Author: humoringthegoddess

I am a writer of fantasy fiction that often surrounds middle-aged women. I am a married mother of two and granny to three, a BoHo Chic kinda gal. I am recently retired and busier than when I worked 9-5. But writing and blogging is my main game.

Saturday — or Caturday?

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Happy Caturday!

What in the world is a CAT-ur-day? I had to look it up.

According to Amanda Blain:

Caturday has been around since roughly 2006. The tradition is pretty simple. On Saturdays, people on various websites, (starting with 4chan and gaining mass popularity on site “I Can Has Cheezburger”) people would post pictures of cats with funny text know as “lolspeak”. Lolspeak is a type of broken English, generally grammatically incorrect, almost a type of “baby talk”, that can often included well known internet memes. This adds to the humor as you can sort of imagine the cat speaking in that “child like way” to explain the situation it is displayed in.

Okay. Catspeak. Saturday. LOLspeak. I’ve got it. UhHuh.

I lost my cat a few months ago, and, although I am enjoying not changing the kitty litter all the time, I think it might be time to find another kitteh to “baby talk” to…. 

HAPPY CATurday!

 

 

 

Poetry of the Heart — Ivor Steven

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To those of you who write blogs — and to those who read them — we all have a few fellow bloggers who feel like they’ve become friends too, even though we will never see them or meet them.

Ivor the poet is one of mine.  (https://ivorplumberpoet.press/)

Ivor was formerly an Industrial Chemist, then a plumber, and now writes poetry. He has gone through many trials and tribulations and heartbreaks (as have all of us) and he has found an outlet for his emotions through poetry.

Today I want to share just a couple of his short odes to life, and hope you wander over and read the magic for yourself.

 

Is There More?

Beyond my front door
Will there be more?

When the lights a dim
I quietly sit and stare
To see what is out there

Is there more?
Than starlit stairs
And when will I?
Begin the climb

Reflecting the Light (a Tanka)

The magpie’s wings glow
Under the clear twilight sky
Like the Milky Way
Decorates our universe
With incorruptible light

The Blackbird’s Domain (a Musette)

Grey sky
The wise blackbird’s
Disguise

Dark rain
His undisturbed
Domain

Bird calls
Nature’s bedtime
Soft shawls

Tit Bits #9

I’ve a red-hot poker in my belly
I’m bleeding fiery ember ashes
Choking my blackened reality
Blinded by my burning eyelashes

…….

Please don’t kick me
Pick me up, I’m free
Carry me one more mile
My stone-face will smile

…….

Green blankets everything
Under our earth’s blue sky
From here to your side

…….

May you balance like a petite ballerina
Toe-pointing your way through the tulips
May you taste fragrances of truth and pleasure
Tip-toeing gently upon your goddesses flower
Waltz Me to the Tune Of a Happy Mandolin

Open your eyes a little wider
Let your heart feel a little lighter
See the blue sky appear brighter
And there upon the ocean floats the big blue sky
Reflecting the white caps of nearby mountains
Where the melting snow feeds the oceans’ rivers
Which meander across the lands’ grassy plains

And we look to drop anchor
In the calm of a safe harbour
Away from our daily helter-skelter

Hoping to find that peaceful shelter
But a truly happy mandolin
Is soulfully played from within

A Step Beyond Shadows (a Tanka)

An archway of trees
Cast shadows over my path
The light glows brighter
As I dare to step beyond
My uncharted existence

A Flower-bed Of Dreams

The clouds parted, exposing a river bright blue
My hazy visions, suddenly became true
I’m standing in a flower-bed of dreams
I see strawberry fields covered in sun-beams
My veins feel like bubbling mountain streams
The family circle, has my heart bursting at the seams

And his first blog poem, posted in June 2017…

Liquid Joy

Tears of liquid joy.
Like rivers of fear.
The memories so clear.
And drinking plenty of cheer.
Tears of liquid joy.
Like waves from the heart.
Two great oceans apart.
And wishing for another restart.
Tears of liquid joy.
Like dredged canals of the soul.
Leaking from the broken porthole.
And wishing for a free parole.
Tears of liquid joy.
Like a flowing molten alloy.
Passing through a secret convoy.
And singing like the last choirboy.
Crying liquid joy.

 

 

My Art Gallery #2 –Fall

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Fall

 

My second piece of abstract art. This one I call Fall.

What I’ve been learning from artwork to artwork is that each one evokes different energy from me. The more I practice the better I become … which is a given for all of us. I feel I move forward every time I don’t accidentally touch the paper with a dark marker or blend and re-blend colors from pencils. 

Every piece of art is different. Every piece is a free-handed effort to turn emotions from a particular word into a design on a piece of art paper, trying not to be too obtuse or obscure. All in all it’s been a learning experience. One I’m currently addicted to…

What’s in your bag of creativity this week?

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Wayne Barlowe

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Wayne Barlowe (-1958)  is a world-renowned science fiction and fantasy author and artist who has created images for books, film and galleries and written novels, screenplays and a number of art books.Barlowe is best known for realistic paintings of surreal alien life, hellish landscapes, and esoteric landscapes,  as well as paleoart.He has painted over 300 books, magazine covers and illustrations for many major book publishers, as well as Life and Time Magazine.Barlowe has also created concept art and creature design for films such as Avatar, Harry Potter, Hellboy, and Pacific Rim. His first solo work, Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, appeared in 1979. It was filled with 150 full-color paintings depicting fifty of the most famous aliens of science fiction literature.His artwork is often done in acrylics, although he is also well known for his pencil sketches.  Barlowe has a talent for creating believable surface textures, important in creating everything from aliens to space heroes.His art spans alien worlds, alien creatures, and the realms of hell. His work portrays his imagination in painstaking detail. 

More of Wayne Barlowe’s amazing artworks can be found at https://waynebarlowe.com/.

 

 

 

 

Are You Still BoHo-ing?

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I have been toying around (AGAIN!) with becoming more “BoHo”. I know — I’m already one of those flighty wild child old ladies, but I’m always thinking of fooling around with my wardrobe so that each piece reflects the swirl circle that often pops inside of me.

The topic felt familiar, so I went back and checked out a few past BoHo blogs. 

Of course I found one.

Only written 10 years ago, it still rings true for me. And, hopefully for you, too.

Let your BoHo Out!!!

 

Old Lady BoHo

 ~ humoringthegoddess

I have finally discovered my fashion calling.  It’s calledimagesCASW5EHX BOHO CHIC.

Now, I’d never heard of this phrase before. Sitting having coffee with my oh-so-chic bestie, the word came up in conversation. So off to GoogleLand I went.

One site said Boho-Chic is “a style of female fashion drawing on various bohemian and hippie influences, which, at its height in 2004/5, was associated particularly with Sienna Miller and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.  I must admit I’ve never put Sienna in the Peace/Love/Dove generation, and, seeing as I barely know who the twin kittens are, I didn’t count much on their ideas of fashion. But with all those negative, scrub-woman adjectives, the style seemed perfect for me.

Another site said the Boho style of dress has been described as the “retro-hippie-shabby-chic.” That seems like a lot of hyphens to describe something you wear. And since I’m a little closer to the senior world, retro is relative. A third described this style as “sweet and tough, grunge meets Chanel.” Since I own a bottle of Chanel (it’s 15 years old), I would have no problem spraying some on something grungy.  I don’t mind the word “hippie,” since I always wanted to be one of those (I was much too dorky to be one).  Chic has never in my repertoire of words (or thoughts), and I still can identify with shabby.

I have always loved the Bohemian look, although I always thought it was more for young, willowy things.  But I love the idea of looking like I blew in on some oak leaf.  Boho-Chic is wild and flowy and free — something my size, wallet, and creativity can handle.

And  I mean — Fringes! Shawls! Beads!  What perfect timing! I really don’t like any of my clothes; too tight, too conservative. I’m tired of curling and fussing with my hair, and I’m too flighty to have to match shirts and pants all the time. My favorite place to shop is second hand stores.

So why can’t I start adding shawls and beading and mish-mash accessories to my every day wardrobe? I love embroidery and vests and skirts, and have been known to sit and sew beadery around necks of tops and loungewear. I love sparkly jewelry, and now that I’m older I don’t have to worry if it goes with the outfit. I have been looking for the day where the blue in my shirt doesn’t have to match the blue in my pants, and the liberating thought of wearing two different patterns — oh my word! Dare I dream?

You have to understand that the first two-thirds of my life were pretty conservative. No…boring. Vanilla. I just haven’t felt secure about myself to wear those things until right now. I have always been afraid to experiment, to be myself. Now that I’m getting older I really don’t care if I fit in with everyone else. If I don’t slip out of the box now, when will I do it?

But the thing that sealed the deal on my current Boho-Chic thing was watching American Horror Story-Coven the other night. I saw the queen of the gypsies, the gravelly voiced Stevie Nicks sing and swirl around in her beautiful flowered shawl, and I decided — I want to be her. She is 65 and still going strong. Go Your Own Way, as the song goes. Maybe I’m a few pounds heavier, and don’t have the styled hair or the great voice, but I sure can twirl in a shawl.

Let’s get boho-ing!

Love you! Happy Monday!

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Costa Magarakis

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Costa Magarakis is a Tel Aviv-based artist who takes footwear far beyond its functional purpose.His work often incorporates dark and shadowy themes, making the shoes appear more like haunting apparitions than everyday wear.His work can be expressed as a gothic wonderland illuminating the grey area between truths and lies. Different types of glass, bronze, resin, clay, paint, and other media are used to craft the pieces, typically on fiberglass structures.His heeled figurines combine mythology, religion, and science with modern symbols and icons and depict grotesque imagery of surreal machines and impossible worlds.Magarakis’ work has often been seen as a commentary on our relationship with fashion and consumerism.

By twisting a familiar object into something unsettling, he compels us to question the societal pressures surrounding footwear and appearance.

More of Costa Magarakis’ unique and wonderful shoes can be found at  https://spiderjelly.wixsite.com/costa-magarakis.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Giorgio Griffa

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Giorgio Griffa (-1936) is an Italian abstract painter living and working in Turin, Italy.Griffa never received a formal art education. He began painting as a child, taking lessons from local painters at the Circolo degli Artisti in Turin.In 1968, Griffa abandoned figurative painting in favor of a format of abstract painting that still characterizes his work to this day.His visual language is simple and universal, comprising lines, dots, geometric shapes and repeating linear patterns, which are often used alongside letters, texts or numerals.Another distinguishing feature is the artist’s preference for diluted pigments in luminous, desaturated colors.Painting with acrylic on raw un-stretched canvas, burlap and linen, Griffa’s works are nailed directly to the wall along their top edge.When not exhibited, the works are folded and stacked, resulting in creases that create an underlying grid for his compositions. In keeping with his idea that painting is “constant and never finished”, many of his works display a deliberate end-point that has been described as “stopping a thought midsentence.”

More of Giorgio Griffa’s paintings can be found at https://www.fondazionegiorgiogriffa.org/  and https://www.artnet.com/artists/giorgio-griffa/.

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Optimism

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After you have found inner peace you have endless energy — the more you give, the more you receive. After you have found your calling, you work easily and joyously. You never get tired.

Peace Pilgrim

 

 

When Do You Get Inspired?

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I have a question for all of you this cloudy, dreary morning — even you, my hundreds of friends who follow and never comment.

When do you get inspired?

Maybe not so much get inspired to “do art”, but when do you just sit and watch the world pass by and wonder if there’s meaning to all the chaos?

What kind of atmosphere do you create for yourself to mellow out, become introspective, and, if you open up a little more, get inspired to create something?

In the working world there’s little time to get inspired about anything. Whether it’s being home with your kids or working in an office or serving customers, there’s not a lot of inspiration time. And in that precious few hours/minutes that you do have, how can you choose? Read a book? Sketch a drawing? Embroider a few stitches?

Sometimes it’s just easier to turn on the TV and be numbed by the nonsense you find there.

Now that I’m retired I find my quietest inspirational moments in the morning. A cup of coffee, the dogs fed and content, hubby doing whatever someplace else, I look out the window at the bird feeder and open up my soul. One artist I’ve grown fond of is an artist on You Tube named Ophelia Wilde who plays instrumental piano, whimsical tunes with fun magical titles like “A Playlist for Living in a Little Cottage Together With Your Cat.”

She’s imaginary, too. Perfect.

Sometimes I think about some art I want to create; sometimes I think about my next blog. Sometimes I go on my laptop and find new unique artists.

Sometimes I just sit and look out the window.

I believe there is inspiration around us wherever we look. We just have to be in the right state of mind to absorb it. My inspirational times don’t last long, as reality has a way of interrupting even when you’re in the Zen. 

But at least I know I have inspirational times, and strive to return to them when I can.

Fight the murky cloudy Monday blahs and find yours, too.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Beatrix Potter

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Helen Beatrix Heelis (1866 –1943), usually known as Beatrix Potter, was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist.Potter is one of the most beloved children’s authors of all time, writing and illustrating more than 20 children’s books starring Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck and Benjamin Bunny.Potter first tasted success as an illustrator, selling some of her work to be used for greeting cards.Her most distinguishable artistic traits are well known to be the whimsical anthropomorphism that her stories surround.Studying book illustration from a young age and developing her own tastes, Potter’s earliest illustrations focused on traditional rhymes and stories like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and Puss in Boots.However, most often her illustrations were fantasies featuring her own pets: mice, rabbits, kittens, and guinea pigs.As Potter grew older, she spent her time alone learning to drawing with her eye to a microscope, and eventually developed an interest in fungi. Invited to study fungi by the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, she produced hundreds of detailed botanical drawings and investigated fungi’s cultivation and growth.

More of Beatrix Potter’s whimsical art work can be found at https://beatrixpottersociety.org.uk/ and https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/characters-of-beatrix-potter.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Look Who’s Coming!

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I feel like I’ve been on a role lately!

I’ve been hitting my artwork with fervor and enthusiasm, fixing, cleaning up, and resketching my latest art sketches. I’ve also been on a role building up artists for upcoming Sunday Galleries!

Here’s a peek at upcoming guests —

 

 

Costa Magarakis

 

Margaret Macdonald

 

Simon Beck

 

Christian Siriano

 

Cameron Limbrick

 

I hope you’re looking forward to these and other artists making their way to the Gallery!

Happy Friday!

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Otherworld

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Otherworld: a world beyond death or beyond present reality

In this small series, I tried to find original artwork with the word “Otherworld” in the title. I did not want to include art that “depicted” other worlds, as that is too wide a territory for this blog. I also tried to avoid digital art, as that is a world of art unto its own as well.

Enjoy!

 

Otherworld — Arpita Gaidhane

 

Other World II, MC Escher

 

Into the Otherworld — Ricardo Herrera

 

Otherworld — Andrew Wyeth

 

Otherworld — Cascail

 

Otherworld Signpost — Cameron Limbrick

 

The Otherworld Immersive Exhibit, Philadelphia

 

The otherworld — Jennifer Farina

 

Tropical Otherworld — Joseph Feely

 

Otherworld — Ivan Pavlenko

 

The Otherworld — James Llewellyn

 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Dinosaurs

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It’s very simple why kids are crazy about dinosaurs — dinosaurs are nature’s Special Effects.

– Robert T. Bakker, Paleontologist

 

 

 

 

Getting Older Changes Your Reality

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments


How many times have you said “I wish I knew then what I know now”?

Makes getting older sound much more appealing, doesn’t it?

It is a basic fact that older people have a larger pool of information to pull from when it comes to shaping their reality. Many years worth of pooling. 

And not all that’s drawn from the pool is useful.

Would middle schoolers benefit from the knowledge that other kids can be bullies and things brighten up once they get to high school? Would college kids be more successful if they knew the intricacies of moving up in the working world? Would millennials be better off if they realized how important health care and savings plans will be thirty years in their future?

Unfortunately, human beings learn from personal experience. Not that all personal experiences are soul building and world awakening. I have never smoked in my life but I knew then and know now how bad a habit it is. I’ve never had a broken bone nor had an emotional trauma experience before I was 25.

Does that mean I should have experienced all of the above to be a more well rounded senior adult?

When I chose the topic Getting Older Changes Your Reality I was thinking about reality from a senior point of view. My body has changed, my energy level has changed, my hormones definitely have changed, forcing me to adapt in ways I never imagined when I was 30.

These kinds of changes cannot be planned for. You can be fit all of your life and still lack energy to hike to the furthest soccer field. You could watch your sugar intake all your life and still turn into a diabetic. You could go to college and major in Anthropology just to work on computers in a bank 10 years later. (I knew someone that happened to…)

What you can Do and what you can Be changes as your reality changes. You may have wanted one child and would up with three. You may have wanted to move to Paris when you were young and still find yourself in suburbia. Often your youthful reality is not your future reality.

One pleasant surprise of my senior reality is that I’m finally getting to do some the things I wanted to do in my youthful reality. I’ve touched the Eiffel Tower and walked through Roman ruins. I’ve had wonderful grandkids who have made me feel young again (mentally, at least), and have the time to continue art art projects I started in my 20s.

I still worry about money and my health and if I’ll wake up tomorrow to enjoy another day. But those are things I have minimum control over, so I do what I can and let time take the wheel.

As you get older you find that the things you worry about today won’t matter much tomorrow. You have no say about political candidates, company policies, and illness such as cancer. You have no control over who lives and who passes on. You don’t even really know if there’s an afterlife. 

Getting older changes your reality, and you finally get that you have less control over you life than you thought. What will be will be and all that.

All you can do is choose the swirly bumpy road instead of the straight one, and see what happens.

You will wind up at the same place anyway.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Petr Axenoff

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Petr Axenoff is a jewelry designer from Moscow, Russia. Born to a photographer father and an icon-painter mother, Axenoff was immersed in a rich artistic world from a very early age and went on to study painting, architecture, ballet, theatre and historical costume.Eventually his creative and scholarly pursuits led him to pour his passions into fine jewelry and establish the Axenoff Jewelry brand.Axenoff’s intent and creative designs are intertwined with the Russian jewelry tradition of the 16th-19th centuries, as well as the beginning of the 20th century. Axenoff delicately blends modern trends with classical jewelry traditions, creating lavish jewelry designs with a deep, historical meanings.The artist uses silver and semi-precious stones such as topaz, onyx, moonstone, and lapis lazuli, along with more expensive materials such as platinum, gold, diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, all to create one-of-a-kind pieces that pay tribute to the charisma of Russia.Always beautiful and unique, “Axenoff pieces are to be enjoyed and worn as they are admired and treasured,” the designer shared.More of Pytr Axenoff’s designer jewelry can be found at The Jewelry Editor and Jewelerss. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m Okay

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 15 Comments

It’s one of those days. It’s been one of those days for the past several days.

Not much happening.  I finished my burst of artwork creativity — I’ll be posting my fabulous (???) abstract whatevers very soon. Otherwise it’s been the usual boring housework/plantwork/nothing-good-on-TV kinda week.

Do you have these kind of boring forays between bursts of creativity?

Part of me thinks I should be pumped up every day. After all, I am alive and awake every morning — a blessing, to be sure. Part of me thinks I’m over 70 and I’m entitled to slow down now and then. More now than then. Part of me wants to sleep all day.

I guess that’s what the gap between Fall and Winter is all about. That murky, cloudy, kinda rainy cold weather that creeps around before really cold weather and snow move in.

One positive achievement today is that I’ve spent the day reading others’ blogs. So many interesting wonderful people out there. That’s important these days, too.

On days like today I tend to research my ever-expanding list of unique artists that I want to share with you. The list never ends. And that’s what carries me along through these day-to-day blahs. 

Creativity — and energy — is always around the corner. Sometimes all you need to do is find it.

What are you all up to?

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Malene Hartmann Rasmussen

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 Danish artist Malene Hartmann Rasmussen works with figurative narrative sculpture and installation, creating work from individual hand-modelled ceramics and found objects.Graduating with an MA from Royal College of Art in 2011, she also studied at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Design in Denmark.Rasmussen is part of a vanguard of artists who choose not to define themselves by discipline or craft but instead blur the boundaries between Applied Art, Design and Fine Art, with exceptional handcraftsmanship at its core.The artist works with mixed media sculpture, making and arranging multiple components into complex narrative tableaux of visual excess.Rasmussen’s ornate ceramics may initially appear excessively sweet, but upon closer inspection reveal themselves as impossible and absurd objects, imbued with the artist’s own dark narrative.A recurring theme in her work is the forest and the mythological creatures that lurk in the dark woods. She weaves together notions of memories, daydreams and childhood nostalgia into a fairy-tale of her own making.“Folklore relating to Scandinavia is a great inspiration and something I have grown up with during my childhood and adolescence in my native Denmark,” says Malene Hartmann Rasmussen.“I want my work to look like a very skilled child could have made it, clumsy and elaborate at the same time. Initially the viewer may, mistakenly, be drawn to my figures thinking them to be toys; however closer examination reveals their rather darker narrative.”

More of Malene Hartmann Rasmussen’s remarkable artwork can be found at https://www.malenehartmannrasmussen.com/ and https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/malene-hartmann-rasmussen-ceramics/.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Unique Buildings #2

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

 

There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners.

~ Antoni Gaudi, Architect

 

Taj Mahal, Agra, India

 

Pavilion Of The Enlightened, Bangkok

 

Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum, Baku, Azerbaijan

 

Hohenzollern Castle, Germany

 

Russian Ministry Of Agriculture, Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia

 

Les Espaces D’abraxas, Noisy-Le-Grand, France

 

Agora Tower, Taiwan

 

L’Hemisfèric, Valencia, Spain

 

 

Unusual Buildings #1

.https://humoringthegoddess.com/2015/05/03/sunday-evening-art-gallery-unusual-buildings/…

 

 

Brave Little Leaf

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

I was sitting out on my back deck this morning and noticed this little guy hanging on from the top branch of the tree.

Brave little leaf.

Was little leaf holding on precariously or with brut strength? With rugged determination or last moment panic? Most of  little leaf’s associates had long departed for lawns and trenches and woods near and far. What was little leaf hanging on for?

Brave little leaf.

Little leaf had endured much:  blazing sun, pounding rain, thunderstorms and whipping winds. Little leaf survived birds and bugs and still hung proud and flexible in the morning sunshine.

Would little leaf hold on long enough to endure snowy winter? Mushy spring?

Brave little leaf.

Would little leaf hang on until the next generation of leaves forced leaf off the branch and into the twilight of existence? Or will the coming-of-age leaves on the branch protect and keep the leaf safe an additional season or two?

As I watched little leaf twinkle and blow in the morning breeze, I realized the leaf was going to do what we all do. Hang around until we cannot hang around any more.

That’s the best any of us can do.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Rachel Wright

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 Rachel Wright is an embroidered textile artist from  Buckinghamshire, England.Wright studied fashion and textiles at Birmingham City University and undertook both a BA and an MA course there before graduating to set up her own business in 1994.Her beautiful machine embroidery often depicts nature, and the combination of her attention to detail and artistic flair makes her work incredibly life like while elevating the subject into vivid and compelling images.The artist takes her inspiration from landscapes and cityscapes and has a particular love of the sea, harbor towns, boats and lighthouses.The shapes, colors and details of these subject matter are then borrowed and echoed in delicately hand or machine embroidered fabric collages using vibrant threads worked onto papers and fabrics.Wright usually begins with a pencil sketch straight onto the background material which is always cotton calico.From there she starts to cut and lay down little pieces of fabric, choosing carefully the appropriate pieces,  and once she’s happy she begins to stitch, sewing down the fabric scraps.Wright doesn’t use bonding or pins or any kind of glue or stabilizer. She  builds up slowly and gradually, working in small areas at a time until the piece starts to come together.

More of Rachel Wright‘s amazing embroidery can be found at https://rachelwright.com/.

 

Faerie Paths — Stars

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Star Factory Messier 17

 

Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

 

 

Art is What??

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments
Georges Seurat
Michael Hussar

I imagine I jump started your heart Sunday with the bright, bloody, curious art of Michael Hussar. It’s (hopefully) not what you’re used to waking up to, that’s for sure.

I’m not used to jump starts. I  don’t need my  blood pumping and rushing through my veins at lightning speed at 8 o’clock in the morning. 

But I came across his art some time ago and it just stuck with me. There is beauty in horror as much as in a field of flowers. Sometimes it’s hard to see the correlation — sometimes I don’t see it at all. But I know it’s there.

Again, it’s all in your perception of art.

Do you have to understand it to appreciate it? Is appreciating it the same as liking it? Do you need to know the personal history of an artist to understand their art?

I believe that knitting a shawl is art. Doing a craft in an evening class is art. Making a suncatcher from a kit is art. But is it high-end art? What makes the dot painting you just completed any different from one by Georges Seurat?

I came across a “famous” artist who is classified as an abstract artist. His work hangs in such institutions as the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, and Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Rome. They are nothing more than 3 lines of small rectangles that stop halfway through line three. Or 13 beige lines starting on the left side of a brown background and stopping half way across.

I could paint the same thing. I HAVE drawn and colored similar things. What makes his work any more museum-worthy than mine?

These are cosmic questions for another time… questions that really have no answers. So back to my opening spiel.

We all have our favorite artists and forms of art. Most we understand, others we like even though we are clueless as to why. 

Maybe liking certain art simply depends on the time of day you look at it and where you are looking at it and if you had coffee before you look at it or someone else was talking about it.

They say art is subjective. SUBJECTIVE means based on, or influenced by, personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. That tends to be all of us.

I will continue to try and be OBJECTIVE ( not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering or representing facts) in my art selections so our reactions can all be SUBJECTIVE.

Please keep checking in to see which side of the Ob/Subjective line we wander down next!

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Michael Hussar

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Michael Hussar (-1964) is an American Painter who attended the Art Center in Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.He taught Portraiture-Head Painting for almost 10 years at the same Art Center College of Design, and continues to teach portrait painting workshops in the United States and Europe.Hussar uses a combination of rococo, baroque and other classical styles combined with contemporary subject matter to create intense oil portraits.His paintings are provocative and shocking from certain angles, playing around with religious codes in a universe combining the fantastic and the horrific.Instead of canvas, Hussar prefers to work on gessoed wood panels to create paintings, as opposed to a surface mixing technique.There is an incredible beauty in the harsh colors and nightmarish realities of Hussar’s paintings, dark yet bright at the same time.Hussar describes his work as a voyeuristic snapshot of perceived humanity,  complete with “freaks and fakery; a gothic wonderland illuminating the gray area between truth and lies.”Hussar’s attachment to his paintings runs deep; each piece is a journal of sorts, allowing him to come face to face with his demons and exorcising them with each new stroke of the brush.

More of Michael Hussar’s striking paintings can be found at https://hussar.bigcartel.com/.

 

 

Where in the World Are You? (repeat with thoughts)

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

The way a squirrely mind works…

This morning I laid in bed a little longer and just looked out the window at the trees with their falling orange and brown leaves, and for some very weird reason artwork from an artist I followed popped into my head. Rising, I grabbed my cup of coffee and went to my computer to find him. 

He hadn’t posted since 2023. 

Turns out he changed his website and has gone in a different direction.

Then I thought about other blogs I followed and haven’t heard from in quite a while. 

There were a lot. And I wondered — where did they go? 

I know I wrote a blog about this sometime ago, so I typed in the word “where” in my post search. The article I was looking for didn’t show up, but this one did.

And since I also just read a disturbing quote from a political candidate, this article from 2018 suddenly became cosmically important. 

I won’t post a link — I’ll just repost it here. I hope you get it’s message.

 

Where In the World Are You?

 ~ humoringthegoddess

Today I want to show you a couple of pictures. I’d like to know what you think of them — where they’re from, what kind of people live there. Houses just down the block from you and me.

How about this one?

And a third.

Are these the homes of terrorists? Hostile Politicians?

Is the mother divorced? The father cheating on his wife? Are they Democrats? Republicans? Independents?

You see — you know nothing about the people who live in these houses. You have no idea of their problems, their dreams, their struggles. You have no idea if they’re African American or German or American Indian.

And you know what?

It shouldn’t matter.

I may be naive, but I tend to believe that most of the people in the world are good. They work, they love, they cry. They buy groceries, they take their kids to soccer, and stay awake at night.

We’ve got to get rid of this hatred of other people … hatred towards people we don’t know, never knew, or will never know. We have to fight the prejudices our parents and grandparents passed along to us. We don’t have to LOVE each other, but we certainly don’t need to HATE each other either.

Let them plant their flowers, mow their lawns, and wish upon a star at night. They deserve that chance free of hatred. So do we.

As for the pictures…?

The first one is from Poland, the second Greece, and the last Australia. All done with Google Earth.

Right down the road….

 

 

Happy Halloween! (repost from Eat With an Artist)

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Anne Fisher always combines the best backgrounds with the best — and sometimes outrageous — objects to make a fun, simple blog. Go have some fun!  Eat With an Artist

 

Pumpkin and ginger cookies with Anonymous

Anne Fisher

Inspired by a 1908 Victorian Halloween Card, Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd

 

https://eatwithanartist.wordpress.com/2024/10/31/pumpkin-and-ginger-cookies-with-anonymous/

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Clara Holt

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Clara Holt is a ceramic artist from Milan, Italy, specializing in illustrated tiles, wheel-thrown pots, and and ceramic projects.

Holt’s work focuses on storytelling, the ongoing impulse to tell and convey stories, characters, and experiences.

Each piece tells its own story, illustrated with a drawing inspired by places, mythology or childhood stories.

Holt carefully incises shallow cuts out of the smooth surface of a glazed pot, revealing the outlines of figures, animals, plants, and landscapes.Some pieces are decorated with the sgraffito technique, applying a layer of colored slips to leather hard pottery and then scratch off parts of the layer to create contrasting images, patterns and texture and reveal the clay color underneath.Other pieces are handmade and bisque fired, then decorated using oxides and pigments which are glazed and refired again to make them water safe and food safe.More of Clara Holt’s amazing pottery can be found at https://claraholt.com/.

 

 

 

 

Rah! Rah!

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 9 Comments

I am hoping that by now you have jumped off that fence and landed onto the field of Creativity. That you have decided to try something new and/or different and/or advanced in your field.

I know I’m a weirdy, but since I started my pencil/gel pen art I have been in such a great mood. I’m pumped up to the tree tops! Every new art piece is different, yet stays within the parameters that I set for myself.

The parameters are pretty solid, but they are so flexible I often don’t see them. A certain theme for each piece, the use of only colored markers and glitter gel pens, the size of the paper, a certain repetition in each piece … blah blah. The rest is whatever hits me at the moment.

I am now even able to weave a mistake into the general design. How cool is that?

I know a lot of you find time to squeeze in a little Art time. For others there’s almost no hole to squeeze into. Then why do I keep pushing Creativity down your throats?

Because getting lost in Art is the only time no one can tell you what to do. It’s you and your craft. No one to tell you you’ve colored out of the lines or missed a stitch or that your squares are crooked. You find a mistake, you flow with it. You find a new twist, you go with it.

YOU go with it. Not because your teacher or hubby or sister-in-law told you to go with it.

There’s a lot of noise out there. A lot of sad things we can do nothing about. But we CAN do something about how we feel inside. We can find a way to express ourselves no matter what our beliefs and origins and talents are.

Do it. Find a half hour or an hour or half a day and just EXPLORE this wonderful world we live in. And share it! Don’t let it gather dust in a corner underneath a month’s worth of laundry or old newspapers.

And, oh — by the way — I’m still waiting to hear from you other thousands of Creativity lovers about what Art you’re doing or thinking about.

Let’s encourage each other!

Rah! Rah!

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Kites

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 9 Comments

 

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
~ Lauren Bacall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Dale Dunning

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Ontario-based artist Dale Dunning combines typography and sculpting to create his intricately welded bronze and aluminum sculptures.Dunning earned his BFA at Mt. Allison University in New Brunswick and his MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.The artist explores a variety of materials – bronze and aluminum casting, welded screws and wrenches, typeset, cable – all in the interest of creating the form of a mask.His creations vary in texture, whether they are presenting a grid of fonts or a meld of thousands of bolts, screws, and washers.Dunning focuses on the head without the distraction of limbs and the rest of the body because the head itself is an emblem of the mind.‘The head that I employ in most of my work is generic, non-specific, genderless, egg-like in form and intention,” Dunning shares.“I look on them as a mirror which reflects back the observer’s experience in new combinations and associations. The works are open ended with no didactic intent other than to see new possibilities.”

More of Dale Dunning’s amazing sculptures can be found at https://daledunning.net/.

 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Paintings

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Time extracts various values from a painter’s work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

~ Henri Matisse

 

 

Things I Learned Hanging With “the Guys”

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 16 Comments

 Home after almost two weeks of hanging with “the guys” … my husband, his best friend, my son, his best friend, and another newbie. I started sketching; they fished. I did some proofreading of an old novel; they fished. I played video games or watched movies on my iPad; they fished.

You get my drift.

I learned a lot about myself on these long days of self-entertainment:

  • Trader Joe’s little exotic meals (for lunch) aren’t as exciting as they lead on to be. My own pasta carbonara is much better….
  • The supposed “sex” scene in my novel really has suddenly put me off. It was well written and said a lot without saying ANYTHING, yet I found the whole section not really relevant to the rest of the tale. I wonder what that says about me….
  • I should have bought quality sketch paper and colored pencils and gel pens to my art fest. Now that I’m really into it and want to do more, I realize I should have bought quality supplies instead of colored pencils that have been in a Ziploc baggie for ages…..
  • Coming up with abstract ways to display common words has been fun and challenging. Never thought I had it in me…..
  • I enjoyed being alone 8 hours a day without having to think about laundry, dusting, dirty dishes, or a hundred other household chores watching my every move…..
  • If I decide to do this again next year I will need a car at my disposal. There were second hand stores, art studio tours and Dairy Queens waiting for me to visit….
  • Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu are poor substitutes for 1940s Film Noirs on You Tube…..

How have your past couple of weeks been?

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Richard Mayhew

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Richard Mayhew (1924 – 2024) was an American landscape painter, illustrator, and arts educator of Native and African American descent.Mayhew studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the Art Students League of New York, and Columbia University. His abstract landscapes, which he called mindscapes, convey inner states and feelings through evocative color, diffused forms, and atmospheric space.These mindscape paintings have an ethereal quality to them, in which swaths of color blend into each other.At times, they are electric shocks of violet, magenta, neon green, pink, and goldenrod, resembling negatives for color photographs. In other canvases, they are hazier tones of the same shade that bleed into each other.Mayhew intersected with two midcentury art movements: Abstract Expressionism, which upended the very concept of what a painting could be, and the creation of the Spiral Group, a small but influential New York collective of African American artists that sought a new Black aesthetic.These dialogues solidified his commitment to exploring abstraction and landscape painting in conjunction with race and identity.In the decades since, Mayhew lived, painted, and taught throughout the country including in New York, Pennsylvania and California.

More of Richard Mayhew’s colorful paintings can be found at https://www.richardmayhew.net/.

 

 

 

Being Bored is Never a Problem — 24 Hours Is

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For the last 20-25 years, being bored has never been a problem for me.

I was always writing something, sewing beads on something, reading something — the twirly list goes on and on. A lot of the time the craft that busied me one week got left behind the next, but Art in general and Creativity specifically has never really left me.

To be honest, I don’t have it in me anymore to write a 300 page novel; the research and discipline needed just isn’t as crack high as it used to be. But I am still reproofing (and rewriting) a couple of novel series that I may attempt to get published one day. 

I’m also trying to read the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Gertrude Stein) and the Godfather (Mario Puzo).

I’ve also want to take up drawing again.

Being in a house/cabin with full time fishermen can drive a Creative Sprite like me crazy if I didn’t have something to do. Supplies (both brought and left behind up here) have taken me to a new creative place.

ARTIST FRIENDS: Maybe you can give me an idea as to what to call it.

I’m sketching abstract designs (see Look Out Wassily Kandisky — Here I Come!), all with a common denominator (or two). Otherwise they are their own interpretation of the name of the work. Storm, Saturday, Loss.

I do find the more I work on them, the more coherent they become. Thoughts and ideas that did not appear at first sketch have worked their way onto the paper. And what I thought was a challenge (colored pencils vs. watercolor paints) has turned out to be a gift in its own medium.

I know I preach Creativity in Life ad nauseum, but I encourage you to listen to that little fluttering in the depths of your mind and/or soul and go for it. You will find whatever craft and whatever medium you choose to be addicting, along with frustrating, cerebral, and exciting. What more could you ask for?

Which makes me wish there were more than 24 hours in a day.

Some preliminary sketches:

 

Add some spice to your life! And be sure to share your excitement with me!

 

 

 

 

Don’t Let Your Mind Be a Garbage Dump

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

A funny thing happened when I stopped getting (my version of) obsessed with the day-to-day antics of politics.

I felt better.

I’m not really into politics … I know how things work and how they affect me. I have thoughts and opinions and do what I can to promote my version of harmony and fair play. 

I don’t even know how I let myself get so involved.

To me, political rhetoric is like potato chips…. you can’t eat/ listen to just one. Conversations and quotes get so wild and carried away that you have no idea where it’s all coming from. And, just like potato chips, you can’t eat/listen to just one.

It’s kinda like Facebook or Reddit. Some aren’t satisfied just presenting different opinions. They have to present or respond in a confrontational or obnoxious way, guaranteed to rattle quite a few brains and anger even more. Here in the good ‘ol U. S. of A., politicians are not satisfied to merely respond or accuse. It’s now a case of making up stories and ignoring truths. It’s rude and ignorant and downright mean.

I am a person who hates rude and ignorant and mean. And the more I read the more upset I get. 

I’ve gotta find a way to stop listening and reacting to this verbal trash. It’s not good for my blood pressure nor my good nature. It’s all nonsense anyway, spoken to get a reaction. 

MY reaction.

I think the key to a longer, healthy life is to stop listening to garbage. Garbage rhetoric, garbage television, garbage podcasts. Not just in the world of politics, but in all world interactions. It does nothing but pump us up into a mist of brainlessness.

There is not much you can do to change the world. One against a billion are not great odds. Vote, yes. Explain, yes. Then move on.

I’m not saying spend your spare time watching documentaries and reading literary fiction. What I am saying is spend your spare time learning something positive. Learning and sharing. Something that doesn’t hurt other people. Something that makes your life easier and happier. Or makes someone else’s life easier and happier. Something that helps you understand or create or forgive.

As Joyce Meyer once said, “Don’t just let the devil use your mind as a garbage dump.”

I hear ya.

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Unusual Jewelry

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

Anyone can make odd jewelry. The word “unconventional” can walk side by side with “contemporary”, “strange”, and “designer” quite easily. It may consist of necklaces made of eyeballs or copper cut at strange angles. That’s not quite what I was looking for.

The pieces I chose were classic in their own way:  different but smart. Uncommon yet familiar. I hope you enjoy their uniqueness just as I did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look Out Wassily Kandisky — Here I Come!

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

I have comfortably settled into my Hanging Out With the Guys” gig. I have sketched trees, read books, found suitable creative music, taken charming photos, fetched the dog in the lake, and gotten a sore throat.

Now I’m ready for the real stuff.

Wassily Kandinsky is an artist famous for his Concentric Circles paintings. Loved his work. He seems to have won out as the biggest influencer of my future Art discoveries.

My goal this fine Friday morning is to start to create a series of circle paintings of my own. I’m thinking six to eight in the series, all based on a circle and a background and a title.

How Picasso-ish I feel!

These creations will not have the luxury of watercolor or oil paints or stretched canvas background., Glitter pens are in my forefront, along with plain markers and colored pencils. The designs will all be different, with a singular thread connecting them all.

These drawings will not win any prizes at the art fair; they won’t be on the cover of magazines or make the circle of modern art studios.

But they will be fun, and they will be mine.

I’ve been wanting to break out into another Creative field for some time now. My backups are still there – writing and crafting and rock painting, all fighting to be first in line behind me. But now (at least for the next two weeks) they’ll have to take their place behind a gel pen painters dream.

I’ll show you the paintings in a few weeks if they merit viewing.

If not, there’s always making homemade spaghetti sauce to fall back on …

 

 

I Am a Fan of Top __ Lists Part 2

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Back on June 18, 2022 I wrote a blog titled “I Am a Fan of Top __ Lists“ which was a real show stopper. (*cough*). So since I am in an irreverent mood this fine day I thought I’d add to this marvelous list. Please note: Top Lists are as varied as those who write them. (I’ve linked the lists to where I found the statistics … such as they are …)

 

Largest Abandoned Cities in the World

1.  Craco, Italy

2.  Pyramiden, Norway

 

Most Expensive Fruits in the World

1.  Rare Kanyao Durian – $47,990 Each

2.  Yubari King Melon – $45,500 Per Pair

 

Most Commonly Mispronounced Words in American English

1.  GIF  (Proper pronunciation is: J-IFF)

   2.  Mischievous  (Proper pronunciation is: MIS-CHUH-VUS)

 

Most-visited museums in 2023

1.  Louvre,  Paris France (8,900,000)

2.  Vatican Museums, Vatican City, Rome Italy (6,800,000) 

 

Top Grossing Movies of 2023

  1.  Barbie ($636,225,983)

2. The Super Mario Brothers Movie ($574,934,330)

 

Top Grossing Movies of 1953

1.  Peter Pan ($60,087,855)

2.  The Robe ($36,000,000)

 

Top 10 Universities in America

1.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Cambridge, United States

2.  Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

 

Most Expensive Bicycles In The World

1.  Trek Butterfly Madone – $500,000

2.  Trek Yoshimoto Nara – $200,000

 

Most expensive desserts in the World

1.  Runway Cake, Debbie Wingham, ($74 million)

2. Strawberries Arnaud, Arnaud’s Restaurant, New Orleans ($9.85 million)

 

Largest Birds in the World

1.  Common Ostrich (up to 346 pounds)

2. Somali Ostrich (looks like bird above: up to 237 pounds)

3.  Southern Cassowary (up to 187 pounds)

 

Most Popular Card Games in the World

1.  Bridge, estimated 500 million people worldwide.

2.   Poker, with over 100 million players globally.

 

Most Popular Colors Worldwide

1.  Blue (#1E90FF)

2.  Red (#FF0000)

 

Most Popular Dog Breeds

1.  French Bulldog

2.  Labrador Retriever

 

Most Expensive LEGO sets you can buy today

1.  Millennium Falcon (7,541 Pieces), $849 +/-

 

2.  Star Wars AT-AT Walker (6,785 pieces) $849 +/-

 

Rarest Cactus in the World

1.  Discocactus subterraneo-proliferans ( Extinct in the wild, Fewer than 50 in private collection)

2.  Florida semaphore cactus   Near Extinction Fewer than 20

 

Whew! That was a lot of research!

 

 

Hanging Out With the Guys

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments


I am getting ready to go on an adventure. Hope I return in one piece.

Seems like I’ve been jet setting around lately, but I really haven’t. I’ve stayed local (except for the trip to Europe last spring). This time I’m taking my life — and health — into my own hands.

I’m going up north for two weeks with the “guys”. The guys are mostly grandpas and sons, not necessarily related. They are the primitive side of the bunch… hunters, fishermen, mechanics.. all that. The first week and a half is a fishing adventure, the last half a closing of the cabin.

This time around I’m letting them do it all THEIR way. Cooking, packing, meal planning, laundry — everything that usually relies on a female to complete. I decided to be merely a spectator, staying out of the way and letting them run the cabin the way they want to.

This extravaganza lasts two weeks, and I’d like not to be alone all that time if I can help it. They all jollily told me to come with, so, packing up my stuff along with my two dogs, I’m going.

I’ll actually be by myself from sunrise to close to sunset, and I’m ready for that. Sketch pads, coloring books, gel pens, reading books, manicure set, Downton Abbey DVDs, books to edit — I’m bringing it all, along with my computer, iPad, phone, and snacks.

It will be interesting to see 3-5 men planning two weeks of breakfasts and dinners. I bought a few unique meals for lunch when I’m by myself, but the rest will be left to a tired crew coming home from a long day of fishing. 

We’ll see if the atmosphere is conducive to Creativity. It certainly will be conducive to experimentation …..

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Holly Coulis

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Holly Coulis (1968-) is a Canadian painter from Toronto, Canada.Coulis received her BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto, Canada) in 1995 and her MFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA) in 1998.Coulis is an artist whose work investigates painterly space.Through her observations of everyday life, her intuitive, yet calculated, visual language creates images that oscillate between symbols and abstraction.Coulis builds abstraction using both her observations of everyday objects and the movement of her brush itself. Working from initial sketches, Coulis first creates space through brushy lines and defined areas of applied paint, each outlined in color. She then further divides up areas and circumscribes forms.The result is abstracted composition intersecting with the odd still-life object – a lemon or an orange perhaps.More of Holly Coulis’ marvelous abstract artwork can be found at https://whitewall.art/art/holly-coulis-shows-us-how-to-look-closer/ and https://coopercolegallery.com/artist/holly-coulis/.

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Hummingbirds

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

 

Like the hummingbird sipping nectar from every flower, I fly joyfully through my days, seeing beauty in everything.

~ Amethyst Wyldfyre

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Okuda

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

Okuda  is a Spanish painter, designer and sculptor whose work is defined as pop surrealism.Oscar San Miguel or Okuda San Miguel was born in Santander in 1980 and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Madrid’s Complutense University. Okuda’s work can be classified as pop surrealism with a clear essence of street or urban art.His artwork is composed of geometric prints and multicolored ephemeral architectures that help blend with grey bodies and organic forms.He started with graffiti on walls and trains, but little by little his style evolved to a major point. Now it is common to see his enormous works in some buildings around all continents, as well as exhibitions in different places.

He is often inspired by his environment, the people around him, cinema, fashion, ear music, traveling, and his everyday life.Okuda concludes that his major accomplishments lie in having the freedom to travel around the world creating his best works of art alone, working, and the living experiences with other artists from different cultures.More of Okuda’s bright, colorful work can be found at https://okudasanmiguel.com/.

 

 

Creativity Can Be Exhausting

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

Another Art and Craft Fair in the books, and a good time was had by all.

I popped up my craft booth (after a hefty entrance fee) two blocks from one of the biggest food and music fests in Wisconsin, and sold my wares while chatting the day away.

It’s a big step from putting together crafts in your basement/library/work room to showing them off in a 10 x 10 booth in front of thousands of wanderers.

You can’t help but be filled with apprehension, self-doubt, fear, terror, and everything in between. People will love your art; people will hate your art. People will see every flaw and  crooked stone or bent edge or stray brush stroke. Your asking price is too high. Your asking price is too low.

You may believe in everything you created, but the world may not.

What then?

Outlay for a possible craft show is quite surprising up front. Materials, labor, advertising, transportation, tables, stands, all chip away at your pocketbook without one thing being sold. Can you afford the upfront costs? What will you do if your inventory outpaces your sales? Will you take orders? Make a variety of items or just one or two styles? Do you charge sales tax? Do you have business cards? Price tags? 

What if a customer wants what you don’t have?

What if a customer doesn’t want what you have?

That’s the excitement and unpredictability of Creativity. To make or not to make. To give away or sell. If you love what you’re doing you’ll always have too much of it sooner or later. I mean, how many knitted scarves or coffee mugs can you hold onto? How many Angel Tears Suncatchers can I hang on my back and front deck before I blind the neighbors?

I find you have to have an easy-going personality to take the highs and lows of salesmanship, along with a belief in your own work and worth. Making something special to share with others is a challenging foray into the Creative World. It’s planning, a bit of accounting, checking out current art and craft trends, and hoping the booth next to you isn’t selling the same thing.

It’s also the thrill of talking to people who stop by and look at your wares. The fun of listening to their stories and sharing yours. It’s the experience of someone saying how beautiful your work is, even if they don’t buy anything. It’s taking this year’s wares and adding new styles and accessories to the pot. It’s dreaming about making a few dollars on something that gave you such joy to make.

If you’ve thought about showing your wares, do it. If you don’t want to go that far, that’s okay too. Make your creative time mean something. To you, to others.

And don’t worry if it takes you a few days to recuperate.

I’ll be happy if I’m back in shape by November…..

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Levina Teerlinc

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Levina Teerlinc (1510 – 1576) was a Flemish Renaissance miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.Teerlinc played an essential role in the artistic history of the Tudor court, yet she is rarely mentioned compared to other Tudor artists.Not only was it easy for a woman artist to be overlooked throughout history, but the circumstances surrounding her work made it incredibly hard for art historians to attribute her work correctly.She was one of the most well-documented artists at court in miniature painting, providing at least eight portraits of Elizabeth I in the years between 1559 and 1575.Though much of her work is lost, she must have been a highly prominent artist to receive an invitation from the King of England and become one of the highest-paid artists of the English court throughout the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I.Unfortunately, no surviving work has been firmly attributed to Teerlinc. A great deal of effort has gone into identifying surviving miniatures with those described in the New Year’s gift lists, but there are no certainties.Nonetheless, there is nothing wrong with bringing out the fine art of miniatures in the Tudor dynasty, Teerlinc being one of its largest contributors.

More of Levina Teerlinc’s miniatures and story can be found at https://www.thecollector.com/levina-teerlinc-tudor-woman-artist/ and https://artherstory.net/levina-teerlinc/.

 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Creativity

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I heard this song the other day — the first time in a long, long time. It sums up the world of Creativity perfectly….

Supernova explosion, M74 galaxy, NASA

 

 

Leave your cares behind come with us and find
The pleasures of a journey to the center of the mind

Come along if you care
Come along if you dare
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind

Beyond the seas of thought beyond the realm of what
Across the streams of hopes and dreams where things are really not

Come along if you care
Come along if you dare
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind

But please realize you’ll probably be surprised
For it’s the land unknown to man

Where fantasy is fact
So if you can, please understand
You might not come back

Come along if you care
Come along if you dare
Take a ride to the land inside and you’ll see

How happy life could be if all of mankind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind

Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind
Center of the Mind


Journey to the Center of Your Mind

Steve Farmer
Amboy Dukes — 1968

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Chris Gryder

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Chris Gryder began his exploration of art by studying architecture.A sincere and dedicated commitment to the subject led to his acquaintance with artists, methods, and concepts that later became the inspiration for his work in sculpture and clay.Gryder enrolled in Tulane University’s five-year architecture program  at the Architecture School at Tulane, then did graduate work at Rhode Island School of Design.The most striking aspect of his art making, blossoming during his graduate years, is the atypical process he uses to create vessels.“Earth forming,” Gryder’s own signature technique, involves carving intricate one-off molds out of an earthen mix of sand and clay. These fragile earthen “form works” last only long enough to cast his clay vessels and tiles.

Over a period of a week, the sand mold dries and begins to dissolve, allowing the clay piece to be excavated and eventually fired.

The technique is uniquely adapted to forming rich bas-relief surfaces, a sort of “dimensional drawing” technique that combines attributes of both image making and sculpture.

The surface is rough, like sand, with peculiar gatherings of hardened sediment tucked into the tight spaces between forms.

“I create sculptural ceramic objects that engage with a deep sense of time and history; a geological time and the time of civilizations,” Gryder shares.

“There is a visceral joy, a complete indulgence in tactile geometric form that evokes a world where wonder still reigns. A place at the edge of the wild.”

More of Chris Gryder’s unique work can be found at https://www.chrisgryder.com/.

 

 

 

Proof

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There is a lot of horrible, depressing news out there today.

Actually, there’s been horrible, depressing news out there all my life. If it wasn’t the Vietnam it was Gaza. If it wasn’t Chernobyl it was Sandy Hook. If it wasn’t the Manchu Conquest of China it was World War II.

There has always been horrible people in the world, and there will always be horrible people in the the world. No amount of training, upbringing, therapy or cuddling will change that.

But as I watched my grandson’s soccer game Saturday, a different point of view came to mind.

Soccer teams always line up after games and stand in line and put their hands out and walk past the other team, slapping their hands and say “Good Game.” Doesn’t matter if they mean it or not; a loss stings and a win elevates. I watched the two coaches shake hands before and after the game.

Brutal football games usually end with teams mingling with the opposition, shaking a hand or hugging or just passing a nod between them. Last week I watched a car stop in the middle of the road and pick up a turtle that was sloooowly crossing the road and put him on the other side. I read in my local town FB page where somebody was shopping at Walmart and digging for change to fill out her bill and couldn’t find any and the person behind her paid for her groceries.

When I see and hear things like this I know that love is not dead. That for all the nonsense that makes the pages there are hundreds and thousands of good people out there, trying to just get by, making kind gestures and laughing and hugging others for unknown reasons.

I was never in competitive sports, but I don’t ever remember slapping hands with an opposing team and saying “Good Game.” Maybe in a Catholic grade school they said “God Bless.” I doubt it, but it’s a heartening thought.

Don’t be afraid to smile at someone. Tell them good game or that you like their dress or shoes. I often say that to outfits that catch my eye, and the recipient is always surprised and smiling in return. I shout “great shot” when the opposite team scores a goal on us and pick up items that people drop and hand them back to them.

It’s not hard.

And you will definitely leave the world a better place than you found it.

Good Game!!

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Henri Matisse

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Henri Matisse (1869 -1954), one of the undisputed masters of 20th century art, was a French artist, known for his use of color and his fluid and original draughtsmanship.He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Painting in the style that came to be known as Fauvism, Matisse continued to emphasize the emotional power of sinuous lines, strong brushwork and acid-bright colors. Matisse’s work delighted and surprised his viewers with signature elements of saturated colors, flattened pictorial space, limited detail, and strong outlines. From 1918 to 1930, he most frequently painted female nudes in carefully staged settings within his studio, making use of warm lighting and patterned backgrounds. He also worked extensively in printmaking during these years.His mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.

More of Henri Matisse’s famous works can be found at https://www.henrimatisse.org/ and https://www.biography.com/artists/henri-matisse.

 

 

Realigning and Refocusing

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Most people try to refocus and realign themselves on a Monday morning, usually after a long weekend of partying, traveling, or soccer games.

I am trying to refocus and realign myself on a Friday.

Good luck.

I have just returned from five days of camping, of which I alluded to in a previous blog (Which Time/Space Continuum Am I In?) Well, now I’m here, it’s Friday, I’ll be proofreading this today, publishing it today, and realigning myself with it today.

It’s funny how, no matter how you spend a smattering of days, you seem to find solace back in doing your crafts. That no matter how crazy your day/week/month has been, you can always find solace and comfort in your Creativity.

You don’t need to sit down and write a novel or cast a piece of pottery. Nor do you need to tackle War and Peace or carve a statue out of wood. All you need sometimes is to lose yourself in what makes you happy. Read an article or sort some beads or doodle some wild crazy drawing. It doesn’t matter how you reconnect, as long as you reconnect.

Of course, reconnecting could also mean talking to someone you’ve been missing, texting a friend, or pulling out an old recipe and cooking it. I love doing all those things, especially when I need to reconnect to the world I love.

For me, though, writing always calls me back. It has for over 30 years. Something about the written word — finding the right written word — makes me realign my chakras and energy bloops and confusing thoughts into one coherent line.

I’m psyched up about bring out more Sunday Evening Art Galleries — I’ve got so many new and odd and beautiful art and artists to showcase. I look forward to reading your blogs and encouraging you whenever I can.

And even if you don’t connect to this outside world often, I look forward to hanging with you on some astral plane somewhere, talking art and food and movies.

I mean, after all, we’re all connected one way or another, right?

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Castles

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Castles are not merely relics of the past; they are enduring symbols of medieval architecture, power, and the social hierarchy that defined an era.

https://www.medieval-castles.org/castles/

 

Balmoral Castle. Aberdeenshire, Scotland

 

Burg Rappottenstein, Lower Austria

 

Gyantse Dzong Castle, Tibet

 

Biltmore Estate, North Carolina, USA

 

Château de Chambord, France

 

Boldt Castle, New York, USA

 

Palace of Versailles. France

 

Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria

 

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey

 

Sidon Sea Castle, Lebanon

 

Cinderella Castle, Florida, USA

 

 

Faerie Paths — Magic Door

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Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a last kingdom of peace.

~ Eugene O’Neil

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — John Lemke

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Last week we talked about AI Art — Artificial Intelligence Art.

Whether we think it is “real” art or not will be debated for some time. Some of it is beautiful and intriguing, combining a plethora of ideas into a single artwork. Other AI Art is more enhancement, toying with an original idea and making it your own. 

I wanted to show you some of the AI art my friend John Lemke has created. He is a gifted artist with pen and paper and a camera as well. Creativity starts in the mind first. These pictures are a natural progression and outgrowth of that creativity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which Time/Space Continuum Am I In?

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Sometimes I love the way time messes with you.

At this very moment it is Thursday: sun shining, plants digging the weather, cafe jazz music in the background, sitting outside on the deck with my dogs, typing away on my computer sitting on an old glass top table with a cup of coffee nearby.

But when you read this I will be camping up North with some good friends, no Wi Fi on the computer, commuting with nature and a tiny camper and hopefully a Bloody Mary to go with my camping breakfast.

Where am I, really?

If I proofread this once more before I send it, I will have to fix something that was created back in time. Today I’m daydreaming of quiet times and good friends, but when I read this next week my daydreaming of quiet times and good friends will have already happened.

My past will become my present and soon after my future. Which inevitably will become my past.

I believe in trying to make every present moment something to remember. Boring jobs, exciting moments, melancholy memories, all make us who we are and who we will be. We’ll never pass this way again and all that.

I could spend my now time griping about the upcoming Presidential election or my bank account being overdrawn. Just as I could relive the loss of my son or the cat we just put to sleep.

The past can be a creepy place, but it is also a cauldron of future emotions and experiences. The ingredients you add now will make a difference in your future stew.

When I look back I prefer to relive the good times. The loving times. The laughing times. When I look into the future I prefer to anticipate the good times. The loving times. The laughing times.

That’s why it doesn’t matter where you are at any point in the Space/Time Continuum. You are here and there and everywhere. And so is everyone else.

Connect. And revel in that connection.

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Exploration

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It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.

~ Ernest Shackleton

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Wayne Thiebaud

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Morton Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021) was an American painter and printmaker who was perhaps best known for his thickly painted American still lifes of such items as foods and cosmetics.He enrolled at San Jose State College (now San Jose State University) in 1949 before transferring to Sacramento State College (now California State University, Sacramento), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1951 and a master’s degree in 1952.He is recognized as one of the major American art figures of the second half of the 20th century, although his rich and luminous depictions of midcentury Americana separated him from the classic Pop Art of the time.Thiebaud is associated with the pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture; his early works were executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predating the works of classic pop artists.Thiebaud was more often than not absorbed in traditional problems of painting — how to create depth without sacrificing the two-dimensionality of painting and how objects relate to one another.Through seemingly simple still lifes, Thiebaud evokes stories of plenty and loss, prompting an emotional response from the viewer that is absent in Pop Art.His successful paintings were mainly based on food and sweets such as pies, cakes and suckers, which were considered a luxury by him at that time.The artist worked from life, not from media images, and his engagement was evident in his loose brushstroke, whereas a hard-edge painting style, signifying mechanical reproduction, was preferred by some.Thiebaud used heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements were almost always included in his work.More of Wayne Thiebaud’s enchanting paintings can be found at https://www.wikiart.org/en/wayne-thiebaud and https://www.theartstory.org/artist/thiebaud-wayne/.

 

 

To This Day … Never Forget

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Last photograph of the last run of Ladder 118 as it crosses the Brooklyn Bridge. None of the firefighters would survive.

 

Stirring the Pot

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Mary Delany

Are you stirring your Creative Pot these days?

How’s that going for you?

I chuckle to myself — for someone who promotes letting your inner creative muse out whenever you turn around, I seem to be slipping and sliding my way through September.

Let me ask you first off — do you feel creative every day?

Those of you whose art is your income, are you pumped up to create every day?

I know one cannot be on a creative high day in and day out. Being stung with the creative bee doesn’t quite work when you’re picking your kids up from school or sitting at a desk working all day.

I have written a few blogs during my bloglife talking about getting hit by my creative muse while driving or falling asleep. That doesn’t work, either. One of my first blogs was about my Irish Muse popping in with ideas at the most inopportune times.

When the high is gone the high is gone. At least for the moment.

And I know we can’t be inspired every time we fold laundry or go grocery shopping. I’d certainly burn out by the time I walked down my 3rd grocery aisle.

I also wonder if this slowdown has anything to do with my age. Grandma Moses started painting in her late seventies after she retired from her farming duties. After the death of her second husband when she was 68 years old, Mary Delany focused on making intricate paper cutouts of plants and flowers to help her cope with the loss. These cutouts were so exquisite that they are now part of the British Museum’s collection.

So age doesn’t necessarily correlate to being creative.

I think that, for me, Creativity still knocks at my door. And continues to knock until I at least open it. Then it’s up to me whether or not I want to let it in or ask it to come back next week.

Pay attention to those bursts of light and inspiration when they hit you. If you can’t act on what you think is a great idea, write it down. You’ll come back to it. No matter how busy you are or how alone you are, Creativity will fine you and inspire you.

I mean, look — I just got inspiration for two new art galleries!

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Nik Ramage

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Nik Ramage is a contemporary kinetic artist from the United Kingdom.Through an melding of arbitrary objects, Ramage creates surrealistic machines that have little plausible use.Some works of art are hard for us to comprehend, yet Ramage’s collages of materials beckon us to stay a while and wonder.With a professional background in graphic design, Ramage describes himself as a lifelong tinkerer, and is self-taught in machine mechanics and soldering.He sources objects for his sculptures from junk stores and street sales, keeping new parts to a minimum.Each work embraces paradox and absurdity; they seem absurd with their eccentricity and quirks, but they run by their own rational logic.Strange and almost believable, Rampage creates objects you can almost see working.

More of Nik Ramage‘s oddly amazing works can be found at https://nikramage.com/.

 

 

 

 

Maybe Now … Maybe Soon!

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I don’t usually repost memes/pictures/whatevers from my Facebook account, but I read this the other day and I thought, “Hey! That’s ME!” 

No matter what your age, it might be you too!

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Andriy and Olesya Voznicki

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Ukrainian artists Andriy and Olesya Voznicki create voluminous ceramic vessels and sculptures.Forced to recently flee their home in Ukraine and relocate to the Netherlands, the Voznickis began to create ceramic pieces using locally-sourced materials. Based in Amsterdam, the duo draw inspiration from natural phenomena like the changing seasons, patinas and aging, and elements like fire or earth.Their focus is heavily on experiments combining ceramics with wood and coal.The pieces mirror the shapes and textures of boulders or lava rock, suggesting both beauty and resiliency and influenced by a concept called bionic design, which mimics characteristics and adaptations in nature.The hallmark of these creations lies in their texture, roughness, cracks, and irregularities, embodying a deep appreciation for the natural process of expression.The anomalies that emerge during creation are welcomed, imbuing the work with a unique charm, untamed beauty, and singular character. Rather than increasing production volumes, we aim to make each product as individual as possible.More of Andriy and Olesya Voznicki’s wonderfully unique sculptures can be found at https://naturaceramica.com/ and Homo Faber. 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Bluegrass

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There’s a roots nature to Appalachia – the origins of folk and bluegrass. I know guys there who are some of the best players I’ve ever heard but are playing on their porch tonight because they’ve never chased success. There’s simplicity to how they live and what they care about.

~ Eric Church

 

 

 

Is AI Art Art?

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This past weekend I got into (albeit short) conversation with my artist friend John about artificial intelligence art. He is a graphic artist by trade, but his talents  burst through pen and ink drawings and nature photography as well.

He posted a number of AI pieces of art on his Facebook account, and I thought they were amazingly creative. Something I could post in my Art Gallery. He told me he had hundreds of other creations; that he has so much fun creating his images but it’s not art. Or should I say Art. 

So I wandered through the wilds of the Internet and asked, “Is AI Art Really Art?”

As many answers as questions, it seems.

Tech Target defined AI as, “AI art (artificial intelligence art) is any form of digital art created or enhanced with AI tools. Though commonly associated with visual art — images and video, for example — the term AI art also applies to audio compositions, including music. AI art allows anyone to create works or even entire collections of art, but in a small fraction of the time non-AI methods afford. In addition, AI art can create visual or audio compositions that would be difficult to create otherwise. With text-to-image generative AI tools, such as Dall-E or Stable Diffusion, humans no longer need to attempt to draw the image they want; they simply type a text prompt into the tool, which generates the desired imagery.”

I got mental brain freeze by then, so I stepped back and wondered in my own off-center way.

Is Artificial Intelligence Art really art? Does AI need a creator to make it create? Or do you set the computer to “create” and see what it comes up with? Does working with pre-programmed programs help the artist who can’t quite draw a circle or an alien? Does the computer shade and gradate and use algorithms to create one-of-a-kind treasures?

Wikipedia says, “AI art is created when an artist or creator inputs prompts into AI art generators. Trained on large amounts of data and coded by algorithms (large language models), these generators process the request and produce an image or video.”

Do you need a human hand to choose those gradations and shades of color and shape? And if you don’t, can you still call their creations “art”?

I am from the simple side of town. I appreciate art that I can see and hear and feel. To me art is trial and error, a hands-on adventure, a physical excursion into clay and yarn and oils and guitars and voices. It’s using your own physical attributes to create uniqueness, not a machine.

Yet those who do AI art are creative, albeit in a different medium. They push the buttons and pick the subject matter and create the shapes and colors and programs to create the vision they have in their minds. They not only have the technical prowess of computer programming but the fourth dimensional trait of Creativity.

So I leave this blog as confused as I was when I started it. I know what I like. I know what styles and colors and subjects and music I like. I enjoy reading about the history and trials and tribulations artists have gone through to find the perfection they seek.

But I also really like John’s AI images.

Let me know if you think AI-created pictures are real art.

I also want you to enjoy John’s creations?  You can find his pen and ink art at https://sundayeveningartgallery.com/2015/08/02/john-lemke/, his photography at https://sundayeveningartgallery.com/2021/12/24/john-lemke-2/ and his AI creations at Visual Edge AI – Mystical, Eerie, Art, Fantasy, Sci-fi, magical reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — George Inness

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George Inness (1825 -1894)  was an American painter known especially for the luminous, atmospheric quality of his late landscapes.His work was influenced by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism found vivid expression in the work of Inness’ maturity.Often called “the father of American landscape painting,” Inness is best known for these mature works that not only exemplified the Tonalist movement but also displayed an original and uniquely American style.Inness’ landscape paintings offer a cultural space as much as a natural space.The vogue in nineteenth-century American painting was for vast canvases in which all human activity was excised from the scene to suggest an untamed wilderness.But Inness was more concerned with expressing the interaction of humankind with the landscapes which they made their own.In this sense, his paintings represent a uniquely optimistic view of social progress in the nineteenth century, which might bring about a new era of harmony between humanity and nature.

More of George Inness’ landscapes can be found at  https://www.theartstory.org/artist/inness-george/ and https://www.wikiart.org/en/george-inness/.

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Art

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The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist’s own spiritual nature.

~ George Inness

 

 

 

Future Gallery Magic … or Madness

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I always have more unique artists stirring around in my Creativity Pot than I have time to post them. 

Sad to say, I don’t have an egg yolk on a green circle yet. But I’m looking.

Today I want to show off a few upcoming artists that fit my version of “UNIQUE ART.”

 

 

Andriy and Olesya Voznicki

 

Helena Hafemann

 

Weird Jewelry

 

Henri Matisse

 

 

Fun times a’coming! Come Along!

P.S.   Guess what I just found???

 

 

I’m Melting…..

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The HOT weather in the Midwest has been taking its toll on my brain functions lately. I can’t imagine how those of you south and west and even east of me are handling your version of Easy Bake Oven City. It seems my reasoning abilities are half melted, along with my response and self-adjustment buttons.

I learned quite a while ago not to complain when the thermometer tips at mid 90s, as six months from now I might suffer payback in the form of two feet of snow or temperatures at the zero degree mark. I have learned to cope with the fluctuations of the weather, along with the fluctuations of weight, allergies, cicadas, weather, tomato plant output, and friendships.

How does friendship fit into all the other confusing pressures?

Lately it seems like a lot of those around me have wrapped a chained link fence around them, locked the gate, and hung up a “stay” away sign. They can look out at the world, but the world had a hard time looking in. The reasons for these fences are their own; stress and pain and depression and confusion hits us all differently. I usually have no problems with this open-weave fence, as I have wrapped one around me now and then too.

This hot weather makes decision making fluid and melty. I can’t think long enough to say the right words to help my friends out of their funks. I often can’t help myself out of funks. Stepping outside into a sauna day and night makes me want to wrap that same open weave fence around myself inside my air conditioned house. I don’t care about cleaning, writing, chatting, or crafting. All I care about is taking another cooling shower.
Fortunately, as with all of life, weather changes. The highs balance out with lows. Change evolves and life goes on. We open those locked gates and tear down the useless fences around ourselves and our homes.  We reconnect with friends and harvest our tomatoes and say goodbye to the cicadas for another year.
Know that the hot moments won’t last. Before you know it you’ll be looking for your blankets and cuddling with others talking about the good times and planning new ones.
That’s what friendship is all about. Hot and cold and everything in-between.
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Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Rachel Wright

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Rachel Wright is a textile artist based in Buckinghamshire, England.Wright studied fashion and textiles at Birmingham City University, graduating with both a Bachelors and Masters degree.Wright’s main focus is embroidery, taking inspiration from landscapes and cityscapes, along with  having a particular love of the sea, harbor towns, boats and lighthouses.The shapes, colors and details from these inspirations are then borrowed and echoed in delicately hand or machine embroidered fabric collages using vibrant threads that are worked onto papers and fabrics.Her art work stands out because of her striking use of rich color which captivates and draws the viewer in and delights the eye.“I  describe my art as textile art and machine embroidery, but there are many different descriptions these days which seem to fit the bill too,” Wright shares.“Other people call it free motion embroidery, quilt art, and thread painting,  but I’ve never felt really comfortable with these descriptions.”“My technique is basically my way of painting except I’m using fabrics as my palette, the needle as my brush, and the threads as my mark making.”

More of Rachel Wright’s amazing needlework can be found at https://rachelwright.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/RachelSetford/. 

 

 

Remember These? #2

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Strike a Pose …. Vogue …. Madonna
I cant see me lovin’ nobody but you for all my life …. Happy Together …. The Turtles
They just wanna .. they just wanna …. Girls Just Want To Have Fun …. Cyndi Lauper
Crack that Whip …. Whip It …. Devo
She got her daddy’s car and she cruised to the hamburger stand, now …. Fun Fun Fun …. Beach Boys

 

No, today’s not a backwards look at pop music goldies (although that’s what I’m listening to at the moment). Sooner or later I’m going to forget blog titles like Remember These #385  and Weird Question Thursdays #6 … so whenever I get inspired I’ll just type the basics.

Today’s basics are look backs at fun blogs of the past. Ready for a zip ride?

 

Jason Edmiston

 

Dean Russo

 

Johannes Stötter

 

Ben Ashton

 

Doug Rowell

 

Barcodes

 

Do you remember .. The twenty-first night of September? …. September …. Earth, Wind and Fire

HAVE FUN!