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

Clarissa Shanahan

A spotlight for members.

This Week's Artist

Recent Podcast

Mary Gabriel: The Women of Abstract Expressionism

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Mary Gabriel The Women of Abstract Expressionism If you were lucky enough to catch the round-up at the Denver Art Museum two years...

Margery Amdur Makes an Installation

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When Margery Amdur was invited this fall to build an installation in a gallery at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN, the Philadelphia-based artist envisioned an immersive environment that would draw on the many interests she’s pursued over the years. Probably...

Artists Behaving Badly

by Ann Landi | April 24, 2016 | Features | 3 Comments

A recent report in the Huffington Post alleges that “narcissistic artists were determined to have higher market prices, higher estimates from auction houses, more museum shows, and more recognition from the art…

Reinventing Landscape: Part One

by Ann Landi | April 17, 2017 | Features | 2 Comments

The “genre,” if it is such these days, never really goes away Landscape painting enjoys a long and honorable history in art, going as far back as ancient times, when the Greeks and Romans made frescoes of pleasant vistas and enchanting gardens. There have been periods...

“How did you decide to become an artist?”

by Ann Landi | December 11, 2015 | Artist Essays | 6 Comments

My father asked me this question during the last months of his life. As a young man he had made the decision to not pursue a life as a concert pianist, choosing a career that was both more stable and also protected the privacy of his passion…

Should You Have a Contract with Your Dealer?

by Ann Landi | December 7, 2015 | Features | 0 Comments

Given the increasingly litigious nature of all aspects of our society, it comes as a surprise to find that many galleries and artists function happily without complicated contractual agreements. About half the people surveyed…

“Ninth Street Women”—a review

by Ann Landi | September 30, 2018 | Features | 8 Comments

The Abstract Expressionist generation has gone down in history as mostly male and exceedingly macho. Jackson Pollock boozing it up and brawling at the Cedar Bar. Willem de Kooning slashing his way through that still-disturbing “Woman” series. Franz Kline bravely...

Painting with Big Mama

by Ann Landi | March 12, 2018 | Artist Essays | 3 Comments

By Phillis Ideal I still see Big Mama leaning over her garden to pick a zinnia to put in her still life. Her old pink slip hung diagonally, a foot below her hiked-up stained dress, half-covered by her paint smock, which matched her white faux-fur bedroom slippers,...

Open Studios: Part One

by Ann Landi | June 4, 2017 | Features | 5 Comments

The ins and outs of making your life and work a public affair When I first broached the topic of open studios to several Vasari 21 members, some said, “No way. I don’t want a lot of lookee-loos traipsing through my private spaces.” Or “I’m at the point where I have...

Storytelling in Three Dimensions

by Ann Landi | July 16, 2017 | Features | 1 Comment

Installation Artists Continue the Narrative Tradition Once upon a time, storytelling was one of the most ambitious missions of painting. Panel by panel, Giotto told the lives of Christ and St. Francis. Michelangelo presented the sweeping drama of the Old and New...

Leslie Parke on Lori Ellison

by Ann Landi | November 30, 2015 | Artists Choose Artists | 9 Comments

I am drawn to work of modest means that has a monumental impact. The master of this kind of work was Lori Ellison, who died in August 2015…

The Business of Art Business Coaching, Part One

by Ann Landi | October 23, 2017 | Features | 4 Comments

When you need more than a little help from your friends, seek out a coach I’m not sure when or why I started thinking about the business of art coaching, though I was a guest for one of Paul Klein’s webinars more than a year ago. After I mastered Instagram this...

Archived Feature

Ripe for Rediscovery: Mary Lee Bendolph

May 13, 2018 | Features | 1 Comment

One of the most radical abstract artists of the last 50 years is scarcely a household name, or even well known outside a small group of collectors, connoisseurs, and art historians. But Mary Lee Bendolph is a standout in the group of quilters from Gee’s Bend, a tiny...

Advise and Select

Jul 29, 2018 | Features | 1 Comment

Artists reveal their secrets for smart editing and smooth studio visits Not too long ago, I paid a call on an artist who shall remain nameless, whose studio was such a shambles I was itching to get out of there within ten minutes. It seemed there were works from every...

Archived Feature

Encaustic: An Overview

Jul 15, 2018 | Features | 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...

Archived Under the Radar

Tamar Zinn

Oct 30, 2017 | Under the Radar | 14 Comments

Tamar Zinn was about twelve when she discovered the thrill of drawing. Like many artistically inclined New York City kids, she took classes at the Art Students League on West 57th Street. “There was an enormous studio divided into two sections,” she recalls. “In one...