Stacy Alexander -LISTEN TO MY ART BEAT!

The 2014 International Doctors Without Borders Auction Has Started!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 18:41:00 +0000

The 2014 Doctors Without Borders Auction is now in session. Mosaic Artists from all over the world have contributed their work to this worthy cause. Please TAKE A LOOK and place your bid for some incredible, affordable art!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 17:44:00 +0000

The Raghurajpur International Art/Culture Exchange residency in Orissa, India is now in its fourth year and is really an amazing, life-changing experience for all who have attended. The call for applicants for 2014 has been posted on their website www.riace.in/

They are now offering to customize the residency (dates, length, focus, tours, etc) for schools and organizations that have groups of 20 or more participants. They operate RIACE as a non-profit and the charge is only $200US/week or $1,000US for 5 weeks which includes housing, food, daily workshops and cultural celebrations galore. Participants pay their own transportation to and from the residency. Spread the word! www.riace.in/

Free Art Workshop Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:26:00 +0000

Artist Susan Tuttle is giving a free art workshop away on her website.

Join the fun!

Stacy

USSSA (United Secret Society of Subversive Artists)

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:28:00 +0000

Thirteen contemporary artists will be forming “a more perfect union” in the month leading up to the Presidential Election, 2012. The project, “USSSA (united secret society of subversive artists),” will feature a highly diverse group of artists; each of them bringing a unique artistic background and a dynamic range of experience.

The artists of USSSA are all politically invested in the arts. They are educators, activists and organizers. The artists of USSSA will each create an installation around a theme of her or his choice. Through innovations to the curatorial model, this project becomes a venture where each artist presents a personally relevant perspective and engages the project as a space to work toward equal terms of support, respect and resolution.

Why Indiegogo?
We are on Indiegogo to raise the start-up funds for our first ever exhibition (i.e. official website, artist interviews, and promotion materials.) In the following months you will find Indiegogo pages for each of our artists but this page “Phase 1” will help us spread the word so that our artists—whom represent a wide array of political issues—can reach their intended audience.

The artists of USSSA seek to dispel the notion of politics in category and the synthesis of artist installations within one larger exhibition will reflect that; exemplifying a truly unified and collective effort as only artists can achieve. Diverse media and art education are integral parts of the USSSA political model—no one person performs as an expert in all matters but, instead, each individual sharing a legitimate voice, an active role, and an appreciation for each other among the group.

Who’s “dream” are we talking about?
The “American Dream” is not as concrete or common as our politicians and media would have you believe. The artists of USSSA will bring form to the intangibles of the “American Dream” because the visions, ideals and values that are often cited by pundits are precisely the forms that artists are trained to bring to life. Artists dream boldly and with care . . . something our nation would be wise to learn. Why are our nation’s art programs suffering? Why are this country’s artists becoming a marginalized population? Who is this “Amerigo Vespucci,” anyway?

In bringing a collective voice to the issues that are most important to us, this group of artists will be calling attention to the dynamics of democratic process, documenting our innovative forms of collaboration, and bringing form to the patterns of real and actual change.

Our exhibiting artists for “USSSA, 2012”
Please enjoy these links from our exhibiting artists:

Julio Cesar Morales
http://www.freynorris.com/artwork_list.php?id=134
http://juliomorales.com/index.htm

Dread Scott
http://www.dreadscott.net/artwork/performance/money-to-burn
http://www.dreadscott.net/artwork/photography/revolutions

Wafaa Bilal
http://www.wafaabilal.com
http://www.3rdi.me

Sarah Sense
http://www.sarahsense.com

Joshua Hagler
http://www.joshuahagler.com
http://joshuahagler.blogspot.com

Barbara Horiuchi
http://www.brhoriuchi.com

Christy Speakman
http://christyspeakman.com

Rodney Ewing
http://www.rodneyewing.com

Tsviel Sinclair
Coming soon . . .

Thinh Nguyen
http://thinhstudio.com

Lucien Shapiro
http://lucienshapiro.com

M. Ryan Noble
http://www.facebook.com/imagici

About your donation
Your donation at this stage is a critical first step. The location of our first exhibition, scheduled for October, 2012, is yet to be determined. We have several proposals around the country and will be relying on our donors to help us generate a wide interest in the exhibition. The shirts were printed in the studio of two “community artists” in their support of this project. Your donation will include domestic shipping and a certificate of authenticity. Please remember to specify your size and mailing address or P.O. Box.

Most importantly, we ask that you share this project with anyone you know whom supports the arts. Please use Indiegogo’s “Share” buttons or just cut and paste our links:

http://www.facebook.com/USSSartists
http://www.indiegogo.com/USSSA_phase1

Thank you!
Also Find This Campaign On
Facebook
Created By

M. Ryan Noble

Valérie Boy - Defying the Laws of Physics

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:18:00 +0000

When you possess light within, you see it externally. ~Anaïs Nin

Looking at her work, one would never suspect an element of rage. It is so feminine and delicate. However, Valérie Boy was trained to work with steel in an all-male environment and likened it to a way in which people can channel violence and rage artistically. She likes the contrast between the cold, hard steel and the other materials that she uses. Regardless of the media, her work appears painterly and delicate.

The poet, Carl Sandburg once described poetry as being a “journal of sea animal, living on land, wanting to fly the air.” The work that Valérie creates is, in a way, like this. Not content to allow steel to be cold, hard and static, she breathes life into it, to make it appear to something else altogether. Light. Lightweight. Supple. Soft. The metal in her furniture seems pliable, as though it is blowing gently in the breeze.

Valérie refuses to limit herself by media, and uses various techniques to work with silk, porcelain, glass, sculpture, felt, resin and other materials to create her multi-layered, gravity-and-media defying art.

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The Jaguar MK2 is not an actual Jaguar body, but is a substrate that was designed and cut by someone else.

The artist spent a year studying with a steel worker to learn how to cut and weld steel, and is the first woman in France to graduate from the SFPA St. Nazaire in this discipline. When she received funding to make her art full time, she joined a primarily male orgaization working side-by-side with men to create her steel works. She found this physically challenging, but highly rewarding.

Blossom & Bill introduced her work by saying: “Valérie Boy, who has a French passion that dissolves in clouds of smoke and jazz.” He work is musical, lyrical, magical.

Despite her formal training in steel working, she is self taught as an artist. Valérie draws inspiration from various aspects of life itself (such as the 7 Deadly Sins) using steel in ways that contrast with the other materials she uses.

Does this steel pillow not look soft enough to sleep on?! Amazing.

In the beginning there was nothing. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.

~Ellen DeGeneres

To see more work by Valérie Boy , please visit her website by clicking HERE.

Chris Gilmour - One Man's Trash....

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 20:08:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

It has been awhile! Today's entry is about a young English sculpture named, Chris Gilmour who takes recycling to a whole new level.

Each of the objects pictured below is made of cardboard.

British artist, Chris Gilmour, chooses images and objects that evoke memories and emotions to create his intricately folded and glued cardboard sculptures. He chooses cardboard that “isn’t too clean” because he wants viewers to see what the material really is. Early in his career, he used only new cardboard and people would often think it was the real object that had simply been covered with paper or cardboard and painted.

The only materials he uses are cardboard, glue and an Exact-o knife or scissors.

Chris’ penchant for using recycled cardboard comes from a desire to take control of the waste and objects that surround human beings on a daily basis. He enjoys the immediate accessibility of cardboard and is attracted to his historical void that is associated with sculptures that are made from traditional materials. He says that he does notice packaging when he makes a purchase and attempts not to leave too large a big carbon footprint.

He is influenced by the work of sculptor, Anish Kapoor, Tom Friedman and Andy Goldsworthy who share similar views about the environment.

Chris views his wheelchair piece as his most important because of the ways in which the viewer interacts with it and brings its own story into the piece.

The artist feels that consumerism has shaped even our personalities in ways that cause us to buy things in order to shape our identities. His work is in protestation of that observation.

Chris Gilmore is currently working on a new show that features a life sized Aston Martin automobile. He strives for accuracy even in the interiors of his works that the viewers cannot see. Each detail of the Aston Martin, down to the last spark plug is being recreated.

A Real Flair for Mosaics - Flair Robinson

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:06:00 +0000

Flair Robinson

It is hard to look at Flair Robinson’s mosaic art without imagining cheerful music playing in the background. Her images seem full of energy, and are quite easy to imagine merrily gyrating and flexing to the beat of some imaginary song. She is a true colorist in every sense of the word. Her color choices are dazzling and her designs sizzle.

Vincent's Choice

Sometimes, she includes texts in her compositions. She is primarily a self-taught mixed media and assemblage artist and educator who has taken college-level design, mixed media and mural-making courses, the latter of which were taught by renown muralist, Tracy Montminy at the University of Missouri (Columbia). For awhile, she lived in New York, where she studied filmmaking . Like myself, Flair has a propensity toward utilizing re-purposed materials in her art. She also uses hand-cut glass and ceramic tile.

Thor's Chair

Of late, Flair has begun the transformation from creating utilitarian art pieces to works that stand on their own as fine art. She does this in a studio in the small town of Teluride, Colorado, which she shares with a photography studio. She is represented by the Wildcat Studios Gallery conveniently located just downstairs. If you find yourself in the Telluride area, stop in at 224 East Colorado Avenue. (Hours Monday-Saturday 11:00AM -5:00 PM) Her good friends, Tanya and Stacy Smith own the gallery and have utilized Flair’s artistic expertise on a number of projects.

If Only

Flair draws inspiration from a variety of sources, all unusual….all fun. She sees a roadside attraction and borrows from that. She looks at advertisements from the 1940’s and ‘50’s and gets ideas there. Even vintage fabrics can inspire her work. Flair collects American and Latin American folk art and Visionary art that she feels greatly influences her own artistic vision.

Summer Night

Flairs love of art is evident in many ways, one of which includes her practice of driving 130 miles, round-trip, to buy the grout and other art supplies that she doesn’t have shipped to her directly. (She has her ceramic tile sent all the way from the Netherlands!)

New York City

Flair Robinson is unstoppable and believes that we can all teach ourselves to do virtually anything….and ya know, I think she’s absolutely right!

Click HERE to hear a podcast featuring Flair herself!

Waltzing Mithila

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 19:13:00 +0000

Sky, Earth and Water
Monalisa Jha
2009

I am forever searching for simple designs to incorporate into my mosaic or other mixed media work. Of late, I have been attracted to the indigenous art of the Mithila people, one of the ancient traditional arts of North India.

Ganesh
Dulari Devi
2008

Mathili art was originally practiced by women on the interior walls of their homes. Popular legend dates the beginning of this art form to at least 5,000 years ago when, at the marriage of Sita and Rama, her father King Janak decreed that everyone should paint their homes with gods and goddesses to celebrate the happy occasion. (We should do that here in America!)

Women's Plight
Rani Jha
2008

In the late 1960s Mathili artists began painting on paper as a means of earning a living. This soon led to experimentation and an expansion of the subject matters. Generally, this type of art captures the everyday lives, the rituals, festivals, social lives of Mathili people. The growing interest in this folk art form also encouraged some men begin to practice what was traditionally considered a women's art. Today, the art flourishes in the villages around the rural town of Madhubani in north India.

Pond Life
Pinki Kumeri
2004
Women Mithila painters outnumber men by a large margin. Hindu gods and goddesses are still common subjects, but the repertoire now also includes popular stories, legends, local and even international events, autobiographies, and contemporary social and political issues.

The First Time to Market - and she is nervous
Pratik Prabhakar
2008

The internet, television and other media that lend a hand in the globalization of art has done much to aid in the popularity of Mithlian folk art. Today, once can find it on hand made Lokta papers and on hand made cotton clothing. Contemporary Mathlia artists have begun to use modern brushes and acrylic paints as opposed to the ancient, home made inks of old. With the new media exposure, market value for Mithili art has been increasing steadily. Fortunately, a growing number of women artists are able to earn decent a income from it, not to mention the rich cultural addition it lends to Northern India.

At the Pond in the Rain
Kiran Jha
2009
At this time, Norbertallen Gallery in downtown Los Angeles is planning an Mithila Art in an exhibit called, “ An Indian Survey of Mithila Art”. It will run from July 8th through August 31.
Animals in the Forest
Laxmi Devl
2010

Correction

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:46:00 +0000

I have corrected the link to Christine Moss' web site, but for those of you who receive this via email, the url is: http://www.joyfulmosaic.com/home

Thanks!
Stacy

The Joyful Mosaics of Christine Moss

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:07:00 +0000

My blog seems to generate a lot of fan mail, for some reason. I find reading these emails a great way to meet people and to be introduced to new artists, one of whom is mixed media artist, Christine Moss.

Christine’s mosaics are created with a view toward uplifting the spirits of those who view them. Through her art she strives to convey joy (hence her studio name, “Joyful Mosaics”) and to connect with that which is Divine. She is mindful of the time it takes to create a mosaic and of the experiences of time expenditure, patience and positive energy that a good piece of art entails. . Her art seems to be as much about the discipline and appreciation for the technique as it is about the finished work.

“When I create mosaics, I am searching for a certain quality of light, texture and color. I am after dream-like realness; that moment when you first wake up and are aware of your surroundings but are still within your dream.
Christine Moss

Christine Moss considers mosaic to be a rewarding medium from the very beginning when she sets out to find the perfect tessarae to express what she wishes to convey. She loves the tactile experience of cutting and arranging each piece and working the soft granular grout between the spaces and pays close attention to replicating and transforming the shapes found in nature into her own joyful signature artwork.

A recent resident of Woodstock, NY, Christine creates her mosaics on the main street at the edge of town where she reserves a work space in the back room for painting, grouting and sculptural pursuits. She claims the move has helped broaden her artistic horizons. However, she hasn’t always worked in a dedicated studio.

“When I lived in Jersey City, I worked out of the kitchen and the living room, wherever there was enough open space and light to see. I had a system of trays and panels that I worked from. Glass was everywhere. It was an organized chaos, not something I could really share with others.”

Christine teaches workshops and enjoys sharing the creative process with her students who range from senior citizens in the Big Apple and Jersey City, to public school children in Newark where she was an Artist in Residence at the Newark Museum.

She is a member of the Visionary Artists Collective at Varga Gallery and sells mosaic jewelry at the gift shop for the Brydcliff Artists Guild. She also sells her work on Etsy. She has built a number of large installations and is available for commissioned work.

Later this month, Christine will participate in the NY Faerie Festival where she will offer not only her mosaics, but a variety of other types of art work including sculptural forms, and jewelry that she makes from found sticks, woven with ribbons, leaves and feathers and embellished with wires and stones.

Please visit Christine Moss’ Joyful Mosaic web site: HERE

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Mon, 31 May 2010 02:06:00 +0000

Help for Haiti's Art

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:12:00 +0000

The January 12th earthquake in Haiti was not only devastating to the people there, it also reeked havoc on the island's cultural treasures. Subsequently, the Smithsonian has organized a team of cultural organizations to help the Haitian government assess, recover and restore Haiti’s cultural materials. Lead by Haiti's Ministry of Culture and Communication and the Haitian President's Commission for Reconstruction, the 7500 sq. foot building in Port-au-Prince that once housed the United Nations Development Program will be leased by the Smithsonian. The three-story building will serve as a temporary conservation site where objects retrieved from the rubble can be assessed, conserved and stored. It will also be the training center for Haitians who will be taking over this conservation effort in the future.

The “Smithsonian Institution–Haiti Cultural Recovery Project” is conducted in partnership with the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities with assistance from several other federal agencies—National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The project is also supported by contributions from The Broadway League, the international trade association for Broadway and the Broadway community. The U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, a nonprofit, non-governmental organization dedicated to the protection of cultural property affected by conflict or natural disasters, is involved in the project as is the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Local Haitian cultural organizations and a number of international organizations will also be involved in the effort.

The rainy season in Haiti has already begun, and the hurricane season is on its way. Much of Haiti’s endangered cultural heritage is in destroyed buildings and is at risk of permanent destruction.

“The highest priority of the Haitian government and the international humanitarian communities has rightly been to save lives and provide food, water, medical care and shelter,” said Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture at the Smithsonian. “However, Haiti’s rich culture, which goes back five centuries, is also in danger and we have the expertise to help preserve that heritage.” The long-term goal, according to Kurin, is to “rescue, recover and help restore Haitian art work, artifacts and archives damaged by the earthquake.”

The artifacts recovered and eventually conserved may include building features such as stained glass and historic murals as well as paper documents, photographs, artifacts and some of the 9,000 paintings from the Nader Museum, now in ruins from the quake.

“With this unprecedented inter-agency effort involving the major federal cultural institutions and the private sector, we express our collective belief that in times of great tragedy it is essential to help a country preserve and protect its cultural legacy for future generations,” said Rachel Goslins, executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

In 2004, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, under the direction of Kurin, highlighted the country in the program Haiti: Freedom and Creativity from the Mountains to the Sea, which featured more than 100 traditional Haitian artists and crafts people, performers, cooks, writers, researchers and cultural experts in performances, demonstrations, workshops and concerts. That collaboration with Haitian cultural leaders resulted in an ongoing relationship with the Smithsonian.

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Kurt Cobain exhibit in Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:44:00 +0000

Grunge music is about as universally synonymous with modern-day Seattle as Starbucks and Microsoft, and no band symbolizes this movement more readily than Nirvana. The late Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain is easily the most recognizable icon from this period, famous for his heart wrenching lyrics, aggressive left-handed guitar playing, scraggly blond locks and premature demise. On view at the Seattle Art Museum from May 13 through September 6, 2010, the exhibition Kurt will reveal the extent to which his music and biography continue to exert a strong pull on our collective consciousness.

Please click HERE if you can't see the above-video.

Known as "Kurt," the SAM event "will explore the ways in which the grunge movement's most iconic figure continues to influence modern artists from a multitude of disciplines," according to an announcement by Darling. The curator also said that the exhibit "asks viewers to question why and how Kurt Cobain came to mean so much to a generation."

Alice Wheeler's photograph of Kurt Cobain at MTV's "Live and Loud" at Pier 63 in Seattle, 1993.

To be clear: This is not a display of Nirvana ephemera, guitars, CD covers, or the yellow gown Cobain wore on MTV. It's an exhibition of drawings, paintings, photographs, installations, and mixed-media works by artists — including Elizabeth Peyton, Douglas Gordon, and Daniel Guzman, as well as Northwest artists such as Scott Fife, Jeffry Mitchell, Jessica Jackson Hutchins — who are making some provocative, nuanced stuff right now.

All of the works of art began with some kind of connection with Cobain. Some of these connections are immediately, almost painfully, direct, as in Alice Wheeler's color-saturated photograph of Cobain in Seattle in 1993. Cobain is pale and scruffy beneath cherry-red sunglasses and multicolored tinsel garlands; the image captures Cobain's tendency to play with glamor and image, along with an underlying frailty.

Some of the works of art become more conceptually abstract, as in Gretchen Bennett's color pencil drawings. Bennett, who recently relocated from New York to Seattle, creates work out of a wide range of materials and often thinks about how environment, landscape and climate affect what can be produced. She was drawn to Cobain's story and "how Nirvana emanated from this landscape," but she was interested in taking a more "non-iconic, everyday approach." She searched YouTube for homemade videos of Nirvana in concert and isolated certain moments of gesture and lighting when Cobain became visually obliterated or pixelated. She further transformed these images by turning them into color pencil drawings that have a sweet ordinariness to them, despite all of the complex implications of mediation and image dissemination.

Might be worth the trip to the Emerald City to check it out.

From Obama to Oh, Wow! Alexa Meade

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sat, 01 May 2010 05:35:00 +0000

If you happen to be in NYC between now and May 8, you won’t want to miss Alexa Meade’s exhibit at Postmaster’s Gallery. From her political experiences, former Obama campaign staffer, Meade, theorizes, that “experiences cannot always be interpreted at face value; seeing is not necessarily believing,”.

The twenty three year old Vassar grad expresses herself in a truly unique, thought-provoking manner with her reverse trompe l’oeil series. To create it, she developed a technique that makes 3-D space look flat, “blurring the lines between illusion and reality.”

Meade states, "I paint representational portraits directly on top of the people I am representing. The models are transformed into embodiments of the artist's interpretation of their essence. When captured on film, the living, breathing people underneath the paint disappear, overshadowed by the masks of themselves."

Dan Zak of the Washington Post writes, “Meade uses a brush. She paints skin on skin, lips on lips and eyebrows on eyebrows, and the insides of nostrils, using her own mixture of nontoxic paints and unspecified ingredients. Her subjects must sit still for multiple hours as she follows the natural contours of their faces, varying brushstroke and color to exhume their inner essence. When she's done, they appear banished to two-dimensionality, yet they also seem fuller, more dynamic. She then sets her subjects in an installation, or photographs them. There are no touch-ups or special effects beyond acrylic on flesh and the initial complacency of the observer.”

When I wrote to Alexa to ask her permission to write this entry about her, she referred me to the entry about her in Wikipedia, which she described as, "very accurate". I quote this entry about her:

Recent critical acclaim for Meade's work has been positive, with critics alluding to her innovations to the genre of portraiture and the ability of her work to speak to an international audience. Magdalena Sawon, owner of the Postmasters Gallery in New York, NY, recently said in reference to Meade's work, "A portrait is something that's been with us for 3,000 years--that's not an easy genre to move forward...This is a valid and very interesting contribution to the portrait genre." Christian Furr, a world renowned painter who selected Meade for an exhibit at the Saatchi Gallery in London, spoke of the international possibilities of her art. "She's going to create quite a stir in this country," Furr, a UK national, said. "People are fascinated by playing with viewpoints, and she's taking it one step further than trompe l'oeil. I was blown away by it."

(So was I!)

Susan Tuttle's Cool Art Book Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:18:00 +0000

Are there any digital photographers among my readers? Mixed media artists, perhaps? If so, you might be interested in this contest to win Susan Tuttle's new book, Digital Expressions: Creating Digital Art with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements (North Light Books), between now and Tuesday, May 4th at 9pm EST. She will announce the winner (via random drawing) on Wednesday, May 5th.

You can review the book on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Click HERE to read all about the contest.

Good luck!

Stacy

FRAUD!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:40:00 +0000

The first major exhibition of its kind, "Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries" celebrates the remarkable collaboration of scientists, conservators and art historians at the National Gallery in London. The National Gallery’s Scientific Department was founded in 1934 and has become a world leader in the study of the materials and techniques of Western European paintings. Today, the department works ever more closely with curators and conservators to investigate the physical characteristics of works in the collection and to protect paintings for the future. On exhibition 30 June through 12 September.

Modern scientific methods, including infrared imaging, X-ray images, electron microscopy and mass spectrometry can provide fascinating insights into the materials used by artists, studio practice and the ways paintings can change over time.

Close Examination explores this pioneering work by presenting the varied and fascinating stories behind more than 40 paintings in the National Gallery’s collection. The exhibition is arranged over six rooms, representing some of the major challenges faced by Gallery experts: Deception and Deceit; Transformations and Modifications; Mistakes; Secrets and Conundrums; Redemption and Recovery; and a special focus room relating to Botticelli. The exhibition features works by Raphael, Dürer, Gossaert, Rembrandt and others.

Room 1: Deception and Deceit
Some paintings in the collection raise complex questions of disputed authorship and authenticity. These range from straightforward period copies to modern forgeries created with the intent to deceive. The lengths forgers will go to deceive is shown in Portrait Group.

This has been identified as the work of an unknown forger of the early 20th century, imitating the style of Renaissance profile portraits. The National Gallery purchased the painting in 1923, believing it to be an authentic work from the 15th century. Scientific analysis exposed the deception, revealing that the artist had used pigments not available before the 19th century. It also emerged that the top layer had been coated with shellac, a natural resin, to simulate the appearance of age.

Altered to Resemble a Holbein. "Portrait of Alexander Mornauer", 1464-88 (pre-restoration). © National Gallery, London.Room 2: Transformations and Modifications
The Gallery owns several paintings which, over the course of time, have been modified to satisfy changing tastes or interpretations. A provocative Renaissance depiction of a Woman at a Window, probably 1510–30, was dramatically altered in the 19th century to satisfy more restrained Victorian tastes. The girl’s hair was changed from blonde to brunette, her expression made more innocent and her bodice rendered less revealing.

In the 1700s, a painting by an unknown German artist, Portrait of Alexander Mornauer, about 1464–88, was altered to resemble a work by the more famous (and highly collectable) artist Hans Holbein. Microscopic examination of paint sample cross-sections revealed that a layer of blue paint had been applied over the original brown background. The style of the sitter’s hat was also altered. The changes convinced an 18th-century aristocrat that he was buying an authentic Holbein. The Gallery acquired the painting in 1990 and conservators were able to safely remove these additions to return the painting to its original state.

Room 3: Mistakes
This room focuses on the misattribution of paintings, and examines how scientific analysis and connoisseurship can work together to correct past mistakes. A Man with a Skull was acquired by the Gallery in 1845 as a work by Holbein. Even at the time many experts doubted the attribution. Modern dendrochronological analysis to determine the age of the wood panel support has since shown the painting post-dates Holbein’s death in 1543. The exhibition will reveal a new attribution for this painting.

Room 4: Secrets and Conundrums
Despite many triumphs and advances, some paintings remain stubbornly mysterious. For example, it is difficult to exactly recreate the workings of an artist’s studio: the materials and techniques used, or the role of assistants. Close Examination highlights some of the important discoveries made in this area; for instance during recent conservation work on The Virgin and Child with Two Angels, about 1475, experts were able to take a closer look and solve a long-standing conundrum over authorship.

Originally acquired as a work by Domenico Ghirlandaio, the painting was later demoted, attributed to the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio. However, after removing layers of old retouching work, and examining the underdrawing with infrared reflectography, it became clear that Verrocchio himself painted the Virgin, the angel on the left and the landscape in the background, while his assistant, Lorenzo di Credi, painted the angel on the right and the infant Christ.

Verrocchio was one of the finest sculptors of the Renaissance and tutor to both Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli, but very few paintings by him have been identified with any certainty. This discovery has made it possible to reassess other works by the artist as well as his legacy as a Renaissance painter.

Other conundrums featured in the exhibition remain tantalizingly unsolved. A Dead Soldier, an atmospheric painting of the 17th century, was once attributed to the Spanish master, Diego Velázquez. This theory has now been discounted, but while the painting is thought to have originated in Italy, the precise identity of the artist remains a mystery.

Raphael - "Madonna of the Pinks" c.1506-07, Oil on yew, 28 x 22.4 cm. © National Gallery, LondonRoom 5: Being Botticelli
At various points in the National Gallery’s history, some works were enthusiastically acquired on mistaken attributions to iconic artists. In June 1874 the Gallery purchased two Botticellis – or so it seemed. One of these (Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Mars, about 1485) is now one of the most beloved paintings in the collection.

The other painting (Follower of Sandro Botticelli, An Allegory, probably about 1490–1550) was then thought to be a companion to Venus and Mars. Some even thought it the more desirable of the two. However, this painting was soon discovered to be a pastiche, painted by a follower in the style of the great master. The paintings will be shown side-by-side so that visitors can test their own skills of connoisseurship.

Room 6: Redemption and Recovery
The final room of the exhibition celebrates instances in which the work of great painters has been re-discovered through a combination of scientific analysis, conservation, connoisseurship and art historical research. Until 1991, the whereabouts of Raphael’s original painting of The Madonna of the Pinks, about 1506–7, was an intriguing mystery for art historians. Only copies of the painting were known. However, during a visit to Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, Dr Nicholas Penny spotted an intriguing painting which demanded closer examination.

Infrared reflectograms revealed an exquisite underdrawing beneath the paint surface, bearing all the hallmarks of Raphael’s hand. Subtle differences between this underdrawing and the finished painting, particularly in the costume and background landscape, showed the artist had changed his mind as he worked. No copyist wishing to pass a painting off as the original would have departed from his model in such a way. Chemical analysis confirmed that the pigments used were typical of Raphael’s distinctive palette, including some that ceased to be used after the 16th century.

'Close Examination' is the first major exhibition to explore the full range of scientific discoveries made by a leading art gallery within its collection. The close working relationship between scientists, conservators and curators constantly yields new and exciting findings while helping us to gain a deeper understanding of important works of art.

Clck HERE to see the web site for The National Gallery in London.

10 Most Eccentric Artists to Ever Live

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:46:00 +0000

I had a note from Amy Cook who asked me to point my readers toward her blog where she has written an interesting piece about the 10 most eccentric artists to ever live. Why not give it a read?

Click HERE to go straight to the entry.

Stacy

Winfred Rembert - Works on Leather

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:20:00 +0000

Winfred Rembert (Photo by William Oppenheimer)

A self-taught artist, Winfred Rembert grew up in the 1950's working in the cotton fields of Cuthbert, Georgia. He was arrested after a 1960’s civil rights march and survived a near-lynching before serving seven years in jail. It was in jail, creating wallets next to another inmate, that he first learned to hand-tool leather. Years later, at the suggestion of his wife, Rembert integrated storytelling and the tales of his youth into tableaux on sheets of tanned leather.

Now, at 58, he lives in New Haven, Conn., where he is a guest lecturer at Yale University, a far cry from his early life in the cotton fields and in prison.

Rembert often begins his pictures with drawings, in an effort to work out detailed patterns. He retains each drawing in his archives. When the stories are carved and tooled into the leather, his images take on texture and depth. During the final step, he paints the surfaces in vivid dyes. The final images offer a flamboyant narrative of life in the still-segregated South of the mid-twentieth century.

“I ordered a book called ‘How to Carve Leather,’ but I don’t agree with nothing they do.

“For the paintings, I mount them on Gater Board with non-toxic glue. I put on a varnished surface to protect them from the water. They’re glued down into the frame.”

What's Wrong With Little Winfred

"My mother gave me away at three months to her aunt. She didn’t have no husband. Her mouth was so big she’d run ‘em off, my aunt said. My aunt’s granddaughter lived with us, and I thought for a long time that she was my sister. Mama, that’s what I called her, was not big on education, but what she was big on was work. I went to school very little. At six years old, I was picking cotton for fifty cents or a dollar a day. Mama could pick a lot of cotton. She got $2 for every 100 pounds she’d pick. I worked as a field hand digging potatoes, too."

Rembert’s education had been a source of frustration, and he attended school intermittently between periods of working as a field hand.

“You feel like a dummy,” he said. “They used me to feed the heater. The teacher never called on me. She didn’t want to embarrass me. I thought I couldn’t learn."

Doll's Head Baseball
“I made my own toys. Other kids bought the toys I made. I made riding things -- three-wheel bicycles, wagons and pop guns, bows and arrows. I had to do that to get some kind of joy. I made things by not having anything -- no Christmas, no money. I had my toys. It meant a lot to me to create things. I was good at drawing, too."

Watermelons on a Saturday Afternoon

“Ideas crowd in on me so much I almost died last year. I’m in prison every night or else running for my life. I can’t sleep. I work with people in prison now and some right out of prison. But this is fun,” said Rembert.

These days, Wifred enjoys his life -- making art, raising a family . . . freedom. He has a gentle sweetness and a kind demeanor that contradict the stories he tells of going AWOL from the Army, escaping from jail, being a trouble-maker, surviving a near-lynching and belonging to a chain gang. “I’ve put all that behind me now,” he says when questioned about his seeming lack of anger and the disparity of his present life and his past. In a special event, Adelson Galleries and Peter Tillou Works of Art present the paintings of Winfred Rembert this spring. The exhibition, taking place April 7 through May 28, 2010, will be Rembert’s first major solo exhibition in New York. It will feature lively painted and carved figures of cotton pickers, pool hustlers, midwives, preachers, dancers and prison inmates prancing rhythmically across the gleaming leather.

Winfred Rembert is illustrator and subject of the book, "Don't Hold Me Back: My Life and Art" written by contributing author, Nikki Giovanni (Contributor)

Pamela Pardue Goode - Beneath the Surface

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:15:00 +0000

Pamela Pardue Goode
“My preferred theme is seeing beneath the surface; consequently there are often hidden elements in my work, inviting the curious viewer to look deeper, and hopefully enticing the less curious observer to heighten that instinct.”

The creative destiny of North Carolina artist and writer, Pamela Pardue Goode, was determined by the artistic proclivities of her natal family. She refers to herself as an “artist by genetics”. The familial architects, painters, musicians and writers coaxed Pam toward the arts when she was a child, exposing her to a multitude of artistic media. That art became ingrained as an everyday occurrence and became a language that she speaks fluently. The many-talented Pam designs and creates jewelry and faux finishes. She quilts, sews, knits, and does landscape design. She also makes mosaics.

Her eye for symmetry and design resulted from the many years she spent working in her father’s architectural firm. Serendipitously, when her husband decided to open a printing company in the early 90’s, Pam became the graphic designer. Almost a decade later, she discovered mosaics.
The Happiest House

"The Happiest House Breaks Fear Apart; We Silence Witches With Our Art."

“I made my first mosaic in 1999 and fell in love immediately, not only for the ability to play with color in a new way, but for the spatial relationships that had become so deeply ingrained in me.”
Expecting

Pam’s work is lyrical and energetic, rewarding viewers with an immediate, visceral sense of presence. It is filled with dynamic and interesting design relationships, color and form. She works with a variety of materials that include glass, porcelain, stone, and found objects.

My Mother Lived and Died

“This mosaic traces the concept of life from the central birth motif, through the varied passages of life, to the climb up the final mountain and release of the soul. Pieces of a woman's life (china, pearls) along with an evolutionary theme of tides, procreation (the miniature fetal-shaped snail shells), fragments of sea-tossed shell, the "sands of time," and an edging of ephemeral sea foam. The central haliotis shell, which echoes the spiral sea shapes, shelters five pink pearls, just visible through the tiny arc of holes.”

When I asked her why she makes art, Pam expressed that the need to create, to bring an element to life and to make “something” from “nothing” are the driving forces behind why she does what she does.

“Art has also been a monumental means of communication for me, as I grew up with an almost incapacitating shyness and then began to lose my hearing in college. But of course there's more to it than that, because it would be almost impossible to convey in conversation the experiential breadth that led to "My Mother Lived and Died" or "Wasteland" or even "Happiness Rains." I write a lot, and even so, I can't write the feeling, but I can build it on a piece of wedi :) “
Wasteland

“His piece began in a dream. Because the image was so void-like, I immediately thought of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," using lines from that poem as well as from "The Hollow Men" to create the pewter spiral that crashes into the deep. The pewter letter beads read: "We are the Hollow Men; We are the Stuffed Men; Pray for us Sinners now and at the hour of our Death; Pray for us now and at the . . . " The intersecting spirals of poetry and blank, floating faces overlap to form a rough heart shape, which seems to give the mosaic a less jarring feel.”
Howl

As owner of Ciel Gallery in Charlotte, Pam presents juried international exhibitions focusing on mosaic art. Her work has been selected for inclusion in Mosaic Arts International upon three occasions, and has appeared twice in “Mosaic Art Now”, a publication featuring mosaic art across the globe. Click HERE (/) to see more of Pam’s mosaic art on her web site, “Wild Hair Mosaics”.

Tape Artist, Rachel Ward. It's a Sticky Situation....

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:46:00 +0000

Austin artist, Rebecca Ward’s signature medium is tape. Doesn’t mater what kind of tape. It could be duct tape or masking tape or even electrical tape. If it’s tape, she can make art out of it. With her amazingly precise execution, the artist does a great job of morphing a simple material into something exceptional. She uses this medium to explore the unique structures of the sites in which her installations are situated. She explained this by saying that her work constitutes a collaboration between a particular space and herself.

She has long had a certain fascination with tape and began to experiment with it to decorate her apartment while she was in art school. She claims that while it didn’t look so great, she was interested in the lines it formed, the stripes and the bright colors. She describes the medium as “incredibly seductive”, “…so bright, shiny and smooth.”

“I think I realized that tape could be a wonderfully suitable medium for installation pieces when I started to appreciate it for both its aesthetic (color and texture) and practical (adhesive, linear) qualities,” she explained.

Ward's work is site-specific, taking its shape in response to the particular details of its venue. “Many things can influence the way an installation looks. Some surfaces can be really tricky to work with in getting the tape to stick and adhere -- brick is like near impossible -- but the easiest surface is drywall,” she explains, adding: “My art is about an interaction with space and the built environment that I'm asked to interact with.

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The Many Hats of Jerry Bleem

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:07:00 +0000

Jerry Bleem

Jerry Bleem, an artist, teacher, writer, Franciscan friar and Catholic priest, earned his M.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his M.Div. from the Catholic Theological Union at Chicago. He glues insect wings to glass to create beautiful vessels, uses staples to make sculptures and he crochets to make political statements.

As an artist, Bleem examines the cultural construction of meaning by looking at what we discard and by transforming the nonprecious through time-intensive accumulation. His work serves to highlight the relationship between value and identity, and to consider assumed ideals. The resulting work–both 2- and 3-dimensional surfaces–mines topics ranging from apprehension to beauty, ecology to politics.

The Illinois Arts Council has recognized his work with five individual artist fellowships. Bleem has also been awarded an Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship and numerous residencies including the Roswell Artist-in-Residence grant.

Bleem has taught in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2000. During the 2008-9 academic year, Arizona State University named him a visiting professor in its School of Art. His interests span historic and ethnographic textiles, the dynamics of collecting for artistic production, and material culture from popular and denominational religion.

In his writing, Bleem investigates the intersection of art and religion in a monthly column for U. S. Catholic magazine; his articles have also appeared in SDA Journal, Fiberarts and exhibition catalogs.

As the news media report on the United States' presence in Iraq, they present us with two kinds of stories: those that deal with the formulation and implementation of national policy, and those that report on individuals whose lives have been altered by this conflict. These two sets of stories seem to exist apart from each other; the connections between private tragedies and national strategies remain relatively unexplored.

His Nationalism series examines the link between the U.S.A.'s course of action and the lives of its citizens. He chooses nation's banner, the flag, as his primary material which he cut into thin strips.

“…Then I rely upon crochet to reconfigure the familiar surface into an unfamiliar, abstracted one and to elicit associations with the grandmothers of our lives quintessential providers of comfort and safety.”

“Cutting up the flag aligns my work with those who have used the flag to express their opposition to national policies. Though clearly not treating the Stars and Stripes in a traditional or widely acceptable manner, desecrating the flag is not my goal. I see the time spent slicing and crocheting as a way to make my thinking physical. This work allows me to mull over patriotism, allegiance to my country, the implication of "indivisible" and "with liberty and justice for all."

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Click HERE to visit Jerry’s web site.

True African Art

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:50:00 +0000

Gathinja Yamokoski

Gathinja Yamokoski is an African artist who is working, through her web site, to restore African art appreciation throughout the world. The site serves the purpose of boosting the African art economy by offering a fair marketplace for African artists without exploitation.

In her own art, Gathinja places her focus on the traditional customs and practices of Kenya and says that her paintings are a direct reflection of her spiritual and intellectual growth as a human being.
Hypnotizing Child

I'm in Three Places

African art has a history that is centuries old. Despite strongly influencing Western Art, theirs is still largely a domain that is unknown and given less credit than it deserves However, today, there has been great interest by art enthusiasts who find Africa to be a colossal and thriving home of contemporary African paintings such as this mixed media painting by Michael Wafula:
Prayer- Under God's Eyes

Gathinja started the True African Art web site to give exposure to the largely undiscovered field of Contemporary African Paintings. As a result, its Artists are reaping never before seen publicity, income, and hope.

True African Art

If you are unable to see the above-video, please click HERE.

Gathinja Yamokoski, who was born and raised in Kenya, now lives on the East Coast of the US. Being an artist herself, opening up an original African Art Paintings website was an easy decision for her.

Gathinja says, "I have always loved art and have always shared it."
In the Village

Artists in Kenya often work in networks in order to gain more business. They offer tips to each other of where to find work and who is looking for it. So when word got out that Gathinja was looking to purchase paintings in Kenya, artists swarmed to get in line. One of them was Jared Juguna who created this piece, entitled, "Inside Face"
Inside Face

True African Art.com has for sale over 400 original African Paintings by some 40 African Artists. It includes exclusive video interviews with African Artists and employs a small staff of Africans who work on site on the continent. Though the website painting prices range from $10-$750, most are under $100.

To visit their website go to http://www.TrueAfricanArt.com.

Study With a Mosaic Art Master in Italy!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:04:00 +0000

Imagine yourselves on a hill in Italy standing on the grounds of a beautiful castle from where you can see views over Udine and the exquisite surrounding countryside. As the majestic Alps in the background thrust upward, a master mosaic artist leans over a table in the village below, preparing artists from all over the world to take their skills to a heightened level of expertise. This scenario need not be a figment of your imagination. Mosaic artist, Pam Givens, is a facilitator who brings mosaic artists together to experience this chance of a lifetime opportunity to study with one of the greatest living mosaic artists in the world, Maestro Giulio Menossi

(Please click HERE if you cannot see the video above.)
Maestro Menossi’s specialized techniques are unparalleled in their ability to impart students with the knowledge and skill to reproduce paintings in mosaic with amazing clarity and accuracy. The experience of taking his classes will forever alter one’s approach to the mosaic arts.

The Maestro states:

“I believe that the slow painstaking mosaic process exposes our personal stories. The difficulties of the journey follow the lines of the glass, where each tessera represents a new encounter, where hues and shades harmonize into new colors, where the shapes to close to our noses don’t allow us to recognize the vision as a whole, which we only discover by taking several steps backward and looking with fresh eyes."

"Creating a mosaic is a process of pairing, shaping, adding and removing tessera after tessera until the work is complete. Each piece needs to be chosen not only according to the one that precedes it, but also taking into consideration the ones that will follow. It is a process of deliberate construction and the most important element is passion.”

I encourage you to register for one or both of the two classes that are being offered in May:

Venetian Mosaic Technique Portraiture Course - Double Indirect Method
May 16 - May 28, 2010

Students will be instructed and helped in developing expressive eyes, mouth and stylized hair. They will learn specific andamento for the face, shading, color, cutting and placement that bring life and realism to the human face. Menossi is known as one of the premier portrait mosaicists in the world, and this is your chance for direct guidance in this challenging method.

Copy of a Klimt - Direct Method
May 30 - June 11, 2010

This course offers the student the unique opportunity to work directly learning the techniques of cutting, placement, texture, color theory and artistic interpretation of a painting. Maestro Menossi provides the cartoon, and all material, plus his own inimitable and inspiring style of teaching and method to provide a stellar experience in mosaic discovery.

Here is a video by Pam Givens that gives more detail:

(Please click HERE if you cannot see the video above.)

All the information you’ll need to take this wonderful journey can be found on THIS web site.

You can do this!

Sonia King - "Mosaic is hard. Art is harder."

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:28:00 +0000

"Mosaic is hard. Art is harder." - Sonia King

Everyone who is anyone in the mosaic art world is familiar with the name, "Sonia King". This artist is, without a doubt, a primary driving force behind today’s contemporary mosaic art… a whirlwind as it were. Sonia teaches, writes books, gives lectures about mosaics worldwide and creates some of the most ambitious and compelling mosaics one will ever see.

Nebula Aqua
In her quests for visual expression through mosaic art, Sonia explores the beauty and physical relationships of the natural world. She travels the globe gathering the finest tesserae to use in her works…shells, smalti, gold, marble, ceramic and elements from nature that, when assembled, are highly inventive, original designs. However, her work also holds hints of familiarity in terms of visually expressing the feeling of place, of dimension and of interconnected relationships with the earth. Her work is visual poetry, art that effects its viewers both on a visceral level and a contextual one. Permafrost
As she flies around the world, Sonia is inspired by the appearance of the topographical features of the earth’s surface as her plane passes overhead. However, she does not necessarily model her works directly from these things.
Outlier

Sonia’s art remind us of the capacity of an individual to alter the universe by modulating and unifying the outcome with countless individual pieces. These mosaics make manifest the physical presence of light and heighten the viewer’s visual perception when viewed at different angles. As they change with the light, Sonia’s mosaics give the appearance of art that participates with its environment, art that allows reflection and a connection with the natural world.
Whiteout

“Putting together the tangible and intangible, bits of color and texture, tesserae of meaning, I assemble each work one piece at a time, building a world to get lost or even found in. The work is difficult: a struggle to get every piece right while managing its relationship to the next piece and the one before, all the time considering the work as a whole. Creating with a broad range of materials raises the complexity beyond just cutting a piece to fit. Unlimited choices in scale and texture and reflectivity and spacing and more, keep my mind working on many different levels at the same time. It is engrossing and consuming and challenging and hard and I wouldn't do anything else.”
~Sonia King
Spinoff Spinoff detail

She has received many awards for her art including the Spectrum Award which signifies international recognition for 'creativity and achievement' from the tile industry. She has been featured in dozens of publications and on television. She holds a BFA in Environmental Design from the California College of Arts and a MBA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She was one of the founders of the American Society of Mosaic Artists and also served as its President. She currently serves as a Vice President of the Associazione Internazionale Mosaicisti Contemporanei, (AIMC) in Italy. She has studios in Dallas and San Francisco and teaches internationally.
Meltdown Meltdown detail

Please visit Sonia’s web site, HERE to enjoy more information and photographs of her work. Interested parties can sign up for her occasional newsletter under the “news” heading on the site.
Adrift

Linda Vaden-Martin – Mixing Healing with Mosaic Art

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Alexander) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:13:00 +0000

Before I write about Linda, I'd like all of you to know about a great creative blog that is celebrating its second anniversary by having a giveaway!
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Click HERE for KV Creative Designs blog!

Now...back to our regularly scheduled program.....
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Linda Vaden-Martin

"I believe we are creative beings by nature and to create is therapeutic for our soul."
Linda Vaden-Martin

I’ve known Linda Vaden-Martin through flickr for quite a while now. Additionally, she was one of my son’s (Myles Blackwood) art students a couple of years back, but I didn’t have the opportunity to meet her personally until this past September when I was staying in Aptos, on the Santa Cruz Bay. Mosaic artist and friend, Delaine Hackney drove down from San Francisco to spend the night and Linda joined us for dinner. The three of us had a great time together, laughing and talking.
Linda, Stacy, Delaine
Subsequently, Linda and I walked on the Aptos beach and had a few phone conversations, and as I got to know her better I really started to pay attention to her art in a big way.

It isn’t every day that one finds an artist who is so focused on using her art to the degree Linda does to affect good in the world. Glancing through her portfolio, I discovered her work in, “The Cradle Project”, an installation that was created to promote awareness and raise financial support to help feed, shelter, and educate disadvantaged African children. She isn't doing this to accomplish accolades for herself unlike so many "self-horn-tooters" in the art world, but is doing it out of a genuine concern for these children and for all people.

Linda has a BS in Occupational Therapy and embraces a holistic view of how we, as human beings, are effected by our thoughts, our environments and our overall perspectives. Since I am personally studying psychology with a view toward doing some type of art therapy eventually, Linda’s melding of mosaic art and the healing arts is of great interest to me. She adheres to the simple theory that purposeful activity enriches lives. (A core belief in occupational therapy is that we will flourish by engaging in creative, productive, and playful pursuits.)

The artist states, “I am in an extraordinary position to combine my talents and skills with what I call Therapeutic Mosaics. One of my goals is to facilitate group and community projects that will enrich the lives of those experiencing life challenges, bring community together, and garnish our environment with the beauty of mosaics. My vision is to work with groups of people and their loved ones who have been challenged by devastating illness. I vision a community filled with murals not only to beautify, but to act as an anchor reminding us of what's truly important, each other.”

“I feel mosaics can be likened to life. What may appear to be broken and discarded can be rearranged and transformed into something spectacularly beautiful. In mosaics, as in life, we have many choices to choose from and can easily be overwhelmed. However it isn't until one actually begins to pick the pieces up do we find how easily they fit together. And if they don't, well, that's what we have tools for!”

Much of the strength in Linda’s work lies in her ability to discern and create beautiful and interesting patterns. The surfaces of her mosaics are complex, resembling hand-worked quilts or fine embroidery.
Expansion

Her subject matter is interesting and often imitates Linda’s strong and playful inner spirit.
Tiny Dancer

Dance Fever

These are examples of more of the work she made in 2009. Note her strong sense of color, texture and design:
Kiss of Love

Back Side of the Sun

Linda lives with her son, Brandon, in Aptos, California where she sometimes teaches mosaic workshops. For more information, please visit her web site, HERE.