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- Painting webinar: THE STATE OF OUR SINK
Painting webinar: THE STATE OF OUR SINK
LIVE on Friday, July 31 2020, 11 am Pacific. Register to watch anytime thereafter.
Watch the inspiration video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NymAOfa47sY
After purchase, we will send you access link to the webinar (before session starts) or recorded links if you purchase thereafter. We'll also send you the link to the shared photo folder specific for this webinar.
We're using ZOOM as video platform. Video and audio for participants will be muted by default during the live webinar. You'll be able to view and listen presentation, and interact via chat. Session will be recorded and up for replay anytime after live webinar ends.
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THE STATE OF OUR SINK
On a 2009 blog post, we found while going down one of the internet rabbit holes, we discovered a painting by Lucian Freud that we’ve never seen before: Two Japanese Wrestlers by a Sink. The blog where we found the image gathers pieces that the author (painter Mike Newton) has physically seen and that invited him to think about how melancholic moments have been translated in visual art.
In true Freudian (the artist) fashion, the extraordinary painting took five years to paint from start to finish, and it was painted from life, from 1983 to 1987. There is a sense of contemplative isolation, quietness, introspection, perhaps an example of what a reclusive state of mind may feel like, hence the title, State of our Sink, a wink of the dramatic State of our Union.
We use sinks every day to wash, hands or pots, fumbling stuff in them regularly, mindlessly, throughout the day, but we have not thought so much about how intertwined their existence and presence and function is with our day-to-day quarantine life.
For starters, we believe sinks are sexy. There is an erotic energy that perhaps runs in the subconscious, but it’s hard to deny. We’re thinking about faucets, the feel and look of enameled surfaces, sinuous vessel-like forms, orifices, hissing noises, fluids. No wonder sinks have been subjects in many modern paintings. If we were not given the title of the Lucian Freud painting, we would see two nude male figures featured in the same scene, facing each other, close, on top of two faucets, running. Two and two, side by side, engaged. Let’s leave it there.
We also believe sinks have religious connotations since we use them for rituals, for cleansing, as a pause to muse about existential things. They have an altar-like presence that invokes an ethos of intimate sacredness.
Finally, sinks are part of that inventory of the mundane that sets the stage for us to perform our unremarkable daily routines. The Kitchen Sink Painters, a group of artists in the UK from the mid 20th century, used sinks as painting subjects to celebrate the everyday life of ordinary people, or rather as a sociopolitical account of the disheartening reality of those invisible to the policymakers of the time.
The erotic, the religious, the sociopolitical: we’re painting sinks.
• Painting premise: still life of a sink painted from life, any sink as long as it’s from our home or where we currently reside.
• Props: a digital image of the subject if painting from life not possible.
• Painting surface: any size, any kind. We recommend 9x12 or under.
• Painting webinar medium: oil over cotton paper. Feel free to select your media.
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FAQ:
Do I have to talk, present something, be on camera, or show what I'm doing?
A webinar is different than a video conference. You watch the presentation and instruction but you're not sharing voice or video.
What if I don't have the right materials for the session?
Here is the list of materials we use and a video on how to put them together. But you can definitely use any materials you may have at hand. We provide guidance and instruction that can be adapted to any setup you may have.
What if I can't make it at the time of the webinar?
Webinars are automatically recorded and become become available to replay. You can watch it anytime, as many times as you'd like. You can also register to view at any time thereafter.
Can I interact during the webinar?
Yes, you can do it in 2 ways: there is a chat box you can use and we have a shared photo album to share your process.
Can I interact if I don't watch the webinar live?
Yes, you still can. We have the shared folder as our point of contact after the webinar, where you can upload your work and get personalized feedback. You can also email us with any questions at any time.
What's the shared photo album for?
The shared album is our own social media space where we can upload images of our work. It's a convenient way to receive personalized feedback. It's easy to upload, share, and view.
What's the post-webinar video chat and how is it different from the webinar?
A few days after we host the webinar, we reconvene via video-conference to chat about our process, challenges, expectations vs results, and discoveries. It's an informal conversation, an add-on to the webinar, free and only available to people registered.