West Seattle Art Walk

Come see my paintings at Shoofly Pie in West Seattle!

Creativity abounds, thank heavens

 Hi you readers, Jane sent this amazing link to me yesterday.

 This work by The Sketching BackPacker is fun and sweet and just something that came from a place of simple creativity. It has no serious message, nor does it remind you that you are a bad citizen, or that the world is seemingly morally collapsing in front of us.

Hey Rebecca, Let's start giving out homework that feeds the soul, ok?

Well Done Assignment #1:

Today we want you to make,  look at or do fun simple stuff and give your heart a rest today.

 - Cheers!
- Anne

Bugs in a Jar~ Kids Art!

Anne here!
 I've been searching desperately for inspiration these days... and I forgot that the best and purest form always comes from art by kids... When given the right materials and a solid plan....kids art always has: perfect compositions, perfect color, joy, whimsy, seriousness, and the pure personality of the artist is clearly shown...
The best inspiration around.

This project is a part of a larger project I am helping the 2nd graders make for the auction this year. It's made with watercolor pencils and paintbrushes... I will share the final project with you soon.

Happy Monday!

Art for Arts Sake

Click here for video
Kellam is a guy we always known to be an incredible visionary,  and a  focused wonderfully weird artist/ carpenter/sculptor.  He is from a town not too far from where I grew up on Long Island and a college friend of my sister, and once you meet him you never forget him. He's always been  that  guy not doing what you think you should be doing. I have always admired him for that.. Funny that I should get his link in my email today because last night Rebecca said I should watch 'Beautiful Losers", a film about the 90's street artists turned commercial artists. They were a group of young people just doing what they love and knowing it was the right path even though it was completely uncomfortable. Just making art together and showing it regardless of  money, fame, or support.
WellDoneBlog is still about celebrating making beautiful stuff out of every act you do, this should be your guide and this will always lead to a good end.

Watch these two films, and get reminded about our shared human traits regarding creativity. It's inspiring~
Anne

"Move quickly through the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, down the main thoroughfare Eastern Parkway, past a conflicting intermingling of beautiful terraced homes and marred vacant buildings, and you could easily miss a modern cultural landmark. Hidden in plain sight, packed inside a shuffle of industrial architecture, is the wondrous workshop loft space of Kellam Clark and some half dozen other artists and makers who call his whimsical live-in, work-in reliquary, home.

In the process of building his workshop dream home, Clark has developed his unique approach to the projects he undertakes, as well as the philosophy he lives by, “Morph-aesthetic”: a term he coined himself that leverages his own fundamental artistic process—to create that which is both functional and beautiful—to his daily life. Remaining steadfast in his efforts as an artist-cum-fabricator and vice versa, Clark admits, “is a work in progress.” All of his work is created with consideration for a mixture of old world and modern techniques and he prides himself on being able to offer a lifetime warranty on everything he makes.

Last week, Clark was awarded for his involvement with The Worms, the winner of Storefront’s StreetFest international competition to re-envision temporary outdoor structures, by Storefront for Art and Architecture, the New Museum, and the NYCDepartment of Transportation"  clipped from Mother Board

Paul Heald 1962

This painting just came to me as a trade for work. When I first saw it my jaw dropped and I wished it was mine... 3 days later it IS mine. Here is a nice quote about him, I think I might become a collector of his work...

"Paul Heald, in addition to having produced some of the most immaculately painted pictures ever to come out of Seattle, is rapidly being hailed as an important historical link between the first major era of Northwest art, the Big Four or so called "mystic" painters, and the current modern (or as some would have it ), "post-modern" period. Although he is an abstract geometric artist quite unlike Kenneth Callahan, Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, or Guy Anderson, Heald's place in Northwest art rests exactly on his mixture of traditional modern forms (squares, rectangles, diagonals ) with a sense of ecstatic, emotional and yes, "mystical experience.
The growth of Heald's technical mastery alone will provide joy and thought for at least one viewing. Beyond that, it will become clear to those who look before they think, that one other quality also informs the art of Paul Heald: Seattle's ambient daylight. That ever shifting phenomenon-so central to this history of modern art in Seattle- is the link between Heald's art and the world we see around us. More and more, it shall be seen as the unknown key to much of the art of this area. It was Paul Heald who opened the window, so to speak, and let the light of modernism shine through.
        Matthew Kangas
        Spectrum, "Profile of an Artist"