Fiber Arts

Stitches In (My) Time

February 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment

My mother, as she will tell you, is neither a very artsy person nor a very domesticated woman. While she is a rather gifted decorator, with an eye for beauty, detail, & quality — and a pocketbook which supports the artsy along with the arts, she doesn’t make things (other than reservations!). The result is that she didn’t teach me to sew or anything like that, and she was always rather fascinated by my continued purchase and completion of craft kits. As a kid, I taught myself to sew. There was an older woman in our family who could have taught me, or at least nurtured me... [Read the full story]

Painting

It’s Easy To Collect Works By Marisa Haedike

January 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Marisa Haedike of Creative Thursday makes whimsical works, often selling not only the originals, but prints, dishes and even night lights. If you see a character you adore, you can also commission the artist to make a clay sculpture piece, like darling Frannie here. Read More →

Altered Art

Tamar Stone On Inspiration

January 4, 2010 · 2 Comments

I can’t get enough of artist Tamar Stone — her corset and bed books inspire me so much! With all these projects and interests, I knew she’d collect lots of stuff, but I wanted to know more about what the artist draws from… I collect a lot of books, images etc. However, because of limited space and finances, I also go to the NY Public Library to do research with their really old books. Before you could find things on-line, I used to go to the library to do a lot of patent research (something I learned while being a para-legal) — and learning how to read a patent’s... [Read the full story]

Illustration

Doodle Week, March 6 – 7th: Cityscapes

March 6, 2010 · 2 Comments

This week it’s cityscapes. You can do some extra work, a little research and draw your own cityscape. Or make one up. Kind of nice to think of a unique way to present it. I drew this one on a big blue marble, representing the planet. Not quite to scale. Want to know what Doodle Week is about? Read all about it. Read More →

Metal Work

Whao, Nellie, Just $9.99

January 24, 2010 · Leave a Comment

I found this large framed copper horse at a local thrift shop. Read More →

Photography

Lighthouses

February 27, 2010 · Leave a Comment

What is it about lighthouses that draws people? People collect lighthouses figurines. People paint and draw lighthouses. People will stop to photograph a lighthouse even when there could be something else more interesting which they did not even notice in the shadow of that mystical, lonely, stark looking building poking the sky. I think it is the romance, mystery, history and the feeling of adventure – surviving storms at sea and pounding waves. The idea of steadfast lighthouse keepers, daring rescues and pirates hiding their treasure exposed in the roving splash of a beam of light. They... [Read the full story]

Art Appreciation

I Know It When I See It

There are two broad semantic categories in our society that are defined largely by intuition. One is ‘What is Art?’ and the other is ‘What is Obscenity?’. And the two are related in that anything deemed to be art, is generally excused from being suppressed as obscenity. Indeed this very...

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Handmade Craft Shopping Parties

Back in the day, I offered and held a few home parties for selling my artworks. Being about 15 years ago, ish, I felt like I was charting new territories. I had a bunch of catalogs and brochures from other successful home party plan businesses — and my vast knowledge of attending such parties — to build...

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Celebrating & Collecting The Art Of Bookmarks

Bookmarks are a great way to try on art. And I’m not just saying that because I’m one of the presenters at the first Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention, either. Bookmarks come in so many styles and are made of so many materials, you can enjoy and experiment with form & function ideas and concepts...

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2009 Art Sales May Not Have Been Bad For Auction Houses, But Was It Good For Art?

Antique Week, Vol. 41, Issue No. 2112 (January 11, 2010) has a report in the national section on art sales in 2009. In the article, two things stood out for me. First: Auction houses started slashing pre-sale estimates by as much as 50 percent to stimulate sales. When Sloans & Kenyon of Chevy Chase, Md., gave...

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Print Temps By Mister M

I believe this work by Marc Brunier aka Mister M is a print made from a woodcut; I love how the lines define the musculature, defining the anatomy as well as sense of direction, if not action. The artist recently had a showing of his works in Poland — and I’m utterly intrigued with the wall of small works,...

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“Instead Of ‘It Sucks’ You Could Say, ‘It Doesn’t Speak To Me.’”

I found this cartoon by Mike Twohy inside the January 2010 issue of Good Housekeeping, and it reminded me that now is as good a time as any to address the issue of aesthetics and “artistic response.” Art experts and educators such as Sally Hagaman have rather specific definitions of aesthetics: There still...

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