Oh how I love some pretty jewelry candy! I asked Mr. Forager Santa to put a pretty little artsy bauble in my Christmas stocking. Think its too late to add one of these to my list? These handmade glass and fiber pieces by Asheville artist Arlie Trowbridge aka Urban Revisions would be sure to add an artsy touch to every day.
Aren’t they lovely? Like wearing beautiful little pieces of rock candy. The top necklace and bottom rings are my fave. Which do you love best?
It’s too late to order from Urban Revisions in time for Christmas, but never too late for an anytime gift for yourself! 😉 See more pretty artsy baubles on the Urban Revisions website here.
This time last year, Mr. Forager and I were in a very different place. For six months, we traded our beloved Northwest for the California high desert. Joshua Tree, California, to be exact. And although we ultimately decided desert life wasn’t for us, we nonetheless felt the beauty and magic to be found there. In his Lucid Stead installation project, Indio, CA artist Phillip K Smith transforms a 70 year old desert homestead into a miraculous mirage.
The desert, with its vast expanses, can be a disorienting, isolating place, which always made me wonder– what was it that made first settlers decide to stop and try to make a life from such an unforgiving landscape? Perhaps it was the intense light and the shadows it creates or the endless sky with its countless stars?
In Lucid Stead ( sorry, now closed to the public ), Smith gilds this desert shack in mirrors, reflecting the sandy surrounds and creating an every changing spectral form on the landscape. At night, the mirrors give way to darkness, colored LED lights lending an alien air.
To see more of Phillip K Smith‘s work, please visit his website. If you’re in Southern California, you can see an exhibition of Smith’s latest works at Royale Projects in Palm Desert.
Mr. Forager & I have been going back and forth about what type of meals we’ll have on Christmas Day. It’s just the two of us and while that’s never stopped us from making elaborate meals before, we’re thinking a sweet little brunch and then a bit of antipasto later. But no matter how simple the holiday meal, it always feels more festive when the table is set in an artful way! So if you’re like me and still figuring out your holiday tablescape, here’s a little inspiration from this month’s Featured ArtistCasey Matthews—
I mean, those greens are just calling out holiday cheer like nobody’s business! Add in a judicious dollop of snowy white, rich jewel tones and glittery metallics and you’ll have a table scape perfect for celebrating the season. Casey’s painting Sitting Pretty at The End of the World is full of delicious shape and color, a Casey inspired table can’t help but sit pretty, too!
If you’d like to see more artsy holiday inspiration, please take a peek at my Artsy Holiday Pinterest board, where I’ve been gathering all sorts of inspiring holiday images, DIYs and just plain prettiness. To see more of Casey Matthews‘ work, please visit her website.
All image sources linked above. Artwork is a cropped detail of the original.
I have a firm belief that if you are a creative person, your artistic sensibility needs multiple outlets, it fairly oozes out of you not only in the form of art, but maybe in the way you prepare a meal, decorate a home, write a letter or design a garden. Landscape designer and artist Corey Mason of Clyde Oak extends the creativity he lavishes on his outdoor designs into his wonderfully unaffected mixed media abstract work.
Mason’s work has that kind of loose, scribbly feel that I personally struggle so hard to let into my own work. Each piece is so perfectly imperfect. From the smudges on the page to the backwards text so reminiscent of a child’s handwriting. And did you spot the chicken?! We are becoming acquainted with our landlords’ chickens. I’m learning to delight in them so much!
Back to Mason’s artwork– truly in looking at these I see that unfettered, naive sensibility that I think so many artists are striving for but that perhaps has been educated out of us. I don’t know whether Corey is a trained or self taught artist, but either way, he is drawing with the carefree spirit of a child, an aim even Picasso strove to reach.
As different as each artist’s work can be, so too is the way they work and the environment in which they find the most creativity. Some artists are lucky enough to be able to design their studio space to fit the way they work just perfectly, others take advantage of whatever available space may be at hand. And some, like me, out of necessity keep their supplies to a minimum so they can set up studio wherever they land! But oh how I long for the day when I can have a dedicated work space. Are you dreaming of your own studio space, too? What’s your current art studio style? What are you dreaming it could be?
found here
Do you like your space open & airy? Maybe like Willem de Kooning, you create best in bright white spaces with soaring ceilings and gorgeous light.
Don’t have a big open space? Paint every surface of your small studio white and remove any window treatments. You’ll be amazed at how much light bounces around the room!
Some artists work best in smaller, creative & cozy spaces. Filled with warmth and life, Monet-like spaces make you want to settle in with a cup of tea and paint your heart out.
Paned windows, chandeliers and plants make a studio space feel like a creative home. And having a sweet pup around to love on helps with the creative frustration!
No doubt working in a neatly organized space helped O’Keeffe achieve her soft, elegantly clean lined paintings. A tidily laid out space with supplies within arm’s reach allow an artist to concentrate on creating instead of looking everywhere for that one tube of paint..
Timothy Atwood said, Creative mess equals creative thought. And for many artists, I think this holds true. Most creatives are, by nature collectors. We need to be surrounded by a beautiful mess, so that inspiration may spark at any time. And let’s admit, sometimes, we’re just too busy creating to pick up. 😉
We’re so casual these days. Heck, all my high heels are in storage, I probably won’t see them again until around 2018! But there are days when I miss getting dressed up. Remember that careful giving I was going on about yesterday? These sculptural floral arrangements by Takaya Hanayushi remind me of our need to present ourselves artfully.
The idea of adorning oneself in a certain way, whether to mark one’s place in society or simply as personal expression is a human trait that seems to have been with us a long time. And although in our dressed down society, such lavish adornments as were once practiced are rare, we still find ways to incorporate these rituals. We pierce and tattoo, we find just the right pair of shoes, we refuse to wear animal fur or skins. Though it may be in more subtle, 21st century ways, we are still each day painting our own portrait of who we are and presenting it to the world.
I have yet to wrap a single Christmas gift. But the online orders are due to arrive any day and I am supplied and ready to dive in. I love this part!! Every year, I would wrap my gifts just so, often thinking of what type of wrapping the giver might enjoy as much as making it look artful and pretty. Some may think, “what’s the point”? It’s what’s inside that matters, right? Well, not entirely. You see, to me, the gift is the entire process– spending the time choosing something the recipient will enjoy, carefully and lovingly wrapping the gift, and seeing their surprise and delight when opening it. In these paintings ( yes, paintings! ), Swedish artist Yrjo Edelmann presents us with meticulously painted images of hastily and carelessly wrapped packages. Are these treasures or leftovers from “the gift closet“?
Now, just because a gift isn’t perfectly wrapped doesn’t mean that the giver didn’t put a lot of thought and effort into it. Maybe wrapping just isn’t their thing. Maybe they’re being ironic in a isn’t it more artsy this way kind of way. But don’t we give more care to the things we find important? Would you wrap a Picasso all willy-nilly?
Sometimes I think we are so materially blessed in this country that we are rarely truly grateful for even the smallest of things. I remember my grandmother telling me the Laura Ingalls-ish tale of being delighted in receiving an orange every Christmas as a little girl. An orange! Not an orange iPhone, not an orange Lexus. A piece of fruit. And she looked forward to it every year. This season, its my hope and challenge to give and receive freely and thoughtfully and with a gracious heart. Every gift will be as precious to me as an orange.
To see more of Yrjo Edelmann’s work, please visit the website of his representing gallery, Galleri GKM.
For many, our life may seem filled with adventure. And at times, it is. But most days, its a normal sort of existence, the kind that consists of work, laundry, dirty dishes and too much tv. These large scale paintings by Canadian artist Andrew Salgado have made me stop and think about how to live a bigger life.
I’ve always been a small person. Always a little slip of a thing ( until getting married that is, Mr. Forager put curves on me! ), one of my long time best friends who towers over me has always called me “Little One”. Because next to her, I was always the little one! But this littleness isn’t just physical. I have a naturally shy, retiring nature, the complete opposite of a “larger than life” type of personality. I don’t hate the spotlight, but I don’t go out of my way to seek it out, preferring to be the one behind the scenes, these days behind the computer.
These large scale portraits by Salgado are full of texture and vulnerability and delicious messiness. Sometimes, I think we let our quest for control and order get in the way of a bigger life. It’s so in my nature to stay safely in my shell, coming out only when coaxed, like a little hermit crab. But where is the adventure in that? How many of us will be able to look back on a life lived largely and to its fullest? I’m striving against my own temperament in my quest but its a fight I’m willing and eager to take on.
I love everything that Sarah Ashley Longshore does. You can see all the evidence right here on the blog. And when she teams up with one of my favorite retailers, well, I just can’t resist sharing the artsy goodness with you! The artist’s latest collaboration with Anthropologie features her iconic Audrey Hepburn paintings on a tres chic line of travel bags and weekenders.
These remind me so much of “the golden age of travel”, when taking a plane ride meant getting dressed to the nines and a matching set of luggage was the ultimate luxury. Inside each of the larger bags is a wonderful little “handwritten” note from the artist. A perfect gift for that artsy girly girl!
In our travels, Mr. Forager and I have been very fortunate to have seen some amazingly beautiful places. Unfortunately, for many, the opportunity to see unspoiled beauty is rare. Our landscapes are filled with strip malls and fast food joints, rather than untamed forests. In his resin cast work, Los Angeles artist Brooks Kalzwedel examines this dichotomy of urban development versus wilderness.
In these heavily layered pieces, Salzwedel’s landscapes are disrupted by electrical towers and sprawl, almost seeming to be choked by encroaching development. The mechanical elements look to be nearly parasitical, especially in Tendrils ( 3rd down ), they seem to have incorporated themselves as a part of the root.
Such beauty, yet so filled with sadness for what is lost. If you’d like to see more of Brooks Salzwedel‘s work, please visit his website. If you’re in the San Fran/Oakland area, you can see his work being shown with Mayumi Hamanaka in the two person exhibition, Temporal Void at Johansson Projects in Oakland until January 16, 2014.
