Bill Wingell for The New York Times
Posted on 09/28/2004 5:52:14 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Bill Wingell for The New York Times
Marla Olmstead with her painting "Ornaments." She has sold 24 paintings and put $40,000 away in savings. The artist has
both her admirers and her critics.
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BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - The hottest new abstract artist in town has reason to celebrate.
This summer, she went from selling her work in a coffee shop to having her own gallery show.
After a local newspaper's feature on her, about 2,000 people came for opening night - everyone from serious collectors to the artist's preschool teacher. She earned more money than she could comprehend. The gallery owner said it was his most successful show ever and scheduled a second one for October.
So celebrate, the artist did. During a recent visit, she climbed on a big bouncing ball shaped like a frog, grabbed the handles and bounced around the house with laughter pealing and pigtails flying.
The artist is Marla Olmstead. She is 4.
Her preschool teacher hasn't taught Marla much of anything yet. And nobody wants her to - at least when it comes to painting.
"I think Marla is as gifted as any child I've ever seen," said Anthony Brunelli, the Fine Arts gallery owner in Binghamton, who is displaying Marla's work. "I don't think she's aware of what she's doing. I think it comes from within."
Marla uses bright acrylic paints, which she brushes, splatters and scrapes on large canvases to create art that commands attention. She sometimes works on one piece for days at a time. When she decides she is finished, she gives her paintings titles like "Dinosaur," or something reminiscent of a bedtime monster. Then she leaves the grown-ups to see images and meaning.
"Dinosaur"
In the beginning, her parents said, people bought her work without knowing her age. Then customers bought it because of her age. Some say she is a prodigy. Some say she is just playing. Her parents are sensitive to criticism that has not been voiced yet - at least not to them. They do not push her to paint or tell her how to do it, they said, and they do not spend a penny of her growing bank account. If she decides she wants to stop, she will stop.
Marla's father, Mark Olmstead, a manager of a Frito-Lay manufacturing plant, was the first artist in the house. "You know how some parents put their kids in front of a TV to keep them occupied?" said Mr. Olmstead, an amateur painter. "Well, I let her paint, so I could paint."
She first picked up a brush when she was 1, painting on an easel. Then her dad would put her on top of the dining room table and let her paint on canvases. "Soon after, I was letting her paint and I was watching," Mr. Olmstead said.
By age 3, Marla's paintings caught the attention of a family friend who wanted to display them in his coffee shop. When customers asked to buy Marla's first large canvas painting, the artist's mother, Laura Olmstead, who works part-time as a receptionist, priced it high, she thought - $250 - so it wouldn't sell, because she had a sentimental attachment to it. It sold the first day.
"She has no concept of money," her mother said. "She was really into lip gloss, so I told her it was enough money to buy a whole room of lip gloss."
"Asian Sun"
This spring, a friend of Mr. Brunelli's bought one, and brought it to him at the Fine Arts gallery. Mr. Brunelli is a painter whose photorealistic works are displayed in SoHo. He was drawn to Marla's work. He and his friend stared at it like children staring at clouds, seeing flamenco dancers and their vivid movements on the canvas.
Then the friend told him the artist was a toddler. "I admit I was a little skeptical at first," Mr. Brunelli said.
He discovered Marla's father was his high school classmate. A week later, he visited the family, scrutinized more of Marla's work and watched a video of her painting. He bought one for himself and gave up his August vacation so he could organize her show.
"When I'm in Marla's presence, there's a weird little feeling 'cause I know there's something inside this girl that many artists look for their whole lives and never have," Mr. Brunelli said. "But it's in this little 4-year-old."
Another person equally impressed was Stuart Simpson, a California businessman who was working in Binghamton when he heard about Marla. He bought three pieces, including one called "Bottom Feeder."
"I typically don't like abstract as a rule," Mr. Simpson said. "Don't tell Tony, but I would have paid any price for 'Bottom Feeder.' "
Mr. Simpson and his wife own paintings by Renoir, Monet and Manet. They have a space picked out for Marla's work now, too.
Others scoffed. "If I didn't know a 4-year-old child had done it, I wouldn't take notice," said Yvonne M. Lucia, who turned down Marla's work for the feminist exhibition, Rude and Bold Women, to be on display in October at the Y.M.C.A. in Binghamton.
Another artist, Orazio Salati, said: "I think her ability is her desire to paint, her excitement and the opportunity to play. There's a lot of finger-painting in the process."
Parents of other budding artists have besieged Mr. Brunelli. "They'd never produce that, never," he said of the other children.
As for the skeptics, he said, "People wouldn't be buying the work if the work wasn't exceptional."
In all, Marla has sold 24 paintings totaling nearly $40,000, with the prices going up. Her latest paintings are selling for $6,000. Some customers are on a waiting list.
Laura Olmstead still gets teary-eyed when her daughter's work sells. She would rather keep it herself.
"It's beautiful whatever your child does," she said.
Nice indictment of the art world.
People used to say "My 4-year old can paint better than that!"
They were right.
You beat me, and about a million other Freepers, to it.
Good show.
I love it! This is great stuff. Seriously. I would buy it.
Her stuff is great!!!
If there can be mathematical prodigies and musical prodigies and sports prodigies, why not artistic prodigies.
Art is never about representative the real world and abstract are is even less about it.
Whatever "spirit" artists are able to tap into to get their inspiration does not necessarily need to come with age and practice.
I am even more impressed with her work due to her age and would gladly purchase some if I had that kind of money to spend on art.
I like Koko the gorilla's artwork better.
"BIRD RED SLICE"
Wow...the paintings look like a 4 yr old did them.
I'm not big on abstract art, but her stuff is pretty good...I like her use of colors.
I actually like "Asian Sun." (Harvey Firestone voice) "Is that so wrong?"
I'm sorry, but that's junk. And that just goes to prove that "art" is whatever the hell you say it is.
Well, alrighty then....
LOL!! There's nothing funnier than Freepers in the morning...
I have a bridge to sell you...
Jackson Pollock wishes he had such texture and tones.
I think the deal is that this little girl has a good sense of color, and she knows how she likes the colors to go together. I work with kids that age quite a bit, and she does show a kind of control over her colors that really is extraordinary for a 4 year-old.
Not that I'd pay thousands, but they are good.
Couldn't agree more...Pollock is the poster boy for the emperor's new clothes in the artworld.
(Sigh). I am lucky if I can get $50.00 for my watercolors when I put them on ebay. However, my hat is off to this girl. Art is a funny thing. Read "The Painted Word" by Tom Wolfe.
I'll bet your kid is on par with this one. Yours is cuter, too.
My 4 yr old son draws numbers and letters all over his doodle pad. WHen he is finished, he goes back and makes artsy swirls all over the numbers or turns the letters and numbers into an animal he knows.
Any takers?
OK.
Art has traditionally been about the representation of reality.
Abstract art was indeed a movement away from representation, but that does not mean that previous art did not seek to represent reality. You're a cultured enough individual to understand exactly why the development of perspective was so important and what the current photorealist school of painting is doing.
Additionally, mathematical and musical prodigies are considered prodigies because they have mastered the skills necessary for their disciplines and added insight as well.
Mozart was a prodigy because he could play traditional music expertly and also compose innovative music at a young age.
If this young lady had mastered classical artistic techniques and was able to paint a portrait in the high style or a still life like the masters, and then had subsequently moved on to paint more innovative and difficult works, you might have a point.
She is not a prodigy - she is a little girl who has a nice eye for color.
Art is all about what you like. I like her painting "Dinosaur."
For art of an entirely different nature, click here:
http://www.scottsdalecollection.com/home_template.asp?index=srchAll&searchText+Hyde,Jesse
But I agree with Slim's take on this:
"Nice indictment of the art world."
Abstract art. Feh.
Wished. He's very dead.
I am looking on the web for the seen from the Simpsons where Homer asks the director of Looney Bin to which he has been sent how they tell the difference between who is crazy and who is sane.
Anybody able to post it?
He's still dead?
As a doornail.
There's a lot of silliness in the abstract art buying world, but there really is something alluring about this girl's paintings. Anyone who's worked in the arts or a creative field probably sees there's something unique about them.
Little Marla can count her blessings to be left out of this event.
I agree with you assessment.
I am not by any means in the know about art, I'd bet you dollars to donuts there are half a million kids out there who can do the exact same type of "art"
Just goes to show that "art" has individual perspectives.
I'm glad I finished my coffee before I read your post...otherwise I would have looked like an espresso machine with it coming out of my nose. Hilarious!
I (still) don't get abstract art.
Just the fact of Marla being left out of the "Rude and Bold Women" exhibition gives her artwork credibility in my eyes. However, does anyone really think that SHE thought up the titles for her work? "Asian Sun" and "Bottom Feeder" seem a little to advanced for a 4-year old's vocabulary.
There are, however, some pieces of abstract art that I like looking at--just for the ways in which the colors go together. I don't expect much from abstract art, so I can get a little pleasure from about 10% of what I see.
Really? Then so does my 3 year old. And every other small child I have ever seen play with paint.
Of course it is possible that I have the artistic equivalent of tone deafness. But I can't shake the notion that people who appreciate this sort of thing do so with the aid of controlled substances.
I saw a guy on a morning show not long ago with his dog...the dog would scratch the canvas of paint and the owner is selling his works all over in NY galleries.
It's all pitiful I tell ya....
Anyone can say they are an artist these days. I went to an art show last year and some "artist" had put a real cow tongue on a piece of butcher paper on the floor and it was dripping down the paper....To many, that was art....
I must say, I don't see them when I'm walking down the halls at Walt Disney Studios. The artists I work with are truly talented, thank God.
The parents charging $6000 makes me think the art crowd is absolutely out of its mind. Then again, there is no hint that the doodlings - er, paintings - are actually selling for anywhere near that much ($40k for 24 paintings is under $500/per, still pretty significant), though they may after this hype.
Guess we had better start saving our kid's works of art!
Semper Fi
Exactly.
I like it. It has a hint of post-modernism infused with the spirit of surrealism and just a dash of colonialism with a side order of polymorphism.
From what I've seen, the kids typically end up with a few isolated splotches, or else they mix up their colors until it's all brown. Sometimes, accidentally, a kid will leave things looking pretty good. And sometimes, rarely, there's a little kid who has some concrete and consistent sense of how the colors work, and how to do things with them.
Like I said -- I wouldn't pay thousands for one of these things, but they do reflect something out of the ordinary for a little kid. If her parents and fans don't ruin her, she might turn out to be a gifted artist.
To each his own. I really like it. It looks professional and deliberate not simply "playing".
If others like it and its value increases indefinitely than it is a good investment. If you just like having on your wall because it brings you pleasure, it is a good purchase. If you see it as a joyful creation of a child that you place on the refridgerator with a magnet and then discard (or place in a cardboard box in the attic) once the child has grown so what?
Either way, at least this girl can go to college.
Hopefully. She might also turn out to have had her career peak at the age of 4. ;)
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