FrankGaard.org

Yes I have trouble doing these blogs, I lose faith with the idea that anyone even reads this stuff, I sure don't. Oh I read my own blogs and blogs about subjects I like . I swore when I first started to write it would be strictly cash and carry. Of course the pay is so slight it's as if you are working for art alone and not the bloody lucre! Money is what can make or break an artist. Back in the early 1970's the art school I worked at would give faculty a $200 grant for supplies during the supper, I did alot of watercolors then as the grant wasn't really enough for paints.

Right on right on I always thought right on was just perfect for it's time. Like when the Black Panthers said good bye it was right on . Iwas in Oakland CA when the Black Panthers were at the height of their power. Of course the Oakland Tact squad really came down on the party that year 1968 - it was very nasty, the Alameda County Sheriffs were the murdererous bunch of thugs that were intended to put down the Black Panthers yes by any means necessary. They were the domestic war whilst others fought in Viet Nam.

 Sammy the web master (son) of fearless leader Francus G. Nice to hear his voice.

Geez I felt like my ancient youth self when I read my name in the New York Times art section in Holland Cotters prose. All within a parenthesis like a little boat. I guess it's more getting old stuff, seeing the near future. But old ain't all bad, you do get a measure of yourself that's very hard in youth. I knew the Artpolice would become more in time. It's hard to keep a band together much less the Artpolice gang.

The publisher of this new book on artist's publications since 1955 sent me a copy of the book In Numbers which I read about online recently, it has a dozen pages on the Artpolice including pictures albeit small but pics of all the Artpolice covers. It was hard to put down it was as if I'd lived long enough to see the Artpolice project become history. Or first history if you know what I mean. I hope over time the contributors see this book as I think it vindicates the project from it's criticism and so much of the lies and rumors etc.

 Cythera the fabled island of romantic enchantment painted by Watteau to perfection (twice repeated French version of painting for German court) . Isn't this sort of fable what drives the fictive artists? We can't have more plain stories because we expect top drawer screenwriters for $10 a ticket! Then again some great writers could'nt write very good screen plays. The mystery of love is different than other things we may believe in because it is a very risky proposition.

 I asked my son why I hadn't gotten any complaints on this blog device? He was a little vague. It just feels like I'm writing in the dark. Then again people are discreet and often have no opinions I noticed that as a teacher so few students had anything to say. It was 10 below zero when I woke up my wife is up on the North Shore skiing and getting away from the grind.

I was 22 when I met my first curator, he was a Dutchman who worked at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I met him in Chicago where he was the director of the new contemporary museum which was searching for a building. He bought a piece from me, actually the pick of the litter. I learned early that these curators have an eye. He got the piece cheap, who hasn't got something from me cheap? Other artists had seen the piece which I guess was hung in the bathroom so much for the eternal survival of that one.

Bernie and I rode the dog to New York , we stayed at the YMCA Sloan House near Times Square. We visited several galleries including Sidney Janis's rooms which had been in a Time magazine art spread the week previous. The George Segal plaster casts of people were here in primary colors head to toe it was the pressure of the market for novelty.

I was at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts week ago, sometimes I go just to see if my painting is still up,it is. The painting is 9 feet wide and 5 1/2" tall it seems quite small in those huge rooms next to one of those giant protractor paintings by Frank Stella. But the painting is still very good if not better than in the early 1990's when it hung for about 3 years. The color is better or my eyesight is different, the painting was made 30 years ago.