Comments

1
God DAMN it -- Slog just ate a long, thoughtful comment of mine. GRRRRRR.
2
The Kuwaiti airport. That's classic. He should move there.

The reason Chilhuly doesn't get talked about much in art circles is because it's IMPOSSIBLE to talk about Chilhuly's art.

Every book, every article that's ever been published on his work comes not from art critics thinking freely but from his own publishing arm. The only person who is allowed to discuss Chilhuly is Chilhuly. Everyone else who tries finds his or her words evaporating soundlessly as if they were spoken into a vacuum. Which they were.

As frustrating as the modern art world and modern art criticism can be -- soggy garbage strewn across an abandoned hillside -- at least there is a discussion there. There's a framework, there's a history. You can love something or hate something. You can't love or hate a Chilhuly work; you can only gawp at it, while the part of your brain where ideas are processed blinks out, cell by cell.

Chilhuly exists in a world without ideas. Ideas are his enemy. This goes beyond commerce; Chilhuly is no Thomas Kinkade, exploiting the sentimentality of old women for a few years until the bubble bursts. Kinkade pictures are just large, flat Hummel figurines -- bad collectibles. No one really expects them to take the place of art.

Chilhulys take the place of art. They destroy art. They destroy the IDEA of art, by destroying the idea of having ideas. What is left is this vacuum. Yes, the vacuum is a place where Chilhuly sucks up our dollars, but more importantly it is a place where he commands absolute silence, of the mind as well as the voice. You're not allowed to think while looking at a Chilhuly, or to talk; only to obey.

This, of course, makes Chilhuly the perfect artist for today. We don't want to think; we don't want to have ideas. We don't want to talk about it. We want nothing more than to obey, to shuffle past, to do our duty to our country and our Chilhuly master. We can't afford the art, of course, but we can support those who can.

If I was an artist, I'd be worried. Chilhuly wants you out of business. Art critic? There are no art critics in Chilhuly's world. You can go work for Chilhuly, and work on HIS books -- I'm sure the museum will have a lovely range of beautifully printed items, priced competitively from $25 to $250. Those books will need some text, to persuade people that even though they feel nothing, think nothing, they are participating in a cultural production. We all know what the forms look like. They're empty now, but we still look at the empty forms.
3
So, if Chihuly's got all this money to throw around, why does he need US to subsidize his private gallery?

Methinks I smell something rotten in this conveniently timed, self-serving publicity stunt (although I'm sure the artists could use the $$ - who couldn't? Oh, right. Chihuly.)
4
@2, I am a moron. Two separate posts. The other one is better.
5
Congratulations to Margie Livingston and Leo Berk for winning this award and to all of the finalists... Lead Pencil Studio (Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo), Maggie Orth, Hugo Solis, and Akio Takamori.
6
Comte - Chihuly donates an average of $1.2 million in money and art to local charities and artists annually. He's a big supporter of local arts, not to mention the 100 plus people he employs and the charity and non-profit work a lot of those people do. Like him or not, he's a huge supporter of art in this town. And I for one think we should celebrate that and encourage other successful artists to do the same.

PS - I know it's hard to comprehend, but it's not Chihuly himself who will be paying for the Chihuly exhibit at Seattle Center. It's the Space Needle LLC, owned by the Wright family, an old Seattle family who literally helped build Seattle since the late 1800's. They have donated who knows how many millions to arts, education and medical projects in Seattle. This family is one of the visionary families in Seattle history and was a huge civic booster. They have built things like the Grand Coulee Dam, the Space Needle, the Columbia tower and tons of other buildings in Seattle. Just an fyi.
7
Lord forbid any of the writers for the Stranger go on to be successful in their chosen field.
They will be insulted, disparaged, and pilloried without mercy by underachievers masquerading as populists.
8
Eli Hansen was ROBBED
9
The five highly-competent artists and arts professionals who were the jurors for Artist Trust's inaugural Arts Innovator Award (please note that this the official title, not as you have it written) debated rigorously throughout this competitive process and choose these two recipients out of some 55 nominees. Both Margie and Leo stood out in terms of their risk-taking, experimentation with new creative processes and how they are re-thinking their studio practice as artists.

Regarding Dale & Leslie Chihuly, as pointed out by post # 6 they are well-know community philanthropists and arts patrons. Last December, they engaged with Artist Trust to establish this new award. It took months to create a statewide process, outreach to invite nominations, and time for the artists to prepare their applications. So the timing of the announcement has no bearing on anything else, including the Seattle Center proposal.
10
The Arts Innovator Awards were bestowed by Artist Trust. Yes, the awards were made possible by Dale and Leslie Chihuly, but the Awards are from Artist Trust. The artists were nominated by 16 individuals from around the state who had a broad knowledge of the arts in many disciplines and a request for applications was then sent to the nominated artists resulting in Artist Trust receiving 45 applications. A two-stage process revealed 6 finalists in the first round and two recipients were chosen. While the writer may not agree that these two particular artists are "innovative", the 5 panelists spent many agonizing hours reviewing each of the artists portfolios. I think that both artists should be recognized for taking risks in their art, and now with this grant, they can each spend more time making art that pushes through boundaries that may have remained unchallenged due to money constraints.

Hats off to Dale and Leslie Chihuly and their foundation for making millions of dollars worth of donations to non-profit organizations around the country and for being so generous to local artists. They have committed $150,000.00 to give 2 artist gifts of $25,000.00 each, over the course of 3 years. They didn't have to do this, but I'm glad that they did. This is a game-changer for these artists and will have an incredible impact on their careers.

Thanks to the Chihuly Foundation and Artist Trust and congratulations to Leo Berk and Margie Livingston.
11
Is Bank of Livingston FDIC insured?
12
I'm happy to see money placed in the hands of artists, if they are leaders in innovation or not. What I'm not happy to see is Artist Trust process for selecting these artists. One of the great things about Artist Trust in the past has been it's democratic ability to level the playing field for artists. Their grants were open to anyone and panelists were frequently brought from out of state without prejudice or preconceived notions towards artists or their artworks. Grants were selected on artistic merit rather than on reputation or who happens to be hot at the moment. This in turn led to many innovative and original ideas being supported. Now it looks like grants are going to be decided by anonymous committees of the 'in crowd' and I suspect that we will regularly see mediocre and predictable results.
13
That just further proves my point Meinert: why do these filthy rich people need ME (and the rest of the citizens of Seattle) who don't have anything close to the level of resources they possess, to subsidize a storehouse for their PRIVATE collections?

Why should MY hard-earned money go toward helping THEM make even more money, whether it's in the form of additional revenue or a hefty tax write-off? Because it'll put some additional dollars in Seattle Center's coffers? If that's the case, I'd rather just write a check directly to the Center and cut out the for-profit middleman.
14
In response to Tumbler, post # 12, Artist Trust is still very much an egalitarian funder and service provider of professional development support to artists of all creative disciplines, throughout the state. As is our custom, we always identify the panelists who make the judicious choice and yes, artistic merit is the foremost criteria in the selection process. This first year for the Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award we cast the net broadly for nominations, as opposed to having an open nomination process, to get things underway as swiftly as possible. We'll re-assess the process for next year.

And the panelists for this year's award, as is the case with all of our grant programs, are announced in the press release. The five this year (Thatcher Bailey, Shawn Brixey, Kumani Gnatt, Greg Robinson and Beth Sellars) were announced Sept 10th with the six finalists.

For each of our grant programs we extend invitations to qualified panelists from out of state, but it's always subject to their availability. We're always receptive to suggestions for panelists, so I'd encourage you to submit names you think would be qualified to adjudicate.

~ Fidelma (ED@AT)
15
The Artist Trust is a great organization we are lucky to have.

However, it might be wise for Artist Trust to take another look at the GAP Grant process for the "Visual Arts" category. This is how I heard it described at an AT grant writing workshop:

Hypothetically, if your work is in "Media Arts", your application is evaluated in relation to all the other "Media Arts" entries as one would expect.

Applicants in "Visual Arts", however, do not receive the same democratic analysis. The "Visual Arts" category is divided up by sections of the alphabet and given to a number of committees who give out a prescribed number of grants in that section.

What is wrong with that? There is no second step to evaluate the top people in each group in relation to one another. That is, if your name begins with "S" you are only seen in relation with other people who might have names starting with "P" through "T" that year. In that year, the application is never evaluated in relation to people with names that begin with "B".

Pretty arbitrary, no? What if all the best applications happen to be in the "P-T" group? Seems to me that a grant that might have been funded in the "A-D" group might not be funded in the "P-T" group.

Why would an artist spend 7 hours writing up a project if the panel doesn't even bother to evaluate their work in relation to the entire field of applicants? The answer is that artists are either to unaware of this or so needy they comply anyway.

I wish this aspect of the process were different,

16
Regarding Post #15 by "hitchcock": The GAP review process is the same for every discipline. Panelists receive all applications and may review and evaluate them in any order they wish via our online application system. None of the applications are (as stated by Hitchcock) "divided up by sections of the alphabet and given to a number of committees who give out a prescribed number of grants in that section."

Miguel Guillen
Program Manager

Artist Trust


17
In fact, the process I described was outlined in great detail by an Artist Trust staff person to a group that met at Pratt Fine Art Center in 2007 for a grant writing workshop. I took complete and accurate notes at the time. Many who turned up to learn more about the proceass were extremely discouraged by that description. Some in attendance stopped applying when they heard that.

Perhaps It has changed since then? Or is it possible the artist trust presenter was misinformed? Really it was discussed at length in the group. I did not dream it.

The reason given for that process was that there were so many applications in that category they felt they had to do it in sections.

If it has changed, I would really like to know what the process is now.
18
Perhaps this changed when AT went to an online system?

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