Kurt Waldo,

When people choose an art piece, it's not like they are choosing between a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry....they are picking a particular piece because it speaks to them on some inner level...artists don't really compete with the images they create....you like it or you don't....we compete for exposure....

When people choose an art piece, it's not like they are choosing between a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry....they are picking a particular piece because it speaks to them on some inner level...artists don't really compete with the images they create....you like it or you don't....we compete for exposure....

The Runes Project / Kurt Waldo

The Runes have been an entertainment for me...their mystical qualities can be debated....what I find so satisfying about playing the game is that the resulting analisis leaves one thinking introspectively about things in one's own life, often in new ways.

I recently looked at the markings and noticed how similar they were to the strokes I find myself using when first starting a painting.

Why not do a series of works based on the markings?

Why not think about the supposed meaning behind each and try to reflect it?

Why not draw out of the bag each symbol in order as the series progresses, just like the game itself?

So....now I begin a series of paintings...and they will actually have titles! LOL! And maybe even some meaning....

"The work of artist Kurt Waldo caught our attention right away — the bold non-representational paintings could almost work in any room design with their balance of high-contrast graphic paint-strokes and a predominately black and white color palette…" West Elm Magazine, Summer 2012

"This is just scribbles – my kid could do it"

"This is just scribbles – my kid could do it".

An excellent exclamation of the process...

In a 1994 article Kirk Varnedoe thought it necessary to defend Twombly's seemingly random marks and splashes of paint against the criticism that "This is just scribbles – my kid could do it".
"One could say that any child could make a drawing like Twombly only in the sense that any fool with a hammer could fragment sculptures as Rodin did, or any house painter could spatter paint as well as Pollock. In none of these cases would it be true. In each case the art lies not so much in the finesse of the individual mark, but in the orchestration of a previously uncodified set of personal "rules" about where to act and where not, how far to go and when to stop, in such a way as the cumulative courtship of seeming chaos defines an original, hybrid kind of order, which in turn illuminates a complex sense of human experience not voiced or left marginal in previous art."

4/10/14

Mr. Waldo:
I'm so excited that my client has fallen in love with your work. She liked it so much that she had to have this one in addition the the one I recommended for her. In a minute, I'll be putting in the order for the larger piece I emailed you about the other day.

Thanks so much,
Carol

Came across this email last night:
Note from Buyer / 4-16-12

Dear Kurt, 
It is with such happiness that I came across your work. Today I received an email from west elm featuring one of your works and I fell in love. Visiting you on Etsy.com, I was completely drawn to this piece. I have been thinking about it all day and keep going back for another look. I would be so honored and so proud to hang these pieces in my apartment. I hope I have contacted you in time before you have sold them. Thank you kindly! You are talented and I will cherish for life. 
Thank you, Tina, NY, NY