I noticed today that the last few paintings I have worked on contain lots of turquoise and yellow, and since I haven't done a color mosaic in a while: some Turquoise .:. Yellow in honour of the spring and the first feel of summer.
Visit these lovelies directly in Flickr.
If you had unlimited time, money and space... what kind of studio would you set up for yourself?
This is the question that rolls around inside my head as I have been cleaning and purging my studio space.
I have been gazing at the lovely and inspiring studios of some artists around on Flickr. Dreaming, rearranging, and purging the space I'm in.
My studio is small. I sometimes lament that. I'd like a comfy chair, and a bigger work space, and a better view from my window. I always seem to want more, or different than I have at any given time. SO, to the end of living in the present moment (one of my greatest life lessons) my new mantra is "I have a space to create art. I love that I have the space to do that. I will create art in this glorious space, no matter what the limitations. I will remember to be grateful for what I have"
I did not get to NY to see The Gates, but a friend sent me an e-mail that HBO has a documentary coming out in a month or so about the creation and inspiration behind this amazing installation.
When I first read about The Gates project, I remembered his wrapping of the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris. I was living there, going to school, when he (and a few hundred helpers) wrapped the most famous and oldest bridge in the city, and thousands and thousands of people came out to stroll across the bridge and look and talk and some, to laugh. It wasn't just the fact that there were acres of fabric wrapping every single piece and part of the bridge that made it so amazing, it was the sound and the sense it created. The wind blowing through the edges of fabric rippled and flapped, making it a much bigger sensory experience; and the sun hit the fabric and at sunset, the whole thing glowed like a moon stone. And when the lights were turned on at night they glowed mysteriously through the white fabric. We went over and over again to see it in all different lights, at different times of day, and when it had been up for a while and the crowds stopped coming, it was an amazingly peaceful spot in the middle of a large and loud city.
A few years later when I moved to the Bay Area, I took a drive out to West Marin with some friends to see the remains of a project Christo had done in the 70s called Running Fence.
There were still bits of the fluttering fence running though cattle fields, up and down hillsides, through small live oak groves and over rock piles and between shrubs. I could hear the wind fluttering and flapping in the fabric, and birds were perched on the tops, swaying and drifting in the wind off the ocean. It was like looking at bits and pieces of ribbon, fluttering against the land, hugging the land.
We stood on top of a hill and looked down at the meandering line of fence, wondered at how it curved and straightened, making it's way down the hill, to end abruptly, where it had been taken down. Who took it down we all wondered, and why were these pieces left behind. It seemed as though the pieces that were still standing were on open space land, and most of the sections that were gone were on ranch lands.
So, where does the Dreaming Big come in, I ask myself. It got me thinking about art, and the artist's experience of creating it, and the viewers experience visiting it. It also got me thinking about the static quality of a work that is painted, etched, photographed, etc, and what ways a more sensory experience could be created to fill out the piece.
Is it just about being able to touch? No. Christo's work makes me think about how a sound experience changes the way we might look and feel about art. His art creates it's own auditory experience, as well as a visual one, and I find that Fascinating (with a big letter "F").
I am not sure where I go with this, but it's a wonderful feeling .:. inspiration at the beginning of a new year .:. and ideas about how to approach my own work that have nothing to do with what I have done before. It feels like coming to the end of a road where there is another road crossing, and having to choose: do I turn right or do I turn left. Choices. And just when I was feeling that all this silence I had been listening to was never going to make sense.
The sound of fabric in the wind, has brought the silence to life.
It also makes me wonder, and want to know .:. where are you all in relation to the art/music/design that you create? Is anyone else sitting at a 3-way stop contemplating a right or a left turn?
In all honesty, I can't say that I am feeling a tremendous amount of fondness for the year that is almost over. 2007, well, I know there were many wonderful and tremendous and joy filled moments, but the overall tone of the year was, in a word: Hard.
A friend of mine told me the other day that 2007 was the Year of the Pig in Chinese Astrology, and that many many people find that the Year of the Pig is not so much a challenge as a stampede... I believe I have survived the stampede, I just need a moment to get up and dust myself off, maybe take a nice long bath and check that all the extremities are still where they are meant to be, and go on my merry way... I am told that the Year of the Rat, is meant to be much better. Here's hoping!
Evolve the finished piece
Here's to a new-er year full of more art, more designing from the soul, more colour talk, more living a life examined, and celebrating that life with all the beautiful ones in my life, oh, and to meeting more of the beautiful souls I have yet to meet, I know you're out there . . .
It's not just the lime fruit that makes it thirsty either... Green is so richly full of moisture, when I see lots of it together I want:
a walk in a warm caribbean rain shower
my barefeet in the dew filled grass of a summer morning
a handful of peridot stones
a moment to read under a shady green tree
my lime green rain boots from when I was 8
a (very late) summer sunset in Scotland
what are your lime green moments?
Burgundy stretches across such a range of hues .:. it starts with a deep and dark red, and moves towards the purples and the eggplants. It is rich and warm and luscious and can be irridescent and so full of flavour, and the rich, heady scent of fall and early winter.
Burgundy makes me think of rich velvets, brocades, early sunsets and deep shadowy light in the woods where the leaves have changed to flaming reds. Burgundy is a mulled wine on a cold evening; a fully burned fire in the grate, just before bedtime; it is the scent of apples turning; and the smell of beets roasting.
Burgundy is warmth and richness, heavy, woody herbs and your favourite book read under a soft silk and alpaca blanket. Burgundy is comfort.
Pink and brown has quite the following. The two colours are almost as ubiquitous as the slightly less famous turquoise and brown. Pink and Brown are a warm on warm combination. It's a chocolate and cherry blossoms combination. It's a brown leather boot and salmon coloured skirt combination. It's a camelia still blooming in March combination... It's an earthy and frothy partnership. That old favourite, things that don't at first look like they would go together, and then you lay them side by side and feel warm and smiling inside . . .
Some beautiful stationery
Rock out with a very loud punk Band
fabrics and patterns by the fair Amy
Art and more art that makes me feel Happy
Wallow in the beauties of the Pink .:. Brown
"God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer." - Anne Sexton
Brown is not an overall favourite with most people. I hear things like: "so dull", "so blah", "so, uhm, Brown!" I am a brown lover, I wear brown, I willingly choose couches and other household items that are brown. Brown feels warm and grounded and homey and solid, comforting and an all-around good friend.
One of the most charming things that I read somewhere about brown, is that in Japan, they do not have a word for "brown". Brown is very specifically named. As in: tea-colour, or fall-leaf, or coffee-colour, all their browns are pinpointed, narrowed down and defined.
Brown is associated with autumn, with UPS trucks, and the ever pleasing chocolate. In design brown is grouped with the "neutrals" or the "naturals": taupe and beige and cream. Brown is, I think, by most thought of as unpretentious, earthy, natural. It is less exciting, or flashy or brilliant, then say a yellow, or a pink, but brown has its own shine, its own lustre and its own glow.
Visit some beautiful browns from around the Flickr world.
"More than any other colour, brown must be thought of in terms of usage and context. The various tones of brick, brown, tan, clay and terracotta are seen as the most rooted, protective and secure of all shades because they are inevitably connected to the earth." -from Communicating with Colour by Leatrice Eiseman
Turquoise and Brown make such a beautiful pair of colours. The cool richness of the turquoise and the warm depth of a brown to compliment. There are a few combinations - like this one - that just never lose their appeal for me. Pink and Brown. Gray and Purple. Lime and Mauve... to name a few.
This colour combo goes in and out of popularity in the the world, though I think the last few years it has been more IN than not. I am still seeing whole lines of stationery and paper goods in these beautiful colours, as well as accessories and art.
Some of my favourites from around the Etsy world and other spots:
Mr Blackbird .:. SanFran67
The coolest box of cards .:.Cecily Ink
A Bag .:. Julia Martinez Designs
Beautiful Paper .:. Liquid Sky Arts
Amazing Floor-ware .:. Angela Adams
And of course, all the Flickr artists who contributed to my Turquoise.:.Brown Mosaic favourites.
Who has some other favourite colour combinations? I love to hear about other people's loves and likes in the world of colours...
I decided it was an invitation to re-visit the topic of Orange when I saw the topic on Studio Friday this week.
I have spending a lot of time making friends with orange since my Orange post in the colour series that I have been working on. Orange and I have never been the best of friends, but we are growing on each other every day.
Orange is not prolific in my studio ... so it was a bit of a treasure hunt to find the orange "within".
I have continued to spend much more time communing with orange: To look at ONE colour, to study and observe it, to think about how to fold it in to my work, to my world, to my thinking about colour, it's a wonderful thing.
I would truly and strongly suggest to one and all: pick a colour you don't feel friendly with, and visit it often, contemplate and converse with it, tell each other stories, run your fingers through it's hair and perhaps even have a slow dance.
Orange can be a joyous thing, warm, brilliant and always up for some fun. My studio and I celebrate the orange (again).
artist • designer • writer • hairtwirlet • over-achiever
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