Monday, May 21, 2012

"Wonderfully Made Eve" by artist Peggy Pilapil Lasa & "A Symphony of Seasons" by poet & author Connie Arnold

I have been very fortunate this year to win two giveaways.  

The first is an amazing piece of art by Peggy Pilapil Lasa.  "Wonderfully Made Eve" is full of light.  Eve is so lovely and indeed wonderfully made.  Her face is serene, joyful, and thoughtful all at once.  Also, I am very much a fan of flowers and the Birds of Paradise are beautiful as well.

To see more of Peggy's inspiring art, please visit her blog at http://peggyapl.blogspot.com/.


The second is this wonderful cd of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" from poet and author Connie Arnold.  Connie has written four books of poetry.  The most recent is "A Symphony of Seasons" celebrating music and the cycle of the seasons.  A fitting match between the Vivaldi cd and the poetry!

Here is one of her poems:

Every day there's a song
to be sung,
A song for peace and
an end to strife,
And for the joy and
beauty of life.

We each can have a song
to sing,
A song in winter and also
in spring,
A song for summer and
autumn days,
And for the Creator,
songs of praise.

To see more of her writings, please visit http://conniearnold.blogspot.com/.


I am thankful to both Peggy and Connie for their wonderful gifts, both in what they have given to me, and in the beauty of their works.

I am also inpsired by their generousity and I am linking this with Inspire Me Monday and Magical Monday Meme.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

A Pretty Good Year, a brown bunny rabbit image and some additional ones...


I've been going through old image files looking for images that I've done in the past to add as additional content.  Sadly most of my paintings were photographed at resolutions too low to make them usable as prints.  However, I did come across a number of scanned images from 2003 that I felt met the bill!  This bunny image titled Gentle was one of them.

This week I have this print as well as my Aphrodite/Venus "Ocean Born," a cat "Waiting for You," a Latina fairy "Lace Wings," and a yellow and red tulip titled simply "Tulip" available on eBay here.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: Athena Minerva sculpture by Joseph Nollekens from the J. Paul Getty Museum


This marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena, titled as the Roman goddess Minerva, is by English artist Joseph Nollekens.  I took the photo on one of my visits to the J. Paul Getty Museum.  While I've yet to do a painting inspired by her, I have done a couple of Greek goddess inspired paintings and intend to do some more when I have the opportunity.

To see more Wordless Wednesday links, please visit herehere, and here.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Frida Kahlo's portrait of Dorothy Hale & writer Myra Bairstow's lecture Dreams, Dramas and Revelations...


In conjunction with In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, LACMA offered a lecture by writer Myra Bairstow on Frida's painting El suicidio de Dorothy Hale (The Suicide of Dorothy Hale).

In 1938 actress and art dealer Dorothy Hale plunged sixteen stories to her death from her apartment in Central Park South.  Ruled a suicide, playwright and editor of Vanity Fair Clare Boothe Luce commissioned Frida Kahlo to paint a portrait of Dorothy Hale as a gift for her mother.  



Intrigued by the painting, playwright Myra Bairstow embarked on a ten year journey of research that led her very far from the story told by Clare Boothe Luce to a Frida Kahlo biographer.  Apparently, Clare could not have been in touch with Dorothy's mother as she was long deceased.  Also it seems that Harry Hopkins, advisor to President Roosevelt and ex boyfriend of Dorothy's, seems to have been involved in covering up details after she died.  To learn more about what she found, please visit http://www.dorothyhale.com.

When Clare received the painting she had commissioned of Dorothy, she put it into storage for almost thirty years, eventually donating it anonymously to the Phoenix Art Museum.  She also had her name taken out of the writing Frida had put in the bottom of the painting as well as had painted over an angel that was in the top right corner.





Created in oil on masonite with the frame painted, the painting is not much larger than eleven by fourteen inches, but it is extremely powerful.  I think Frida was very brave and did not flinch from following her artistic vision, even when painting a commission that I think Clare expected to be very different.  This painting is only one of many works at the In Wonderland exhibit that I intend to share, but I felt it merited its own post.

I think Frida is very inspiring, so I am sharing this at Inspire Me Monday.  Oh, in case you're wondering, that last image is of an altar to Dorothy Hale created by one of her family members in a Louis Vitton suitcase and that tiny little form to the left of it is the author Myra Bairstow.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: A yellow daffodil narcissus flower from Descanso Gardens...



It turns out I have less daffodil images than I thought I did, but this one caught my eye.  To see more Wordless Wednesday links, please visit herehere, and here.