Tag: vintage

Live the Artsy: Holly Farrell

Post WWII prosperity ushered in a turning point in the world of advertising and manufactured goods– packaging and design were no longer concerned mainly with function, even the most mundane of objects were created with an appealing aesthetic. This month’s Featured Artist Holly Farrell celebrates the beauty in these old objects, breathing new and fresh life into designs of the past.

How would it be to live out Farrell’s aesthetic?

art | found here

interior a | found here

interior b | found here

With a bright and light modern palette, accentuated with touches of muted color. Pops of graphic, retro pattern along with sleek metals recall the dawn of the industrial age, with those colors and a few carefully placed wood tones keeping the view warm and fun. I can’t decide which of these looks I like best! Which is your fave?

To see more of Holly Farrell’s work, please visit her website. The above painting, Soap, is a 10×24 acrylic and oil on masonite, available through Holly’s studio.

Image sources linked above.

May 13, 2014
May Featured Artist: Holly Farrell

This year is zipping by like a lightning bug, isn’t it? We’ve rounded the corner to a new month, which means there is a new Featured Artist to enjoy and obsess over all May long! Toronto artist Holly Farrell is this month’s darling and I’m so excited to feature her work here again.

Holly is an amazingly self-taught painter whose work she lovingly describes as “still life as portraiture”. The things we surround ourselves with, especially as children, hold so many memories and associations. Like Holly’s association with pulp paperbacks such as “All the Way” above involve sneaking peeks at the forbidden books as a youngster. The way she portrays each object, worn with use and love, usually on a stark background, helps us connect to our own associations. We see the objects not just through the artist’s filter, but through our own memories.

To see more of Holly Farrell‘s work, please visit her website. If you’re in the NYC area, Holly will be showing at the Outsider Art Fair this weekend, May 8th-May11th! And you can see Holly’s work featured here on the blog & all over AF social media all throughout the merry month of May!

All images via the artist’s website.

May 5, 2014
Southern Comforts: Jon Davenport

I’m a Southern girl. You may not know that about me, since we’ve been all over the Northwest during most of Artsy Forager’s existence. OK some may not include Florida as the Deep South, but North Florida is pretty dang close to South Georgia, which is pretty dang Southern. Mr. F is a Southern boy and while we definitely feel more at home in the Northwest, there are things about the South that are so incredibly identifiable and iconic, that only Southerners, whether by birth or transplant, truly understand. Artist Jon Davenport came to the US South by way of the UK where he grew up well versed in Southern iconography, but it wasn’t until he was fully immersed in its culture that he began his artistic exploration of distinctly Southern tastes.

Jon, who shares a similar style to his wife, this month’s Featured Artist Christy Kinard, creates heavily textured, layered work filled with vintage advertising imagery much of which built up our ideas about life in the South, for better or for worse. Some of these icons can still be seen as faded paintings on the sides of buildings, especially in small Southern towns. In many ways, there is a fierce desire to hold onto the past in the South, where Sunday dinners at grandma’s and yes ma’am and no ma’am are still the norm.

Yet behind the fun and frivolity and charm, there was a darkness that would best be forgotten and which many Southern cities are still fighting to overcome. Many strive to overcome lingering stereotypes and “Ol’ Boys Networks”, while seeking to maintain the best of what it means to be a part of what has been a troubled region. Davenport’s work with its bright but slightly faded palette and layered drips and splotches of paint remind us that time marches on, ideals fade, but hopefully what is left is our favorite, most positive parts of ourselves.

To see more of Jon Davenport‘s work, please visit his website. His work can be seen in his solo show at Matre Gallery in Atlanta through February 8th. Stay tuned over the next few days for interviews with Jon & Christy in a special “He Said, She Said” feature on what it’s like to be half of a creative couple!

All images are via the artist’s website.

January 21, 2014
The Freshmaker: Heather Landis

In some ways, it seems like collage work is on the downside turn of its recent resurgence. There is so much of it out there, it can be a challenge to find work that feels fresh and original. Los Angeles artist Heather Landis uses a tight palette of color, cheeky use of typography and just the right mix of vintage and modern in her collages.

Her palettes are filled with those decidedly vintage-feeling hues of peaches and pinks, accentuated by the steely greys that were so indicative of the atomic age. Much of her work seems to deal with the coming loss of “innocence” brought on by turbulence of the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and well, just the end of what many perceive as the The Golden Age of pop culture.

The women in Landis’ collages seem to be blissfully unaware of what is soon to come. Beatific domesticity will give way to struggling to push through the glass ceiling and climbing the corporate ladder.

But Landis isn’t hitting us over the head with messages. Just subtly drawing us in to her happy-go-lucky world, then subversively reminding us that what used to be wasn’t always better.

Want to see more of Heather Landis‘ work? Go on over to her website and her Society6 shop.

All images are via the artist’s website and shop.

September 16, 2013
Portrait of Things Already Come: Christopher Stott

We are a world that loves stuff. One look at the tv show Hoarders will confirm that, as human beings, we develop emotional and psychological attachments to objects. Certain things may represent for us the physical manifestation of the memory of a time, a place, a relationship. Canadian artist Christopher Stott celebrates this connection by elevating every day objects to the subject of portraiture.

Good Times, oil on canvas, 30×30

Stott takes simple objects, isolating them against a neutral, traditionally lit backdrop, he treats them his subjects tenderly, as another portrait artist might portray the innocence of a child or quiet strength of a grandmother.

GE Vintage Electric Fan, oil on canvas, 22×28

Compositions containing multiple objects take on an interesting dynamic– they seem to communicate, to regard and relate to each other in an almost human-like way.

Candlestick Phone and Electric Fan, oil on canvas, 24×24

Remington, Overwhelmed, oil on canvas, 36×24

By choosing subjects with an already inherent history, the artist celebrates the lives of these every day objects– the people they have served, the differences they may have made to a human life, the treasured memories that may be associated with their torn pages and chipped paint.

Baggage, oil on canvas, 30×30

To see more of Christopher Stott’s work, please visit his website. Maybe these portraits will inspire you to look at your “stuff” a bit differently!

Featured image is Quartet, oil on canvas, 48×24. All images are via the artist’s website.

January 5, 2012
Loneliness and Loveliness: Holly Farrell

I have a weakness for objects with a past. Everyday pieces from days gone by hold the untold stories of a person, a family , a home. Toronto artist Holly Farrell’s paintings of vintage objects explore this sense of nostalgia for days gone by, while also having a strong, strikingly melancholy visual impact.

Bowl ( stripe ), acrylic and oil on masonite, 14×18

The self-taught artist isolates her subjects, often with a muted, neutral background, taking a bit out of their normal context, emphasizing their design and calling our attention to their forsaken state.

Couch, acrylic and oil on masonite, 28×18

These are works that are wryly reverent. Remember that hideous sofa in Grandma’s living room? It is now immortalized on canvas, forlornly longing for the days when grandchildren used to bounce and play on it’s floral-covered cushions.

Colorful Fire King mugs, which once warmed young hands and tummies with hot cocoa are now another kind of “mug shot”… snapshot compositions feel like they could be the sales photos for an eBay or Craigslist ad. Going once, going twice.. sold.

Fire King Mugs, acrylic and oil on board, 12 @ 7×8 each

Ken and Barbie dolls, once beloved playtime companions now seem vacant and distant.

Scuba Ken & Barbie, acrylic and oil on board

Though there can be a definite sadness surrounding some of Holly Farrell’s work, it is tempered with charm and joy. Just as our memories should be. To see more of Holly’s work, please visit her website. On her website, not only will you find more deliciously intriguing work, but also a list of galleries in the US and Canada where you can see them live and in person.

** Thank you to The Jealous Curator for the introduction to Holly Farrell’s work via her post on SF Girl By Bay!

Featured image is Books, acrylic and oil on masonite. All images are via the artist’s website.

December 12, 2011
Friday Forager Faves

Can you believe it’s already Friday again? Where did the week go?!

There is no real theme for this week’s Friday Faves.. other than these are a few of my favorite things right now. All art related, all colorful, all inspiring to me for different reasons.

This may possibly be my favorite quote ever. And something I struggle with daily. ( Yes, “loose” should be “lose” and the artist acknowledged it, but somehow that imperfection makes it even better ).

I want to spend the day outside, playing with watercolors, not caring whether or not the sketches are any good. ( I stink at watercolors! )

I love everything about this image. The jewelled rainbow color palette, the abstract expressionist paint splashes, the idea of the paint falling like rain, the black & white vintage girl… love, love, love.

I fell hard for this little guy the first time I saw him. So dapper, so sophisticated!

Wishing you a weekend full of warmth, spring color and artsyness! Be inspired.

1. Image via Amanda Cherie.

2. Image via Pinterest.

3. Image via Pinterest via Terrain.

4. Image of “Sir Boston” by Clair Hartmann, via Clair’s Etsy shop.

April 8, 2011