Miami Colors

A quick get away last week to Miami, Florida was a perfect dose of Vitamin D and other creative nutrients.  The vibrant colors, bright sunshine, walks on the beach, time in the ocean water and temperatures in the high 70's was a wonderful respite.

Shari leading the way on bike down to South Beach.

 Some sights along the way...

Love the pink walkway!

A ride through a botanical garden...

Banana flower

Shadows and patterns
Finding the connection to my Shadow Drawings

Bromeliads puntuate a palm trunk

Lime Sherbert with pink sprinkles

Kite surfers

We also had a day at Wynnwood Art District and the Design Center in Miami looking at art. What fabulous private collection did we get a tour of?  Check in later this week for photos.

Have you been able to find some time for yourself lately?  What did you do?

Dishrag it Ain't!

Nashville artist Kathryn Dettwiller is this week's guest blogger for the Artist as Collector series.

Mixed media

©2012SallyMankus

This piece is a favorite of mine by Sally Mankus of Shalimar, FL.


Sally uses a photographic emulsion on a resin-based medium to create these works. Sometimes she prints on pot lids and on cookie sheets. 


It is positioned on a long wall in our home in Florida, where it is visible from the kitchen/gathering area. Some visitors fail to see the woman’s face at first and they wonder why I have a dishrag pinned up on the living room wall.  Makes me smile.


Kathryn Dettwiller works primarily in encaustic in her paintings and monoprints. She also finds herself going "off the page" to create mixed media assemblages.

Collecting Family

Guest blogger for this week's Artist as Collector Series is from painter Dora Ficher.

©JonathanMeterPhotography

 These photos were all gifts from my son Jonathan Meter.

©JonathanMeterPhotography

I believe that Jonathan has a special eye to capture images in their reality but in his own very creative way. He loves the process of creating, something that we both share as artists. 

©JonathanMeterPhotography

He is my hero, so my opinion might be a bit biased.  At home we have a section with many of his photographs. We call it the "Jonathan Gallery".  
To read more about Jonathan, check out his interview with Dora on her blog.


About Dora Ficher;
A philadelphis based painter, she is originally from Buenos Aires which influences her bold colorful palette in both her encaustic work or  doodles which she creates daily with india ink markers.

Plein Air Painting in Collection

This week's Artist as Collector Series comes from painter and printmaker Ahni Kruger.

©2012CarolDiamond

I bought this at Prince Street Gallery … 

Carol (Diamond) & I met in college and I've always admired her dedication to her work.  We have had many lovely moments painting in the landscape, drawing together, sharing loves, parenting strategies, and losses over the years.  

This painting was done on location in the Brooklyn Navy Yards in 1997 when I was very pregnant with my son.  It shows her relentless, tentative searching for form while boldly messing with space and color.  Love the yellow diagonal!  She manages to capture these very complicated structures with suggestive strokes, and I think she truly gives us that sense of being in an industrial landscape, leading us up to and beyond various details, all the while leaving delicious clues about the act of painting.  

To me, plein air painting is about the transient light, shifting forms and impermanence of the weather, an urgency to seize the moment.  Sadly, the significance of the towers that no longer exist is now woven into this.  

About this week's Guest Blogger:

Ahni Kruger is a painter, printmaker and adjunct professor at Drew University and Montclair State University, both in New Jersey.  Her work reflects her travels, her passions and her thoughtful approach to the canvas or paper.

Intuitive Drawing

Painter and mixed media artist, Shari Epstein writes this week's post for our Artist as Collector series.

Untitled
Charcoal on paper
10" x 10"
©2012MeriBourgard
Collection of Shari Epstein

Meri Bourgard has one of the most fascinating processes to produce her drawings. 


It is entirely intuitive. She begins with gestural marks which she accentuates or erases at will. Eventually something emerges from the surface--a hand, a head, an object. She then develops it by feeling what it is attached to or in what environment it rests. Often these images seem like they are from times past--a woman in a long dress or wearing a hat. Her drawings seem to me like ghosts that she has captured and expressed on paper. 

We shall get there

Immersed, 2012
Graphite, gesso, pastel, spray paint & collage on Rives
36" x 40"
©2012NanciHersh

“Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there. ”

A. A. Milne (1882-1956); English author, best known for his books about Winnie-the-Pooh

This reminder arrivedin my mailbox from Values.com.  It is so good for me personally, that I am considering having it tattooed somewhere - my forehead maybe?  


Well, maybe not, but Winnie wasn't the only one on a journey to find the honey pot, and look at all the adventures he had along the way.