Introduction to the New JB Berkow Blog:

I am very excited about launching the new JB Berkow Blog.  It is my intention to create something fun, informative, helpful, community outreaching, and perhaps even a little controversy.  The latter is more for the purposes of getting your juices flowing and to instigate some quick-witted repartee and serious responses from my readers.

Because I have a lot of passions I don’t think the blog will be boring.  Anyone who knows me already knows my first love is art.  I’m a full time painter and sculptor.  I have been painting seriously since I was fifteen, had my first one-person show when I was twenty-one, and have been exhibiting and selling my work for the last forty years.  I plan to start each week by sharing a lot of helpful hints and tips on painting and sculpting not only through my blog but also as part of my video channel, RosettaStone Fine Art Videos.  Some of these video portions will even be interesting to non-artists because they will be able to see the actual processes involved in creating a painting or sculpture.  In some instances you will see a work of art progress from its inception to its completion.

It has never been enough to produce and sell only my own work.  I have always been interested in helping promote my fellow artists’ work as well. This has led me to establish and run several galleries starting when I was only 26 years old.  You can learn more about this from visiting my gallery website and hitting the ‘About Us’ button.

My current gallery/studio is housed in a 3,200 square foot warehouse-storefront in Jupiter Commerce Park.  Here I share my studio with Philadelphia color-field artist, Rita Shapiro, and sell art that I bring in from all around the world including some fine local talent.  I specialize in finding extremely talented mid-career artists who are incredibly talented but who have not yet skyrocketed in their prices.  I am not interested in carrying blue-chip art or dead artists’ work, even though, if that’s what someone wants, I can definitely get it for them.  Fridays will be devoted to introducing my readers to some of these new and exciting rising stars.

Gallery View II

My second passion is writing.  I’m a published poet since 1994.  My most recently published book is “Painted Poetry.”  This is a monograph with poetry written for each one of the paintings pictured in the book.  It is a collection of some of my best work from the fifteen years when I painted European landscapes.  Thus, you could also consider a travelogue of sorts.  I have also published a how-to book titled “What They Didn’t Teach You In Art School.”  This is a great book for the artist who wants to become more professional and take their career to the next level.  Both can be purchased emailing me.

Tuesdays are reserved for poetry and other inspirational thoughts that I wish to share with to share with my readers.  Hopefully they will also share with me as well.

My third passion is cooking.  There is so much to talk about here that I don’t know where to begin.  I am currently working on a book called “Presto Pasta Plus.”  It is not your average recipe book because it goes into a lot of actual cooking techniques and teaches rather than just putting a list of ingredients on a page and telling you how to put them together.  It is geared towards the busy professional because most of the dishes take only a half an hour to prepare.  I will devote Thursdays to helpful cooking tips and advice that will lead to some very good meals for your friends and family in time for the weekend.

My fourth passion is politics, however, I have been told by my blog advisor, Craig Berry of NuVision Media, not to delve too quickly into this arena as I may tick a lot of people off.  So instead of writing about politics outright, I have decided to create something called “Rants.”  This will occur every Wednesday and I want anyone out there who wants to get something off their chest to write in and share their gripes with your fellow bloggers. I’m hoping that this will make the ‘hump of the week’ a little less humpy and grumpy.

My fifth passion is educating the public on the importance of art in our everyday lives.  To this end I have started a 501c3 tax-exempt foundation called the “Living Art Foundation Fund” or L.A.F.F. for short.  My dream is to one day establish an art center in Palm Beach County that will include a museum featuring only living artists, a world-class foundry, a stone-carving studio, a glass-blowing studio, a print atelier, a sculpture garden/plein-air painting park, art instruction, and low-cost housing to house the craftsmen who will run and operate the various studios as well as visiting artists who will come from all over the world to give seminars or simply work on the premises as part of a fellowship program.  Of course, I will be very anxious to keep everyone up-dated on the progress of this venture.

Blog Schedule:

JB in Hot-Tub with Friends

Monday: Art Matters

Tuesday: Inspirations

Wednesday: Rants

Thursday: Cooking

Friday: Artists

I hope that you tune in often!

Artfully yours,

JB Berkow

However, if one is after a fairly accurate reproduction of an original oil painting, this type of hand-pulled print is not the way to accomplish it.  Again, one is fine art printing and the other is fine art reproduction.  Lithography and Serigraphy were the two widely accepted forms of fine art reproduction until a decade ago when giclees  began to gain technical prowess.  Now there is wide acceptance throughout the gallery and even the museum world of the giclee process.  No form of reproduction can capture the wide range of color and the finite detail like the giclee process.  Of course, to many people, giclees are just a digital reproduction process.  As one of the first artists to publish her own work back in 1995 with Harvest, one of the first giclee companies (if not the first) in the country, I have been part of this incredible process throughout its infancy with all its kinks and problems.  Today’s giclee technology is about as close to perfection as one can get when it comes to fine art reproduction.  For three years, I even owned my own giclee company.  So I truly understand this process inside and out, and I’m here to say that good quality giclee reproduction takes tremendous expertise, the most expensive equipment money can buy, and combining both of those with the proper substrates and laminates available. Thus, no two giclee companies are alike.  One may use great equipment but cheap out on the substrates (canvases or papers), which are not the most compatible with the inks that their machines use.  Or the laminates are cheap and/or not applied correctly.  Or they didn’t spend enough on their color correcting software so that the color capture doesn’t translate to the printer properly.  I could go on and on.

In this area of the world, I would recommend only one giclee company and that’s M and M Studios.  I like this company (and I’ve used every printer around here at one time or another) because Matt their main technician really knows what he’s doing and they have some of the top-of-the-line equipment.  Plus they use all the right materials and do an excellent job with their laminates.  I put several giclee prints in the windows of my new showroom recently and had problems with a few of them cracking.  True they were very close to the window and lately there have been plenty of dramatic swings in our temperature, so it is no wonder that I had a problem.  But it was interesting to see that several, all from different companies had problems except for M and Ms.  I will go into the selling theories of giclee prints in my next Monday Blog…stay tuned!

Venetian Boats II

My love of poetry began at a very early age when my mother used to read poetry from her favorite tome, “101 Famous Poems.”  To this day it is the finest small anthology of some of the greatest 17th and 18th century poetry.  One of my favorites was “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes with its sultry beginning lines of, “The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas…”  Oh, they just don’t write them like that anymore.  And of course, I was mesmorrized by Edgar Alan Poe’s “The Raven.”  The list goes on and on.  I highly recommend that if you enjoy great writings from those centuries, to go out and purchase a copy and then blog your responses.  It even contains the Gettysburg Address!

My first book of poems was published by Triad Publishers from Atlanta, Georgia.  It was titled “Shades of Love.”  I was not happy about the way the book looked physically and vowed to self publish after that so that I could have total control over the way my books were produced.  I plan on republishing it with new illustrations and a whole new format sometime in 2012.  My other poetry book is also a monograph (which is a fancier way to describe an art book about a specific artist).  It’s titled “Painted Poetry” and is available at the Lighthouse Center for the Arts or my gallery or on Amazon’s website.  Currently, I’m working on two completely different books, which I will keep the readers of this blog updated on in the months to come.  But today we are talking poetry.

The following is a sampling from my book, “Painted Poetry.”  It is a poem written to describe one of my paintings from the ‘Venetian Boat’ series.  All of the images from the book have a corresponding poem.  Here is the one for:

“Venetian Boats II” (see image above)

Erotic vapors linger in the noonday sun,

Hear them writhe and twist

To lick each moss-stained stone.

As we slip quietly up the stairs,

A cat finds refuge in a dim lit ally.

We close the shutters till only slivers

Are left to creep across the dark stained floor:

Into a bed of cool clean linens we slide,

A perfect nesting place

For an overly sunny Sunday afternoon.

<dl id=”attachment_72″ style=”width: 235px;”><dt><img title=”Venetian Boats II” src=”http://jbberkowblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Venetian-Boats-2-225×300.jpg” alt=”Venetian Boats II is available as a limited edition print” width=”225″ height=”300″ /></dt></dl>
<div><dl id=”attachment_72″ style=”width: 235px;”><dt></dt><dd>Venetian Boats II is available as a limited edition printor an overly sunny Sunday afternoon.</dd></dl></div>

Today I’m ranting about hitches.  It seems that within the last year every other large vehicle has one poking out an extra foot from behind their cars or trucks.  I just ran into one as I was parallel parking the other day.  To add insult to injury this burly fellow comes out of his car and gloats, “Well I’m sure my car’s okay but I doubt yours is.”  Then he takes a peremptory glance between our two cars after which he defiantly slides back into the driver’s seat.  Luckily my car was okay, but I thought, ‘there’s no way I could have seen that thing poking out! And why are those things allowed to remain on a vehicle when not in use?’  WHY IS IT ALLOWED?!!!

I say we start a petition right here and now against these menacing hitches and get a law passed that demands that owners take them off their vehicles when not in use!  WHAT SAY YOU????

Garlic Beginning to Turn

Cooking Garlic

Garlic is the quintessential condiment in Italian cooking. However, if it is overcooked, it will impart a burnt and bitter taste to your dish. If it is undercooked, it will also make your dishes bitter but in a raw and biting way. Neither one of these scenarios are desirable. Therefore, it is essential that you learn to cook garlic correctly.

You need to be organized and attentive. The two important things to remember is to never leave the pan while sautéing the garlic and to always have some other ingredient ready to put in the pan as soon as the garlic starts to turn. You must be vigilant in this task. You cannot be watching TV or be on the phone or checking your text messages. Your eyes have to be glued to the pan because garlic can go from white to brown very fast. It is your job to catch the garlic just as it is ‘beginning’ to turn, since if you allow it to become brown, it’s too late.

Depending on what sauce you are preparing you will either use a light, virgin, or extra virgin olive oil. You will use enough to liberally cover the bottom of the pan. The garlic should be added to the pan with the oil before you turn on the heat. Place the ingredient that will be added to the pan right next to you. Now you are ready to turn the heat on. Set it at medium-high. From this point on you cannot move away from the stove.

The reason for having an ingredient ready to add to the pan (as soon as the garlic begins to turn) is to bring the oil temperature down so it stops sautéing the garlic. Once you add the ingredient, however, there will be a slight surge that will add to the cooking process, which is why you want to add it as soon as you sense the garlic is turning. When the ingredient is added to the pan the garlic will turn a tan color and in a couple of seconds it will stop browning. I know it sounds very imprecise, and you’re right. A lot of cooking is about gaining a strong sense of what you’re doing. This can only come with practice, a lot of trial and error, and not being afraid of making mistakes.

The ingredients that you add to cool down the oil will range from chopped onions, tomatoes, vegetables, or clams depending on what type of sauce you are preparing.

Sonata by Sabzi

that I represent. On many Fridays I will augment the blogs with videos that will show up here as a link to my video channel at www.rosettastonefineartvideos.com. Next week I will have my first little video featuring a wonderful local artist, Dennis Aufiery. His work will be the featured work at the one show that I plan on having this year. It is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, April 20th, from 5:30 to 7:30 in the evening. [Be sure to check back in next Friday to discover this artist's great work]

At that show I will also be featuring three deserving female graduating senior High School students from The Dreyfoos School of the Arts, the Benjamin School and various public schools. These students will each be receiving a scholarship of One Thousand Dollars that will be funded by my 501c3 organization, the Living Art Foundation Fund and awarded through the outreach program of the Executive Women of the Palm Beaches. I hope you will tune in discover these rising stars from our own local of Palm Beach County to as far away as Australia and all points around our globe.

Blown Glass Vase by Bernard Katz

My expertise as a gallery and dealer is to find extremely talented artists who are still reasonable in their pricing. Hopefully, this will give you the opportunity to invest in these many talented artists while they are still affordable. Or, if you are not in the market for art yourself, you can recommend these artists to your friends who are looking for artwork. It is so very important to support the arts, not just by giving money to your local art institutions, but also by purchasing art from living artists. This ensures that great art will continue to be produced.

Great art takes time to create. If no one purchases living artists’ work, then these artists must look elsewhere to make a living and that means that their creative time will dwindle away significantly. It is not enough to give artists verbal encouragement in the form of compliments. Because no matter how sincere your compliments may be, they don’t pay an artist’s bills.

I always question why so many of my clients will spend an unlimited amount of money on a chair in their living room (where no one sits anyway). And yet, when it comes to a pivotal wall in that same living room (the wall everyone sees the minute that they enter the home) these same clients will go out and buy a mass-produced piece of ‘c_ _ p’ from China just to fill up that very important wall. Art should be the soul of your home, not a chair!!!

Let’s say you have an original that is 30×40 inches (this is one of the most saleable sizes in the marketplace). You might decide to publish this image in the original size and one slightly larger or smaller. You don’t want to go much larger than 20% of the original size, so you could publish it as a 36×48 inch print as well. You can go smaller than 20%; that’s up to you. If you are publishing two editions and are not connected to a large distribution network, I would go no higher than 25 in each edition. If you plan to publish only one size, I would make the edition 35 to 50 but no higher.

Many prints today come embellished. This is an easy way to increase the value of your prints. Most of the embellished prints are being done with heavy acrylic medium. If your work is done with heavy brushstrokes, this form of embellishing is ideal. If you paint smoothly with no visible brushstrokes, you may forgo embellishing all together as it might really alter the look of your image. You would use either gloss or matt medium depending on what type laminate is used to coat your print. You do not want to use a high gloss medium to embellish a matt laminated print and visa-versa.

I represent two artists who do the most incredible work in watercolor on paper. They are Terry Gilecki who does gorgeous koi paintings and Erick Christensen who I think is the best at the wine painting genre. But instead of publishing their prints on paper, they print them on canvas. That is because prints on canvas sell better than prints on paper. Their work is so realistic and done in such a fine manner that embellishing their prints would take a lot away from their subtle imagery. For work that does lend itself to embellishing, I generally add $100 to $200 on top of the price of a 30×40 inch print or larger and $50 to $100 for a 24×30 inch or smaller print. This varies depending on how well known you are and how large the edition is.

Okay, but you’re still wondering what the final pricing should be. In the early days of printing serigraphs, which were a costly gamble for every image a company chose to print, only well known artists’ work were being published. In those days the general rule of thumb was 10% of the price of the artist’s original. However, this was also when print editions were all close to 300 in number. Now with emerging artists having access and being able to afford to print their own work, things have gotten very murky indeed.

Let’s say you are an emerging artist who is selling his or her work for around $2,000 for a 30×40 inch original. If you price your prints according to the 10% rule, you won’t make any money! That is a huge problem. In these situations I would lower the edition size to only 10 (without artist proofs…this will be a topic of a future blog), publish only one edition, and definitely try to embellish the print if at all possible. Doing this will add to your print’s rarity and increase its value. So even though your originals are selling for only $2,000 or less, you will still be able to sell your prints for between $500 and $600. If you are selling through a gallery, you won’t be making much, but it will still be more than from the single sale of your original. Also, if you sell your original and have only 2 prints left in the edition, you can raise the price of these remaining prints to $800 or $1,000. Think of it as extra money in your pocket for very little effort other than picking up the phone to order a print!

As you sell out your editions and become more well known you can always increase your prices. You never want to start high and have to cut your prices. Gradually increasing your prices will add credibility in your work. Decreasing prices will have just the opposite effect!

However, a serigraph fine art reproduction takes an enormous amount of up-front money to produce. It takes many craftsmen to produce all of the separate screens used in the printing process. There may be as many as 90 or more screens, one for each color, produced for a single image. Setting up the all these screens for the final printing takes so much coordination and time that the only way this process can be cost effective is to do the entire printing at one time. That means an investment of a minimum of $30,000 and a tremendous gamble that the choice of image will be so popular that the edition will be sure to sell out.

Conversely, giclees can be printed one at a time. There are no storage costs involved. The image can be test marketed before large amounts are spent to seriously promote it. Best of all they can be printed safely on both paper and canvas substrates. Serigraphs made with many layers of inks cannot be safely printed on canvas. One of my paintings, which was reproduced as a serigraph on canvas had to be recalled from the market because of cracking. Thank goodness I was not producing my own prints at the time but was being handle by a fine art production company.

Because giclee printing does not involve the same up-front investment or high-stake gamble than other forms of fine art reproduction, I believe that they should have never been priced in the same way. I think producers should have been satisfied with a smaller profit margin. This would have made giclee prints even more popular with the art buying public and given them greater level of confidence. I understand what dealers were trying to do. They were trying to convince their clients that giclees were as good as serigraphs and therefore, should cost the same. This practice has gradually led to uneasiness in the buyer’s mind. Frankly, the public has caught on to this incongruity, and I believe that our industry’s credibility has been damaged.

When artists ask me how they should price their giclee prints, I explain that it depends on how many prints will be in their edition and whether or not they plan to use embellishing. See my next blog for a detailed breakdown of these variables and how each effects the pricing.

In my last blog I mentioned my favorite poem book, “One Thousand and One Famous Peoms.” One of my own favorite poems among many in that tomb is “Invictus.” I think it is apropos to try and gain meaning from this incredible poem considering the world we find ourselves with its many disappointments, tragedies, and reversal of fortunes. In honor of a great woman and for your pleasure and inspiration…

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I think whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced not cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

I read this last week about the passing of Cathleen McFarlane Ross. Though I couldn’t count her as a personal friend, I met her on many occasions and am sorry that I was not in a position to have known her better. She was always cheerful and struck me as a woman that was not afraid of anything. Back in the 80s we were both house hunting at the same time and I remember looking at the house she would eventually purchase. She had such a great sense of flare, drama, and beauty, whether it was designing a home or in her appearance she always showed her best side. However, when I was reading the article about her life, the fact that she had memorized the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) truly resonated with me. It is a poem that I believe must have described her attitude about life to the core.

In my last blog I mentioned my favorite poem book, “One Thousand and One Famous Peoms.” One of my own favorite poems among many in that tomb is “Invictus.” I think it is apropos to try and gain meaning from this incredible poem considering the world we find ourselves with its many disappointments, tragedies, and reversal of fortunes. In honor of a great woman and for your pleasure and inspiration…

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I think whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced not cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

I read this last week about the passing of Cathleen McFarlane Ross. Though I couldn’t count her as a personal friend, I met her on many occasions and am sorry that I was not in a position to have known her better. She was always cheerful and struck me as a woman that was not afraid of anything. Back in the 80s we were both house hunting at the same time and I remember looking at the house she would eventually purchase. She had such a great sense of flare, drama, and beauty, whether it was designing a home or in her appearance she always showed her best side. However, when I was reading the article about her life, the fact that she had memorized the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) truly resonated with me. It is a poem that I believe must have described her attitude about life to the core.

In my last blog I mentioned my favorite poem book, “One Thousand and One Famous Peoms.” One of my own favorite poems among many in that tomb is “Invictus.” I think it is apropos to try and gain meaning from this incredible poem considering the world we find ourselves with its many disappointments, tragedies, and reversal of fortunes. In honor of a great woman and for your pleasure and inspiration…

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I think whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced not cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

<strong>What you will need:</strong>

A 4 Gallon Pasta Pot

A Pasta Scoop

Salt

The type of pasta that you use for a particular dish can be important.  When I use the word pasta as an ingredient, it means that virtually any pasta of your choice will work for that dish.  However, I would not suggest using angle hair pasta with any of the following sauces unless it is specified.  That is because angle hair needs a more liquid sauce to coat it properly than regular spaghetti or penne.  There are certain dishes such as “Pasta Primavera” or “White Clam Sauce” where I specify angle hair because you want the vegetables or the clams to take center stage and those recipes, accordingly, have more liquid ingredients.  Most of the recipes in this book emulate the way pasta is prepared in Italy.  The sauces are made to coat the pasta not overwhelm it.  Most of the calories in a pasta dish come from the sauce not the pasta itself.  In this country we tend to over-sauce our pasta to a point where real Italians don’t recognize them.  Perhaps that’s why Italians are so healthy while we ban pasta as a no-no from our own diets.

To cook your pasta to perfection you will need to purchase a proper pasta pot.  Fill the pot almost to the top (allow for the addition of the pasta).  Add 2 tablespoons of salt for every pound of pasta.  Bring water to boil.  Using the lid will make this happen faster.  Add salt to water and make sure it is vigorously boiling before adding the pasta in a spiral formation.  Quickly stir the pasta with a Pasta Scoop in an ‘up and around’ action in order to separate each and every piece so that no two pieces are sticking together.  Repeat the stirring every two or three minutes. You will need your entire sink in order to strain the pasta properly so in between one of your stirrings, clear out your sink. This needs to be done before the pasta is ready for straining because the time it takes to clear the sink is the time it can take to over cook your pasta!

When the pasta looks like it’s coming down the home stretch, usually a good five minutes less than what the instructions call for, you need to start testing each time you stir.  Testing entails plucking one piece of pasta out of the boiling water and biting into it.  This process is made much easier if you own a pasta scoop.   When it gets really close to being done, start testing every minute. The pasta is done when you bite into it and it is still just a tiny bit crunchy in the center.  Remember that it will still continue to cook for at least another minute or two while you go through the straining process.

As soon as the pasta is done place the entire pot in your sink.  Lift the strainer part of your pot up and out of the water.  Run cold water over the pasta to slow down the cooking.  The best way to do this is to wear rubber gloves so that you can toss the pasta from the bottom up so that it all gets hit with the cooling water.  It is very important at this point to take your time and shake the strainer vigorously up and down and then side to side.  Make sure every drop of liquid is drained out before combining it with the warmed up sauce.  Any bit of water remaining on the pasta will dilute your sauce and consequently ruin its flavor.

Many other cookbooks will tell you to add oil to the water.  I do not agree with this.  I think this is a bad practice that was developed for people who don’t have the proper equipment.  In smaller pots the oil helps to keep the pasta from sticking together.  I find that if you cook it in the way described above, it is really totally unnecessary.  Common sense tells us that a properly dried, non-oiled piece of pasta will always hold sauce better than an oiled one.

<strong>Exception: </strong>The only time when I would suggest using oil in the cooking water is on rare occasions when your cooking a large amount of pasta ahead of time and intend to reheat it just before serving.