More and more of our interaction and how we present ourselves to the world, as well as how we perceive others is based on online representations. In his Off II series, Danish artist Johan Rosenmunthe places digitized images of friends from the internet into entirely analog settings. See more from this series of work in my Artist Watch on Escape Into Life here!
Do you ever have days when you just feel abundantly blessed? I hope you do!! These days I’m feeling amazingly thankful for so much. Mr. Forager, the life we lead, the life we’re building, what I do here and everyone who shares in it. When I was gazing at these abstract paintings by Conneticut artist Sandy Welch, one word came to mind: abundance.
These paintings are filled to overflowing with vibrant color and energetic rhythm. Fairly frenetic with joy, they are brimming with life, just as the world explodes in color each spring.
The paint is almost dancing off the canvas, isn’t it?! Each one is just brimming with hopefulness and frivolity. I think we need to remind ourselves sometimes that it’s OK to be happy. Life isn’t perfect, no, but overall it is pretty darn good.
To see more of Sandy Welch’s work, please visit her website and Pinterest page.
Images via the artist’s website and her Pinterest page, linked above.
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.
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.
Bold patches and slashes of paint cause the eye to follow the colors around the canvas, landing and concentrating on just the right spots.
To see more of Kate Long Stevenson’s work, please visit her Kate Long Stevenson website.
All images but Reclining are via the artist’s Kate Long Stevenson website. Reclining is via the Chicago Artsource Chicago Artsource website.
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
pie | Strawberry Truffle Pie, recipe at BHG.com
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.
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.
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.
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.
To see more of Cassandra Straubing’s work, please visit her page at San Jose State University.
With His Wife Now Gone.. and She Waited for Him.. via the artist’s page at SJSU, The Beekeeper’s Wife and Mrs. Evans via Bullseye Gallery.
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 featured twice 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!
art | Studio III by Peri Schwartz
scarf | Mosaic [ marigold + black ]
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.
Image sources linked above.
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.
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.
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.
To see more of Joseph Phillip’s work, please visit his Joseph Phillips website.
Artist found via New American Paintings blog. All images are via the artist’s Joseph Phillips website.
![This Artsy Life: Weekend 10 [ Stuff We Did. Stuff We Didn’t Do. ]](https://artsyforager.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/20130312-145124.jpg)
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 ]
[ we both loved this sculpture by Steve Reiman ]
[ lovely lines and texture by Bret Philpot* ]
[ Mr. F’s fave ( right ) and my fave ( left ) ]
[ awesome painted cubes ]
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.
All images by Artsy Forager.
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!
Misha Ashton-Moore on Escape Into Life
Artist found via Daily Dolan Geiman. Image via the artist’s website.
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.
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.
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.
To see more of Marion Lane’s work, please visit her website.
All images are via the artist’s website.