Month: November 2015

Willy Verginer

Figurative Wood Sculptures by Willy Verginer

Currently living and working in the idyllic town of Urtijëi, Italy, sculptor Willy Verginer shares a closeness with his environment in both technique and concept. His surreal wooden sculptures are carved from a single linden tree trunk with incredible precision and detail. Although their features are classical, Verginer paints bold stripes of color across his figures and poses them in awkward positions, making them completely contemporary. He’s often paired his figures of women, men, and young children with other animals and objects that don’t fit together.

His most  pieces at his June 2015 show, which were on view at Galerie Van Campen & Rochtus in Belgium, paired them with oil barrels. The gray or metallic color of the barrels transfer to the person or animal they are touching, forming a connection between natural and unnatural. Verginer calls this an act of “aggression,” representing mankind’s pollution of the world around him. As in his sculpture of a fawn, “Between idyllic and reality” (Tra idillico e realta), Verginer also introduces elements like a scaled down landscape or trees. By making something as grand as a forest small in size, the artist points to its fragility and pleas to his viewers to protect it.

Michael Herrman

Michael Herrman, Principal Architect of Ateliers Michael Herman, Apartment, Place de la Madeleine, Paris

Michael Herrman, principal of French studio Ateliers Michael Herrman recently renovated a duplex apartment in a late 18th century building for him and his family.

Sitting on the top two floors by Paris’s Place de la Madeleine, this 140 m2 (1500 ft2) residence was created by unifying 12 maids’ rooms on two levels. The result is a three bedroom duplex apartment that both preserves the character of the 200 year-old building in which it is located, yet is a uniquely loft-style space in the heart of Paris.

The apartment is based upon the concept of a museum: the original limestone walls and oak beams have been excavated and displayed with archaeological precision. The addition of a glass floor and walls allows each room to retain a powerful sense of openness, to be visually connected with one another and with the views of the sky and rooftops of Paris.

Thanks to http://archatlas.net

Matt Sesow

Paintings by Matt Sesow

Matt Sesow is a internationally shown artist who produces a prolific number of works. He currently lives and works in Washington, DC. Just six years after losing his hand as a child in an accident in which a crashed plane severed his arm and took away his dominant hand, Sesow played for the US team in the disabled Olympics in England. While working at IBM as a software engineer, he began painting scenes in oils that were influenced by his traumatic injury. He had his first solo show in 2001 at the Corcoran Museum in Washington, DC.

Jimmy Leslie

Paintings by Jimmy Leslie

Jimmy Leslie has spent his professional career as both and artist and an educator. He is a graduate of Monmouth University and the Graduate School of Figurative Art of the New York Academy of Art. Leslie taught in the Art & Design departments of Monmouth University and Brookdale Community College and also worked with gifted students in the Monmouth County Arts High School program.

Leslie’s work has been exhibited throughout New Jersey, as well as in New York, Oregon, Texas, Nebraska, Idaho, Florida, Missouri and North Carolina. Recent shows include one-person exhibitions at Market in the Middle, Asbury Park, NJ, the 2008 Monmouth Festival of the Arts, Tinton Falls, NJ and numerous group shows at the APeX Gallery in Asbury Park, NJ.

When asked about his work and his particular approach to painting, Jimmy Leslie explained, “As an artist I am not trying to alter anyone’s view of the world with my paintings, nor do I feel the need to address social issues. I simply want to create good, solid paintings, which seems like enough of a lifelong challenge. In doing this my subject matter tends to revolve around familiar surroundings like my neighborhood and my studio and my family life. These are the springboards for dealing with the process of painting which is equally important to me. “

“Sometimes artists worry too much about what they have to say. For me, I’m more interested in the labor. Finding the message is up to the individual viewer. It might be found in a certain shape, a harmony of color, or a particular light source. I don’t know how to paint apples, trees, or people’s noses. What I do know is that if I paint the correct values, shapes, and colors and place them in the right position, the objects will create themselves.”

Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins, “Salutat”, 1898, Oil on Canvas, 126 x 101 cm, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts

“The exhibition (Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture”, 2010) attempts to ferret out the hidden clues. In the 1898 painting “Salutat” (Latin for “He salutes”), Eakins portrays a 22-year-old, featherweight boxer known as Turkey Point Billy Smith as he waves to the crowd after a victory. Boxing matches in those days were all-male retreats, renowned for their brutal masculinity. But Eakins does not paint Smith in the act of fighting. …

Instead, Smith is standing alone in scanty trunks that reveal most of his buttocks. The men in the crowd are ogling him much as they would a half-naked woman. This realistic 19th century sports scene is clearly homoerotic to 21st century eyes. But this aspect had long been ignored in shows and books about Eakins.” – Los Angeles Times

Servando Cabrera Moreno

Paintings by Servando Cabrera Moreno

Some 32 years after his death, artist Servando Cabrera Moreno, born in 1923, continues to stir up controversy. Provocative, transgressive, Cabrera Moreno dared to portray the nude male body in postures too daring for the Cuba of 1960-1980, where homosexuality was more than frowned upon. It’s no secret that their sexual orientation prompted the ostracism and exclusion of many Cuban artists, and Servando was no exception.

“In the late 1960s, as a step towards his erotic phase, which was the climax of his artistic development, Cabrera Moreno made works in which the representations were intended to parallel the plant and animal worlds. In the decade of the 1970s—which in his case lasted for more than 10 years, culminating in his death in 1981—Servando preferred to sensually represent the human body,” says Rosemary Rodríguez, curator of the exhibition Epifanía del cuerpo, entitled “Epiphany of the Body”, presented at the museum as part of the celebration of his 90th anniversary.

Gerardo Mosquera commented that Servando and Umberto Peña were the first, from the 1960s, to make homoerotic art in Cuba. They were the precursors of this trend, which spread at an international level beginning in the 1970s, starting in the U.S.

The erotic theme in Cuba was approached by various artists, including ones like Carlos Enríquez, who date from the first half of the last century. In the 1960s, along with Peña and Cabrera Moreno, artists like Manuel Mendive, Raul Martínez, and Osneldo García welcomed eroticism among their themes. But Umberto Peña and Servando are recognized for daring to approach homosexuality during those difficult years.

Scout Braca

Photographer Unknown, (Scout Braca), Selfie

From the Official Boy Scouts of America information:

Some of the best things about Cub Scouting are the activities you get to do: camping, hiking, racing model cars, going on field trips, or doing projects that help your hometown and the people who live there. Cub Scouting means “doing.”

Blue and Gold Banquets:    In February, when Scouting celebrates its “birthday,” packs across the country hold blue and gold banquets. In nearly all packs, the banquet is a very special event.
Cub Scout Camping:    Learn to live in the outdoors. Camping takes you on exciting adventures into the natural world.                                                                                    Cub Scout Derbies:    Racing in a Cub Scout derby is great fun. You’ll get to design your racing vehicle, work with an adult to build it, and see it perform on race day.
Outings and Field Trips:    Outing is a big part of Scouting. Cub Scouts get out and about with many kinds of outdoor fun, such as field trips, hikes, nature and conservation.
Service Projects:    Doing service projects together is one way that Cub Scouts keep their promise “to help other people.”

Thanks to http://theplaidcub.tumblr.com for the image.

Powder Horn of Abel Scott

Powder Horn of Abel Scott

New Englander Abel Scott of Whately, Massachusetts served in five military campaigns during the American War of Independence, first marching the day after the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. Scott or a fellow soldier engraved this detailed view of British occupied Boston as British and New England forces eyed one another across the fortifications and harbor encircling the town.

British troops and royalists refuges were forced to evacuate Boston after American troops constructed fortifications and placed artillery on Dorchester Heights on the night of March 4, 1776.