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From The Labors Of Starving Artists

8/20/2020

Art appreciation may be just a question of attitude.

A year ago I routinely exhibited at four local galleries, all of which were seeing declining sales. When people stop buying art it’s a good sign an economic downturn is in the wings, so, you see, I knew a year ago that a recession was coming, even before Covid-19. One of those four closed for economic reasons in the weeks before the virus hit. A second has gone down because of the virus, though it could eventually reopen in some form. A third is undergoing a change in directors and is exhibiting nothing during the transition. So I currently have work exhibited and just a single gallery, and it’s the gallery I’ve had the least success at. I’m actually grateful for even that.

Everywhere galleries are closed or restricting hours. We still have dimwitted nincompoops who refuse to wear masks, so entering an enclosed space of any kind remains a calculated risk. Where does one go to view art?

The answer, actually, is anywhere. The lines of buildings; the sculpted, painted sheet metal of automobiles; the stark shadows of an alley; the curve of the horizon against a blue sky; the colors in the supermarket. Art is everywhere if one is open to it; if one interprets life as a thing of grace and beauty and meaning. The person who figured out how to stack fresh vegetables in the most appealing way has created for us a gallery of exquisite visual imagery.

I’ve tried to emphasize just that in my work – the art of ordinary things.

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Curtis Hendricks

All my life I have had to learn to do things differently. To see the world differently.

Art attracted me from the beginning. Almost every home in the tiny farming village where I grew up had DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’ on the wall. I would come across modern abstract art in magazines and be absolutely fascinated by the colors and techniques.

But there were no artists in my village. No one understood what modern art was. Or why it was. But there was an appreciation for photography.

I began shooting with a 1960 model Agfa rangefinder fixed-lens 35mm camera and learned to use darkroom techniques to finish my work. Graduating to a single lens reflex camera I worked primarily with Kodachrome. Digital photography opened a new world. The computer became the artboard I never had; the darkroom I could never afford. I discovered there would never be a camera or a lens that could capture what I saw in my head – that, I had to learn to create on my own.

I use the photograph the same way a painter uses a charcoal sketch – as a starting place. I squeeze out the unseen hiding between the pixels; the angels, the demons of my own imagination.

Light. Color. Darkness. Perspective. Introversion. Mystery. Love.

DamnPhotoArtist

From The Labors Of Starving Artists

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Curtis Hendricks

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