Illustrated Art

Joanne Tatham & Tom O'Sullivan 

Now, this has reached the limit conditions of its own rhetoric, 2005 

Drawing by Simon Manfield Plywood, gloss paint, glass, drawing 

The work above is actually a collaboration between three artists. Tatham and O'Sullivan hired illustrator Simon Manfield and gave him rudimentary sketches to illustrate in greater detail. This is a fairly isolated collaboration between the three, ie. it's not Tatham and O'Sullivan's normal method to hire illustrators.

It's strikes me as odd for a couple of reasons. For one, illustration is often looked down upon by gallery artists. There are probably a variety of reasons for that. Historically, it was looked at as the commercialization of art. Later on I think it was possibly the apparent style of illustration that was problematic. Even later, maybe with the advent of 'conceptual' art, it was the craft element of illustration that turned up noses. Additionally, it might be the journeyman (or work for hire) element of it that was bothersome. Anyway, various reasons come up to distain illustration and those reasons are subsequently forgotten.

Ode to a Flower

This is neat. I just did a quick post about a particular clip in an otherwise long video. Now I've found an animator had recently made an animation for just that clip. Apparently, there's no shortage of extra-Feynman related material out there. Maria Popova posted it some time ago and also has an extensive write-up of a recent collection of his writings.

Richard Feynman - Ode To A Flower from Fraser Davidson on Vimeo.

Honestly, it feels like a somewhat anachronistic piece due to how little capital B beauty is actually discussed in art school these days. I do feel the perception of aesthetic quality is making a comeback in art classrooms though. Well, it will be for sure when I'm teaching :D 

Lesson Examples

As promised, this post is about a book Dushko Petrovich wrote with Roger White. It's more of a compilation actually. They somehow got a variety of art educators to submit their favorite or least favorite art lesson assignments, and they brought them together in a book. I don't have the book yet, so I can't say much about its actual content, but there's an artforum interview of the team which might be more revealing. Even better, and in true multi-media fashion...there's an WNYC interview of them posted below.

From what I can gather, the book is primarily a collection of lesson examples. It's an idea that seems so obvious one might not consider it. This book, however, sounds inventive and full of real world variety. One can perhaps be overwhelmed with such a quantity, but a lack of breath in examples can feel rather suffocating. Anyway, I wish I had found this book sooner!