Lisa Congdon

Thanks to Jaime for recommending another great artist.

http://lisacongdon.com/portfolio/

Hundertwasser on 99% invisible

Another podcast plug. This week 99% invisible did a story about one of my favourite eccentric artists and outside the box thinkers. I have always loved this man's out of the box thinking and bright colours, but when I was in New Zealand I bought his book "The Art of the Green Path" and really got deeper into his philosophy, which guided all of his wild and resonant thinking. Here is a story that does a beautiful job of summarizing this indescribably wild person. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-straight-line-is-a-godless-line/

Passing through the looking glass and into the montreal art scene

I just returned from a delightful stay in the fair and french speaking city of Montreal where I was visiting my even more fair and thoroughly delightful friends Natalie, Colleen and Alex.

I am very excited to know that Natalie has been doing some writing on her art blog Passenger Art along with her friend Reilley who I also had the pleasure of meeting. The two of them are queens of the conceptual. I always learn a lot and enjoy any art I see far better when I get a second look through Nat's eyes.

While in monts we visited many galleries and studios. I got to see Colleen's latest show which included pieces dyed with headbang hair. Need I say more about how awesome Collen's art is? Check out her site for more proof.

While there Nat and I got to accompany Colleen and assist her in some prep painting for Jessica Eaton and fellow artist. We stayed up late and painted cubes in her gorgeous downtown studio of chartreuse brick and wide eyed windows.

Charley Harper

I went to the Van Dusen Gardens today and after a lovely walk around in the brilliant sunshine, spent a few minutes in the gift shop and saw some great stuff by Charley Haper. I liked the geometric shapes he uses in his animals, and also the colour and composition. Check out his stuff on his website.

Inuit Modern

This summer I will be helping to run Ben Davidson's Art gallery in Skidegate.
Needless to say, I am a little nervous. I have a lot to learn.
Just spoke with my good friend Niall McClelland who is turning into a bit of an Art star out Toronto way, and he mentioned a great art show he saw recently at the AGO entitled Inuit modern which juxtaposes the work of Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook who does contemporary pencil crayon drawings of daily life with that of Shary Boyle, who has done work in porcelain, after training for years with dedicated grandmas, and who also paints, draws etc etc etc. Eeenteresting!
Inuit Art seems to be really going places. Check out this site.

Check out this article about the show.

Roy Henry Vickers

I have started doing some research for All About U Arts, and am looking to find examples of other high end art galleries that are owned and operated by the artists themselves. Henry Roy Vickers' gallery in Tofino is a landmark, and his career as an artist and speaker is an inspiration. Check out his website.

Niall is a big deal

My Friend Niall is in the Canadian Art Foundations online art auction. Check his piece out here. Check out his blog here. I just mailed him a box of skulls and bones including a beaer skull with a broken tooth, his request. What a guy, who else gets excited about a package like that?

Thanks Niall for this one

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
- Pablo Picasso

(notice he uses "he" rather than "they".. anyways...)

Abstract Art

"Abstract Art is the communication of what is secret by what is secret."

-Wassily Kandinsky

Brian Nash Gill

Just heard about this artist Brian Nash Gill from some friends. Pretty neat stuff. Makes me want to try out some nature prints!

Robert Bateman rants a good rant!

Just went to "authorfest" at UBC and saw Robert Bateman among others. The interesting thing is, Robert didn't talk about his books, and he didn't even talk that much about his paintings (the nature paintings many love to hate). Mostly he spoke about his experience as a teacher (he taught highschool geography and then art for 20 years) and what his nearly 80 years on this planet have taught him (he looks great for his age BTW, must be all the fresh air). He spoke about how we need to get kids outside interacting with nature and learning to find their sense of place in it. I was so surprised to hear someone I had no particular expectations for saying all the things I have been wanting to hear someone say. Things like "Either we limit economic growth or it will limit us", "we have to save children from nature deficit disorder", with reference to video games he stated "violence should never be fun. It should elicit horror and pity". He called our culture "instant pudding world because it's slick, smooth, sweet, convenient and comes in a variety of artificial flavours...", he quoted Chief Seattle who reportedly said in 1854 that "Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it, Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." He quoted Magaret Mead who said "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." he spoke of Rachel Carson, art history, and the nature school in the Bahamas where his son worked for some time.
In short Robert Bateman is the ranting environmental Grandfather I never had. le sigh.
to watch a video he made about the dangers of oil spills click here.
To check out Robert's "get to know program" click here.
To go staight to the teacher resources he provides on his site, click here.
He's an exceptional painter and an inspirational naturalist and a beacon for me, and I am so glad that my entire cohort, hundreds of future teachers just got an earful of his kind of learning. It's about time.

Gustav Klimt

I can't remember why but Gustav Klimt came up in conversation today and so I thought I would throw something up here about him. He remains one of my favorite artists, but I swear the photographs of his paintings don't do them justice. In real life they are breathtaking. I hope you get a chance to see one one day, and I hope I get a chance to see more of them. He loved to paint women, which is nothing terribly remarkable, but he does it in a way where they usually appear powerful, usually sexually powerful, but there is a sense of intensity even whithout that, as is the case in this portrait of Mada Primavesi.

Artists

think it is time to switch from food to something else...art. I have seen a fair bit of pretty boring art projects in the public school system. There are glimmers of hope out there and I hope that I and my colleagues will help to change that...Here is a starting place. I am going to just start putting up links to some of my favorite artists.
The first is a guy who's name I can almost never remember, but who is an incredible inspiration. I love his colours, I love his eccentricity. Check him out Friedensreich Hundertwasser.