mi Chelle Vara

Archive for the ‘Thoughts and Miscellany’ Category

MANHATTAN — Influential artist Louise Bourgeois, famous for her abstract works that influenced a younger generations of female artists, died in Manhattan on Monday at the age of 98.

The French-born, New York City-based sculptor, who earned recognition for her evocative and sexually explicit pieces, reportedly died of a heart attack in Manhattan.
Bourgeois’ popularity grew later in her career following a highly successful retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1982, the New York Times reported.
She then represented the United States at the 1993 Venice Biennale at a time when female artists were considered less than their male counterparts, the paper said.
He work drew on multiple themes — from birth and death to female sexuality — including Bourgeois’ own traumatic childhood experiences, the Associated Press reported.
One of her more visible works, “Maman,” featured a 30-foot-tall spider that was exhibited at the Rockefeller Center plaza for nearly three months in 2001.
“Tell your own story, and you will be interesting,” said Bourgeois, when asked what advice she would give young artists just starting out, in a 2008 interview with the AP.
“Don’t get the green disease of envy. Don’t be fooled by success and money. Don’t let anything come between you and your work,” she told the AP.
A private funeral service had reportedly been planned for family members.
Read more: http://dnainfo.com/20100531/manhattan/louise-bourgeois-abstract-sculptor-who-influenced-generations-of-women-dead-at-98#ixzz0pcWxrbzL

Jim McLaughlin did an outstanding job with the difficult task of photographing the new sculpture pieces. The pieces are bursting with color, capturing light and spirit with polished Gemstones of Agate and Crystal, fastened in welded stainless steel.

The photographs had to represent the not so easy task of capturing the essence and dimension. I think Jim did a bang up job! “ BravO”- Jim!

Jim McLaughlin – 3 Blackberry Lane Queensbury NY
www.mclaughlinphoto.com
518-792-5175

We had a good visit with the family members of a man that inspired a piece of sculpture.

Before he inspired sculpture he was a friend- a real friend.
I had seen him in all states of mind and we even had a few good disagreements.

His family came for a visit and they, for the first time experienced the sculpture.

The small sculpture has extensively traveled and shown with outstanding, powerful, unusual, persuasive, response. The on looker’s verbal reactions about the sculpture are varied and detailed, more so than any sculpture that I have built.

Thanks Uncle Owen for being you, and sharing your life’s journey with us.

WoW!!
I LOVE the bird sculpture! I really got a chance to enjoy it today,
while I was working around my place. THANKS!!!
It’s gorgeous!!!!
Susan
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“Desiderio Songnoeo” Sculpture
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I encapsulate things of working history into new forms of emotion and story line, which changes with perception. I choose a story and/ dialog for the enrichment of social community using tactile objects. Rescuing these objects for the future in remembrance of objects made with pride and quality. Soon these items will not be remembered, as our country scraps the history for cash flow or mere existence. I tell the multidimensional, story with submissive multifaceted statements with the inclusions of time. Time ever changing but still the same, people forget history.
One story that is always a consistent thread in my work-
“The working man’s story” – “Blue collar” saved and re-thought, embodied, immortalized essence of parts and equipment, through re-birth equaling sculpture.

Now for something totally different I will be attending/ participating in a class lead by Jess Epstein at the Charleston School for troubled Children/Teens to express themselves through art. This series is meant to enhance my study in art expression, communication, and reaching out to autism. I in the fall will be teaching or being taught by a small group of children that think through what is coined Autism. I thank this small group of parents for the allowing of artful interaction with their children and their personal time. Thank you Jess for your class, help and input.
I look forward to this series bringing new visual stimulation and experimentation, for the future visual segments that I will build in relationships and sculpture.
When I look back at my sculpture- at some point it is all a personal relationship. Isnt it~?

The sun rise cast a shimmering crimson red, on my smiling horse.
He stands atop a hill in the pasture, in memory of our past.
I reflect back to the time when every day included a ride, in powerful stride.
In the drum like rhythm of hooves that carried me away, from the realities of human existence.
A time to dream, a time to think, a time to be with- out explanation.
No persecution of daily existence, no chatter of ego.
The camaraderie and passion shared without words. Secrets kept.
Honest action, reaction and communication just a simple hairy friend.
I swell in the stream of visual augmentation.
I sculpt for days, hammering out thoughts, like a photographer of metal.
In steel I Immortalize the time to ride and the horses I called friends.

MiChelle has moved in a different direction than her normal metal sculpture. For this series “Displacement of the American Dream”
she is working with mixed media on board.
MiChelle is in hopes of further pursuing her commentary as she has much to visually say on the subject.

In this time of year I enjoy stimulating my mind with the readings of artist, critics, educators and philosophers about their ideas thoughts and journeys.
With that I have saved some comments that I enjoyed and hope you will to…………………..

“A belief is something that you think about enough, that holds you apart from the flow of whom you really are or want to be” Abraham

“All Beauty is a making one of opposites, and making opposite is what we are going for in our-self’s”
Eli Siegel

“I love the person who is searching, yet I am afraid of the one who thinks he has found the answer. In my life I have much more pleasure with the question than with finding the answer. Except when the answer is another question. This is where the obsession to create begins!” Pascal

“I choose not to paint the reality but rather its effects left with me”
This effect was further described as instinctual. Joan Mitchell

The cubist phenomenology of cognition of objects through a self-conscious reinvention of representation, surrealist phenomenology of mind through self-conscious exploration of the various modes of consciousness itself. Miranda McClintic

“Cubis are metaphors of active human force which does not simply acknowledge the emptiness of the universe, but defies it.” David Smith

“All you need in life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego. Brains don’t mean a shit.”
Capt. Tony Ft. Lauderdale’s mayor 1980

“ What better way to prove you understand a subject, than to make money at it”
Harold Rosenberg

“If at first you don’t succeed- try, try, try again”
Nick Vara