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Messiness. Alyssa di Edwardo.

Confession time: I’m a bit of a neat freak. I make the bed every day. I always have a place for everything. In college, I was the only one in the painting studio meticulously cleaning off her palette after each session ( which wouldn’t have been necessary had we been able to leave all of our stuff in the studio, but I digress ). Being married has helped with my neatness obsession a bit, I admit to occasionally putting Mr. F’s stuff away but find myself able to cope with the imperfectness of living with someone not quite so obsessive. Maybe because he treats my quirky neatnikness with humor and grace.

Is it strange that I admire folks who can live with, even relish in the messy? I think it is what has drawn me to the work of West Palm Beach artist Alyssa di Edwardo.

As I’ve been back painting regularly now for over a year, I’ve found myself confronting my fear of the mess. Even in my work, I relish those moments where the canvas or panel is as beautiful as I’d imagined it could be.. but then there creeps in a need to push a bit further. Beyond the beauty of a controlled surface is a need for a type of exploration and experimentation that will only happen when I allow things to get a little messy. When I let go of what seems good enough but not exciting and my need to control the outcome. I’m working at finding a balance between the not denying the necessary calm and embracing the mess that needs to surface.

To see more of Alyssa di Edwardo’s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

January 22, 2015
Dimensions. Hilary Harnischfeger.

It can be easy to get stuck pigeon-holing people into the roles in which we know them best. Mother, father, sister, brother, doctor, lawyer, artist. But we aren’t flat and one-dimensional. We are made up of many sides, many layers– some complementary to each other, others contradictory. When we think of abstraction, for me at least, my mind automatically runs to painting. But, as the work of Hilary Harnishfeger shows, abstraction can move past the dimensional limits of a painting on canvas.

Harnischfeger’s work feels to me like what happens when we peel open the layers of a person we’ve never attempted to understand outside the box we’ve placed them in. All of sudden, we begin to see a world opened up– dreams and interests we could have never imagined because we never took the time to ask. It’s so easy to take that flatness for granted, to not bother to think beyond it. And on the other side, it can be difficult to let those dimensions be seen. It’s less risky to just settle into and reveal ourselves in only that one role. What if, when we turn ourselves around, we find it was all just a facade?

To see more of Hilary Harnischfeger‘s work, please visit the website of Rachel Uffner Gallery.

All images via the Rachel Uffner Gallery website.

January 21, 2015
Clouded. Laura Guese.

After nearly a year of coastal living and four years in the Northwest, I feel like I’ve become a connoisseur of clouds. Recently Mr. F and I sat high atop a local rock formation, watching for whales as they migrate South to Mexico. In just the space of a few hours, the skies changed dramatically– the clouds would roll in, then out, in, then out. As I was looking through the paintings of Denver artist Laura Guese, it got me thinking about how that ever changing sky mimicked every day life.

Some days, we wake up and all is clear– we feel filled with purpose and positivity. We see clear the path we are on and know exactly where we are headed. But on other days, our vision seems clouded. Whether by work or worries, we can’t see clearly the road ahead. We get bogged down, slowed down, we’re stuck, afraid to move forward because we have lost sight of our destination. But if we’ll only press on, keep hiking up, we can move above the clouds. Suddenly we glimpse a spot of blue sky! And we’re back on track.

You can see the paintings of Laura Guese in her solo show at Mike Wright Gallery in Denver through February 28th. Or drop by her website to see more of Laura’s work.

All images are via Mike Wright Gallery.

January 20, 2015
Naked. Daniel Catalano.

There is more to nakedness than the simple truth of being without clothing. It requires trust and vulnerability, traits not always easy to come by. This season of my life, dealing with my mom’s illness, has without a doubt at times left me raw, while also virtually piling on layers in the way of self preservation and protection.

Situations like these tend to bring out our worst or our best. We’ve been dealing with both sides of the coin. The best people leaving us feeling protected and safe in our vulnerable state, the worst piling on judgement and hurtfulness when we are at our most bare.

My poor mom has been left without her own shroud physically and in just about every other way. Stripped of her health and her independence, she has had to lay herself open, to lose the security of her ordered world, to ask for help in ways she never dreamed of.

I’ve had friends thank me for being so open about what we’ve been going through as they go through similar circumstances, yet keep to themselves. And that would usually be my own way.. to keep everything private, bottled up. But to be naked is to also let others know that they have your trust, that they are needed, that you know that you can’t do it alone.

Since her diagnosis, there have been a lot of tears. But there has also been meaningful conversation and deep laughter with those who’ve allowed us the freedom to be vulnerable and the security of knowing we are safe in our nakedness.

Featured paintings are by Daniel Catalano. Please visit his website to see more of his work.

All images are via the artist’s website.

January 19, 2015
Expectations. Julie Blackmon.

We all have expectations of life. Perceptions of what our ideal world would look like. Those expectations seem to be heightened these days by the images of perfect lives we are bombarded with daily via social media and lifestyle blogs. Every meal shall be perfectly garnished with stylishly mismatched vintage dinnerware! Children will be the very picture of tiny fashion perfection and their birthday parties shall rival that of the royals!

Taking her cue from the Jan Steen household, a 17th century Dutch painter’s style turned shorthand for a messy scene, photographer Julie Blackmon explores the disparagement between a society that is both “child centered” and “self-obsessed”.

In her domestic scenes, we often see no adult figures, only children, as if pardon this turn of phrase, the inmates are running the asylum. I apologize for that reference, yet it is what kept coming to mind as I was going through the portfolio. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad point of departure. Children need freedom and play, it is essential to their development especially in our over scheduled world. Blackmon is capturing these fleeting moments of the chaos of childhood, in all its messy, mythic reality.

To see more of Julie Blackmon’s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via Robert Mann Gallery.

January 16, 2015
Wild. Allison Gildersleeve.

As a somewhat fledgling painter exploring the nature of environments myself, I’m always intrigued by how other artists interpret the scenes we experience. In her paintings, New York artist Allison Gildersleeve paints the simultaneous experiences of small, hemmed-in parcels of wilderness.

When I paint these woods, I want it to feel as if all the stories that took place there are unfolding simultaneously.

The artist takes reference from the same scene as experienced multiple times over the seasons, layering each impression over the next. The resulting cacophony is like a beautiful mapping of the emotional weight of each place. For every person who walked through, every child who played tag, there is a bit of themselves and their memory left behind long after they’ve trod that ground.

To see more of Allison Gildersleeve‘s work, please visit her website. if you happen to be in New Hampshire, you can catch her solo show at Cynthia-Reeves Gallery in Walpole until January 20th.

All images are via the artist’s website and the Cynthia-Reeves Gallery website. Artist found via Christina Foard.

January 15, 2015
Consumptions. Kira Nam Greene.

Food and sex. Let’s face it, our American culture is pretty much obsessed with two things. Yet we often want to deny how much each matters to us. We are somehow above such base desires. In her work, Asian American artist Kira Nam Greene explores the dichotomy in a fascination of the objectification of women by portraying them as highly styled, delectable food.

A self confessed food lover, cuisine has often been the focus of Greene’s work, as she combines Eastern motifs and symbols with ubiquitously American foods like Skippy Peanut Butter and a stack of pancakes. In thinking of the food as shorthand for the female body, I began to notice the treatment of the food in composition– elevated on a pedestal, as an award, the object of leering attentions.

Kind of makes you rethink that phrase, “you are what you eat”, doesn’t it?

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via Jenny Brown on Instagram. If you aren’t already following Jenny, you need to be!

January 14, 2015
Learning Process. Benjamin Adelmann.

Many artists work in series format. For some, the subject of the series is determined by the subject of the work– oceanscape, abstract, pop culture, etc. But for Los Angeles artist Benjamin Adelmann, a series of work is often dictated by the process through which the artist arrives at his final destination.

Whether through beginning in a completely abstract composition or with a previously composed work manipulated through editing software and repainted as manipulation, Adelmann’s work feels more about what happens on the journey than what is waiting upon arrival. It’s a lesson I’m striving to embrace myself these days– that act of getting lost in the process and learning my way through it. That relinquishing of what I have in mind for a final outcome and just following where the path may lead.

To see more of Benjamin Adelmann’s work, please visit his website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

January 13, 2015
Connecting Threads. Happy Red Fish.

Our current vagabondish lifestyle can make it difficult to create new connections. Sometimes we are only in one spot for 13 weeks, which seems hardly long enough to foster lifetime relationships. But occasionally, we come across those people with whom we instantly click. Those that we feel like we’ve known all along. That connective act, that fostering of the newfound with our own memories brings to mind the work of Happy Red Fish AKA Dutch artist Hagar Vardimon-van Heummen.

Our friend Veronica has a way of describing those people with whom we feel instantly at ease– she calls them “zero people”. Now that may sound a bit insulting, but it means they are those rare friends who require zero energy. We don’t have to put on a show. They get our jokes and understand our hearts. It’s funny that some of our shortest stays while traveling have yielded some of the best connections. It’s something we’ve been learning along the way– when you happen across those kindred spirits, take every opportunity to foster the connection. We need more zero people in our lives.

To see more of Happy Red Fish‘s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

January 12, 2015
Filtered Visions. Matt Crump.

Instagram has changed the way we see the world. OK, maybe that’s giving the ubiquitous photo sharing app too much credit. But perhaps it has unleashed in many of us the desire to capture not only what we see, but how we see. The “candy colored minimalism” of photographer Matt Crump gives us a glimpse into one way of seeing the world around us.

I’ve found myself thinking about the way we edit and filter our experiences through the photographs we post. Often when Mr. F and I are out hiking or taking in a particularly moving scene, I reach for my camera or phone, but know as I snap the shutter that what I feel in that moment won’t be captured with the lens alone.

On the other hand, are we being conditioned to appreciate and applaud the manipulated version of life more than the natural? Or perhaps we are drawn to images like these for their transformative and transporting effect? Maybe it isn’t a question of one or another. And that’s OK.

To see more of Matt Crump‘s work, please visit his website and follow him on Instagram.

Artist found via I Need a Guide. All images are via the artist’s website.

January 9, 2015

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artistic pathfinding by lesley frenz

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