artsy forager

Tag: sculpture

  • This Artsy Life: Weekend 10 [ Stuff We Did. Stuff We Didn’t Do. ]

    This Artsy Life: Weekend 10 [ Stuff We Did. Stuff We Didn’t Do. ]

    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.

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    [ almost bought this piece by Judy Wold a few months ago.. still coveting ]

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    [ we both loved this sculpture by Steve Reiman ]

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    [ lovely lines and texture by Bret Philpot* ]

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    [ Mr. F’s fave ( right ) and my fave ( left ) ]

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    [ 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.

  • Immersive Consumption: Forlane 6 Studio

    Immersive Consumption: Forlane 6 Studio

    Sometimes the amount of garbage we accumulate in a week completely shocks us.  We wonder how in the world two adults could create so much waste.  We do try to be aware of our consumption and curtail it wherever we can.  The work of  French artists Hortense Le Calvez and Matthieu Goussin aka Forlane 6 Studio speaks to the human race’s over consumption and the consequences it will eventually bring.

    Posidonia series by Forlane 6

    Ordinary, mass produced objects, decorated with “seaweed” and “tentacles” are submerged.  These objects, which weigh so heavily on many of our lives and the earth in general, gloat weightlessly.

    Posidonia series by Forlane 6

    Posidonia series by Forlane 6

    Posidonia series by Forlane 6

    This slowness of movement contradicts the rate at which so many of these objects are consumed and disposed of.  The objects seem at once foreign and organic to the sea’s atmosphere.  Perhaps in a nod to how we fool ourselves into thinking that buying that next thing we don’t really need doesn’t make a difference.

    Posidonia series by Forlane 6

    To see more of the work of Forlane 6 Studio, please visit their website and be sure to follow their Facebook page, where they’ve recently posted photos of a new installation!

  • Friday Design Finds: Not So Boring Vases

    Perhaps some pretty flowers arrived at your house yesterday?  Maybe not ones of the Christy Kinard variety ( but if so, LUCKY!! ), but the sweetly scented kind.  Pray tell, what did you do with your floral treasure?  Please don’t say you just left them in the boring, cheap-o, mass manufactured vase they came in!  A beautiful token of love deserves a special vessel.  An artsy vessel.  Here are a few I would happily grace with blooms!

    Green, Yellow, and Red Ceramic Pot by Esther Griffith
    Green, Yellow, and Red Ceramic Pot by Esther Griffith

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    Home by Winsome Gallery
    Home vase by Winsome Gallery**

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    Vase by Meredith Host

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    Processed Paper Vessel by Pia Wustenberg
    Processed Paper Vessel by Pia Wustenberg

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    Hope you the lovey doveyness keeps coming your way!  I’m off to Palm Springs today for the Palm Springs Art Fair, looking forward to spending the day discovering more artsy to share with you!

    **this vase is extra special because it is emblazened with lyrics from mine & Mr. Forager’s song.  It’s not super mushy, but it fits us perfectly!

    All images sources linked above.

  • Insert the [ Artsy ]: Fuzzy Sculptures and Sunsets

    Holy wow, it’s been a long time since I did an Insert the Artsy post!  I’d forgotten how much fun they can be, dreaming and scheming what piece of artwork I would place in a room.  When I saw this room designed by Erin Martin, on Pinterest, I loved the warm sparseness of it, those wood beams, high ceilings and that magnificent hanging sculpture!  But then I thought, oh, maybe that space above the bed could use just a little cool, saturated color– not too much and nothing too textural to take away from what’s happening above.. enter the work of New York photographer Eric Cahan.

    room design | Erin Martin

    photo source | Eye on Design by Dan Gregory

    art | Eric Cahan

    I love the way the deep turquoise of Cahan’s work plays off the subtle browns and oranges in the wood, while the purple adds just the right touch of coolness.  The quiet sleekness of the photograph is a perfect foil for the shaggy texture of the hanging sculpture and rusticity of the wood beams.

    What do you think, Artsies?  What piece of artwork would you like to wake up to in this room?

    All image sources linked above.

  • Friday Design Finds: Let’s Go For a Dip!

    Friday Design Finds: Let’s Go For a Dip!

    It’s like fries and ketchup.. chips and salsa.. hot wings and ranch.. the design trend of dipping objects in any array of colors makes something good even more tasty!  Here are a few examples I dug up this week..

    Purple White Gradient Long Sleeved Blouse
    Purple White Gradient Long Sleeved Blouse

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    Diagonal Dipped Trays via LEIF Shop
    Diagonal Dipped Trays

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    Dipped Toile Dessert Plates by Anthropologie
    Dipped Toile Dessert Plates

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    Trift by Judith Seng
    Trift by Judith Seng

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     Just imagine wearing that blouse.. wouldn’t you feel like a brush dipped in paint?!  Love it.  Happy weekend, Artsies!  Mr. Forager and I are taking a little road trip over to La La Land for the LA Art Show.  So excited and can’t wait to share the adventure with you on Monday!

  • The Elegant Wild: Katja Fritzsche

    The Elegant Wild: Katja Fritzsche

    Did you have a favorite animal growing up?  One that you loved, identified with, family members bought you t-shirts & stuffed animals in their likeness?  Isn’t it interesting how we, as young children, identify with our fellow members of the animal kingdom, then as with most of the magic of childhood, we outgrow our connection to our spirit creatures.  The work of Tuscon artist Katja Fritzsche reminds us that those connections we once felt are not gone forever, only buried for a time.

    Blue Sky Ram by Katja Fritzsche
    Blue Sky Ram, reverse painted mosaic and hand cast glass, 30x20x22

    By casting her creatures in the glass with perceived rigidity and coldness, Fritzsche’s work serves to recall to us that though we overlook our fellow animals, destroying their habitats as we build our own glass and steel monuments, they are still among us.  We catch glimpses of them in unexpected places, a lost deer wandering a suburban neighborhood, a hawk perched high atop a skyscraper.

    Edge by Katja Fritzsche
    Edge, blown glass and hand worked bronze
    Migration by Katja Fritzsche
    Migration, cast glass and hand forged bronze, 18x10x10
    Mapplethorpe by Katja Fritzsche
    Mapplethorpe, mosaic glass and hand worked glass, 30x21x10

    As we amble clumsily through life, the animals live each day with instinct, grace, and purpose.  Each born to his own calling and knowing it from birth.  How have we strayed so far from our own guiding spirits?

    Violet by Katja Fritzsche
    Violet, blown glass, mosaic glass and pressed flowers, 24x15x22

    To see more of Katja Fritzsche’s work, please visit her website.  I went through a pretty serious manatee phase when I was young– such gentle, unassuming animals, while Mr. Forager has always had a fascination with wolves. What creature did/do you identify with?  Has it changed over the years?

    All images are via the artist’s website.  Artist found via Visions West Gallery.

  • Crystallized Objectives: Brett Freund

    Crystallized Objectives: Brett Freund

    Isn’t it amazing to think of all the precious stones, metals, and other extraordinary objects growing in the hidden places of our world?  The sculptural work of artist Brett Freund seeks to explore questions of value and preciousness, what makes one thing more  prized than another?
    Crystals series by Freund
    Crystals series, porcelain

    Do we place a higher value on something that takes a longer time to ferment and evolve into its ideal form?  Or is a thing’s rarity more important?  And what about objects that are always growing and changing?

    Crystals series by Brett Freund
    Crystal, porcelain
    Crystals series by Brett Freund
    Crystal, porcelain
    Crystals Series by Brett Freund
    Crystal, porcelain

    Freund’s work, with its fractal shapes that seem to be metamorphosing right in front of our eyes, making us think of old things, covered in signs of age and transformation.  They are no longer what they were, but have become what they were meant to be.

    Vessels series by Brett Freund
    Vessel, porcelain

    Which is more valuable, what is at the beginning or the end?  To see more of Brett Freund’s work, please visit his website.

    All images via the artist’s website.

  • Artsy Spot: Palm Springs Art Museum

    Artsy Spot: Palm Springs Art Museum

    While Mr. Forager and I had originally made plans to trek to Big Bear over the weekend, a thick blanket of snow and us sans the CA law required snow chains, along with a sick-with-a-cold Mr. Forager led to a change in plans.  So following our Saturday ritual of breakfast in Joshua Tree ( at Crossroads Cafe— their “piggy pancakes” are my favorite indulgent breakfast ) and stocking up on victuals at the little JT Farmers’ Market, we drove through the wind farms to Palm Springs.

    We wandered around the shops and a few galleries in downtown PS ( note: Stark + Kent Gallery— best contemporary selection in PS, including a few artists featured here on Artsy Forager! ).  After doing the requisite touristy photo-op under Anish Kapoor’s Marilyn statue, currently installed in downtown Palm Springs, we decided to make our way over to the Palm Springs Art Museum. Now I normally have pretty low expectations for small town art museums, knowing they don’t usually have the financial support of big city institutions, so we were pleasantly surprised by what we found there.

    Jim Isermann installation
    Jim Isermann installation

    Palm Springs being a hot bed of modern architecture and design, it was no surprise that one of the current special exhibitions featured the design-art hybrid work of Fernando and Humberto Campana in the exhibition, Antibodies.  Their functional yet incredibly artistic designs take inspired living to an entirely different level.

    Antibodies_Fernando and Humberto Campana_photo by David A. Lee
    Antibodies, Fernando and Humberto Campana ( photo by David A. Lee )

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    But it was the museum’s contemporary collection that delighted us most.  As we walked up the stairs past the giant yellow Isermann installation ( see above pic ), so the magic began.  Marina Abramovic’s The Kitchen V, Carrying the Milk, held us spellbound, as we watched the artist as she stood, she the very subject of the Vermeer-esque vignette, holding a bowl of milk, at times struggling to hold her pose.

    The Kitchen V, Carrying the Milk by Marina Abramovic
    The Kitchen V, Carrying the Milk by Marina Abramovic

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    Moving away from the Abramovic video installation, our eyes were caught by what from a side angle looked to be an interesting light sculpture installation, but then I stood in front of it and that’s when something bewitching and delightful happened.. see the video!

    Exploded View ( Birds ) by Jim Campbell
    Exploded View ( Birds ) by Jim Campbell

    Here are a few more of our favorite highlights from the contemporary collection–

    Casualty in the Art Realm by Robert Arneson
    Casualty in the Art Realm by Robert Arneson
    Exploded Crystal Chandelier Headache by Ed Ruscha
    Exploded Crystal Chandelier Headache by Ed Ruscha
    Rainbow Picket by Judy Chicago
    Rainbow Picket by Judy Chicago
    Corona 2003 by Anish Kapoor
    Mr. Forager, contemplating Corona 2003 by Anish Kapoor

    Corona 2003 by Anish Kapoor ( above ) with its beautifully disorienting reflective surface and its acoustic properties ( when standing in front of it, as Mr. F is above, someone a few yards behind can hear what is being said into it ), we found it much more interesting than his giant Marilyn Monroe sculpture getting so much attention outside.  I’m glad we took the time to escape the masses huddled around her upended skirt to experience something much more satisfying.

    Unless otherwise identified, all images are by Artsy Forager.  Other image sources are linked above.

     

     

     

  • Threaded Fabrications: Jen Pack

    When I was taking painting courses in college, we were required to stretch our own canvases.  At first, I was pretty horrible at canvas stretching.. as in there were about a gazillion staples in each side of the canvas!  But eventually, I got my hands on a decent staple gun and came to appreciate the act of stretching a canvas as part of the creative process.  The stretching of textile collages over deep, geometric-shaped frames transforms stitched fabric and threads into strong and delicate sculptures for Colorado artist Jen Pack.

    I am a Cube by Jen Pack
    I am a Cube!, chiffon, thread, and wood, 58.5×58.5×3.5

    Some of Pack’s work, such as I am a Cube! ( above ) have a seemingly hard-edged sleekness to them, yet upon closer inspection, we see soft lines and gradations in the colored fabrics, giving the work a painterly feel.

    Domesticated Thread by Jen Pack
    Domesticated Thread, thread, chiffon, and wood, 59.5×35.5×3.5
    Scrap 1 by Jen Pack
    Scrap 1, chiffon, thread, and wood, 31.25x10x3.5

    Then in other pieces, Pack’s purpose seems to be one  of deconstruction, as in Domesticated Thread ( above ) and Purple, Yellow, and Green Toadstools ( below ).  Here, what we are met with seems to be an unraveling of the more “finished” and “structured” pieces. It’s almost as if someone pulled a loose thread, which caused the slow unraveling of each piece.

    Purple, Green, and Yellow Toadstools by Jen Pack
    Purple, Green, and Yellow Toadstools, thread, moshi fabric, cardboard tubes or pvc pipe, dimensions vary

    To see more of Jen Pack’s work, please visit her website.  If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you can see her solo show, UnQuiet Chroma at Taylor De Cordoba Gallery until December 15th!  Oh how I wish I was going to be able to get myself to L.A. this weekend!

  • Class on a Can: Kim Alsbrooks

    When this Southern girl was first transplanted to the Northwest, it came as a bit of a shock to me that certain parts of the Northwest were not that much different from the South.  I’d naively assumed that all of the PacNW would be open minded, artsy, liberal places like Seattle and Portland.  Philadelphia artist Kim Alsbrooks perhaps had a similar experience while living in the South, translating her perplexity at the social structures and prejudices still prevailing in the region into her My White Trash Family series.

    Lincoln, graphite and oil on found aluminum can

    From the artist’s website: “The White Trash Series was developed while living in the South out of frustration with some of the prevailing ideologies, in particular, class distinction. This ideology seems to be based on a combination of myth, biased history and a bizarre sentimentality about old wars and social structures. With the juxtaposition of the portraits from museums, once painted on ivory, now on flattened trash like beer cans and fast food containers, the artist sets out to even the playing field, challenging the perception of the social elite in today’s society.”

    Girl with Hand on Her Shoulder by Kim Alsbrooks
    Girl with Hand on Her Shoulder, graphite and oil on found aluminum can
    Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis by Kim Alsbrooks
    Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis, graphite and oil on found aluminum can

    Of course, the issue of class hierarchies is not limited to the Southern United States.  It is an issue still widespread throughout the world.  In her juxtaposition of these portraits of high societies’ past against the discards of the lower class, Alsbrooks speaks to the irony of the continuation of such antiquated beliefs.

    Ameriga Vespucci by Kim Alsbrooks
    Ameriga Vespucci, graphite and oil on found aluminum can

    To see more of Kim Alsbrooks’ work, please visit her website.  Her work will be featured as part of the Parlor Gallery Group Show at SCOPE Art Fair in Miami December 4th-9th!

    Artist found via Parlor Gallery.  All images are via the artist’s website.