Connecting Artists

A Serious Site for Serious Artists

Welcome to Vasari21. A community for working artists, a place to connect, find information, read about the new and the unknown, listen to podcasts, and learn about how the art world really works.

UNDER THE RADAR

Leslie Kerby

A spotlight for members.

This Week's Artist

Recent Podcast

Michael David: A Life in Encaustic

2 Comments

Michael David Photo credits: bottom of page Michael David has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a painter and is one of...

Encaustic: An Overview

4 Comments

In three days in Provincetown, MA, this June, our intrepid reporter hit the ground running and offers a succinct guide to some of the many ways this seductive medium is in use among artists By Anna Wagner-Ott The art of encaustic has been around for centuries: it was...

Fix That Website!

by Ann Landi | June 7, 2016 | Features | 13 Comments

Toward the end of my interview with curator Tricia Paik of the Indianapolis Museum of Art a few weeks back, we briefly touched on the subject of artist websites—what works and what doesn’t. Developing a good one, up-to-date and easily navigable…

What Is a Drawing? Part Three

by Ann Landi | April 17, 2018 | Features | 1 Comment

Far from disappearing from an artist's regular practice, as many critics have complained, the possibilities for drawing have only expanded in the last century, limited only by the imaginations of their creators. Picasso made drawings with a small electric light in a...

Joan Linder on Miriam Dym

by Ann Landi | February 1, 2016 | Artists Choose Artists, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

History aside, when I think of an artist whose work I admire and who has had immeasurable impact on my work, I think of Miriam Dym. We met in graduate school nearly two decades ago. She has a particular, and idiosyncratic, vision that engages…

The “Aha!” Moment, Part One

by Ann Landi | July 13, 2016 | Features | 3 Comments

Artists Share Moments of Discovery A few weeks ago, before making the great trans-Taos trek from Cottam Road to Camino del Monte, I asked Vasari21 members if they had ever experienced what I call the “aha!” moment—a sudden realization that a material, a way of...

So You Want To Learn How To Draw?

by Ann Landi | October 10, 2016 | Features, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

In which a writer and critic goes back to class Please note that this story is reprinted from the ARTnews issue of October, 1995. But 20 years later, the New York Studio School "drawing marathons" still continue along the same lines, under the expert guidance of the...

Me, Myself, and I Part 3

by Ann Landi | October 9, 2017 | Features | 4 Comments

It’s curious to me that more women than men responded to the call for a third round-up of self-portraits on Vasari21. That’s possibly because there are more female members than male (though I can’t tell you the exact ratio), possibly because women traditionally spend...

Josef Albers: Beyond Light and Shade

by Ann Landi | December 21, 2015 | Artist Essays | 0 Comments

Most of Josef Albers’s paintings are very unusual and far more complex than they initially appear; they are not about Op art, color theory, or Minimalism. They are about paying attention. Just as his famous book on color theory…

Ripe for Rediscovery: Helen Lundeberg

by Ann Landi | February 13, 2017 | Features | 2 Comments

By Jane Barthes As an artist originally from Europe—and one whose own path did not begin with abstraction—I confess I possessed a rather rudimentary knowledge of geometric abstraction, particularly American hard-edge abstraction. It was at Art Expo in Chicago in 2015...

Crowd Funding Made Simple

by Ann Landi | July 31, 2017 | Features | 1 Comment

It’s a good way to raise money for a project, for research, or for a publication like Vasari21 Crowd-sourcing has become a popular way for artists to fund specific projects, whether it’s a book or a body of work or a trip to do research. Two of the most popular...

So Long at the Fair?

by Ann Landi | April 11, 2016 | Features | 3 Comments

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the art fair appears to be the major marketing phenomenon of our times. Artsy.com, a site primarily for collectors, lists 60 top fairs worldwide, with ballpark estimates for maintaining a booth at one ranging from…

Archived Feature

Artist’s Block and How To Beat It

Dec 11, 2017 | Features | 6 Comments

Feeling stymied? In a slump? Disconnected from your work? You’re not alone. We’re all familiar with writer’s block from the many cinematic clichés. The author sits at his typewriter or word processor, smoking and drinking and muttering profanities. The author fills a...

Ripe for Rediscovery: Berthe Morisot

Mar 27, 2018 | Features | 1 Comment

Having It All in the 19th Century Berthe Morisot’s subjects now seem among the tamest and most ingratiating imaginable: sun-drenched land- and seascapes, women and children casually posed in the garden or cozy domestic interiors, stylish Parisian beauties at their...

Archived Feature

The Second Annual Studio Pets Contest

Feb 20, 2018 | Features | 3 Comments

I have to say—these were even better than last year, though when I asked for some relief from all the dogs and cats pouring in, a few members got a little smart-assed and sent vacuum cleaners and coils of clay. No matter. We now have a separate category for “Inanimate...

Archived Under the Radar

Susanna Carlisle and Bruce Hamilton

Jul 3, 2017 | Under the Radar | 1 Comment

One of my all-time favorite video works is housed in an elegant little box, lined in pink satin and measuring only about seven by eight by eight inches deep. Inside, like an animated tondo, is a round screen showing dancer-choreographer Rulan Tangen performing a...