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Hurray for technology!

You got me! Just as my purist sensibilities were being offended concerning change, technology, separation from the source, etc., I caught myself and realized that this process of talking with someone about art at 4:00 a.m. who is thousands of miles away, is pretty wonderful. Hurray for change and hurray for technology! It seems that ultimately people are pretty smart about things and many of the dreaded consequences to new things don't happen. Some do, but that's life. Whatever bad things people can do with technology, they will find a way to do anyway through persistence.

Celebration of nutty ideas

I really think you should get out of your log cabin and increase your contact with the

Triplets I black cherry wood pots

rest of the world. Maybe this is just the start of the slippery slope to the commercialization of April Fool's Day. Just like Christmas now seems to begin in October, maybe April Fool's will turn into a multi-month celebration of nutty ideas. As a point of interest, the first craft show of the fall that I attend is in October and is called Hogmanay. But then the nearby village of Tatamgouche holds an annual Oktoberfest in September, so who am I to argue?

We owe galleries an appearance

I congratulate your galleries who will not accept your LongBrush approach. We do owe them an appearance at their openings for all the money they put out to promote the events (spoken as a former gallery owner). Sorry if I offend you but I am so frustrated with the current state of many galleries and their reproductions. There are still a lot of very good artists with original art who need places to show.

Our art is about us

Gertrude Stein, on returning to her childhood home of Oakland after a long period in Europe, was dismayed and disappointed in finding no connections to her past life. No childhood home, no familiar restaurants, only bland redevelopment. "There is no there, there," she lamented. At a Council meeting here in Prescott, AZ, hot with debate over uncontrolled development, a resident stood and declared, "People come here for the trees and mountains, the history and our heritage. They don't come here to see Wal-Mart." Remote book signing and painting strike me as "no there, there." Our art is as much about us and the act of creating as the product and when we let that disappear... what's the saying? "A thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters will eventually write... "

Machines work at home while artist travels

I want the LongBrush or LongPen in reverse. That way it can stay in the studio and do my work and I can be in Paris or Rome or my favorite city, Venice - sending back wonderful images that my LongBrush would be interpreting. Or, I would be viewing great art in museums while my pen is making notes in a journal at home. It would be filled with ideas and my brain would be spending all the time observing and absorbing. The computer is magical in itself and does much, but not everything, even at great distances.

Does your hat still fit your head?

As for computer generated LongPen or LongBrushes, the world of technology has gone too far. People have gone too far, believing in their own importance a tad too fervently. Being a fan of Margaret Atwood and a good many other writers I daresay I would hesitate to queue up to a software program for an autograph. Needless to say, writing is more favourable to an autograph. As for a remote piece of art work - unless it's extraordinary - never. Have I missed something here? Does your hat still fit your head? I must say you've "lucked-out" with self-promotion. You do have the gift of the gab.

Best on canvas

Remember those Etch-A-Sketch drawing pads we had as kids? I'd like to do text handwriting back and forth on the computer screen instead of typing. Yes, the future has more possibilities for us artistic souls. Here again, it is the desire and the talented hand that wants control on whatever surface it is. I like it best on canvas.

Excellent for re-runs too

You could improve the experience by having a "live" TV avatar - think "Max Headroom" yakking away while the art is being produced. Think how wowed your collectors will be! And the whole pee-yew-formance could be re-run at a later time for those who missed it!

Let's discuss immediate LongBrush distribution

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Karen Merritt Randall. I live in Los Angeles and

Harold Cohen in Studio, 1995  click image to enlarge

have been working at a corporate level for a number of years on projects involving the arts and entertainment industries. I happen to be working with a man who is the largest distributor of American television programming. He's been in this business for 35 years. He and a friend of mine just started an international business of direct marketers to sell fine art reproductions. This product of yours would fit in nicely with what they are doing. I would like to know if we could speak live to discuss immediate distribution of your machine. My associate also has access to investment money and technical people if those were needed to make this machine commercially viable. Please give me a call.

It's so interesting that you have come up with this. I've kept my eye on this sort of thing my entire career. My first painting instructor, Harold Cohen, an abstract artist who worked the early part of his career at the national restoration center in London, has spent the last 25 years working on artificial intelligence projects at Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory to make machines to create like a human - i.e. paint. His machines do some nice abstracts, but for me it's the human touch that makes the difference.

Corel Painter system very cool

It's already here, and has been for the last 10 years. A digital painting program,

Lady Luck digital painting  click image to enlarge

called Painter, originally developed and designed by a company in Aptos, California, and now owned by Corel, older versions of the program have a utility within the program called "Net Painter" which uses a "central" computer, and you hook up (from anywhere in the world) and take turns working on a collaborative painting. This provided sessions between a number of schools, one in the U.S., another in Japan, for instance. Produced some very nice work. Each student was given 5 minutes to work on the piece, and you could "see" what was happening to the "original" piece. Very cool!

Excited to mix art and technology

Today's letter was totally awesome… and so totally cool! You brought the artist,

Minaz Jantz  click image to enlarge

entrepreneur, visionary, techy, and all round cool dude together to share with us the potential for all things to be possible! Mixing art and technology has been an incredible artistic entrepreneurial journey to success for me too. I can truly call myself a multi-media artist mixing old and new technologies to an adventure into the uncharted. I published Spinderella Soap last year because I could do it 'hands on' with the affordable and accessible technology today. Next month my book will also be presented as an e-Book for computers. I have a website that links me to a world of admirers, buyers, and other like-minded people who I would never have the possibility to connect with a few years past.

LongBrush Invention permits privacy

I just love the concept of painting or drawing and having others watch it happen thousands of miles away--as it is being created. It is also a way for collectors to be privy to the way some of us work. I for one hate someone in my studio when I am painting. I want a solitary calm with no one else's mind or body clutter disturbing me while I allow my mind to wander and wonder. I think this idea is quirky fun and very modern. Please advise as to how we can purchase your invention.

Giving long distance workshops with LongBrush

Your LongBrush idea is fascinating! I don't quite get it yet, but am sure it is remarkable.

Old Macaw poured watercolor with collage  click image to enlarge

I've been wondering how to give workshops or at least demonstrations in another part of the world. We have thought of DVDs, streaming video, webcams… but by LongBrush? (I have friends who live on long boats.) Would that be an option? Not sure I could get all the other materials into a piece (collage and mixed media) but wow, what a mind-blowing idea! I'd sure love to see it done! Thanks for the mind expansion!

LongBrush creepy

The idea of the LongBrush just creeps me out. I understand that you are using the tool

Hollyhocks watercolor painting  click image to enlarge

and the art is coming from yourself. But, there is something to be said for being there with the paper or canvas, and the human touch, and the human spirit touching the original work. I read and look at books, I see photographs and, while they represent a hint of the idea, I get a hit off the real, hand-touched art of masterworks – of, say, Monet, the real Hokusai (I lived in Japan for a couple of years at a museum campus) the real Van Gogh, etc. – even when the actual painting is placed elsewhere from the place painted. Not that convenience is creepy. I am as laid back as possible over conveniences – I own a coffeepot, a vacuum, a car, etc. And I have no problem with servants doing work for me (not that I have any except our mail/slippers/leash carrying dog). Somehow, I just can't wrap my head around this one – and I usually like your new-fangled ideas.

'Art machine' images

As I read your letter, I laughed the second time today at the image of an "art machine."

Art Machine painting by Jose Volcovich  click image to enlarge

Yours may be figurative, but the first was literally an image of a painting by Jose Volcovich. I am using his image to build his website.

Inform yourself of the new mass market

I can see the time when artists will produce small works and digitally enlarge them to 5

Las Trampas - New Mexico watercolor painting, 22 x 32 inches  click image to enlarge

feet by 6 feet with little effort, printing them on canvas and charging half the price of an original of the same size. Indeed that time is already here so this is not a difficult prediction to make. Considering the lack of artistic knowledge typical of many in our society today, knowing the difference between original and reproduced art/painting is no longer a qualification (if it ever was) for buying good art.

Technology, in my opinion, is the biggest competitor the artist has today. It dances, it moves, it lights up, it makes sounds, it talks back. I fear the buying public (I exclude genuine collectors of art) might find a painting rather boring if it just hangs on the wall and doesn't do anything and costs three times what that new computer, X-Box, or TV costs. We haven't quite reached that point but it can't be far off. On a positive note: we should now be aware that a mass market for art exists; artists—inform yourselves and plan to take advantage of it!

Shifting to the right brain

Artists may want to pick up the book The Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. The basis for

Eye of the storm oil painting, 24 x 24 inches  click image to enlarge

Pink's book is that Western society – and Western economies – are shifting from valuing left-brain dominated professions to learning to value right-brain dominated qualities and work. Pink says that the left-brainers have been so successful in creating a lifestyle and economy of abundance at low prices that finding something as good or better at a cheaper price is no longer enough – it has to have good design. And left-brainers don't do good design – right-brainers do. Pink claims that the MFA is becoming more valuable in the work world than the MBA because artists are "whole mind" thinkers. He also sees other right-brain "senses" returning as our age of relative ease and abundance allows us more time to search for purpose in our lives – senses like story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning.

Happy artists

When I was young, the television painter Bob Ross said something that I have always hung

Anthony D. Lee  click image to enlarge

onto: "We artists are a different breed of people. We're a happy bunch." When I used to work in the robot realm, this simple phrasing was all I had to give me understanding of my difference in world perspectives. Now, your letters continue to reiterate that very notion, even more in depth. I appreciate that.

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