This is the first time I am posting a discussion so I hope I'm in the correct category. My issue is with framed letter art. I'm really surprised that seasoned promoters (unfortunately I have to include Connie :) ) are allowing these into shows. The company Buyloveletters.com (a place to buy the photographs of the letters)is a very visible advertiser in The Crafts Report and if you get their e-newsletter, the one I received today even has an ad in it. I was really surprised to see that even the Morristown (NJ) show at the armory, which is suppose to be a high end show, allowed a vendor of this type in. If these letters are purchased, how are they being allowed in since essentially this is buy/sell?
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First I want to address some of you Kim O'Harra, Michaelle Wermith, Geoff Coe, it seems like you are very unhappy with the art that you have chosen to do shows with.
The lady that has put her letters in Crafts Report is she doing shows with you? Coe are you sure that the promoters you wrote to about the other artist with letter art is not doing their own work?
Now that being said I have been doing Letter Art for many years and have been in many wonderful Art and Craft shows up and down the east coast, and have been chosen for many awards. I am the old one with the gray hair from Florida. Just like many photographers all of my photographs are made using a canon digital SLR and Lenses. Photos taken in the cities are taken hand-held sometime using the zoom lens. I also use Adobe Photoshop(r) to clean up. Then they are printed by me using my autochrome thermal printer.
Many years ago 55 at least in Pa, one of my art teachers told the class if you don't like what someone is doing remember that Art will always be in the eyes of the beholder. Are many of you living in a small world, shows need to have art that can reach all people to inspire and educate, for me this is the child that comes in my booth at a show with parents, they look at the letters and the child will sound out the word sometimes better than the adult. Like one time I did a show many years ago and a young girl just starting out had Letter Art I asked her how long have you been doing this, her answer was Oh your're the lady that I got the idea from, If you teach art what you do is expose soeone to what you do. Art shows are to enrich people and put smiles on their faces It sometimes is not all about sales I hope someday all of you will meet the person that will tell you that you inspired them to pick up a camera or brush or some clay as it may be.
Letter Art is here to stay and as the name you called it is LETTER ART
Well said.
Let me clarify what I meant to say, because I painted with an overly broad brush in my first comment. I should not have said that ALL Letter Art is buy-sell, and ALL is out of a can. The ones that I have encountered, are. But clearly, it's possible that someone out there, such as yourself, Phyllis, would be creating their own letters. And since that is the case, I apologize to you.
More broadly: I've got no issue with anyone who takes the IDEA of creating "letter art" with their camera (or their paintbrush, or their pastels, or anything else), and creates their own work from it. The operant word here is "create."
I DO take issue with people who buy the images, print them out, and sell them at fine art shows. Is what they do a "product"? Sure...and they can sell it anywhere else they want. But not at a juried art show. And if I have reason to suspect that their work is out of a can because I've seen the same images before from another artist at another show, you're darn tootin' I'm going to write the promoter and let them know about it.
To your point, Phyllis, that people can get inspiration from Letter Art: I've no doubt that that's true. In fact, when I taught a photography class at a number of church day camps some years back, I had an exercise designed to teach them the "art of seeing": I handed each child a disposable camera and asked them to photograph as many letters of the alphabet as they could find in nature before the next meeting, print them out, and bring them in for display. It was a fun exercise and accomplished its purpose. So again, no issue there.
My point is simply to distinguish the copycats from the people such as yourself who are actually out there creating their own work. Creativity, I will always support at fine art shows and craft fairs. Manufactured, non-original images and products? Well, I'll support a vendor's right to make a living with them. But I won't call it original art. And I don't consider a fine art or fine craft show to be the appropriate venue for selling them.
Hello, Geoff - I agree with everything you've said. The people who offer letter pictures printed right off the CDs they buy on line really do not belong in any juried show. And it bugs me even more that the Crafts Report is willing to accept advertising from one such company - How could anyone consider it craftsmanship to simply buy a CD and printing off pictures that you did not take? This makes me so mad!!
I've seen these at shows too but with an exhibitor whom I have known for over 2 decades. He saw the idea at another show and did his twist on it. All his "letter" images are woodland images. And he will show any promoter the images on his camera disc.
So if you see these type of exhibitors please do not automatically assume they are B/S! When you do that, you are the one who is losing credibility in my book.
Yes, they are prints. Yes they are mass produced. So what? It's called the "free market".
I glanced at the web sites on the list and in the short time I looked, didn't see any common images. I will say that if you're seeing more than one of those exhibitors at a show, you may be doing the wrong show. But you can say the same thing about nature photographers. When I used to do shows in Texas or Oklahoma City, I used to see at least five or six photographers with similar images of Antelope Canyon. That doesn't mean those images were purchased.
I'm against buy sell and reps and have gotten photographers thrown out of shows by bringing in a catalog showing where their images have come from. But without clear proof it's just a few photographers doing similar themed work and if they create their own images, they are being unfairly vilified.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Larry the thread was started to address the advertising of the purchasing of the letters, not criticizing art.
Not the post I responded to.
Larry Berman
And to let promoters/jurors know that these can potentially be basically buy/sell. I thought that was an agreed upon thing, that we want to keep buy/sell out. Do we know if someone did it themselves..??. But it should be brought to their attention.
My problem isn't that people create this stuff. My problem is that this stuff is not art. It's terrible, cheap and mass produced even if the "artist" is not buy/sell. Another problem is that it gets into almost every show. Some shows have more than 1 alphabet artist. Are these people applying with alphabet art? How do they get into shows that legitimate artists get rejected from? It is also so cheaply produced, cheaply framed, never editioned, and can be sold for much less than limited edition giclees. It undercuts artists selling quality prints that adhere to show rules.
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