Annie Louisa Robinson Swynnerton (1844 – 1933) was an English painter of allegorical, figure and portrait paintings. She studied at Manchester School of Art, Académie Julian, and in Rome. Swynnerton was influenced by George Frederic Watts and Edward Burne-Jones. John Singer Sargent appreciated her work and helped her to become the first elected woman member at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1922. Swynnerton painted portraits of Henry James and Millicent Fawcett. Her works are in collections in the England, Scotland, and abroad. She was married to sculptor Joseph Swynnerton. They lived together in Rome. Swynnerton was a feminist and suffragette. Her middle name is sometimes spelled Louise and her surname is also spelled Swinnerton.

Disfarmer

 Mike Meyers "Disfarmer" (1884-1959) was an eccentric photographer from Heber Springs, Arkansas who during the depression era needed a way to make money. The average cotton farmer made about $.75 a day for ten hours of work, yet on a Saturday they would come in to town & plunk down $.25 cents for a portrait with family, friends or even a glamour shot to send off to a boyfriend in the war. Children were terrified of him & the look of surprise on most of their faces was a reaction to Disfarmer who during the lengthy sitting period would suddenly ring a bell. They may have become alert during the lengthy sitting process, but also reacted with shock. Folks kept coming however to mark an occasion & he would make more in one day then they could hope to make in a few weeks or even months.

'Disfarmer's died in 1959 & a local named Joe Albright bought the Disfarmer studio from estate executors. As he & his sons picked through the abandoned studio, they found thousands of dollars hidden away in film plate boxes. The true bonanza was the discovery of more than 3,000 glass plate negatives. In 1974, professional photographer Peter Miller & his wife moved to Heber Springs to publish a weekly newspaper, The Arkansas Sun. When The Sun ran a main page feature called, "Some Day My Prints Will Come," featuring old family photographs submitted by readers, Albright submitted some of Disfarmer's work. Miller purchased the collection of negatives from Albright & forwarded copies to Julia Scully, editor of 'Modern Photography' magazine. Scully recognized the unique qualities of the photographs & since then has worked to bring Disfarmer's portraits into public view.'

The rising value of the prints caused profound changes to the Heber Springs Community when a 'scavenger hunt' ensued. Everyone began digging through old family photos trying to find a 'Disfarmer', & when they did, a print was made & the original handed back with $500, $1000, or more for each print! Of course some wouldn't part with them, but the rest started to have some extra money for business & pleasure. A recent Documentary named Disfarmer, tells the story of the man, the town & how lives changed. Fascinating.  http://www.disfarmer.com/

Vivien Maier : The Elusive Nanny/Photographer

'

A new documentary on the late Vivian Maier, (1926-2009) is about an eccentric nanny who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers & discovered decades later. She is now known as one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers.

Vivian never should have been a nanny, but during the time she was living, a single woman needed to make a living. Her photographs were urgent, raw, sad, gruesome, engaging, humorous & humorless. Above all they was REAL.

Vivian was tall, wounded, militant & explosive. Not the ideal nanny, as her charges would reveal towards the end of this documentary. In fact she was a woman wound up like a top, ( it was suspected she suffered sexual trauma as a child.) Perhaps this was why her photography felt like more of an obsession then a hobby & why she horded unprocessed film in canisters like the stacks of unread newspapers that warped the floor in her bedroom.

Did she mean for her storage unit to be invaded & bought by the man who made her famous? Probably not. The beauty of her work is still a sight to behold & the emotional content jarring.


"Vivian Maier, proud native of France and Chicago resident for the last 50 years died peacefully on Monday. Second mother to John, Lane and Matthew. A free and kindred spirit who magically touched the lives of all who knew her. Always ready to give her advice, opinion or a helping hand." The Chicago Tribune.

Kamil Vojnar

Kamil Vojnar was born in Moravia, Czechoslovakia, in 1962 in the middle of the Cold War. He studied at the School of Graphic Arts in Prague. After he completed his military service as a tank commander he immigrated to the United States. He finished his education at the Art Institute of Philadelphia and the Art Students League in New York.

His work consists of images digitally layered from many different photographs and textures. They are mixed-media archival prints on fine art paper or mounted on canvas. Some of his images are layered pictures printed on semitransparent Thai paper. These unique photomontages are then varnished with oil and wax, and on occasion painted with oil paints. Kamil, as a painter, points out, “In a painting, you can paint anything you want. In the photographic [medium], it must, on some level, exist first. That tension between what exists and what is made up is what interests me.” Thus, his images are often subject to very different interpretations

Georgia O'Keefe; The 44.4 Million Bargain

A Georgia O'Keeffe painting has sold for $44.4 million, more than triple the previous auction record for a work by a female artist.

Sotheby's New York sold the 1932 painting, "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1," during the auction house's sale of American art. Sold by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to benefit its acquisitions fund to undisclosed buyer. Previous Auction record by a female artist was $11.9 million for Joan Mitchell's.

For context, the current record for the most expensive work by a male artist, and the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, is $142.4 million for Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), sold at Christie’s in 2013.

XCaret, Mexico

Now that's a cemetery! Completely unique, artistic, carefully thought out, beautiful, bright & magical. Sort of the Disneyland of cemeteries!

What Makes A Painting Worth 273M?

Sold at 273M, 'The Card Players' By Cezanne is the most expensive painting in the world. I have NO idea why. : /

For almost half the price at 157M, is 'Portrait of Adele' by Klimt. Now THAT'S a painting!

BBC Fake or Fortune?

'Fisherman Tony couldn't believe his luck when he stumbled upon a pile of pictures apparently dumped by a trash heap next to a favorite riverside fishing spot. Tony, accompanied by his daughter, visited an Antiques Roadshow, where he is told by Philip Mould that one of his pictures is worth £30,000. It's an unknown work by one of America's most important 19th century artists, Winslow Homer. How did it end up being dumped & who legally owns the picture?

Philip Mould & Fiona Bruce investigate & the story takes a series of unexpected turns; in the Bahamas they discover when & why the painting was made & who the mysterious sitters were, descendants of a family, Blake, who live not far from the river. In New York Sotherby's, the picture is valued closer to $250,000. Within minutes of the auction beginning, the painting is pulled & turns everything upside down when a Blake arrives & claims the picture. He offers a quarter of the value to the daughter of Tony, who resists. The ownership now is STILL in question. A fascinating video, along with several other investigations. I watch episodes on YouTube.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mxxz6

Georgia; Young Old & Faraway

Hand Painted 3D Collage Assemblage With B & W Photos, Flower Die Cuts from Georgia Paintings & Shells on Contrasting Electric Blue, Black and White Shadow Box. Lovely. 9" x 11" x 1.5"

Known as a loner, O'Keeffe explored the land she loved often in her Ford Model A, which she purchased and learned to drive in 1929. She often talked about her fondness for Ghost Ranch and Northern New Mexico, as in 1943, when she explained: "Such a beautiful, untouched lonely feeling place, such a fine part of what I call the 'Faraway'. It is a place I have painted before ... even now I must do it again."

https://www.etsy.com/listing/73999270/georgia-okeefe-young-old-and-faraway?ref=pr_shop

The Matisse Chapel

One of the ways I relax late at night, (such a night owl!), is to watch movies & lately I've been very drawn to art themes. Netflix is a great place to seek out titles I might not find otherwise. I came across ,"A Model for Matisse" & wanted to share it;

"This charming documentary explores the friendship between artist Henri Matisse and the woman who inspired him to create some of his best-loved works, Dominican nun Sister Jacques-Marie. The 83-year-old nun discusses her days as a model and muse for Matisse, including her role in what he considered his life's masterpiece: the paintings and stained-glass windows of the Chapel of the Rosary in the French Mediterranean village of Vence."

The Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence (Chapel of the Rosary), often referred to as the Matisse Chapel is a small chapel built for Dominican sisters that was built and decorated between 1949 and 1951. It houses a number of Matisse originals and was regarded by Matisse himself as his "masterpiece". Many regard it as one of the great religious structures of the 20th century.
 https://www.nationalfilmnetwork.com/store/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=526

Orchestra of Exiles

“The true artist does not create art as an end in itself; he creates art for human beings. Humanity is the goal.”

The bravery/rescue stories of World War II of the hell on earth Jews & many other unprotected groups faced, has been fairly well documented. Several historical documentaries & films have recorded the fall & rise of those persecuted, including gems like, 'No Place on Earth', 'The Lady in Number 6', 'The Reader', 'A Beautiful Life' & 'The Rape of Europa'.

Lately, with the D-Day Anniversary & having had parents in the Royal Air Force in England, I've
been taking a closer look at those events in history that prior to now literally caused me to throw up. I still cannot 'stomach' the more graphic photos of liberation, but there has been a deeper rumbling that didn't breach the surface until I watched 'Orchestra of Exiles'. It documents the life of the great Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman, who saved around a thousand Jews from the Holocaust by bringing many of Europe's leading musicians & their families to safety by forming the Palestine Philharmonic.

What has come to 'life' for me is this. THE ARTS in all it's varied forms, albeit written, musical, painted, danced, baked or privately remembered, in most ways have SURVIVED. Whole families may have been wiped out without heirs, or gays & gypsies annihilated, but the ART itself was & remains indestructible. Bombed, hidden, burned, debased or murdered, the deep memories & stories would not be driven out of our collective consciousness & that to me is a hopeful thing.

(I'll note here a story I read about in the newspaper over thirty years ago. A man was standing in a line in the room before his death. He had been shaven & numbered like a piece of garbage & was about to be thrown away. In the corner of this room he saw a broom & as he moved closer to the next door, he quietly stepped a few paces out of line & grasped the broom. Very slowly & methodically, he began sweeping up, until eventually he swept himself back out the door he had come in. Somehow he survived the camp & the liberation & was now living in New York with quite the tale to tell his grandchildren.)

The Use of Infrared Imagery Technology: An Ethical Question

I've already commented on 'Tim's Veneer' & the slight creepiness I felt about the process of trying to recreate a masterpiece, no matter what 'assistive technology' Vemeer may have chosen to use during his career. What WAS created were nearly photographic images that jumped from the canvas & added to the thrill of viewing his works. Did he 'cheat' somehow? Or was he just way ahead of his time?

It seems that more & more often we're being confronted with trying to 'prove' if a Michelangelo or a DaVinci are the 'real' things by measuring noses or digging up (Mona) Lisa's bones to assess her facial structure. The mystery or intrigue of an art piece is half the fun of viewing it, for me anyway.

So, now we have...."It's a mystery that is fueling new research about the 1901 painting created early in Picasso's career while he was working in Paris at the start of his distinctive blue period of melancholy subjects. Curators & conservators revealed their findings for the first time last week. Over the past five years, experts from the Phillips Collection, National Gallery of Art, Cornell University and Delaware's Winterthur Museum have developed a clearer image of the mystery picture under the surface. It is a portrait of an unknown man painted in a vertical composition by one of the 20th century's great artists."

Really? Experts have spent five years on this? Perhaps there was a simple reason why the painting was painted over. I would assume it was because Picasso found something newer to express, while never imagining that over a hundred years later someone would be checking out a portrait under a painting that wasn't worth enough to the artist to save, or at the very least, didn't intend for others to see. I'm an artist & I have abandoned, torn down or reused parts of assemblages because they didn't feel right to me, didn't quite represent what I was trying to get across, or were experiments & not meant to be finished. Maybe Picasso thought it was a crappy painting or it wasn't relative anymore. Or maybe he just painted over it.

So the question for me here is, is Infrared Imagery when used in this way, ethical or a possible infringement on privacy or perhaps even copyright? Do artists give up their rights upon death, or otherwise, for others to utilize newly created technologies for public consumption? Let's say I have a number of assemblages in my studio, some that have been shown in galleries because I wished for them to viewed, while others are sitting in the dust, waiting to be thrown out or remade. Should I have the right to decide whether or not the discarded are dragged out, scrutinized, or for that matter, sold because they are just sitting there collecting dust?

I doubt myself or my family will ever have to grapple with this dilemma, but there is something here that is leaving a bit of 'bad taste.'

NOT Your Grandmother's Origami

SHAKTI

Archangel Michael 

"For the exhibition Surface to Structure: Folded Forms, which will take place at New York's Cooper Union from June 19 to July 4, Nguyen has gathered more than 130 works from 88 artists around the world. Collectively the works demonstrate how origami artists are pushing the boundaries of technique and style. But today artists have moved beyond that, with many using software that helps them dream up and then fold their elaborate works."

Fabulous Ghana Coffins

 

 

"Kane Kwei’s grandmother died. She had never taken a plane, but often expressed her fascination for this revolutionary means of transport and was wishing, one day, to be able to do so.

Kane Kwei remembers then the coffin which had provoked the enthusiasm of crowds some months before. To honor his grand mother by giving her what she had not been able to accomplish of his living being, he constructs her a coffin in the form of a plane."

"The figurative palanquin connected with the totem of its owner is a special kind of litter used in the Greater Accra Region in Ghana. These palanquins called in the Ga language, okadi akpakai, belong to the royal insignias & were used only by the Ga kings or mantsemei and their sub-chiefs when they are carried in public at durburs and festivals like Homowo. With these figurative palanquins the Ga create ethnic differences between themselves and their Akan neighbors that only use simple boat or chair-shaped litters."

Tim's Vemeer

I was distracted by a recent disturbing event when I saw this movie, so in order to do it true justice, I may need to see it again. I don't think so though. My brain doesn't work this way. I felt like Jenison was being very right brained about the whole process & found myself becoming irritated by his attempt to paint the way the 17th century Flemish master Vermeer did by using the 'camera obscura' technique. Maybe if his finished product in any way conveyed the same response as a Veneer, I would have been a bit more bowled over.

When I look at 'Girl With the Pearl Earring', or any other work of art for that matter, I think about my emotional response & what the participants may have been thinking in a moment in time. The painting was created 300 years ago. Folks have had a lot of time to surmise who the girl was or how he painted her. Here's just a few of the comments made about the painting:

"The image is a tronie, the Dutch 17th-century description of a ‘head’ that was not meant to be a portrait. After the most recent restoration of the painting in 1994, the subtle color scheme and the intimacy of the girl’s gaze toward the viewer have been greatly enhanced."

"Each generation perceives and describes the impressions gained from Vermeer’s works based on the intellectual baggage and the reception they master..... His (Vermeer's) low output was rather caused by the need for a long mental process before he was satisfied with the image. He needed a long period of maturing his works in order to reach an acceptance of having reached the final and aesthetically pleasant accomplishment. As many authors in the past have observed, Vermeer in many paintings deleted earlier rendered elements from his interiors. In lectures, I have shown digital reconstructions of how crammed some of his paintings may have been at earlier stages in their making." Jørgen Wadum  (Head of 'Girl With Pearl Earring' Restoration project)

I Should Be So Lucky: Leslie Laskey

http://leslielaskeyfilm.com/

 

See that piece of metal in his hands that he pulled out of a burnt fire? It's an object that this 80+ man finds excitement in & transforms onto paper. Painter, Mixed Media, Printing, Collage Artist..... his living space a wonder of found & alive objects...... he's in heaven. So am I.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How To Paint A Queen Documentary by Alaister Sooke

Alastair Sooke is my new favorite Art Critic, Broadcaster & Television Program Creator on Art & Art History for BBC television & radio. He is knowledgable, personable & passionate about the ART world. He doesn't dumb down the material, but does make it accessible & entertaining. I've watched three of his documentaries for the BBC so far on the Treasures of Ancient Egypt, The Ten Most Expensive Paintings in the World & the following called, "How to Paint a Queen." 

"There are more images of Elizabeth II than any other historical figure, but how to paint a queen is one of the trickiest of artistic challenges. Alastair Sooke looks at the depiction of Britain's female rulers, from Mary Tudor & Elizabeth I to Queen Victoria & the current monarch, Elizabeth, & discovers how queenly portraits reveal Britain's changing ideas about women & power."

A Cautionary Tale: The Big Sleep

I had a hyperactive one year old & I couldn't sleep. I was yet to find out the complicated truth about the little cherub of mine, but in the meantime I could not sleep to save myself. You know the drill; days upon days of interrupted sleep & not sleeping while they take a nap because it's the only damn time you have five minutes to yourself to do eight billion things before getting back in the mom saddle. I was a 42 year old first time, sleep deprived mom & it was time for some big guns. I had been on a low dose anti-depressant for years which kept my head above water, but anyone knows you only need to go a few days without proper sleep to end up in loony tunes land. Somehow new mothers are able to be comatose & take care of their kids, but because Gabe already had undiagnosed mania & I was old : >, this didn't work for me. I needed some help to sleep. So, after a quick call to a psychiatrist, I was introduced to a prescription drug called Seroquel & entered, for the next 12 years, THE BIG SLEEP. Thus, this cautionary tale.
(to be continued at http://disupo-swimmingthroughmud.blogspot.com/ )

Happy New Year... REALLY!

Turkey; "Standing on Head, Doing the Splits"

I have a lot to be grateful for this New Years Eve. Even though there is a truck size poop still clogging our toilet & my boy continues to eat jars of peanut butter & whatever else he can get his hands on, he is a marvelous gift; teaching me everyday about patience, compassion, humor & JOY. He just turned 14 & spent his very first nights away from home this past summer at Kiwana's Camp.

At our family Boxing Day celebration a week ago, most commented on how much he has grown & matured this past year. He asked my niece Ellie, "How are you liking college?" I discovered them having a REAL conversation in about this & that & it made my heart soar.

We're also buying a new house through Habitat for Humanity by the grace of volunteers who are willing to help put a roof over the heads. I'm learning, at age 55, how to build a house from the bottom up.

Our boy was in serious trouble this past summer, hospitalized with a sinus infection that almost reached his brain. My dear friend, a writer, just came through chemo which left her fingertips wracked with painful neuropathy as she attempted to type & her life is forever changed. She wore a blond wig over bald head & a slinky gown over missing breast & toasted those at a party for those who helped her through on Solstice Eve.

We're alive. Life is good. Happy New Year! xo

My Blogging Lag & St. Paul's Church Tiffany Interiors

I've missed blogging here, but I the good news is that due to putting in hours to move into a new Habitat house soon & a busy holiday season selling on Etsy, I haven't had the time! One way I am earning 'sweat equity' hours is through managing our local Habitat for Humanity Etsy shop, so check it out here!

https://www.etsy.com/people/Habitatstoreejc?ref=si_pr

I was just looking at photos of stained glass on Etsy & came across some from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Troy, New York. I thought they looked like some Tiffany windows I had seen & sure enough when I looked them up on Wiki I found out the following:

"St Paul's is unusual because all aspects of the interior design are based on a concept by the Tiffany Company: chandeliers, glass mosaics, tile work, a glass jeweled altar rail, a baptistery of wood & plaster filigree, decorative stenciling of the ceiling, walls & organ pipes, pews & support members & stunning windows by Tiffany artisan J.A. Holzer - indeed, nearly all the interior elements. As such it is a fully integrated interior design; only four such churches done by the Tiffany Company have survived intact & St. Paul’s is arguably the finest expression of this concept."