Inspiring Monday

Is "ART" all ways in the eye of the beholder?

Today is a rainy and foggy day in Pasadena, CA. However, we are finding these works of art by Resa Blatman to be very inspiring. Her process is fascinating, and one can just admire them for their beauty or the technic that goes into their creation.

Resa Blatman creates beautiful and detailed cut-edge paintings, where the ornate cut edges become the painting’s frame. Before even beginning the painting, Resa spends a few months designing the edges of the panels on her computer.

Red Hot Peevish Birds - Poster for sale

There is something very magical in all her work.  We hope you find them inspiring as well.

artist statement

Over the last several years my work has dealt with nature and fertility. While nature is still an integral part of my work, my primary concern is with current environmental issues and industry's effect on our landscape and natural resources. Some of these issues include mountaintop removal (for coal), hydraulic fracturing (for natural gas), oil drilling, and the Keystone XL oil pipeline project.

I’m fascinated by beauty in art and nature and exploit it in my work. While at the same time, I recognize that the underbelly of beauty and nature is often frightening and grotesque, and I like this as well — I find this contradiction deeply complex and intriguing, especially in its relationship to human behavior, and how we perceive and treat nature. I strive to incorporate this paradox in my work with the myriad elements that I apply to the painting’s surface, such as glass and plastic beads, glitter, Austrian crystals, and thick layers of glue, as well as the painted subject matter. Since 2008, I’ve been making the “cut-edge” paintings, but my recent surfaces have migrated back to a straight-edge format, where I’m drawing and painting the flamboyant elements of the laser-cut edges into the rectangle.

Some of my stylistic references are to art history, including the Renaissance, Baroque, Victorian decorative art, Romanticism, and antique botanical imagery; these influential art movements, combined with my own concepts, elicit painting compositions that are seductive visual feasts of fruit, flora, wildlife, and beauty laced with brooding undertones.

The cut-edge paintings are made on ¼-inch PVC or Plexiglass. I design the patterns on the computer and then have the panels professionally laser-cut. Once back in my studio, I begin the painting process. The cut edges extend the subject matter and pattern of the painting, with insects flittering along the wall and casting shadows for a three-dimensional effect.

Read more at Design Milk: http://design-milk.com/resa-blatman/#ixzz1mHjdIrWV

Visit Resa Blatman's Blog

We ask you...

"Is it Soup or Art?" 

Asked by; Lily Tomlin in her one woman stage show titled, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe." 

When looking at a Andy Warlow painting of a can of Campbell's Tomato Soap she asks the question,  "Is it Soup or Art, Art or Soup, Soup or Art?"

Andy Warhol

Looking at Ted Lotts' small house frames in a chair, we ask you the same question, "Is it Soup or Art?"

Madison, WI-based artist and woodworker Ted Lott created this series of small house frames out of wood while in residency at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Colorado. A nice comment on the role of traditional craft in the modern world.

He says, “Craft practices are at once defined and restrained by their connections to tradition. Viewing woodworking in the context of objects made with wood; housing, particularly stick frame construction, emerges as possibly the most widespread use of the material throughout the modern world. Utilizing these techniques in a studio based practice, it is my hope to further the conversation on how notions of craft fit into the modern world.”

Read more at Design Milk: http://design-milk.com/ted-lott/#ixzz1m0AOYUjY