Last year, Missoula artist Monte Dolack visited Egypt, where he produced a series of beautiful paintings of the landscape he encountered. All of this happened, of course, prior to the current uprising in that country; but as we watch the chaos on television, this video of Dolack’s works might offer a reminder of the beauty behind those scenes. (Some of these paintings can be viewed in person at Dolack’s gallery in Missoula.)
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Monte Dolack explored Egypt’s calm before the storm4 comments to Monte Dolack explored Egypt’s calm before the stormLeave a Reply |
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When is a blog an advertisement?
Mr. Nickell received no art in exchange for this posting.
Correct you are, “Watchdog.” I sense a snideness to your comment, but to be clear, I didn’t receive any art from Monte D. for posting this, and if he’d offered I wouldn’t have accepted.
As to your question, it’s understandable that a blog about upcoming arts and entertainment events, or in this case highlighting the works of a local artist, might be misinterpretted as a promotion for such. After all, my whole point is to help people find things in the local scene that they might not know about, in the same way that the Missoulian’s Entertainer has done in print for almost two decades.
But there’s a fundamental distinction that’s worth noting: I, and only I, determine what gets featured in the posts on this blog, both in terms of subject matter and how it’s addressed. (There are ads, of course; those are placed in the blog by the Missoulian’s ad department, I never know what they’ll be, and I don’t get any direct money out of that.) I’ve never been paid or otherwise remunerated by anyone other than my employer, the Missoulian, to place anything on this blog. And never once to date have any of my colleagues or superiors at the Missoulian demanded that I feature any specific content here.
Moreover, I don’t accept any remuneration or freebies from artists in exchange for what I write, except in the case of CDs, which I often get from people so that I might review them. I pile up the CDs that I receive at work on a shelf near my desk, and when enough pile up, I give them to the library or, in a recent case, send them off to troops in the military service. I am careful to pay for tickets to events (for which I’m reimbursed by the Missoulian). Every piece of art on the walls of my home was paid for, except for the ones I made myself.
As I said above, I sense from your missives that you presume it a foregone conclusion that this blog is somehow “advertorial.” If this seems like an overly elaborate response, it’s because I take such implications pretty seriously, to say the least; such ethical delineations are at the very core of journalistic integrity.
I just saw this for the first time tonight. Of course I did not in any way influence Joe Nickle’s blog. He is right however….I was very luck to have traveled and painted prior to the masive changes in Egypt that have rendered travel there very difficult in not risky and with a collapsed tourist infrastructure. As for watchdog..I think you are overly cynical as very little was written about my 23 painting exhibition when I showed it at our Missoula gallery. It took a lot of effort and many months to produce.