Confession time: I’m one of those people who sweat it just a teensy bit ( ok maybe a lot on a really hot day ) when a glass full of cold liquid is resting on a wood or glass surface. Oh the rings! My little OCD heart is pounding just thinking about it! The cure for such an ailment? Super artsy coasters, of course! Here are a few of my faves..
Any of these are bound to be more pleasing to the eye than condensation rings, eh? Happy weekend, Artsies!
All images are linked above.
After spending the past two years going from small town to small town, I’m still kind of in awe of Seattle buildings. From what I happen to think is one of the prettiest skylines in the country ( if not THE prettiest! ) to the fantastic examples of modern architecture and traditional storefronts. The paintings of Massachusetts artist Hannah Richman explores the facade of the urban landscape, man’s touch upon the terra.
Especially here in this city surrounded by such amazing natural beauty ( Hello, Cascade Mountains! Hello, Olympic Mountains! Holy cow, you are huge, Mt. Rainier! ), it’s interesting to note how some buildings seem to perfectly fit into the landscape. For instance, as I type this, I’m looking out the window at a Mid-Century apartment building that perfectly hugs and nestles into the landscape, it’s lines mimicking the hills beyond.
Then there are other examples, where we see the hand of man has rushed in and decimated everything in its path for the sake of commerce. Wonderful old neighborhood storefronts are abandoned for the lure of the shiny new strip mall. It happens in most cities in all states and more and more, many countries.
Richman’s work illuminates these man made structures as she catches them in mother nature’s light. And for a moment, they seem to have been there always.
To see more of Hannah Richman’s work, please visit her website.
All images are via the artist’s website.
The other day, Mr. F & I were listening to Rick Steves on NPR as he interviewed a woman who, when she entered places in Scotland where her ancestors had dwelt, she felt like she knew the buildings intimately– even going so far as to identify rooms that were not open to the public. Have you ever experienced that degree of deja vu? I can’t say that I have, but I can certainly relate to arriving in a place and feeling as if you’ve known it all your life. In her Field Notes series, Santa Fe artist Karina Noel Hean draws in collage what that experience might be like.
In these abstracted, dream-like landscapes, what we see are glimpses of places, fragments of details that our minds may be remembering. Whether it be from this lifetime or somewhere buried in our ancestry ( or past lifetime, if you believe in that sort of thing ), the artist is conjuring up a visual representation of what those perceived memories may be like.
Shapes collide, morph, twist and turn around and upon each other. They feel like landscapes from another world and in a sense, they are.
To see more of Karina Noel Hean’s work, please check out her website here. How about you? Where have you been that felt like you’d been there before?
All images are via the artist’s website.
When I first saw the collage work of Max Warsh on Pattern Pulp, I totally fell for it– hook, line & sinker. The combinations of visual textures in such limited palettes is just stunning! See more from him in my Artist Watch on Escape Into Life today here !
I love the surprise of a random find. Whether it’s wonderfully creative and delicious food out of a tiny, tucked away dive or as simple as a pink flower growing amongst the rocks. New York artist Landon Metz creates work that is simple and arbitrarily lovely.
The artist composes loose, casual compositions, in a subtle mostly pastel palette, punctuated by forms in dark hues of midnight blue and mossy greens. The shapes recall pieces of torn and scattered paper, their edges appearing to be weathered and worn.
While our eye might at first perceive the compositions as accidental, we soon grow to see that each shape has been carefully and thoughtfully placed. The result is work that gives the viewer a feeling of both freedom and balance.
Want to see more lovely randoms from Landon Metz? Please visit the artist’s website here.
All images via the artist’s website.
When we were in San Francisco, the famous San Fran fog had taken the day off in exchange for record setting heat. But that didn’t stop us from experiencing it thanks to artist Fujiko Nakaya’s Fog Bridge. There was something mysterious and magical about walking through the fog, then emerging into the bright sunlight. In his work, self-taught artist Spencer Herr embraces the power of the emerging figure.
Herr’s figures, starkly enshrouded within their backgrounds seem to be just breaking through the surface. Or perhaps the opposite is happening. Are they being enveloped by their surroundings?
Keeping the compositions simple allows the viewer to compose his own story. Like stills from a movie whose story we do not know, we are left to ponder who these figures might be and from what place they are emerging.
To see more of Spencer Herr’s work, please visit his website.
All images via the artist’s website.
There are artists who take a subject which might, in other hands, be cloying and saccharine, and create imagery that is interesting, intriguing and ok, perhaps a teeny bit creepy. It is in that contradiction that photographer Loretta Lux has found her own sweet spot.
I first discovered Lux’s work through The Jealous Curator site, where blogger Danielle Krysa compared Lux’s figures to characters from of Wes Anderson film. I totally see it.
Thanks to her pale, subtle palette, absence of detail and painterly use of light and composition, Lux has created portraits that are eccentric and just so slightly off in a wonderfully delightful way.
To see more of Loretta Lux’s work, please visit her website.
All images are via the artist’s website.
Mr. Forager & I both marvel at the way architects here in the Northwest deal with the terrain. Houses and other structures are built to hug the earth or conform to it, often leaving us wondering what a feat of design and engineering it took to solve that problem! The ceramic compositions of Philadelphia artist Ben Fiess remind me of those precariously perched buildings.. seemingly random or off-kilter, yet as a whole making perfect sense.
Fiess, whose more practical design I featured in last week’s Design Foraging, puts together these compositions with great care and concern for the elements of texture, materials and space. Indeed, each piece seems like a perfectly balanced still life in three dimensions.
In addition to line, form, and texture, color plays a key part in Fiess’s compositions. He works within a tight palette, each cool tone balanced by the natural warmth of wood and textile elements.
Want to see more of Ben Fiess’s work? Be sure to check out his website here.
All images are via the artist’s website.
When I first saw the work of photographer Anna Pogossova on The Artful Desperado blog, I was completely enchanted by her use of color. So I couldn’t resist featuring her in my Artist Watch on Escape Into Life! Check out more of her work over on EIL here.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Do you think the same is true of a piece of artwork? We place so much value in the end result, the “finished” painting, sculpture, or photograph, that sometimes we spend little time thinking about the pilgrimage the artist undertakes to get there. Abstract painter Charlotte Foust finds delight in each mark making expedition upon which she embarks, each painting becoming a travel journal of her creative adventure.
Our vagabondish life has afforded us some pretty incredible adventures. We’ve lived in the mountains, the desert, and in the city. Every voyage to the next destination has brought us new discoveries and places to remember. Foust uses the strokes she makes with paint, graphite and collage to mark a part of the journey of her creative process. In finding her way through the work, she is discovering the painting that longs to be found.
As she explores, she invites us along for the ride. We can the breadcrumbs of her expedition in each brushstroke and are happily taken to our final destination.
To see more of Charlotte Foust’s work, please visit her website.
All images are via the artist’s website.