If you’ve been an Artsy Forager reader for some time, you’ve probably noticed my attraction to art with a vintage spin. This week’s Artist Watch over on Escape Into Life is no exception! Like Amy Pleasant, Jhina Alvarado also takes her artistic inspiration from old photographs, lending them an anonymity by “black-barring” the faces. Love!
I warned you, Artsies! The Artists are Taking Over Artsy Forager this week! While Mr. Forager & I are finding inspiration in Glacier & Yellowstone, a few of the artists featured on the blog are turning the tables on moi, asking all sorts of interesting questions about blogging, the art world and little ol’ me.
First up is Seattle artist Deborah Scott, who knocked me out with her work when she emailed me last year asking if I might like to feature her on the blog. I was blown away by Deborah’s work and I’m not the only one. Recently Eric Fischl ( yes THAT Eric Fischl ) recently chose two of Deborah’s paintings for his America: Now & Here national project! Hope you enjoy this conversation between the artist and the Artsy Forager.
To see more work from Deborah Scott, please check out her website. Tomorrow’s Takeover Artist: M.A. Tateishi!
We are in the dog days of summer and it’s days like these I long for complete freedom to lounge around in the water all day. But since responsibilities and being an adult ( yuck! ) don’t allow me to do so, I’m living vicariously through today’s round up of bathing beauties!
Tracey Sylvester Harris | Samantha French | Sarah Harvey | Nina Nolte
Have a fantastic weekend, Artsies! Be sure to check out the websites of these artists, linked above. Don’t forget, the Artists Are Taking Over next week! Will be a bit of a change around these parts, but one I think you’ll enjoy! Mr. Forager and I will be taking off on Sunday to spend 10 days camping out in Glacier National Park & Yellowstone, so I’ll be responding to comments and emails upon my return.
Tracey Sylvester Harris found via Skidmore Contemporary Art and Sarah Harvey found via isavirtue.
Featured image is At the Shore by Tracey Sylvester Harris, oil on canvas, 12×9. All images are via the artists’ websites, linked above.
This traveling thing can be tough in many ways, but perhaps the most wearying is always living in someone else’s home. As hard as I work to make each place feel like ours, we always end up feeling a bit like house crashers. But then again, in some cases, we find ourselves caring for an otherwise empty, lonely house. Like the dwellings in Australian artist Paul Davies’ work, we are sometimes greeted by a sad shell. It is only when a house is occupied and filled with love that it truly becomes a home.
Many of the houses Paul chooses to paint seem devoid of life. There are furnishings, but no people to be seen, pools with no water in which to swim.
Like Davies’ abodes, a few of the homes we’ve occupied were crying out to be cared for. The one we rented in Coeur d’Alene was a particularly sweet little cottage that seemed so neglected due to its rental status. Any improvements were done on the cheap. What a lovely home it could have made for the right family, if only it were given the chance!
Does anyone else see an empty house and think of how much happier it would be if it were cared for and loved as a home? Just me? What does your own home say about you?
To see more of Paul Davies’ work, please visit his website.
Featured image is Empty Pool + Modern Home + Palms, acrylic on canvas, 122×122 cm. All images are via the artist’s website.
Like most art lovers, I’m a collector on a budget. Not quite a “ramen noodles every night” budget, but I would gladly eat peanut butter sandwiches all the time if it meant owning work by my favorite artists. So when Norah Guignon of curate 1k asked me to guest curate for her this week, I jumped at the chance! Each week on her blog, Norah or her guest curator rounds up a collection of artwork that together totals less than $1,000. Seriously affordable, accessible and beautiful work! For my week, I curated a little “Sand & Sea” collection, as hubby and I have been landlocked here in Idaho for almost 9 months and are seriously missing being on the Coast.
Here’s a little taste, but be sure to head over to curate 1k to see it all! Each day a new piece debuts, so make sure you check back for the rest of the week!
I have a weakness for the pairing of feminine and masculine elements. Like pairing a flimsy, flowing sundress with a motorcycle jacket. The mixed media work of Line Juhl Hansen shows off characteristically male and feminine abstract elements in a way that results in work that marries the graphic and expressive beautifully.
Graphic typography, scribbles and liberal touches of black temper the happy, candy colored swaths of painterly texture. These evocative details lend weight and gravity to each canvas, inviting us in for a closer look.
Like the strength of a woman, these touches are lingering just below the surface, peeking in and out. We catch a glimpse of the resilience behind the sweetness and beauty.
To see more of Line Juhl Hansen’s work, please visit her website.
All images are via the artist’s website.
Bright vibrant color? Check. Painterly drips and texture? Check. Expressionistic composition? Check. The work of Diana Delgado encompasses all my favorite abstract art elements. Check out my Artist Watch feature on her work over on Escape Into Life today!
One of the benefits of our rural home for the summer is the large garden our landlords maintain on the property. For the first time in my life, freshly picked vegetables and berries are mere steps from my door. Pulling up fresh spinach for our salads a few nights ago got me thinking about roots. And so does the artwork of Providence, RI artist Jenny Brown.
As people, we, in the same way as plants, are growing our roots and reaching for the sky at the same time. The roots provide nourishment and hold us steady, while our very nature and soul fights against their pull as we stretch toward who we are meant to be.
Some people, like smaller plants, don’t grow far vertically, keeping very close to their roots. But others, like giant redwoods, soar to unimaginable heights far above their rooted beginnings. Yet, it takes incredibly strong roots to steady one whose reach is so high.
To see more of Jenny Brown’s work, please visit her website.
Featured image is Untitled #1, ink, gouache, pencil and collage on paper, 8.5×11. All images are via the artist’s website.
There is a wonderful phenomenon that happens to me from time to time. I call it “name serendipity”. Every so often when I search an artist’s name on Google, I happen upon the work of another talented artist by the same name! Which is exactly how I happened upon the work of Seattle artist Amy Pleasant.
Like Amy, I too, have a collection of vintage photographs from my grandparents’ collection and they are among my most treasured possessions. In her latest series, Lost and Found, Amy was inspired by the discarded memories of strangers. Namely old family photos found in thrift shops and antique stores, now being sold along with old tablecloths and broken lawnmowers.
Captured moments of past lives now cast away like any other piece of household paraphernalia. Pleasant rescues these memories that have been tossed aside, giving them new life in paint.
In them, we see not the memories of strangers but our own ancestral rememberings staring back at us. To see more of Amy Pleasant’s work, please visit her website. Her work can be seen in her show, “Looking For the Coolidges” opening August 2, 2012 at the Shoreline City Hall Gallery in Shoreline, WA. And on August 1st, she will be the featured artist (along with Dutch artist Janneke Van Leeuwen) at the Visual Thinking Strategies European Symposium in partnership with the Rijks Museum and will be showing at a gallery on site at a large hospital in Amsterdam(! ).
Featured image is Three Graces, mixed media, 40×30. All images are via the artist’s website.
I’ve got a little treat coming for all you Artsies! Coming the week of July 30th, the artists are taking over the blog! A few of the artists who have been featured on Artsy Forager are turning the tables on me and asking the questions their inquiring minds want to know. Monday- Thursday, each day will feature a different artist asking a series of questions of yours truly.
BUT I need the help of more artists for Friday! If you’re an artist whose work has been featured on Artsy Forager, email me here with your favorite artist ( other than yourself 🙂 ) who has been featured on the blog and both your work and theirs may appear side by side in the Friday Finds. I’ll choose 5 artists & their faves to feature!