creativity in the new year!

hey friends, meet fashionary.

apparently it's a moleskin-esque notebook for the fashion-obsessed. not only does it come with sketches of many. many. many. kinds of tops/bottoms/acessories, BUT it has pre-printed figures to help you plan the outfits you want to wear. when i was an art teacher, we did a fashion unit...the hardest part was teaching students about figure proportions, but this takes all that uncertainty away.

 love it. want it. in red.

capturing the delta...

So, this year I get to work with NINE art, music, and dance teachers around the Delta (plus a host of other kinds of teachers)... but as a former art teacher, and as a super duper advocate for arts in schools this is a particularly heavenly assignment. see, when people think of my home, people IMMEDIATELY can conjure our musical and literary legacy, but rarely can they name even ONE visual artist. since both my mom is fantastically creative and talented with the oil paint, the ink pen, the potter's wheel, and the pencil, i hate that people don't look to MS for burgeoning artistic talent.

I'm not going to bore you with gory details, but here are four of my favorite visual artists who live, (or have lived) work, or create in the Delta. (and by favorite i mean, "would be INCREDIBLY excited to have a piece in my home" Two are pretty well known, two are smaller-time, but all are fantastic. PS: I don't mention my mom here-Holland Wilson- because her art already graces our walls. but she's probably my most favorite.)

Here we go...

Maude Schuler Clay: Sumner, MS

Alison Furr-Lawyer: Jackson, MS (ok, not technically Delta)

William Dunlap, Tupelo, MS (also NOT the Delta, but he paints the Delta A LOT)

Bradley Gordon: Clarksdale and Oxford, MS

 

has your appetite been whetted sufficiently? Go here to learn more about MS artists of all stripes

midnight special...

this feels like an odd post to follow the one about baby alice...but seeing these photos this week in oxford american by an accidental-documentarian "the polaroid kidd" recently lit a little fire in my belly (or maybe it re-lit it).

 all my life i've wanted to jump a train and live like a gypsy, and when i lived in the delta the first time and freight trains full of soybeans or cotton drove past my  house not 100 yards away at least 3 times a day, it was all i could do not to call a friend and ask him to get ready to pick me up whereever i could get off. something about the freedom of not having control over where i would land or when i could stop seemed so incredible...

but i never did it. not once in the eleven months.

now we live a block from a freight train line again, and after seeing these photos i'm feeling a rekindling of the dream. its not that this seems glamorous, or even super fun*...but it seems so real...and the freedom! there are just things that need to be done, and if i don't do it now, i probably never will.

are there things you dream of doing?



* i know that this lifestyle isn't always a choice people get to make for themselves, so it's probably "freeing" when you get to choose it from a place a privilege, but even so, i'd like to experience it at least once.

art is life.

 

my wonderful, wonderful parents came to visit us this weekend and brought a BEAUTIFUL book of giorgio morandi's work that a neighbor sent to me.

i can't stop looking at all of his natura morta (still life paintings) the colors are perfect...so clean and simple. so full of light. and i'm as obsessed as he was with this odd shaped vase. isn't the texture perfect?

 if you haven't ever heard of him, look him up! he's often described as italy's greatest still life painter...i can see why! doesn't it remind you a bit of a simpler, softer, neutral cezanne?

 the new book was only a teeeeeny bit of my parents' visit, so stay tuned for a better recap soon!

let's do the numbers....

wouldn't this be an amazing centerpiece for a book club? i know.

 

images from the brilliant paul octavious.

creative energy..

really and truly, we live in one of the most lovely spots in the delta...and the whole country, in my opinion. i felt inspired today to take a few hours to paint something. it's been so long that I didn't really do anything serious, but i've really been inspired by the cassidy bayou that floats by our front porch. i'm thinking that one day soon when i have another burst of creative energy i'll start working on something like this since it's what i see every day.

 

see what you're missing by not coming to visit? ;)

dog in fog by maude schuler clay (actually taken at our cassidy bayou), an oil painting by american artist alexander john drysdale, two images from pixdaus, and a sara norris original print.

bali batik...

forgot to share the photos from the batik gallery...


totally fascinating!

inviting strangers...

i've been coming across lots of portraits of strangers in my interweb browsing this week...





these are from at

poppytalk

my mom is an incredibly talented portrait painter so i've always loved the way one looks in a space (in fact, "red legs" a pretty lady with red stockings is hanging in my living room right now) but i'm not sure how i feel about a gallery of strangers in my home. thoughts?