Coming from an Australian that has never been to the USA.. are there any places that I SHOULD or SHOULDNT visit in October?? I have traveled outside of Australia but I have never been to a place that spoke English or had a considerable art collection. This trip is prompted by friends that plan to visit Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New York City (where I plan to hang around for longer by myself. )

So, are there ART places in LA that MUST be seen or are there places in NYC that MUST be seen? I want to be lazy and hang around for a while by myself in NYC but I also want to check out places that are VERY American. Eg, the Yankee Stadium even though I barely know what baseball is! I want the raw NYC and America, the stuff that I wouldnt see if I was a tourist (which I am)!!

So that I become, Art New York Blog instead of Art News Blog!!.. Even if it’s just for a month or two.. I want to become a fast talking loud mouth blogger, if just for a month or two..lol Does the NY Met suck or should I leave the Moma and Guggeinheim in the movies?? Or is there an underground that is above the commercial bullshit?? Should I stick to hotdogs and the park??? I want something that I cant get from anywhere else.. I don’t care if I have to kiss a flag or a eat a hot dog to get it, I just want the USA thing.. for just a little while.. whatever that is..

My warped sense of humor makes me think these plush toys would be great gifts for kids or PETA members. I’m an animal lover and I try to limit my meat consumption, but I also like to have a laugh. Life really isn’t as serious as some of us make it out to be.

The road kill toys come with their own plastic bodybag, and some have an “I Love RoadKill” bumper sticker, death certificates and toe tags.

Twitch (Raccoon) Plush Toy

Grind (Rabbit) Plush Toy

Splodge (Hedgehog) Plush Toy

If there was a koala or kangaroo road kill toy available I might consider buying one. The dead animals above can be bought for £25.00 from a British company here.

Thanks to everyone that entered the studio slash office chair giveaway. I invited my good friend around, filled him with coffee and chocolate biscuits, then asked him to pick a winner.

The winner he chose was Corrine (Jafabrit) and she chose the Topstar Sitness 5 Fitness Stool. Here’s why she chose the chair..

The topstar in lime green because it looks like a work of art, because it rocks, because it looks goofy, because it would fit in my studio, because I LOVE it, because I WANT one, because I want to hear my husband say, “what the hell is that”, and I can say smugly, “why darling it is my ergonomic stool” humph!


I would have liked to give everyone a chair but I don’t think CSN Office Furniture would have been open to the idea of giving away 60+ chairs!

Here’s another artist’s studio. This one belongs to Maine artist Gail Sauter.

So many artists that I know have dogs hanging around their studios. Painters seem to be dog people more than cat people.

And little gems like this come out of her studio..

See more paintings by Gail Sauter at her website here and/or read her blog here.

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the studio lately, which is one reason why I haven’t been updating the blog as much (the other reason is laziness). I’m painting a bit of everything with no real focus, but I’m having fun which is the most important thing. I counted the paintings I’m working on at the moment and found that I have 21 pictures in various stages of completion, so I’m definitely not starting any new ones until I start finishing a few!

What does your studio look like? If you send me a few (smallish) photos of your art studio I might post them. I love seeing other artist studios, it’s like reading the artist’s diary.

Here’s a few pics from this afternoon..

T-bone steaks, mince meat and potatoes.

Paintings and easel.

Paints, brushes, and phone.

Tiger comes down to check on me and remind me that I have to feed her while her owner is away.

Landscape, Melbourne scene and meat.

Self portrait (in need of a shave).

Portrait and box of canvases.

Sydney cityscape.

Here’s some of my older paintings online.

The Times and Saatchi gallery have compiled 1,461,523 votes from the public to come up with a list of the 200 top artists of the 20th Century. It’s a method that has flaws as some artists will be missing and other artists will get more attention than they really deserve, but any list compiled by anyone is flawed as lists are an art rather than a science. They’re not meant to be taken too seriously.

1 Pablo Picasso 21587

2 Paul Cezanne 21098

3 Gustav Klimt 20823

4 Claude Monet 20684

5 Marcel Duchamp 20647

6 Henri Matisse 17096

7 Jackson Pollock 17051

8 Andy Warhol 17047

9 Willem De Kooning 17042

10 Piet Mondrian 17028

11 Paul Gauguin 17027

12 Francis Bacon 17018

13 Robert Rauschenberg 16956

14 Georges Braque 16788

15 Wassily Kandinsky 16055

16 Constantin Brancusi 14224

17 Kasimir Malevich 13609

18 Jasper Johns 12988

19 Frida Kahlo 12940

20 Martin Kippenberger 12784

21 Paul Klee 12750

22 Egon Schiele 12696

23 Donald Judd 12613

24 Bruce Nauman 12517

25 Alberto Giacometti 12098

26 Salvador Dalí 11496

27 Auguste Rodin 8989

28 Mark Rothko 8951

29 Edward Hopper 8918

30 Lucian Freud 8897

31 Richard Serra 8858

32 Rene Magritte 8837

33 David Hockney 8787

34 Philip Guston 8786

35 Henri Cartier-Bresson 8779

36 Pierre Bonnard 8778

37 Jean-Michel Basquiat 8746

38 Max Ernst 8737

39 Diane Arbus 8733

40 Georgia O’Keeffe 8714

41 Cy Twombly 8708

42 Max Beckmann 8690

43 Barnett Newman 8643

44 Giorgio De Chirico 8462

45 Roy Lichtenstein 7441

46 Edvard Munch 5080

47 Pierre Auguste Renoir 5063

48 Man Ray 5050

49 Henry Moore 5045

50 Cindy Sherman 5041

51 Jeff Koons 5028

52 Tracey Emin 4961

53 Damien Hirst 4960

54 Yves Klein 4948

55 Henri Rousseau 4944

56 Chaim Soutine 4927

57 Arshile Gorky 4926

58 Amedeo Modigliani 4924

59 Umberto Boccioni 4918

60 Jean Dubuffet 4910

61 Eva Hesse 4908

62 Edouard Vuillard 4899

63 Carl Andre 4898

64 Juan Gris 4898

65 Lucio Fontana 4896

66 Franz Kline 4894

67 David Smith 4842

68 Joseph Beuys 4480

69 Alexander Calder 3241

70 Louise Bourgeois 3240

71 Marc Chagall 3224

72 Gerhard Richter 3123

73 Balthus 3090

74 Joan Miro 3087

75 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 3084

76 Frank Stella 3078

77 Georg Baselitz 3048

78 Francis Picabia 3046

79 Jenny Saville 3034

80 Dan Flavin 3024

81 Alfred Stieglitz 3017

82 Anselm Kiefer 3010

83 Matthew Barney 3005

84 George Grosz 2990

85 Bernd And Hilla Becher 2980

86 Sigmar Polke 2966

87 Brice Marden 2947

88 Maurizio Cattelan 2940

89 Sol LeWitt 2926

90 Chuck Close 2915

91 Edward Weston 2899

92 Joseph Cornell 2893

93 Karel Appel 2890

94 Bridget Riley 2885

95 Alexander Archipenko 2884

96 Anthony Caro 2879

97 Richard Hamilton 2878

98 Clyfford Still 2864

99 Luc Tuymans 2862

100 Claes Oldenburg 2843

101 Eduardo Paolozzi 2839

102 Frank Auerbach 2836

103 Dinos and Jake Chapman 2827

104 Marlene Dumas 2827

105 Antoni Tapies 2825

106 Giorgio Morandi 2824

107 Walker Evans 2823

108 Nan Goldin 2819

109 Robert Frank 2818

110 Georges Rouault 2818

111 Jean Arp 2817

112 August Sander 2809

113 James Rosenquist 2808

114 Andreas Gursky 2804

115 Eugene Atget 2802

116 Jeff Wall 2790

117 Ellsworth Kelly 2789

118 Bill Brandt 2787

119 Christo And Jeanne Claude 2782

120 Howard Hodgkin 2781

121 Josef Albers 2781

122 Piero Manzoni 2777

123 Agnes Martin 2771

124 Anish Kapoor 2768

125 L.S. Lowry 2761

126 Robert Motherwell 2754

127 Robert Delaunay 2747

128 Stuart Davis 2742

129 Ed Ruscha 2731

130 Gilbert & George 2729

131 Stanley Spencer 2720

132 James Ensor 2719

133 Fernand Leger 2718

134 Brassai (Gyula Halasz) 2717

135 Alexander Rodchenko 2715

136 Robert Ryman 2711

137 Ad Reinhardt 2709

138 Hans Bellmer 2700

139 Isa Genzken 2699

140 Kees Van Dongen 2698

141 Weegee 2698

142 Paula Rego 2695

143 Thomas Hart Benton 2689

144 Hans Hofmann 2684

145 Vladimir Tatlin 2679

146 Odilon Redon 2653

147 George Segal 2619

148 Jorg Immendorff 2611

149 Robert Smithson 2435

150 Peter Doig 2324

151 Ed and Nancy Kienholz 2293

152 Richard Prince 2266

153 Ansel Adams 2262

154 Naum Gabo 2256

155 Diego Rivera 2239

156 Barbara Hepworth 2237

157 Nicolas De Stael 2237

158 Walter De Maria 2229

159 Felix Gonzalez-Torres 2228

160 Giacomo Balla 2225

161 Ben Nicholson 2221

162 Anthony Gormley 2218

163 Lyonel Feininger 2216

164 Emil Nolde 2213

165 Mark Wallinger 2211

166 Hermann Nitsch 2209

167 Paul Signac 2209

168 Jean Tinguely 2209

169 Kurt Schwitters 2209

170 Grayson Perry 2208

171 Julian Schnabel 2208

172 Raymond Duchamp-Villon 2208

173 Robert Gober 2208

174 Duane Hanson 2208

175 Richard Diebenkorn 2207

176 Alex Katz 2207

177 Alighiero E Boetti 2206

178 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska 2206

179 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 2205

180 Jacques-Henri Lartigue 2205

181 Robert Morris 2205

182 Sarah Lucas 2204

183 Jannis Kounellis 2204

184 Chris Burden 2204

185 Otto Dix 2203

186 David Bomberg 2203

187 Fischli & Weiss 2203

188 Augustus John 2203

189 Marsden Hartley 2203

190 Takashi Murakami 2203

191 James Turrell 2202

192 Isamu Noguchi 2201

193 Robert Mangold 2201

194 John Chamberlain 2201

195 Charles Demuth 2200

196 John Currin 2200

197 Alberto Burri 2200

198 Arnulf Rainer 2200

199 David Salle 2200

200 Hiroshi Sugimoto 2199

Find out more about the top 200 20th century artists over at the TimesOnline and at Saatchi.

A photographer recently asked an interesting question on an old post called Painting from Photographs.

He asks..

What should a photographer do after receiving a request from a painter who wants to paint loads of his images?

- a fee per image?
- % when painter sells this painting?
- just agreement about a credit line for the photographer?

I consider my photography as art on its own and somebody would like to do his/her art with my art.
Any suggestions?
I have no problem with 1-3 images painted and a credit line but more than 20???

Want to win an original Damien Hirst painting worth £125,000? Me too, but I don’t live in the UK!

UK residents over the age of 18 can have the opportunity to win a painting by Damien Hirst or one of 20 litho prints by the artist. The Guardian’s Observer Music Monthly is teaming up with Hirst and the band The Hours to give away the painting. The painting was used to create The Hours album cover.

It’s not as easy as just signing for up the newsletter to win either as they’re making entrants work a little for the prize (it is a BIG prize.)

The first step is to register your details here before the 19th of April. Then on launch day they will “be setting a new question every day for 20 consecutive days. To be in with a chance of winning, you’ll need to follow our blog story, find the clues and then answer every single question correctly. We’ll be testing your determination and your initiative so make sure you’re paying attention. Every time you answer a daily question you’ll automatically enter another prize draw to win a further signed Damien Hirst litho print.”

There’s more information on the registration page.

Good luck! I wish I could enter it too!

I couldn’t work out if I found this story funny, revolting, or just insane.. it’s probably a little of all three.

Chilean born Danish shock artist Marco Evaristti has made a deal with death row inmate Gene Hathorn to be fed to fish after his death.

Evaristti told the Art Newspaper that “My aim is to first deep freeze Gene’s body and then make fish food out of it. Visitors to my exhibition will be able to feed goldfish with it.”

The 47 year old Gene Hathorn is on death row in Livingston, Texas, USA after being convicted of killing his father, step-mother, and step-brother.
>> Controversy News

I have always thought of art fairs as money events rather than art events as it’s all about selling and making commercial contacts. If I had to organize an art fair, I would first doubt the sanity of the person that put me in charge, but then I would try and put something together like Baby Tattooville.

It’s an annual event where a small selection of artists and art collectors spend the weekend together. 50 tickets are sold which gives you access to the event, the artists, accommodation for the weekend, talks, demonstrations, and “surprise collectible gifts.” There’s also art for sale, but it doesn’t seem to be the main reason to go to Baby Tattooville.

Some collectors may just want art to hang on the wall and have no desire to learn anything about the artist, but for those that want to get to know the artist behind the art, this is a good opportunity.

The 2008 artists include Ana Bagayan, Glenn Barr, Dave Cooper, Bob Dob, Joe Ledbetter, Brandi Milne, Daniel Peacock, Shag, Amy Sol and Michael Whelan.

Their blurb seems to explain it better than me.. “Baby Tattooville provides a unique opportunity for a small group of celebrated artists and serious collectors to spend time together in a relaxed yet creatively stimulating environment. Without the time constraints of a typical personal appearance, or the crowd control issues of a standing-room-only event, artists and collectors will have a weekend-long opportunity to discuss and explore their mutual interests. Original work will be created and celebrated around-the-clock. No one will leave empty handed. Only 50 event packages are being offered.”

Tickets are $2000 which also includes the hotel room and a goodies package. The Baby Tattooville art retreat is held on the weekend of October 3-5, 2008 at Mission Inn and Spa, Riverside, CA, USA. There’s currently 16 tickets still available. Find out more on their website here.