Ivan Schwartz Blog

Happy New Year everyone!

A few thoughts at the tail end of tough year.

 

Soccer was cancelled here in NY as this week’s blizzard made the bright green field indistinguishable from the surrounding park land.  The inveterate and indefatigable soccer players who represent a contingent of world citizenry here in NY are cooling their heels as the temperature warms to near 40 here in the city that never sleeps.

 

Blizzards / Hazards:  One note on blizzards: not since John Lindsay’s apparently inept handling of the 69 blizzard – now known as the blizzard bungle, have we seen a mayor take heat in the cold like Mike Bloomberg – It’s been a tough week in local NY politics.

StudioEIS News

 
 

I haven’t written for a while. Not a surprise if you consider the fact that 2010 has been a withering year - one of the toughest in our 35 years of object making, sculpture production and life lived by the seat of one’s pants.

I suspect no one working in any creative endeavor was immune to the ravages that came down the pipe line this past year? Strangely enough, we were insulated from much of the early recession hardships, only to discover that the supply line was choked for fuel, which meant projects became few and further between about a year ago.

That said, things are picking up and as we wind down to ring in the New Year, here’s what’s happening, been happening and about to happen at EIS.

 

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New Projects:

 

New York Historical Society:

StudioEIS is at work on a new commission for the Central Park West entrance and West 77^th Street entrance for the new New York Historical Society, opening in November of 2011.  EIS has been commissioned to create two bronze sculptures of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. 

 

About two months ago I visited the Frederick Douglass National Historic site in Anacostia in Washington DC and had a very memorable back stage tour of the Douglass home, where I was allowed to photograph some of his clothing, shoes, canes, and death mask.  We also gleaned some useful measurements from his clothing as we embark on this new sculpture of the great abolitionist.

 

StudioEIS has been commissioned by the Smith Family Foundation and the New York Historical Society, to design and produce bronze sculptures of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass for the façade of the refurbished Historical Society building on Central Park West in Manhattan. This work will be unveiled on November 11, 2011.

StudioEIS is working closely with the curatorial staff at NYHS.

 

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National Infantry Museum:

StudioEIS is in early stage development on two new projects for the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning in Georgia.  The studio was commissioned to produce 50 sculpted figures for the museum when it opened in June of 2009

 
 

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Museo del Deporto, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

StudioEIS continues its association with this wonderful museum and our friends in Guaynabo. The studio continues to work on  this project that now boasts the largest display of sports figures in the Caribbean.  This year we did portrait figures of: Roberto Alomar, Carlos Ortiz, and Diego Lizzardi.

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Abraham Lincoln One Man, Two Views - Ends Run

Abraham Lincoln One Man; Two Views, designed and built as a traveling exhibition By Elliot and I and StudioEIS staff opened at Montgomery College in Maryland last March and then traveled to Dumbo in Brooklyn, ending it’s run at the National Military Park and Visitor Center in Gettysburg just after Thanksgiving this year.  Thousands of people saw the show and catalog was produced in association with Montgomery College.

This year StudioEIS worked on a number of projects, large and small.

You may be interested in seeing some of this work by visiting websites associated with these institutions.

University of South Alabama Archaeology Museum, Mobile Alabama – EIS produced 3 figures for the exhibition

Autry National Center, “Home Lands: How Women Made the West” A traveling exhibition- ran through August of this year at the museum in LA, and then began a three city tour. StudioEIS produced a number of figures for this exhibition.

 

Canada’s  Sports Hall of Fame, Calgary, Canada - opening spring 2011. EIS has been commissioned to produce 7 portrait figures of some of Canada’s greatest sports heroes like Silvie Bernier, Ron Turcotte, and Phil Edwards. 

 
National Mississippi River Museum and Acquarium, Dubuque, Iowa

StudioEIS designed and built 7 life sized figures for displays at this museum

NASCAR Hall of Fame, Charlotte NC.

NASCAR was a great challenge.  Portrait figures made to look like aluminium of the 6 founders of NASCAR- now names indelibly marked in the conscious minds of the millions who follow racing.

The National Museum of Natural History at Smithsonian Institution

Kennewick Man is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric (Paleo-Indian) man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, USA on July 28, 1996. The discovery of Kennewick Man was accidental; a pair of spectators (Will Thomas and David Deacy) found his skull while attending the annual hydroplane races.^[1]

One of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found, bone tests have showed the skeleton to be somewhere between 5650 and 9510 years old. These findings triggered a nine-year legal clash between scientists, the federal government and Native American tribes who claim Kennewick Man as their ancestor. The long dispute has made him an international celebrity.

StudioEIS was commissioned to work with the great team at the National Museum of Natural History to produce a forensically accurate head based upon the skeletal remains found in 1996. This is the same team we worked with on the exhibition, Written in Bone.

Virginia War Memorial: This year StudioEIS worked closely with the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond to produce a number of historical figures for this great institution.

UPS Television Commercial 

 

Believe it or not, we do on occasion break out of the classical figurative tradition.  Here you see a 12 foot foam leg made to look like the “artist’s mannequin.”  This bravura piece of sculpting and faux painting was created for a 5 second shot for a UPS television commercial last autumn

 

Chairs for Hard Times: finally some design high jinks by Ivan and BJ Ervick – There are 4 of these chairs currently and we’re planning several more, two products currently in development. This idea emanated quite literally out of these hard times – Could one chair be divided and have some useful purpose for more than 1 person.

 
Copyright Ivan Schwartz

 

Wishing you all a very happy new Year.  Please visit us at www.studioeis.com

Back in NYC

I’ve just moved with Mary for the 5^th time in two years/ I think this may beat the Belgian writer Georges Simenon’s record; I understand he moved once a year continuously for 25 years. No plagues or perils, we’re just following the path to sculpture commissions that have taken us from Brooklyn to several locals in Washington DC, Virginia, and Gettysburg PA.

 

Moving, gets old very fast, but the time away in Washington was terrific.  We were in DC when Obama was elected and inaugurated, an unforgettable sight we shall never forget on a freezing day in January. And now a year later with a deep sigh and much trepidation about America’s future, we are back on the Brooklyn waterfront in Dumbo, our small community in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, now much changed since our arrival 25 years ago.

 

 
WASHINGTON’S C&O CANAL AND DC ON INAUGURATION DAY

   

DUMBO BROOKLYN/ THE BASE OF THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE / 3 VIEWS

 

It’s good to be back! Brooklyn is much changed but some things never seem to. The three images of the base of this beautiful bridge is one reason why living in NY still has some magic.  The following 3 were shot in this weeks’ snow storm.

 

     
 

  TWO SHOTS OF THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE TOP AND

  BROOKLYN BRIDGE BELOW FROM DUMBO IN THE SNOW

 

But now that I’m back at StudioEIS full time, what’s happening?

Montgomery College Show:  StudioEIS was invited to create an exhibition  about the two new important Lincoln commissions, both completed in 2009. The exhibition is a visual journey through the storytelling process that resulted in the design and development of the Lincoln Cottage Sculpture  and the more recently dedicated Lincoln at Gettysburg Sculpture. Both sculptures can be seen on our website at www.studioeis.com  - go to the portfolio section and bronze sculpture pages.

 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ONE MAN, TWO VIEWS, can be seen at Montgomery College in Silver Spring until March 4, 2010.  The show will open in Dumbo at a beautiful gallery space at 111 Front Street in Brooklyn on March 18, 2010

The exhibition is a first for Elliot and me, inasmuch as we designed it and produced it, which seems to be where some of our interest lies these days.  He and I are talking about creating a series of small exhibitions – 1000 – 1200 sf. on a variety of different subjects for the purpose of creating touring exhibits.  This exhibition gave us some wonderful hands on experience. 

 

 

INVITATION TO THE NEW YORK SHOW OPENING MARCH 18^TH IN NYC

 

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:

 “Lincoln: One Man, Two Views” provides a visual journey through the creative process used by Schwartz and his creative team at StudioEIS to arrive at two new bronze sculptures of President Lincoln, both dedicated last year in celebration of the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. An independent artist & designer, Schwartz is founder & director of Brooklyn-based StudioEIS, which has produced hundreds of sculpture projects in the public & private sectors for museums & cultural institutions. The exhibition follows the process — from sketches to photographs to scale models to final installations — of two of Schwartz’s latest bronze sculptures, including “Lincoln and his Horse at President Lincoln's Cottage” at the Soldiers’ Home, Washington, D.C. and “Lincoln at the National Military Park and Visitor Center, Gettysburg, Pa.”

111 Front Street Suite 214 & 222

  

EISBOX: is a new exhibition space developed and curated by Elliot.  EISBOX will open its first exhibition early in March of work by the painter Gary Stephan http://www.kienzle-gmeiner.de/_html/index.html (scroll to Gary’s name). The idea is to suggest an eclectic mix of visual story ideas.  Abraham Lincoln, One Man, Two Views will be the second exhibition by EISBOX possibly to be followed by an architectural exhibition in association with Princeton University.

INNOVATORS IN AMERICA: for the past seven months I have bee working with Sir Harold Evans (The American Century, They Made America, amongst many texts, and Sarah Frank, former CEO of BBC Americas on creating a very large exhibition and education program on American Innovation for the 21^st century.  John Kao (Innovation Nation) just joined the program and this is enormously exciting in its potential to inspire and help develop innovation curricula and a series of traveling exhibitions, large and small, over the next 2-5 years.  More to come on this.

WE MAKE PRESIDENTS! Part 2

Thomas Jefferson in bronze at Monticello and in clay at StudioEIS

Creating consensus, with respect to what these portraits might look like, is easy the further back in time we go. In a pre-photography world, assuming availability of historical & visual reference material, the task is easier:  We wouldn’t expect George Washington to be smiling broadly or Thomas Jefferson to be grimacing – and so we look at a fairly narrow range of good painters and sculptors- (occasionally punctuated by the great - Houdon, is in a class by himself) analyze their work for repetitive stylization attitudes and flourishes, and then begin the task of adding to the body of historical portraiture.

 

Our response to these 18^th century gentlemen (almost no women- and by that I mean women who held political office or whose patents affected the expansion of the American economy as it comes to dominate the world by the mid 19^th century), is based entirely upon this cache of existing reference material - frozen in time. We have historical literature, paintings, sculpture, period fiction and anecdotal descriptions at our disposal to help put a face on these lives of the famous, politically accomplished and the industrious-who StudioEIS often recreates as bronze sculptures.

 

We (StudioEIS) may now begin to take some small bit of license with the advent of photography in 1839.  America’s first look into the camera, 1839-1864, a part of the Daguerreotype collection in the Library of Congress is hugely rewarding - we no longer need to speculate about hair style, clothing, or period attitudes- that information so necessary for our work is all there in photographs for the first time - and it is as liberating as it is informative. These same early photos also inform the viewer what is often missing from our frame of reference, and that is natural attitude. 

 

Photography makes it possible to see what people really looked like even if they preened for the camera.  Take a look at the wonderful book “Young America” Daguerreotypes by Southworth and Hawes - it is absolutely riveting. Not only do we see the famous, but we see the ordinary, often organized by professional association, which distinguishes one from another on the basis of dress, in turn revealing vast differences in class - it is a fascinating document and so useful to the visual storytellers like those of us at StudioEIS.  

 

Reverend Rollin Heber Neale, William Wadsworth Longellow, Alvin Adams & Charles Sumner

 

Even if we don’t know how tall or thin someone was, we can use the photographic image to make comparative decisions about their height & weight, and general demeanor - much as we did when we made a portrait figure of Nikita Khrushchev, whose diminutive height was closely guarded by the Russians when we were commissioned to make his portrait.  We also noticed that Abraham Lincoln was, on more than one occasion falling asleep in front of the camera; well documented by his drooping eye lids.

 

 

Nikita Khrushchev, Abraham Lincoln and Richard Nixon -a few of the Presidents sculpted by StudioEIS. 

 

There is only a tiny revelation after all is said and done; this area of historical sculpture making, however well-trodden, begs for naturalism. This may sound overly simplistic, but consider the famous and politically powerful bring lots of popular memory to the artist’s studio – it is our job to discover what someone “really” looked like. This is why Madame Tussauds has been such a giant hit since the French Revolution.  People can get next to the famous, the powerful, the accomplished, and indeed even the notorious or the dead, and feel as if they are standing next to the real person.  In the case of Tussaud - today it’s mostly about fame for the viewer, but for us it’s got to do with history, art and storytelling.  This is why WE MAKE PRESIDENTS. 

 

Abraham Lincoln in bronze at President Lincoln's Cottage and for the National Miliitary Cemetery and Visitor Center at Gettysburg.

      

 

We Make Presidents!

I never dreamed that George Washington, who saved the Continental Army in August of 1776, would come, in the fullness of time, to save our bacon as well- but he did.

By the early 80s StudioEIS was bleeding red ink when we decided to flee a Manhattan walk up where sculpture production and expensive rents made a career as a sculptor as untenable as Washington’s 1776 defense of New York.

 

With a “dust bowl” era moving van Elliot and I, followed by a small army of the willing, took up residence on the Brooklyn waterfront in a neighborhood that looked like the back lot of “Stranger on the Third Floor” – a film noir classic.  Dark and increasingly deserted with manufacturing jobs in full flight from NYC, this former heartland of US Industrial manufacturing embraced the likes of us and gave sculpture production what it could not find in Manhattan- rent at $3.00 per square foot.

Following the success of a large portrait project; the first for us at a Presidential Library, StudioEIS began promoting itself as a figurative sculpture studio that had the capability to make serious portrait sculpture for the American History Museum Market. With our sculpture roots in the 19^th century, we felt well suited to fill a void on the visual storytelling side of exhibition design, in the burgeoning world of history and anthropology museums.

 

 

                                                       Washington Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY

One day the phone rang with a request to make a sculpture of George Washington. The outline of the project seemed a little dull at the time, but with its successful completion came more commissions - and then of course I realized that since we were now working on Washington Street in Brooklyn, a mere 300 yards from the place where Washington made his providential escape from the English - allowing him to fight another day - in effect giving birth to the nation, I felt an obligation to make all the Washington portraits anyone might want.  And there have been many. And  with each subsequent one, they became better and better.

It rained portrait sculptures for StudioEIS in 2003. We won a competition for the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to create the 42 signers of the US Constitution as life-sized bronze sculptures. After that there were National Park Service Projects, more Presidential Libraries and then in 06 we were commissioned to make three fantastic forensic portraits of George Washington for Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens - now the most famous of all Presidential house museums.

George Washington ages 19, 45, and 57 for George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens

2006 was followed by subsequent commissions to sculpt James and Dolley Madison, Thomas Jefferson for Monticello, and Abraham Lincoln twice in his bicentennial year for President Lincoln’s Cottage and the National Military Cemetery and Visitor Center at Gettysburg - the list goes on.

Several views of Madison sculpture: studio shot in clay, in bronze and at Montpelier dedicated 5/28/09

When you do this often, you have to find new paths to representational thinking. In order to do this, you must find new information that leads to these new pathways.  In the case of the Founding generation of Americans, some discoveries are made when we examine their clothing.  Jefferson, it turns out, was extraordinarily tall and very rangy – and this would be in contrast let’s say to the iconic image of Jefferson seen in ‘his’ memorial at the Tidal Basin in DC.  Or in Lincoln’s case, he was not only taller than any President, before or since, but he was skinny – very skinny, and you have to think that if you represent him as accurately as his clothing suggests you should, he’s going to  look more like a hare than America’s greatest President.

 

The more you do, the better you become at what you do, in part because the people you get to work with and the information that informs these projects gets better and better. You even get Goosebumps on occasion measuring Lincoln’s hat or George Washington’s breeches.  Inevitably you find fascination not only with some of the individuals whose lives you are representing (my reading pile is measured in the hundreds of pounds not width on the shelf) but also with your ability to find what Gertrude Stein called the “bottom nature” in these extraordinary individuals. My hope always is that as we freeze frame, building a sculpture over a period of a year or more, we develop an image not only for ourselves, but for others who will one day have an opportunity to view these works and find some curious inspiration in the visual representation. 

 

Measuring George Washington’s breeches and waist coat, and Lincoln’s iconic hat

Correcting the record. In installment #2, I make reference to " my girlfriend and I making the first commision in 1976." I'd like to correct the record by identifying this very fine sculptor and friend as Kate Maloney.  I.S.

Art becomes a serious pursuit

I’ve been looking into the margins of the visual world, for as long as I can remember - from childhood actually; and don’t ask me why, but instead of following those generations that followed Abstract Expressionism into some new visual idiom, I managed to get on a ship going backwards in time. At the time, I had no idea I’d wind up in the 19th century.

My formal training in sculpture at what was then called the School of Fine Arts at Boston University, came closest in spirit to that of Rodin, Bourdelle or Maillol – It was academic and quietly expressionistic for 1969 - indeed one of my instructors worked with a model Rodin used frequently, and I was sent on a mission to meet Oskar Kokoschka as young student in 1971 by one of my instructors who assisted him after the war.  I’ll tell you that story another time!

The College of Fine Arts at Boston University - one of the last academies where rigorous drawing, painting and sculpting skills were nurtured - mounted an exhibition in 1971 based on the book by Ralph E. Shikes called The Indignant Eye: The artist as social critic in prints and drawings from the Fifteenth Century to Picasso, and this exhibition had a profound effect upon me at the time.

 After leaving school in 1973, I spent a year working in Pietrasanta, in Italy, where the influence of the academy soon left me, but not before seeing something that testified to the power of image making even at that late date in the 20th century.

I was taken one day by my friend Michael Esbin to have lunch and visit a small marble carving studio above Carrara.  That Lunch, and the black truffle pasta, would not be soon forgotten, because Michael had arranged a visit with some artigiani friends who had a studio in the nearby village.

These marble carvers were very courteous but spoke no English and admittedly our collective Italian was pretty much kitchen variety.  Nevertheless, we were briefed before we entered that we would be seeing some extraordinary objects - unlike anything we’d ever seen before.

It was a typical marble carving studio - I lived next door to one in Pietrasanta that still had its marble delivered by a team of oxen, which meant on any given day I might find myself face to face with a small herd of animals delivering tons of white marble for someone’s future sculpture.

I say it was typical except for one small difference, this studio held a not so secret secret.  They had been contracted to produce a pair of marble sculptures of Juan and Eva Peron, and after Juan Peron was deposed in 1955, agents of the Argentinean military junta paid a visit to the studio of these two marble carvers instructing them that the image of Peron was not only no longer wanted but had to be destroyed

The new military regime went to great lengths to destroy both the President's and Eva Perón's reputation, and part of that job meant destroying any image of the two that might inspire some future popular revolt – after all many people had died in the lead up to Peron’s ouster.

The agents, according to the marble carvers had insisted that the two creators of the marble portraits destroy their own work, but both apparently refused, and the men from Buenos Aires took matters in to their own hands. They hammered the sculptures beyond recognition and then cut both heads off. That day in 1973 when we saw the decapitated marble heads of Juan and Eva Peron, they were in their final resting place at the bottom of closet high above the town of Carrara, a very long way from the center of power in Argentina- only now… furthering the claim to fame the sculptors could make, since the defiant act of cutting off the head of a marble sculpture was an act of state, it created a new story and not so small fame for the sculptors, who were now leveraging their brush with political misfortune.

It may not surprise you that the sight of those two heads has never left me. Indeed they testify to the power of image making especially in the political world where the creation of certain images can still have a galvanic and often times powerful and surprisingly untoward effect. Witness the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy or the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s giant bronze sculpture and the impact both of those events has had on recent memory.

A few years after my Italian sojourn, I found myself living in Minneapolis when a friend came through town on his way to the Iron Range in Hibbing Minnesota - his Exhibition Design Company had been contracted to design a new cultural history museum.   When asked if I would create a proposal for the use of three dimensional sculptural figures for this new museum, I never had the slightest idea (this was in 1975, by the way) that by passing through Minneapolis, Bill Ruggieri would seal the deal on what would eventually become StudioEIS.

My girlfriend and I were commissioned a year later to make the first project that would, over time, become just the first of hundreds the studio would produce, and as it happens the memory of those two dead white marble heads has always reminded me of the power of the human image - something I think the studio has sought to exploit for the benefit and purpose of visual storytelling for the past 30 odd years.

Ivan's Blog

As blogs go this one will be a shortie – it’s a first for me, which makes me and you both wonder what took me so long?  It’s not that I don’t see the benefit of new conversations that the occasional ramble may prompt, but I can tell you that age has been a factor in my hesitation to do this until now. I’m not that old mind you.

I recently demonstrated the string telephone (two tin cans attached via a long string to transmit vibration and sound) illustrating how ideas change as a result of distance and time’s passage-so maybe this feels a little like talking into one end of the string telephone – but, that’s the point isn’t it? Even though I can’t see you, this string telephone is about to come alive with real voices and I’m up for the adventure and a bit of discovery.. so here goes –reservation or not - ready or not - ring·-a-levio

If I’ve been tagged, than it’s as a result of what I’ve done – am doing, so let me go back a little.  My interest in things came from three people initially– my father, brother Elliot and mother.

 My dad bought a 1951 Pontiac after the War and took my brother Elliot, sister Debra and me on wild rides around NYC in the 50s.  He thought going to Idlewild Airport to watch planes take off was fun and when that got a little stale we’d go to Times Square and measure people-flow by just standing there and watching people pass by – then off we’d go to the piers and visit ships before they sailed – you’d see people in their cabins having parties, stacks billowing smoke, before they departed for wherever they were going. There’d be the unmistakable last bell – the bell that let visitors know it was time to pack it in – the real fun lovers would watch the land lubbers depart, and we’d nervously jump ship hoping we wouldn’t get stuck on board leaving mom behind in Queens. 

Back in the Pontiac heading somewhere else- we traveled every neighborhood in Brooklyn.  Dad had a big thirst for people and how they lived. Once he took my brother and me on a whirlybird ride around Manhattan, and this was something we never forgot.

My brother and I could identify every American car that was ever built and still running, as dad chauffeured us from the Bowery where the inhabitants used to be called Bowery Bums to Little Italy and Bay Ridge and Cobble Hill to see where the Mafia hung out.

I’m sure his travel program became the basis for a life long friendship and working relationship that my brother and I forged as young boys..  He’s been my partner in work forever– and funnily enough my sister works with us too. This familial association in business has been repeated for generations in our family – many cousins and uncles in the family still work together.

My father got up to go to work every day until he was 85 and then his legs wouldn’t carry him anymore.  Now he’s 97 and he’d still like to go back to work- even if that’s not possible.

Elliot was the spark plug though in a segue from “regular life” to life in the visual world.  He got a scholarship to go to the Pels School of Art as a kid and I wanted in as well.  Within a year or so we were both on the subway on Saturdays to the Hotel Ansonia where Albert Pels our esteemed teacher, painted and taught Art. 

We drew from plaster casts and made copies of paintings. Pels made beautiful copies of paintings by Rubens. You could see the neon sign for Pels in the window at the Ansonia for many decades

When I was in Art School – well and truly, I went back to see Albert Pels and he gave me some awful advice which is mostly what happened for years when I went to see artists about being one. I was planning, and had an introduction, to work for Jacques Lipshitz but he died before I got to Italy in 1973.  I was very fortunate as a young student when my anatomy instructor made an introduction to the great painter and larger than life personality - Oskar Kokoshka, whom I did meet before his death.

Kokoshka was living in Switzerland when my girlfriend and I arrived with a letter of introduction and overflowing backpacks.  After a few minutes, O.K. himself came to the door and invited us in to have a coffee with him.  He couldn’t stop marveling at about how young and how pretty my girlfriend was and when the moment for important business had arrived, turned to me in a gesture of Shakespearean authority and said “this letter says you want to be a painter?”   At which point I sheepishly replied “yes sir,” then he launched into his student standard - “be the best,” and all that rubbish, “and that’s all I can say.”  I’ll never forget his face.

Our short and sweet visit didn’t do much for my career as a painter - there weren’t any offers to clean his brushes or archive his work, but close proximity –superficial as it might seem, had a profound effect upon me at the time. It wasn’t until I met Francis Bacon many years later in the continuation of the apprenticeship myth journey, that I realized Albert Pels hated advice made sense after all.

“Pursue your own ideas,” Pels said, the story that is your work can only be realized and appreciated when your ideas are your own and you  dare to find an original direction - only then will you become an artist whose work will be worth paying attention to.”

 Next time: Art becomes a serious pursuit.