Is Art a Good Christmas Present?

It’s December, and Christmas is just around the corner. For those of us who celebrate this holiday, our thoughts naturally turn to gift-giving. (And for those who don’t do Christmas, there are still birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and other gift-giving events that we all deal with.)

So, it’s Christmas (or some other gift-giving occasion) and the age-old question arises once again: What to get for the person who has everything?

They don’t really have everything, of course, but they certainly have everything they need. Worse, they probably already have everything they really want. If they really wanted an iPhone, or a bread machine, or a puppy, they probably would have gotten one by now, right? This kind of dilemma makes it hard to come up with ideas for gifts that would surprise and delight, the ultimate goal for a thoughtful gift-giver.

So what about giving art as a gift?

Art seems to fill the unique-gift niche nicely. Most people like art in one form or another. And many people don’t take time to shop for art for themselves. Lives are busy, time is short. An original work of art is guaranteed to be different from anything else they have, even if they own a lot of art already.

So art makes a perfect gift, right?

Well, maybe. Art is extremely subjective. Everyone likes different things, different styles, different colors. Even people who live together and know each other intimately have trouble predicting what each other will like best when it comes to art.

I learned this lesson at my very first art festival. A family came into my booth and it was clear they all enjoyed my paintings very much. They started talking about which paintings everyone liked best. Mom favored one painting, Dad preferred another. The younger son challenged the others to guess which painting he liked best, and no one guessed correctly. Daughter did the same, and again no one guessed right. Even though they all agreed that they liked my work, everyone preferred a different painting, and no one could predict what the others would like best. (The story has a happy ending: they ended up buying three of my paintings, which I delivered to their home and helped to hang in different rooms. That sure made my day!)

If you want to give art as a gift, I recommend proceeding with some caution. Even if you know the recipient and their tastes very well, you probably won’t be able to guess their absolute favorite piece. You don’t want them thinking “gee, I wish you’d given me that other painting that I like so much better!” The only way to know which is their favorite is to ask them, or do some careful sleuthing. Art can be a wonderful, thoughtful, special gift, but it’s best done with the cooperation of the giftee. But you can still do this in a way that preserves some of the fun and surprise of an unexpected gift.

Try this: ask the person to identify a few pieces that are their favorites (for example, while visiting an art gallery, or looking together at an artist’s website, ahem, like mine for instance). Find out which pieces are their absolute favorites, and which they’re less interested in. You’ll probably be surprised at their choices! But that’s the whole point of this exercise: you just don’t know what someone else will love. Get them to point out several favorites. You can then go back later and purchase one of their favorites without telling them which one you got. That way you keep a sense of surprise, but you know they’re going to absolutely adore their gift. And that is the goal, isn’t it?

Another option would be to give a gift certificate. You could tailor it toward the purchase of their favorite artist’s work (it might be easier for you to find out their favorite artist than their favorite piece of art). This would allow you to give whatever dollar amount you’re comfortable with (this is especially good for you if your giftee has expensive tastes!).

The gift certificate idea could be made even more fun if the artist herself creates a custom gift certificate for you to wrap and give, like you would a store’s gift card. (I’d be happy to create a personalized gift certificate for the purchase of my art. And of course, I’d refund it if your gift recipient decided not to use it within, say, a year. Email me if you’d like to do this! I think it would be fun.)

So to the question of whether art makes a good Christmas (or any other occasion’s) present, the answer is yes, if you do it right. With a little extra effort you can ensure you’re giving a piece of art that the recipient will love and enjoy for years to come. And you can feel good about being such a generous, thoughtful gift-giver, as well as a patron of the arts. A happy ending for everyone. Happy art shopping!

A very small painting… “Dots 15″

Here’s another painting in the series I like to call my “little bitty” dot paintings. They’re not exactly microscopic, but for original paintings they’re fairly small at only 5×7 inches (that’s 13×18 cm for you metric types). An intimate scale, if you like. A hand-sized work of art.

I actually painted this little guy back in October, but I’m behind on posting my paintings. I blame the holiday season.

“Dots 15″ by Barbara J Carter, 5×7″ (13×18 cm), acrylic on canvasboard

Like my other little bitty dot paintings, this one is available for $45 plus a token amount for shipping and, if you’re in California, sales tax. I can ship anywhere (and often do). Happy holidays!

Me, At the Exhibit

Here I am, in front of my paintings in the ongoing exhibit of members of the Silver Lake Art Collective.

The exhibit remains open to the public 5 days a week through November 29, 2009. It’s only closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and Thanksgiving Day (and the day after). It’s open all the other days (even Sundays!) 11am to 5pm. Each artist in the show (some 24 of us in all) volunteered to “babysit” the show one day that it’s open. These photos are from “my” day earlier this week.

Silver Lake Art Collective Fall Exhibit

When: through November 29, 2009, Wednesdays through Sundays 11am – 5pm. Closed Thanksgiving Day and the day after Thanksgiving. Closing Reception (meet the artists!) Sunday November 29.

Where: Citibank building, 2450 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles

Open Studio this Weekend!

Open Studio with Barbara J Carter and Fred Chuang

When: Saturday & Sunday November 14-15, 2009.

Where: Fred’s home studio at 2974 Waverly Drive, Silver Lake (Los Angeles), California. Call 323-661-0595 if you get lost.

Hours: 11am to 5pm both days.

This is a very casual event. You can enjoy both artists’ art, pat the nice doggies, have some munchies, and just generally relax and have a good time.

By the way, this is my last art event until sometime next spring (date TBD). If you’ve been meaning to see my latest work and haven’t gotten around to it, this is your last chance for quite a while!

While you’re at it, you should also go see the large annual public exhibit of works by members of the Silver Lake Art Collective, which we both belong to. We’ve both got large pieces in the exhibit. It’s just a few minutes away, so you might as well take it in while you’re in the neighborhood for the open studio.

Silver Lake Arts Collective Annual Members Exhibit

When: November 7-29, 2009

Where: Citibank building, 2450 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, 90039. Enter through the metal gates at the north end of the Citibank building (the end opposite the main bank entrance). Park inside the gate or in the Citibank main lot (the latter is easier to maneuver in).

Hours: Open Wednesdays through Sundays, 11am to 5pm. Closed Thanksgiving Day and Friday after Thanksgiving.

Closing Reception: Sunday November 29, 1-5pm. I missed the Opening Reception, but I’ll be there for the Closing!

Santa Fe: Art, Food, and Chocolate, oh my!

I just got back from my dream vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Wow.

Photo: San Miguel Church, Santa Fe, built 1610

I knew it would be cool and fun and arty. But I was unprepared for the magnitude of the awesomeness.

It occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t write about it, wanting to keep the secret to myself. But then I realized (1) it’s not exactly a secret that Santa Fe is cool and artistic (after all, even clueless I knew that much), and (2) my obscure little blog is hardly going to make a dent in Santa Fe’s tourism industry.

So fine, let’s talk about Santa Fe and how amazing it is.

First of all there’s the food. I love hot and spicy food. Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, bring it on! The hotter the better. Sadly for me, the vast majority of the US feels otherwise. I’ve lived in New England, California, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest, and I can say with authority that most Americans are spice wimps.

But not New Mexico! This is the one place in the US where spicy is the norm. To New Mexicans, chile peppers are a major food group, and they unapologetically add chiles or chile sauce to just about everything. I love it.

There’s a huge debate in New Mexico over which is better, red or green chile sauce. The difference between the two is quite striking, and I had great fun sampling both and coming to my own conclusions. You can order a dish “Christmas” which means you get both red and green sauces for a side-by-side comparison. The red chile sauce is made from dried, ground-up red chiles, while the green is made from the same chiles picked while still green. The red has a deep, rich smoky flavor. Green has a bright, fresh, tart flavor. Everyone has their favorite. I tried both several times but I quickly came to strongly prefer the green.

Interestingly, in spite of getting all sorts of recommendations from friends, people on Twitter, foodie blogs and rating websites, we never found the holy grail for foodies: the perfect authentic New Mexican restaurant. Not for lack of trying, I assure you. We ate at plenty of decent little places that came highly recommended, but none were real standouts. The best chile sauce we had was on an amazing plate of huevos rancheros at a breakfast place (The Chocolate Maven). The best dinner we had was at a Spanish tapas place called El Meson – amazing food but not particularly New Mexican. I’m sure there are lots of superb authentic New Mexican restaurants, but we didn’t quite find them. Still, the hunt was fun, and turned up a few goodies here and there.

Art. Did I mention art? Because you can’t go to Santa Fe without noticing the art. It’s everywhere. You trip over it just turning around. Our hotel room was decorated with original art. Several pieces. Even in the bathroom! Swoon.

Photo: Allan Houser sculpture "When Friends Meet"

Every restaurant and cafe we ate in had art hanging on the walls, all of it for sale. (We bought a small piece from one restaurant where we had dinner.) In downtown Santa Fe, art galleries seem to outnumber all other businesses. One street, Canyon Road, is almost nothing but art galleries for its entire length. But even off of Canyon Road art galleries are everywhere.

Photo: Canyon Road, Santa Fe

Sculpture is everywhere too. Just wandering around town you see sculptures in public spaces, at the State Capitol building, at bus stops, in gardens, everywhere. Plenty of art galleries display large sculptures outside. I was particularly struck by the number of private homes, many quite modest, with sculpture visible in the front yard.

For an artist like me, all this art everywhere is almost too much to take. It’s like throwing someone dying of thirst into a swimming pool full of drinking water. I felt overwhelmed and overstimulated (but you know, in a good way). So different from Los Angeles! In Santa Fe art is a way of life, fully incorporated into every aspect of living. I’ve never seen anything like it. These are my people!

So, chocolate. This is the part I really didn’t expect. We hadn’t thought of Santa Fe as a major chocolate destination. But while planning our trip we came across something called the Santa Fe Chocolate Trail, and from that discovered the Mecca for serious chocolate lovers: Kakawa Chocolate House.

Photo: Kakawa Chocolate House, Santa Fe

Kakawa is not for chocolate wimps. Their chocolates are dark, bitter, rich, varied, and complex. Not to mention extensively researched and historically accurate. The house specialty is their drinking chocolates, hot concoctions that you sip slowly and savor like fine wine. When you go there in person, you can sample as many of their dozens of drinking chocolates as they have on hand (usually about a dozen) for free before ordering. Oh, and they will also cheerfully custom blend a half-and-half version if you just can’t decide between two. Try a blend of Jeffersonian and Modern Mexican. That was our hands-down favorite.

Beyond Kakawa there are several other good places for chocolate in Santa Fe. We didn’t visit the other stores on the Chocolate Trail but did make it to the Chocolate Maven, which is actually a bakery and breakfast restaurant. True to their name the chocolate croissants are beyond description (we watched them being made while we ate breakfast). Their plain croissants are also amazing: flaky and buttery yet satisfyingly substantial. Then there’s the Spanish Table, a cookery store that will blow the mind of any serious cook. They had several specialty Spanish chocolates available so of course we just had to buy them. We came home with quite a bit of chocolate, and a newfound respect for Santa Fe as a serious chocolate destination.

Photo: Kakawa’s make-your-own hot chocolate wafers on the left, Spanish Blanxart chocolate bars for either eating or making hot chocolate, and a bag of Blanxart powdered hot chocolate mix on the right. Quite a haul.

Was it the trip of a lifetime, as I had predicted? Sort of… it was certainly a fantastic trip, but it won’t be the only one of my lifetime! I’ll definitely be back. I’ve found art-food-chocolate heaven.

Santa Fe

I’m off on vacation… in Santa Fe! Which is pretty much like Disneyland for artists. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.

Oh, and if you buy one of my paintings while I’m gone? Well, you’ll just have to wait til I get back before I can ship it to you. Don’t worry, it’s just a few days.

“Dots 14″ little bitty painting

The latest in my ongoing series of small “little bitty” original paintings, each only 5 x 7 inches (or 12.7 x 17.8 cm if you’re into that kind of thing). Each is unique, all are experimental.

This one’s kind of like a maze:

By the way, there’s no right way up for this painting (or any of the others, for that matter). You can display it any way up you like.

“Dots 14″ by Barbara J Carter

5×7″ (12.7 x 17.8 cm) Acrylic on canvasboard

$45 plus postage ($1.50 in the US, $3 everywhere else) and sales tax in California.

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.

“Dots 13″ little-bitty painting

The latest in my series of “little-bitty” dot paintings:

“Dots 13″ by Barbara J Carter

Acrylic on canvasboard, 5×7″ (12.7 x 17.8 cm)

$45 plus postage ($1.50 in the US, $3.00 outside the US) and sales tax in California

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.

Meet me in Manhattan Beach

I’m making my Manhattan Beach debut this weekend (October 3-4, 2009) at the Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair. I’ll be showing my art in booth 252 in the Arts & Crafts section. Stop by between 10 and 5 and say hi!

The Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair is an annual event in the now-tony city of Manhattan Beach, California, the very same suburb of Los Angeles where I spent the entirety of my uneventful youth. Back in the day it was a sleepy little beach town full of surfers and hippies driving beat-up VW vans decorated with peace signs. The grubby little town is all grown-up and gentrified now, with wide clean cobblestone sidewalks and flower tubs and McMansions everywhere you look.

Anyway, they’ve been holding the Hometown Fair every year since dirt was new (OK, only 37 years). It’s a sprawling affair covering all of Live Oak Park plus a long stretch of Valley Drive and the median between Valley and Ardmore. You need to park a few miles away in a lot on Aviation Boulevard just south of Marine and take the free shuttle to the fair. Bring the kids, leave the dogs at home. The fair is very kid-oriented with all sorts of fun and goofy things for them to do.

Here’s a smattering of items I can see marked on the fair’s map: Beer garden, wine garden, chili cook-off, free games, children’s play area, free speech, giant slide, petting zoo, pony rides,  finger painting, wild animal show, velcro wall, pirates for hire, treasure hunt, magician, main stage & south stage, batting cages. You get the idea. Something for everyone!

Here’s the official Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair web site.

Meet me in Manhattan Beach!

New little-bitty painting “Dots 12 (Open Grid)”

“Dots 12 (Open Grid)” is the latest in a series of what I call “little bitty” paintings. They’re all 5×7 inches (that’s 12.7 x 17.8 cm if you’re metrically inclined), which is super small compared with my “usual” paintings.

These little bitty paintings are more experimental than my big serious paintings. They are studies, explorations of possibilities. They allow me to break free of any preconceptions I might have (oh yes, I have a few!) about how to make a painting.

“Dots 12″

For this one, I originally planned out an elaborate grid of dots that would be completely filled in. But while painting it, I started leaving gaps here and there. I thought I’d fill in the gaps with different colors. But partway through I realized I liked the effect of the gaps, so I left them. The grid is there, but it’s hinted at rather than explicitly filled in. I like that.

Like the others, this one’s for sale. I can send it anywhere in the world the mail service reaches. So far, other little bitty paintings have been sent as far as Poland, Sweden, and even Oregon.

“Dots 12 (Open Grid)” by Barbara J Carter

5×7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm)

Acrylic on canvasboard

$45 plus postage ($1.50 in US, $3.00 elsewhere) and sales tax in California

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.