I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the beauty of the natural world lately. As the weather warms, the hubby and I are getting out and doing more hiking ( we may actually be hiking when you read this! ). I love the natural, microcosmic beauty of Laura Gurton’s work being featured over on Escape Into Life today.
If you get out exploring, take a close look at the small worlds happening around you!
Sometimes, I find an artist’s work so powerful, that I can’t write about it immediately. When I found New York artist Lee Price’s work, I wanted to share it as soon as possible, but just couldn’t write about it yet. So I featured her on my Artist Watch over on Escape Into Life, where I can simply post images, a bio and a link.
Having been naturally thin and active almost my entire life, up until recently, I’ve never really had weight issues. There were times I actually wished to be a little more curvy, more womanly. But as I approach the big 4-0 next week (!), I find myself struggling more than ever with my body image. Having listened to every woman I know complain about her body at one time or another, I know that I am not alone.
Lee Price’s work speaks to food obsessions and compulsions so common, especially among women. Her pastel, candy-colored palette belies the darkness at the heart of each painting. Her women are isolated, surrounded not by friends, family or lovers, but by piles of food, rarely untouched.
Constantly bombarded with conflicting media, we, as women, are often left feeling inadequate and confused. We retreat into ourselves, indulging when we are alone so that the only judgement we’ll feel is our own. Will we ever stop condemning ourselves so harshly?
For me, its still a struggle to make the right choices. Gone are the days of being able to eat whatever I like and still be a size 5. But also gone are the days of eating like a bird and obsessing over the way my body looks in a bikini. I may be a bit more curvy, but I’m choosing to be happier than ever. For me, it’s been a choice worth making.
To more of Lee Price’s work, please visit her website.
Does it ever seem like you are always waiting for something? An answer to a question, a check in the mail, the pizza to be delivered. At times, it can feel like life is just a series of waitings. Oakland artist Brett Amory has created an entire series of work based on the monotony and futility of our waiting.
There are times when we get so caught up in anticipating what we are waiting for that we miss out on what is happening right in front of us.
It’s easy to get caught up in what might be around the next corner or where that next bus might take us.
What might happen if we all lived a little more in the moment? Instead of tapping our feet in impatience, let’s look around at where we are while we are waiting and those we are waiting with. We may find that we love where we are.
To see more of Brett Amory’s work, please visit his website. What are you waiting for? 😉
Featured image is Waiting #77, oil on wood panel, 96×48. All images are via the artist’s website.
Hope you enjoy a day filled with sunshine and the love of family and friends! And maybe some bunnies. 🙂
Visit Maribel Angel’s website for more somebunnies to love.
Tell me ya’ll have at least seen the commercials for Food Network’s Sweet Genius show. If you haven’t, you are missing out on some unintentional hilarity! Hubby and I can’t help but imitate host Ron Ben-Israel each time he utters the show’s tagline, “Are YOU a sweet genius?” in a heavily accented voice. With shows like Sweet Genius, Cupcake Wars and Cake Boss, there seems to be a quest for confection these days. How about a few sweet artistic treats to kick off your weekend? Enjoy!
Mary Ellen Johnson | Joel Penkman | Peter Anton | Duane Keiser
Hope you enjoy some sweet goodies of your own this weekend!
Featured image is Boxed Donuts by Peter Anton, mixed media, 36x37x5.5. All images are via the artists’ websites as linked above.
I stumbled across this necklace from Anthropologie on Pinterest today. If I were a Margaret Glew painting, I would wear this all the time.
necklace available here
I have such a huge amount of respect and awe for artists who work in the abstract, especially gestural, expressive works like those of Toronto artist, Margaret Glew.
There is such an amazing amount of controlled chaos in each of Glew’s abstracts, they are fairly bursting with harnessed energy. The scribbly lines and forms give her work a childlike essence, yet if you’ve ever tried to accomplish excellence in abstract painting, you know ( as I learned in college! ) just how difficult it can be.
After all, Picasso himself once said “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
What may seem to a novice eye like mere scribbles and marks are placed yes, perhaps intuitively but deliberately. For Glew, each shape and line is a kind of shorthand. She’s created her own visual language, telling her stories in texture, color and gestural expression.
And it is a story I could read over and over again! To see more of Margaret Glew’s work, please visit her website. Many thanks to Artsy Forager favorite artist Christina Foard for the introduction to Margaret’s work!
Featured image is Pitter Patter ( detail ). All images are via the artist’s website.
This blogging world is chock full of creative and inspiring people. I am so excited to participate in the collaborative blogging project, Art to Inspiration! Art to Inspiration is a monthly collaborative blogging project in which bloggers around the world post how the same piece of artwork has inspired them on the first Wednesday of every month. So let’s get started!
I was pumped when I saw the artwork inspiration for April, 2 Years, 264 Days and This Morning by Pakayla Biehn, an artist whose work I love and recently featured!
In my gallery days, one of my absolute favorite tasks was to help curate, design and plan how the work was hung in the gallery. Laying work out, figuring out how pieces relate and the best way for them to work together visually. So for my first Art to Inspiration, it felt natural to curate my own gallery of work inspired by Biehn’s piece.
Markus Linnenbrink | Kristina Bailey | Lauren Clay | Wil Jansen | Lissy Laricchia | Michelle Armas
Visit the artists’ websites, linked above, for more inspiration!
Sometimes, in a world filled with sarcasm and cynicism, we can easily forget the vulnerability of the human spirit. How one wounding word can hurt and haunt us. Toronto artist Kris Knight’s portraits remind us that the strength we so often feign is not impenetrable.
The pale pastel palette Knight employs translates to us the inherent frailty of our psyches. Though each subject takes a strong stance, often looking straight into the gaze of the viewer, their faces tell a different story. Beneath the facade, we see flushed cheeks, downturned mouths and eyes that seem to be bright with unshed tears.
Some wear netted masks, hiding in plain sight. While others at once stand defiant under our close attention, yet their eyes are pleading.
They are the faces of loved ones and strangers. People we think we acknowledge but who are longing to be known. To see more of Kris’s work, please visit his website.
Artist found via Escape Into Life.
Featured image is Run Deep, oil on canvas, 16×20. All images are via the artist’s website.
I am not a knitter. Nor do I crochet, weave or macrame. I tried crocheting in my middle school Home Economics class and, let’s just say, I didn’t get it. And all that knit 1, purl 2 stuff? Just sounds like math to me, which is to be avoided at all costs. But I love woven textiles. There is such an innate beauty in the patterns and texture create. Los Angeles artist Hadley Holliday’s exhibtion, Warp and Weft at Taylor De Cordoba Gallery is weaving together a caliedoscope of color and pattern.
She is exploring the worlds of space and depth and the illusions created by overlapping shapes and patterns. There is a fantastic sense of movement and prismatic expanse to her paintings.
They seem optically illusional in nature, yet there is also an organic quality to them, reminding me of the intersecting lines and orderly nature of a spider’s web.
To see more of Hadley Holliday’s work, please visit her website. If you happen to be in Southern California, you can see Warp and Weft at Taylor De Cordoba Gallery only until this Saturday, April 7th. So get moving and see it this week!
Featured image is Sun Vault ( detail ), acrylic on canvas, 63×63. All images are via the Taylor De Cordoba website.