Eroding elegance in shades of green...

There's something about green and decaying elegance that just makes me want to weep...

keira knightley in Atonement looked so stunning in that
emerald silk dress.
Erica Tanov dress, I love this though not green
Anne Bancroft in 'Great Expectations' this entire film was beautiful shades of green. It was visually delicious!
Wedding photo with green
Anthropologie has so many inspiring, beautiful items in green right now; tops, dresses, perfumes. Go! Buy! (I already have)

Fletcher Benton "S" steel with patina

Building An Affordable Art Collection

Everyone can build an art collection! You can purchase art at any price point from $20.00 to $100,000,000 (eck!). It's a very rewarding activity that spans the course of your life. I have been working on my collection for a decade now. I cherish each piece I own from my first acquisition to my most recent.

I wanted to offer some savvy advise, tips, and resources to those that want to begin acquiring original works of art at affordable prices. When beginning your collection it's a good idea to have a theme or focus on the types of works you acquire. For example, works by artists in your region, only works on paper, figurative drawings, urban landscape paintings, pop art, etc.. But most importantly it's best to buy what you like. Here are some great places to begin browsing for affordable art:

One of the best places to shop for inexpensive art online is Jen Beckman's 20 x 200. I received a gift certificate from my wedding for a $50 print and I got a piece I love! You can buy small prints for $20 - $50.

I love this piece by Youngna Park (balloons) Christian Chaize (beach):

A good tip is to frame them with a wide matte so it takes up more space on your wall. Here's a photo of one I framed and put in my office:

I love Galleries in Oakland and Brooklyn. A couple of my favorites in Oakland are: johansson projects and Swarm .

Also, the Affordable Art Fair in NY, NY and Los Angeles is worth checking out.

A great way to acquire affordable pieces is directly from an artist and from young, emerging artists. Art schools such as CCA, SFAI, and SVA have open studios for their MFA programs at the end of the semester. It's a great way to see what young, emerging artists are doing and also a great way to pick a piece or two.

Different types of art are priced differently than others. Editioned prints are the most affordable option. Photography is often editioned as well but is pricier than prints. Drawings are more expensive than prints or photographs but often less than paintings. Sculptures, assemblages, paintings, original mixed media works are often the most expensive. And of course the larger the piece the pricier it tends to be.

Good luck collecting. My favorite piece is always my most recent acquisition. In this case, it's a Fletcher Benton letter "S" {steel with patina} from his alphabet series (image above).

Live Like This

Artist Meghan Boody Tribeca Loft. "Alice in Wonderland meets Being John Malkovick"

This is my recent inspiration.

Dinner Party

We had guests over the other night and I bought these beautiful tulip tree branches for a center piece. I love the placemats from dwell that mirror the flower arrangement. We made salted cod for dinner which was really easy to make and a simple, healthy, delicious dish.

How does art contribute to everyday life?

Photograph by Lalla Essaydi

Art makes contributions to everyday life by inspiring people to think about the world differently. Art provides unique outlets for self-expression and conveying a point of view that stimulates cognitive thinking for the viewer. It presents a platform to evoke a dialogue on different topics including social patterns, politics, our environment, self-identity, and often reveals truths that have been otherwise concealed. Additionally, I’ve always thought that there was an interesting connection between fine art and the commercial world; art offers innovative ideas that influence designs and visuals in fashion, advertising, and product design. I find that through these self-discoveries about art and explanations of arts role in society I’ve been able to understand different forms of art and art has developed a more powerful meaning for me through these conclusions.

Painting by Yigal Ozeri

Oh Dolly....

A Square Meal

Food(ography) at the Loft!!!

Food(ography) filmed a few SF food bloggers at our the loft. Turntable Kitchen, A Sweet Spoonful, and Shutterbean. It was fun to meet everyone in person and most of all eat their delicious dish! Check out these photos of the filming.

My husband Matt doing an Oyster demo

Kasey and Matt from Turntable Kitchen

Backsplash Collage

D.I.Y.

I made a collage backsplash for our kitchen. It looks great and was really easy to make. I took two canvas boards and used those as a backing for the collage. I ordered a sheet of plexi to size and pre-drilled for the surface. After I created my collage which is composed of drawings, photographs, old art cards, and magazine clippings we screwed the piece and plexi into the wall. We used clear caulking to caulk around the plexi.It's a really fun project to do at home and if you don't have a lot of wall space for art it's a great way to add more art into your home.

Have you seen the Louis Vuitton 2011 Resort collection? Classic, pretty, vintage, timeless. I love it. As Rachel Zoe would say, "I Die!"

Fashion and Function

adventures in scrap booking

I love these albums. They are so luscious and soft. I love the velvet and they come in beautiful colors. They have an old victorian feeling about them but manage to be very contemporary looking at the same time. I have been acquiring them one by one for my wedding album and other albums. You can get them at jennibick.com and if you like journals and albums - You will LOVE this site.

Pretty!

Dusk

a proposed exhibition

Christopher Bucklow, Tetrarch, 1.11 pm, 11th January, 2003, Unique Dye Destruction Print, 40.25 x 54.5 inches

British artist Christopher Bucklow’s series Guests and Tetrarchs focuses on self-identification and reflection through depictions of illuminated figures that each represent a facet of the artist’s psyche. The artist’s technique incorporates two simple and ancient artistic methods, pinhole photography and tracing the human shadow. The process begins with the artist outlining his subjects’ shadows on a large sheet of aluminum. He then applies pin-holes within the traced figure outline, which is in turn used as the camera’s lens, he mounts the foil onto a home-made camera with color photo paper mounted on the back of the camera. Different intensities of sunlight, time of day and exposure give each piece a variation in light and color. The result is a magical, celestial-like standing figure that looks as if it is emerging from the atmosphere. These figures emit light as an energy that represents life and elements of the human spirit.

Michael Flomen, Contact, 2001, Gelatin Silver Print, 44 x 34 inches

Michael Flomen uses alternative processes combined with new techniques to create his work. His images are photograms made at night in the outdoors including grass fields and streams; the artist uses light-sources such as fireflies, snow and water to expose the image. These different sources create an abstract image but are derived from the natural world. Ethereal and supernatural, light becomes the main subject in his work. Flomen attempts to reveal different energies in nature by taking his process to the field and documenting nature at its purest. His work depicts a visual parallel to natural energy and light sources on earth and to what the greater cosmos look like in the night sky. From organic, earthly elements, Flomen creates transcendent otherworldly images.

Florian Maier-Aichen, Der Watzmann 2009,
C-print,
86 3/4 x 62 1/4 inches

Inspired by 19th Century painting and photography of traditional European and American landscapes, Florian Maier-Aichen, creates abstracted versions of traditional landscapes. His work is often vast and atmospheric, taken from extreme aerial distances. Maier-Aichen begins by photographing landscapes with a large format camera, but most of the work is done after the image is taken when he digitally reworks sections of the image by adding or subtracting different elements as well as drawing and painting on the surface. The landscape of the artist’s native Germany is often the subject of his work as is Los Angeles where he spends part of the year working. A life lived in two different places as well as a combination of realistic portrayal of landscape and abstraction creates a duality in his work. The exhibition will showcase several works by Maier-Aichen including Der Watzmann 2009,
C-print,
86 3/4 x 62 1/4 inches and Untitled (Mount Wilson) 2002, C-print, 63 1/2 x 81 3/8 inches. Der Watzmann references an iconic 19th century painting by German artist Caspar David Friedrich; Maier-Aichen’s resulting image depicts a classic example of new meets old featuring an iconic image of The Watzmann paired with a techno colored sky. In his piece Untitled (Mount Wilson) he depicts Los Angeles and all it represents to him: “that landscape is still significant, it has a great meaning, it is the end of American pioneerism, it is the end of the American West and from a German aspect is also the end of the world.”

Eclipse Newspaper Blue, 2010, C-print, 40 1/8 x 17 inches

Sara VanDerBeek is an emerging artist based in Brooklyn whose photographs depict found objects and images as well as sculptures that she creates for the image and then destroys after it’s taken. Eclipse Newspaper Blue is an image of an image from a found newspaper of the 1969 lunar eclipse. The artist discovered the clipping while cleaning out the basement of her childhood home. This image, which the artist connected to on a personal level, depicts a point in history that many can remember and relate to. It is elements like these that VanDerBeek often incorporates into her work, personal objects that evoke a time and memory that is also a universal phenomenon. VanDerBeek’s work combines a Modernist and eccentric contemporary style and beckons to Max Ernst and Paul Outerbridge.

Through an examination of nature and its sublimity these artists convey a personal relationship with the world and environment in which we live. They show references to different periods of art history but each present a very contemporary voice. These artists, inspired by traditional methods, manipulate older techniques or combine them with new technologies to create images that allow viewers to see nature and the world in a new, fresh way.