Dianne Levine Opening This Coming Weekend

My friend Dianne Levine will be having a reception for "INSIDE OUTSIDE"
at the Jefferson Cutter House, 1 Whittemore Park, Arlington MA this coming Saturday from 3-6PM. Not only is she an exceptionally talented artist, but also a gracious and interesting woman. It's definitely worth the drive.

If you're unable to attend the show, I highly encourage you to visit her web site at
http://www.dlevineartist.com

NHSPA Show Closes Today

I drove out to downtown Exeter today to pick up my two pieces from the NH Society of Photographic Artists show. While waiting for the show to close at 4, I poked around some of the local shops. (There's a fine crafts gallery that alone is worth the ride out there, even in the blistering cold.)

After that, I came back and worked on some more roses photos. (Which is getting tougher now that they're starting to fade.) Here's my favorite shot, which I can't wait to enlarge:

Everything's Coming Up Roses

My daughter sent me some roses yesterday to celebrate my acceptance into law school.

I've been playing around photographing them in a darkened room, lit only by flashlight. (yes, we photographers can't merely enjoy flowers: we must also ***document*** them.)

Here's my favorite shot, cropped two different ways:





My favorite part of both photos is the membrane-like top petal right at the "center of the center" of the bloom.

Just a Random Thought....

A recent article in the San Francisco Examiner stated that of the estimated 7,600 languages known in the world today, half are endangered and could be lost forever within a few decades.

If/when that happens, surely something else must take its place. And especially for a generation that is "thinking global" more than any of its predecessors ever did, what will this mean for the place of visual arts as a communicative tool?

Library Closed Due to Nor'Easter

But you'll still have 12 other (hopefully) snow-free days to see my show at the Nashua Public Library, ending Tuesday, February 27, 2007.

Is Your Art Collection Worth More than $600,000?

The San Francisco Examiner recently reported on a California woman who decided to sell the painting over her piano.

"All the seller had hoped for was a couple thousand dollars to help pay for her daughter's tuition at UC Berkeley," says the paper.

But "on Super Bowl Sunday, someone gambled more than half a million dollars at an Oakland auction that the painting is the lost work of a 17th-century Italian master."

The painting is untitled and unsigned. No one knows for a fact who painted it or when. But it appears to be the work of a 17th-century Italian artist named Pier Francesco Mola. It was sold to an unnamed art dealer in the New York area.

You can read the entire story here.

Here's to hoping that fien art photographs will be so avidly sought in the future...

NPL Featured Artist - George Eross

This posting completes the series on my guest artists at the Nashua Public Library show, running through Feb. 27.

Currently a Nashua resident, George Eross was born in Budapest, Hungary, came to the US at the age of 8, and grew up in Pittsburgh, PA.

A self-taught painter, he recently studied welding and metal sculpting with John Weidman at the Andres Art Institute in Brookline, New Hampshire. George works primarily in oil, concentrating on portraits and landscapes. He also sculpts in metal and creates intricate wire frame drawings.

George has two pieces in the library show:

• a metal sculpture with great tonality (so make sure to "ping" it when you go --- it's allowed), and
  
  
  
  
• a wire-frame mandala (which I didn't realize he was bringing and which complements my photo mandalas nicely)
  
  
  

Is Art Anything That Someone Says It Is?

You be the judge:

MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA) will be hosting a project called "Of All the People In All the World" from Feb 10 -25, 2007.

The venue will be shipping in 16 tons of rice -- that's 875,000,000 grains, or approximately one grain for each person in the Americas.

Mass MoCA says that the rice will be "sorted into piles representing a range of human statistics." It promises that a pile representing the number of people living in gated communities will be placed side-by-side with a pile representing all the people in prison – and adds that "they’re almost the same size."

A team of performers will sort and re-sort the rice into different piles (to represent different statistics) during the installation. They will talk with visitors touring the installation.

So is it "art" or just a super-sized geography project? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this...

NPL Featured Artist - Amethyst Wyldfyre

I first met Amethyst a few years ago at her Nashua gallery, also named Amethyst Wyldfyre. The shop was filled to the brim with books, CDs, jewelry, and original artwork. It once would have been called "New Age", but today, it supplied all the necessities for awakening and leading an enlightened life.



Since then, her store has carried my wall prints and note cards. And over that time, Amethyst has provided advice and insight into my intertwined artistic and personal lives. Each time I entered her store, I was met with a wide smile, a generous hug, and a genuine inquiry as to how things were going for me. One of Amethyst's many gifts is her ability to turn a retail establishment into a welcoming santuary.

Unfortunately for the community, her "bricks and mortar" store is closing, but Amethyst will continue to provide her artwork through a new Web site.

In addition to the work at this show, Amethyst is also the featured artist at Gallery One (Nashua Art Association's art gallery) in Nashua through the end of February. There will be an artist's reception for Amethyst at the gallery this coming Saturday afternoon,(Feb. 10), and I encourage you to visit and see her newest paintings.