Like painting on air : !`` Tulsa artist hopes his unique style will be a hit at Promenade art show.
Posted on Sunday, September 7, 2008
Daily Record photograph by Sarah Nader Tulsa based artist, Neil Cluck, in front of his original oil paintings on wood Saturday afternoon at the Pinnacle Hills Art Festival. More then 100 artist showed their art for the second consecutive year at the festival.
ROGERS - Neil Cluck brought his "Chicago"stuff.
That is, he brought his good stuff, his art, the stuff that normally doesn't sell as well but comes with a much higher price tag. It is the stuff from which he draws the most pride.
"I thought I'd bring the real stuff in today, see what happens," he said.
Somewhere between painting and sculpture, that is Cluck's world, the world he was showing at the Pinnacle Hills Promenade Saturday. They are carved wood pieces that are painted, kind of like a brush stroke hovering over the canvas.
"If I had a four-inch brush and could paint on air, what would it look like ? "Cluck, a Tulsa man, said of his inspiration.
He got rid of the canvas and the easel. The backdrop is now layered wood panels, painted often in stark contrast to the wooden pieces that are mounted in front of it.
"I got tired of painting a 3-D world on a flat canvas," Cluck said.
After 40 years of showing his art - he sold his first piece in 1968 - he had still not found a way to describe what he created. Looking out at the other pieces by other artists on display in the streets of the Promenade, he said his work wasn't quite abstract because the materials were real, more real than the painted portraits and still lifes quality to Cluck's work, mostly because even he doesn't know what some of his pieces are. He said each person sees, while looking at his pieces, only what they bring with them. One person saw a Satanic bunny in one of his works. He laughed when new ways of thinking and creating. They go home and tell others about the high-quality show in northwest Arkansas.
Not everyone followed Cluck's lead, leaving the commerciallyacceptable work at home in favor of displaying the best of goal is to give art lovers options in a retail world that has limited choice.
"In the big-box retail world, there's a lot of it, but it's pretty much the same," he said.
The festival continues today from noon until 6 p.m. and landscapes hanging in booths all around him. Those pieces, unlike Cluck's, were only showing something that was real, not being real themselves, he said.
"It's not really abstract," Cluck said. "It's a lot closer to realism than a lot of these flat pieces."
As soon as he said it, he knew he'd draw a lot of flak from the artist community. It wouldn't be the first time, he said.
But there is a definite abstract he mentioned it.
Artists like Cluck are one of the reasons the Eureka Springs Artist Registry hosts the now-annual Pinnacle Hills Art Festival. In its second year, the event has grown about 25 percent and now boasts "just under 100 "artists, Registry CEO Steve Schmidt said.
And what Schmidt is expecting from incoming artists like Cluck is exposure. They bring their art in, and the local community benefits from seeing their collections. Schmidt said the fledgling festival is still finding its niche.
"The artists are feeling out the market, and the market is feeling out the artists," Schmidt said.
The CEO expects the art buyers in this area to eventually accept a mix of the high-priced personal art and the lowerpriced commercial work, usually consisting of printed reproductions rather than original art.
Schmidt said the ultimate
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