ENCOUNTER 10 is International Arts Movement’s annual gathering of artists and creative catalysts to wrestle with the deep questions of art, faith and humanity, to inspire the creative community to engage with the culture that is, and to create the world that ought to be.  On March 4th my lovely girlfriend Samantha and I will be making our way to this gathering in hopes to be inspired, recharged and ready to push forward in our creative journeys and our futures as artists.  WE NEED YOUR HELP. As you may have already figured out, this trip with not come cheap.  That is where you come in.  For a suggested $10 donation you will be entered in a drawing for a chance to win a commissioned piece with a value of $1,000 by Jerrod Smith (that’s me). This means we will get the chance to talk about the piece of art you have always wanted and by using my techniques and style, will come up with a one of a kind original mixed media piece, framed and ready to hang in that perfect spot. On April 1st after we return from the trip we will put all of the tickets in a pool and draw the lucky winner.

WE CAN NO LONGER EXCEPT DONATIONS VIA INTERNET.  PLEASE MAIL YOUR DONATION IN THE FORM OF A CHECK OR MONEY ORDER  FOR OUR TRIP TO THE ADDRESS BELOW OR CONTACT ME DIRECTLY (visit the contact button on my homepage or call 405-684-0028) AND I CAN MEET UP WITH YOU TO ACCEPT THE DONATION IN PERSON. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.   -JERROD

Jerrod Smith NYC trip
932 1/2 NW 20th St.
Okc, Ok 73106

We thank you for your support in advance and cannot begin to tell you how far we feel this trip will catapult us in to our creative futures.

$10 SUGGESTED DONATION TO BE ENTERED INTO A DRAWING FOR A $1,000 COMMISSION BY JERROD SMITH (ME).

MY JOURNEY AS AN ARTIST: MARCH 1ST @ 8:30pm  ”THE VENUE”

Jerrod Smith to Donate Artwork for LUKA International Foundation.

Featuring Keynote Speaker:  Ambassador Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika, Ph.D. Ambassador of the Republic of Zambia to the United States of America

March 27th 2010 I will be featuring a donated piece to the 2nd Annual “To Zambia With Love” Silent Auction and Dinner.  For More info on the event and how you can attend please click here.

(All proceeds from the silent auction and dinner benefit the construction of the Africa Central Field Conference and Training Center in Lusaka, Zambia. This center will be used in training pastors and others from all over Zambia as community leaders with skills in caring for AIDS orphans, drilling wells to provide water for various communities, agriculture, sustainable income generating projects, and other vital life-giving programs).

Welcome!

Thank you for taking the time to check out my new site!  With the 2010 year rolling around I have been busier than ever and have you to thank for your support in my creative endeavors.   New to the site is an ever growing online store through my friends at storeenvy.com  Feel free to navigate to the store button here on my homepage and check out merchandise, prints and more!  Also new to the site is an updated collection of my work on the gallery page including price and limited edition print availability.  Be sure to follow me on facebook and twitter at the top right of this page and again, thank you for all you do as my audience!  My goal with my work is simply share a few thoughts that have impacted my life and hopefully will do the same in yours.

New Commission

This is a commission piece finished just recently called “And the Trees Sway In Time to the Rhythm of Our Hearts.”  This piece features a collaged photograph of a couple walking side by side, a hand rendered birch tree with pen, acrylic paint, charcoal and stains and a variety of layered vintage papers, sheet music, paints and wood laminates.   Derived from my thoughts on the idea of nature and how it inspires and opens up my capacity to love.

Jerrodcreates.com Merchandise

The sales of original art, limited edition prints, t-shirts and other merchandise funds the evolution and new creation of my work.  If you like what you have seen and want to see more, stop by the store, find something you love and order it today so I can keep up the momentum of creating all the things that are pounding to get out of my brain.  Thank you for your visit!

Keep It Local OK is dedicated to promoting the locally owned and independent businesses that make Oklahoma great. In a nutshell, our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to find, choose, and enjoy the incredible businesses found right here in our state! For more info visit keepitlocalok.com.

DNA Galleries is a small gallery and artist-produced retail store located in the revitalized Plaza District near downtown OKC. Our goal is to bring awareness and support for artists who work in non-traditional styles from graffiti, pop-surrealism, low brow or whatever else you wanna call it. We cater to the beginning collector with a variety of works under $50. Our retail area features a variety of artist made goods from clothing and accessories, to things for your home and features both local and international artists goods. Nothing in the store is commercially produced and we can tell you the name of each artist, where they come from, the materials used and the process they use to create each piece. We have monthly openings for local artists every second friday from 7-11pm with live music and a catered bar. Find out more at dnagalleries.com.

One Man’s Trash…

That trash plays so prominent a role in modern art should perhaps come as no surprise, as concerns about our environment and the ravages visited on it come into clearer focus. The thousands of dumps that have become the homes of those unable to eke out a living elsewhere serve as shameful emblems of our societies’ neglected responsibilities. For their part, Beuys and Hirst have employed trash as a commentary on art and its times — on the wasteful consumerism that characterizes our culture and the antiseptic environments in which art is experienced.

There was doubtless something of this subversive intention in Rauschenberg’s Combines, but that was not all. What Rauschenberg sought and found in the refuse of Morocco and the sidewalks of New York was what artists have always looked for: material whose formal characteristics he could explore and expand. Many questions are raised by Rauschenberg v. Montgomery, the case of the stolen trash. The most obvious, and litigious, concern intellectual property. An artist has a right to his or her work, but do they have a right to what they cast out of it, to what they throw away? With regard to Rauschenberg, the waters of legal and ethical reasoning become murky as soon as we recall that Montgomery did nothing very different from what the artist himself had done at points in his career. Certainly, it would have been different had Montgomery claimed the works were Rauschenberg’s, rather than trash he had appropriated and shown as his own art. In 1982, two canvases that Frank Stella had thrown out surfaced in a New York gallery. A settlement was reached out of court, and Stella’s paintings were returned to him (and destroyed). Perhaps this will serve as a precedent in Rauschenberg’s case, perhaps not. (Rauschenberg’s death nullifies the federal suit he filed under the Visual Artists Rights Act, but not the Florida state suit he modified shortly before he died.)

Whatever the case’s outcome will be or would have been, one thing it throws into striking relief is the status of the contemporary artist. Marble discarded by Michelangelo had no more value in his day than the marble itself possessed. Things clearly stand differently, however, with Rauschenberg’s trash. This is not because he is a greater artist, but because the artist’s role has changed. In 1961, shortly after completing his most famous Combines, Rauschenberg was invited by Iris Clert in Paris to contribute a portrait of the gallery’s owner. His submission consisted of a telegram stating: THIS IS A PORTRAIT OF IRIS CLERT IF I SAY SO. ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG. One interpretation of this act is that it was simply senseless. Another is that it underlined an unspoken rule of the modern artist’s activity: to separate art from the world it increasingly resembles.

Rauschenberg’s heirs and executors will have to hinge their case on a point that is rendered all the more delicate, and poignant, by the artist’s recent passing. That point is not attribution — both sides agree that the trash is trash and that it had been thrown out by Rauschenberg — but, instead, completion. With Rauschenberg, this question is indissociable from that of art’s material. This may be as precious as the gold of a saint’s halo or the diamonds adorning a skull, just as it might be as cheap as a used tire or a stuffed goat. What remains constant through every work of art is that it is more than the sum of its material parts, that what is most entrancing about it lies in the space between the thing on the wall and what it means for our eyes and minds. Like all great artists, Rauschenberg will be remembered in many ways for many things. But none more so than this influence on the material of art — from the trash heaps of Morocco to those of Captiva Island, from his paper-thin portrait of Iris Clert to the raucous profusion of his Monogram.

“Rummaging Through Rauschenberg’s Trash” originally appeared in the July/August 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters’July/August 2008 Table of Contents.