A trio has created its own audio tour for Seattle Art Museum, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The alternative guide includes the sound of crashing pottery in the ceramics room and describes a neon sculpture as an upright tanning bed. I would love to take this tour.

In the January issue of The Artist's Magazine, The Artist's Life section included a roundup of graffiti books and a review of Graffiti TV. If you can't get enough of the stylized lettering and clandestine art, check out Catch Me If You Can, a glossy magazine packed to the brim with panoramic photos of bus-sized pieces—plus a pull-out poster!

The magazine's editor, Kenneth D. Ashley, saw the "Spray it, don't say it" article in his wife's copy of The Artist's Magazine and sent me a copy because, he says, "I feel that many do not realize the beauty that can come from graffiti." There's a lot of beautiful, bizarre, edgy and intuitive work in here.

[An aside—I wondered what kinds of businesses would advertise in a magazine about graffiti, a pastime that generally infuriates business owners. I now know the answer: places that sell markers and paint!]

I get very excited about election years. I've got no idea which presidential candidate I'm going to support yet, but when the caravans come to Ohio, I want to try to see every one of them at least once. To get you all in the mood for 10 months of grandstanding, barnstorming and mudslinging, I've gathered some smashing links about art and politics:

• Presidential portraits from the National Portrait Gallery

• The New Statesman on up-and-coming, outside-the-mainstream political artists (and Banksy, of course)

• Andy Thomas' paintings of presidents playing poker, divided by party: True Blues and Grand Ol' Gang

• Art Threat: Political art for social change: Lefty roundup of visual art

After all that, I started wondering: Is "conservative art" an oxymoron? (A blogger has opined on this question, as has a conservative columnist.) Add your two cents in the comments!

I did a little housekeeping this afternoon and updated my blogroll—that little menu off on the bottom left that lists related and recommended blogs. I cleaned out the sites that aren't updated frequently and added some that I read every day. This will be an ongoing project, so feel free to recommend more good art blogs!

It's been months in the making...

And now the March issue of The Artist's Magazine is finally in print! The artists over 60 project was practically all I worked on in my first two months here. The resulting "Splendid over 60" article turned out, well, splendidly, and that is one of the featured artists on the cover! Sandra Sallin is a California-based oil painter who does magnificent florals.

I have more stories to share about the artists over 60, but you'll have to check back next week for that. In the meantime, subscribers will get their copies of the March issue in the next week or two, and you'll be able to find it on newsstands on Feb. 5!

Maria Schneider, the editor of Writer's Digest has come up with 20 guidelines for good blogging. My favorite is No. 11: "Realize that blogging is an endurance sport." Too true. Y'all wouldn't believe how many power bars I go through in a week...

At the moment, stuff's getting a little crazy here at the Casa de Artist's Magazine. I'll be able to give you more details soon, but for now I'll have to act all mysterious and leave you with these links:

• Seeing things: A personal essay about experiencing museums from the Smithsonian.

• Making a Mark: Katherine Tyrrell on the elements of design—a great resource.

• You're Not My Father: A video piece that repeatedly recreates a scene from the TV show Full House (via AFC)

You've seen those ads. "Starving artists sale! Everything must go! Sofa-size paintings only $59! Paintings as cheap as $9! This Sunday only at the [airport-area hotel]!" I remember seeing them when I was growing up, thinking, "Wow, even I could afford that—but who wants to buy art at a half-rate hotel?"

This week the curiosity hit harder than usual. Who does buy art at an airport hotel? And how in the world are they producing this art so cheaply to begin with? I have to admit, I entertained some fantasies of how this would be groundbreaking investigative journalism and I would win a blogging Pulitzer for freeing the poor artists shackled to their sofa-size paintings.

What I found at the airport-area hotel was a room full of shoddy canvases propped up on tables and chairs. There were a lot of families and middle-aged couples picking through the selection. By "selection" I mean vaguely impressionist images of Parisian-like streets, Italian-esque villas, cozy disproportionate cottages and completely bizarre abstract art.

It was quickly no longer a mystery as to how they sold art so cheaply. Exhibit A:

Most of the paintings looked like prints that had been touched up with acrylic gel medium or some random daubs of paint to give them some texture. The plasticky canvas was harshly stapled to half-inch-thick frames, and the images usually carried well over the edges. I spotted a few pictures that were available in both the sofa size and a smaller size. I think one was of a roly-poly French chef on a unicycle. He may have been juggling baguettes, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part. Another popular style was Kinkade-esque:

I had kind of been hoping to find shady-looking men in overcoats with pencil mustaches. But I guess I found just what was advertised: cheap art for undiscerning audiences. There was no promise made of high-quality originals. Just art big enough to put over your couch.

One quick link before the weekend:

The Glasgow School of Art has put online the annotated sketchbooks of Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh from his 1891 tour of the continent. The content is searchable by keyword and location and includes interactive maps to follow his travels.

The CBC reports that the prehistoric art in France's Lascaux caves is being threatened by mold.

The French government has closed off the caverns entirely and to replace the air circulation system to try to save the drawings, estimated to be at least 15,000 years old. Historians believe hunter-gatherers drew the mineral-pigment paintings that include images of horses, bulls, birds and a rhinoceros.

The caves have been closed to the public since 1963, but wannabe spelunkers can explore a nearby replica of two of the Lascaux caves. Tourism ends up being a problem at a lot of attractions, both natural and art-based: Simply by being there, you're altering what you came to see.