20 April 2009

etsy:
“Falling” by Kathy Panton, etsy seller KathyPanton

This is a print of a gouache painting by Kathy Panton entitled “Falling.” The composition acts on three main elements: color, shape, and movement. The color is quite striking. It’s bold, bright, and saturated. The red, magenta, orange, yellow, and green are present in their purest most saturated hues. And these colors pop because they are presented against each other in the context of how they mix as colors. The muddier, duller, earthier tones that occur when saturated colors mix cause contrast. Another form of contrast is shape: the globular dot-like clusters of color that occur on the top half of the picture plane. They are organic and almost cellular. And they morph into a plane of a different and more abstract presentation of color at the bottom half of the composition. This morphing of shape and simultaneous change of color creates movement within the piece. It’s a device that directs the viewer’s eyes from one end of the composition to the other, from top to bottom.
available at:
KathyPanton: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6554486

On a technical note for those of you wondering what the difference between gouache and watercolor is: gouache paint is like watercolor paint but has a chalk substance added to it so that the paint is more opaque as opposed to being transparent.

song:
“Roam” by the B-52s from the album “Cosmic Thing”

artist: Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky 16 December 1866 – 13 December 1944) was a famous 20th Century artist, known primarily for his abstract paintings, he was also a print maker and art theorist. He was born in Moscow, Russia. He studied law and economics at the University of Moscow. He became a professor at University of Dorpat, but had become so fascinated by art that he left for Munich to enroll in Anton Azbe's private painting school. He went on to study at the Munich Acedemy of the Arts. He formed Der Blaue Reiter (translation: The Blue Rider) with Franz Marc and other German expressionists. He is best known for his expressionist works, focusing on color and abstract patterns, and for the theory he postulated in his published book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” about the relationship between music and painting.
artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
wassilykandinsky.net
Kandinsky
Glyphs

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30 March 2009

etsy:
“All Life is An Experiment” by Blenda Tyvoll, etsy seller blendastudio

This piece is a limited edition print of a mixed media painting by Blenda Tyvoll, etsy seller blendastudio. The piece depicts two birds on the plane of a 4 X 5 grid of squares which is presented with collage elements and lettering that reads “all life is an experiement.” Color is one of the primary active visual components of the piece. The viewer’s eye is drawn to the pure cerulean blue and crimson red hues of the birds. The clarity with which those colors are presented contrasts with the overall tone of the background grid of squares, which while is contains many isolated areas of pure color is mostly a combination of beige, gray, and ochre tones. The background, while it has blips of bright color, is duller and more subdued. However, those bright blips of color in the background, many of which are floral patterned elements of collage, act in concert with the color of the bird to keep the composition active, drawing the viewer’s eye throughout the entirety of the piece. Further directing the eye of the viewer is the contrast presented between light and dark color through the use of black outlines or the visual suggestion of black outlines. The selective use of black draws the eye towards certain areas; were every square of the grid or every contour of the birds outlined with the same intensity, then the outline would be less effective in drawing the eye to certain shapes with a certain emphasis. In other words, black outline is presented in the form of intellectual line. Black or dark color is also presented in a limited fashion, which makes it visually emphatic, like the presence of sepia tones at the top and bottom of the piece (more so than in the middle of the composition). The application of emphatic colors is very selective and capricious; it’s intentional or intrinsic without being patterned or clichéd. It also contributes to the emotional tone of the piece, which is capricious and whimsical, but also mature and sublime.
available at:
blendastudio: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5748726

song:
“True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper from the album “True Colors”

artist: Henri Matisse
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French painter known mostly as a Fauvist. He was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. He studied law in Paris, and worked as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis. He became interested in painting while convalescing from a bout with appendicitis. In Paris he studied at the Académie Julian. He painted in a style that emphasized color, line, and two-dimensionality. And exhibited with artists using a similar style; they came to be known as Fauvists through the critique of an art critic, referring to the work of one of their shows as "Donatello au milieu des fauves!" (translation: Donatello among the wild beasts). He is best known for such works as “ The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room)”, oil on canvas 1908, and “The Dance” oil on canvas 1909.
National Gallery of Art
Matisse Museum
artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
artelino
Matisse.net

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23 March, 2009

etsy:
“Rooted” by Jen McCleary, etsy seller JenMcCleary

This is a print of a digital collage by Jen McCleary. Stylistically, it is an abstract landscape. The visual cues of color planes in the work suggest the dichotomy of a ground (the green portion at the bottom) and a sky (the bluish-white portion at the top). Those two primary planes of color juxtaposed with the electrical tower, organic objects, and the suggested visual of sedentary rock or brick further the indication of a landscape. The electrical tower, brick / rock, and organic matter are all things naturally found outside. That the electrical tower and the shape created by the rock / brick are the darkest components of the piece. In that they contrast against the other visual elements and present in such a linear fashion, they work to direct the eye of the viewer to the point of the composition on which they intersect. The organic matter is what exists at that point; where the electrical tower permeates the ground, as though it were a cross-section, and morphs into organic matter which moves through the rock / brick. An apt visual, in that the title of the work is “Rooted.”
available at:
JenMcCleary: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=95241

song:
“The Hissing of Summer Lawns” by Joni Mitchell, from the album “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”

artist: Raoul Hausmann
Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) born in Vienna, Austria, was a founding member of the Berlin Dada movement. He was a poet, painter, photomonteur, pampleteer, and partner to fellow Dada artist Hannah Hoch. He claims to have invented photomontage, and is possibly best known for his ‘poster poems.’ Examples of such being: “ABCD” (collage, 1923-4) and “The Art Critc” ( photomontage, 1919-20)
raoulhausmann.com
artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
dadasoph

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16 March 2009

etsy:
“sprouts” by Caroline Moore, etsy seller sixhours

This piece is a photograph by Caroline Moore, etsy seller sixhours. The photograph is entitled “sprouts.” It’s a visual metaphor, where the title of the piece acts on the visual components to evoke the surreal. The image is of a bowl that is filled with brussel sprouts and doll heads, sitting on a table. That the bowl has an ornate and symmetrical pattern imprinted on it’s soft white surface, and that the table on which it sits is covered with a white lace tablecloth are visual cues. They indicate a setting which is formal to some degree. And that the bowl is filled with brussel sprouts (and doll heads of the same scale) is also indicative of symbolism congruent with the atmosphere of the setting. Furthermore, that the doll heads are representative of a style and a time, through their shape, the style of their hair and accessories, and their blink-eyes. All these visual cues connote a symbolism of time or an era, particularly mid-twentieth century. However, the image is surreal in that it presents an image of a course of a meal juxtaposed with traditionally non-edible items which fit visually on the basis of scale.
available at:
sixhours: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5600674

song:
“Doll Parts” by Hole, from the album “Live Through This.”

artist: Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance Gilliam (born 22 November 1940) is a writer, illustrator, animator, director, filmmaker, and member of Monty Python. He was born in Medicine Lake, Minnesota. He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA, where he majored in political science. He worked briefly as a writer / illustrator for Mad Magazine before emigrating to Britain. He obtained British citizenship in 1968; he held dual American / British citizenship until 1996, when he renounced his American citizenship. In 1969 he joined Monty Python. He directed or co-directed many of their movies. He has directed such notable films as “The Fisher King” (1991), “Twelve Monkeys” (1995), “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.
terrygilliam.com
wikipedia
tideland
imdb
Dreams
pythonline

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9 March 2009

etsy:
“Since I came back” by Jennifer Z. Roszell, etsy seller jzroszell

This piece is a print of an original mixed media painting by Jennifer Z. Roszell. The image acts on a dichotomy of that which is soft and romantic and that which is modern and exact. The modernity is expressed primarily through silhouette forms with different treatments in the same shade. The hummingbird and flowers contrast most from the lightness of the background, acting equally as graphic elements, but the hummingbird is patterned where as the flowers are not. And the pattern of the hummingbird is modern; even as a very truncated and cropped sample it displays a stylized shape of peonies in flat contrasting tones. In contrast the background of the image is a menagerie of pattern elements that are softer and more classical in their image canon and presentation. There is sheet music on paper that is yellow with age, soft muted floral patterns, muted pastel paint treatments, text presented in a typewriter font also on aged paper, a fleur de lis, and a large portion graphically elegant handwriting also presented on aged paper. And these separate pattern elements of the background are presented in different and abstract shapes, portions, and juxtapositions to blend together and contrast from one another. And yet in the larger composition, these elements remain primarily in the background, allowing the bird and flowers (and bubbles) to occupy the foreground.
available at:
jzroszell: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=108075

song:
“Comin' Back Soon (The Bereft Man's Song)” by Crash Test Dummies from the album “The Ghosts That Haunt Me”

artist: Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American artist who painted in a “realist” style. He was born in Nyack, New York. He attended the New York Institute of Art and Design. His paintings are often characterized by their realistic portrayal of contemporary American life. His most famous work is ‘Nighthawks” (oil on canvas, 1942).
artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
National Gallery of Art
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Museum of Fine Art (Boston)

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2 March 2009

etsy:
“Storybook Romance” by Alyson Jones, etsy seller AlysonJonesPrints

This piece is a print of a photo composite by Alyson Jones. The image depicts an open book sitting on a wooden surface, where two characters are liberating themselves from the confines of the pages of the book. It is a visual metaphor. Since the image is a photo-composite, the majority of the detail of the print is literal. The dichotomy of the metaphor is the juxtaposition of that which is photo-realistic and that which is illustrative. The image literally depicts photo-realistic characters removing themselves from an illustration — as the characters leave the two-dimensional plane of the page they transition from a flat illustrative treatment to a literal photo treatment. Once they have left the page, in part or as a whole, a white silhouette of their shape indicates their absence. Another visual indicator of the metaphor is the use of shadow. The illustration from which the characters are leaving depicts no shadows. Where as the portions of the characters that have left the plane of that illustration cast a shadow on it. This works in concert with the fact that the book itself casts a shadow on the surface on which it sits. The overall composition presents a consistent treatment of the depiction of light on form. The use of title “Storybook Romance” provides additional symbolism, in that this is a happy story.
available at:
AlysonJonesPrints: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6851520

song:
“Take On Me” by a-ha from the album “Hunting High and Low”

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artist: Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish (July 25, 1870 – March 30, 1966) is an American artist best known for his illustrations and prints. He was born as Frederick Parrish in Philadelphia, PA. but took on the surname of his paternal grandmother, Maxfield, as his professional name. He attended Haverford College and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He began his career as an illustrator with a commission to illustrate Kenneth Grahame’s The Walls Were as of Jasper in 1897. His works are characterized by their realism, clarity, and technical mastery. His pieces, being illustrative, often combined the fantastical with the tangible. The phrase “Parrish blue” is an homage to the intense cobalt hue that is characteristic in many of his works.

artpassions.net
The Parrish House
Maxfield Parrish Online
artcyclopedia
wikipedia

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23 February 2009

etsy:
“From Me to You” by Shelley Lane Kommers, etsy seller OiseauxNoir

This piece is a print of an original collage by etsy seller Shelley Lane Kommers. The composition depicts a cropped silhouette of a woman with four hearts positioned on the image plane so that they appear to be coming out of her mouth. The overall shape of the image plane is essentially square. However, a thread outline continues outside the boundaries of the square image plane. On the image plane this thread outline is just that — an outline — it follows the shape of the silhouette of the woman. But outside of the image plane this thread outline meanders abstractly; instead of doing something visually typical like completing the outline of the silhouette. The white thread acts differently outside the image plane than it does within the image plane. The silhouette of the woman presents itself as separate from the background by virtue of pattern. The silhouette consists of a shape cut out of an object, particularly a map of central France; where as the background appears to be a piece of paper with mechanical notes altered with paint to contrast the silhouette in terms of lack or obfuscation of pattern. In that the map is visually obvious as a map; it presents a typical pattern of interconnecting lines, geometric and abstract shapes, and words. The map as silhouette is presented sideways (so that the traditional text is vertically oriented instead of horizontally). From a visual standpoint the most dominant lines on the map trisect the entire shape of the silhouette, ultimately intersecting at the cheek of the woman. Also present near their point of intersection is a portion of the map that graphically represents a metropolitan area; this is visually located at the part of the silhouette where the eye would be. This creates a focal point. Also, from a point of color contrast works in collusion with another visual focal point: the four hearts. Where as the lines are red and the metropolitan area is a block of beige, the hearts are orange; as opposed to everything else on the image plane which is essentially white or very light in tone so that it’s almost white. The hearts are visually notable by means of color contrast, shape, and placement. They are juxtaposed to the silhouette so that they appear to be descending from the mouth. In this visual treatment the parts if the image act in concert with the title of the piece: “From Me to You.” As if to indicate that the silhouette representative of a woman is wishing someone by virtue of the visual presentation of symbolic hearts some communication of love.
available at:
OiseauxNoir: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5890086

song:
“From Me to You” by the Beatles, from the album "Past Masters Volume 1"

artist: Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930) is a contemporary American artist known mostly for his paintings and their iconography of flags, targets, letters & numbers. He was born in Georgia, and grew up in Allendale, South Carolina. He attended the Universiy of South Carolina for three semester before leaving for New York and a brief stint at the Parsons School of Design. In New York he met Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he became a friend & contemporary. Having come to prominence during the movement of Abstract Expressionism, he is sometimes referred to as that, he is also known as a Pop Artist or Neo-Dadaist. He is most famous in art history tomes for his painting “Flag” (1954) of an American flag, and for “Painted Broze” (1960), his bronze casting of two Ballantine Ale cans.

artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
MoMA
Matthew Marks Gallery

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16 February 2009

etsy:
“calla lilies & tree swallows” by Sarah Knight, etsy seller sarahkdesigns

This piece is a print of a digital collage. The composition consists of a combination of birds, flowers, trees, and a background which varies in color to suggest the elements of sky and ground. The composition is an abstract landscape. It is a landscape based on the use of it’s canonical images: flowers, trees, ground, sky. However, it is abstract in it’s presentation. It is a collage, and it’s trees are not of the same media and therefore visual presentation as either the birds, the flowers, or the sky and ground. The separate parts retain their separate identities as things and as parts created in a medium. And yet the image is cohesive. The image also has an active composition based on the juxtaposition of its separate parts. The composition of the image is primarily dictated by the trees, they are the visual element that contrasts dominantly against everything else in the image in terms of color contrast and in terms of linear structure. But they are not rendered to create a single focal point; nor are they juxtaposed with any of the other visual elements for the creation of a single focal point. They meander throughout the composition, and therefore create activity throughout the composition. Where as the birds are all present in the top half of the image and the flowers are all present in the bottom half of the image; this dictates a traditional landscape totem. In both cases, the tree swallows and calla lilies are present horizontally across the entire plane of the image; in other words they are active across the entire scope of the composition. The plane of varying colors that represents the background also varies in a from top to bottom. The color differentiates between reds and purples, to a light pink which blends into a sage green; lending the impression of a dawn or dusk sky over a green ground. This vertical compositional technique works in concert with the birds and flowers, from a point of color contrast and variance in shade: the top half of the picture is darker and more saturated in color than the bottom half of the picture.
available at:
sarahkdesigns: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5531130

song:
“It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)” by the Rolling Stones from the album It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

artist: Hannah Höch
Johanne Höch (November 1, 1889 – May 31, 1978) was a German artist, best known as a Dadaist for her works of collage. She studied at the College of Arts and Crafts in Berlin. For a brief period she worked for Ullstein Verlang. She joined the Berlin Dada movement in 1919 through her relationship with Rauol Hausmann. Höch was known to be bisexual and a feminist, the latter of which was often expressed in her photo collages, for which she is best known. But as a Dadaist she was not simply a feminist, she was an iconoclast opposed to propaganda of all scales; from Nazism to advertising campaigns targeted at women. She is probably best known for her work “Cut With the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany.”

artcyclopedia
Art and Culture
wikipedia
Photomontages

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9 February 2009

etsy:
“A New Meditation” from etsy seller blamethemoon

This piece is a print. The iconography of the image itself is an homage or an allusion to the famous Salvador Dali painting “Meditative Rose,” oil on canvas, 1958. Dali’s painting depicts a landscape with a detailed, but very much truncated by proportion, of desert-like land (typical in many of his paintings), where proportionally most of the canvas depicts sky. In the middle of Dali’s canvas is a red rose blossom; which is floating by virtue of it’s position in relation to the landscape. blamethemoon’s “A New Mediation” repeats the elements and color themes of Dali’s paining, through the landscape and red rose. It deviates from Dali’s piece in that (and mind you, my source material is a jpeg image online) this is a print of either an actual physical collage or a digital collage. So, where Dali’s piece is a painting, blamethemoon’s piece is a combination of photographs and other elements. blamethemoon’s work also differs in subject matter; in other words, it isn’t just a translation of the Dali piece by means of different media. blamethemoons piece trades the stereotypical Dali desert ground for a combination of simulated desert juxtaposed with the Cleveland skyline, as an homage to her hometown (as Dali’s desert was an homage to the geography of his childhood). Also differing in blamethemoon’s piece is the proportional ratio of ground to sky. Dali’s piece is proportionally dominated by sky, blamethemoon’s piece has a larger field of ground, and therefore less sky. blamethemoon’s work also depicts the silhouette forms of two people in the foreground. In addition to the specificity of the location, this deviation creates additional symbolism to the piece, which is differential on whether the viewer sees the two figures as walking toward or away from the skyline. Overall, blamethemoon’s piece is aesthetically pleasing: in so much that as a process, the collage elements act on the graphic plane in concert, and act consistently in their level of detail. In other words, all the elements of the image depict a consistent form (photo-realism) as opposed to one element presenting a different image quality. The image itself has immediate points of reference to the painting it serves to interpret, but the image stands on its own in terms of composition; you don’t need to be entirely aware of the original work it borrows from to derive intrigue.

available at:
blamethemoon: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6287639

song:
“Peaches En Regalia” by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention from the album “Hot Rats”
listen

artist:
Salvador Dali

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenech (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989) was a Catalan artist best known as a Surrealist, and thus for his surrealist paintings. Dali was born in Figueres, Spain. He studied at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. He had his first one man show in Barcelona in 1925. As an artist he flirted with the styles of Cubism and Futurism before he became affiliated with Surrealism, of which he would ultimately be a dominant force and progenitor. In 1929 he met Gala Eluard, who became his muse, lover, business manager, and ultimately his wife in 1934. As a surrealist painter, Dali’s compositions were determined through his self-invented “Paranoiac-critical method.” Dali defined this as the “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena.” Dali’s work is best known by it canonical images: blue sky, desert landscape, melting watches, distended limbs, religious iconography, ants, and the dead olive tree. Perhaps his most well known work “The Persistence of Memory” was painted in 1931. Dali was known, not just as a painter, but as a flamboyant character perhaps just as visual as his paintings with elaborate outfits and his waxed moustache. Dali also created works as in sculpture, film, and photography.

Virtual Dali
Salvador Dali Museum
Salvador Dali Gallery
artcyclopedia
artchive
Wikipedia

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2 February 2009

etsy:
“Dream Big II” from etsy seller valentinadesign

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16442745

This piece is very geometric, with minimal anti-geometric elements for contrast. All illustrative properties are very stylized in that they are geometric: round, linear, shape-oriented. The foliage of the tree is represented by layers circles superimposed for an op effect based on symmetry and color scheme. The trunk and branches of the tree are also stylized in a simple geometric fashion, as are the birds, which repeat the op art circle pattern. In contrast to the geometric and op art placement and color aspects are the portions of the image rendered as black line. As outline, the black line is uneven if not somewhat selectively gloppy. As text, the black line is emphatic, uneven, and scribbled. The overall contrast of the two dominant design techniques melds together for an image that is modern but retro, and playfully sincere.

available at:
valentinadesign: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=41524

song:
“These Dreams” by Heart, from the album "Heart"
lyrics
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artist: Joan Miro

Joan Miró i Ferrà (April 20 , 1893 – December 25, 1983) was a Catalan artist best known for his paintings. His works are characterized by strong use of color, abstract geometric forms, and a surrealist bent. Miro, however, was never an official member of the Surrealist movement. He had an artist’s mind and a need to be free to explore whatever artistic endeavors and directions he desired. In other words, he was a classic iconoclast, known for his comment regarding the “assassination of painting” and his use of automatic drawing as a an expression of the subconscious. He rebelled against the idea of painting as a status symbol to promote a decorative or social aesthetic and was profoundly interested in the expression of painting as being a pure form of expression.

artcyclopedia
artchive
wikipedia
MOMA

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26 January 2009

etsy:
“Beached” by Andrea Robin (etsy seller moonindigo)

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19712813

This is a giclee print of a mixed media collage. The composition presents the image of a fish bowl, complete with rocks, foliage, and the stereotypical prop castle, a woman in a bathing suit, seated cross-legged, in a bathing suit and cap, and a goldfish. The fishbowl and seated woman are placed at the bottom of the composition to suggest that it is the ground, in that both objects project shadows (albeit in different directions). The background of the piece is very abstract in composition, it is mostly a muted ecru with a slightly greenish tinge, although is contains scrapes of very subtle pink, blue, and yellow, as well as linear treatments of blue, which occur at such a point in the composition that they appear to suggest the representation of a horizon created by a body of water. Much of the image is based on the suggestion created by the direct significance of the representational images in contrast to abstract elements. This ultimately is surreal, in that the goldfish in the image is placed in the upper right-hand corner of the composition, contrasting the preexisting suggestion of beach, water, and sky, in that it’s position would indicate that it is in the sky. So, the image connotes concepts of home as a small place versus the world as a home as a large place, the idea that the fish in a bowl is apart from the fish in the geographical body of water. It connotes concepts of the woman as an owner, or companion, or liberator, and potentially connotes the concept of freedom as abstract between the graphic elements and the title.

available at: moonindigo:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=66773

song:
“Southern Cross” by Crosby, Stills, & Nash, from the album “Daylight Again”

artist:
Man Ray

Emmanuel Radnitzky (August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976), was an American artist best known for his avant-garde photography and photograms which he termed “rayographs”, who contributed to both the Dada and Surrealist movements.

Man Ray Trust
Artcyclopedia
Artchive
Wikipedia

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Introduction to the Plasticity of Happiness

Plasticity is defined as: the quality or state of being plastic; esp : capacity for being molded or altered. With plastic being defined as: formative, creative.

Happiness is defined as: a state of well-being and contentment.

This blog will be a demonstration of the plasticity of happiness. A place where I can wax ecstatic about the things in this world that delight and entertain me; and hopefully you too.

Each week a new entry will be posted. Each entry will highlight fours points of interest:
a work of art on etsy
a song
a famous artist
and
a surprise

I hope you come back for the experience, and I hope you experience some serendipity. And may your happiness be plastic.