I stil vividly remember spending days with my mom, sister-in-law, and grandfather going through my grandmother’s things after she was gone. How very adamantly he wanted her things to go on in this life, even when she did not. I’m not as attached to material things as I once was, yet when a person has lived with and used and touched objects I do believe they become sort of intertwined with that person’s spirit for a time.
We each have different ways of interacting with the things around us– from the way we set the table to the way we hang ( or don’t hang ) up our towels. My grandmother’s clothes, while jammed into every available closet space, where meticulously well cared for and carried her scent long after she no longer wore them.
After a loved one is gone, we want to cling to every precious memory and momento. Even the most insignificant little object can carry with it great meaning. But as time goes by, the memories don’t fade, yet our need to grasp those objects close often does. It’s as if our loved ones spirit hangs about as a comfort to us for a while and, when we are ready, it gently lets us go.
These still life paintings by Erin Raedeke brought to life for me this concept of a memorial and spiritual attachment to things and the unique way we interact with not just the things we use each day, but how we use material things to remember the people we love.
As I type this post, I feel keenly aware of the quiet around me. The hum of the refrigerator and the occasional noise from the street above are the only sounds meeting my ears. How often do we allow this type of quiet in our days? The elimination of modern noise is one thing that we love about hiking and backpacking. While living in Seattle, it was especially noticeable when we got out of the cacophony of the city and up into the tranquility of the mountains. In his work, Northern California artist Leslie Kenneth Price takes his inspiration from the natural world and serves up work that draws us into the teeming life happening in the quiet that surrounds our noise.
I happened upon the Price’s work when visiting Sewell Gallery back in April and loved it, keeping it in the back of my mind ever since. A peek at his website recently found me falling deeply in love with this new series of paintings, Verano. His use of color, movement, and texture alone are enough to draw me in, but in listening to the artist talk of the influence of nature on his work truly resonated with my own experience and spirit.
I found myself nodding along and thinking, yes,that’s exactly how I feel! over and over again. A true artistic soulmate.
Like any other couple, Mr. F and I talk a lot about our future. One frequent topic of discussion these days is our future home. To build or not to build. What does our ideal home look like? Maybe I’ll just convince Mr. F to base our design on one of these collages by New York artist Ryan Sarah Murphy.
Using found cardboard on book pages, Murphy fashions these abstract collage constructions that seem one part architectural rendering, one part abstract painting. The torn edges lending a landscape quality, making them like grounded fantasies. I’ll take the second from the top, please!
I’m back, dear Artsies! Ready to hit the ground running in this new year. I’m not sure what 2015 will bring but what I do know is that I can no longer hang in limbo. It’s time to put my face forward and get back to it. As I reflected upon the prospect of beginning again, I was drawn to paintings by Barcelona artist Alejandra Atares.
Moving ahead after lingering in the unknown can be scary and intimidating. There is a fear of beginning something exciting only to have to abandon it mid-stream. But as I like to tell Mr. Forager, the ultimate dreamer/planner..
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
He just loves it when I quote John Lennon to him! In the end, we never know what tomorrow will bring, even when all of our loved ones are whole and well. So we must embrace life as it is in this very moment while looking forward with hope and anticipation.
Hiya, Artsies! Artist Candice Smith Corby recently took a group of students on a little artsy tour of Venice and is here to share her experience with you! I’ll be checking in and letting you know what’s been happening in my world soon, I promise. Without further adieu, here’s Candice!
I was delighted when asked to do a guest post for the Artsy Abroad column!
Recently, my colleague, Bill Pettit, and I led a cultural and artistic tour in Venice, Italy. We’ve been partnering up over the last couple of years through our arts collective, The Bottega, to offer fresco painting in Italy for students, as well as collaborate on projects that revolve around our shared interest in pigment and material origins. With the sea being so influential, we decided that watercolor painting and the cuisine of the Veneto region would be ideal themes for our workshop in Venice. It was also a great opportunity for us to share what we love- art, travel and good food!
Venice or La Serenissima as it is lovingly known, is magical and undoubtedly one of the most serene cities in the world. There are no cars on the island and you quickly become accustomed to a more humane speed of life than we are normally used to. The pulse of the city, which actually feels much more like a large close-knit town, is dictated by your own heartbeat. Everyone walks, especially Venetians, and even though the Grande Canal is a highway of motorized boat traffic, the hundreds of small interlacing canals are quiet and much less travelled. The combination of silent footsteps, a slower pace, and an ancient city plan with its small-scale architecture, makes it easy to suspend time.
In addition to sampling the local flavor of Venetian dishes and expressing a particular moment through paint, we also wanted to offer an experience beyond a typical tourist’s visit to Venice. Piazza San Marco was certainly on our list but the surprises found around an empty corner or the restaurant where all the gondoliers seemed to be having lunch were our favorite finds.
We avoided the crowds and chose canals with their small bridges to sit and paint the light as it changed across the water’s surface.
The act of observing with all of your senses while you are painting alfresco can whet your appetite and we enjoyed finding a nearby bàcari for cicchetti and a Spritz to rejuvenate ourselves. [A bàcari is a small wine bar to have cicchetti, which are little plates of yummy food. A typical drink is the Venetian Spritz- made with prosecco and a splash of Aperol.]
Our workshop also allowed us to share our personal research and experiments on historical pigments, which often have direct links to ingredients in the kitchen; such as the way chicken bones can be fire roasted and ground to make a bone white pigment. With the sea nearby, we chose to show how the ink sac from a cuttlefish (or seppia in Italian) has been used for Sepia ink for hundreds of years and is also commonly used as a food colorant. We spent the morning visiting and painting at the famous Rialto markets where we also gathered ingredients for a communal dinner. Later that night, Bill and I made our guests various dishes such as fried anchovies and sardines, octopus salad, and of course Risotto al Nero di Seppia.
In addition, artist Luca de Gaetano who teaches at Boston University’s Venice studio arts program graciously invited us to spend an afternoon talking about natural pigments including cochineal, verdigris, and saffron, while doing an egg tempera demonstration.
Our last day was spent visiting a couple of the other islands in the lagoon. Although we ended with Murano, famous for its glass-blowing factories, we began on quiet Torcello. The original inhabitants of Venice settled here and you will find their marvelous Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta preserved there. It dates from the 6th century with glorious 9th century mosaics that feel oddly medieval and contemporary at the same time. As we all painted in the courtyard, each of us immersed in the pleasure of looking, we were acutely aware of the layered centuries that surrounded us.
Perhaps because it was our final day together, or because the sunlight was perfectly warm, and perhaps because we all realized how lucky we were, this was the highlight of our tour. To quote one of our participants–
“I see it as a movie, with disparate characters, a lot of philosophy, wit and humor,…culminating in Torcello, where the meaning of life, destiny, faith, and human interaction at its best was evident in our conversation, silent and vocal communication. What a gift!”
While next year the world famous Biennale will be part of our itinerary, we’ll continue to take you off the beaten track, letting the magic of Venice slow you down to paint a sunrise over the lagoon, listen to un-ending church bells, and discover your own newfound delicacy from the sea.
Thank you so much, Candice for sharing your Venetian experience! I don’t know about you, Artsies, but I’m ready to book my 2015 trip this minute! For more information on The Bottega and next year’s trip, check out The Bottega website and look for updates on their Facebook page.
I have always had a fascination with the glamorous era of Cary Grant and his contemporaries, where Anna draws much of the inspiration for her fashion forward paintings. The way she isolates her figures against color-blocked or patterned backgrounds kind of make them feel like they have been lifted from the silver screen or fashion magazine and found themselves in the midst of a painting. Which, if you think about it, is not such a bad place to be!
To see more of Anna Kincaide‘s work, please visit her website. Her prints in my Mantle Art collection are perfect for gift giving, too– you can even choose a custom frame right on their site! Easy peasy. Follow along on Artsy Forager social media to see more of Anna’s work all December long!
November might just be my favorite month.. shhh, don’t tell October! So it’s only fitting to give you one of my favorite artists as the Featured Artist for the month of November! California artist Marsha Boston is a painter after my own heart, exploring the wonders of plant life and how we might live in harmony with our botanical neighbors.
A while back, Mr. F and I listened to a fascinating BBC story on the concept of “rewilding“. Listening to these experts talk about the positive changes that occur when once developed land is allowed to return to its wild state definitely led to some interesting conversation and thoughts about how we impact our environment now and how we might in the future. Mr. F observed what an incredible amount of hubris it takes on the part of man to think he can do better than nature. Marsha’s work is often focused on how we define our relationship to nature. Are we here to serve or be served?
To see more of Marsha Boston‘s work, please visit her website. Her beautiful paintings will grace the Artsy Forager Facebook cover and I’ll be sharing more of Marsha’s work on other Artsy Forager social media all month long. Make sure you’re following along!
I’m sure you didn’t think I’d be back so soon and this is just a momentary pop-in. But I couldn’t let a new month dawn without bringing you a new Featured Artist! When first we met October Featured Artist, Raquel Edwards, it was almost exactly three years ago and she was exploring beauty through the lens of a camera rather than a canvas.
Artists are driven by the need to explore and express and Raquel is no exception. Switching from photography to painting, she’s now discovering new techniques and means of visualization digging into the nature of cognition. The shapes she presents are somewhat familiar, yet just foreign enough that we can draw our own conclusions as to the meaning of their presence.
Being out in the woods or hiking in the mountains can be an intimidating experience. It is when we are in the enormity of the wilderness that we realize how very small and insignificant we are. These paintings by Spanish artist Paco Pomet seem to have that same feeling of being in the midst of an overwhelming landscape.
Mountains take over offices and pink clouds engulf a riverscape as Pomet uses carefully placed color to emphasize the distinction between man and panorama. Each painting has an incredible sense of scope and depth, so that the feeling of the immensity of the earth is readily apparent.
In our travels, Mr. F and I have seen some beautiful sights from the highway. During our time in Yosemite, we often found ourselves driving through the park from the valley up to our campground after nightfall. There was something that completely enchanted me about the mountains silhouetted against the night sky and the way the headlights lit up the trees to a surprisingly bright green. In these paintings from her Roads and Carousel series, UK artist Sarah Shaw captures that magic to be found in the night.
These paintings seem to glow with that mystical light that happens when the landscape is lit artificially, spotlighting small sections and leaving others to blackness. How true that seems sometimes in life.. we focus our light, our attention on what is in front of us, the needs of that moment, while the periphery waits in silence for its turn.
