I have such a weakness for ceramics. Some people are glass lovers and I agree, handblown glass is gorgeous, but I’ve always loved the beautiful imperfection of ceramics. I think it started when I was young, eating chocolate ice cream from my grandmother’s Frankoma pottery bowls. The swirling of the spoon made such a distinct sound and the bowls usually had slight imperfections that just added to their charm. Mr. F and I didn’t register for china when we got married, mostly because we knew we would be traveling for a while and didn’t see the point. If I had registered, delicate china wouldn’t have been my choice. Artsy pottery dishes would have been the way to go for me. The work by ceramic artist Diana Fayt surely would have been ( and still is! ) on my short list.
The delicate graphics of her hand drawn “etchings in clay” and the gorgeous array of glaze colors make Diana’s ceramics almost too beautiful to use. Oh but use them, I would! How much better would my morning muesli taste out of one of these bowls? Or just arrange a few leafy branches in one of those vases and let the pottery be the star. Her work would fit just perfectly in our artsy dream home in the woods.
To see more of Diana Fayt‘s work, please visit her website. Some work is available for purchase on her website, or check out the galleries & stockists listed.
Mr. Forager and I are without a home. We have a roof over our heads always, but as we move from furnished rental to furnished rental, none of them are actually home. A place that is ours, filled with our own tastes and personalities. In a way, it is incredibly freeing– if we had a home to decorate, believe me, I would spend waaay too much time doing so! This idea of creating a beautiful, comfortable home has been around for centuries and continues to be perpetuated and heightened today by magazines, blogs, and social media. The burden of home-making, often self-inflicted, usually falls to women. In her Anonymous Women: Draped series, photographer Patty Carroll explores the idea that we become so obsessed with creating a perfect space that we lose ourselves in the process.
From the artist’s website, “I am addressing the double edge of domesticity; the home as a place of comfort, or conversely, a place where decoration camouflages one’s individuality to the point of claustrophobia“. Or to the point of invisibility. If, like me, you’re a reader of interior design blogs, think about the homes you see– don’t they all kind of look a bit alike? We follow trends and take hold of popular styles, never really considering whether or not it truly reflects who we are. I look back on some of my own choices and wonder, who was I? The answer– I had no clue who I was, so my choices reflected that lost sense of self.
And its not only in decorating our homes that we lose ourselves, but in fashion, work, tradition, emotion, even as members of larger groups, we immerse ourselves, taking on characteristics that may not otherwise have been a part of who we are. Then, its only when we separate ourselves that we realize that the entire time we felt that sense of belonging, we, as individuals, were actually lost.
I’ve heard of this phenomena called the January Blues. A condition in which the post-holiday, short, usually cold and cloudy days get some folks down. I’m thankful not to suffer that affliction! If anything, I absolutely revel in the winter blues of January.
I love the fading light of late afternoon, the silhouette of bare tree limbs and the softness of the snow covered landscape. The world slows down, cools down, literally and figuratively, and our minds are given the chance to rest and renew. I’ve been pinning some of my favorite wintery images on my An Artsy WinterPinterest board and thought I’d share some of them with you!
I hope that maybe this post and peeking around the board will help you find the beauty in your winter blues! To see more selections, visit the An Artsy Winter board on Pinterest. If it doesn’t do the trick, turn on a heat lamp, pour yourself a cup of cocoa and count the days until spring! 😉
Artists, let me ask you a question. When you paint, do you find yourself mesmerized by the way the paint is moving across the canvas? Not in an I’m a painting genius kind of way, but in an omigod paint is the most beautiful, wonderful thing ever, way? Just me, then? Ooookay. Seriously, it is the gorgeous movement and blending of paint that draws me to the work of artist Francesc Ruiz Abad.
You can see the gentle stroke of the brush, imagine it filled with paint, the colors mixing on the palette first and then the canvas. Light, luscious, cotton candy like movement through the surface of the paint. Colors bleed beautifully into each other, creating a sense of light and softness.
Paintings like these make me want to paint! And run my fingers over each canvas.
I began 2014 determined to get back into an artistic practice. I feel like this part of my life is filled with so many starts and stops. It’s too easy to let it slide when other things come up. It’s too easy to choose watching BBC serials rather than sitting and drawing. So on January 1st, I started my #colorforaging2014 project, in which I’m exploring a different color in paint each day and posting my finds on Instagram. I hoped that this daily exercise would feed my desire to create and making it an Instagram project would help keep me accountable. And you know what? It has.
And it’s teaching me some things about myself as a person and artist ( I’m trying hard to accept that label ).
1 |I have to make time to do the things I want to do. If I don’t carve out specific time, I’ll always find other ways to distract myself, with previously mentioned serials, web surfing, work, etc. This Instagram project has forced me to spend at least a few minutes each day with my palette out and a brush in my hand. And those few minutes have made me ache for longer, more dedicated time– I’m usually doing my #colorforaging2014 project immediately after dinner cleanup, but rarely do much else creatively in the evening. So when Mr. F announced that he was planning to spend Sunday afternoon brewing beer, I announced that I was going to spend the afternoon painting.
2 | I need accountability. There was a reason for saying out loud to Mr. F that I was going to paint on Sunday. Because I knew he would remember and ask me why I wasn’t painting when I sat on the couch and watched back to back episodes of Doc Martin on Hulu. I have all these grand schemes and ideas in my head but if I don’t get them out and tell someone, much of the time, they never leave the comfort of my mind.
3 | I need deadlines. I am a procrastinator by nature. And a perfectionist. I think those two traits go hand in hand. I procrastinate because I’m afraid of my results being less than stellar. But I know that I need practice to improve and grow. But the perfectionist in me hates it when my efforts result in disappointing work. Such a vicious cycle! My niece Kendall told my sister-in-law ( after I’d already purchased & shipped her Christmas gift ) that she wanted a painting from me for Christmas. So I decided she will have one as a birthday gift in June! Deadline established. But her sister Samantha’s birthday is coming up on February 3rd, and how could I not give her one, too? Deadline established. I also signed up to be a Contributor for the February 2014 project for We Are the Contributors. Another deadline established.
4 | I need to seize moments of inspiration. Every day I see little moments of life that I want to sketch. My coffee cup and its shadow. The funky yellow chair in the living room. Mr. Forager’s profile. But often I see the inspiration, note it, then let it just slip by. No more! From now on, if I see beauty in a moment, I want to try to capture it. My sketchbook now lives on our coffee table instead of hidden in a bag. There is a felt pin with it always. Even if I’m just inspired to doodle, I need to do it. Because once I start, I don’t want to stop.
5 | I need mini-projects to spur creativity. This truth applies to my blogging and freelance work as much as to my fledgling art practice. It’s so easy just to do what I’ve always done, but in order to grow and evolve, I need to challenge myself. The mini-projects I’ve done on Instagram get my wheels turning in so many ways. I find myself challenged to look at things differently, to come up with new angles on old ideas. Painting is my first love, but not every project has to involve paint. It’s about finding new ways of seeing. I want to learn to weave and throw pottery. I want to find new ways of approaching the world.
6 | I need to mess with the just OK. In some things, good enough is good enough. Like making the bed or doing laundry. It isn’t perfect but its done. This attitude doesn’t fit for an art practice that is about growing, learning and evolving. When in college, I was a pretty good artist. Then in the following years, I became an OK painter. Being OK is no longer OK with me. Now, I’m finding myself bored with the type of work I would have been happy with a few years ago. On Sunday, as I was working on a little 6×6 canvas ( which you’ll see when the WAC February project is revealed! ), I arrived at a point that was OK. Not bad, but not super fantastic. Not exciting. I hesitated. I wanted to do something bold to it, feeling like it needed a push. But I was afraid to screw up the OK. I hemmed and I hawed. I tried to visualize a bold change. Then I watched this Philip Guston video. He didn’t settle and neither should I. So I took the chance. And that one change prompted other changes. Until I was left with something I liked. Something I daresay I am proud of.
I feel like I’m making progress. Its slow, but building up a good habit always takes time and effort. How about you, Artsies? Do any of you struggle with some of these issues? How do you face them down?
Thumbing through an old photo album. Spending an afternoon sifting through the contents of a cedar chest. These are things I took for granted before we started traveling. I’m even a bit envious of friends posting childhood photos of themselves all over Instagram for “throwback Thursdays”. All of my nostalgic ephemera is tucked away in a storage unit in Seattle. So I couldn’t help gushing over the work of Berkley artist Jane Hambleton whose mixed media pieces layer together glimpses of time into collected memories.
Beautifully textured, these created fragments seem torn from life’s scrapbook. Sweet, momentary glimpses into a day, a summer, a moment that may have long been forgotten. Each piece is lovely on its own, but when put together into installations, as the artist intends for each series, we see not only black and white memories, but blank canvases of color. Perhaps these are the times that aren’t specifically remembered, yet in our minds they are still colored with feeling.
The We Are the Contributors mini project got me thinking recently about the various roles we play. Yet we aren’t just taking on different tasks, we’re often putting on an almost completely different persona according to where we are and with whom we’re interacting. These sculptures by German artist Reinhard Voss, with their Cubist-like style seem to give us a physical manifestation of the various faces we put on.
Voss’s sculptures are created by piecing together strips of wood, leaving our eyes to see the varying grains and planes making up each face. The effect is eerie at times, resulting in a face contorted or seeming to have been erased.
The different “faces” we put on can be so similar, can’t they? We might lose our mouth ( i.e. hold our tongue ) in certain situations or be blinded in others. How often do we are we truly showing who we are? In what company do we feel we can show the most honest face?
One of our favorite things about taking time out for hiking and camping is getting unplugged. No laptops, no iPad, no phone. Only a camera. I believe these excursions truly help Mr. Forager and I in our ability to willingly step away from the devices that seem to be ever present. In his photo series //_PATH, photographer Mark Dorf examines our dependency on technology and the impact that attachment is making on society.
The photographer imposes 3D renderings and collage into photographs of lush forests, deserted beaches and snow capped mountains. This technology we welcome so readily into our lives is encroaching ever so rapidly upon everything we touch, everything we see and do. How long until our phones work in the now unreachable depths of the woods? How long until we are no longer able to switch off?
To see more of Mark Dorf’s work, please visit his website. Was unplugging more one of your resolutions for 2014? How are you doing so far?
January can be a tough month for some folks. I love the winter, but I understand how the cold air, brown grass and gray skies can get ya down. Which is why I love the work of this month’s Featured Artist, Christy Kinard so much– her paintings are like a warm breath of spring any time of the year!
But spring is still three months away, you say? Why not just infuse some warm and bright florals into your probably drab winter wardrobe? Your countenance and outlook will instantly cheer and chase away the January blues!
Want to see more work by our Featured Artist, Christy Kinard? Check out her website.
There is a school of thought that in order for something to be good, it has to be complicated. A special meal must mean slaving for hours in the kitchen, the latest tech gadget must be filled with buttons and apps of every variety. But there is also beauty and tranquility to be found in the paring down. Portland artist Courtney Price distills her paper collages into the most elementary of forms, yet the results are filled with dimension and sophistication.
Overlapping paper shapes one on top of the other just so, Price is mixing color with light and shadow, creating varying shades just as she might with paint. The forms advance and recede according to their hues and how our eyes perceive their shapes. And oh, those palettes! Each piece seems to be a study in color relations.
