Art Review

It’s now 2018! Happy New Year! I’d like to share my Arts Wish List for 2018 with you, so here it goes:

I am an artist. I chose this path many years ago. It is how I identify myself. This path is fraught with disaster.

I took a drive downtown yesterday to go to the home office of Emprise Bank. I wanted to take a look at some of the art featured in the collection known as “The Art of Emprise.”

Tomorrow begins the holiday season. I wish you all the best. You will be buying gifts. Why not buy art?

“The Broken Winter” is the title of Wichita artist Emily Brookover’s 4th solo show. I have long been a fan of Ms. Brookover’s work. I have never seen any artist approach graphite on paper with such crisp precision. 

I recently read an article by world renowned painter David Salle in which he explained one of the things that is most valuable to him. It is a painting by Wichitan William Dickerson.  Salle grew up in Wichita and painters Bill Dickerson and his wife Betty were both Mr. Salle’s art teachers at the Wichita Art Association. Bill had turned down a chance to teach at the Art Institute of Chicago in order to return to Wichita and begin teaching in 1931.

Like everyone, I was caught off guard and stunned by the mass death and injury that occurred recently in Las Vegas. This shocking event, along with the perils our American brothers and sisters are facing in Puerto Rico made it seem that any commentary I might make about art feel forced and weak.

But I will say that artists and our art mark time. The horrors that occur in life, through time, inevitably show themselves in two- and three-dimensional art forms.

Last Saturday it was 90+ degrees. It was the day the 2nd round of murals to be painted in the Douglas Design District lifted off and began. My wife Taeko and I went out to explore the different sites.

I've always felt that a sculptor suffers most for his or her art. To coax emotion and greatness from stone, steel, bronze, or wood is torturous.

While the story of Lindsborg Artist Mike Hartung is a delicious one, it is also achingly sad.