Archive for October, 2009

Next show: Miniature art show Think Small 5

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

ThinkSmall5 exhibit runs from November 6, through December 20, 2009 at Artspace Gallery in Richmond, Virginia

miniature art show
Telomir 9: Exhibiting in miniature art show Think Small 5.

For the third time, I will be participating in miniature art show ThinkSmall, held every other year in Richmond. This year will be the fifth ThinkSmall miniature art show; the first was held in 2001.

This time around, I will be exhibiting Telomir 9, which measures 3 inches square, and is acrylic on canvas, mounted on panel. No work of art in the show may exceed 3 inches in any dimension.

See a list of contributing artists at http://www.artspacegallery.org/ts5/. I’m in there somewhere.

For further reading: The painting I exhibited at Think Small 4, in 2007

— Grant Wiggins

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Football and art

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Until this morning, I long had forgotten how watching football — particularly Italian football, or calcio, to be precise — has provided me with a profound source of visual inspiration for my art.

It’s not the game, itself, mind you. It’s the stuff going around the game: the uniforms — the sponsorships on the uniforms — the corporate advertising on the flashy, pitch-enveloping electronic billboards, which at once adorn and distract from the game.

football and art
Juve’s Felipe Melo advances past players from Fiorentina, his former club.

soccer and art
The fabulous crest that Fiorentina sported in the 1980s.

This is where I find logos of corporations I’ve never heard of — corporations whose role in the industrial ecosystem are a complete mystery to me. I like this; I can appreciate these logos for their graphical properties, without understanding the purpose or cultural baggage behind them. I don’t know what they mean. They are like alien symbols to me.

This morning, Juventus hosted Fiorentina. The frenetic, scrappy match, in which both sides counteracted their opponent’s nearly every move, resulted in a 1-1 draw. But I came away with some great ideas for color combinations, shapes and stripes, all gleaned from momentary glimpses.

I think I should watch football more often!

Thanks for reading —
Grant Wiggins

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wiggz.com celebrates 10 years of delivering fresh, high-quality pixels

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Ten years ago today, I registered wiggz.com. I would like to bake my fine art web site a cake to celebrate, but it does not eat. What to do?

If anything, perhaps this is an appropriate time to express appreciation to all of the people out there who have helped me learn how the Internet works. Without the advice of others, wiggz.com would not be the same.

To commemorate all that has changed in this sector of cyberspace, I offer you this screen capture of what my site looked like in 2002.

fine art web site

By the way, when I registered wiggz.com, it was a Tuesday, as well as the 507th anniversary of Christoffa Corombo running aground in Hispaniola. Here in Phoenix, the mercury surged to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). And shares of AskJeeves.com (ASKJ) closed at $68.50; the previous day, the stock surged 35.4%, after Microsoft announced it would expand its use of the question-answering service. Not surprisingly, none of us got rich when that happened.

Yes, it feels like 10 years have passed.

Nonetheless, I look forward to continuing this giant fine art web site experiment for 10 more years, if possible.

Thanks for your patronage.

— Grant Wiggins

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Chaos Theory 10: A solid Phoenix First Friday art show

Friday, October 9th, 2009

People often ask me whether I show my art at Phoenix First Friday. Until recently, my answer was “Years ago, I was really into it, but I haven’t lately. Last time was 2006.” Thanks to Randy Slack, I can offer a very different answer now.

I am very happy to say I am showing in Chaos Theory 10, which opened at Legend City Studios on Friday, October 2. There, I am showing SuperAcid Autobacs-Ambilify!.

Randy Slack organized the show, which is truly one of the best Phoenix First Friday art shows.

phoenix first friday art
Here, SuperAcid Autobacs-Ambilify! hangs between works by Greg Esser (the three pieces at left) and Adriana Y. Claudio (right). Image by Rafael Navarro.

Chaos Theory 10 brings together the work of more than 50 Phoenix artists, many of whom I’ve exhibited alongside at either the Arizona Biennial or the Tempe Center for the Arts Biennial. The show lives up to its name because there is no theme. As Randy Slack says in this interview, most of the art in the show doesn’t arrive until three days before the show opens. Until then, he has no idea what people are going to deliver.

So far, I’ve heard a lot of good things about Chaos Theory 10, so you might want to check it out. It will be on display during business hours, more or less, until the end of October. I suggest contacting Legend City Studios about exact hours, though.

Until next time —
Grant Wiggins

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