Kyle’s Work – Page 7 – Kyle Clements

Jack of All Trades, Master of None?

I’ve often heard the expression, “jack of all trades, master of none”. The idea behind this phrase is obvious enough: if I spend my time doing a little bit of everything, I may end up being versatile, but I will never, ever be truly great at any one thing. And if I want to be a great painter, I’d better drop the camera, the audio gear, the camping, the website work, the writing, the wood work, the electronics, and everything else, and just paint.

I’ve been told that if I make a business card, I should only put ‘painter’, and leave out the “photo, video, sound” part. If I make a website for my paintings, I should avoid even mentioning that I also do photography. If I really want to pursue photography, then I should make up a fake name and make a new website for just my photography. I shouldn’t let people know that I like to do more than just one thing. I shouldn’t get distracted by doing more than one thing.

But, is this really good advice to follow? Does a wide focus spread across many fields eliminate the possibility of truly mastering any one of them, or does the knowledge gained in one discipline inform the decisions made in another?

Continue reading Jack of All Trades, Master of None?

Painting with Light

As someone who is primarily a painter, some aspects of photography can be quite frustrating. In March of 2010, I had an idea for a photo shoot: take a bunch of multi-coloured LEDs, throw them around a snow covered forest, and take a bunch of pictures. The coloured light should bounce off the snow and create some interesting effects. This sounded like a cool idea.

The only problem was that I had this idea in March, after the winter snow had melted. I had to wait for winter to come again before I could try out this idea. When I’m painting, the time of year doesn’t matter so much. Winter scenes in summer, summer scenes in winter; if I can imagine it, I can paint it. This isn’t the case with photography. Photography is all about patience. I had to wait for nature to play along before I could try out this idea.

Two nights ago, I finally had my chance to head out on this photo shoot.

Brad had recently picked up a new camera, so I thought this could be a good opportunity for a ‘Brad vs. Kyle’ thing, introducing some friendly competition into the shoot.
Continue reading Painting with Light

It’s Time for Some Personal Development

It’s been a while Since I’ve posted anything up here. Sorry about that. I’m really not making good on my promise to post something new here every single week.

The only excuse I can offer is busyness.
I’ve been busy. Very busy.
Lots of prep work, lots of new paintings, and lots of shows.
I hung my ninth show of the year the other day. That’s a new personal record for me. Nine shows and over 100 new paintings in one year, and I’ve still got 1 full month to go.

Continue reading It’s Time for Some Personal Development

Vote Now! Seeking Feedback on my Paintings

I’ve got a little project in the works. I won’t reveal what that project is quite yet, but it might turn out to be the most awesome thing in the history of the entire universe (but that outcome is rather unlikely).

A few days ago, I set up a new little area on my blog. I’ve got enough of the bugs worked out that I now feel comfortable advertising this new section. The link, which can be found in the upper right hand corner of this page, leads to a blog entry where my urban landscapes can be viewed, and more importantly, voted for.

Each of my paintings can be given a “thumbs up”, or a “thumbs down” rating, and as far as I know, the whole thing is completely anonymous. You don’t have to worry about offending me, or forcing my artistic direction one way or another, this is just about getting some feedback on my work.

At first, I published the link to a fairly small following, the people on my facebook fan page. The next day, the link was posted to a low traffic web forum. Yesterday, I tweeted about the page, and today, I’ve put the link on my blog, my main facebook page, and a few other places.

I will be keeping careful track of the results, and adding to this entry in the near future.

If you can spare a few moments, please, head on over to the new gallery section and vote!

Thank you.

Just Like Old Times

I had just put in yet another 14 hour day with Brad. We were closing in on the 90 hour mark for that week, and I was worn out. After the short walk home, I stumbled through the front door, and headed straight for bed. It was nearly 4 am. My shoes were still on my feet, and I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

Around 9 am, my phone rang.
“um…hello?”
“Kyle, put together an art show for November.”
“um…sure.”
*click*
I rolled over and went back to sleep.
I crawled out of bed around noon and made my way over to the secret lab / collaborative studio (otherwise known as “Brad’s house”).
“Hmm…I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamt that I got a call from my old high school teacher, ordering me to put together an art show for Bob’s gallery. Weird.”
I checked my phone’s call history. It wasn’t a dream. I did agree to curate an art show.

Brad looked at me, “Have you ever curated a show before?”
No
“Do you know how to curate a show?”
No
“So, why did you agree to it?”
Because it’s a show!

Never turn down a show. That’s the rule. Show. Show your work. Always be ready. Be ready for three shows at once, just in case; and if you are already booked, work harder and make it work.
Continue reading Just Like Old Times

New Lens!

In my last post, I mentioned that I picked up a new lens.

I tried to tone-down my giddy excitement in that last post. I will be letting it all out in this post.

My 18-70mm 3.5-4.5G DX was sharp enough, it was fast enough, it was almost even enough; but damn! 50mm 1.8D prime, you make me so happy!

This is the most inexpensive lens Nikon makes. It is not a cheap lens. It is an inexpensive lens. It doesnâ€™t cost very much, but it takes fantastic pictures.

It opens wide, all the way up to f/1.8, which is about 2 and a half stops better than any of my other lenses. The shallow depth of field this allows has given me a whole new world to explore.
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Photographing My Own Art (New Lens!)

If you like overly broad assumptions, than these next few paragraphs are for you:
There are two types of photographers: those who like to take pictures, and those who obsess over gear.

Some head out early in the morning, venture to remote locations during stormy weather, and wait there, hoping to capture something breathtaking. The others stay at home, count pixels, take pictures of charts, zoom up close and look for flaws in the gear.
(I’m leaving out the third kind: people who downloaded some nifty app for the iphone that automatically filters their images into something cool.)

The photographers who go out and take great images can look down on the gear-porn junkies; they buy all this expensive gear, and never use it to make images worth looking at. The technically minded gear-porn junkies look down at the photographers for buying gear that is 2% less sharp around the edges at certain f-stops while zoomed in all the way, when a better alternative is only two pay-cheques more expensive. And everyone looks down on the iphone photographers, because no one seems to notice that good images are all that matters.

I’m not really a photographer, so I guess I’m safe from being stuck in one of these groups I’ve just invented, but I can certainly understand the appeal of being obsessed with gear. Its objective. It’s easy. Taking a good image is hard. Powerful images have a certain quality that can’t be quantified. In the discussion over what makes an image worth looking at, aesthetics are lost in translation.
Continue reading Photographing My Own Art (New Lens!)

October Studio Update

Nuit Blanche turned out to be far more work than I had planned for, but that extra work is now paying off. Over these past few days, Brad and I have been reworking ‘Take a Picture’, creating a new series of invisible images for people to look at. As far as the technical aspects go, we definitely over-engineered our design. That decision is making “Take a Picture: Phase II” go a lot faster than Round 1. In the past two days, we’ve managed to accomplish what took us one month last time around.
Continue reading October Studio Update

How I Started Listening to Audiobooks While Painting

It’s amazing how quickly an idea can spread though a community or subculture. One particularly aggressive meme that is working it’s way though the Toronto artist community is audio books. Listening to an audio book while working seems to be a rapidly growing trend.

I had always heard of audio books, but I never had the slightest bit of interest in them. In 2005, While talking to Nicholas Di Genova in his studio space in Toronto, he happened to mention that his latest audio book had arrived in the mail. He was a member of some sort of audio book club. Based on his description, it worked like Netflix, only with audio books instead of movies. He paid a monthly fee, and they sent him a book. When he returned it, they sent him the next one on the list. At the time, I was still blaring Nine Inch Nails and Skinny Puppy while working, and the idea of listening to a dry, boring audio book did not seem at all appealing. I was an expressionist painter who worked long hours, and I needed fast and interesting music to keep me going. I couldn’t imagine enjoying listening to someone read a book. But this conversation with Nik successfully planted a seed in the back of my mind. It just needed some time to sprout.

Continue reading How I Started Listening to Audiobooks While Painting

My Nuit Blanche Adventure: Aftermath

My Nuit Blanche Adventure: Part 4: Aftermath

It is October 3rd. For the first time in weeks, I wake up feeling well-rested. It is 4:00 Sunday afternoon. Normally I would feel awful for sleeping in this late, but after last night, 4:00pm is a good time to be up. I’ve got absolutely nothing planned for the day. At last, I’ve got some free time; but what should I do with it? Well, I guess it’s time for some much-needed website maintenance, and I should probably catch up on my email, which has been sorely neglected these past few months. A lazy catch-up day sounds about right.

Of course, within 5 minutes of turning on my laptop, I forget all about the website and email, and I find myself surfing the web, looking for reviews of this year’s Nuit Blanche, hoping that someone has said something nice about Take a Picture. I find some discussions about Nuit Blanche, but every time I hit ‘refresh’ more comments have come in. Maybe I should wait on this for a bit.

I make a cup of tea and go over the memories from last night. I ask myself, “What did I experience last night that is truly blog-worthy?”
Continue reading My Nuit Blanche Adventure: Aftermath