Jen.eticz

Op Art Museum Opens In Amsterdam

2011-07-22T04:48:00.000-07:00

Amsterdam - Op Art Museum for Optical Phenomena, opened in May of this year, on the corner of the Singel Canal and Raadhuisstraat, located behind the Palace, the former City Hall of Amsterdam, in the ground floor of the TNT Post Office.

Op Art Museum is opened 7 days a week from 10:00 to 18:00, and it's the only museum open free of charge on Sunday mornings between 10:00 - 12:00. General admission is € 5,00 per visitor. Admission for 65+Pass & Museum cardholders is € 2,50 and free for children aged 15 or younger.

The museum presents a private collection on loan from Paul Baars, optical illusion artist and graphical designer, and aspires to be a "forum for optical phenomena in art, drawings, photography and new media. Additional, temporary exhibitions will be featured on individual artists and exhibitions on a particular theme from the wide range of optical phenomena in art."

What we think we see isn’t always what is truly there. Our consciousness and our thinking keeps us captured in what we know and have experienced. It never ceases to amaze how one can get caught in contradiction or paradox.

With my friend Paul Baars, I set up the museum on optical illusions, and I think we have found a good way to promote optical illusions in a broader sense of the word. We intend to make a kind of art hall, not a museum with a permanent collection, but with a very moving collection, in the sense it is moving and other people can come to show their work also.

Jos Smit, the founder of Op Art, is also the owner, editor and publisher of Art Unlimited. Art Unlimited, in business for 30 years, is a publishing house for Museums and Artists/Photographers of Fine Art Reproductions. The Art Unlimited store is located at Keizergracht 510, where you can find "the largest collection of modern postcards of its kind in The Netherlands - possibly the whole world."

Jos started Art Unlimited in 1980 as a postcard store and grew it into the largest postcard store in the world. When Jos was starting in publishing not many people were doing postcards, so Jos saw this as a medium with great opportunity to publish the works of original contemporary art and make money. In 1981 Jos published his first 7 postcards and since then he has published over 30,000 postcards.

Jos has always been interested in optical illusion art, either consciously or subconsciously. He's found that out of the 30,000 images that he has published since 1981, over 2000 of the images are optical illusion related. So he can state definitively "I will stay interested in it for the rest of my life." He shares this passion for optical illusion art with the owner of the private collection, Paul Baars, whom Jos has worked together with for over two decades and has published over 700 postcards with Paul's work.

Learn more about optical illusions by visiting the OP ART Museum today!

http://op-artmuseum.com/

Jos Smit, Owner of Art Unlimited, Talks About Op Art Museum Amsterdam

Jos Smit, Founder of Op Art Museum and Owner of Art Unlimited Talks About Why Postcards

“The only thing all successful people have in common is that they’re successful, so don’t waste your time copying “the successful strategies” of others.”

- Seth Godin, author, entrepreneur and agent of change

Support Your Local Entrepreneurs!

Support The Arts!

Austin Ikebana Brings Zen Floral Designs To Capital Of Texas

2011-07-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Austin, TX - Vanessa Howell, Owner of Austin Ikebana, a Japanese Floral Art Design Shop specializing in unique seasonal arrangements, finds zen in Austin, TX.

A Houston native, Vanessa moved to Japan just for the experience after graduating college with a degree in Piano at Central Florida University. Before moving to Japan, Vanessa worked in graphic design and programming. She had always loved Japan and studied Japanese culture at university. Vanessa's insatiable interest and curiosity drove her to make the leap across the Pacific to the Far East, where she initially taught English lessons, as many young foreigners do in Japan. For Vanessa, it was "really an amazing, totally different experience."

While living in Tokyo, Vanessa was introduced to Ikebana, an experience that changed her life and brought out her artistic passions. Studying the art while living in Tokyo for 4 years, for Vanessa, "Ikebana is an imagined landscape of flowers, leaves, green stems, and woody branches. Each piece in an arrangement relates to the others in a sort of dancing conversation. Arrangements display an asymmetrical balance that reflects the current season, using the three dimensional space to convey tension, fluidity, and movement."

Find out more about Ikebana and order a unique work of floral art at AustinIkebana.com.

If you are in the Austin, TX, region, check out Vanessa's Japanese Flower Arranging Class.

Japanese Flower Arranging Class
Saturday, July 30 · 2:00pm - 3:30pm

Zhi Tea

The cost is $30. Delicious Zhi Tea and Japanese snacks will be provided.

Students that attend the class are entitled to a 10% discount on any Zhi Tea they buy that day!

RSVP via Facebook by clicking this link

Meet Vanessa Howell, Owner of Austin Ikebana

Vanessa Talks About Life In Japan

Vanessa Talks About How Ikebana Gives Her Inspiration

"Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience."

- Masaru Ibuka, Co-Founder of Sony

Support Your Local Entrepreneurs!

Support The Arts!

The Lonely-Ladies Fight Back In The "War On Women"

2011-07-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

AUSTIN, TX - Last Saturday, The Lonely-Ladies Happy Hour, a collective of artists/entrepreneurs/djs/music fanatics/friends, hosted a benefit for Planned Parenthood at The Volstead Lounge in Austin. The focus of the benefit was to raise money and awareness for the organization that is currently being threatened by deep funding cuts.

Last month, Texas Republican governor, Rick Perry, approved a budget bill that reduced the state's family planning funding by more than 65%. The conservative state's lawmakers then passed a measure that requires the Texas Health Department to utilize a tiered priority system for distribution of the remaining funding of $37 million. Of course, Planned Parenthood is at the very bottom of this list.

Planned Parenthood has been an established institution in Austin since 1938, providing high-quality, affordable, preventative health care. Planned Parenthood provides low-cost breast exams and referrals for mammograms for women ages 18-34, adoption referrals, and medically accurate, effective, and engaging programs and presentations designed to help families make informed, responsible choices regarding their sexuality and sexual health. In the Capital Region, the breast examination service is partially funded by the Austin Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the adoption referral service partners with Adoption Advocates, Inc. and Marywood Children & Family Services.

The Lonely-Ladies Happy Hour organized a benefit for Planned Parenthood last Saturday at The Volstead Lounge. Entertainment for the evening was well taken care of by MC for the night Rebecca Havemeyer and musical performance by YellowFever. Donated items were raffled off, as well as Lonely-Ladies members and Etsy shop owners, Veronica Ortuño of Las Cruxes, Courtney Terry of Brookes General, and Donna Barton of Slinky Whistle Bait, contributing a portion of their sales to support the cause.

Stand With Us Today

Planned Parenthood is asking citizens to defend women's rights and support women's healthcare by signing an online petition. Click on the link above or visit http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ppaustin/ to access the petition. The current Texas legislative acts will result in nearly 300,000 women losing access to cancer and diabetes screening.

Meet Rebecca Havemeyer

Meet Megan Dodds

Meet Veronica Ortuño

Meet Courtney Terry

Meet Donna Barton

Spotlight Artist: Wendela de Vries

2011-07-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

Dutch artist Wendela de Vries is based in Amsterdam and works in the following medium: drawing, painting, screen printing, lithography, and illustrating children books. The authentic style Wendela exhibits is accentuated by her passion for the human form and mixing and integrating "layers".

The hauntingly chic results can be seen at WG Kunst, where she is included in the exhibition, Blauw, a collection from 15 artists expressing their unique interpretation of the color Blue. The exhibition runs until 17 July 2011. Wendela will also show at the Skin and Hair solo exhibition, Living naked in ink on Japanese paper, at Museum Joure, 27 August to 24 September 2011.

Wendela's advice for artists: Take everything you can get. Don't be picky. Don't complain all the time. Just do what you have to do.

Wendela talks about some of the artists that have influenced her.

Wendela talks about her source of inspiration.

Wendela talks about her favorite childhood story.

Amsterdam Sees True Blue At Blauw By WG Kunst

2011-07-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

Blauw opened at WG Kunst in Amsterdam last Friday to an enthusiastic crowd. The exhibition is open to the public and will run until 17 July 2011.

15 Artists collectively shared their artistic expression of Blue.

Madeleine Wardenaar, Art Historian and Director at Magna Arte Communication, an organization that specializes in concept and organization of cultural projects, attended the opening and expressed her opinion of the exhibition.