Art Print Issues

Paint Outside the Frame - Digital Painting Comes of Age

If you have been reading along with this blog, you've seen posts questioning whether the term giclée is passé, rhetorically asking "What Is a Giclée?" and suggesting the term, "Convergent Media" is more appropriate than digital art. The situation is that digital media and communication continues to take a larger role in our lives. The blog you are reading now is a cool by-product of digital media and Web development. The picture below is the work of Convergent Media Artist, Steven Friedman and is featured on the home page of the Digital Painting Forum.

To those born soon enough that life without Game Boys, text messaging and DVRs is inconcievable, I predict the notion digitally rendered art can be construed as fine art will go without question. The rest of us have, or will catch up in due time or let it pass as something we never got. Me, I've had maybe four text messages in my life and don't feel a need for any more any sooner...but don't think about asking me to give up my blog or Internet connection. And, don't tell me exquisite art can't be created from bits and bytes.

Convergent Media - Is It Time to Bury Digital Art?

Convergent Media

(I'm not big on double posting, but I'm going to with this one. This post was originally published on the Wet Canvas in the Digital Art forum. I present it here because it dovetails with my previous Is Giclee Passe? post. Apologies to those who have previously read this on Wet Canvas.)

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The term giclee was coined into usage as marketing jargon. It successfully allowed printers, publishers and artists get away from using the term digital art and digital printing at a time when using either was certain to cool the ardor of potential buyers of this new media.

To keep things in context, in 1990 there was no Internet to speak of, the desktop computer revolution spawned by Windows 95 was five long years into the future. Cell phones and digital cameras weren't the norm as with today. Fax machines exemplified the cutting edge of instant communication technology. (For those of us who worked in an office then, standing around waiting to send or receive a fax was the modern day equivalent of the proverbial water cooler.) So, using digital to describe anything related to art was not going to warm the hearts of any buyer and as such the usage of giclee was brilliantly, if no luckily, conceived, received and passed into the vernacular.

Online Visual Artists - A Lively Discussion.

Besides blogging here and ocassionally on Absolute Arts, I like to engage the community on the some of the discussion boards. I've previously mentioned Wet Canvas. Today, I'd like to tell you about Online Visual Artists. After I published my recent post just below, I made note of it on the appropriate OVA board. It started something that unfortunately doesn't hapen here. That is a lively discussion of a post.  Please don't be shy, If you read something I publish, add your thoughts in the way of commentary. It makes for a better environment all around. Here's the link to the thread in question: http://onlinevisualartists.com/forum/index.php?topic=691.0 

I just posted a reply there longer than my original post here. I hope some of you will join in there or here with your thoughts on the subject of open edition reproductions that are digitally printed.

What Is a Giclée?

It can be a humorous adventure to go on Web sites where digital reproduction are sold under the Giclée moniker and read the vain attempts to explain: what the word means; its genesis; how to pronounce it; or to accurately describe the process of creating digital reproductions.

The reality for the art industry is it really isn't a laughing matter. There literally must be thousands of poorly informed and worse written descriptions floating around cyberspace these days. Many with futile attempts to inform collectors and surfers what the heck is a giclée. The term has become as nondescript and amorphous as the word "print."  The more the word and its description gets mucked up, the more confusing the term becomes to the public and the less ability it has to be a powerful valuable descriptor.