Happy Monday, Artsies! Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend. Or are you one of the lucky ones who gets a President’s Day holiday? We’re totally jealous!
Our weekend was full of ups and downs– Let’s get the bad stuff over first.. The Downs: Discovering a hole in the kitchen sink pipe of our rental Friday night ( yikes! ), the Disneyland like atmosphere of wineries in Temecula made us miss Oregon even more, crowds at the local breakfast joints on Sunday ( where did all the people come from?? ), still no working sink Sunday night ( the dishes are piling up! )
The Ups: Attending the Palms Springs Fine Art Fair on Friday, a day filled with wine tasting in Temecula on Saturday, discovering less crowded, out of the way wineries, soaking up the warmth on the back porch with Mr. F & a cocktail on a restful Sunday. I’d say The Ups outweighed the The Downs for sure!
[ Carole Feuerman greeting at the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair ]
[ Aldo Chapparo, Robert Kelly, Oli Sihoven ]
[ totally needed some of this over the weekend ]
[ art candy by Klari Reis ]
[ wine, wind, wonderful ]
[ hmm.. which do we want? ]
[ Dr. Evil cherub ]
[ the Foragers love a game of bocce ]
[ warmth of the sun ]
Hope you had a lovely weekend, Artsies! Lots more photos from the Palm Springs Art Fair, Temecula, and more from This Artsy Life on the Artsy Forager Instagram feed! And tons of loveliness coming your way this week, including the opening of our very first online show, City Mouse | Country Mouse in the Found Gallery! Such exciting stuff I can’t stop using exclamation points! 😉
Following a rough, partially sleepless Friday night ( hey landlord, just because your rental is in the desert, doesn’t mean it never rains.. puddles in the bed are no fun ), Mr. Forager & I arose early Saturday morning, fueled up on coffee and pancakes in Joshua Tree and hit the road to escape to LA for the day. On the agenda: The LA Art Show, The Pie Hole, and the Arts District.
[ away we go! ]
[ unsophisticated ]
[ found: Damien Hirst ]
[ these were fun, magnifying glasses required ]
[ desire, obtain, cherish ]
[ speaking of desire ]
[ The Sweater contemplates.. is it art? ]
[ so long, Sheperd Fairey ]
Want to see more photos from our LA adventure? Oh, I’ve got ’em! Check out my Instagram feed for lots more artsiness form the City of Angels!
I’m a little sneaky sometimes. You know, like a mouse. You may have noticed the found gallerypage pop up in the top navigation last week.. or maybe you noticed the found logo in the sidebar.. or saw the Facebook & Twitter posts on Sunday. If you haven’t picked up on my not-so-subtle hints, you can find more on foundhere.
found is an online exhibition gallery featuring curated collections of small works, quarterly, for limited engagements. It’s just another way for me to share artists’ work with you, but in a more focused, specific, special way and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity and promise lots of wonderful artsiness will come to found!
The very first found exhibition will open on Thursday, February 21st! The show, City Mouse | Country Mouse will showcase two Nashville area artists, Christina Baker and Deann Hebert, who, in their respective work, are drawn to very different perspectives of their Tennessee home. The show will be sponsored by the artists’ representing gallery, Gregg Irby Fine Art and a portion of the proceeds will benefit The Nashville Zoo.
Mark your calendars! These two talented artists are creating some beautiful work to share with you!
It was a happy accident that I found out about new Palm Springs contemporary gallery, Stark + Kent . I happened to see Samantha French mention an opening at a gallery in Palm Springs on Facebok just a week after Mr. Forager & I were scheduled to arrive in Southern California. Kismet! Even better, when I checked out S+K’s website, I discovered they were representing another pair of artists previously featured on the blog, Signe & Genna Grushovenko. I knew this would be a gallery to get to know better.
Painting by Michael Soltis at Stark + Kent
Begun by two friends with a passion for art and a love for artists, Ross Rhodes and Mike Soltis, Stark + Kent seeks to be a place where both the seasoned collector and the art world novice will feel at home and find work to love. The space is filled with work that captures the eye and the imagination, a well edited and tightly curated space boasts a nicely varied collection of work.
Artwork by Signe & Genne Grushovenko, Samantha French, Christine Flynn, and Alison PaulArtwork by Michael Soltis and John Westmark
Although you won’t find “typical” Palm Springs work here, the connections in the work to Southern California are a bit more subtle. Which is a joy to find in a town with streets named after movie stars and a giant Marilyn Monroe sculpture in the center of town.. *wink*
Gallery exterior
I do hope if you find yourself in Palm Springs, you’ll stop in at Stark + Kent! But even if you aren’t in SoCal, you can peruse their website, full of fabulous work and more to come, I’m sure!
I have had the work of Dutch artist Ruud van Empel pinned to my Pinterest board for months now. Imagine my excitement when we arrived in San Diego back in October and I saw who was coming to the Museum of Photographic Arts at Balboa Park! Since then, I’ve had the postcard for his show, Strange Beauty, hanging on our fridge, just waiting to see this compelling work up close.
*I snapped this pic before I saw the sign for no photography. Shhh.. don’t tell on me!
The artist’s first solo show in an American museum, Strange Beauty showcases over 40 of van Empel’s digitally created works. I hate to call them digitally enhanced photographs because they are so very much more than that. Ruud van Empel carefully constructs each piece, meticulously layering staged photographs, digital imagery, and collage.
World #7, cibachrome, 41.43×59.06
The results are stunningly haunting, complex imagery. With a background in theater arts and graphic graphic design, van Empel sets a beautifully enticing stage, one in we aren’t sure whether his characters should feel right at home or terribly out of place.
World #20, cibachrome, 23.5×33The Office #41, digital print on paper, 12.01×13.78Untitled #1, cibachrome, 33.11×46.81
As you look closely at each image, you aren’t sure where the actual photograph and the manipulation or collage begins.. in many we would be surprised to know which elements were not present all along.
Generation #2, cibachrome, 130×49
Strange Beauty runs through February 3, 2013 at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. If you’re anywhere near the area, I highly recommend a visit! You can also see more of Ruud van Empel’s work on his website.
Top image by Artsy Forager. All other images are via the artist’s website.
While Mr. Forager and I had originally made plans to trek to Big Bear over the weekend, a thick blanket of snow and us sans the CA law required snow chains, along with a sick-with-a-cold Mr. Forager led to a change in plans. So following our Saturday ritual of breakfast in Joshua Tree ( at Crossroads Cafe— their “piggy pancakes” are my favorite indulgent breakfast ) and stocking up on victuals at the little JT Farmers’ Market, we drove through the wind farms to Palm Springs.
We wandered around the shops and a few galleries in downtown PS ( note: Stark + Kent Gallery— best contemporary selection in PS, including a few artists featured here on Artsy Forager! ). After doing the requisite touristy photo-op under Anish Kapoor’sMarilyn statue, currently installed in downtown Palm Springs, we decided to make our way over to the Palm Springs Art Museum. Now I normally have pretty low expectations for small town art museums, knowing they don’t usually have the financial support of big city institutions, so we were pleasantly surprised by what we found there.
Jim Isermann installation
Palm Springs being a hot bed of modern architecture and design, it was no surprise that one of the current special exhibitions featured the design-art hybrid work of Fernando and Humberto Campana in the exhibition, Antibodies. Their functional yet incredibly artistic designs take inspired living to an entirely different level.
Antibodies, Fernando and Humberto Campana ( photo by David A. Lee )
But it was the museum’s contemporary collection that delighted us most. As we walked up the stairs past the giant yellow Isermann installation ( see above pic ), so the magic began. Marina Abramovic’sThe Kitchen V, Carrying the Milk, held us spellbound, as we watched the artist as she stood, she the very subject of the Vermeer-esque vignette, holding a bowl of milk, at times struggling to hold her pose.
The Kitchen V, Carrying the Milk by Marina Abramovic
Moving away from the Abramovic video installation, our eyes were caught by what from a side angle looked to be an interesting light sculpture installation, but then I stood in front of it and that’s when something bewitching and delightful happened.. see the video!
Exploded View ( Birds ) by Jim Campbell
Here are a few more of our favorite highlights from the contemporary collection–
Casualty in the Art Realm by Robert ArnesonExploded Crystal Chandelier Headache by Ed RuschaRainbow Picket by Judy ChicagoMr. Forager, contemplating Corona 2003 by Anish Kapoor
Corona 2003 by Anish Kapoor ( above ) with its beautifully disorienting reflective surface and its acoustic properties ( when standing in front of it, as Mr. F is above, someone a few yards behind can hear what is being said into it ), we found it much more interesting than his giant Marilyn Monroe sculpture getting so much attention outside. I’m glad we took the time to escape the masses huddled around her upended skirt to experience something much more satisfying.
Unless otherwise identified, all images are by Artsy Forager. Other image sources are linked above.
It’s that time of the month.. for a little guest foraging over on the UGallery blog for my Curated Persona series. I’m not a fan of super scariness, but I love art that’s just a bit spooky. Check it out my Curated Persona: Zombie Attack Survivalist post here!
While Mr. Forager & I are on the road, making our way to California, we’re rerunning Artsy Forager’s most popular posts. This post originally published on July 18, 2011. Enjoy!
This being my first summer in the Pacific Northwest, I knew the climate would be much cooler than summers in Florida. But no one told me that even the trees would be wearing scarves!
Yarn Bombing by Suzanne Tidwell, Occidental Park, Seattle, WA
G and I were in Seattle on Saturday and our first stop was Occidental Park.. I was dying to see large scale yarn bombing in person. Suzanne Tidwell’s bright warm colors juxtaposed against the dark trees under a cloudy sky would melt the heart of the Grinch himself.
Yarn Bombing by Suzanne Tidwell, Occidental Park, Seattle, WAYarn Bombed Lamp Post, Occidental Park, Seattle, WA
I mean, let’s face it, here in the PNW, we have a lot of gray days. So why not help nature along a little by adding some color and whimsy? I think the trees approve. They just look so much happier, don’t they? ( Wait, did I just inadvertently quote Bob Ross?! ) And of course, those bony lamp posts HAD to have been cold, being steel and all. Now they’re super cozy.
Yarn bombing is a type of street art, which instead of using chalk or paint, utilizes colorful installations of knitted or crocheted yarn. Begun as an attempt to enliven and beautify cold, urban environments, it has grown into a full-on art movement. These aren’t just grandmas and bored housewives looking for a creative outlet and a bit of mischief. Many yarn bombers are fiber artists who connected with the whimsical style and slightly rebellious nature of yarn bombing.
In many cases, the yarn bombing is done illegally, just like traditional graffiti and often under the cover of night. However, bombers are rarely prosecuted, if caught. Perhaps due to the playful, non-threatening nature of the “tagging”. It would be like arresting Tinkerbell.
Fiber artists have tagged iconic public sculpture such as the Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia, a traditional red London telephone booth and Wall Street’s famous Charging Bull sculpture ( But don’t call that one yarn-bombing to the responsible artist, Olek. She takes offense and considers her own work art, while the work of others to be trite. Not sure I see the difference, but that is her prerogative, I suppose. ) What began as a clandestine art movement is now moving into mainstream favor, with artists, like Seattle’s Suzanne Tidwell, being commissioned to produce large scale public installations and corporate projects.
Totems and Yarn Bombs, Occidental Park, Seattle, WA
There is so much darkness and despair in our world today. I say thank you, yarn bombers, for seeking to bring a little sunshine and fanciful wonderment to our world. Long may you knit.
If you’d like to learn more about Suzanne Tidwell, whose work is featured in Occidental Park in Seattle as part of the summer ArtSPARKS program, check out her website and Facebook page. To learn more about yarn bombing, check out this website, run by two knitters living in Vancouver, BC who also wrote a book about the phenomenon, Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti.
Hiya Artsies! Today I’m doing a little guest foraging over on the UGallery blog for my Curated Persona series. I’ve put together a collection of UGallery artwork perfect for Your Favorite Hipster. You know you have one. Check it out here!
This whole economic mess has contributed to the loss of countless galleries around the US. I know first hand what it is like to put blood, sweat and tears into one. OK, maybe not blood, but plenty of sweat and tears, I assure you! 😉 I’ve heard some folks say that the old gallery model is a thing of the past, gasping for air, dead in the water. But I believe in galleries! And today, I’m featuring some brick & mortar galleries that are out there, doing it right. These folks are hustling, marketing, selling and making magic happen for their artists and communities. Put ’em on your list to check out, whether you can do so in person or online!
Diehl Gallery, Jackson Hole, WyomingFlorida Mining Gallery, Jacksonville, FloridaFoster/White Gallery, Seattle, WAGallery Orange, New Orleans, LouisianaTaylor de Cordoba, Culver City, California
**I’m so excited to finally get a chance to visit Taylor de Cordoba and all the other LA area galleries when Mr. Forager & I hit SoCal in October! Can’t wait to drag him all over Los Angeles.
I hope you’ll check out these galleries when you’re in their respective cities– well worth the trip! You can see more of my favorite artsy spots on my Pinterest board, Artsy’s Guide to Galleries. Do you have a favorite gallery? Let me know in the comments below!
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