When we get a glimpse inside the studio of this month’s Featured Artist, Peri Schwartz, we not only see into gain insight into where she works, but in this video, we are also given the privilege of seeing how she works. I promise you will never look at one of her paintings the same way again.
Peri Schwartz: studio from Peri Schwartz on Vimeo.
Amazing right?!
See more of Peri’s work on her website and on the Artsy Forager Facebook page.
What better way is there to officially kick off Spring than a chance to win some art?! I assert that there is none! That’s right, Artsies, Art Association is back and this one is going to be crazy good, I can feel it! After February’s contest Erin, my partner in AA crime over at artsocial, and I persuaded this month’s artist, Karen Schnepf to participate and we think you’ll love her work just as much as we do. Seriously, it is gorgeous!
If you’re new to Art Association, here’s the what’s what — You create a Pinterest board around one work of art ( which we provide ), filled with anything and everything that pops into your mind while gazing at the catalyst piece.
Are you ready to get started? Of course, you are! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and you’re ready to pin your little hearts out. Our catalyst piece for this month is.. Wedding Day by Karen Schnepf!
Step 1| We give you a piece of artwork, this month’s work is Wedding Day by Karen Schnepf ( above ).
Step 2 | You create a Pinterest board titled Art Association, like mine here, where you pin any and all images you associate with the featured artwork ( like word associations, only visual )– here’s a sneak peek at some of my associations
Step 3 | Leave a link to your Art Association pinboard in the Comments section of this post
Step 4 | Follow both art social and Artsy Forager on Pinterest ( if you already are, you’re ahead of the game! )
Here’s what you can win–
Erin & I will choose the best board entry, who will be the lucky new owner of Colors Layered 26 by Karen Schnepf ( below )! Colors Layered is a series of work in which paper is painted, cut, then layered onto panel and coated with a smooth, high gloss finish. ( The work has to be photographed before the finish s applied or else it is impossible to capture without glare ). Isn’t it stunning? I’m incredibly jealous of whoever wins this lovely.
The pinner with the best Art Association board ( as judged by me and Erin ) will be chosen on Wednesday, March 27th at 5pm (mountain standard time). I can’t wait to gaze upon all the beautifully colored boards I just know you guys are going to come up with! This currently desert-dwelling-gal needs some color!
OK, now go forth and pin!
**So sorry but the contest is open to US residents only. Stupid laws.
Would you like your artwork to be featured as an Art Association subject? Shoot me an email atartsyforager@att.net or Erin an email at artsocialonline@gmail.com for more info.
Art images via Karen Schnepf.
What did we do before the days Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to record the beauty of every day life? How would anyone know how lovely my lunch might be on any given day? I don’t think UK artist Elaine Pamphilon has ever asked that question. Her lovely mixed media works capture the ordinary in an incredibly special way.
Often dividing her surfaces into planes of color, Pamphilon treats us to glimpses of moments that, though simple as they may be, draw us in with their sweetness and humor.
There is such a sense of collected spontaneity about her work, as if each finished piece is just a quick little sketch in her journal, a remembrance of the day, sights, sounds, and findings.
Sigh. Her work makes me wish I was a better journal keeper. Guess I’ll have to settle for Instagram. To see more of Elaine Pamphilon’s work, please visit her website.
Artist found via Christina Foard. All images are via the artist’s website.
Do you ever have days when you just feel abundantly blessed? I hope you do!! These days I’m feeling amazingly thankful for so much. Mr. Forager, the life we lead, the life we’re building, what I do here and everyone who shares in it. When I was gazing at these abstract paintings by Conneticut artist Sandy Welch, one word came to mind: abundance.
These paintings are filled to overflowing with vibrant color and energetic rhythm. Fairly frenetic with joy, they are brimming with life, just as the world explodes in color each spring.
The paint is almost dancing off the canvas, isn’t it?! Each one is just brimming with hopefulness and frivolity. I think we need to remind ourselves sometimes that it’s OK to be happy. Life isn’t perfect, no, but overall it is pretty darn good.
To see more of Sandy Welch’s work, please visit her website and Pinterest page.
Images via the artist’s website and her Pinterest page, linked above.
I will never forget how intimidated I was during my first figure drawing class. And how incredibly awful I was. My professor was very encouraging, telling me to push through until it clicked. And then one day it did and I loved it. All that time spent agonizing over drawing the perfect figure gave me the freedom to let loose once I got it. Charleston artist Kate Long Stevenson seems to get it, too. Her elegantly sketched figures are perfectly imperfect.
With a minimum amount of line, Stevenson shows us the essence of each figure, a hint of a toe reveals a foot, shapes and angles slightly exaggerated so that our eye finishes the sentence they’ve begun.
Bold patches and slashes of paint cause the eye to follow the colors around the canvas, landing and concentrating on just the right spots.
To see more of Kate Long Stevenson’s work, please visit her Kate Long Stevenson website.
All images but Reclining are via the artist’s Kate Long Stevenson website. Reclining is via the Chicago Artsource Chicago Artsource website.
Did you know that today, 3.14, is Pi Day? The happiest of all days? Get it? Pi/pie? I have a deep and abiding love for pie. Ask Mr. Forager. I’ll take pie ( fruit filled, please, preferably berry ) over cake any day of the week! And as you know, being artsy is a way of life as much as it is a type of person. And this artsy loves her pie. Especially this one from BHG made with fresh strawberries AND chocolate. If you love Christina Baker’s sweet painted confection, I bet you’ll love this pie, too. A little rich chocolate, fresh strawberries and a flaky crust perfectly mime Christina’s February painting filled with berry-hued pinks, creamy whites and fresh brights. I can almost taste them both..
Gotta go, I need some strawberries STAT.
art | February by Christina Baker, available at Found Gallery on Artsy Forager
pie | Strawberry Truffle Pie, recipe at BHG.com
You can check out February and more of Christina Baker’s candy-colored artwork in the City Mouse | Country Mouse show up in Found Gallery until March 28th. You can even buy that little sweet for yourself, which let’s face it will be much better on the waistline than confections of the pie variety. Aaaah, I’m always craving art, but now I’m craving pie, too! Happy Pi Day, Artsies!
Christina Baker image via the artist, pie image via Better Homes & Gardens website.
The limited palette and tight scope of the work of this month’s Featured Artist, Peri Schwartz is what continues to keep me enthralled with her paintings. An artist whose work shares these same characteristics is Lily Stockman, whose work I’ve featured twice here on the blog.
Lily and her sister, Hopie, have teamed up to create Block Shop, a textiles company creating hand block printed, naturally dyed scarves crafted in India by the Chhipa family of master printers ( more about the process here ). Doesn’t it seem fitting that if you love Peri’s focus on her place of inspiration, creation, and process that you would wear an artist designed, hand crafted and created scarf? Of course it does!
art | Studio III by Peri Schwartz
scarf | Mosaic [ marigold + black ]
Because they are hand crafted, only a limited number of Block Shop textiles are created at one time. The entire inventory sold out in less than a week when Block Shop launched back in December! So Lily & Hopie have restocked and are taking pre-orders for April 1st shipping. And if you love these as much as I do, you’d better get your order in now before they’re gone!
See more from Peri Schwartz and Block Shop on their websites, linked here and here.
Image sources linked above.
As we travel and move from rental to rental, Mr. Forager and I talk a lot about our future permanent home. We think about our ideal life, which, aside from a smallish house in the Northwest, can be a pretty fluid concept for us. We see so many people striving for that “perfect” life, the one we are told we should have, a big house in suburbia, perfectly manicured lawn and all. The work of Joseph Phillips website embodies this obsession in succinctly drawn works depicting dissections of perceived perfection.
Scenes of neatly trimmed grass and crystal clear pools are isolated against a white background and we see from the outside looking in that these are manufactured replicas of an idealized life.
The utopian ideals take on a slightly sinister, Stepford-like aura, where perfect grass is revealed to be carpet, where pine and palms live together, where a perfect house comes with a bunker, acknowledging that life isn’t anywhere near perfect.
To see more of Joseph Phillip’s work, please visit his Joseph Phillips website.
Artist found via New American Paintings blog. All images are via the artist’s Joseph Phillips website.
Did the time change knock anyone else for a loop? Mr. F and I were fine ( fantastic, actually! ) the first day, OK yesterday, but both exceedingly groggy this morning. Everything feels just a tiny bit off. But we relished the extra daylight yesterday. Everything around us seems to be basking in the glory of spring. While we were in Palm Springs on Sunday, blossoms were everywhere. Perhaps that’s why I was so drawn to this series of work by Los Angeles artist Marion Lane, Spring.
The paintings in the Spring series remind me so much of what spring is like in the city. The lushness of blossoms bursting forth against the hard-edged verticality of urban architecture.
Spring is, after all, a season of transition, and as such still filled with wet, grey days. But it is those spring showers that nourish and bring to life all that was dormant. New life suddenly sprouts everywhere, as Lane’s oozing organic shapes remind us.
To see more of Marion Lane’s work, please visit her website.
All images are via the artist’s website.
The wind is howling outside. That’s the thing about desert storms. Not much in terms of rain, but holy cow the wind is enough to peel the paint off your house. Truly, I think that’s what happens to many of the little houses here in Joshua Tree! So as I was deciding on my artist for today, I came across the work of Chinese American artist Bannon Fu. Meant to be.
Bannon Fu, deaf from the age of one year, chooses to paint the wind. So how do you paint what is not seen, but only experienced? By painting the effect of that force on the objects it touches.
For Fu, the beauty of the swelling and swaying of fabric in a breeze is a profound and moving sight. Wind carries with it energy, whether with the destructive force of a hurricane or the soft whisper of an summer breeze. We know its presence not because we see it, but because we feel its energy.
The artist is helping us to see what is unseen, we see what the motion of the fabric and know the force behind it. Mysterious yet obvious.
To see more of Bannon Fu’s work, please visit his Bannon Fu website.
All images are via the artist’s website.