Rock Balance - POV Counterbalance Demonstration by Michael Grab (Gravity...

I've decided to show you this least viewed of Michael Grab's video's to drive you crazy .  No actually I didn't watch the others because this one tested my impatience to the "max".   

I am awed by this kind of single focus.  I think for that reason alone, Michael Grab is to be admired whether you want to call it art or not.  

Michael Grab: Balance, Art, Meditation

Photo by Michael Grab: Gravity Glue.com

Photo by Michael Grab: Gravity Glue.com

Photo by Michael Grab: Gravity Glue.com

Looking at the work of Michael Grab, I am confronted again with the question of why do artists do what they do, how do they find their art form or does it find them?  

Michael Grab makes temporal art by creating finely balanced structures of rocks that seem to go against all laws of physics.  More than most art forms, these impossible looking structures require intense concentration and meditative focus, steady hands and calm breath . 

Grab might spend many minutes in freezing water making tiny adjustments to find a rock's center of gravity, a therapeutic ritual that he developed in 2008.  

Since then his simple curiosity about what rocks could do has evolved into a passion and daily meditative practice with his "material". 

 He realizes that seeing the photos or results of his efforts has a unique effect on the viewer, himself included....giving a sense of peace and miracle, a sense that anything is possible. 

He says on his blog:

 Gravity Glue:  http://www.gravityglue.com/

that he wants to highlight the idea that "We are creators of our own reality, rather than mere recipients."

If an artist needs a reason to continue his work,   I think that Grab has a profound one.  Blessings on you,  Michael Grab.  Your stuff is cool.  

End of year wishes

In France, we don't send Christmas cards but instead we send good wishes for the beginning of each new year: "Meilleur Voeux"  So my attempt at celebrating both Christmas and the beginning of a new year took the form of this linocut that I dashed off the last day before my printmaking class ended for the holidays.    

 I don't always have access to a press even in class ( it is regulated differently each week), so I have so far only produced a few of these.... not enough to send one to each of my friends.   

It actually looks better with some paper around it so it isn't really a card, either.  And what is one going to do with a seasonal art work that is too big as a card but not quite right on the wall all year either?  It's an oddity that only a few will want, I imagine.   

But in the blog I can offer it to you with wishes for a thrilling start to a new year.   I hope your year is full of freshness, things that challenge you in a good way..... and so make you happy. 

Still life

 I was thinking about what my friend G said yesterday about my post.  It's true that my beginning paintings could be considered "still lives"..... a still life being a drawing or painting of an arrangement of objects.

I am still working on this one, it isn't as bright as this photo , I need to re-work the background color.  I am not sure I like it.

  I have always been fascinated by the arrangement of objects.  There are so many combinations and textures to play with.  And aside from flowers or fruit that ripens or fades,  you can leave the objects in place for a long time to come back to during the week.  As long as you don't have a cat, that is.   My methodical side likes this idea of painting one subject over many days.


   In French "still life" painting is known as "nature morte" or literally: "dead nature".
Since still life paintings traditionally were done of fruit , flowers, shells, and rocks...I suppose the name came from the fact that all of these elements …..well,  were not alive.   Or maybe the French name had to do with the myriad paintings with dead game in them that were popular in the Flemish baroque period. 

Kimberly Witham,  the taxidermist/artist came up with images of "road kill" along with fruit and fancy plates etc …. no different in content really from Flemish art depicting freshly killed rabbits, lobsters, or wild ducks lying stretched out with tankards, fruit and flowers.  
Take a look at Kimberly's imaginative work.   
 http://kimberlywitham.com/kimberly_witham/Kimberly_Witham.
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    As for my own attempts of "still life" over the years…they vary from traditional to abstract. The paintings below all count as "still lives".   Maybe I will get back to this genre one of these days.  

This one is almost an abstract.  Painted on raw canvas treated with rabbit skin glue. 

Can't seem to crop this one.  This is in a collection in Seattle.

Sold

Two tone, two plate lino cut print

I used all my dishes whose shapes I liked and made them into a unified color range for this stylized still life. 

Knife painting took about 10 minutes to paint

This one is a nod to  Cezanne

First attempts at painting

When I first started doing my own art   (instead of reproductions), I was very unsure of what that would be and whether I would be able to deliver what was on my mind.   

 I have always been drawn to intimate interior scenes and still life.  So some of my first paintings were of interiors in watercolors.   

This and the little painting to follow are of a corner of my living room in Nice.  At least the balustrade is really there but the pieces of furniture were actually a table and a book shelf in the corner.  I changed the table into a desk in the first drawing and then a blue table in the second.    I imagined the bouquet, the book, the drawers etc. 

After all one can paint whatever one wants whether it's there are not.  In fact an artist has to edit..... to get a good composition.  And therein lies the first creative step.

 At the time of this painting, I was reading a book by Natalie Goldberg the author of the writer's manual called Writing Down the Bones.    Being a fan, I had bought her book called In Living Color as well. 

 Even though Goldberg didn't think of herself as an artist at the time, she started on a trip with a pen and watercolors.  In Living Color  she shows some fanciful illustrations of places she has lived and scenes from her travels .  Her naive style is an authentic voice and I am sure my second painting was influenced by her expressive images and quirky style.

Natalie Goldberg paintings

After I did the first composition, I started to breathe easier.   This was freedom and whatever I painted was going to be a surprise.   

   So for the next picture of the same corner,   I realized, hey.... I want a blue table and a window and balustrade that are acting out and dancing away.  Why not?  

Mioko Iyhara

Pictures: Miyoko Ihara / Rex Features from the Telegraph

Nine years ago, Japanese photographer Miyoko Ihara began taking pictures of the kinship between her grandmother and her unusual-eyed white cat. 

 Miyoko's grandma Misao found the abandoned cat as a kitten in a shed on her property and the pair have rarely been apart since.

"Misao named the white cat "Fukumaru" in hope the "God of fuku (good fortune)  would come and everything would come "full circle"  (as maru :circle)".

Fukumaru is always at Misao's side whether she is farming her land, having a bath, eating or sleeping.

 Now nearly a decade later their closeness and adventures have been published by Miyoko in a photography book called  Misao the Big Mama and Fukumaru the Cat.  

The couple have become increasingly popular in Japan with this unusual photo essay becoming a bestseller and becoming a viral sensation across the world. 

  All these pictures tell a lovely tale of friendship that not many of us can resist.      

Shadow of a Doubt

oil on canvas, 60x73 cm, Mary Payne

If you hold the screen so that the colors are the least saturated you will get a pretty good idea of this painting which is one of three of the same size and color range.   I call this one " Shadow of a Doubt" .