RED HAT

I continue to work on my portraits of dolls.
I have received as a Christmas present from my fabulous husband a Wacom Cintiq 21UX drawing tablet.
I cannot wait to begin working on my images on this tablet that allows me to paint right onto the display.

RED HAT

Treasures

My fascination with old dolls and toys continues as my collection expands.

Why discarded and beaten up toys continue to fascinate me is beyond my understanding, but I am certain that there is some deep and dark psychological secret that I have buried deep within my soul behind it.

I just know that there is something about the rustic and worn surfaces of certain toys and dolls that fascinates me and makes me want to have them.

When I photograph these objects I establish a connection with them, they no longer are only dirty and discarded toys; instead they take on a character of sorts that seem to fit right into a narrative that together we create. This connection is fascinating to me and as strange and crazy as it may sound a collaboration of sorts is established between me the photographer and this inanimate object. I am back in the playpen where toys are no longer toys but friends and collaborators that come to life. The strangeness of their appearances adds to the drama and my creative juices begin running.

I am currently working on series with my dolls where they pose as princesses or brides for a portrait decked out with bridal crowns. I have given them names that derive from childhood memories of women back in my town that were considered different in some ways and therefore have held my fascination and admiration through time. I am real excited about this project and following are some of the images that are beginning to take shape. The photographs will be printed in size 20x20 inches.

BERND NABER

http://vimeo.com/25229844

"Messing up is a given, you just have to be humble about it. A piece develops out of itself. You have to see what can come out of it. That's the big difference between art and craft." Bernd Naber

kudos:  http://stylelikeu.com/

Occupation: Fine Artist

In his signature white Ray-Bans that are a dead giveaway to his philosophical and artistic flair, Bernd speaks of his art as if it were a metaphor for life: “You can’t know everything, so you have to trust in the unknown…your choices, sometimes you don’t know if you’re making misjudgments but even those have a reason.” Thus his spontaneous move to NYC from his home of Hamburg, Germany in the ’70s with his first night spent at the infamous CBGB’s and his passion for taking on overwhelmingly gigantic living spaces, where he slowly transforms them into his own magically raw lair that become for him just another work of art. “I work with distressed things and I bring it to a point where everything comes together out of building and destruction. It comes from essence, that’s why it’s all interesting.” When making his monumental installations, if things are too easy, “the artwork doesn’t hold by itself.” It’s all about the process and if things don’t work out at first, they’ll come out better in the end, Bernd feels.
Things just happen, Bernd says when referring to his aesthetic. I am as obsessed with his chandeliers all over the floor and tables as I am with his use of two scarves at once, which he wears with his cashmere blazers and coats. Even as he apologized for his good clothes being packed away while things were under construction, he kept coming out in things like a red Issey Miyake suit from the ’80s and not just your “everyday” red fedora that he wears with all winter white – I can only imagine what was stored in the suitcases.

If you love Bernd, you may also like Ronald Sosinski, Ludget Delcy and Edmundo Desnoes.

Cy Twombly

Cy Twombly, Idiosyncratic Painter, Dies at 83

Cy Twombly

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here—one of whom was his own grandfather—were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

Iris Apfel’s Exuberant Apartment Homes: architecturaldigest.com

Iris Apfel's Exuberant Apartment

Needle in a Haystack

The quote "Needle in Haystack" has always rung true for me.  I have spent many a time and energy searching for things both small and large while knowing very well that I will never find them.
While on a boating trip once I lost a ring; it fell overboard as I was leisurely playing with it on my finger.  I jumped right into the water and dived for it; I was furious when I couldn't find it.  Bizarre !!!

Being an avid stitcher, adding embellishments to my pictures gives me great pleasure.  I like the free flow of different stitches; this gives me the tactile experience that I so often miss in my photography.  The process of stitching onto images creates an extra layer of meaning to the work as well as the satisfying sensation of piercing and pricking something.
Needlework can be therapeutic.  While making stitches and adding thread colors to an image the mind goes into a place of piece where I am able to let it prick and prowl along with the needle.

But not all needles are created equal.  Shopping for needles can be a treacherous experience.  Here in the US some stores have entire isles devoted to sewing needles.  There are tapestry needles, embroidery needles, patchwork needles, and all purpose sewing needles to name a few on display.  Prices are varied; there are the brands where you can pay $5 for a single gold needle or $2 for a pack of twelve that come in different lengths and needle point sharpness.

Standing at 5 feet and 8 inches I have had to let down hems on pants, skirts and dresses as well as lengthening sleeves on shirts and jackets on store bought clothes my entire adult life.  But as of late this has become hard for me to do, because even if sewing needles come in gold nowadays and in different lengths and sharpness nothing has been done to improve the needle eye size.  It is still tiny and as I get older the needle eye grows even smaller to my eyes.  I find myself spending more time trying to thread the needle than it takes me to fix a hem on a dress.  This is frustrating to say the least.  What ever happened to the power of the Baby Boom generation movement?  I am well aware that in order to sew a perfect suitable hem you need a thin sharp pointed needle that leaves the least noticeable mark on the garment.  But enough already; needle designers and manufacturers must grow up and begin to look at the eye of the needle through  past middle age delicate eyes if they intend to keep us roaming the isles of their precious needles.

BÚKOLLA

Lately I have been obsessed with Cows and their symbolism.  Cows are interesting elements in myth, fables and folktales filled with hidden meanings and parables.

Hera queen of the gods.

Goddess of marriage, Women and Birth.

Hera's symbols.  The peacock (the symbol of pride; her wagon was pulled by peacocks) and the cow (she was also known as Bopis, meaning "cow-eyed", which later translated as "with big  eyes") are her secret animals.  The crow and the pomegranate (symbol of marriage) are also dedicated to her.  The Greek goddess called the Queen of Heaven; she ruled over the heavens and the earth, responsible for every aspect of existence, including the seasons and the weather.  Our word galaxy comes from the Greek word gala meaning "mothers milk"... legend has it that the Milky Way was formed from the milk spurting from the breasts of Hera, Queen of Heaven.  Where drops fell to earth, fields of lilies sprung forth.

18th century Icelandic manuscript.

 Buri (the first god in Norse mythology,the forefather of all the gods) is licked out of a salty ice-block by the cow Auðumbla.

According to Norse myth, the beginning of life was fire and ice, with only two worlds: Muspelheim and Niflheim.  When the warm air of Muspelheim hit the cold ice of Niflheim, the jötunn Ýmis and the icy cow Auðumbla were created.

Pros Edda

Then said Gangleri: "Where dwelt Ymir, or wherein did he find sustenance?"

Hárr answered: "Straightaway after the rime dripped, there sprang from it the cow called Auðumbla; 

four streams of milk ran from her udders, and she nourished Ýmir."

Then asked Gangleri: "Wherewithal was the cow nourished?"

And Hárr made answer: "She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there.  He is named Búri.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auðumbla

According to Icelandic belief; if the first calf born during the winter is white, the winter will be a bad one. 

Icelandic legend has it that cattle would kneel at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve; also believed  that they would gain the ability to speak on this night, although it was considered dangerous for any human to hear their speech, as misfortune would befall anyone who overheard them. 


Baulaðu nú Búkolla mín.  Icelandic folktale.

Bukolla; perhaps the most treasured folk story of Icelandic children tells the tale of a small farm boy named Karlsson whose parents do not care about him as much as  their beloved cow Bukolla.  One day Bukolla vanishes to the horror and despair of the woman and her husband.  They go looking for the cow and searche far and wide and long, but do not find it.  They then summon their little boy to go and do not come before their eyes again, until he brings back their beloved Bukolla.  They give Karlsson supplies and new shoes, then send him out to search for the cow on his own.

He walkes for a long, long time, until he is exhausted and sits down to eat.  Then he says:

"Bellow now, my Bukolla, if you are anywhere in life."

He hears the cow bellow from far, far away.

Karlsson walks for a long, long time, over mountains and through rivers.

He climbs down rocks and into a very large cave where he finds Bukolla tied to a block.

The boy unties the cow and they head back home, but just like in any good story there are Trolls; the large female trolls that had snatched Bukolla from the farm and brought her to their cave. They are not about to let go of Bukolla without a fight.  As the big angry Trolls follow Bukolla and Karlsson on their journey home they are never far behind. After the boy and the cow pass a river they look back and  see that the Troll women are on the other side about to cross the river and get them.

The boy says:  "What shall we do, my Bukolla?'

She says:  "Take a hair from my tail and put it on the ground."

He does as she says.  The cow says to her hair:  "Do I, and I recommend about, you will be such a large river that nobody can cross it except the flying birds."

At the same moment the hair became a large flooded river that the Trolls cannot cross.

The story goes on with numerous hurdles and close encounters with the Trolls, Karlsson and Bukolla. Hairs from the cows tail becomes a big mountain which the Trolls cannot cross. The big Troll women try but get stuck in the hole they carved into the mountain in order to get through, and I belief that they are still stuck there.

Karlsson makes it home to his parents with Bukolla and his parents finally recognize what a fine boy they have and love and cherish him for the rest of their lives.  I love stories with happy endings and I will stop here with my analogy of cows.

Búkolla mín. Björk (1977)

Sunday in Parrott_Sunnudagur í Parrott Georgia

Today was a beautiful sunny day in Southeast Georgia, perhaps a little on the cool side for us southerners at 76 degrees.

A perfect day for visiting Parrott, a small town east of Albany where Rita's antiques and estate sales is located.  Rita's estate sales  Such a nice place to visit and browse for unexpected and lovely things; fabulous hospitable women (real southern belles) to see and mingle with.

WHITE

Nothing says White quite like the Magnolia blossom with its distinct lovely fragrance.  Magnolia trees are most lovely here in May when they bloom with their big white exotic blooms; they fill your senses with their seductive fragrance filled with promise of an eternal bliss.

BLÁR_BLUE

To me there is nothing like the BLUE color of Icelandic sky with its cool and soothing palette, particularly the cotton cloud formations; images of elf and gremlin like creatures.  I remember as a little girl lying on the grassy lawn of my childhood home staring up at the clouds; once I figured out a shape of a duck or a bird it would turn into an elephant or a mermaid. Arngunnur Yr, an Icelandic contemporary painter, manages to stir my emotions and allows me to dream of the Icelandic skies of my childhood in her wonderful mysterious paintings.

http://www.arngunnur-yr.com/arngunner/Welcome.html

Blue is the color of sky and water. From the time of the ancient Egyptians, the blue depths of water personified the female principle, while sky blue was associated with the male principle. Blue is the color of all heavenly gods and stands for distance, for the divine, and for the spiritual.

Blue was commonly used in art depicting the Virgin Mary. One of the most celebrated in Chartres Cathedral, the beautiful Blue Virgin Window is a rare Romanesque survivor from about 1150.  The Virgin sits crowned and enthroned, robed in blue against a ruby background. Angels support her throne and surround it on both sides, swinging censers and holding candlesticks. A dove descends onto her head from above, its beak connected with her halo by three blue rays.

Put some blue in your life when you want:

    relaxation to counteract chaos or agitation. 

to open the flow of communication

To broaden your perspective in learning new information.  

Ray Charles was born and raised in Albany, Ga.  In honor of him we have Ray Charles plaza here in Albany.  

http://www.walb.com/story/14019884/sculptor?redirected=true

                                  BLUE for solitude and peace.

Next time WHITE...

Last Day of Class_Síðasti Skóladagurinn

Today was the last day of my Understanding Art class for this term.
I will miss you all; playful, intelligent, and outrageously funny bright bunch of you.
I am reminded on occasions like this how blessed I am being an educator.
I so much look forward to seeing all of you proudly walk  and accept your Diplomas with joy.

Enjoy the ride...