This past Sunday, following more weekend festivities than is normal for us, Mr. F and I took to the beach for the afternoon. There is always something about the salt air, the crash of the waves, and the sand between your toes that is healing for the psyche! Doesn’t the ocean have its own special, briny scent? And it always seems to give sparkle to everything it produces. The paintings of this month’s Featured Artist Carlos Lopez gives expression to the nourishing power of the sea and jewelry artist Emily Miranda‘s Oyster Cuff is the perfect sparkly companion!
Carlos is masterful at expressing the oyster’s gentle, undulating curves in paint, mimicking the rollicking waves, just as Emily Miranda sculpts those same contours from in her cuff bracelet. One work of art to see, one to wear.
To see more of Carlos Lopez‘s work, please visit his website. You can see more gorgeous jewelry by Emily Miranda on her website. Both a feast for the eyes!
Remember candy necklaces? I mean, jewelry you could eat?? Every little girl’s dream! And big girls, too, as it turns out. Scottish jewelry artist Rosie Kimber crafts her own wearable confections from resin, silicone, and sugar crystals creating modern, artistic baubles pretty enough to eat!
These put those candy necklaces to shame. So much prettier and without the yucky slightly sweet chalky taste!
Home has been a subject in the forefront of our minds lately. Over the next several years, Mr. F and I are saving like mad so that we can settle down and build a little house that fits our needs and our aesthetic perfectly. What might that aesthetic be, you ask? Well, it has a lot in common with the work of this month’s Featured Artist, Deb Haugen— fresh and organic, yet modern.
In her work, Deb, a California-girl, balances that lovely line between the modern and organic, often employing watery, free flowing colored forms dotted with graphic ink drawing. Translating her work into a living space means lots of white walls and furnishings dotted with pops of muted color and warmed with natural textures and graphic punches of black.
A space like this is just dying for a post-beach fire, wine, and conversation! If you’d like to see more of Deb Haugen‘s work, check out her website AND visit The Trove, Artsy Forager’s new Great.ly boutique gallery where you can find lots of Deb’s work for sale including these lovelies EXCLUSIVE to The Trove!
work by Deb Haugen available exclusively at The Trove
Please note that the above works are cropped. You can see the full versions here!
*This post contains affiliate links. As a Great.ly Tastemaker and curator of The Trove, I receive a small commission on each piece sold from The Trove boutique gallery.
Sometimes an opportunity comes along and you just stop everything else you’re doing to pursue it. Which is exactly what I did when the new Great.ly site launched last week. Haven’t heard of it? Well, let me tell you all about it! Great.ly is an online commerce platform “connecting the dots between makers & tastemakers”. For artists, artisans and other makers, it’s the opportunity to stock an online “studio” with work from which “tastemakers” ( bloggers like me & other influential folks ) fill their Great.ly boutiques and market the work to their audiences.
One of the great joys of writing Artsy Forager is the ability it has given me to help influence the careers of artists whose work I love in whatever way I can. And for me, I see Great.ly as another way to do just that! The Artsy Forager boutique gallery, The Trove, is already stocked with work by artists and artisans whose creations exemplify the excellence I seek to showcase here on the blog and speaks to me ( and to you, I hope! ) on a personal artistic level. I would love to have any one, or all of these pieces for myself! Right now, The Trove is broken up into three main categories, Own the Artsy— where you can find incredible artwork by some of my favorite artists like Emily Jeffords, Kiana Mosley, & Jaime Derringer.
There’s also the Wear the Artsy section, because why just hang the art on your wall when you could hang it around your neck or on your shoulder? And of course, I want to Live the Artsy. Wouldn’t it be amazing if every thing in our homes, down to the most utilitarian objects was crafted not just for purpose but for beauty? The dream can be a reality. I’m seriously lusting over so many of these pieces. If only Mr. F & I had a home to call our own right now! This interview with Great.ly founder Sarah Bryden Brown explains it all so much better than I ever could! I hope this post doesn’t seem too sales-pitchy, as I never want this site to turn into one giant sales pitch. But I LOVE promoting artists and with the creative minds behind this site, including The Jealous Curator herself, I see this as an incredible platform for connection and promotion of artists and their work. And I want to truly embrace it as such. I truly think this is a fantastic opportunity for artists, artisans, and bloggers to join forces and do GREAT things ( pun intended! ).
If you’re an artist or artisan interested in becoming a Great.ly Maker, you can apply here. And if you set up a Great.ly studio, please let me know so I can perhaps add your work to The Trove! And if you just love artsy things, well bookmark The Trove and get to shopping! 😉
*This post contains affiliate links. As a Great.ly Tastemaker and curator of The Trove, I receive a small commission on each piece sold from The Trove boutique gallery.
By now, we’ve all seen the gagillions of pins of perfectly arranged art walls, so we know full well that when grouped with other work, small art pieces can sing. But when grouped with all those other works, lilliputian work can sometimes be as overlooked as a backup singer. Hang them on a wall all by their lonesome, though? You’re giving them the mic and letting them shine!
Here are a few of my favorite rooms showcasing small art works–
Need more convincing that small art can have major effect? Head over to Mantle Art & check out the beautiful, super affordable Artsy Forager Collection of limited edition prints. They’re small but they’re fabulous!
Something about the warmer months make me long for the exotic. Maybe it’s childhood conditioning bringing on dreams of summer vacations to faraway places! I’ve always loved the work of Jill Ricci for her brilliant way of combining exotic motifs with pop art and urban graphics and her mixed media piece, Roam, perfectly inspires an urban globetrotter ensemble! This Mintzita Maxi Dress from Anthropologie embodies a free spirited, exotic traveler type.
How to make it just a tad more Ricci? Edge up the dress’s sweetness with a moto jacket and Chuck Taylors and suddenly it’s like you are living it up Ricci-style. Roam, if you want to. 😉
See more of the Wear the Artsy series in the archives!
Choosing artwork for your home can be an intimidating process. Sometimes we fall in love with a piece of work but wonder how in the world we would ever incorporate it with our current style?! You know that old adage, buy what you love and somehow it will work? I’m here to prove it’s true. Let’s say you fall for this bold black and white art pair by this month’s Featured Artist, Alexandra Bellissimo.
They’re strong. They’re daring. They’re a little weird but totally fabulous. Now where can you put them? The best thing about graphic black and white art like these is that they can add a sense of the unexpected to anywhere they hang.
1 | fierce romance This fantastical pair are like creatures from a dark fairy tale. Hung off to the side above the antique sofa in a romantic bohemian living room, The Antagonist and The Guardian would add just the right amount of sass to counteract the sweet.
2 | sleek soak In the bath is often the very last place we consider for artwork, but these guys are just screaming to add a little of the unexpected to your personal spa. They’re graphic so maybe placement in a contemporary bath seems like a no-brainer, but their organic sci-fi feel compliments the space in a fresh way.
art by alexandra bellissimo | interior image found here
3 | rustic edge Maybe you love rustic decor but don’t want to completely live the cowboy life? The his and her pairing is perfect for a bedroom and this black and white art would provide a fantastic juxtaposition against a wood feature wall. Want to edge it up even more? Add an extra wide white mat and simple contemporary frames in a bold color like yellow or bright green. Boom. You’ve turned up the sophistication to 11.
Have a room you need some artsy help with? Or art you love but not sure how to style in your room? I can help with that! Check out my Forager Services page for details. Love this pair by Alexandra Bellissimo? Check out her site AND stay tuned for some news here and on the Mantle Art site for affordable, limited editions prints coming soon!
Touring artist studios at last weekend’s ArtsAlive got me day dreaming about my own future work space. As we travel, I paint either at our dining/kitchen table or on a collapsible easel Mr. F bought me a few years ago. I can’t wait for the weather to get warmer so I work out on our pretty little deck! Where do you like to set up your artistic command center?
If you work small like I do currently, or on paper, maybe a table works for you. A big flat surface where you can spread out and everything you need is within reach. And bonus– you get to sit down!
Or maybe you’re a traditionalist and working from an easel is your thing. A good sturdy, adjustable easel is a thing of beauty. There is one in the window of the local art supply store that I am totally coveting.
Perhaps you like working a la Jackson Pollock? It might be hard on the back, but working on the floor is great for large canvases or getting a different perspective on your work. And I’m pretty sure it’s a great workout.
A lot of artists like to mount their canvases on the wall and if we ever have the extra space, I would love to give this way of working a try. Would be especially fun in a studio in which you were free to make as big a mess as you wanted!
A lot of artists don’t have the luxury of a dedicated studio space, so we just find a place to land our artsiness wherever we can! Maybe it’s the kitchen island or a corner in the attic. If you’re an artist, wherever you happen to be, that’s your artsy spot.
We are a few weeks into Spring here in Northern California and this weekend, something wonderful happened.. we seemed to have finally turned a corner into deep spring. That time of year when the air is warm and soft and everywhere you turn something extraordinary is blooming. All I want to do is turn my face to the sun, lie in the grass and soak it all in. This piece by April Featured ArtistAlexandra Bellissimo perfectly captures these deep days of spring, the longing to be one with the blossoming world. And this Scenery at Sunset Dress by Modcloth is just the perfect translation of that light and airy feeling that the first warm days of spring delivers.
Today I’m even wearing my own version Surface, this work by Alexandra Bellissimo, a new scarf I’ve been eyeing that feels like spring. Winter, I love you, but I think I’ll always have a bit of a crush on Spring.
Keep watching the blog & social media for more from Alexandra Bellissimo all throughout April, including an exciting announcement coming soon! *Hint: it starts with a P and ends with “rints”. 😉 And of course, you can always peruse Alexandra’s website for more of her stunning work.
Want to see more of the Wear the Artsy series? Check out the archives here!
Interior designers have a special place in my heart. Perhaps because I call so many of them friends and because I spent a few years studying to be one. That plan derailed ( a story for another day! ), but I’m still so appreciative of the work that designers do, especially when it comes to incorporating original artwork into the spaces they design. And Seattle’s Brian Paquette of Brian Paquette Interiors, of course, is showing the world how to using original artwork infuses a space with personality and turns the fabulousness up to 11.
The work Paquette chooses add yet another layer of texture to his already gorgeously layered designs. The spaces are elegant, yet warm and friendly, much in thanks to the contemporary art he uses that is anything but stuffy. Named one of The Next Big Names in Design by Lonny Magazine, the future’s looking bright in rainy Seattle for Brian Paquette Interiors.
To see more of the Brian Paquette’s portfolio, please visit the Brian Paquette Interiors website.
