I certainly didn’t expect that. While many of my paintings are open to interpretation regarding their content, I’ve never felt that my scenes of mostly urban life were particularly controversial.
I just finished the first of a series of paintings of Saint John, New Brunswick. The plan is to make a series of affordable giclees (canvas prints) for retail in the area.
I debated what would be the first painting of the series. Last time I was in Saint John I had taken a good number of pictures of people passing in front of Trinity Church, which is one of the dominant landmarks in uptown. Down the block is Trinity Gallery, presumably named in relation to its proximity to the church. Its hard to go to Saint John and not see this building. What held me back on doing this subject is the famous Norman Rockwell painting “Lift Up Thine Eyes.” In it people are walking with their heads down past a magnificent gothic church. Above them are a flock of birds rising up in the sky. (Click here to see it). Caroline Johnson, a curatorial fellow at Brigham Young University, writes that Rockwell did the painting as an illustration to a magazine essay on “meaningful spiritual practice as a refuge for those struggling or simply preoccupied by the demands of modern life.”
I have to say, having stood there a while, all the people who walked passed this gothic church in Saint John resembled those in the Rockwell painting — far more preoccupied with the demands of their day-to-day lives. That included two women chatting while walking with a child in a stroller, and an elderly man who did look world weary to me. Maybe he was just on his way to the dentist. Who knows?
There is no question that the painting deals with the spiritual and secular divide, the architecture itself creating that divide between those on the sidewalk below and the spiritual world above, the wall and iron fence sending its own message. I am the last person to suggest religion is anybody’s answer. At one point in my family history we moved to the UK, and for the simple reason that my mother wanted me to go to the better school in town, we made a quick conversion from Roman Catholicism to the Church of England. While our sessions in school (including class trips across the street to the church) were of good intention, the kids often saw themselves as part of a tribe, and that other tribe (the RCs) in their minds needed a good bashing. When it was discovered that I had once been one of the RCs, I got shunned by some of my new friends. Their parents explicitly told them they couldn’t hang out with me anymore. It is with this background that perhaps my painting is far more ambiguous in nature.
So what is this banning all about? First, here is the full painting (below). See if you can figure it out first.
One of the Artist Networks I belong to has monthly educational sessions, of which the commerce side of the art world is a frequent topic. Earlier in the year we were given the advice not to forget about showing our work to other artists because artists are also collectors. This resonated with me given we have original work by about thirty artists in our home. This month the suggestion was to stay away from artist sites, that artists are not the audience for your work, that instead you should use social media to find your target audience. Hmmm.
I have to say I like looking at what other artists are doing and connecting with them. This is, after all, a very individual occupation. A good part of my day is spent looking at social media (eg Facebook) groups for artists as well as specific professional sites, such as Art News and the Art Newspaper. I want to know how my work fits. For the social media groups it is also about give and take. You get to scan through the work of others, and in turn, you post your own material for the benefit of them. I honestly don’t go into any of these with the expectation that a sale will arise, although our latest presenter did suggest that the majority of her sales do come from social media, having sold work as far away as Australia.
Most of these artist groups on social media have a set of rules you have to agree to in order to be able to post and leave comments behind. Some you can browse without doing so, others are private until such time as you join. No peeking until then. Common rules include being nice and to avoid politics and religion. Given the hellscape that is social media, with MAGA Trolls and Russian Bots mucking up the place with their offensive taunts, I can understand why these groups would want to put into place some rules of decorum.
For the most part, by posting I can see whether a new painting resonates with others or not depending on the reaction on these sites, so it is a useful tool.
About a week ago I noticed one particularly large site (it had more than 100,000 members) for Older Artists. Being an older artist, I was intrigued and wanted to take a look. I’ve previously written how older artists are frequently condescended to, and often not considered to be real artists. Would this be discussed? Instead, once I got in, it was a mostly disappointing collection of pet portraits and amateur landscapes. I none-the-less put up a couple of pieces that were well received in that environment. I felt that if I was looking through their stuff, they should be able to do the same. Then the third painting I posted never went up. What the?
Then I got an explanation from one of the moderators. I had broken the rules of the group by posting a religious image — presumably they meant the church. I noticed I now had an “X” placed beside my name.
If the image of a church was too much for them, I can’t imagine what they would make of most of the last 2000 years of Western art. Certainly they would have banished Norman Rockwell for Lift Up Thine Eyes had the artist still been alive.
I can’t say I tested the waters to see if I could post something else or whether I was totally banned. I didn’t care anymore and ejected them from my FB lists. This was really extreme, and goes a long way to explaining why the group only showed art work (mostly amateur) of such an innocuous nature.
It also made me mad. Fighting the stereotype of older artists, these folks seem to be poster images for that stereotype. Its perhaps a good thing that their group is totally private.
So there we go, my first banishment. It is a badge of honour.
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Don’t forget you can ignore the palaver and go straight to the pictures by clicking here. And there are still copies of my little book available. Click here for that.
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