SEA SHOW Blog – Seattle Emerging Arts

Cover Me : Wrapup of Art Basel Miami Beach 2008

I hope that I attract a wide variety of art lovers with many differing tastes, who all find enjoyment in the semi-coherent chatter I publish daily. I know a lot of you read or have visited many of the majoy art sites, I hope I can give you something new in the little goodies I find on the web. I don’t remember if I was doing a google image search or what, but this site was kinda cool. I’m not sure what the criteria is to make it on this virtual map, but it might be useful to some. You click on the little tags and it will tell you about current shows that are going on all over the US. I have heard about the Eventful website in the past, but I was surprised when one of my image searches led me to this website, which listed a lot of current art events in and around Miami and Palm Beach, which I just discovered is home to yet another sumptuous art gathering, the Palm Beach Contemporary Art Fair.

Google Earth Image of Palm Beach

In the past, I have known people who have been proponents on culling the less than intelligent portion of the population. Such an attitude is not going to win you followers! Better yet, lets raise the bar for readers and other art bloggers. Out of left field, came one of the most comprehensive and meaningful bits of writing about the week at Art Basel came across my virtual desk. While I had to wonder what might have motivated this well-thought out piece of writing, I had to appreciate it. I am blogging on a subject that is relatively new to me so I enjoyed this as I would a fresh Braeburn apple, and I savored every bite. Either I am not searching in the right places, because there are some art bloggers are offering us something more substantial than tasty but unfulfilling art hors d’oeuvres. Your humble host included. :-p Who know that men.style.com would have one the best blog entries on art basel miami beach I have read all week. This guy doesn’t mince any words, and his entry is humorous and well-written. Loved it.

In my wanderings along the shore, I overturned a stone and discovered this contemporary art blog. Another facet, how interesting. This person is a speculative collector, and unfortunately, he only updates his blog once a month. I’d like to see more.  Art as Authority is another obscure blog that caught my attention, but sadly, this one isn’t updated much either. Looks funky, check it out.

I stumbled upon Wynnwood Art Magazine today, it offered a neutral rundown of events, decorated with praise for this annual fair. I learned something else new today. Having lived in San Francisco for six years, I remember seeing a lot of guerilla marketing. When I was younger I didn’t know how to discern between public art and advertising, I guess you won’t know unless you know who created the images. I saw a lot of stickers and spray painting in random places of an image inside a star, and one word: OBEY. He likes to party down with SuperTouch Art. Slowly, the peices of the puzzle are coming together. Digging around for images of the OBEY public art, I stumbled upon this pretty cool blog on public/street art with tons of cool photos – Global Graphica. GraffHead is of a similar vein, but this blog covers other topics, like fashion and music. Hey, this is fun!

This blog and foray into art has been a learning process, and I’ve blogged a few times about Street Art, because its the sort of emerging art form we enjoy. This entry didn’t clarify anything about the subject for me, so I’ll have to keep my eyes and ears open. In my image searches I find pretty cool things too that were related to Art Basel Miami Beach, like this photojournalist’s blog, Digital Light. There is something very immediately engaging about his pictures. I wonder if he ever attended Miami Art Basel.  Check out his blog.

Photo from GraffHead

During the week, the daily blog is a bit of a production, it can take an hour and that’s if I’m not distracted by 20 different things and even more alerts that come in as I write. I’ll be sitting there doing my daily blog, and my blackberry will start buzzing, and 3 out of 5 times its some news alert that has to do with art or basel or contemporary something or other. Or as in the case tonight, I am capturing video for my next vlog and I’m trying not to get off track.  This will be a 2 blog day, since the vlog is the hot new thing. And we’re hot, so of course we will vlog.

Meaningfully. On things other than Miami Art Basel. In the next post.

So yes, I’ve been sick as a dog for three days straight and have blogged daily. Being hungover/tired is no excuse either. I am dedicated! :-> Now this new post on the Soul of Miami website has an event that might offer up some more substantial fare. Then I read the tag words “high-profile”, “VIP”, and “Exclusive” on its website as it describes it attendees and events, and I fear this is just a tiny art predator in the making. The Palm Beach fair has been around 12 years, and this is the first I’ve heard of it. I learn something new every day! This fair focuses primarily on Miami and New York collectors and artists, as well as some international exhibitors. I only saw two galleries from Santa Fe, a a few from California even represented in their list. The Northwest did not make it onto their radar. Perhaps we can help remedy that!

Before you mistake me, and wonder why I am championing the cause of art in the west, let me say that while I have spent the majority of my life on the east coast, I focus on artists on the west as a theme for pioneering, and now expand that to any coastal city near water or a beach. SEA SHOW is about the confluence of art & life, art & the myriad things that form modern life, and the beauty that ensues when those elements combine. It contributes to my happiness immensely!