Art Online, Right on time!

Don't hate me cause this is late. I'm only human of flesh and blood I'm made. Sometimes things get prolonged cause life has a way of getting in the way, or I let it sidetrack me and get in the way. No matter how you want to look at it, the bottom line is, life got in the way, damn it! LOL

Salvador Dali

But I digress, this about art online and I have found in my social networking circles, sites that deliver an artful experience. They expand my ideas of what art is and provides new and inspirational ways art can change one's existence. There are some that are inspirational, funny and scary. I appreciate all of them in every format. Some have websites, a lot are located on Facebook.

Buddha Head

Being old school, I love going to museums and recently visited the Kreeger Museum, formally a home, this past weekend.  If you know anything about D.C., then you know that on Foxhall Road, there are many mini mansions. The Kreeger Museum is one of those places that was a home to art collectors, and now just houses the art. The museum is on a two lane road with no bus service and joggers run freely in the street, like animals on the loose. Around my way, they are called roadkill!

I must admit that the most of the museums have become boring, at least the big, free ones. Its the same 'ol art, by the same 'ol dead white males. Some of the same dead men's work are at the Kreeger too. They invested heavily in the works of "popular artists of the day" who just happened to be men, and white. Did you know that the Kreeger's never invested in any female artists works? Any works there now by females, have been "acquired", "donated" or loaned by the artist.  My former instructor and friend Kendall Buster has a sculpture piece out on the grounds. I noticed that all the women's artwork is outside. Most of the free museums only change out a few galleries and keep the permanent collection out to bore people to death.  The portrait gallery has had a few good exhibits, featuring more contemporary artists. Some of them are a mystery to me, as to how they made it as a contemporary artist, and who thought their work was relevant enough to be considered as such.

Kendall Buster

So, I have begun to go elsewhere for art and seek out places that have a variety of images in all mediums. Not enthusiastic about it being on line cause it can't be seen up close and personal, but you can't touch the art or get too close in the museum either, so either way there is a barrier. Choosing the lesser of two evils allows me to sit in my skivvies if I want and look at art anytime I want. There is a lot out there to see online. So I will focus on my faves and share them, maybe you have a few faves too that I don't know about, but most of the sites feature artists that are ALIVE and Kicking! If they are dead, at least they are not the same dead people called the Masters. 

Terrica Atkins

Sandrine Replat

First are the ones that show photos of art, sometimes there is an artist named. The images come from various sources. Some are images created that are more morbid and creepy, rather than scary. TerrorArtists images are more about the dead rising up and scaring the living and their life beyond our mere mortal existence. Like this photo to the right, it's an image that is based on Addams Family, somewhat, okay maybe not all. But you get the idea.

 TerrorArtists and The Macob and Beautifully Grotesque, both of which have imagery that can shock and amaze you. I find them to be thrilling, in that I really don't watch horror movies, my imagination is active enough and I can scare myself silly by looking in the mirror! LOL but I love the odd and mysterious, and my brain doesn't animate them and play back the scary parts over and over....while I'm sitting at the computer in the dark!

Leon Bonnat

From The Macob and Beautifully Grotesque- Bishop Denis, having alarmed the pagan priests by his many conversions, was executed by beheading with his companions on the highest hill in Paris (now Montmartre), which was likely to have been a druidic holy place. After his head was chopped off, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked six miles from the summit of the hill, preaching a sermon the entire way, making him one of many cephalophores in hagiology. 

I love the stories behind the imagery. Can't get any better than art and religion, the best stories come from here. So much contradiction, filled with juicy inexplicable acts beyond belief. Just think this is considered macob and grotesque, by some. All in the name of the church.

Paper Artist Jeff Nishinaka

Twisted Sifter features artists that defy all laws of nature. They go beyond ones perception of art and exposes you to illusions created simply by angling the art a different way and photographing it.  They also provide information about the artist that created the image, and often show other pieces that the artist has done and a brief bio. Totally cool, and often gets the reaction "how they do that!?"  Here's an answer somewhat.

From Twisted Sifter- Artist Jeff Nishinaka. Deragon and Phoenix-Relief Paper Sculpture. Los Angeles native Jeff Nishinaka is a relief paper sculpture artist who has a stunning array of work that needless to say can blow anyone away. His portfolio spans a wide range including Bloomingdale’s, Sprint, Visa, Penn State University, Paramount Pictures and Coca Cola. Over the years he has found various techniques in how to manipulate and bend paper to make these magnificent masterpieces.

Steampunk image

Others that rock, in a similar way are Ink Army, Steampunk and Megaphoto. Each one offers something different, like tattoo images  from Ink Army that are unreal, they make you want to bring the pain! for these images. The mixing of the Victorian era and Sci-Fi of Steampunk, which offers a real life connection through clothing, books, music and conventions. Photos of nature and life that maybe altered slightly, but still totally awesome from Megaphoto.

Daniella Bonachella

If you want something more gallery like and demure, try the online galleries of The Hemphill Gallery, Touchstone Gallery, The Baltimore Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim, Woman Made Gallery, Saatchi Gallery and a host of others that I'm sure have more interesting work by working artists. Plus, they rotate on a more frequent basis so you won't get bored looking at the same thing every time you visit their site. One of my favorites is Artfinder which features artists work for sale. They often give background and artist website information. I find it interesting that some artists often copy in some way the work of an artist they admire. Gustav Klimt is one that has been copied and interpreted in more ways than can be counted. But I still love his work. Oh yeah, and he's a dead white male, but not considered a master.

Ceramique Contemporaire is a unique site that features the artwork of ceramic artists who push the art of clay manipulation to the extreme.  A lot of it is just plain beautiful to look at. Sculpture features, what else, sculpture. Something that I can admire, drool over and copy in my own special way. Yes, I ponder copying some of the sculpture pieces that are shown, but when I sit down to work, copying them escapes me. I infuse my work with the ideas of the sculpture I've seen. I would need it in front of me to remember to copy it. Must be the Tequila infusion.

Jean de la Huerta and Antoine Mounier

Mourners from the Tomb of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria

1443-1457

On the lighter side of art is Last Kiss Comics; Humor, life with Lip, Third Eye Comics,World of Black Heroes, (yes, I said Black Heroes, there are a few, you know)
There are several online comics sites that show cover art and allow you to read online.

If you want a little art history and more of a story line, similar to religious art but not quite, check out the posts of Mark Dylan Sieber.  He will be featured on my blog in August. I follow him because he gives great background on the images he posts and I love the historical references and story line. This excerpt is from "Pompadours" in which he explains the images of outrageous hairstyles of women that actually existed. Some of the hair styles are totally out there! Tartuffe's Folly is a good post to follow, it can come to you via email.

"Fashionable hairstyles for women began their vertical climb in the late 1760’s, as they quickly raised the ire of social critics. Editorials appearing in London periodicals immediately decried the large headdresses that English ladies were all too eager to copy from their French counterparts.

These mostly late-18th century engravings, often hand-colored, capture such coiffed extravaganzas in grotesque caricature. Naturally, we still have quite the fascination with "big hair" today, as it is said to approach the heavens! Some of the images are modern interpretations of such an "art of hair" and its hived fashion.

Chronicling the rise and fall of the fashion takes us from the courts of France, to the print shops of London, and finally to the streets of Philadelphia, where all that the high roll represented in a new nation at war with an old empire was brought quite literally to a head." - Pompadours, Mark Dylan Sieber.

Pompadours

For a little inspiration via quotes and imagery, check out Rumi, the messages are always profound. Just as profound as the quote I memorized from Kung Fun Panda. Something about mysteries, histories, and the present being a gift. The Tequila infused margarita has a way of making me forget. I will remember the whole thing after I post this, no doubt. Sometimes Rumi strikes a chord within me with their inspirational messages, but so does the work of Salvador Dali, pictured at the top of the page. He's considered a Surrealist master that's dead and stinkin' but Dali was quite the character in his day and it's reflected in pictures of him with his mustache and artistic flare. Often images of him or his work is accompanied by poetry, mostly in Spanish. Se habla Espanol?

Uzumaki

This has only touched on a few on line/Facebook sites that can enlighten you. There are a million more and I've barely scratched the surface with my faves. Now, get on line and find a few faves for yourself, you can borrow mine, but it's always better when you find your own. 

Don't forget if your on Facebook, feel free to like my page StoneWomynArt. Your always welcome to follow me as well. I will get my shit together eventually, so if your a social network junkie, my bi weekly posts may not be enough for you and you may need other sites to fulfill your social junkie needs. I'm cool with that, just don't you forget about me! One day soon, I'm going to do an 80's music flashback, cause there are several in this post. 

Check out the new blue mist alabaster piece that I'm working on, click the StoneWomynArt sidebar. To see more of my work, check out that StoneWomynArt page on Facebook, and Women's Art Collaborative at zhibit.org.

Thank you for reading my blog, I'm getting myself together...honestly!

See you next time, Same blog time, same blog channel!

A Moving Experience

People let me tell you about the moving game. It's a lot of pain for a little gain. I was a pawn in the game and got played. Back pain, scratches and bruises magically appear at the end of the day. Who said moving is a great way to implement change? They aren't moving anytime soon are they?

Yes, I have moved and it has taken me since the last post not only to move, but try to recuperate and get set up in my new place.  Everyone doesn't move well, I am one of them, but a change was a comin'. It came and somewhat dragged me along, half of me went willingly, the other half went kicking a screaming. So what's the big issue about moving? Well, here's a little story and it goes like this.

After ten years of living in one place, it was time to move. At first, it seemed like a task that could be handled. Here was a chance to start over someplace new, then it became a daunting task, a major chore to complete. I did not know that packing up a house would be so....HARD! Since it was planned, I packed a little everyday, labeling boxes, sorting through old things and cleaning out the excess baggage that had lived with me all these years. Working within my budget did not include a moving company complete with helpers to get the stuff out the house.  No, it was me, my husband and one or two others who rotated in and out of the help zone and a U-haul. Never, ever again! I will save my pennies everyday until the next time just to have the luxury of a moving company come with people to help pack.

While sorting through the memories of the house, I found my class photo from high school, my cap and gown, my prom dress that my mom made for me and a host of other memories too numerous to mention. Did I mention that I was living in the house my mom bought back in 1979! When we moved in, it was already furnished and decorated with someone else's ideas and designs. I should have emptied it out then, but I was excited about being able to return to the home that I spent my early teens and twenties blinded me to the fact that if we ever moved, we would be the ones cleaning all this stuff out.

Once the packing began, my eyes opened up, real wide. There was sooo much stuff, especially in the basement, a culmination of our stuff and the 20 years prior that had accumulated.  We were overwhelmed with what to do with all this stuff. How do we get rid of it all? We wanted and needed to lighten our load, and I did not want my parents furniture. It was solid wood, heavy and bulky, it had served us well in the house. But we just couldn't fathom moving it out and moving it in somewhere else. Besides, I wanted my to be able to have my new home set up the way I wanted, with my own things. A yard sale was out of the question, the homeowners association doesn't allow it. The difference between a single family home and a town home is lawn space, so no yard sales. So I began calling places that would accept donations. My mom had a large formal dinning room set. Unlike today's  smaller dinning rooms, this was solid mahogany wood furniture made in the 1950's (no, not old enough to be antique and I wasn't holding on to it until it became one);  A one piece breakfront or china cabinet, buffet, tea cart, table that seats six. Yes, sounds lovely doesn't it, but I had no idea of how the movers got it into the house, but I was about to find out how it was going to be taken out. But before that could happen, it had to be emptied. I don't own a dinning room set, so I had no place to store the china she collected, nor did I want it. When my sister said she wanted it, I breathed a sigh of relief. She has a daughter to pass it on to, I don't. My niece probably could care less about the china, she's in college and it's not a thought for her right now. Here's the thing, my mom's been dead for 25 years, the furniture has been sitting unused for that long and was covered up for the last 10 years. At first my sister wanted the dinning room set so I didn't sell it, but she never came to get it. By the time we were getting ready to move, my sister had become ill and just getting the china was going to be a major accomplishment for her.  Needless to say, my aunt and I packed up the china and my aunt took the china to my sister. I donated the heavy dinning room set, and heavy bedroom furniture.

During the fifteen years between my mom's death and us moving in, my father had made the drawers in the dinning room his catch-all for things. What a pleasure it was to separate the good stuff from junk, I mean how far away was the trash can Dad!? Slowly, I was starting to feel like I was on an episode of hoarders, the light version. Little did I know that it was an actual episode when I hit the basement. I kept telling myself it wasn't that bad, we had cleaned out somethings when we moved in, guess we didn't clean out the right areas. O M G! the storage space under the basement stairs was crammed with stuff. Everything from big gift boxes of Xmas ornaments, cedar closets with clothes still in them, an old freezer, (I remember my mom buying things in bulk and then freezing them in it) an old grill, vacuum cleaner, books, dishes, my old roller skates along with every drawing and writing paper my son ever did, and that's only a few things found.  The space was super tight cause my dad had the basement finished and the contractor just built around those things I guess. There was about maybe 3-4 ft of space between the outer wall and the cedar closet doors. My aunt, God bless her, was small enough to be able to get in there past the cedar closet to the lower part of the stairs and  pull all the boxes out from that part. My fat ass wasn't able to squeeze between the wall and the closet doors at all. The basement just filled me with dread, I tried to avoid it and focus on the rest of the house. My dad and my husband had massive magazine collections, my dad collected playboy, my husband collected music mags.

When I went to clean out what was supposed to be a studio but ended up being a storage place for my work, I found my own hoard of stuff called Art supplies! My friend Sarah, came over to help me and I loaded her down with a bag of stuff. I then donated two bags of supplies to a teacher friend of mine for her school, packed what I wanted to keep and trashed the rest.  That should be the end of it, but no, that damn basement had more supplies in boxes that I had yet to uncover. The funny part of that is, I almost couldn't give them away. I offered a large garbage bag full of yarn, mostly new to someone that I knew made a living crocheting and knitting for $20, turned it down.  I finally found someone through my aunt, who wanted the bag and couldn't believe that I didn't want more for it. By this time, I just wanted to get rid of it. The same was true for my Masonite boards, they got trashed. The accumulated artwork seemed to come from nowhere, popping out the woodwork saying "hey, don't you forget about me, I'll be alone thrown out and broken baby."

By this time I was through, moving day just meant moving out the things I wanted to keep. I spent an entire week after moving still cleaning the house out. Meanwhile, my new home looked like one big storage unit. Ugh! now I have to unpack this stuff, my back, knees, arms, and eyeballs hurt from moving. All I could do was take Aleve and shake my head as I walked passed my own packed things in disbelief. I donated three times, and that's 3 times that a truck backed up to the door and took stuff out.  Bulk trash was called 4 times and I know they were hating me by then. Stored a few things at my aunts barn. She has an Alpaca farm, and I got to climb up a ladder w/my stuff in tow, working my fatback and bingo wings out (my arms for those who don't know what bingo wings are) Feel a slightly more toned now (look at that body ahw, I work out!) with more scratches on my hands and arms, then I get when carving stone. Still left a lot behind because every time we looked, there was another box, bag or something that had to be looked at. I was done looking and trying to figure out WTF to do with this shit. That's right shit, no longer our stuff, it was long past that. Hoarders would have had a field day with us. I needed an intervention and an ice cold beer. It took us a week before we could begin unpacking our own stuff. We just lived out of boxes and bags for that time. Even though we are more settled, there are still boxes and bags about, but my art space is set up. Did that rather quickly, since I lost a roll of fat moving all my....stuff. That beer still sounds really good.

Guess now I can focus on my new place and new beginning. I really like the diverse neighborhood we are in, with the Hispanic grocery stores bakeries and shops. I can work on improving my Espanol. Plus, I can get anywhere from here via bus, with little or no use for the subway or a car for that fact, buses run every 20-30 minutes, 7 days a week.  Bus hoping at it's best. Another way to work my body out, cause walking up the hill to the nearest bus stop ain't no joke, especially in the heat. That beer will be walked off in a matter of 12-15 minutes which is how long it takes to walk from my place to the nearest bus stop at a normal walking pace. At the old place, buses only run this frequently during rush hour, non rush hour and weekends they run every hour, nothing past 10 pm. Better have cab fare or good shoes on your dogs at that time.

It's on to bigger and better things. I will always have the memories of the house, but it was time to go and now it's a whole new world, so shiny bright and new! So onward and upward from here. BTW, come join me this Friday, June 7 6:30-8:00 for my first member show at the Touchstone Gallery, located on 9th and NY Ave. N.W. a short walk from Gallery Place 9th street exit. The exhibit will last until the end of the month.




Thanks for reading my blog. 

Chat with you in a week or so at the same blog time, same blog channel!