A Piece of TRAC 2015

I was given the opportunity to go to TRAC 2015 by a generous friend who gifted me with her pass when at the last minute an injury prevented her from attending. I couldn't take advantage of every event, but caught some wonderful highlights. 

I arrived in time for Breaking In: 21st Century Museums and Representational Art, a panel discussion between Elliot Davis, Michael Zakian, Peter Frank, and Vern Swanson, moderated by Joseph Bravo. The content of the discussion was just as you'd imagine, as the panelists explained all the ways the deck is stacked against all artists and biased against representational artists in particular. Paradoxically, museum attendance is highest for representational artists, as Elliot Davis, Curator of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston explained, giving the Jamie Wyeth retrospective as an example.

Two other presentations I found informative and thought provoking were Joshua Risner, Understanding Representational Narrative Painting as Implied Narrative and Deborah Paris, The Training and Use of Visual Memory for Representational Landscape Painters. Both of these presentations put forth ideas that deserve more thought and I'll go into them in greater depth next week.

Between presentations I managed to scoop up a big bunch of Rosemary and Co's Brushes. I went for the synthetic ones, of course, to spare the animals. The synthetic brushes also seem to last longer and hold their spring and snap for longer.

Later in the afternoon, a line of shiny, black, limousine buses whisked us away to Thousand Oaks to California Lutheran University. One side of the bus had ocean views of the sunset through turbulent storm clouds turned red from the sun. The other side was a vista of mountains glowing gold set off by the deep, dark, blue sky and illuminated by a fat rainbow.

At the end of the rainbow was Brad Kunkle's Artist in Residency at the Kwan Fong Gallery, Michael Zakian's talk Meaning in Contemporary Realism, and Transmission, a group exhibition at the William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art.

It was cold, the wind was nippy, the hors d'oeuvres disappeared quickly, but yes, it was worth it.

Detail of The History of Nature Brad Kunkle

A big part of the appeal of the TRAC events is the opportunity to meet other representational artists. Artists and educators travel from all over to attend so it is a unique opportunity to share ideas. It is also a pleasure to re-connect with TRAC alumni met during previous conferences.

I wish I could have stayed longer.