miketcherry

I dislike posting my work with watermarks obscuring and defacing the images.  But I've learned the hard way that they will be stolen if not.  I've never minded people downloading them for inspiration on there own work, or even if they would just like a small image to have.  But full blown theft and misrepresentation of authorship is totally another thing.  I've been targeted with both.  One culprit was using images of mine to represent himself as an artist to scam on women.  Then there was the message I got saying, "I really like this drawing and it would make a perfect desktop image except for the watermark".  Translation, "I'd steal that if it wasn't marked".

Really?  Don't get me started on how some people don't think art, artists' time or work has any real value.

Things have been slow work wise.  Here in Salem, we're all waiting for tourist season to start.  Lots of snow days this year, so the kids are still in school till the end of June!  But soon, the tourists and money will start to flow.  We all hope.

     Last week was a busy week, what with the new Apple OS Mavericks upgrade that totally wrecked my computer (luckily it was the laptop I use for the internet, I have a second computer that I do my work on).  There was also the incident of a burned out clutch, leading to thoughts of a new car for my wife.  But the BIG news was the attempted art scam.

I landed in Boston last Thursday night and tomorrow I move into my first apartment in Salem, while looking for permanent lodgings, hopefully close to downtown Salem.  I hope to start drawing again soon, doing local scenery and working with some local models.

The end is nigh.  I fly away from Japan next month on 11 July.  This will be my last week of work, then it's time to pack up the studio.  I'm returning to America, the land of cooked food and free soda refills.  I'll miss the politeness of Japan.  Customer service here is unmatched anywhere else in the world.  The Japanese make the British look rude.  Except on the trains and subways.  Many Japanese refuse to sit next to a caucasian.  Even if it means they will have to stand for the next 20 minutes.  Not only will they not sit next to you, they will get up and move if you sit next to them.  This usually means I have a lot of elbow room, but it's a little annoying if I think about it too long.  Better times ahead in Boston.

When not working a commission project, or sometimes in the middle of one, just to take a break, I will draw a nude.  After awhile, I developed some skill at them.  And over time, acquired quite a few nude works I was proud of.  But no one wanted to see them.  They are forbidden from all the art shows I've attended.  Likewise with any requested public displays of my work.  But those displays seemed incomplete to me, as I felt some of my best work had become my work on nudes.  In the late 1990's, when eBay became available, I was able to "show and sell some of my nudes there.  Later, I discovered Deviant Art and could post some there, as long as they were labeled "mature" (more on that later).  But what did people do before the internet?  Indeed, what do most artists do now with their nude work?

In 2010, Bram Dijkstra, professor emeritus at UC San Diego, published a wonderful book called, "Naked, The Nude in America".  It is a history of the portrayal of the nude in American art.  In many ways, the introduction is the most fascinating part.  He discusses how since the 1950's American museums in fear of protests and loss of public funding, have removed many nudes form their displays and relegated them to storage, or worse, deaccessioned them, removing them permanently from public view.  Likewise, many unsold nude works were left in storage by the artists that created them, later to be further hidden away, or even destroyed by embarrassed relatives.

I won't bother explaining on an artistic website why nudes are important in training, development and expression.  But even here on DA, nudes are banned on some groups and always curtained with a "mature" barrier.

I've never seen an art museum with a warning sign on the door reading, "Warning! Nudity may be encountered inside".

So, apart from eBay, DA and a short time when I ran my own public studio/gallery, my nudes are pinned on my bulletin board, or stored away in portfolios and boxes.  What do other artists do with theirs?