I like to inspect things closely. And when they aren’t aware of it, I like to examine people closely. There is so much expression and beauty held within the eyes and the lines of each face. French born artist Jerome Lagarrigue, in his larger than life portrait studies, focuses his brush on the eyes of his subject, revealing emotion that we might not notice without such targeted attention.
Sometimes, when Mr. F & I are sitting together, reading or watching a movie, I can’t help but gaze at him for a while. Pretty sure it creeps him out a bit when I do that! But there is something so lovely about memorizing the face of the one you love, isn’t there? Not to mention really seeing all the people you interact with every day. How many of us could describe the faces of friends, family, colleagues well enough to create a true likeness? If we don’t know a face well, how will we ever be able to read it? To know what isn’t being said?
To see more of Jerome Lagarrigue‘s work, please visit his website. Take some time to sit and stare at someone you love today, Artsies. 😉
Yesterday, I shared with you Lucky Jackson‘s work and wrote about the masks we wear. Well, it seems like I’m on a bit of an identity-crisis train this week, so hop aboard! I was really struck by this series of photographs by Austin artist Denise Prince, in which we find women dressed in finery, yet seeming very out of place.
These women, decked out in evening wear, seem frozen in time, not just physically, but perhaps spiritually as well. They could be the homecoming queens whose lives began with such hopes for greatness, only to find themselves living a much more ordinary, less glamorous life than they ever expected. Sometimes, we put such expectations on our future, don’t we? Of course it’s perfectly normal to have dreams. Haven’t we all, especially when we were young, dreamt of accepting an Oscar or Grammy in our evening gown or tux? Maybe we expected our lives to turn out differently. But no matter what turns life has taken, we can always still be the star of our own story, just perhaps less formally attired.
Mr. F and I often talk about what has drawn us to the Northwest. The mild summers have a lot to do with it, but even more, is the feeling that, in comparison to so much of the US, there is a wildness here. Big cities are few and far between, the landscape filled more with small towns, rural communities and much still wild and untamed wilderness. The thought that we can go out on a hike and see deer, elk, bears, and even moose in some areas, is thrilling. We are living on the edge, ya’ll. But that also means that we, as humans and society are ever encroaching on the wilderness and the animals found therein are paying the price. These themes of nature and our relationship with it and effects upon it are the catalyst for the work of Portland sculptor, Rachel Denny.
In her work, Denny has created a visual language for exploring the charm and delicacy to be found in the natural world. Whimsy belies a deeper meaning, if we take the time to look beyond what we see.
Rachel Denny’s latest work can currently be seen in her solo exhibition, Outside In at Foster/White Gallery in Seattle through October 26th. You can also see more of Denny’s work on her website.
It’s that time of year. Kids are planning who they’ll “be” for Halloween, adults are racking their brains to come up with costumes for themselves that are funny, clever, sexy, whatever the think they are or wish that they could be. But the latest series by Canadian artist Lucky Jackson, I am the Hero of This Story, has got me thinking about the masks we all put on every day.
It’s funny how we all grow up thinking we can do anything, be anything, but slowly over time as we age and life beats us down, doubt creeps in. Maybe I’m not smart enough, or pretty enough, or cool enough, or brave enough. So instead of believing that we can be the hero of our story, we play dress-up each day, pretending to be who we are not, faking it, hoping to make it through.
Eventually though, either publicly or privately, whether when we’re young or at the end of our days, the facade will begin to crack. We’ll come to realize that face we’ve been putting on all these years isn’t really who we are. And hopefully, if we’re lucky, we’ll figure out who is truly hiding behind the mask.
These painted woodcut pieces by Lucky Jackson harken back to those days of dreaming of who we would become, but also look to what happens to who we become as we listen to the voices around us. Want to see more of Lucky Jackson‘s work? Please visit her website.
I don’t know what it is about the work of this month’s Featured Artist, Jennifer JL Jones that reminds me so much of the Pacific Northwest. Maybe it’s the watery, downward strokes that make me think of the softly falling rain or perhaps it’s the subtle glowing light, so different from the blaring bright this Florida girl had been used to!
This piece in particular, Sukha [Totems], is just the perfect representation of a Pacific Northwest Fall and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t anywhere near her mind when she painted it! Autumn here in the NW is such an interesting mix of brilliantly changing leaves, grey skies and rain soaked earth. Days that are made for cozy sweaters, boots and definitely don’t forget your raincoat!
My perfect Northwest Autumn day would be spent wrapped up in these cozies, grabbing coffee and heading to the art museum, followed by an evening at home by the fire gazing up at Jennifer Jones’ painting. 😉 One day, I will have one! One day.
Our life seems, as I’m sure many of yours do, like a stream of times of hurry and peace. When we’re looking for our next spot– hurry. Once we get there and settle in– peace. Autumn and spring– hurry. Winter and summer– peace. In her abstract paintings, Colorado artist Krista Harris finds inspiration in that natural push and pull that the journey of life brings.
Through her process of building up and tearing down, adding and subtracting paint intuitively, Harris ends up with compositions that are flooded with movement, yet we find moments of respite among the fury. Warm colors are tempered with contrasting cool hues, a perfect parallel of our own seasons of peace among life’s fray.
Remember when I mentioned the need to stretch some creative muscles? While not exactly the painting project I had in mind, this Instagram project, initiated by Sandra of Raincoast Creative Salon and Christie of Bedside Design, came along at just the right time! #Foliophoto is the name of the game and the objective is to take an Instagram each day of October based on a word prompt [ see list below ], then use hashtag #foliophoto to mark your Instagram and follow what everyone else is doing.
The project is about bettering our visual storytelling, improving our photography, and building creative community. A definite assortment of goals I knew I could benefit from and have some artsy fun at the same time! Want to join in? It’s not too late! Just find the word prompt below corresponding with today’s date [ i.e., for today, Oct. 8th, the word is pattern ]. Then take an Instagram inspired by that word. Get creative!
I hope you’ll play along with us! I love going through the #foliophoto entries at night and seeing what everyone else has come up with. So much creativity, you guys! You’ll be more creative and you’ll be inspired by what other folks are doing. Come and play! #foliophoto
Once in a while, I come across an artist whose work really captures me and I want to drink in each detail. While perusing the work of another artist, I came across the website of his studio mate and immediately fell in love with what I saw. The sculptures of Toronto artist Gosia haunted me with their delicate grace.
The shrouded faces, the graceful features and gentle expressions, all rendered in snowy white. They remind me of a quieter place, perhaps a place that doesn’t even exist, where time moves slowly and people are unfailingly tender and kind.
If you’d like to see more of Gosia‘s work, please visit her website. If you’re in Toronto, she has a show currently up at Latitude 44 Gallery until October 12th and will open a new show at Wall Space Gallery on October 10th!
With every new place, we make out a list of our “must sees” while we are there and this weekend, the sun finally came out, so we took full advantage and happily crossed a few items off our list! One of our favorite “perfect day” activities is to do a little wine tasting. So we headed down to the Williamette Valley in Oregon to enjoy some Fall color and hit a few vineyards. You might remember we did a little wine tasting while we were in Southern California and while a day spent tasting wine is never a bad thing, we did find the SoCal style, with cavernous, crowded tasting rooms and glamorous, perfect people flitting about a bit off putting. We like a quieter, cozy atmosphere, one where the winemaker himself might proudly take you on a tour of his vineyard, where staff take the time to chat and get to know you. Maybe we’re a bit biased towards the NW, but there is just something about the wine country atmosphere up here that just feels more inviting.
So we spent a beautiful, cloudless day exploring the Oregon countryside and finished the day with a quick detour into Portland for dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, Pok Pok. I swear, Mr. F fantasizes about the Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings. This is one place where, though the atmosphere is definitely NW cool, it is all about the food. They could serve their yummies out of a brown paper bag on a street corner and we would still line up to eat it.
So many of our Sundays these days seem to be spent catching up and running errands, and we got a bit of that in, but took the afternoon to make the drive over to the coast, hoping to catch one of our former landlords at their coffee shop, Tinderbox Coffee Roasters in Westport. Have you ever run across people who were just instant friends? Tara & Nick, the owners of Tinderbox, rented their house to us a few years ago, my first time living in the Northwest and being away from Florida. Friendly, warm, genuine people that we took an instant liking to. The kind of people who get it. And it shows in the coffee they brew and the atmosphere they’ve created at Tinderbox. Unpretentious, cozy and full of life, just like them. If you find yourself in Westport, or passing through Aberdeen/Hoquiam ( where they have a drive-thru stand ), make sure you stop and get a cup of java. It will warm you inside and out.
I’ve found that occasionally, where and how I see an artist’s work will influence how I feel about it. If I see something while relaxing on vacation, I might think more highly of it than I would have if it had just been hanging in my local coffee shop. A beautifully designed gallery or thoughtfully hung gallery can positively influence the way work is viewed. Context is everything! New York based artist Rudolf Stingel‘s installation of work at Palazzo Grassi in Venice turns the context of the gallery on end by blanketing expansive surfaces in an Ottoman-style carpet.
The carpet, a nod to the palazzo’s history ( it used to be a trading spot for rugs from the Middle East ), creates a dramatic backdrop for Stingel’s monochromatic paintings. The work ranges from small scale portraits of classical sculpture to large minimalist abstracts. In a white wall gallery, they would still grab attention, but somehow the carpeted space seems to create a more intimate experience with the artwork. And set against all that pattern– the work still calls out, perhaps the pattern serves to even enhance the work, drawing the viewer in and intensifying details that may have been overlooked.
It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? The way in which the context of work might influence our opinions and feelings toward it. Have you ever experienced something similar? Seeing work in one context and feeling a certain way, then completely changing your mind when you see it differently?
If you’d like to see more of Rudolf Stingel‘s work, please visit his representing gallery, Gagosian.
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