Category Archives: art form

When Art Sells Art

Suppose you walk into a bookstore and are immediately beckoned by a brightly colored book cover that features an exquisite sunset over a stunningly surreal ocean. You pick up the book and turn it on its face. Unfortunately the description on the back doesn’t pique your interest nearly as much as the book’s enchanting cover. Nevertheless, you pull out your debit card and carry your newfound treasure to the cashier.

What just happened? Art sold art.

Art Sells Art

This happens all the time. Songs featured in movies become wildly popular; an art exhibition features the works of an unknown artist, which in turn makes him or her a household name overnight; expertly designed DVD covers allure consumers to buy; and theater posters sell theater tickets unassisted.

Erik Piepenburg of The New York Times declares, “Great theater posters…sell by design…the best posters convey the conceptual complexities of the plays they serve.”

Indeed, some of the most beautiful designs in the world can be found on the covers of theater posters.

Examples of Great Theater Poster Art

There are many remarkably crafted theater posters. Here are a couple posters that are impressive:

A Small Fire – Designed by Julia McNamara, A Small Fire’s show poster features two sets of hands, one red and the other white, on a solid black background. Speaking of the hands, McNamara says, “…I think of them as more feminine hands. They were always red, like fire. The color scheme really works. It makes it striking.”

Stage Kiss – Stage Kiss’s show poster, designed by Courtney Waddell Eckersley, displays hundreds of lipstick-laden kiss prints, all layered on top of one another. In reference to creating the graphic for the poster, Eckersley says, “I…picked up as many bright opaque and inexpensive lipstick shades as I could find.” Then, she and an intern “kissed the page a lot.” The piece appears abstract from a distance, but the lip prints are quite visible up close.

Art in all its forms often says more than words can ever express. Art is beauty. It entices, allures, and invites the beholder to come closer. There is no better way to sell art than by using another form of art to do so. This phenomenon takes place when an artful theater poster sells out a show.

Has a theater poster ever inspired you to purchase a theater ticket, simply because the poster was great? What are some of your favorite theater posters? When have you noticed art enticing you to purchase art?

Read more Segmation blog posts about art and color:

Selling Your Art in a Strained Economy

Art Transforms Traditional Business Practices

Selling your art at outdoor art fairs

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Extracting Art from Science

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Art is thought to be subjective. But with advancements in technology, driven by adept curiosity, one woman seeks to make art exact. To accomplish this, she extracts art from science.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is working towards her PhD at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The name of this university correctly suggests the concentration of her degree path: Electronic Arts. In the past she studied Information Arts and Interactive Telecommunications. Now, she puts this knowledge to good use with an original yet familiar concept.

DNA in Art

For years, shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Bones have been using DNA evidence to uncover suspects and pursue perpetrators. Dewey-Hagborg takes this popular scientific concept of and turns it into a mesmerizing art form.

Stranger Visions is the name of the project that allows her to build sculptures of people’s faces whom she’s never met. By picking up pieces of DNA (from strands of hair, or cigarette butts, or pieces of chewing gum) she collects the basis from which she will create unique 3D artwork.

The Question that Drives Art

The curiosity that led her to merge art and biotechnology began when she noticed herself entranced by a single piece of hair. This led to a looming question: What is there to learn about the person who was once here?

In tireless efforts to answer this question (many times over), Dewey-Hagborg has come up with a complex process that allows her to create 3D sculptures of people’s faces from the DNA they leave behind.

The Complex Process

Knowing it is possible to extract a whole genome from one stand of hair, the information artist first took a piece of evidence to Genspace, a community biotechnology lab in Brooklyn. Then she developed a process that is both technical and intricate. In developing keen understanding of her discovery, Dewey-Hagborg has been able to outline, replicate, and perfect her concept. She has a personal account of this process available on her blog.

Ultimately, by amplifying sections of the genome she is able to assume a person’s unique facial features, like nationality, weight, eye color and more. She uses snips, which are the parts of a genome that link to traits. By correlating the results of amplification, and using computational programs, she is able to come up with a blue-print of the sculpture (or person) she will replicate.

As a result of her intellect, skill, and curiosity, Heather Dewey-Hagborg has brought more to the world than a new form of art. She is bridging a gap between science and the community and making it known that extracting and analyzing DNA is becoming more accessible to the general public.

After viewing the Stranger Visions exhibit, it is likely to experience a heightened sense awareness about leaving DNA behind. Just like creator of this 3D art.

Read more Segmation blog posts about Art and Science:

Color Advances Science

Custom Art Made from Your DNA

Art and Science – A Genius Combination

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First Female Tattoo Artist Starts a Cultural Phenomenon

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There is something magical about art. Music, poetry, dance, and drama all hold an enchantment so real that people will do just about anything to make contact with the particular art form that makes their life worth the living. Art is so captivating that many people desire to wear it, or even to become it. This is made evident by the millions of dollars that are spent each year on designer clothing and one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry. Those who just can’t seem to get close enough to art often become a living, breathing work of art. How? By getting tattooed.

Some would agree that tattoos are not only works of art, but means by which individuals become art. This is fascinating when you think of it. For relatively small amounts of money, someone can enter a tattoo parlor having 100 percent natural-toned flesh and exit having had a section of their body shaded with vibrant colors. What beautiful things tattoos are.

Tattoos used to be considered primarily masculine. However, the times have changed drastically. More women were tattooed in 2012 than men (in the United States). Also, tattoos are evolving into more feminine, beautiful works of art. In some ways, tattoos are becoming a female affair. This is due in part to a woman named Maud Wagoner — the first American female tattoo artist.

Maud Wagoner was a woman like no other. While most ladies of the Victorian era were studying homemaking and vying for a husband and children, Maud was doing all she could to become a skilled tattooist. She went so far as to “trade a date with her husband-to-be for tattoo lessons.” Her talent for tattooing was passed down to her daughter, Lotteva Wagoner, who was also a tattoo artist.

Thanks to artistic forerunners like Maud Wagoner, body art on women is becoming more the rule than the exeption. For art lovers, this should be good news. After all, when done by excellent artists, tattoos turn people into walking works of art, and that is a beautiful thing.

Sources:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2013/01/slide-show-a-secret-history-of-women-and-tattoo.html#slide_ss_0=3

Coming soon: Read our next blog post to learn what an artistic impression a colorful front door can make on guests and neighbors.

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