Art Detectives

  Today we shared a lighthearted day of artwork starting with the Mushroom House in Perinton, New York. Created by a group of designers (as one of our gang discovered!), this fantastically mushroom-shaped home was first started by architect James H. Johnson. He patterned the house after a stem of Queen Anne's Lace, which is not a mushroom but has stalks under the helm similar to some mushrooms. The rich mahogany wood shelving, tables, the mosaic walls, fireplace & accents make this a visual treat! You can rent this weird wonderful spot. ONLY $5,500 a month -- one of our own reported! Practically FREE!  After Svetlana Petrova suffered a loss in her family, she turned sorrow into silliness and became an art sensation. She wove her cat Zarathustra into great classical & modern works culminating in calendars, mugs, t-shirts, and (to my personal astonishment) a museum exhibition at the Barn at Stonehill in Oxfordshire. Over 75,000 people attended! People clearly NEED a little wh

  Two more Bernie art-pieces from our members: Michelangelo's God & Mittens and the potentially terrifying Bernie-pillar! (We named these in case you go searching! Hah!)  We continued looking at whacky architecture. Today was actually a GIFT as Greg scrapped his whole shebang for the ones sent in by our wonderful members!!!   Korean-born artist & architect Do Ho Suh's  Fallen Star , a house that looks like it did indeed fall from the sky & land precariously on a building in San Diego mesmerized us! The friend who shared this with us has even toured the delicately poised building on top! Eeeeek! One of our group drove into the street where the wonderfully-designed   Hobbit House  in Culver City! What a surprise for her & a friend as this gem is just off a major thoroughfare in the heart of L.A. Built by Joseph Lawrence from over a period of 20 years from 1946 - 1970; it was declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1996 and is the first of many fantastical fairy-t

  Today we looked at crazy houses as art! First up -- a Seashell House in Isla Mujeres, Mexico made us all want to build a poolside guest house! Or just move in! There are lots of nautical detail to this house. The conical shell shape makes a striking visual. It was also our Top of the Day! We visited the Reverse House in Malaysia then a bunch of upside down houses all over the world. Who on earth would live there, many of us queried! Balance issues be danged!  One of our sleuths found a bunch of interiors of these houses after some of our group inquired about interiors. Lots to look at ... quite a few upside down rooms with owners, visitors or renters appearing to dance along the ceilings! We followed that with a beautiful Japanese Tea House high in a tree overlooking exquisite Cherry Blossoms. The link provided shows a lot more of the interior. It looks quite roomy and you can see the table and tea prep area. We'd add an elevator!  House on the Flight of Birds on St. Michael Isla

  What a JOY to be back! Thank you to the wonderful Jerry for hosting our shows while Greg was ill! And to Beth for her input & help with selections! We continued Jerry's  Bernie in Fine Art  selections today with more Bernie Memes.  Using the Google Art "Pop Up!" we saw Gino Severini's modernist  North-South  from 1913. This vision of the Pigalle Train Station in Paris gave us lots of bold angles & shapes and lead to a great deal of interpretation. Some saw an underground scene, others a combo of street & subway. Great artist to discover!  Ernest Lawson's  Upper Harlem River  delighted with the bucolic view of the East Harlem River in 1915. This wonderful artist was a student of John Henry Twachtman as one of our group unearthed! Lawson's mentor is a favorite landscape artist of our gaggle, and this piece is a real treat. Many of us felt comforted by the soft pastels, delicate shapes & faded city (perhaps) or background across the river. Imagi

  Bernie Memes everywhere!  Everyone is putting Bernie sitting in his coat and gloves in everything they can think of, including artwork.  We started the day with Bernie in famous artworks.  You can find them in the list below. Top of the show was Abschied der Auswanderer by Christian Ludwig Bokelmann.  The title translates to farewell to the emigrants and depicts a group of people saying goodbye as they leave Germany for the new world. We had several other great paintings including a woodblock print of Kabuki actors and a look at Place Louis XV in 1775-1787.  We ended with a William Gollings painting of horses in the old west. Bernie 1 -- link -- Bernie 2 -- link -- Bernie 3 -- link -- Bernie 4 -- link -- Bernie 5 -- link -- Bernie 6 -- link -- Bernie 7 -- link -- Bernie 8 -- link -- Bernie 9 -- link -- Abschied der Auswanderer, Christian Ludwig Bokelmann -- link -- The Actors as Kumasaka Chohan and Ushiwakamaru, Artist: Odake Kunikazumid

  Today's Top of the Show was The railway station, Redfern by Arthur Streeton.  It is a very peaceful early street scene from Australia.   Today brought us a diversity in our random selections.  We started with Arthur Boyd's Nebuchadnezzar on fire falling over a waterfall.  While the subject is a bit apocalyptic the bright colors were very appealing.  The next piece of art, Festivals of the Twelve Months by Miyagawa Chōshun.  It very much looks like a woodblock print but looking up the artist after the show I discovered that he is one of the few few ukiyo-e artists to have never created woodblock prints.  We also had a great painting by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe called Love’s Young Dream.  It shows a young woman anticipating someone arriving on horseback while she waits on the porch with her parents. As my web bonus I demonstrated the online game Geogussr .  The game used to be completely free but now only allows you to play one game a day for free.  A game consists of 5 locat

  Top of the Day was Ploughing by Fortunato Depero.  Our random selection brought us this example of a style we had never heard of: Futurism. From the Google arts and culture page on Futurism: The new ideology of Futurism set itself with violent enthusiasm against the weighty inheritance of an art tied to the Italian cultural tradition and exalted the idea of an aesthetic generated by the modern myth of the machine and of speed. The god of randomness also brought us a great mural of and eagle and wave and a great seascape of a ship in a storm off of  Gloucester, Massachusetts.  We saw paintings from around the world. One was of dugout canoes leaving on a river expedition by a Brazilian artist and another of landscape in Brittany France. The final picture of the day was by Sliman Mansour, a Palestinian painter.  It contained a lot of symbolism that was different than we were used to.  The olive tree covered in barbed wire was something we couldn't quite understand but probably repr

  Today was completely random art.  I used googles' Art and Culture browser extension to pick random art for us to view.  The top of the show was the beautiful garden shown above: The Flowered Terrace by Henri-Edmond Cross. Another piece was simply titled July 2006 by Marwan Kassab-Bachi.  This abstract art was displayed with the red part on the right side.  We all clearly saw a face when you tilted your head to the left.  I included this image below rotated and the face clearly appears. We also saw an etching by Whistler, A very nice woodblock print, and a sleigh race by an unknown American painter.  You can check all of them out at the links below. The final piece was another abstract piece by David Diao called Glissement.  Katja found the following Wiki article that appears to be the basis for this piece. The blog bonus for today is the browser extension that we used to select our art.  It is by Google Arts and Culture.  With this extension, when you open a new tab it puts a ra

  Today I decided to try something different.  All of todays paintings were done by a famous person not known for their painting.  The above image is called Midnight Caller and was done by Bob Dylan. While not all of the art was "museum quality" it was fun to get a different look into the artists personalities.   Vera did some detective work and came up with the following links to check out on this topic:  jonimitchell.com/paintings/    www.stalloneart.com/   Jim Carry    jerrysartarama.com/ And finally a correction, as Beth pointed out today the artwork I attributed to Prince Charles was actually a painting done for him by someone else.  The painting in the link below is one that Prince Charles actually did. Prince Charles, Abandoned crofts on Stroma -- 2016 -- link -- Anthony Hopkins -- link -- Bob Dylan -- link -- Lucy Liu -- link -- Johnny Depp, Painting of Kieth Richards -- link -- Jim Carrey -- link -- David Bowie, Self Portrait -- link -- M

  In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. day our theme was African American artists.  Top of the day was our first painting, Haitian Camion by Ellis Wilson.  It is a very colorful scene that is taking place around a brightly painted bus.  Ellis Wilson was associated with the Harlem Renaissance. The Young Sabot Maker by Henry Ossawa Tanner was up next.  This painting depicts a young apprentice working with what is probably his father making wooden shoes in Brittany France.  Everyone loved the depiction of the young man working hard to learn his craft.  Like many artists Tanner spent much of his career in France.  For the African American artists this allowed them to escape the racial prejudice of their homeland as well. We changed gears next with Edmona Lewis's marble sculpture of Hagar.  Edmona was a female sculptor. And our last image was of a painted story quilt, Le Cafe des Artistes by Faith Ringold.  It shows many famous artists gathered in a café.  Kiki found the secret decoder ri

  By one vote Jan Steen's As the Old Sing, So Pipe the young one top of the show today.  The name comes from a proverb whos meaning is a bad example leads to bad conduct. We started with a self portrait of Joan Brown with Cat and Fish and then switched gears to Paul Kane's Fishing by Torchlight.  This was followed up by Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Summer.  This is a portrait of a human like bust made entirely out of fruits and vegetables. From here we all hopped into the wayback machine to view a Mongolian Necklace from the Neolithic period (4000-3000 BCE)  At around 6 thousand years old I think this is the oldest thing we have seen.  It just shows that humans have been creating art for a long time! My play along at home  item for today is switching gears a little bit.  You are invited to Take a Virtual Tour of the Tomb of Menna.  This is a virtual tour of a tomb that works like Google street view.  It allows you to walk through and turn to look at the walls and ceiling.  I found

Today's picks were done by Beth and her theme was Water and Fire.  The sculpture above by Il Ho Lee is called Water and Fire and was the Top of the Show today. We started today with some more Getty Challenge recreations.  These are always fun.  Do a quick search for "Getty Challenge" and you will find hundreds of them.  Ruth says they have even made a book out of them. Following the rain theme we had Sea and Rain by Whistler.  Luba pointed out that it had a calming effect on all of us.  The entire group had changed to our slow calming voices.  Our next piece of art was a ceramic earn of Cociyo the Zapotec god of Lightning and Rain.  It was from 500-600 AD in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The last painting of the day was Can Fire in the Park by Beauford Delaney.  This was by far the most colorful painting of the day. And my homework painting for today was The Great Picture attributed to Jan van Belcamp.  It depicts Lady Anne Clifford in 3 stages of her life.  As a kid I thi

 Top of the day today was Gauguin's Still Life with Three Puppies.  How you can have anything still with 3 puppies is beyond me. We started the day with another self portrait of Joseph Ducreux (only Kiki can pronounce that last name).  In this one he is pointing directly at the viewer. To add a little interest I threw in 4 paintings from the Getty Challenge.  Not something to go into detail on but they were fun to view.  There are hundreds of them out there so if you liked them try a search fo "Getty Challenge". For variety I threw in a Daguerreotype from 1840 by Vincent Chevalier.  It shows Equestrian statue of Henri IV with the Seine and the Louvre in the background. Following my weird and busy theme, I decided to throw in some Old Testament art.  The first was a painting depicting The Worship of the Golden Calf and the second from an Italian synagogue depicting The Feast of Rejoicing the Law.  Not the favorites of the group. I threw in another "Homework" pain

  First I would like to thank Terry for filling in yesterday with her photos from the Burning Man exhibit at Oakland museum.  Greg was still under the weather today so I (Jerry) filled in for him.  As I told everyone today's topic was things that amuse me and busy.  I am happy to say no one died during the presentation 👍 Today's top of the show was Joseph Ducreux's self portrait Yawning.  Done in 1783 it is describe as mocking the overly posed portraits of the time. Next we moved on to a couple of paintings by Jan Steen.  His work fits in the busy category.  The first one done in 1663 was Beware of Luxury.  It is said to be a humorous warning about the sin of "luxuria extrvagence".  The second Steen was the 1660 Poultry Yard.  It is a portrait of Jacoba van Wassenaer don amongst all kinds of chickens, turkeys and many other birds. My 4th pick was not quite as well received.  It was The Temptation of Saint Anthony from 1650 by Joos van Craesbeek.   It depicts a f

Such an honor to have one of our members, Elaine, who has recently had radiation, share the transformation of her radiotherapy mask (worn during treatment) into a work of art. She told us that the artist who helped her, Kathy Collova, really listened to her and her story. Artist Kathy heard Elaine say, “I’m ready for battle!” and she turned the mesh plastic mask into a testament to our very heroic Warrior! We had a lot of fun today looking at odd and wild costume and clothing designs. We were treated to Vera's movie costume photos from films such as Rocketman & Black Panther. She visits the Fashion Institute Design & Merchandising in L.A. once a year (usually!) -- and shared her photos with us. We will likely visit those again in the future!  So wonderful to live vicariously through each other! We looked at a socially-distanced gown from young designer, UCLA film & media student, "Shay Rose." Her pink tulle gown is six feet on each side so she can dance, dan

  We viewed only a portion of the hats I collected for us – so we’ll have crazier and crazier hat days in the far future (to give us a bit of a break after mañana’s final Clothing as Art day) We laughed and loved hats from The Kentucky Derby and the Royal Ascot Racing events in the U.K. They hold hat contests every year and we saw some contestants as well as guests with noggin-gear from the sublime to the tall, fluffy Silly Phoenix!!! We relived the breathtaking moment Aretha Franklin sang at the inauguration of President Obama in 2009. (Whatever your political bent, her singing My Country Tis of Thee was a shining moment for our nation.) The Queen of Soul wore an elegant, understated yet grand hat that added so richly to the day. President Obama has even asked the family for the now iconic bow from the hat as a remembrance. We discussed milliner Luke Song’s remarkable design. Luke Song made so many of Aretha’s beautiful headpieces over the years. We viewed a few more hats of Ms. Frank