Art Walk

Art Walk the first encounter

From everything I’ve seen, I noticed the New Traditionalist was the most populated. So I’m going to assume that this was the hottest gallery based on the number of people. I’m not sure if it was the room that drew people or the art. However, this gallery did have the most expensive art going into the thousands. All the other galleries seemed empty and hard to find. There were two that were underground and these galleries were not as populated. However, the food put out was missing. This might indicate several people stopped by before I arrived, but it can also mean one person sat around and ate all the food.

In terms of identifying what makes what what, I would imagine the New Traditionalist is a composite of three things. It is a composite of something new, something traditional and something that mixes the two. The skull case reminds me of day of the dead, which is a relatively old tradition. The new portraits such as the ones done by Yolanda Gonzales are the “new things.” Finally, a mixture of the two could be Birth of a Consciousness.

In terms of taste sets, I noticed there was a lot of Native American/Hispanic looking art. To me, this might mean that new “hot” art revolves around Native American/Hispanic culture. A lot of the art was religious and other parts of the art involved death. Natives Americans/Hispanics tended to be religious and they do have festivals involving the day of the dead. I also know that Hispanic culture tends to shy away from their Indians roots and favor their Spanish roots. This could be a way of reconciliation between the two.

I’m not sure if there were any portraits that were alike that could be compared for general criteria. A lot of the drawings were radically different and I suppose an intensive look could discern some, but I wasn’t there long enough to find any. However, there was one set of portraits (Sotto Voce Series 1-6) that were of the same thing, but from different perspectives. So, I imagine that an individual could spend time talking about which angle brought out the picture the most. Some people said it was an eagle, but I thought it could also be a griffon. I imagine if they were photographs, it would have to be different aspects of an eagle in flight.

I wasn’t able to interview any artist because every artist seemed to always be talking to someone else. However, I was able to talk to one woman about portraits in the Main Street Gallery. These portraits were individually done by Tom Oliver. They were basically picture of hotels that had outrageous names: DragonSlayer, The Mummy, The Conqueror, Dr. Cyclops, The Y and Poltergeist. The portraits were not that interesting, but the names on the portraits were. The woman I encountered revealed to me that Oliver names all his paintings in the same fashion. However, she didn’t know why he gave them outlandish names. This conversation didn’t help with understanding the art or the artist, but after I figured out why Oliver named this pieces the way he does, I was able to understand his art and his hotels more.

To follow up
To Getty project

Pictures that didn't make it into the essay
Indian
The Secret