In this edition of Artful Links: building a camera from nature, resurrecting the aurochs, and when Antiques Roadshow goes bad. Ready, set … click!
An “Antiques Roadshow” appraiser was probably a little embarrassed after a jug he valued at $50,000 turned out to be a high-school art class project (albeit a very good one).
For a down-to-earth guide to pricing your own artwork, check out our post from last week.
We thoroughly enjoyed this video about Degas and monotypes, created for MoMA’s exhibit that’s open now. It explores what a monotype is and how Degas used it to experiment with “a strange new beauty.”
The history of color is an always-interesting topic that has contributed more than its fair share of Artful Links. This time around, see a vault with some of the rarest historical pigments. You can see some of the jars on display in the Harvard Art Museums. h/t FastCo Design
In other art history news: Even if you’ve never heard of an aurochs, you’ll recognize it as the bull from the famous Lascaux cave paintings. This ancient muse is now extinct, but maybe one day modern painters will be able to paint it from life once more: scientists are on a quest to bring it back via a process called back breeding. Read about it on the Washington Post.
What art-related podcasts do you listen to? If you have kids and you want to talk to them about art, you might check out this episode of Art Made Easy, How to Talk to Kids About Art.
For a summer full of indoor and outdoor art activities (between Art Camps, of course), check out our Pinterest board.
We’ve given you some tips on this blog on writing artist statements, but the folks at Artsy are real experts when it comes to this subject: just see the title of their article, “What We Learned From Writing 7,000 Artist Bios.” This advice is specifically for writing a bio, but the tips transfer well to artist statements as well.
One great fact from this article: “Audience engagement researchers at museums have found that visitors lose interest in wall labels after 150 words.” Shorter labels would certainly help out museumgoers like area dad Phillip Schermeier, 58.
For a meditative ten minutes, we can recommend this Oscar-winning documentary short, “Glas.” It shows a lot of the process of making hand-blown and mass-produced glass. Like many of the best “how it’s made”-type films, it lets the process speak for itself, with help from top-notch editing and a jazzy soundtrack. h/t Colossal
You’ve heard of site-specific sculpture and found-object art — but have you heard of site-specific, found-object cameras? Read about two photographers who link the cameras they build to the places they photograph. h/t Hyperallergic
(Speaking of site-specific — have you entered our installation exhibit yet?)
And finally: Meet ADA, a.k.a. the charcoal balloon, a.k.a. ART BALL. (pictured at top) h/t Insider Art
