Ack — I don’t know what the reason is that I’m a silent partner in this wonderful company. This, too, shall pass.
But I have been collecting cool art. That’s easy peasy. Especially if listening to smooth jazz and drinking a bit of coffee and looking at the sunshine that promises more warmth in a month.
So this bright Friday Morning I thought I’d give you a sneak peak of future Gallery contestants:
MarblesOdilon Redon
Iris Scott
Boris Vallejo
I look forward to sharing with you all these wonderful, marvelous, crazy, inspiring artists. I hope you look forward to coming back!!
Poland-based artist Paulina Bartnik creates realistic-looking embroidered brooches of birds.The artist graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and is very passionate about embroidery.While it may be hard to see the abundance of bird species in the world in person, Bartnik immortalizes their portraits in exquisite embroidered brooches.She uses her meticulous stitching techniques to render the unique appearance of each feathered creature—from barn owls to hummingbirds.She uses the needle painting technique, which she feels perfectly imitates bird feathers.Beginning with a background of felt sheets, the artist creates a combination of short and long stitches in a variety of colors to produce a textile effect.The faces of her embroidered birds feature all of their distinct markings, which make them appear incredibly real.Not only that, but the variety of hues she uses to create the feathers make it seem like the texture of the bird shimmers in the light.In general, I’m a little bit of a chaotic and impatient person,” Bartnick admits. “Embroidery helps me focus and calm down. I don’t treat it as a job, for me it’s a way to relax.”More of Paulina Bartnik’s amazing embroidery can be found at https://embirdery.com/.
Rune Guneriussen’s conceptual work, somewhere between installation and photography, features site-specific installations throughout his native Norway.Born in 1977, Guneriussen studied at Eiker College and received a BA in photography at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design.Using an artistic process that concerns the object, locale, and time of installation, Guneriussen takes photographs using a large-format view camera that documents the existence of the installation itself.The resulting photographs illustrate attentive handling and a recognition of light to form a new idea of reality.Mixing rural landscapes with everyday objects such as desk lamps or books, Guneriussen’s analogous application of material and space correlates to humans’ connection to the planet.As an artist, Guneriussen believes that art itself should be questioning and bewildering as opposed to patronizing and restricting.As opposed to the current fashion, he does not want to dictate a way to the understanding of his art, but rather indicate a path to understanding a story.
A delightful way to find your way back … we all need to find our source again!
The good news — well, I guess it’s good — is that I’m getting back to the studio. I’ve been thinking about picking up a paintbrush again, thinking about putting a bit of paint on a palette, thinking about painting clouds and skies, trees and rivers… you know, all those landscape elements that I love. […]
Of course most of the time I know what I’m doing … or at least believe I know what I’m doing. Otherwise I wouldn’t have a great son who found a great girl who had great kids and now a great dog.
But other times …
Last night I filled out the March Madness Basketball Challenge. You know the one — 64 teams, 32 competitions between amazing college basketball teams. I’m in a pool with my family, and the winner gets bragging rights at the next family gathering.
Have you ever looked at the brackets?
Do you even know what you’re looking at?
I fill out these things mainly because I want to be one of the “guys.” One of the “family.” One of the “players.”
You might as well as me how to milk a cow. I know zip about that, too.
It’s important to me to be “one of the guys.” Women have a hard enough time breaking into men’s circles. We are of a different mind set. Different temperament, different planet. Although we share our lives with men, we don’t always walk down the same path.
Heck — our paths are often in separate woods!
But having fun with others is worth all the confusion surrounding your choice of competition.
Have fun with your friends and family. Find games, puzzles, and conversations that you can be goofy with.
Winning and losing isn’t as important as sharing.
I picked Arizona to win the Basketball Title. Like I even know where the campus is.
Arabella Proffer is an artist, author, and co-founder of the indie label Elephant Stone Records.She attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA before receiving her BFA from California Institute of the Arts.Considered a pop surrealist painter, Proffer’s work combines interests in portraiture, visionary art, the history of medicine, and biomorphic abstraction.She delves into her practice of oil painting by creating surreal organic environments related to biology, nature, and emerging sciences.Although she started from a place of abstraction, her art became filled with strange hybrids of flowers, cells, and symbols that appeared like organisms from another planet.When her doctor showed her scans of her cancer tumor and close-ups of the cells, it looked almost identical to what she had been painting – tentacles and all.“Insects, flowers, human organs all come from the same process at the core, but within these works visualizing their fictional evolution at any given stage comes from instinct,” the artist explained.“Creating my own fragile beings and nature within these little worlds, alien forms mesh with what might be viewed under a microscope or through a telescope. Perhaps it is a wider vision of awareness, of what is seen and unseen.”More of Arabella Proffer‘s marvelous paintings can be found at http://www.arabellaproffer.com/.
You all have been very generous with your comments through the years. I don’t get many responses, but the ones I do I love.
So now I’m going to ask for your opinions again.
I have a ton of unique artists and their artwork in the wings, just waiting for their chance to have a Gallery of their own. There is so much marvelous art out there that the sources are endless.
But I was wondering if you had any suggestions for the Gallery.
Unique art, unusual art, amazing art.
Art that lies hidden in small galleries or websites or museums. Art from any genre. I love them all.
jeffw5382, one of my followers, suggested the artist Guy Buffet. Following up on the suggestion, I find him creative and unique and so good at creating worlds for chefs and waiters and all in-between. So I hope to add him to a future Gallery.
I am always open to suggestions and ideas. Maybe there’s an artist you’ve always loved that crocheted or painted or made things out of unusual materials. Maybe it’s new twists on old ideas. Maybe it’s one of the masters from the past that have slipped through public attention. Let me know what you’ve found.
I love sharing with you all as much as you all enjoy the art.
Artist Kiko Miyares carves and colors stretched, distorted sculptures of the human figure.Miyares was born on the April 27 in 1977 in Llanes, in the Asturian Province in Spain.After his studies at the Faculty of Beaux Arts at the ‘Universidad Publica del Païs Vasco’ he started exhibiting his work in Bilbao.The Spanish sculptor often focuses on the head and shoulders of his subjects, with each bust combining realistic renderings of facial feature with a dramatically narrowed shape that makes the works appear to be squeezed or warped.In some works, elements of the elongated sculptures are fractured, creating surreal doubling of torsos, heads, and arms.Miyares often shows his busts in groups, to create striking and perception-altering vignettes.Although the skewed works are best viewed in the round, each photographed angle provides a new and fascinating look into the the artist’s boundary-pushing portraits.More of Kiko Miyares amazing works can be found at http://www.kikomiyares.es/ and https://www.instagram.com/kikomiyares/.
Glass artist Janis Miltenberger draws on the roles of mythology and storytelling as attempts to explain our experience of the world to build complex glass sculptures.Her work often takes the shape of recognizable objects, like human figures and chairs, which are then filled with incredible detail. The artist uses borosilicate glass, and enhanced with glass colors, gold luster, sandblasting, and oil paint.
Each glas sculpture is built, first the internal structure and then one by one elements are fashioned and added to the framework.Miltenberger was originally drawn to ceramics, and discovered glassblowing in college, where she apprenticed with Richard Marquis.Many years later, she was introduced to lampworking, which is her preferred technique today.After so many years working with glass, Miltenberger now finds it quite natural to imagine her work in all three dimensions.
“I start building the work, it can deviate from my original drawing,” Miltenberger shares.“Sometimes as I work on a piece, I am surprised and see a different design emerge, something that better reflects my story.”
The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else. ~ Philip Pullman
Sculpture can be so many things. So many different shapes. Colors. Meanings.Canadian artist Shary Boyle works across diverse media, including sculpture, drawing, installation and performance.Highly crafted and deeply imaginative, her practice is activated through collaboration and mentorship.While she works in multiple mediums, Boyle is best known for her porcelain figurines.Boyle’s work considers the social history of figurines, spiritual energy mythologies, and folk art forms to create a symbolic diversity uniquely her own.At first look you wonder what it is about these creations that makes you want to look closer.Boyle’s fantastical and frightening characters are indeterminately human and animal, male and female, and each one sends out a unique vibration that makes you appreciate her diversity.More of Shary Boyle‘s wonderfully unique art can be found at https://www.sharyboyle.com/.
Sometimes when you are asked “What/Who is Your Favorite …?” you have a steady, solid answer.
What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Chocolate, of course. What is your favorite color? Mmmm… royal blue usually hits the spot for me.
But other questions are a lot more volatile.
Who is your favorite artist? Who is your favorite band or group? What’s your favorite movie?
Humans have prided themselves on their intellectual and cosmic growth. We have learned to appreciate individuality as well as companionship. Learning to accept life and all its gifts and delights.
How can one turn that cosmic oneness into an individual preference?
Aren’t you defying the laws of nature and abundance by choosing just one of anything?
Over the weekend I finished filling out my questionnaire from Storywatch. For those of you who didn’t know, my daughter-in-law gave me a gift from them: they send you one question a week for 52 weeks and after you answer and e-mail them back they compile them into a book. She bought one book for me and one for her family.
Some the questions had singular answers. What is your favorite drink? (chocolate milk.) Where were you when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? (sitting in front of the TV watching it.)
Other questions were loaded. Do you have any regrets? (Who doesn’t?) What is your secret? (If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.)
I changed some of the questions to ones that were more important for my grandkids to know. How many brothers and sisters do you have? (three brothers.) What are some of the most amazing inventions you’ve seen in your lifetime? (computers going from room-size to fingernail-size.)
But the hardest questions were the obvious ones. Who is your favorite artist? What is your favorite movie?
This is where my experience as a writer comes in. I changed the text (Who are your favorite artists) and expanded on most questions: Do you prefer winter or summer? (one paragraph for each season with a reluctant admittance for preferring Autumn).
Can’t I ever follow the rules?
Can’t I ever give a simple answer?
The world really comes down to yes or no. You either do it or you don’t. You either go there or you don’t. You either eat lunch or skip lunch. There is no middle grey in the end (I kinda wanted to do it but wasn’t sure so I did nothing…)
But I don’t have ONE favorite artist. Or ONE favorite food. Or ONE favorite memory of times spent with my kids.
I want my kids to know I loved a whole lot of foods and places and musicians and movies and seasons. That I’m a polka dot fan one day and a plain Jane beige girl the next. And I can tell you why I love paintings and sculptures and smooth jazz and nature photography all 100%.
The purpose of this Monday Morning blog started out to be me asking you who your favorite artist is. In any field.
Now I’ve changed my question. And hope you answer.
Who are your favorite artists? Musicians? Foods?
It’s me asking. You can list as many as you wish. The sky’s the limit! (for me it has to be!)
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
What I find interesting/different/fun about this colorful painting is the very fine white line that highlights unsuspecting corners and objects and swirls. Pinball is the perfect name for this painting, yet it teases a lot more!
Tiffany once told me that “all of my work is intuitive, never planned.” That is inspirational for sure. Planned art has its place, but so does impromptu channeling!
If I were a ball, this is where I would want to roll. 😉
Jan van Eyck (before 1390 – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting.
Arnolfini Portrait
van Eyck must have been born before 1395, for in October 1422 he is recorded as the varlet de chambre et peintre (“honorary equerry and painter”) of John of Bavaria, count of Holland.
Man in a Red Turban
van Eyck was one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art who perfected the newly developed technique of oil painting.
Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon
His naturalistic panel paintings, mostly portraits and religious subjects, made extensive use of disguised religious symbols.
Lucca Madonna
His artistic prestige rests partly on his unrivaled skill in pictorial illusionism.
Ghent Altarpiece
Securely attributed paintings survive only from the last decade of van Eyck career; therefore, his artistic origins and early development must be deduced from his mature work.
Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata
The artist’s paintings achieved an astonishingly sophisticated level of realism, heretofore unknown in the art of painting.
Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele
Glimmering jewels, reflective metals, lush satins and velvets, and even human flesh were each rendered with their own distinctive qualities with such a high degree of naturalism it seemed he had conjured a new artistic medium.
It was our annual get away weekend with family and friends. The 24th anniversary for the grandparents that started it, about 10 or 12 years for us newbies. We kinda mooched our way in when our son married their daughter, and it’s been fun ever since.
We missed one special couple, one special skier in particular, but he was somehow there on the slopes and in front of the fire and right in the middle of the wild card games.
Home again, I’m rushing to fill out a gift that my daughter-in-law gave me LAST CHRISTMAS.Like Christmas 2021. It’s from Storyworth, a company that sends you a question a week about yourself, your life, and at the end compiles your answers and makes a book for both you and your giver.
LAST CHRISTMAS 2021.
And I’m only starting yesterday when the questions have stopped coming and the deadline is approaching.
I don’t even have a good reason why I left this to the last minute. I’m not really a procrastinator, but more like scattered. I start something then get distracted by 10 more things and often forget the first thing I was working on.
No excuse.
It has some strange questions, like they were struggling to find 52 common items to talk about. (Where were you when Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon? What is your favorite drink?) Some I deleted, other questions I thought more pertinent to my grandkid’s informational scale (do you have brothers and sisters? Where have you lived?) and which I think are much more important than what my favorite drink is (chocolate milk.)
It comes down to — what do I want my kids to know about me? My grandkids?
I knew very little about my parents. Enough to pass basic information, but nothing intimate. Nothing personal. My parents were of the World War II generation. My dad had three tours in the Army, yet talked very little (if at all) about his experiences. My mother had a child out of wedlock when she was young who was raised by one of her sisters, but I only met her once (when I was about 10) when she stopped by our house and introduced her husband and new baby.
My generation seems to be more open-mouthed. My kids know pretty much about me. Not everything, but face it… some of the things that made you grow up either aren’t very interesting or are quite uncomfortable.
So how do I answer questions about my brothers (which I never talk to) or the farthest I’ve traveled (Cancun) or my favorite artists (painters, writers, composers, infinity room makers, the whole shebang).
I answer with heart and honesty. I want my kids and grandkids to know where my heart was and is at all times.
Kristen Egan is a mixed media artist specializing in masks and small sculptures.
Egan has a BFA in Art and Design from the SUNY College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
Her creative process relies on the organic shapes of natural materials like gourds, antlers and tree branches.
Adding details with carved wood, paper clay and acrylic paints, she often juxtaposes bright patterns and ornamentation against raw or weathered surface textures.
The artist explores themes such as evolution, predator-prey relationships, folk art and totemic imagery.
Her pantheon of recurring animal characters are frequently inspired by species native to her home state, or mythologized elements of personal experiences.
Egan’s captivating sculptures and masks lets the observer go wildly into the forest of imagination where totem-like creatures and folktales carve a path from her thoughts to ours.
Elena Dal Cortivo is a master luthier (a maker of stringed instruments such as violins or guitars), musician, and creator of roses for stringed instruments.
Parchment roses are decorative elements used to enhance harpsichords, clavichords, baroque guitars and other early musical instruments.
She enrolled in Milan’s Civica Scuola di Liuteria in 1980, and after graduation, obtained the qualification of ‘Operator and Conservator of Stringed Instruments’.
Dal Cortivo trained as a luthier in Milan, and began work in Vicenza, occasionally making decorative rosettes, intricately designed and made from goat parchment, for harpsichords and baroque guitars.
In 1991, she opened a workshop in Milan where she continued to make and restore musical instruments and to receive requests for rosettes.
Gradually, creating rosettes became her main occupation and today Dal Cortivo is one of the most highly regarded practitioners of this rarest of crafts.
The incredible and elaborate parchment roses that can be admired in her extensive catalogue are genuine masterpieces in miniature whose execution requires particular taste and skill: a rare and highly poetic craft of extraordinary virtuosity that very few are still able to practice with such delicate mastery.
a dervish (member of an order noted for devotional exercises involving bodily movements) whose actions include ecstatic dancing and whirling; a whirler
I am setting up a new Instagram account with pictures from all of my past Gallery Blogs, just in case someone is wandering through Instagram with no particular place to go. Ha.
But in going through those pictures, I realize how long I’ve been doing the Gallery. A long time. So since I don’t have a lot of opinions on the world at this time of the year, I think I will make next week
SaturdayEveningArtGalleryWeek
I’ll post pictures and links to some of the best artists in my past — a link to my gallery, along to their personal webpage (if they have one) so you can explore their world on your own, should you desire.
I have such a blast sharing UNIQUE artists with all of you that I don’t mind tooting my horn for them now and again.
If you have any favorite artists I’ve posted, or any other artists you’d love me to show off, let me know, and I’ll dig them up!
Madame Beatrice Alexander Behrman (1895-1990), more commonly known by the name Madame Alexander, is a true American original.
Cissy-‘Slyly Kissed’ Doll
Not only is she accredited as the founder of Madame Alexander Doll Company, but also as the First Lady of dollmaking of the twentieth century.
Champs Elysees Portrait Doll
Having grown up in her stepfather’s doll hospital on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Alexander believed dolls should be played with and loved—without breaking like the porcelain dolls of her time, and without sacrificing details or quality.
The Dionne Quintuplets Dolls
In 1923, with a $1,600 loan, she established the Alexander Doll Company in a one-room studio, employing her sisters and neighbors, a total of 16 people.
Ballet Des Fleurs Portrait-Doll
With the advent of plastic after World War II, Alexander made dolls with vinyl heads and elaborate hair that could be styled. She introduced “eyes with lashes that closed and fingers with knuckles” and rooted hair that could be styled.
Scarlett O’Hara Doll
Alexander also created designer clothing for the dolls which received international attention.
Dionne Doll
In 1936, Fortune magazine listed the Alexander Doll Company as one of the top three doll manufacturers in the United States; the company would go on to become the largest dollmaker in the country, operating out of several factories and employing 1,500 at its peak.
Cissy in Aqua-Flowered Skirt Doll
In 1947 the artist began producing dolls from hard plastic, and in the 1960s turned to vinyl plastic, which rendered a more lifelike appearance.
Joseph from the 1954 Biblical Series
As a pioneering businesswoman and exquisite doll designer, Madame Alexander shaped the doll industry with her revolutionary innovations and vibrant vision.
Madame Alexandre Eloise Doll
She viewed dolls as valuable learning tools that could teach children empathy, compassion and responsibility.
Cissy Doll
This passion to make high-quality dolls that could be played with and loved led Madame Beatrice Alexander Behrman to create the premier American doll brand we still know and love today.
I feel sorry for anybody — especially old people — who are stuck at home, nursing one thing or another, and turns on the TV in hopes of a little distraction. Relief. Fantasy.
I feel sorry for anyone home all day with nothing to do.
I had the 24-hour bug yesterday, and it hit hard. (I’m perfectly fine today… go figure). I slept a lot, but between glazed outings I turned on the local TV.
Every other commercial was for either health care for your funeral arrangements or life insurance for $9.99 a month or Medicare supplements or magic pills for metastatic breast cancer or stage four pancreatic cancer.
I am not for one second downplaying the severity of any physical condition, whether it’s fatal or lasts only 24 hours. This is a personal world that only those suffering with their conditions can understand or deal with.
But this also is a world ripe for picking.
I was amazed at how gullible TV ads think viewers are.
There are bright (yet serious) actors talking about “impending doom” scenarios like funeral expenses, car repair, and cancer treatments. Advertising assures these bright (yet serious) actors that they can be prepared ahead of time for all of the above (and more) by paying just a little amount every month.
I have a hang up about advertising anyway, but it’s a necessary part of the all cultures, keeping people employed and consumers informed.
But constant bombardment by holding death over you and scaring you into moving into directions unknown kinda crosses the line for me. Not is a big, blown-out way — more like a needle-in-your-skin way.
And, by the way –many of these plans are posted for those 45 and up too! WooHoo!
People with no one to talk to or confide in may think that these quickie schemes will actually help them get better or save money. They may give scarce funds towards ends that never really pay out.
I may sound like a broken record, but again — deals that are too good to be true don’t exist. No matter what age you are.
Just because a new drug is advertised doesn’t mean it works for everybody. Just because big man ‘A’ got his blown engine replaced for free doesn’t mean he didn’t pay a fortune before trouble showed up. And Medicare supplements don’t just freely put money back into your savings account.
Before you invest in late night fly by schemes, talk to somebody. Anybody. Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t worry about seeming confused or panicked or lost. Talk to someone who gets out into the working world and fights for a living. Someone who can see behind the curtain.
Get a second opinion.
Don’t take this invasive species sitting down, Golden Oldies! Mute those babies as soon as they pop up!
The Unicorn Tapestries, woven between 1495 and 1505, celebrate a world of wonders with the unicorn at its very center.
The Hunters Enter the Woods
The tapestries were owned for centuries by the La Rochefoucauld family before being purchased by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who donated them to The Cloisters Museum and Gardens, the medieval branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1937.
The Unicorn is Found
Though these tapestries depict the hunt for this legendary creature, they are also a hymn of praise for Nature and all its abundance.
The Unicorn is Attacked
Lavishly woven in fine wool and silk with silver and gilded threads, the seven wall hangings are certainly amongst the most spectacular surviving artworks of the late Middle Ages.
The Unicorn Defends Itself
The tapestries were probably woven in Brussels or Liège, which were important centers of the tapestry industry in medieval Europe.
The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle
Comprised of seven wall hangings, each panel is at least 12 feet high by eight feet wide.
The Mystic Capture of the Unicorn
The unicorn’s world includes over 100 recognizable plants and trees, all flowering at the same time, along with animals, wild and tame, domestic and exotic: pheasants, rabbits, a lion and his lioness, frogs, dogs and ducks.
The Unicorn in Captivity
The details and beauty of these tapestries have held viewers in fascination throughout time, and hopefully will continue in the future.
More about the Unicorn Tapestries can be found at:
Ceramic art is visual art. What you see often thrills your senses.
These teapots may be hand crafted, machine crafted, mass produced or individually created. I just came across these Mad Cat Teapots one day and thought, “My word… this iscreative art!”
After all, who are we to judge what is art?
They are so delightful and detailed I thought you would enjoy them too!
Mad Cat Teapots (and more) can be found at homewode.com.
The power of a gun can kill And the power of fire can burn The power of wind can chill And the power of a mind can learn The power of anger can rage Inside until it tears u apart But the power of a smile Especially yours can heal a frozen heart
The more I delve into Art, the more amazing it becomes.
Many of my discoveries are distant links from where I started.
For instance, I was on a site, (the origin of which I forget), and found Paola Besana, whose art I enjoyed. Looking him up led me to a website, https://www.maestrodartemestiere.it/en/, MAM – Maestro d’Arte e Mestiere,promoted by the Cologni Foundation for the Métiers d’Art, (Italy), which featured not only Besana, but many other Masters of Arts and Crafts.
Curious, I checked out another artist, Elena Dal Cortivo, who makes handmade reproductions of parchment roses made for the sound holes of harpsichords, mandolins, and baroque guitars.
Her website had more links to makers of harpsicords and and other instruments.
Maker of parchment roses?
Where did this art come from?
And who makes homemade harpsicords?
I think I have found my passion. My life’s work.
That makes me laugh. It used to be writing. I’m still passionate about that – but now it’s more experiencing new amazing forms of art and sharing them with those who also have (probably) not experienced such creativity.
This is how I find so many wonderful artists in the world. People and places that those of us in small Wisconsin towns have never heard of.
That’s why I believe in staying away from horrid headlines and problems I cannot solve and explore worlds that are still brand new to me.
I want to wander through fields of Art that are colorful and inspirational and unique. And I want you to discover them with me.
Don’t be afraid to explore the world. The positive parts of the world.
John Kiley is a fourth generation Seattle native who attended The Pilchuck Glass School and the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.Kiley uses primary geometric forms as the architecture for his glass sculptures.His Fractograph series takes a more conceptual approach to the material.Different methods including impact and thermal shock are used to shatter a perfectly polished optic blocks.The sometimes-powerful explosions are filmed in slow motion and exhibited along with the reconstructed blocks.Kiley’s glass sculptures are an exploration of external and internal form: an expression of the relationship that exists between shape and light.
“I strive to create objects that push the material itself beyond its simple inherent beauty. When I look at a finished piece, it should be apparent to me that it could only exist in glass.”’ Kiley explains.
Kiley not only questions which is more beautiful — the whole or its parts, the inside or the outside, negative or positive space, the light, the shadow, or the reflection — but suggests that it is the interaction of all of these characteristics that results in the beautiful sum.
I was flipping through movies the other night, looking for something to watch — something different, something spooky, something — unusual. The horror genre came to mind.Now, I’m not into gory, bloody horrorfests — the sections of the public who love those kind of movies can keep those movies.I prefer movies that make me think. Make me wonder. Make me suspend belief for a couple of hours. I don’t really believe in spirits and ghosts and the supernatural, but I enjoy letting those who know how to manipulate the genre manipulate me. I love twist endings. Surprise endings.
The strangest things frighten us. For some it’s spiders. For others it’s aliens. Or ghosts. Or monsters. Or internet predators. Or walking through the woods alone at night. In the dark.
It’s okay to be frightened now and then, as long as you know what’s real and what’s not, and not let your fears rule your life.
I wound up watching Zoolander. So go figure.
Which leads me to a blog I wrote back in 2016. Holy Moley! 2016!
I was watching TV the other evening. A horror flick. Or SF. Or both. No matter. Predator. You know — the Sci Fi movie with Arnold and a bunch of special forces macho men. You know the story line — the alien who comes to Earth to hunt humans for sport. Well, there was one scene closer to the beginning of the movie that made me pull out a camera and take a picture of the TV screen — a scene that flashed the words blog topic into my brain.
The men are walking through the jungle, in and out of clearings, when one of the soldiers stops. Just stops and looks ahead. At the trees, at the jungle. Silence. When asked what was up, Billy said there was something out there watching them. Something you couldn’t see.
That kind of terror gets to me much more than blood and guts.
The fear of the unknown.
Some people can sense something’s not right way before it hits you like a pie in the face. We all have intuition, but some just live with it turned on high, while others barely crack the surface.
Do you ever sense things that are — unnatural? Nebulous? Out of our sphere of reality?
I don’t care for the scientific explanations. I understand them, I agree with them. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering — what if something was watching us? Something invisible, fifth dimension-ish and all that?
I’ve seen dogs avoid places in the wild; some would rather pee on themselves than check out some particular place. I’ve heard stories of birds avoiding certain trees and wild animals refusing to walk through certain areas.
It’s like seeing something out of the corner of your eye. If you turn and focus, the thing is gone. But for that fleeting moment you swear there is something there. It is hearing songs on the wind when everyone else hears a lawn mower. Or seeing a glow in the woods that everyone else says are lightning bugs.
I know that none of these abnormalities exist — at least not on a scientific level. But through the years I’ve regained some of my fascination with the “unknown.” I love to entertain the impossible. The improbable. The ridiculous. For within those worlds lies even more remarkable truths. At least for the person experiencing them.
I have never seen the clear, wavy distortions of a Predator before they become visible. I’ve never seen a unicorn drinking from a stream or a faerie dancing through the night.
Or have I?
We all see things that aren’t there. As we get older and memories fade, what we think we remember isn’t necessarily what happened. The conversations change, the situations change — we rework the past to fit our current psyche. So what I thought my father said before he died might not have been what he really said. The punchline of an old movie might not be the quote I spout out to friends and family.
To be honest, I am spooked by things I don’t understand. I don’t like walking through the woods in the dark, or driving down unfamiliar deserted roads at night, or playing Mary Worth in the mirror. Whether it’s an overactive imagination or the true sensing of something beyond reality, I prefer to deal with the unknown my own way.
George E. Ohr, the so-called “Mad Potter of Biloxi,” was a wild, inventive ceramic artist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but his work was largely misunderstood during his time, and languished in a Mississippi garage.George Edgar Ohr (1857-1918) has been called the first art potter in the United States, and many say the finest.Although active from 1879 until around 1910, it was not until his pottery was rediscovered half a century after his death that Ohr began to enjoy the reputation he felt he deserved.Ohr is considered the most important US ceramic artist for several reasons. First, he was a pioneer of the art pottery movement in the United States.His work challenged the traditional notion that ceramics were purely functional objects, and instead presented them as works of art.Secondly, Ohr was highly experimental, constantly pushing the boundaries of his medium. He was never satisfied with simply replicating existing techniques; instead, he sought to invent new ones.This led to the development of his signature ” coil and pinch” method, which produced uniquely organic and asymmetrical forms.Lastly, Ohr’s work has been highly influential in the field of ceramics. His unique style and approach to clay-making has inspired generations of artists, and his pots are now highly sought-after by collectors.Today, Ohr is recognized as a major pioneer of American ceramics.His work has made a lasting impact on the ceramics community and the art world alike, and has inspired generations of artists working in ceramics to innovate and work with the medium in unique ways.
Born in 1978, Paitoon Jumee is a contemporary Thai artist known for his portrayals of the female face.Jumee studied at the Thai Vijitsil Art School from 1993-1996, later graduating from Pochang University in 1998.The artist was trained in multiple disciplines including lithography, sculpture, and xylography.Of his collections, the series of paintings depicting female portraits remains his most popular. The majority of these faces feature calm serene expressions, often with closed eyes and pan-Asian features such as almond-shaped eyes.Jumee applies painting techniques such as the superposition of repetitive patterning to create layers beneath the surface of the portrait.Perhaps this reflects the idea of a portrait which reveals the person’s many aspects of character beyond surface deep.The use of the drip technique, among other textural effects, can be considered Jumee’s signature touch.
Today has been a rough day, although all the roughness is in my own head.
Do you have days like this? Where you just can’t function like you’re supposed to for one reason or another? Yet you have to?
And this frustration runs through the rest of your day.
What I wouldn’t do to be perfect.
Everything written out, scheduled, cleaned, detailed, caught up, thought out, followed through, crossed off, and completed.
Logic has never been my best friend. Nor has written out, scheduled, cleaned, detailed, caught up, thought out, followed through, crossed off, and completed.
It’s all cute and forgivable when you’re 12 or 13. When you’re older it feels like you’ve been left behind.
When I do things my way it’s often the screwy way, the backwards way, the long way. I don’t mind, because I never really notice that it’s the screwy way, the backwards way, or the long way. I just do it my way.
People then ask why I make so much more work for myself. Why I didn’t go directly from A to B. Why I make things so complicated.
They’re right. I’m just wired wrong, I guess. I get everything done sooner or later. It’s often not perfect, but I’ve always made a decent effort. Unfortunately, a decent effort doesn’t always cut it.
At this point I don’t know how to change my flow.
And I don’t think I can.
I’m beginning to see why younger people get so frustrated with older people. We don’t move or think fast enough, straight enough, purposely enough. We don’t mess things up on purpose — to us we’re doing it the right way, just like everyone else.
I’m frustrating to myself these days.
Some of us used to walk that straight line quite well, but now have a hard time staying on it.
I think I wandered off that line a long time ago. As a matter of fact, I’m one of those who often think…
The Fibonacci sequence is one of the most famous formulas in mathematics. Each number in the sequence is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. So, the sequence goes: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on. It’s been called “nature’s secret code,” and “nature’s universal rule.” Just take a look at the pattern it creates and you can instantly recognize how this sequence works in nature like an underlying universal grid. A perfect example of this is the nautilus shell, whose chambers adhere to the Fibonacci sequence’s logarithmic spiral almost perfectly. This famous pattern shows up everywhere in nature including flowers, pinecones, hurricanes, and even huge spiral galaxies in space.
Here I am, late Sunday night, listening to the above music, reflecting on what just happened in my airy fairy world.
I have talked to many people who believe there are signs of otherworldly things around us. Messages and thoughts being sent and left behind and forwarded to and through us all the time. All we have to do is sit and listen.
Now, I don’t have a direct connection to any celestial/spiritual being. Not that I know of. Although I must say in the last few years I’ve been getting connections I never believed existed. TakeThe Cat Storyabout the cat whoshowed up at my son’s memorial and also at Thanksgiving,The Cat Story — Part 2.
I got a text from a long-time-ago friend a few weeks ago; someone I hadn’t talked to in ages but remained friends with (if that’s possible). She asked if I wanted to go to Paris with her. She was also going to ask my sister-in-law to go.
I haven’t heard from her directly in 30 years.
I only started seeing my sister-in-law last December when her daughter/my goddaughter got married.
I didn’t even know friend A knew sister B.
Okay. That in itself freaked me out, because somehow through the past few years we had communicated my desire to see Paris. A kinda bucket list thing that would probably never come to fruition.
And she was ready to start making plans.
Well, it just so happened that last year I wrote a story called “I Dreamed I Went to Paris,” which is a 67-year-old’s version of going to Paris for a week. (No real trip was ever involved).
Tonight I decided to send my friend the story for her perusal.
Sent the thing, went to bed, went to my phone (which was on Messenger) and I absently dialed her number. (I had to go there to get her email addy). I “butt dialed” her number.
I couldn’t figure out how to disconnect fast enough and she answered.
A friend I hadn’t talked to in over 30 years.
And we talked on the phone for over an hour.
Like it was just yesterday.
There are no accidents, my friend. We shared the pains and joys of our past years, realizing that we were still so very much alike. Our dreams, our airy fairyness, our laughter and our experiences.
We just hadn’t shared them with each other lately.
I don’t believe it was an accident to butt dial my good friend. It was the same fate faerie that brought Mikey the cat my way. The same faerie who brought me back together when a friend I thought I’d lost years ago. The same faerie that encourages me to dream, physically and mentally and inspirationally.
The faerie that has put sharing in my heart and creativity in the air.
There are no accidents, my friends. Don’t try and explain the cosmos. Just go along for the ride.
You’ll not believe the things you will experience!!
Born in Hin Kwong Village of Kwangtung, China to a family of artists in 1942, Tin Yan Chan became a popular floral and landscape artist in Canada in the late 20th century.Deeply moved by his first encounter with the western work of art, Chan found himself filled with inspiration and imagination.At 16 he was admitted to the Wuhan South Central China Academy of Fine Arts.Chan attended the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts where he began to realize the joy of creating bold compositions and expressions.In 1968, the artist immigrated to Canada and started his career as a professional artist. With his experience in China and France, which embraced both ancient and modern Impressionist abstract and contemporary works of arts, he became confident in creating his own style of art work. Chan creates a compelling blend of Asian and Western aesthetics in his snowscapes and floral scenes, producing works in both watercolor and oil.Delineation of tree branches recalls the curves and strokes of Chinese calligraphy, as does his subject choice of serene natural scenes.Even when working in the strict discipline of the Chinese brush painting tradition, he scatters exuberant and undisciplined patches of brilliant color throughout his compositions.More of Tin Yan Chan’s colorful art can be found at https://koymangalleries.com/artist/tin-yan-chan/.
A lot of you are professional bloggers, weekend bloggers, once-a-month bloggers, daily bloggers — it doesn’t matter how often you write but that you write.
The other day I was re-reading/proofreading my blog on Creativity, adding categories and tags to encourage further reading under those … categories.
Now, I know the more you can narrow the fields of tags and categories, the more likely the Google search engine will find your blog. At least I think that’s how it’s supposed to work. I’m not a techie in any stretch of the imagination, so I really have no idea.
But I glanced over to my categories. It’s been a long time since I’ve checked them out.
I probably should have been looking at them a little more closely.
Many categories make sense — popular words like creativity, encouragement, love, babies, and camping are familiar to all of us.
But let me share a few that stirred something else in me. Puzzlement.
Amazing. The whole world is amazing. I am amazing. You are amazing. No one searches for “amazing” unless there’s a noun after it.
Being ____. I know there are better words for being busy, being cold, being crazy, being fooled. Offhand I don’t know what they would be, though.
Same is true with action phrases that start with Getting or Losing.
Blank paintings. Is that the same as a blank canvas? A blank wall? I wonder what blog that was for.
Bugs. The creepy crawly kind or the way some people affect you?
Cockroaches. Same as above.
Digital arat.How many people search for that misspelling?
Same for firewors, menopuse, and time trael.
Messing around. What does that actually mean?
Paper cutting and papercutting. Pick one, would you?
Reflexion. I suppose that’s supposed to be Reflection, but it’s from the England side of the ocean.
Sculpture or Sculptures. In this instance, plural means the same as single.
The … followed by any number of nouns. The Arts, The Blues, The Gambler, The Mind, The Seasons, The Unknown, The Woods. Are you seeing a pattern here?
w. Nuff said about that typo.
WATER PHOTOGRAPHY. Kinda looks like the caps stuck on that category.
As you can see, my categories need some of work. Haste made waste, and all of that.
With the start of the “New Year” (you know how I think — that the New Year starts every day you wake up, but still ….) I started thinking about 2023 and the creativity it will bring. MUST bring. New ideas, new inspirations, new directions. Today I met one of my besties for breakfast. I always love seeing her, being with her, sharing with her. She’s at the point in her life where kids and her job take up all her time, which is pretty normal for this point in life. On the other hand, I found myself pouring out some of my new ideas for Angel Tears, my blogs, and other artsy things I may or may not do during 2023. She offered to help me take photographs of my crafts so I can move into the Millennium and onto Etsy. And I wondered. Is creativity a solo trip? Yes, you have to do the work; you have to do the research and the buying of equipment and you have to find the time and you have to stick with it. You you you. But isn’t it much more fun when you can share your excitement with others? I used to belong to a Wisconsin writer’s group. I loved the energy shared by all the writers when we got together for conferences. It was palpable. Encouraging. I met great people there, and have kept one of them for my writing buddy bestie. Your solitary excitement is important. Vital. But it’s awfully nice to have someone else encourage you, too. I have another bestie I’ve been encouraging to write a book about a personal story that would knock the socks off of most readers. Another young bestie of mine, a high school graduate this year, wants to start blogging, and I’m there with her, giving her ideas, pointers, and encouragement. Two of my besties have a room they want to turn into their Creativity Shed. She Shed. I’m right there talking colors and shelving and places to sell their wares should they want to. I get so excited about everyone else’s artistic dreams. I can’t help it. Which is why I’m always asking about yours. I love to watch how you put together collages and knit sweaters and draw characters with big wide eyes and haircuts that match your personal hair style. Have a friend teetering on the edge of entering the Arts? Encourage them. Fuss over them. Don’t worry if they don’t reciprocate your enthusiasm. Art in any form starts with you. Ends with you. But all that creativity and good vibes in the middle is good for everyone!
Sometimes Art (with a capital “A”) is more than just paintings hanging on a museum wall or statues in a famous courtyard.
Alpine Steinschaf Sheep
Sometimes Art can be as simple as homemade crafts that have that special something that catches your attention.
Suffolk Sheep
Colin Richmond, an MBA-turned-sculptor, is the artist and creator of Colin’s Creatures in Asheville, North Carolina, started in 1993.
Herdwick Sheep
The artist creates handcrafted creatures made from a unique combination of materials including porcelain, castable stone, and imported woven fur, all chosen for their quality and ability to imitate the characteristics of each animal.
Highland Cattle
Richmond initially begins with thorough research of the breed.
Cotswold Ewe
He often travels across the globe to visit heritage farms, attend agricultural shows, and meet with breeders dedicated to the stewardship and conservation of ancient breeds of livestock.
American Bison
Once he feels he has an understanding of an animal and its specific traits and personality, Richmond carves the heads, legs, horns and other parts that will eventually be cast in porcelain.
Beulah Speckledface Sheep
Porcelain is just one of the keys to capturing what he describes as the “expressive nature” of his animals, which have porcelain heads and legs and solid hydrostone bodies.
Blacknose Valais Sheep
Richmond uses hydrostone, the hardest and strongest plaster available, which is chosen for its stability and solid weight in the hand.
Alpaca
He pours the smooth, clay-colored liquid into handmade molds, fastening them together with a large rubber band, and sets a kitchen timer which dings when it’s time to release the creature from its formative binding.
Sarda Sheep
When the creature is formed, he finish it with high-quality imported fur, resulting in a life-like creature with personality and charm.
Going through my past in here, looking for something else (of course), I came across this blog about Older Women Fashion.
Now that I’m retired, work and fashion (and this past blog) are almost nine years in the past, I do admit that this thought was based on a co-worker (whom I really did like). But I still always try to look good.
I rolled my eyes back then.
I rolled my eyes this morning, too.
Here are a few fun fashion no-no’s not only for those over 50, but for most under 50 too.
John Paul Miller’s (1918 – 2013) fastidiously crafted jewelry depicts natural creatures both large and small, wearable forms in enamel and gold that are, at once, visually opulent and mildly unsettling. Miller is further recognized for having introduced granulation to the postwar studio jewelry field. This ancient technique of affixing small beads of gold or silver to a similarly corresponding substrate dates back to the third century BCE.Miller reinvigorated the technique in the mid-1940s and employed it as one tool in his vast arsenal, creating exceptionally beautiful forms in gold that dazzle the eye and celebrate nature’s tiniest creatures.Throughout his career Miller produced bold wearable forms that, while extraordinarily beautiful, were not – neither in their scale nor in their subject matter – for the timid or the faint of heart.“I was always fond of animals, all animals…animals and life in the wild, the natural world, were a really important part of my life,” Miller shared.“So when I got involved with jewelry…and with granulation, I began to think about things in nature. There was something about their design that suggested the character of granules.”
“Decorating with enamel an already almost revived creature, I always tried to show that play of light, those refractions of rays that so fascinated me in childhood.”More of John Paul Miller’s beautiful gold jewelry can be found at https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/jewelry-john-paul-miller.
Peacocks sweep the fairies’ rooms; They use their folded tails for brooms; But fairy dust is brighter far Than any mortal colours are; And all about their tails it clings In strange designs of rounds and rings; And that is why they strut about And proudly spread their feathers out. ~Rose Fyleman, “Peacocks,” 1917
I don’t know if it’s the artist in me, the insecurity in me, or the pride in me, but it’s hard to leave some projects alone.
Many of you in your various arts get your creations right the first time around. You’re that good. I know I know … there’s mistakes in there too. Ideas gone crooked, characters flushed out the wrong way, a stitch that’s too big, not enough Chromium Oxide Green for your trees.
But you eventually finish and move onto the next thing.
I do that, too. But in writing anything, there can always be a revision of some sort lurking in the shadows.
I’ve tried not to go back often and reread the books I’ve written. Except for a typo here and there (God Forbid!) I’m very happy with the outcome.
But other things like art blogs and Angel Tears, I tend to work too fast at the beginning and see too many slips towards the end.
Like my Sunday Evening Art Gallery blogs. The ones that come out now are pretty near perfect. But the earlier ones look sloppy. In a rush. Not enough pictures or way too many. That’s mostly because I wanted to GET THE BLOG OUT.
Faerie Paths and chat blogs like today usually turn out decent, because I’ve given the topics some thought and took my time finding the pictures that go along with them.
Well, today I’m going to start in yet another direction. I want to dedicate a page to my Angel Tears. You know — those rhinestone and crystal sparklers that hang in your windows or trees. This is my full second year of this business and I want it to shine this year. I want it to work. I want to have inventory and Etsy pages and show it off to you, my friends.
For me, that’s sounds easier than it is.
These things don’t photograph well. So I’m working on that. I have sales account and bank account and even an accountant. So I am serious about this type of fun.
This time I want to get it all right. I figure I have enough experience to know what I want, what I want to say, how I want people to feel.
I want others to feel the way I do when it comes to sparkle in the sun.
Don’t you feel that way when you start a new creative project? Everything you make can’t just be for you — you need to step out of your creative comfort zone and offer your work to others so that they can feel what you feel when they look at your work.
Anna Berezovskaya was born in the town of Yakhroma in Russia, and became a student of Abramtsevsky Art and Industrial College in 2001.
Her paintings are easily recognizable by their unique signature style, which Berezovskaya refers to as “Poetic Realism.”Berezovksya brings together techniques unique to realism, abstraction and surrealism to create imaginative and creative worlds and subjects.Her pieces are riddled with symbolisms which the viewer must tease out in order to find the multiple meanings and layers to them.Berezovksya’s use of universal themes, inspired by the artist’s own life and imagination, resonate and reflect the viewers’ own emotions and the values.She uses symbolism to create timeless works on canvas and paper, carefully selecting subjects that convey her ideas and emotions about the Russian world around her.Berezovskaya’s works are built on a world which she has created — a visual world — where she tells her stories through childhood memories of books read and images embedded in her dream-space.“I still draw on stories that I love from my childhood but in terms of development I realize I have developed and grown and my ideas are becoming more interesting, sharper, more developed,” the artist shares.“I mainly use ideas from my normal regular everyday life but these can still be serious things that I try to convey in my paintings in a humorous way.”More of Anna Berezovskaya‘s whimsical art can be found at http://www.annaberezovskaya.com/.
Adolf Wölfli (1864–1930) was a Swiss artist who was one of the first artists to be associated with the Art Brut or “outsider” art label.Wölfli was abused both physically and sexually as a child, and was orphaned at the age of 10, leaving him to grow up in a series of state-run foster homes.He was very disturbed and sometimes violent on admission, leading to him being kept in isolation for his early time at hospital. He suffered from psychosis, which led to intense hallucinations.At some point after his admission Wölfli began to draw. His first surviving works (a series of 50 pencil drawings) are dated from between 1904 and 1906.A doctor at the Waldau Clinic took a particular interest in Wölfli’s art and his condition, later publishing Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) in 1921 which first brought Wölfli to the attention of the art world.Morgenthaler’s book detailed the works of Wölfli who seemed to have no previous interest in art and who developed his talents and skills independently after being committed for a debilitating condition.In this respect, Wölfli was an iconoclast and influenced the development and acceptance of Art Brut.At a glance, Wölfli’s work oozes the sentiments of Psychedelic art with its kaleidoscopic swirls of colorIn truth, they’re the relics of a man orphaned in the 1800s, whose life was bookended by the abuse he both received and committed.But that madness also incubated one of the most jaw-dropping works in Art Brut history: Wölfli will paint, compose music and write a semi-biographical book that has 45 volumes, approximately 25,000 pages, and more than 1.600 illustrations that is filled with reptiles, knights, dancing shadows; and insect musicians, along with Algebra and melancholic sheet music.Wölfli’s work has been described as one of the three or four most important a bodies of work constituting an artist’s lifework of of the twentieth century.More of Adolf Wölfli‘s mesmerizing artwork can be found at https://www.adolfwoelfli.ch/ and Adolf Wölfli: mad genius.
This is one of those late Sunday night I’m-overtired-and-starting -to-get-a-wee-headache-but-this-is-such-a-great-confusing-idea-I-need-to -ask-my- friends-about-it blog.
In the future I am going to feature Anna Berezovksya and what she sees as bringing together techniques unique to realism, abstraction and surrealism. Her paintings are colorful, imaginative, and a delight to the sensibilities of us all. Here is one of her pictures:
Okay. If you can get past the initial shock of weirdness about it, it’s really finely done: the faces, the detail, the texture.
If you want to take a bit and “study” the picture, what is it saying? People following each other to the edge of the cliff (that’s my first thought). Okay. Different personalities are reacting differently. One has a movie camera, one is dangling their feet, one is a sailor, one is a king.
What does the seagull have to do with it? The fish skeleton? The apple? Why is the crescent moon hiding in those long braids? What is the book the king is holding? Why is the sailor wearing a hoop earring?
Okay Okay. Those questions are neither here nor there. We can interpret this painting however we wish. I’m sure Miss Berezovksya has her own explanation, too.
I feel that lately I’ve run out of words.
Iris Scott
