art
The best relationship art depicts the highs and lows of the authentic couple.
summer
Grab a handful of dust and ink in spring and summer, spread a bunch of flowers and herbs to make notes, smoke Vitamin milli, move according to the wind, or slow or urgent, or walk or grass, calm and quiet, shallow summer is clear. The mountains and rivers under the pen are beautiful and beautiful; Bodhi in my heart is quiet and safe.
By Mel Shropshire5 years ago in Humans
To Make, To Change: The procession of slow craft
My Grandma was a Da Vinci of Home Ec and related arts. She cooked, she painted, she made porcelain dolls, she quilted, and she taught. I looked up to her immensely. I wanted to be able to do all the things she could do, and I wanted to have all the things that she had. An entire room for sewing, a cupboard full of paints, a house full of crafts and knick knacks and treasures; I felt like she had the resources and ability to create anything she wanted, and that thrilled me. Every summer she would get in the car and drive two hours to help my siblings and I create our own sewing projects. One of those summers, when I was nine or ten, I made my first quilt. A lap sized quilt that I dreamed up all by myself. I was so excited about it! I found some fabric that looked like a wooden fence and I had a vision! I was going to make a quilt with a dog in front of a fence that said “Who let the dogs out?” I loved making that quilt, choosing the accent fabrics, sitting beside my grandma learning how to topstitch around the letters I had painstakingly traced and cut out, and then finally, after grandma had left to go home, hand sewing the final side of the binding. At this point I had no understanding of the context behind the song. I thought it was actually about dogs, and that therefore my quilt was really quite clever.
By Kait Leininger5 years ago in Humans
Painter of Petulant Girls
Yoshitomo Nara, Knife Behind Back (2000). Image from Sotheby’s. Yoshitomo Nara never considered being a painter until he was 18 years of age. Indeed, even while considering workmanship in Germany, he was uncertain about picking painting as a vocation. It was not until 1993 that Nara began seeking after painting genuinely. Before long, he got his first task to create special banners for the Swedish film Lotta Leaves Home. During this time, the craftsman fostered his unmistakable style: childish compositions of creatures and kids. Obliged to American twee and Japanese kawaii, these works portray a scope of enthusiastic intricacies, from disobedience and protection from thought and quietness.
By Jacob Walker5 years ago in Humans
Paper Opus. Top Story - June 2021.
Streaks of grey across a page, zigzagging here and there like the winding pass of a cliffside road. A random assortment of lines, each perfectly imperfect, curve and weave in and out of each other. Step back, and the basic form of a face appears, rendered in the faint traces of graphite. It is the bare bones, like a skeleton, waiting to be fleshed out. An array of drawing pens lay out on my lap, their permanence looming over me like a rain cloud hangs over a forest desperate for water. With a gentle sigh, I select one, raise it to the paper, and begin.
By Robin Laurinec5 years ago in Humans
Live, Shearly
“Happiness” – what a simple, yet complex concept? But what does it really mean? Who defines it? You do. To me, happiness means having the courage and desire to be yourself. Using vulnerability as the paint and craft box, and not allowing anyone else’s opinion to influence or exceed your own (especially not to the detriment of yourself), is the key.
By Tamila Kianfard 5 years ago in Humans
With Cotton, Christopher Martin Tells a Story of Race in America
As a tattoo and textile artist, Christopher Martin is importantly guided by the tradition of folk art. His reverence for text, appreciation for the history of his material and careful collection of imagery are powerful reminders of how folk and outsider art traditions can be reinvented for new generations, new eras. Martin’s work is the stark, blunt immediacy that challenges the weight of our world with naked solidarity.
By Christopher Martin5 years ago in Humans
ReWilding Curiosity on Canvas
Not a word of exaggeration, I am totally in love with what happens in the studio. That first slicing of the plastic and squawking of the tape as I mask off an area in the studio for our day long foray into a specific kind of wildness? Oh, now I love that series of rituals as they conjure a beginning of playfulness any adult would crave. A subtle smile begins to curve on my mouth as I trace my fingertips over the roll of canvas, its toothy and tentatively yielding integrity peels away under the robust blades of my best scissors. The crisp lines of its edges are then stretched into a new threshold of straightness as the linen is pulled over the stretcher frame and stapled with a confident “bam.” It's otherwise a quiet room this time with the house cat watching this minor transformation take place from a safe distance. The staple gun powerfully punctuated the room that always starts off clean- and for the time being- remains open and unassuming of the fun we will get into.
By Aeryana Castley5 years ago in Humans
When I Cut Into the World, I Speak Back
As a youth, mixing globs of paint with a paintbrush allowed me to create the palette of color I needed to imitate the world of color around me. My kindergartener's point of view worried about getting it right- I needed the correct hues for the tops of trees, the stems of flowers, and importantly, reptile skin (to make sure a friend could do justice to the new crime-fighting, pizza- devouring, sewer-living, teen-age mutant ninja turtles t-shirt he had convinced his parent’s to buy him over the weekend).
By Fergie Lopez5 years ago in Humans
