{"id":175,"date":"2010-11-11T15:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T20:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/11\/spreadsheet-art-agnes-martin-finds-the-beauty-in-a-grid\/"},"modified":"2022-07-09T09:41:31","modified_gmt":"2022-07-09T13:41:31","slug":"spreadsheet-art-agnes-martin-finds-the-beauty-in-a-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/11\/spreadsheet-art-agnes-martin-finds-the-beauty-in-a-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"Spreadsheet Art: Agnes Martin Finds the Beauty in a Grid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"d942c2121bfbd137a3b44056a000f09c\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Responsive Top -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-9531091850463532\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"6574318169\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p><a title=\"Agnes Martin: Writings\/Schriften\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/3775716114?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=contextures-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=3775716114\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 20px 20px; display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"agnesmartin\" src=\"http:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/agnesmartin.png\" alt=\"agnesmartin\" width=\"208\" height=\"244\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\"><\/a>Until today, I&#8217;d never heard of an artist named Agnes Martin. In a post on the All My Eyes blog, <a title=\"Life Imitates Art?\" href=\"http:\/\/allmyeyes.blogspot.com\/2010\/11\/life-imitates-art.html\">Life Imitates Art?<\/a>, Martin&#8217;s work was compared to a spreadsheet, so I Googled to learn more about her, and see her work.<\/p>\n<p>To my surprise, she&#8217;s a Canadian artist, born in Saskatchewan in 1912, and raised in Vancouver. Later, Martin moved to the USA and became a citizen there, eventually settling in New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Her art is described in The Washington Post as a, &#8220;tight, orderly form of geometric abstraction, ingeniously arranging subtly shaded oil and acrylic paints on large, six-foot-square canvases.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This quote, from <i><a title=\"Agnes Martin: Writings\/Schriften\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/3775716114?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=contextures-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=3775716114\">Agnes Martin: Writings\/Schriften<\/a><\/i>, made me think of an Excel worksheet, and perhaps this is the reason that the cells aren&#8217;t square:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>My formats are square, but the grids never are absolutely square; they are rectangles, a little bit off the square, making a sort of contradiction, a dissonance, though I didn&#8217;t set out to do it that way. When I cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square, destroys its power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One of her paintings, <a title=\"Starlight\" href=\"http:\/\/www.christies.com\/LotFinder\/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5147496\">Starlight<\/a>, sold in 2008 for over $500K, so it&#8217;s not just spreadsheet users who appreciate the beauty in a grid.<\/p>\n<h3>Agnes Martin Interview<\/h3>\n<p>You can see more of Agnes Martin&#8217;s work in this video interview.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_-JfYjmo5OA?rel=0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"283\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>___________<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/gridart01b.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-733\" src=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/gridart01b.jpg\" alt=\"Spreadsheet Art: Agnes Martin Finds the Beauty in a Grid\" width=\"450\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/gridart01b.jpg 450w, https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/gridart01b-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until today, I&#8217;d never heard of an artist named Agnes Martin. In a post on the All My Eyes blog, Life Imitates Art?, Martin&#8217;s work was compared to a spreadsheet, so I Googled to&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spreadsheet-day","category-spreadsheets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}