April Fools painting

 I'm quite a fan of Norman Rockwell. He has several April First paintings, which entice me to look thoroughly to find all that is topsy turvy in them.

I thought I had another one...

Happy birthday Vincent

 Vincent Willem van Gogh(Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləɱ vɑŋ ˈɣɔx]  

30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was only beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37.^[5] During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.

Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful, but showed signs of mental instability. As a young man, he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted into ill-health and solitude. He was keenly aware of modernist trends in art and, while back with his parents, took up painting in 1881. His younger brother, Theo, supported him financially, and the two of them maintained a long correspondence.

Van Gogh's early works consist of mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the artistic avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were seeking new paths beyond Impressionism. Frustrated in Paris and inspired by a growing spirit of artistic change and collaboration, in February 1888 Van Gogh moved to Arles in southern France to establish an artistic retreat and commune. Once there, his paintings grew brighter and he turned his attention to the natural world, depicting local olive groves, wheat fields and sunflowers. Van Gogh invited Gauguin to join him in Arles and eagerly anticipated Gauguin's arrival in late 1888.

Van Gogh Starry Night Over the Rhone, September 1888.

Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions. He worried about his mental stability, and often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor when, in a rage, he mutilated his left ear. Van Gogh spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression persisted, and on 29 July 1890 Van Gogh died from his injuries after shooting himself in the chest with a revolver.

Van Gogh's work began to attract critical artistic attention in the last year of his life. After his death, his art and life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius, due in large part to the efforts of his widowed sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.^[6][7] His bold use of colour, expressive line and thick application of paint inspired avant-garde artistic groups like the Fauves and German Expressionists in the early 20th century. Van Gogh's work gained widespread critical and commercial success in the following decades, and he has become a lasting icon of the romantic ideal of the tortured artist. Today, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings ever sold. His legacy is celebrated by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings.

Source: Wikipedia

Vincent van Gogh painted the scene of The Starry Night, which would become one of his most famous works, a total of 21 times.

van Gogh Flowering Garden, 1888

Clay demonstration in Santa Fe

I've covered Santa Fe paintings and prints and now for all those with an interest in ceramics this photo captures a historic Santa Fe moment, one of global importance in the world of studio pottery. Taken in Santa Fe in 1952. Demonstrating are Bernard Leach, Shoji Homada. Seated in the audience are Maria Martinez and behind her son Popovi Da. Leaning against the wall is Georgia O'Keeffe!

Santa Fe, Pictures on Face Book

By Noach Hoffman, Mar 27, 2024

I'm so glad when an old photo like this turns up! Of course nobody got the name of the potter actually throwing on the kick wheel!

 

Enjoying a new piece

 I love craftsmanship, in many mediums, as you may well know by now.

And earlier today I received a lovely gift that was totally unexpected. I finally met Mike Brubaker, a fellow blogger who can be seen each week on Sepia Saturday's group of posts from all over the world.

His interests on his blogs are often musical instruments, or bands, or old postcards, or photos of people who hold instruments, and so on. I learn each week about something different.

So I finally met Mike and his wife who I had kind of met before (in her capacity as a volunteer tax preparer for AARP.) After they treated me to a lunch at one of my favorite Black Mountain restaurants (The Veranda), we came over to my apartment.

And Mike gave me this.

It's a beautifully turned bowl with an inlayed rim. as well as some detailed inlays of little dark woods in various places. As a potter, I looked for a signature, but there wasn't one. 

What a sweet gift. I'm truly grateful!

And I'll blog about it tomorrow on When I Was 69, and post it to Sepia Saturday!

Grand Canyon National Park established

 

Fabric art by Sandra Mollen Derived from a John Slot photo.  Toroweap Overlook.  36 wide by 48 high, before quilting.

February 26, 2025

President Woodrow Wilson established the Grand Canyon National Park on this date in 1919, after a 30 year opposition from ranchers, miners, and entrepreneurs. Today, the Grand Canyon National Park covers more than 1,900 square miles; the canyon itself is 277 river miles long, 10 miles wide, and a mile deep. The park receives 5 million visitors every year.

In 1903, upon seeing the canyon for the first time, Theodore Roosevelt said: "The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison — beyond description; absolutely unparalleled throughout the wide world. ... Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity, and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.

Faith Ringgold

 

 Faith Ringgold (October 8, 1930 – April 13, 2024) was a Black American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.

Ringgold's artistic practice was extremely varied—from painting to quilts, from sculptures and performance art to children's books.

As an educator, she taught in both the New York City Public school system and at college level. In 1973, she quit teaching public school to devote herself to creating art full-time. In 1995, she was approached by ACA Galleries for exclusive representation and was represented by them for the rest of her life.

Wikipedia gives us this:

Faith Ringgold (born Faith Willi Jones; October 8, 1930 – April 13, 2024) was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.

Ringgold was born in Harlem, New York City, and earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the City College of New York. She was an art teacher in the New York City public school system. As a multimedia artist, her works explored themes of family, race, class, and gender. Her series of story quilts, designed from the 1980s on, captured the experiences of Black Americans and became her signature art form. During her career, she promoted the work of Black artists and rallied against their marginalization by the art museums. She wrote and illustrated over a dozen children's books. Ringgold's art has been exhibited throughout the world and is in the permanent collections of The Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Ringgold received over 80 awards and honors and 23 honorary doctorates.^[53] She was interviewed for the 2010 film !Women Art Revolution.

Ringgold resided with her second husband Burdette "Birdie" Ringgold, whom she married in 1962, in a home in Englewood, New Jersey, where she lived and maintained a steady studio practice from 1992. Burdette died on February 1, 2020.

Ringgold died at her home in Englewood, New Jersey, on April 13, 2024, at age 93.

Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima! Painting with fabric. Focus is on a real Jemima, as opposed to the commercially fabricated one to sell pancake syrup.

Just one quote

 Meryl Streep said:

"Aging is not for the weak. One day you wake up and realize that your youth is gone, but along with it, so go insecurity, haste, and the need to please... You learn to walk more slowly, but with greater certainty. You say goodbye without fear, and you cherish those who stay. Aging means letting go, it means accepting, it means discovering that beauty was never in our skin... but in the story we carry inside us."