Art Detectives

  Top of the Day is Everything!  But this life-size crochet tree-climber is a representative of  some of the weird, wild, wonderful art we saw today.  Nathan Vincent, Crochet Artistry & T-Rex head -- link --  Singaporean artist Kelly Limerick -- link --  Kelly Limerick, Time is a Commodity, April 2021, -- link --  Kelly Limerick, Radiolarian (Facebook AIR) -- link --  Kelly Limerick, Vessels -- link --  Kelly Limerick, Unlikely Dwellers of the Union (National Heritage Board) -- link --  Kelly Limerick, Portal of Patterns (Asian Civilizations Museum) -- link --  Kelly Limerick, Shadow of a Single Smokestack -- link --  MUJI Living in a Garden City -- link --  Liisa Hietanen, Lifesize People of Crochet! -- link --  Liisa Heitanen website -- link --  Lisa Heitanen, more images (click the little arrow at the right of the image) -- link --  Lisa Heitanen, even more images (click the little arrow a...

Double Top of the Day!  Liza Lou's Beaded Kitchen & Lucy Sparrow's Felt Grocery Store (links below) Today we started looking at the crochet art of a variety of artists -- but some of the pieces were a little too twee & cutesy for our group. So Ruth suggested we look at the felt grocery store created by Lucy Sparrow. She creates superb representations of food & drink items, a whole freezer case and cola fridge! It's astounding. Ruth then suggested we look at Liza Lou's beaded kitchen and a beaded picnic area. Wow. Hundreds of thousands of beads woven, glued, positions to recreate her grandmother's kitchen with nods to feminist ideals & cliché version of the housewife's milieu. As she crafted this kitchen and added to it over the years, her political point of view became more prominent. The picnic area she created was also fantastic. At the very end, we looked at a knitting artist -- Luisa De Santi. Her knitting sculptures are vibrant & unique....

  Top of the Day: The sloop Study B - Amadeo de Souza Cardoso - 1913  -- link -- The sloop - Amadeo de Souza Cardoso - c. 1914-15  -- link -- Dame" (the carnation girl) - Amadeo de Souza Cardoso - 1913  -- link -- Mutilated Woman Crushing Of Grace Mixed With New Violence - Amadeo de Souza Cardoso - c. 1914-15  -- link --

Once again, an exciting artist you all found last Saturday needed further exploration. We looked at the superb work of Amadeo de Souza Cardoso; one of the first Portuguese modern artists.  Top of the Day: Everything! But for the purposes of this blog, here's Avant la Corrida (Advance the Race, is the literal translation -- but probably more, "advance to the race"), 1912 -- link --  Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Untitled, 1916 -- link --  Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, The Kitchen at Manhufe House, 1913 -- link --  Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Clown Horse Salamander, 1911-1912 -- link --  Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, The Greyhounds, 1911 -- link -- 

Top of the Day: Gemälde G - Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, c. 1912 Today's Artwork: Gemälde G - Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, c. 1912 -- link -- Palissade - Raymond Hains, 1976 -- link -- Night in Bologna - Paul Cadmus, 1958 -- link -- Train Window – The Lonely Violin - Zhang Xiaogang, 2010 -- link -- Pair of Flintlock Pistols - Leonardus Graeff -- link -- ​

Top of the Day,  Luigi Ontani, BebeBete, 2007 --   link   --  From Saturday's Random Show with Jerry -- came several of the artists we've delved into this week. The madcap Luigi Ontani uses techniques we've not encountered before in some of his work; specifically lenticular holograms which Beth researched for us then defined. He's also a ceramicist & painter, uses papier-maché & many other inventive and innovative media to tell his stories .... or to leave us pondering whether there is one or not!  Luigi Ontani, OssiMoro sorVoLante, 2004 / 2006 -- link --   Luigi Ontani, Alnus Aurea of the Sect of the 7 Suspects -- link --   Luigi Ontani, Sci à Mano, 2007 / 2011 -- link --  Luigi Ontani, ErmaBorgheseEstetica 2002 / 2007 -- link -- 

Top of the Day, Leslie Anne Markowitz, Mixed Media  We got to celebrate the new work of our group member, Leslie Anne Markowitz & peruse many of her pieces, learning about different techniques & the variety of materials she uses. Everyone excitedly & thoughtful gave her feedback on her artwork. Kudos to our group for embracing our own in the pursuit of artistic joy.  We also looked at the whimsical work of Jae Suk Kim who makes flowers dance on paper against drawings of long-legged silhouettes. Included in his phenomenal Instagram (below) are some sculptural pieces as well that blew us away! His work is below Leslie Anne's in this roster.  The Exhilarating Jae Suk Kim  Jae Suk Kim, Susu Girls -- link --  Jae Suk Kim, Susu Girls, Fall Couture -- link --  Jae Suk Kim, Ceramic -- link --  Jae Suk Kim, Happy Chuseok Holidays -- link --  Jae Suk Kim, Peek-a-Boo animation -- link --  Jae Suk Kim, Let the Holiday Begin -- link --...

Top of the Day: Nine Cartoons for the Execution of a Frieze for the Dining Room of Stoclet House in Brussels: Part 7, Part of the tree of life - Gustav Klimt, 1910–1911 Today's Artwork: Studio Interior - Ramon Casas, Around 1883 -- link -- Marigolds - Koloman Moser, 1909 -- link -- They spruce themselves up - Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1799 -- link -- Diablada dance mask -- link -- Nine Cartoons for the Execution of a Frieze for the Dining Room of Stoclet House in Brussels: Part 7, Part of the tree of life - Gustav Klimt, 1910–1911 -- link -- Uphill Road - Alfred Sisley, 1870 -- link -- ​

Inspired by a recent random show Jerry ran, we perused the wild & visually imaginative / beautiful / stirring / unusual artwork of Marcos Raya. What a find! Whether you like his work or not, and we all seems to find something to admire, it's certainly a conversation-starter. His political work has great meaning with multiple historical & cultural context; his use of color explodes in so many of his pieces from murals to paintings to sculpture.  Marco Raya's Lady In Red (n.d.) from is our Top of the Day!  Marcos Raya, The Anguish of Being and the Nothingness of the Universe, 2000 -- link --  Here are some murals we looked at -- link --  Mictlan (the Underworld) bejeweled skeletons just in time for Halloween & D í a de los Muertos! -- link --  Girl with Broken Leg -- link --  Here was the Marcos Raya piece that you all viewed & discussed last Saturday -- link --  Here's our Blog from that day -- link --  Marcos Raya's website:...

What a wonderful day!! I had set up a show featuring some of the painters that you all saw last Saturday with Jerry. Then Luba told me I'd missed an email she sent last week! This is the artist, her brother-in-law, who she shared with us today.  Our Top of the Day is Lloyd Cameron's Fractals SOOOOOO much wonderful color; the shapes and forms so intriguing. What a gift that was to all of us this Monday. We didn't do our usual, Passing out the Paintings and just reviewed the many paintings on his website below. It's always fun to vary our times together.  Lloyd Cameron paintings, click on each painting to see a larger version or use the arrows on the right or left to cycle through them -- link --  At the end of our time together, we reviewed the work of Australia's Grace Cossington Smith; this was one of the artists you all explored last Saturday. We will delve into her artistry more thoroughly later this week or next. Here's the Google Arts & Culture link to...

Top of the Day: Four sunflowers gone to seed - Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), August - October 1887 Today's Artwork: Eiffel Tower - Antonio Seguí, 1982 - 1982 -- link -- Four sunflowers gone to seed - Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), August - October 1887 -- link -- The Legacy of Manifest Destiny (El legado del Destino Manifiesto) - Marcos Raya, 1995 -- link -- The Bridge in-curve - Grace Cossington Smith, (1930) -- link -- Arlemarlecchino - Luigi Ontani, 1995 -- link -- ​

  Our Top of the Day is Amy Cutler's  Gorge finished in  2009  --  link  --  New pieces acquired by the National Gallery of Art formed our show today. Lots of varied work & we saw a great deal of pieces as we scrolled by and landed on these: Rozeal (formerly known as iona rozeal brown),  SONG OF SOLOMON 5:16 – BE BEEWORLD: BE B BOY B GIRL (after “Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Gueifei playing the same flute,” by Utamaro Kitagawa) , 2014 - 2016 -- link --  Carrie Mae Weems,  Echoes for Marian , 2014 -- link --  Robert Adams,  Longmont, Colorado, Sally in the Backyard , 1981  -- link --  Dosso Dossi,  The Trojans Building the Temple to Venus at Eryx and Making Offerings at Anchises’s Grave , c. 1520  -- link --  Christopher Myers, What Does it Mean to Matter (Community Autopsy) , 2019 -- link --  Alighiero Boetti,  Oggi diciannovesimo giorno ottavo mese dell'anno millenove100ottantotto (Tod...

Top of the Day: The Icknield Way - Spencer Gore, 1912 Today's Artwork: Don Rosendo in the Night Watch - Carmen Bordes Pacheco, 1993 -- link -- Reforestation - Emily Carr (1871 - 1945), 1936 -- link -- The Icknield Way - Spencer Gore, 1912 -- link -- River of No Return - Lee Jung-seob, 1916/1956 -- link -- In the Omnibus - Mary Cassatt, c. 1891 -- link -- Children and Goats Resting by a Felled Tree - Ludwig Richter, 1868 -- link -- Machu Picchu I - Georgia O'Keeffe, 1957 -- link -- ​

Top of the Day is Kosai Hori's The Garden of the Fall and Rebirth-9, 2015 Hiroko Okada, Engaged Body: My body is made up of Complicated Puzzles -- link --  Hiroko Okada, AIZOU BENTO - Love and Hate Lunchbox (pine) -- link --  Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, The Globe Project: Garden of Globes, 2007 -- link --  Fradika Galang, Red Dart, 2018 -- link --  Kosai Hori, The Garden of the Fall and Rebirth-8, 2015 -- link --  Iwan Effendi, Resurrection Series No. 2, 2020 -- link --