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.
Femme Nue, oil, latex, charcoal and chalk pastel on canvas, 22×28Pastoral, oil and charcoal on canvas, 30×40
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.
Reclining, 28×20
Bold patches and slashes of paint cause the eye to follow the colors around the canvas, landing and concentrating on just the right spots.
AKT, oil, acrylic, gouache, and charcoal on canvas, 18×24Woman, oil, gouache, charcoal and chalk pastel on canvas, 42×48
So yesterday I confessed to you that I am trying to pare down my clothing collection. What I didn’t tell you is that I am also traveling with way too many purses! Back in my gallery days, I was the girl who changed bags with almost every outfit. And I’m carrying about 10 of them with me every time we move. That’s about 9 too many to find a place to store. I’m ready to let go. I told Mr. F, if I can just find that perfect bag, that Goldilocks & The 3 Bears, it’s just right bag, I would happily donate all the others. He didn’t think I could do it. Hmmpf.
Well, I haven’t been successful yet. If money were no object I’m sure I could have been, but this is real life after all. Needless to say, I’ve had bags on the brain. Now none of these would be my IT bag ( need more neutral if I’m going down to just one ) but oh boy are these artsy bags fun!
Small Weekender Bag in Abstract by Kate Spade Saturday
Wouldn’t one of these clutches be seriously perfect to carry to your next gallery opening? What? Clutches don’t count. They’re for special occasions. Duh. Happy weekend, Artsies!
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
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.
So much is made of the clothing we place on our bodies. I maintain my belief that the clothes we choose make a statement about who we are. But lately, the concept has been taken further to encompass not just the style of the fashions we wear, but what they are made of, where, and how. In her sculptural work, glass artist Cassandra Straubing addresses domestic and industrial labor, two of the major producers of clothing through the centuries.
With His Wife Now Gone, His Clothes Never Seemed to Make it Back in the Drawer, cast glass with found objects, 33.5x17x19With His Wife Now Gone ( detail )
Last Monday, as I was driving home, ironically from a day of shopping for a few clothing basics at Target, TJ Maxx, etc., I listened to this story on NPR regarding the trend of “fast fashion” begun in the 1980s and gaining relentless momentum since. Clothing is being produced, consumed, and disposed of at alarming rates, all the while using up valuable finite resources. And although the impetus behind Straubing’s work, according to her artist statment, is linked more to clothing as a representation of who we are and who we become, I see in it a throwback to the simplicity of the way clothing was once viewed– it’s first purpose was practical, perhaps overalls or an apron for every day, a suit and “Sunday dress” for special occasions.
The Beekeeper’s Wife, cast glass with found objects, 18x32x3Mrs. Evans, kiln cast glass and found objects, 22.5x30x3.25
But today, we fill closet after closet with “disposable” clothing, literally buying into what the fashion industry, media and manufacturers tell us we need. As Straubing’s glass articles of clothing suggest, we are all becoming naked emperors.
She Waited for Him on Pins and Needles ( detail )
How do we combat against falling prey to trendy fashion? Perhaps if we imagined each new fashion was sculpted of glass, might we be so quick to want it? Says the woman who travels with 5 large plastic bins of clothes, 1 giant suitcase, and several smaller suitcases. But I’m working on it and have two garbage bags full of Goodwill destined clothes to prove it.
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 featuredtwice 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!
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.
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.
Double-Wide Bunker with Paradise Package, gouache, graphite and ink on paper, 41×30Duplex Bunker, gouache, graphite and ink on paper, 17×14
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.
String Theory ( diptych ), gouache, graphite and ink on paper, 24×18 each
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.
Vertically Integrated Model for Multi-Climate Living, gouache, graphite and ink on paper, 30×39Auxilliary Lot with Site Plan, gouache, graphite and ink on paper, 41×30
Please forgive me for getting this latest This Artsy Life post up a bit tardy. The last seven days have been a bit out of whack around these parts, with our beloved ( and much relyed on! ) Macbook taking a nosedive late Tuesday night, three treks to the Apple store an hour away in five days, major life decisions made, a visit with the only blood family I have in Cali, and the time change, well.. the actual life part of This Artsy Life took a bit of precedent. 😉
In all that craziness we did manage to squeeze in a little ArtWalking in Joshua Tree and some much needed downtime with my San Franciscan cousin in Palm Springs. We found some new artists to love at both The Red Arrow Gallery & Joshua Tree Art Gallery and bonded with my cuz over being the only family members crazy enough to choose the West over the South. I so enjoyed the time with my cousin that I didn’t snap one photo all day. You’ll just have to take my word for what a gorgeous day it was! But I’m happy to share a few snaps from the one time I did take out the camera– at the Joshua Tree ArtWalk.
[ almost bought this piece by Judy Wold a few months ago.. still coveting ]
Things are inching back toward normal today in This Artsy Life, though it will only be a few more weeks before we begin making plans to move on to our next spot. And then what madness will begin! Want to see more from our JT ArtWalk? Follow Artsy Forager on Instagram. I might even show you obligatory-Instagram-lunch photos.
*Bret Philpot’s website doesn’t appear to be working. Sorry. If you’d like to get in touch with the artist, please contact The Red Arrow Gallery.
It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. Double-exposure photography is hardly a new concept, but the way Portland, Oregon photographer Misha Ashton-Moore does it is something special! I immediately feel for her warm + cool palettes and mixture of images, sometimes subtle, sometimes completely yet beautifully disparate. Check out more of her work in my Artist Watch today over on Escape Into Life. See it here!
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.
Untitled, acrylic on panel, 13×13Untitled, acrylic on panel, 13×13
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.
Untitled, acrylic on panel, 13×13Untitled, acrylic on panel, 13×13
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.
Untitled, acrylic on panel, 13×13
To see more of Marion Lane’s work, please visit her 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.
Skirts Dancing in the WindTwo Ruffled Skirts in the Wind
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.
Clothes Dancing in the Wind #8Dancing Clothes in Wind #9
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.
Sunlight on Clothes
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.
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