2017 Original Version
2018 VECTOR VERSION
Bob Dylan 1965 Newport Jazz Festival Video
Established 1926
In 1950, the Newport Folk Festival was established. From its inception, the musicians and audience eschewed electric instruments. By the summer of 1965, without any advanced knowledge, Bob Dylan and the band set up heavy equipment and started to play “Maggies Farm,” then played the now iconic song, “Like a Rolling Stone.” The audience was appalled and booed incessantly. Today, these are considered world-changing. I use this story to help explain what is happening here with my plein-air painting, old Floresta. The first thing to understand is that plein air means painting what you see outside. Plein-air painting at the competition level has stringent rules, like the Newport Jazz Festival. Here is one of the rules I found from a plein-air competition: you must complete your work 100% outside of what you see during the week, within the allowable boundaries. No paintings from photographs or entries produced using manipulated photographic
processes, computer-enhanced imagery, or other non-plein-air means will be allowed. Just like Bob Dylan, I reject this rule as foolishness. Let the artist decide how far to take their work; if the work starts outside or incorporates outdoor painting, then it should be all in good spirits to do the best you can. We should encourage the use of the newest techniques and methods. In my case, I made a small painting 12”x12” with a bespoken frame and then went home and refined it into the feeling of a circuit board. The plein-air piece left me feeling like it was raw and unfinished; the new version has all the marks of my style. I went further with this concept a year later and used vectors to make the idealized version. Vectors create perfect gradients and lines with ease. If there were no rules, ask yourself which painting is the highest level of creativity and imagination. Which one do you like the best?
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