Helen Frankenthaler

 This amazing artist, Helen Frankenthaler, is someone i stumbled across in a magnum photo archive of the art scene of the 1950s and 1960s. Amazing images, including one of her in her studio looking down over a huge piece that lay on the floor- trying to get a little perspective, it seems. Wish we could do the same with our lives. Climb up on a ladder and say 'hey, maybe i should extend the yellow to just about there...'

For more follow the link to this great blog post with an extensive collection of her work and living/work spaces

Fat Fingers

I was recently at the Helmut Newton Exhibit at The Grand Palais where I saw this photograph which reminded me of a poem from a while back.
enjoy

I

Fat fingers open the door

To look inside

Peering through to the people’s

belongings on the wall

that’s where they hang things

after all

Fat fingers sift through the

Many items on the floor

Books and movies tell a story

About the audience

Not just to it

Finger through their lives

It’s easy enough to figure out

Even clumsy fat fingers

will have some idea

Akseli Gallen-Kallela

this amazing artwork by Askeli Gallen-Kallela, all done around the end of the 19th century, are unlike anything I've seen as a body of work. And I'm always thrilled to discover a new artist who was not covered in any of many art history classes. While it is a current exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay that brought him under my radar, I have not yet gone to see the pieces in person.

The settings, the subject matter, the compositions, all are unique and show a distinctive way the artist saw the world. It is the part of art that cannot be taught, but is instinctive. I am grateful for a new source of inspiration in mood, color, and atmosphere. I hope you enjoy.

Jay O'Callahan: The Power of Storytelling

There is a lot of information here if you want to dig deep- or just listen and enjoy

Airport Behind the Scenes

Well, not really behind the scenes as they are out in plain sight, but I love watching the people who orchestrate our departures and arrivals, without whom we would not have fuel, baggage, beverage, or any idea where to park the damn thing. Not to mention I'm a sucker for a uniform.

These two are from my recent layover in Brussels on my way back to Paris from Hartford, Connecticut.

Badlands

The badlands

Into the badlands the bad man ran

Hiding out from the hero’s of the lawless land

Canyon roads deep and narrow

Here the hawks eat the sparrow

Diving down to the depths of the ravines

Like the veins of his body

Pumping blood quickly, hotly

the system of trails branched away.

Deeper in he goes, more hidden, he knows

To evade capture and get away clean.

Kicks the sides of his horse

Thick skin but it hurts

The dust kicks up horseshoes a’ clicking

Seeing clouds up ahead

Through the rocks of dusty red

The sheriff looked up just in time.

Badge glints in the sun

Grit inscribed on his gun

His hat casting shadow o’er his eyes

He closed in on his man

Knowing time’s no one’s friend

with a rope wrangled him to the ground

one more vanquished bad man

in the long list of them

grit prevails with the sheriff around

Nietzsche on Truth

 "What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins." -Friedrich Nietzsche

art so involved it becomes it's own whole world- Mattias Adolfsson

I just stumbled upon this AMAZING illustrator while browsing on behance. I have found that in our ever more digital world, graphic art is more prevalent and it is rare to be introduced to a new pen on paper illustrator, especially with such a distinctive universe I could see it lasting in time in the hearts of many. So here are a few for those of you who might not know Mattias Adolfsson.

all images come either from his website or his behance page. Enjoy and be inspired!

blue portraits

the shapes and brushstrokes and blueness of these paintings. I have been doing prep sketches for my paintings in preparation for the spring collection that I'll present in September of this year. I'm finding these colors are  good start.