We are headed to Seattle this weekend, one of my favorite cities in the world, the city where George and I fell in love. And while I was falling in love with G ( I was probably a little in love with him when we were friends in FL, but that’s a story for another time ), I was also falling in love with Seattle. I adore visiting cool cities– the urban landscape and architecture fascinates me. So it carries over that I would adore the art of the cityscape.
For this Friday Fave round-up, I’d like to share some of urbanist artists whose work I’m crushing on lately:
Hill Houses 2 by Brin LevinsonPassing 1 by Jason WebbSolitary I by John DuckworthLoew’s Hotel, 33rd Floor, Philadelphia by Sara YeomanMiyami by Darra CrosbyGreat Tortoise Hostel, Seattle by Robin WeissBoulevard Windows by Sharon Dowell
Looking forward to bringing you more from these artists soon! In the meantime, take a gander at their websites..
Pablo Picasso once asked ( rhetorically, of course ), “Why do two colors, one put next to the other, sing?” Good ol’ Pablo had no answer, nor do I. But they do. Color calls out to us, reaches out to something in our spirit and psyche, evoking emotion. Not every artist gets color, how different hues complement and interact with each other. Michelle Armas gets it. She gets it and puts it on canvas for all the world to see and enjoy.
Sophia
Michelle began professional life, not as an artist, but in graphic design and corporate branding in New York. Talk about baptism by fire! To help cope with the stress of working in NYC, Michelle began painting. After about a year, she decided to trade the corporate world for the art world and began painting full-time.
Rosalia
Her canvases explode with color, joyous, juicy and fluid. It’s as if she’s captured the hues of the warmth of a sunny day, of being a kid again, running and jumping with full abandon.
Arelis
Lovely, sketchy scribbles and seemingly-spontaneous pops of color remind us what it was like before we were “taught” to draw and color– that magical time when we, as young children, were only concerned with the feel of the crayon on paper, fascinated by the variety in our Crayola 64. We weren’t trying to create anything.. we were just completely submerged in the process of creating.
Spooky
Filled with the colors of poppies and popsicles, sundaes and springtime, her work does sing. Sappy, happy love songs, you know, the ones that we all know the words to. Because we recognize this artist’s vocabulary– these are stories of pure color, that speak to the very basic of creative instincts that began deep within all of us. They sing us a sparkling lullaby as we bask in their sunshine, dreaming of coloring in the clouds.
To see more of Michelle Armas’ work, check out her website and be sure to stop by her blog. Her writing style is as cheeky and colorful as her paintings.
As a color, pink has often been looked down on as “too girly”. Tomboys scoff at wearing anything close to that shade. “Serious” businesswomen wear suits of black, navy or grey, not pink. Real men don’t wear pink. As a painter, Lily Stockman embraces the power of pink. Pink is the color symbolizing the fight against breast cancer. Pink is power, baby.
Pink Mughal
Pink also figures prominently in Jaipur aka The Pink City ( the capital of Rajasthan, India ), where Stockman found herself living and painting for the past year. Rather than painting iconic Indian architecture, she instead focused her brush on industrial and agricultural structures such as silos and grain elevators.
Bubble Steel
Stockman grew up on her family’s farm in rural New Jersey, so perhaps it is no surprise that she chose to focus on the agriculture of India. But the subject matter isn’t the only thing that makes these paintings so interesting. The simplification of the forms, coupled with the unexpected use of such a happy color work in contradiction to our notions of what modern India is like– busy, bustling, dirty, impoverished.
Full Humidity
Inspired by the bougainvillea blooming all over Rajahastan, vibrant pinks and fuschias of saris and turbans and the walls of The Pink City itself, Stockman takes these mundane, ordinary structures and empowers them with blasts of color.
Punjabi Remix
Her bubble-like lines, swirly forms and fresh, unaffected forms remind me of the early work of Georgia O’Keeffe, another artist who tapped into the power of pink and made it her own. Quite a legacy of feminine power she left us, but it looks like Lily Stockman is well on her way to leaving one of her own.
Check out Lily’s website for more of her “Agro Pop” series from India, as well as other work. She also writes a wonderful, witty blog full of artistic, culinary and literary goodness at BigBANG Studio.
There are certain artists whose work is so striking that once you’ve seen it, it will be immediately recognizable when you happen upon it again. Clare Elsaesser is just such an artist. I first saw her work a few years ago while reading the blog of interior designer Erika Powell, principal at Urban Grace Interiors. Not only does Erika have great taste in furnishings and shoes ( her boot collection is amazing! ), she also has a great eye for artwork, which she incorporates beautifully into her designs.
Bedroom project in progress, Urban Grace Interiors
I then happened upon Clare’s work on the Papernstitch handmade exhibition site, started following her blog and the rest, as they say, is history. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to feature her on Artsy Forager, but as I’m usually fashionably late anyhow, here we go!
Wrapped
Clare works in acrylics, painting on either wood panels or heavy watercolor paper for her “sewn” work. Many of the pieces in her Etsy shop are originals or prints with a single-line, hand-stitched “frame” around the perimeter. The stitching adds an intriguing textural element to the work and ties in with the fabrics so often featured.
Undress
These little paintings are at once charming and innocently provocative. The simplicity of line and form, coupled with the capturing of a private moment are reminiscent of the drypoints and aquatints of Mary Cassatt.
Stripes
The white sheets and pillows glow against the dark neutral backgrounds, like the moon glowing in the night sky. Or the translucent light in the blue sky of day.
Comforted
Whether night or day, Clare’s work makes me long to lounge in a tangle of sheets and pillows, reading a good book or daydreaming myself into a glorious nap. Grab a pillow and spend some time peeking around Clare Elsaesser’s Etsy shop, Tastes Orangey or stop by her blog to say hi and see her latest art, fashion and music recommendations.
I love art. I love design. Why not put the two together on the blog? There was a time in my life when I thought my career path lay ( Thank you, Suzanne Decuir for the grammatical help ) in Interior Design. I took courses, devoured design and shelter magazines. As often happens in life, circumstances got in the way and the path detoured. But that’s a story for another time. Let’s focus on the fun stuff today!
One of my absolute favorite things while designing ( OK, it was THE absolute favorite thing ), was creating moodboards. To begin with an inspiration and build a room or facility around it was thrilling to my color, texture and pattern lovin’ soul. And for me, it always began with the artwork. While doing project management/art consulting, I worked with a lot of designers and many ( but by no means all! ) viewed the artwork for a design as an after-thought. Like adding sprinkles to a cake. Still a cake without the sprinkles, but oh, if we add them, won’t that be pretty! But if we don’t have sprinkles, it’s OK. It’s still a nice cake. Instead, I think of the artwork as the frosting– not just smoothed across the top, but spread between the layers and all over. It is what holds the cake together and gives it the extra texture and sweetness that keeps us going back for more.
( Wow, anyone else craving cake now? )
So you’ve purchased this beautiful painting by Christina Foard. You love it, it speaks to your heart and reflects your style and everything you love about life. But maybe you live at the beach and are unsure how to design a room around it. Aren’t all beach houses supposed to be full of palm trees & seashells?
Seaside Reflections by Christina Foard, oil on canvas, 60×48
This piece to speak more to the feeling of being on the beach just after a storm, while the skies are still a bit gray but the sun is beginning to peek through, warming up the sand to both the eye and the touch. So let’s take our cue from that and begin with soft, grayish tones, layering on the warmth of the sun in our accent chair, rug and window coverings. An important component in Christina’s work is texture, so we’ll make sure there are plenty of interesting surfaces to draw our eyes in, just as Christina’s painterly build up does in her work.
Modern Reflections, a beachside home for a contemporary art lover
Have you ever designed a room around a piece of artwork? Or bought a piece of artwork not knowing where exactly to hang it in your home but you couldn’t live without it? Have a beloved piece of art sitting in a closet somewhere because you don’t think it “goes” or can’t figure out how to incorporate it with your current furnishings? Um, yeah, me too. 🙂
It seems that the hipster craft craze has given birds a bad name in the art world. If you’ve seen the “Put a Bird On it” sketch from IFC’s hilarious Portlandia, you know what I’m talkin’ about. Bird “art” is everywhere. It’s those mixed-media collagey things that you see at outdoor art festivals and markets, it’s the ubiquitous black bird on a bare branch. Now don’t get me wrong, some of this bird art is lovely and fun. But after a while, it all begins to look the same.
I want to set the record straight. Restore the good name of bird art. Here’s a round up of my favorite pieces featuring our fine feathered friends…
Barn Owl by Mary Alayne ThomasTrespasser by Camille EngelClover by Jim DraperGolden Light by Diane FarrisBeginnings by Susan HallCaeli by Vicki Sawyer
Think we may be doing a bit of bird watching this weekend. If you’d like to do some online birding, check out the featured artists’ websites for more ornithological goodies.
Casey Matthews lives a double life. Splitting her time between her home on Amelia Island, FL and a Chelsea apartment in New York City, in many ways, the Texas native is living an artist’s dream. The best of both worlds, surrounded by natural beauty and small town Florida charm on one hand and the energy, excitement and grit of Manhattan life on the other. She puts those hands together to create a body of work that is at once cosmopolitan and organic.
While Goldfish Sleep, mixed media on canvas, 48×60
Translucent washes of color recall water washing over sand or the pearl-like finish of the inside of a seashell. Amoebic shapes cluster together like bubbles, a few occasionally breaking from the pack and seeming to drift across and down the surface of the canvas.
In The Thick Of It, mixed media on canvas, 36×48Sleep Deprived and the Dog Can’t Wait, mixed media on canvas, 48×60
But look closely at those clusters of shapes and color– it is in these little pockets that Casey lets the urban darkness come through..
Sleep Deprived And The Dog Can’t Wait ( detail )
Casey is nothing if not a self-aware artist, working through the dynamics of her “dual citizenship” in the two pieces City Mouse, Country Mouse ( below ).
City Mouse, mixed media on canvas, 48×72Country Mouse, mixed media on canvas, 48×72
This is intuitive work, the colors, shapes and forms emerging from the artist’s surroundings, emotions and experiences..
Prolapse, mixed media on canvas. 24×30
…with a touch of sardonic wit thrown in for good measure. Are those grey tones reflective of the bleached Florida sand or is it the haze of NYC steel and concrete? Only Casey knows for sure.
Construction Worker Boyfriend, mixed media on canvas, 36×48
Check out more of Casey Matthews’ work on her website and blog. If you’re in the North Florida area, stop by Blue Door Artists in downtown Fernandina Beach for 2nd Saturday Artrageous Artwalk this Saturday, July 9th, Casey is their featured artist for July.
Coco Chanel once said, “I consider lace to be one of the prettiest imitations ever made of the fantasy of nature; lace always evokes for me those incomparable designs which the branches and leaves of trees embroider across the sky..”
Shoreline, oil on panel, 48×43
I came upon Susan Hall’s paintings as we ascended the stairs up to Butters Gallery in Portland, our last gallery stop of a long day spent in that art mecca. Through the glass doors, I spied beautiful tone-on-tone figures, peaceful in their exquisite solitude.
Vision, oil on panel, 60×48
As they drew me in, I realized that I was viewing these figures through a veil, not one over my own eyes but through the intricate patterns in which Chicago artist Susan Hall ensconces each of her subjects.
Companion, oil on panel, 35×40
Veils may have both negative and positive connotations– The view through the veil of a bride is lovely and full of hope, while the view through the veil of a burqa may be considered by some as the prospect of a prisoner, someone not allowed to view the world through naked eyes.
Reverie, oil on panel. 27×27
Hall’s work also has a bit of a voyeuristic quality, as if we were gazing through lace covered windows, intruding upon a private moment or catching a glimpse of a ghostly deer’s visit before he disappears into the dark night.
Arrival, oil on panel, 43×48Clearing, oil on panel, 48×43
We see him but does he see us through our gossamer covering? Or perhaps he is merely an apparition of our imagination? Either way, I am enthralled.
Please visit Susan Hall’s website to see more of her breathtaking work. If you are in the Northwest, a visit to Butters Gallery to see her work in person will be a delight for your eyes, pinky promise.
Candace Fasano is a painter and a poet. Where the paintings end and the poetry begins is not always distinctive. According to Wikipedia, “poetry primarily is governed by idiosyncratic forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses.” Substitute words for images and you’ve hit just the beginning of what makes Fasano’s work so interesting.
Topographical Remembering, mixed media on canvas, 48×48
Like poetry, Fasano’s paintings abound with symbolism and rhythm, their ambiguous nature often leaving them open to interpretation. Though they may have been created with a certain narrative in mind, the visual elements expressed are more suggestive than overt.
OMGGMO, oil on canvas, 96×72 diptych
Just as Candace the poet plays with words, Candace the painter plays with paint. Building up texture, leaving whispy washes of color and sketchy lines contrast with typographical verbiage.
Balancing Act, oil on canvas, 30×36
Layers of imagery create layers of meaning. Objects within the works are often rendered realistically, but are not necessarily resting in their reality. They may become transparent, weaving in and out of the composition like the ghostly marks left behind after an pencil eraser has done its work.
Warmth, oil on canvas, 66×56
imaginary landscapes attract
pictures from our collective mythologies.
text or fragments take hold like scaffolding
constructing and deconstructing
realities into temporary truths
revealing fragile limitations
of growth and decay –
viewed through a cardboard kaleidoscope
–c.fasano
To see more of Candace Fasano’s work and to read more of her poetry, visit her website and blog. If you like her work as much as I do, please fan her Facebook page to keep up with all her latest news. If you’re in the North Florida area, be sure to visit the Cummer Museum‘s “The Neighborhood As Art” show, which features one of Candance’s pieces.
