galleries in Chicago with partner and furniture designer Jordan Goodman of JG Custom Designs. The unique twelve thousand square foot space on the coveted 18th floor of the Merchandise Mart was brimming with over a thousand partygoers to welcome the works of emerging and established artists alike. The gallery trades in rotating contemporary collections by artists like Marcus Jansen, Danielle Procaccio, and Mark Acetelli and features selected works by acclaimed artists such as Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein and Ryan McGinness. The gallery is steered towards a more serious collector with works ranging in the high hundreds to several thousands of dollars.

“Investment artwork is always qualified as the work of an artist that is typically shown in museums and whose art is sold at auction. Where as an emerging artist is more speculative, and their work is not sold at auction,” Casterline explains. The value of important pieces has not decreased as some may have expected given the economic climate. Casterline admits that there was a small dip at the start of the financial crisis but that now he is taking on more new clients than he has in the past. “Even clients that I have known for awhile are coming up to me saying, ‘Hey, I’m not going to put a hundred pieces of gold under my bed.’” And why should they hide when their investments can be aesthetically pleasing?  Although the advantages to buying art go further than the client’s wall, it is a currency that has no exchange rate. “There is no national identity on an Andy Warhol or a Picasso.  They sell just as well in China or Japan as they would in New York.”

Sounds foolproof but Casterline advises his clients to invest wisely considering the risks with the advantages.  “It’s a process.  With a client I will sit down and talk about their likes and dislikes.  I find out what their short and long time goals are and then I go over what they can expect.”  Casterline assists his clients in purchasing a work of art that will easily resell.  The choices at Museum Works Galleries vary in price, medium and style. “It really is a destination for collectors and the fact that someone can see a $7,000 painting by an emerging artist along side a Lichtenstein, it gives the collector choices. And in the art world that is what we find most exciting.”

And if that is not enough, Casterline can look elsewhere for a client’s specific criteria. “There are many ways to find art. It comes to me through an estate, an auction house, or another broker. I am constantly in touch with other dealers to see what they are finding.”  Casterline’s expertise spans 15 years.  “I got started in the art world before there was an Internet.”  It was when Casterline was a European tour guide working for American Express right out of college that he started collecting. “I attended every auction and I collected all the catalogues.  I started learning about authenticity and about what makes one piece of artwork more valuable than another.  Over time my collector base grew and people started coming to me because they wanted to buy what I was buying.”  At one time Casterline owned the largest privately-held collection of original PEANUTS comic strips, which he sold to the Charles M. Shultz Museum after Shultz’s death. Collecting art gradually evolved into investment consulting, which then presented the opportunity to open galleries.

“Museum Works Galleries is an art gallery first and foremost,” says gallery director Cameron Dubois.  “But we also specialize in custom furniture. The gallery acts as a showcase for JG Custom Design.” All of the furniture in the gallery is designed and created by Jordan Goodman, a Chicago native, and is available for purchase, including Dubois’s desk.  The furniture fits in nicely with the gallery’s locale.  The Merchandise Mart is mostly a mall of interior design showrooms.  “A different clientele here is the interior designers.  They will see our art work or our furniture and recommend it for a client or they will use it for a show house which is great for us to advertise in other locations, and let know people know that we are here,” Dubois says.

Casterline met Goodman in Colorado where he runs his Aspen gallery. “When Jordan found out that I was interested in opening a gallery in Chicago, he said we would like to be involved. I liked his design, but I also liked that most of his work he does custom. So I can go to him and come up with an idea and he can take it from the beginning stages right through to the completion. I didn’t want to open a designer show room. But I thought to bring in a unique furniture designer could only compliment the artwork.”  Goodman’s refined furniture designs accentuate the contemporary works and yet they stand on their own as works of art.  Chairs with bold lettered upholstery and low-riding coffee tables made of walnut and cherry wood with metal details create a comfortable social space where art enthusiasts can relax as they mull over the worth of a piece of art. “As the word spreads and people come up to see us, they seem to really love the diversification of our gallery.” And what’s not to love except that extra zero on the price tag?  But art is worth every penny and more if it enriches our lives and our history.

Museum Works Galleries is located at 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 1850.

Klein Artist Works is Creating Change.

Artists are the most important component of any cultural consideration. Without artists we don’t have culture.

In the visual arts, artists have been relegated to an inferior position. Artists are used and artists are taken advantage of.

All artists want to succeed on their own terms, to make art that affects others and takes care of themselves. But in an art world full of complicated innuendo, slippery practices and an overbearing pursuit of a manipulated buck, it is hard for an artist to prosper when the path is littered with unknowns.

It is precisely for these reasons that Paul Klein has initiated Klein Artist Works. He is an artists’ advocate. He wants to see artists empowered. The first 12-week session of Klein Artist Works has recently completed. Seventeen artists participated, aged 34 to 67, and the testimonials page on the course website indicates they learned a lot.

In the course, Klein first emphasized the importance of artists not only taking responsibility for their artwork, but their careers as well. Our society, politicians, institutions, collectors and galleries are not going to hand out a living to artists based on wishful thinking.

This means that relationships with galleries are not necessarily the cornucopia many artists assume them to be. Klein shows examples of an array of possibilities beyond the traditional and changing gallery scene; public art, commissions, artist generated exhibitions, grant writing, and competitions. A relationship with a gallery is a choice – not a given. And the course met with numerous galleries and dealers to learn the possibilities and shortcomings of a gallery relationship.

Vision and strategy are clearly delineated. Vision is the non-negotiable stuff that a given artist holds close. Strategy, on the other hand, addresses the tactics that an artist might pursue, like scale, size, pricing, relationships with galleries, agents, partners, other artists, and much more.

Through a series of in-person meetings with successful artists, galleries and collectors, coupled with in depth webinars with curators, art business advisors, media relationship experts, grant writers, artists’ agents, gal Fridays, art accountants, critics and artists pursuing non-traditional careers, Klein leads artists through a thorough demystification of the art world.

Artists learn how much work they need before they seek representation, how much work to have before scheduling an exhibit, how to promote oneself, where to seek assistance, how to work with the press and how to cooperate with other artists.

A range of logical steps are revealed and a lot of introductions are made to curators, dealers, collectors, established artists and others who can help the artists accomplish their goals.

Obviously the information is out there for anyone to discover on their own, but why reinvent the wheel every time we encounter a new situation? So often we get mired in our own path that we don’t see, or never learn, the other possibilities that can help us grown and succeed. Paul Klein is here to make that happen, as a guide, mentor and advocate.

His next course begins February 2nd. For information, go to the course website: http://kleinartistworks.com.

Here’s the problem: ideologically, most everyone in the Artworld likes things to be unstructured, open, and mellow.  Yet when a big pile of cash gets plopped on the table, we all get serious. We forget that humans, by nature, play to win.

So my first suggestion for a 2011 Cash-Prize Art Contest: let’s not pretend to be casual when money is on the line. Let’s be intense, organized, fastidious, and detail-oriented. Let’s treat these scarce opportunities with a little bit of reverence, and a willingness to show an ID when voting for an artist. Because if a contest could become a forum for the public serving as annual judge and jury for public art projects, museum exhibit nomination, and/or Art Star status, it could be a unique and radical opportunity for Chicago artists, something not seen in any other city.

So here are some ideas I’d like to throw out for discussion:

1.      Judge the art not on just “best”, but “best in class”. Best art to Hang Above Couch, Best Concept that Could Be Adapted for a Public Art Piece, or People’s Choice for Museum Acquisition.

2.      No entry fees for artists, but a smaller cash prize. Or finance it like a lotto, everyone pays in, and all the money in the pot goes to the winners.

3.      Equality of venue. One big warehouse. Temporary white walls, aisles, and you snake your way through the exhibit, casting your vote as you exit.

4.       Physical, on-site voting. You register, show an ID, vote once in person.

5.      Wide engagement of the non-art public. Media companies all donate some ad space in the category of public service announcements. Market the idea of the citizens picking their cities artists.

6.      Lobbying. This is the most difficult to enforce, as seen through the 40 emails, blog posts and Facebook feeds I’ve seen today regarding the top 10 finalists. If the goal is to limit mobilizing voters, then a few steps can be taken. Among them:

a.       Everyone is informed of these restrictions early in the process. Yada yada legalese is separated from real rules and regulations. Media outlets are requested to embargo specifics about particular artists, and everyone stays vigilant and reports violations, which are quickly and quietly taken down. Yet the risk is only of damaging the reputation of the artist, not cause for disqualification.

b.      Conversely, everyone is encouraged to use their networks to “get out the vote” and encourage participation, rather than particular endorsement.

c.       Winners/Finalists are not announced based on a timeline, but when all the checks, balances and equations are complete.

7. Artwork size restrictions. That might sound crazy, but what if everyone had to keep it to 5′ x 5′ x 3′?  Large installations are impressive by nature, and without size restrictions, everyone is going to catch on that bigger works command bigger spots and more “real estate” within the contest area.

8. Host the commercial aspect – the loop, the tours, the hotels – as the post-contest exhibit phase. That will allow the contest to keep corporate sponsorship, without tipping the scales of the contest. Just like in television contests – first the contest, then the national tour. After the voting is done and winners announced, then the art can be put all over the city.

Bonus suggestion: No artists names on the wall. Vote for the art, not the artist.

The first key to having a successful art contest, one that truly serves the community, is to create some clear goals that best serve the artists. Once the art community is unified, they can best speak to the realities of a contest’s execution.

One commentator suggested a media free-for-all, where the artists’ ability to rally and campaign would all be a part of the competition. Although this is a valid option, and a more feasible one to execute, it just be too eerily similar to the current system, wherein the most profitable grants and opportunities are already often merely popularity contests, except that they are selected by a higher-ranking crowd.

This populist track could be a viable track – if we take it seriously.

Photo: James N. Wood. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times

So many kind things have been said about James Wood that I’d just like to post some of the messages and comments that have come in, and welcome further kind words. As many of you already know, Jim Woods passed this weekend.

From the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES — James N. Wood, the president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust, who also worked for 25 years at the Art Institute of Chicago, has died. He was 69.

He died unexpectedly of natural causes, Mark Siegel, who chairs the Getty’s board of trustees, said in a statement Saturday. Wood was found in his Los Angeles home late Friday.

Siegel paid tribute to Wood’s accomplishments during his three years at the Getty, including his focus on increasing collaboration between the Getty’s museum, foundation and research and conservation institutes.

“Jim valued collaboration, and he reinforced that value at the Getty,” Siegel said. “Jim led a strategic planning process that emphasized ways in which the Getty’s four programs could work together to further enhance the institution’s already strong worldwide reputation.”

Wood worked for a quarter century as director and president of the Art Institute of Chicago, then retired with his wife Emese to Rhode Island.

He came out of retirement to work at the Getty in December 2006, following the resignation of Barry Munitz.

Wood received his undergraduate degree in art history from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., and his masters from the Institute for Fine Arts at New York University.

His areas of specialization included European paintings, sculpture and photography.

Wood is survived by his wife, two daughters and their families

When I was doing research for an article about the MCA and Art Institute,  James Woods’ name came up often, and always with respect and admiration. More importantly, he was described as “changing everything,” by modernizing the Art Institute’s infrastructure, along with its art program.

Beginning in the 1950′s, there was a painful history that spurred the creation of the MCA.  The rivalry, quite literally, ended with Woods in 1980. Lew Manilow, one of MCA’s founders, described Woods as ”a hero,” and recalled how  Woods physically gathered the camps from the Art Institute and the MCA together for a meeting.  Manilow recounted Woods saying, ‘I don’t care who gets the [donated] art, as long as it stays in Chicago.’

So without further ado, I’ll paste in a coulpe messages I got via FB and open the comments section. (Everything is moderated, so give it a little time to go live)

I met Mr Wood years ago at Marianne Deson Gallery when I was part of her stable. He was kind, elegant and distinguished. Over the years he took an interest in what myself and other artists in Chicago were up to. Very sad indeed…Much too young…
-Gary Justice

I met Jim Wood in the later 1980s when he helped to develop a collaborative program between Northwestern University and The Art Institute of Chicago centered on art studio and conservation media practices for art history graduate students. A fine man in every respect.
-William Conger

Jim was a wonderful colleague. His profound enjoyment of art, and curiosity about culture was a great model for anyone who had the opportunity to speak with him. I really admired him as the Director when he was at the Art Institute, in part because he left us alone, and often deferred to our opinions, even when he didn’t believe in them. A very selfless man. I will always remember, at the time of the MCA’s build-up to their new building, when he gathered curators who deal in modern and contemporary art at AIC and insisted that we leave their donors alone so that they could get their feet in the new digs. And then, a few years later, when it was clear that they were into their thing, he once again released us to compete for the support of donors who divided their interests between institutions.

It was an honor to work with him. And Emese, his wife, is equally generous, smart, and lovely. I am really sad for her, and their daughters.
- Mark Pascale