Category Archives: art

Saturday catch-up: collages, challenges and show&tell

Posted on by
2

It’s been a busy week – I taught a beeswax workshop with the San Antonio Art Education Association at a workshop on Tuesday, and then spent Thursday at the Studio with Gloria Hill and Lisa Stamper Meyer.Here are our collages from that art playdate – can you believe that three artists with the same challenge could come up with such different results? Fascinating.

rosemarychallenge2 copy copy

And speaking of collages and challenges, congrats to Rosemary Uchniat who won the random stuff challenge with this powerful collage. I saw her “before” pile of stuff and am in awe of the way she pulled it together – it belongs in a gallery!

Rosemary, your prize is an Artist Sampler of Three Face Shards to use as you like. What will you come up with this time? It’s always interesting.

toni copyToni Curtis from LA also sent in her wonderful collage which morphed into a journal cover – nice, Toni!  Check out Toni’s Heart of the Gypsy Facebook page. It’s fun to challenge yourself to an out-of-the box diversion – try it.

And finally, today is the first Show and Tell of 2016 – my favorite Studio event!

In the lineup today are painters, poets, authors, card makers, fiber artists – and Chef Mikey himself, who will share the Studio’s signature dessert recipe of Sopaipilla Cheesecake. Hope to see you there from 2-4!

Challenge update

Posted on by
5

This is what I ended up doing with the objects I collected for the spontaneous “Studio Stuff” challenge. I like it! It’ s called HeART of Time, and it’s about how time flies – wings? eggs? clock pieces? Makes sense to me!

HeART of Time: mixed media assemblage by Lyn Belisle

HeART of Time: mixed media assemblage by Lyn Belisle

And here’s the studio stuff I started with:

fodder

Now I’m wondering if it’s cheating to add a couple of extra things to pull the project together. I added some cloth wings that I’d had for years and also a small box with compartments to put everything in. Nah, that’s not cheating – you can add a few things, too, if you like. I’m kind of making up our rules as I go!

Below are two submissions of studio stuff from brave artist friends – let’s see what they do with it! Names have been concealed to protect the innocent. Stay tuned.

Rosemary toni

 

Assignment: refocus through a creative challenge

Posted on by
9

After week of extremes – extreme dismay – the fire near the Studio that caused so much damage to others – and extreme joy – fantastic time with Clare O’Neill, more pics to come – I’m ready to get back to some new artwork. But it always takes me a while to re-focus. Does that ever happen to you?

So here’s what I did this morning – I collected some random stuff from my work table and arranged it like a collage. Easy. I photographed it, then gave myself a challenge – make something out of (or inspired by) this pile o’ stuff.

fodder

Here what I have to work with:

  • watch parts
  • copper wire
  • A very cool stained paint rag
  • a face shard (or course)
  • a bird wing
  • a paper scrap
  • glass beads
  • a wooden egg

My assignment – MAKE SOMETHING. First thought – print and mount the photo for an encaustic piece – easy. Harder would be to make an assemblage sculpture, or a huge acrylic abstract painting based on the colors and textures — so what would YOU do?

Your assignment – Email me a pic of some of your small random studio stuff, no more than ten items, It shouldn’t be contrived or exotic – a tuna can, a twig, some lace, whatever – and then tell us what you’re thinking about doing with it. I’ll post the pics of the “ingredients” first. Then, in a week or so, I’ll ask for a pic of what you have done with them, sort of like an online Show and Tell There will be a prize involved!

PS Speaking of Show and Tell, don’t miss the next one at Lyn Belisle Studio on Saturday, January 30th from 2-4!

 

Encaustic excitement and fiber – Maggie Ayers’ mixed media work

Posted on by
Reply
maggie1

Maggie Ayers – Cocoon, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clare O’Neill’s visit to my studio is just days away, and I’ve been immersed in encaustic excitement! I just can’t wait to work with her since many mixed-media artists like me are incorporating the seductiveness of beeswax into their work, and Clare’s expertise is impressive – we are so lucky to have her here.

Maggie Ayers, Flourish (detail) 2009

Maggie Ayers, Flourish (detail) 2009

Coincidentally, I just discovered this morning that one of my fiber artist heroes, Maggie Ayers, has also turned to encaustic, and wow! What she’s doing with wax and silk is gorgeous! Maggie Ayers’ work prompted my interest in fiber art about ten years ago – her work is unique and organic.

She’s brought those qualities to wax – you’ll love the new work that she demonstrates in the video below.

Maggie writes, “Central to all my work is the notion of mark making. Whether it is a trailed line of ink from a delightfully scratchy bamboo nib, a rusted metal print on paper or torn reclaimed cloth, or quickly cut scalpel lines on a beeswax and resin ground, these are my working beginnings.” Beautiful.

Maggie Ayers, Small encaustic panel, 2015

The big lesson for me is not just about wax or silk or collage or any particular medium, but about expressing one’s own ideas in many ways. Not everyone who comes to Clare’s workshop this weekend will become a photoencaustic artist, but each of us will experience a new method of communicating through our art as Clare instructs us, and as Maggie Ayers has done. I love it!

Maggie Ayers, small panel, 2015

If you’re a mixed-media artist, and you’re new to encaustics, here’s a great list of resources compiled by Rhonda Raulston that will introduce you to the seductiveness of wax – but be careful – it’s contagious.

Faces of Art – and a Friday Free-bee

Posted on by
20

faces

Ramin Samandari is an extraordinary artist and  photographer whose work is in the permanent collections at the San Antonio Museum of Art and the University of Texas at San Antonio, along with numerous private collections. He has embarked on a remarkable project to photograph San Antonio artists. Here’s what he writes:

“I started this project about a year ago with two objectives in mind: To make photographs that show a glimpse into the artist’s emotions and psyche, and to make an important archive of the San Antonio’s visual art community, which did not exist.

I decided not to photograph the artists in the usual way, with their work in their studios. Instead I wanted to make portraits where the viewer has to encounter the artist’s face with no other distraction.”

I visited Ramin on Tuesday, and he just sent me this photograph from my session at his studio – I love it – many thanks, Ramin, for your talent and vision (and your mastery of Photoshop!). Plus, now I have a head shot that doesn’t involve cats or a messy studio in the background! Yay!

lyn belisle-b&w

Lyn Belisle, photographed by Ramin Samandari

You can see an Interview with Ramin as he photographs my good friend, Anne Alexander. And you can get more information on funding the project here at Ramin’s website.

bdozen1

Ready for the Friday Free-bee? Yep, it’s a B Beautiful bee dish! One lucky SHARDS subscriber will win one of these little guys to keep or give. A portion of the sales of these hand-built pieces goes to support the Honeybee Conservancy. Drawing will be held Sunday night – good luck! And thanks for bee-ing a subscriber!

PS – I sold all of these at the last studio event, but I have several dozen more back in stock – they are coming out of the kiln today (just in case you don’t win the Friday Free-bee and still want one :))

 

Tortoise-shelter architecture by a brilliant contractor

Posted on by
13

You know Dudley, right? Our 90 pound Sulcada tortoise who was the size of a chalupa just five years ago?

Dudley's baby picture with Chico the kitten

Dudley’s baby picture with Chico the kitten

She spent the winter last year on the deck, but she’s just too darn big now and needed a backyard shelter to keep her warm when temperatures drop below 50F. She is, after all, a desert tortoise.

I suppose we cold have just spread thirty or forty sleeping bags over her 4×6′ crate, but that seemed kind of tacky, so we called our long-time friend and contractor, Kurt Wahrmund, to see what he could come up with. After all, he built her first condo. The brilliant result? A cedar-clad shelter that matches the architecture of the house. It has three wall panels that can be stored in the summer, and it features a plexiglass roof and a plenum system that directs the heat from a space heater down into Dud’s straw-lined crate. Check this out!

I am so grateful to Kurt for figuring out a beautiful solution that works aesthetically and practically for human and tortoise both – if you ever need a contractor/designer with a great solution to a building dilemma, call Kurt Wahrmund!

Miro at the McNay – prepare to be astonished

Posted on by
6

The Miro exhibit, currently on view at the McNay Art Museum until January 10, 2016, is full of surprises. We went yesterday with our friends, artist Pablo Solomon and his wife, Beverly (their cat is named Miro, so you know they are huge fans of the Spanish painter).

The first surprise was the astonishing scale of the paintings. These things are huge! Pablo and I both said that we expected “normal sized” painting from the photos we had seen in catalogs, but these works were six, eight, ten feet tall, some in gigantic frames with glass as big as skyscraper windows. Miro’s colorful shape-figures of birds and women dance around within these huge canvases like playful giants. It’s so much fun!

The second surprise, at least for me, were the delightful sculptures, each with a rich industrial-like patina on bronze, and all constructed from sand-cast assortments of goofy objects that worked to form creatures with vast appeal. I felt like applauding!

The final surprise was realizing that all of the 50+ works in the show were created in Miro’s later years, the last 20 years of his life. It seems to be a journey back to the celebration and simplicity of a personal artistic language. The catalog says, “In his quest to transcend the idea of easel painting, the pictorial space is enlarged across expanded canvas fields, on which calligraphic signs reach maximum intensity through minimum resources, reflecting the artist’s attempt to reach a square one of painting. . .” I dare you not to get a little teary when you walk into the room with the last three paintings, huge white canvases with a very few spots of color, a star, a dotted line – all seeming to be exiting the playing field. Beautiful.

Good friends Beverly and Pablo Solomon pay homage to the mater, Miro - what an exhibit!

Good friends Beverly and Pablo Solomon pay homage to the master, Miro – what an exhibit!

So do what I tell ya – go have a nice lunch at Twin Sisters with some good friends, and then get yourself over to the McNay just down the block. Pay the special exhibit ticket price – it’s worth every dollar – and prepare to be astonished.

PS The whole city is celebrating Miro – here’s a list of special Miro-inspired treats, from jewelry to decadent chocolate cake that will be on hand during the run of the exhibit.

Super-special-teacher-artist-new-friend Mary Johnston :)

Posted on by
2

Art One Linocut from one of Mary Johnston’s students

I love serendipity – what are the chances that (a.) a former student of mine (hi, Tyler!) who works at the San Antonio Museum of Art would (b.) start a random conversation with an art teacher from rural New Mexico in (c.) a folk art shop in Port Aransas?

And that (d.) my name would come up? And that (e.) that art teacher would then come to my Studio to meet me? She did, and we had a fantastic conversation!

The teacher is Mary Johnston, and she’s one of those art teachers who knows that art is more than drawing a realistic apple. It’s the heart of human culture, and that’s what she teaches. I received an email from her yesterday with photos of what her students have been up to – and these are students who had never had art before Mary arrived on the scene!

Look at the totems they constructed and the other work they created (below) and then read what Mary has to say about her approach to teaching.

From Mary: “Last year  (Fall 2014) was the first time any of my students had had art classes.  Because of this, I kept lessons fairly traditional and strove to stay in sync with the Northern NM rural community. I worked at nurturing what the students already knew and were comfortable with.

Art 1 . Georgia O’Keeffe Unit. Horse skull.Graduated painting technique. Oil paint on canvas .Mesa Vista High School in Ojo Caliente, NM. Teacher Mary Johnston

The ceramic totems were a grades 8- 12 collaboration and represented 12 NM Pueblos and their styles of pottery . The students chose a pueblo and used that specific pueblo style to inspire their ceramic creations. They studied and wrote about their chosen pueblo’s history and its contribution to NM history. The students  also researched  potters from that pueblo and their contributions to the art world and their pueblo heritage.

As well as being near many pueblos, the school is near Abiquiu, Georgia O’Keeffe Country .Almost all my students know of O’Keeffe and share wonderful  (never before heard)stories of their great grandparents and grandparents working for Georgia. Many of my students have interned  in  Georgia’s home at Ghost Ranch or  at Georgia’s Abiquiu home and garden. “

Isn’t this work fantastic? Mary concludes her note by saying, “My time teaching in Northern New Mexico has been a rich, rewarding and fulfilling experience .I will be forever grateful for this opportunity. However , I  need to get back to my Texas. I love the Hill Country and the San Antonio region and my goal is to reside in the direction of Boerne and teach in the  San Antonio area. My mother, almost 90 years old, is in Austin and needs me much closer than New Mexico.”
I would love for you all meet Mary and I have my fingers crossed that she can find a teaching job here next year – any school would be lucky to have her on their team. If you’d like to contact here about a teaching question or a teaching job, you can email her by clicking here. And you can see more of her students’ amazing work on their Pinterest Board.

 

 

 

 

Bonnie, Akim & me, the (ahem) calligrapher

Posted on by
3

Lefties like me are challenged in many ways, but especially in the fine art of calligraphy. I’d always envied people who could take a simple work like “bread” and elevate it to super-star status with illuminated swashes. But thanks to my friend Bonnie Houser, I can now write like a calligrapher! And I’m getting better at it – AND it’s fun!

Some of you may know Bonnie as the owner of Dry Comal Creek Vineyards and Winery and some of you may know her through her art work, She’s a great friend and teacher to a lot of people. Lesta Frank and I asked Bonnie to give us a quick calligraphy lesson on an alphabet called AKIM. It was “invented” by German artist, sculptor and musician Hans-Joachim Burgert, who said, “The 10spiritual material is the simple line. . .the line is a medium of free graphic discipline.”  Because this is a monolinear alphabet (no chiseled shading), anyone, even left-handed people, can do it well.

It was amazing how quickly we picked it up with Bonnie’s help. And the great thing is that there are as many personal variations of the Akim hand as their are writers. If you do a web search, you will see this for yourself. Take a look at some of the work we did with Bonnie, then give it a try!