I had some problems with my blog, but finally I am back! My show at the Artisan Center of Virginia opened this weekend. I gave a talk at the gallery about my work Saturday morning and around a 30 people came to listen. A pleasant surprise as Waynesboro is a bit out of the way for most of my following. The show looks great and Liz has a definite talent at setting up shows. It is always interesting how a different space will influence your work. The Artisan Center is in Willow Oak Plaza on Broad St in Waynesboro and the show will be up until the end of the month.

Preparing for a show
A new year and finally another blog. I have been busy pulling work together for my show at the Artisan Center of Virginia that will happen in March in Waynesboro, Virginia. There is nothing like the momentum and surge of energy you get before a show. You become fully focused and as the date of the opening comes closer it becomes clear what you need to get done to pull the show together. All the separate pieces you have been working on for the past year or two have to be looked over and touched up, you question the validity of the work and your right to call yourself an artist and realize you have to finish one more piece to make the show work. Then you have to write a new artist statement to go with the show, up-date your CV and take pictures of your new work for publicity. At this point I can see it all coming together and I feel a sense of anticipation and excitement. I will end this blog with a copy of my new artist statement.

Artist Statement
The theme for my work is a search for unity. Integrating different materials and forms into one sculpture gives voice to the search. I usually have an initial idea of an expression or symbolic gesture that I portray through a figure. Lately I have added an animal and a specific environment. The relationship between the figures and the environment tells a story spatially as well as emotionally.
Most of my sculptures start with a Styrofoam and wire armature. I cover it with fiberglass tape and start adding the cement. The cement is built up in different layers with a putty knife. It can be sanded or carved the first day to create a smoother texture. There are number surface treatments to choose from such as pigment, paint, shellac, wax and mosaic.

Cement has turned out to be a versatile material. Mixed with an acrylic additive and fiberglass it is stronger and more pliable than regular cement. It can be cast or added as a shell on top of an armature and the finished sculpture can be placed outdoors. It’s stone like surface compliments the primitive aspects of my work and has the resistive qualities I like in a material.


Charlottesville, Virginia, January 2007

The Intention of Art

One month out of the year I make art work where my main intention is sales. It is the month before our Christmas show goes up at the McGuffey Art Center (MAC). It is a show where it is cash and carry and where sales are higher than usual. It is a different mind set to work with sales in mind. In a way it is easier as it consists of factors you think you can actually define, such as:

What do people like to buy for Christmas presents and how much do they like to spend?

How time and money can I spend on a piece before the price gets too high?

Most of all you have to come up with a great idea, which is usually not too hard as you are supposedly creative and full of imagination. I have made jewelry, oil lamps, vases, Christmas ornaments, photo transfer wall hangings on copper and this year I made suspended mixed media angels and a couple of foutains. Even though the intention is sales there is no guarantee your smaller pieces will sell. Sometimes that art piece you created from the depths of your soul which is expensive and cumbersome will sell instead. The conclusion of this is that the purpose to know my intention is to keep me honest in my work and be clear why I make something.

On Beauty and Ugliness

My last blog prompted me to look into the issue of aesthetics in art. Aesthetics is a vital component in art and I feel there is more to it than what Arnold Hauser wrote. The visual experience of looking at art should be enriching and if it achieves that through beauty or ugliness seems secondary. To have beauty as the main goal seems as limiting as not to have beauty as a goal.

Up until the early 1900’s art in the west was aimed at beauty according to Wikipedia , and since then there has been a steady revolt against beauty as the cornerstone of aesthetics in art. I am not sure how successful that revolt has been, as a lot of the art work I see in galleries around Charlottesville is trying hard to be beautiful and likable.

Visual art has to be based on some sort of aesthetics. The aesthetics in my art is governed by feeling and intuition. It has to feel right in relationship to the material and form I am working with. Clement Greenberg’s expressed it well in the 1960’s saying that “each artistic medium should seek that which makes it unique among the possible mediums and then purifies itself of anything other than expression of its own uniqueness as a form”. I guess beauty like everything else is relative and in the eye of the beholder.

Caught between popular culture and personal truth

I read this quote today and recognized the experience. I think it is a common among artists who feel caught between commercial, popular culture and the need to stay true in their art.

“High, serious, uncompromising art has a disturbing effect, often distressing and torturing. Popular art on the other hand wants to soothe and distract us from the painful problems of existence instead of inspiring us to activity and exertion, criticism and self-examination, moving us on the contrary to passivity and self-satisfaction. The chances of success of important works are lessened by the fact that the new, unusual and difficult have a disturbing effect upon an uneducated and not especially artistically experienced audience and move them to take a negative position.”

Arnold Hauser, the Sociology of Art (1963)

Solicitation of artwork
The past week I have had 3 different groups come by my studio to solicit for art work for different causes; an internship program at the law school, an opera program and a public TV station. I am sure they are all working for a great cause and I can imagine how hard it is to go around and solicit strangers for free gifts, but still…. Artists are not a wealthy breed and I question the rational of giving away hours and hours of hard work for nothing in return. One organization, that is close to my heart, the Waldorf school and foundation, knows how to do it right. In the spring when they had a fundraiser for a new school they are building they gave the artists 50% of the money the work collected, a win for everybody. The school got lots of great art work and the artists made the same amount of money they would in a gallery. The artists were on top of that invited to a special opening where they were honored by the school.

My web page is done ! Thank you Jason. It looks great. Check it out: ninibaeckstrom.com.

We went sailing in the Chesapeake Bay this weekend, a great fall sail. Saw 7 dolphins and caught 2 Blue fish. Read Louise Bourgeoisie’s book:” Destruction of the father, reconstruction of the father”. She is so honest it shocks you and forces you to look at yourself. I like how she relates to the material and lives her art. As she chisels away at the marble she is hitting at the issue she is trying to work out inside of herself as well as portray. A therapeutic way of thinking of art. I always thought being an artist was a privilege too. She speaks of expressing her unconscious; I experience it more as if I hear the whisper of my soul.