Art is everywhere. Are you looking? Most of what I do as I create a painting is looking. When I think about that, I consider that each of my past endeavors was a part of my training for becoming a painter, a maker. I look to see the beauty in things as they are and I make art to encourage noticing, being present with abundance. I also look to see how things relate to each other, how things work, to take apart the pieces in my mind. My fascination with process keeps the act of painting fresh and thrilling for me. Looking/observing/being present is the theme which connects my paintings of big eyed girls to my still lifes of everyday things and moments.
I am starting a new category on this blog titled art is everywhere. We start with number two because of a post I did with same title a year or so ago. Today, in number two, I am sharing some photos of interesting art form spied in artists’ yards. Above, Patrick, a graphic designer and photographer, and Leslie, a marketing guru, are hanging out on the sunken patio in front of my studio right after the students left and the day before I went to Florida. They were in town during the Eureka Springs Artists Studio Tour and I loved being able to show off my studio to them. They came by to pick up my painting titled kiss which Patrick delivered to Senator Pryor’s office for me. He left me a funny phone message to let me know that “the bird was in the cage”! (THANK YOU, PATRICK! ) He and Leslie are fun, as you can likely tell by their big smiles and Patrick’s new ukelele he has already taught himself a few songs on.
A few weeks ago I got to spend the day cruising around the hills of Newton County with my friend, Jerri Stevens (a great painter herself). It was the Ozark Mountain Artists Studio Tour and we had a lot of fun finding our way along ridges and valleys, over creeks and rivers, to some far out places. I will share more about some of the artist later, but for this art is everywhere post, I am including a couple of functional yard pieces by Mary Olson that are very much like the bottle wall-easing-down-into-a-curved-bench piece I have been wanting to create around the big oak tree near the fire pit just outside my studio. Something which Mary did that I really liked was to add cedar posts to the back and form a sort of pergola. I don’t think I’ll do that here, but it sure did make for a great way to incorporate a couple of her moon mosaics.
This is another of Mary’s projects that I really liked seeing. It is an outdoor shower. Her bottle walls are beautiful and I particularly liked that she used a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Jerri is in the shower here pointing out the intense light that came through one oval clear bottle and telling me that if you wrap the bottles with flashing before cementing them in they place they really glow. I also loved the drive that day. Newton County is an incredibly beautiful and wild place and it seems to me that there is art at the end of every dirt road.
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