Art Auctions: Contemporary Art

It is truly a wonderful thing when you consider how much we gain from our appreciation of art, what volumes it speaks about our own culture, and among cultures that make up the world besides our own. It is highly fashionable to understand something of what art is, how it tries to reinterpret our own scope of the world on an artistic level, and yet reveals so much of the human nature behind its creation. Today’s artistic minds are no different in the outgrowth of ideas onto a canvas’ surface, and some are possessed with similar qualities that those artworks considered classics have had in the past.

There is particularly unique insight coming from a lot of contemporary art, or so the label seems to include today’s works of art, with certain vagueness stemming from the lack of a dominant school of thought or ideology. Most date contemporary art beginning towards the late 1960s, most artwork could be defined easily by particular details prior to this, and there were trends of these preferences even through to the 1980s. After the Modernistic period of art was confirmed, much of the direction came to be rather disparate during periods of socio-political change, and many of the distinctions within art have been loosened dramatically.

With some critical opinions decrying the current of contemporary art to be devoid of "true beauty", critic Donald Kuspit was known to say that art had left the studio and found its’ way into the street, and that may not be that much for the worse with the blurring of many lines presently. Today, contemporary art seems to reflect those issues being faced by the world, and the emphasis on politics seems to have intensified of late. The shift drawing away from an ideal of beauty and purity to a complete opposing force of inspiration from socially oriented art, and often crosses the bounds of proper medium.

Though that is where the argument stops and conjecture begins as critics and artists alike clash in opinion over where the line is particularly between the various categories of thought, and it has been pieces of every different art movement being reevaluated in a similar way, in order to find that place that crosses over between art, artist, and audience, and creates a means for all of them to share space in the comprehensive concept to the artwork. Making the gaps in the points between art and life smaller and smaller, and creating new ways in which to comprehend the ways of the things we view around us.

Engaging mass culture with affecting the boundaries of perception through the means of the relevant issues shaping the world as we know it, and today there are many schools and studios of contemporary art that try to help shape the practice of contemporary art that will translate to the future, allowing us introspective glimpses into the artist’s thoughts. Creating interconnectedness that defies and defines what laws and life may continue to restrict, to analyze, and further define itself as multiple entities within one completely distinct from the sum of its’ parts.

When considering all of this information, at may seem overwhelming at first, but art is not impossible to understand if you concentrate on understanding what your tastes happen to be. When not thinking about these things, it is easy to overlook the value of what you are purchasing, and you may not be able to get the most for what you wish to spend. There are few lessons to learn that do not involve somewhat self-explanatory terms, but one must approach what appeals them with a frugal yet open state of mind, it can be much easier to find a good bargain with this mental state at hand.

Timing can sometimes be necessary to make the deal more lucrative for the buyer, and with some art auctions, it may be difficult to find some grounds on which to begin bidding. However, with studious attention to what you wish your end goal to be, and you will have found a way to acquire at least some kind of facsimile to show for your efforts. Depending upon how deeply you would wish to involve yourself in activities such as local viewings of artwork from contemporary artists, and perhaps you would even find a way to see the stirrings of the creativity from within, by becoming friends with local artists and networking.

Art Auctions: Grotesque Art

That there is an overwhelming number of pieces that represent this particular grouping of artwork seems false to believe, but this is happens to be on the rise as we get further into the new millennium, and realize the shedding of our culture’s skins time and again. Grotesque artwork pulls us back into the human forms we have been born into, and truly seems to give us a reaffirming sense of who we are. There are many artists, though part of other artistic movements, which have proven to fill the criteria for this grouping of concepts.

Grotesque art from the past ranges from varying degrees of mood and theme, but always seem to draw from those factors that are widely considered by most to be taboo or dark in nature, adhering to some of the most brutal and thought-provoking events in history. All these things have come together to create a body of works that jump between particular eras, but seem interrelated in the subject matter that they portray, creating works that define the morbid attentions that we seem to take from our history as a whole.

Through the works of such famed artists as Picasso and Goya, the light within the darkness of our own human condition can be revealed to us, and these reflections of our culture are seeds to the future as the culture has evolved. Many differing movements each seem to donate their own unique spin when considering these peculiar models of work, and the theme of horror and terror can be interpreted by my different people many differing ways, no matter whether today or some era further behind us. For some cultures, it is a way to evacuate fear, and express it without harm to one’s emotional health.

Though morals may seem to be too constrictive today, there are still points where society converges on points that break past the emotional barriers that many people construct, and this art is very much a mirror for evoking an honest reaction at the reflection that stares back, a response that cannot be replicated any other way. These images more than affect the rest of the present day world, as can be heard in many recent dimensions in music, and related themes can even be found in today’s popular attraction towards the horror films and novels which sell more than ever now.

It is when you consider the works of artists possessed by a certain vision, one that evokes pain as well as passion along with the other contradictions in life, and it is then that historic works like those of Hieronymus Bosch and even modern designs of H. R. Giger can be learned in equal measure of value. Their predilections towards breaking the taboos enforced by their surroundings, has helped to guide us steps into the future of our own acceptance and appreciation for our world, and the layers of depth can be revealed when one takes the time to find those elements that appeal to the sense of artistic worth.

To take control of your knowledge of this kind of artwork can better equip you for finding the particular works that you would be most enthusiastic to own, and though most of the more famous works can only be bought as prints, there are still many artists today who practice a style that intrudes upon that thin layer on the surface that reveals the most visceral layers underneath that. When looking for the right work to suit your tastes, a good deal respect must be given to those that attempt to translate their thoughts onto canvas, and you can come to better understand this category of art when approached with an open mind.

Today, some works by the artist Joe Coleman have more recently pushed the boundaries further back, and smashed a lot of preconceptions of artistic will. His approach includes the use a single horse hair brush, and detailing so fine that many layers can be found after viewing the paintings and prints dozens of times over, creating a new perspective on it with each consecutive viewing of the work. It is these layered degrees that artists strive for time and again to reveal insights into the nature of what it is to be human, and allow us to get in touch with sides of ourselves previously unknown or held back.

Art Glass Paperweights

I have a shop that sells art glass. My favorite art glass is paperweights. I have a lot of fun attending art auctions and buying art glass. I try to pay attention to what my friends and clients like and dislike.

I usually give people art glass paperweights that I find at art auctions for milestone birthdays and anniversaries. My grandmother turned eighty last October and I found a wonderful art glass paperweight for her.

The art glass paperweight that I found for my grandmother was made by Baccarat. I was extremely lucky that this was one of the last things auctioned. A lot of people had already left the art auction when this item went on the block. My grandmother appreciated the pansy design because the pansy is her favorite flower.

My cousin loves frogs. She has managed to decorate her home tastefully with her favorite item. I have been on the lookout for an art glass paperweight for her for years. I finally found one at an art auction I was at last year. The art glass paperweight featured a frog sitting on a lily pad and the frog was surrounded by blue water. It was really pretty and my cousin started using it on her desk immediately.

My aunt collects art glass paperweights. I have been asked by her on numerous occasions to find pretty art glass paperweights for her while I’m attending art auctions. Of all of the pieces I’ve won for her over the years, one memory sticks out in my memory more than any other.

By far the prettiest art glass paperweight I’ve ever won at an art auction has to be one that features a blue and gold Macaw. Rick Ayotte was the artist that created it and it was even featured in a book of his work. He has created many lovely art glass paperweights.

I have an art glass paperweight in my shop that just won’t sell. It has been in the store the longest and I think I may have it priced too high. I won the paperweight at an art auction several years ago for one thousand dollars. The paperweight was created by Paul Stankard and it should have easily sold for twice what I paid for it.

I have no trouble at all selling art glass paperweights that were made by Rick Ayotte. His work seems to draw the most interest. I try to win any auction I find for art glass paperweights he made. I won one not long ago that was pink roses. They looked so delicate and sweet. I know that this art glass paperweight will sell quickly.

There have been some inquiries at my shop for art glass paperweights by Richard Marquis. I haven’t found any in any of the art auctions I’ve attended recently. I looked at some of the pieces he’s made and I’m not especially impressed.

I will keep looking for the art glass paperweights at the art auctions I attend, but I will not be going way out of my way to track them down. I will just remember that Marquis is an artist that some of my clients are really interested in. I’m sure that I will find an art auction with one of his pieces in it at some point.

There were some inquiries about nautical themed art glass paperweights a couple of years ago and I found a fantastic artist that made them. I buy every art glass paperweight I can find that was made by Rick Satava. My favorite has to be the coral orange jellyfish that I found at an art auction an hour from my home. It was really pretty.

The coral orange jellyfish art glass paperweight was just the first Rick Satava piece that I’ve found at various art auctions. I’ve also found jellyfish in ruby and blue. They are beautiful by themselves or when they are put onto a black light stand that has been built especially for them.

Finding Vintage Disneyana

Vintage Disneyana has become a personal passion of mine. I’ve been searching for it for years now. I attend art auctions regularly, but usually only find vintage Disneyana at a small percentage of them.

I found a darling 1938 Knickerbocker Mickey Mouse dressed in a Santa suit at an art auction a few years ago. This was an extraordinary vintage Disneyana find. There was some very fine crazing to the face, but no flakes in the paint.

I did some research after the art auction and it turns out that my vintage Disneyana has quite a history. This toy was a one of a kind Mickey Mouse toy made by Knickerbocker for a department store at Christmas and was given away for a contest. I was happy that the beard was real wool fur.

I searched for several years at art auctions until I found a Mad Hatter china teapot. This vintage Disneyana was made in 1951 by Regal for Disney. I always loved Alice in Wonderland and this teapot was very special to me.

My love of vintage Disneyana runs through lots of mediums. I buy figurines and paintings and anything else that strikes me as special while I’m at art auctions. If something is really rare or unusual and still has a whimsical feel to it, I’ll try to win it.

I found a painting that I fell in love with. It fit with my love of vintage Disneyana. The painting was created in 1949 and depicted the Cinderella castle. It was originally created for a Disney holiday card. I won the painting for four thousand dollars and felt like I had gotten a great deal.

The old Disneyland maps have become very expensive pieces of vintage Disneyana. I have been finding more of the old maps at art auctions, but they are usually not in good shape. The nicest map I’ve found was from 1958, which is also the year I was born.

The 1958 map of Disneyland was the first one that was made poster sized. The art auction I found this piece of vintage Disneyana at had numerous Disney lots up for auction that day. I had not expected to find such a great item. This map had been stored rolled and had never been folded. I paid two thousand dollars for it and it was worth every penny.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was my little sister’s favorite movie when we were kids. I look for vintage Disneyana that features it when I am art auctions. The best item I’ve found for her was figurines from the 1950s that were of Snow White and six of the seven dwarfs. There was one figurine missing, Sneezy.

My daughter has fallen in love with Bambi. She had me buy her the DVD and she has watched it over and over again. I was at an art auction and found a nice Bambi figurine while they were auctioning off vintage Disneyana. I gave it to her for her last birthday and she says that it is her most prized possession!

I was shocked at an art auction that I attended that had a wonderful 1930s Mickey Mouse lamp and lampshade. The art auction had not even advertised that they were auctioning vintage Disneyana. If they had advertised this item, I know that more people would have come to the auction. I won the lamp for five hundred dollars because I had no competition.

The most common vintage Disneyana that I find at art auctions is watches. I don’t like watches. I never buy any of the Disney watches. I am usually disappointed when an art auction advertises vintage Disneyana and all they have up for auction is watches.

I bought an autographed Fantasia album at a vintage Disneyana sale. The art auction had a lot of signed and autographed items and Disney items were among them. The signatures on my vintage Disneyana included Walt Disney, Leopold Stokowski (the conductor) and both of the original animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson. This was a fantastic find for my collection.

Collecting Enesco

My friends and I have been collecting Enesco for several years. We actively attend art auctions and bid on everything Enesco! We have a lot of fun finding pieces we don’t already have and winning them.

I think collecting Enesco is fun. I really like the Mary Moo Moo plates. They came in a collection of eight plates from a series called Home is Where the Herd is. I’ve had a hard time finding a complete set at an art auction, but I have found several single plates.

I started collecting Enesco right after I was married. I went to an art auction with my sister-in-law and she pointed out some items that she was collecting. The experience I had with her that day really made an impression on me.

I went to an art auction several months after the first one I attended and bought my first piece of Enesco. I got my start collecting Enesco with just one plate. I bought an Enesco plate that said Cookies are for Sharing. I have displayed it in my kitchen ever since.

I am still lacking an Enesco plate that says Cream of the Crop. It is hard to believe that I’ve been actively collecting Enesco for so long and have been unable to locate this plate. I have duplicates and triplicates of several of the plates. Each art auction I attend, I am hopeful that I will find the plate I need to complete that set.

My best friend has been collecting Enesco ever since she had a baby a few years ago. She decided on a teddy bear design for the nursery and I gave her a shower gift of several Cherished Teddies figurines for decorating with. She found more of the figurines at an art auction she went to with me and has been unstoppable ever since.

Precious Moments figurines have never been something that I particularly liked. My friend’s daughter loves them. She started collecting Enesco Precious Moments figurines after we took her with us to an art auction that had a small lot of them. She spends significantly less on her collection than the rest of us do, but I think she’ll catch up.

My husband’s birthday is on Halloween. He has started collecting Enesco Halloween statues. I bought him one statue at an art auction several years for his birthday and he totally fell in love with the work of Jim Shore.

The first Enesco statue that my husband found for himself was at an art auction we attended together while on vacation. He found the statue called Grim Reaper absolutely irresistible. I have to agree, the detail work is positively spooky! He has been searching for other pieces, but does not pursue collecting Enesco very actively.

My husband went golfing last weekend while I attended an art auction. Collecting Enesco is my passion and I rarely pass up items that I really like. I found a piece for me that added to my Moo Moo plate collection and I found a Headless Horseman for my husband’s collection.

The next piece that my husband has indicated that he wants to find at an art auction is the Jim Shore piece called Witch on a Pumpkin. I know that collecting Enesco can be addictive and it is nice that he has decided which pieces he really wants. I agree with my husband and really like the folk art that Jim Shore does.

Art Auctions on eBay

I’ve been looking at art auctions on eBay all day today. I have found some wonderful things. I browsed the Art category and chose the subcategory of self-representing artists.

I like what I see for sale. Art auctions on eBay are a great way for an unknown or even a known artist to sell their paintings. I found some nice paintings in the featured section.

Since I was looking at art auctions on eBay, I used the option to just view the picture gallery. I’m glad I did that because I really just wanted to see the art, not the title of the auction. What immediately caught my eye was all of the bold colors.

On the first page of image results of art auctions on eBay, there was a beautiful painting of a martini. I think that martini images seem very classy to me. I can visualize this painting in the home of someone with a glass coffee table and a leather couch!

The virtual foot traffic that art auctions on eBay gets is incredible. The artist can get so much more exposure to so many more people than hanging their paintings in galleries. It is just such a good way to get discovered.

I did think it was a little funny when I saw art auctions on eBay listed for 99 million dollars. The artist wants to make history by breaking the world record for the most paid for a painting by a living artist. The record is currently forty million dollars.

There was another art auction on eBay that really caught my eye. The artist was Kelly Shanks and she lives in Boston. The painting that I saw was done in an impressionist style and called Neon Rain. It is part of her New Orleans series. I liked it a lot.

I found an art auction on eBay for a painting entitled The Egg Eaters. It was really odd and didn’t exactly suit me. I tried to imagine where it would end up hanging. I think that fantasy art just can’t hang everywhere. I can see this hanging in an upscale gaming store or in a bachelor pad.

The funniest art auction I saw on eBay was for a folk art rendition of a Jack Russell terrier. I can only imagine that a dog lover should own and display this. The dog looks like he is about to jump up on me!

I found a landscape that I really liked when I was looking through the art auctions on eBay. The piece was called Red Barn under Praire Clouds. I think that if this was hanging in my bedroom, I might never get out of bed. I love to watch clouds.

I guess I just don’t understand abstract art. I think if I understood it, I could appreciate it. I found an art auction on eBay for an original painting called Beige Dancelines #2. The artist says that it is an abstract dancing figure. I just can’t see anything but an oversized ear.

There were so many photos to look at when I was searching on eBay for art auctions. I think that my tastes really run to realism and landscapes. I especially liked a painting of Alaska by Hunter Jay. The blues in the picture were really nice; I’ll bet that this painting is wonderful in person.

My mother-in-law has been decorating her house slowly. I found a really nice art auction on eBay for her that would fit her likes. The painting depicts a tree at sunset and is just beautiful. The artist has a lot of auctions and I really hope that she sells a lot. She is very talented.

The only other art auction on eBay that I spent a lot of time looking at was a painting of red tulips against a yellow sky. I’m not sure why I was so taken by this painting. Tulips are my favorite flower. The tulips in this painting are just suspended in the center. They just seem to hang there magically. I really liked this depiction of my favorite flower.

Art Auctions For Sculptures

Art auctions for sculptures are a great way to find new art for your home or office. I like to peruse the online auction sites for nice sculptures. I have found some very interesting items when I’ve looked.

There was a sculpture sold on eBay recently that was entitled Love. The art auction for this sculpture went above the estimated value. The piece was red and blue and made of polychrome aluminum. The French artist’s name was Robert Indiana. The art auction listed the item as six feet tall, six feet wide and three feet deep.

I liked a hall stand that was carved from wood that I found in an online art auction. The carving depicted a playful bear climbing a fir tree. There was a young bear cub carved into one of the branches. The branches were there to serve as garment hooks and there was even a mirror on the piece in a carved oak leaf designed frame.

There was an exquisite sculpture by a Russian artist that was sold recently in an art auction. The subject of the sculpture was a Bar Mitzvah boy and the medium was marble. I think that marble statues seem so timeless and elegant. It is an excellent medium for a sculpture.

The wife of artist Yitzhak Danziger signed a certificate for the brass sculpture her husband completed in 1969. Danziger is an Israeli artist. The piece looked very abstract to me. It did not do very well in the art auction and sold for less than it’s estimated worth.

I found a lot of bronze sculptures in the online art auctions. Most of them were of people, but the ones I liked best were abstract. My absolute favorite was a Harry Bertoia bronze sculpture called Bush. This piece is also known as a Brain or Coral. The bidding for this piece of art in the art auction was started at thirty nine thousand dollars. It didn’t get a bidder.

I saw little interest in the bronze sculpture art auctions for animal figures. I’m not sure if the reasons they didn’t get bidders were because of subject matter or because of price. Bronze is an expensive medium for an artist to work in and it takes a lot of training to be proficient.

I have a favorite glass sculptor. His work goes for so much in online art auctions that I will probably never own a piece of his work. Dale Chihuly is magnificent. There are permanent installations of his tremendous work all over the world.

Crystal sculptures look more like paperweights to me. Online art auctions for glass representations of animals and sea life are really neat. My favorite art auction recently was for a hand blown glass jellyfish. It was magical.

I liked another online art auction for optical crystal that had been turned into a work of art by artist Christopher Ries. The piece was small and called Lotus. It would look so pretty in a well lit display case.

I’m jealous of the buyer that gets to call this sculpture their own. They won the piece in the art auction for just under a thousand dollars. This artist uses blocks of pure, clear lead crystal cast from Schott Glass Technologies of Duryea, Pennsylvania. It is truly amazing art. His work is prominently displayed in numerous galleries and even in the Columbus airport in Columbus, Ohio.