Wits' End Studio

Finally Chris has got her studio remodeled and in celebration has started a personal blog. I think she has plans for an Etsy shop too but that link doesn't go anywhere interesting yet.

Madison Open Art Studios

Which reminds me, the Madison Area Open Art Studios is happening again next fall, the first weekend of October. I checked the site and there is some kind of meeting next Tuesday, so it is good I checked. It is possible that registration of artists has been extended past the last deadline that I was all hurrying to meet last month, or it could be the website hasn't been updated. You could try it and see.

Photography in the neighborhood gallery

I was sitting on a bench talking on my cellphone yesterday, next to a sandwich sign advertising a one-day gallery show, when the wind switched around to the south and tornado siren sounded. I sought shelter, as you do, in the gallery where it happened two young fellows, Joe and Eric, were having a terrifically varied photography show, and we talked.

We talked about the other Saturday events happening the neighborhood that I had been surveying. We talked about the gallery space on Lakeside Street, and about art fairs and what is an artist to do these days of modern times here in the future. We talked about their signs which said EXPLOSION (a nine-letter word in three lines) in a square typeface newly designed by Joe (only the caps because he had a hard time making lower-case look square), with a sort of flower-power look, which were hand-stencilled onto the signs. They had big photos for free, or mounted ones for minimal cost. Even the big wall ones mounted on foamcore were only like $150. Joe has a day job and does websites, but his is down. Eric does creative media consulting at BrickHouse (the cool pictures are all on the link) and does wedding photography too and works in a frame shop and was willing to frame anything I was interested in to my desire.

They had both black and white and color pictures. They had abstracts, landscapes, architectural photography, baby pictures, still lifes, long-exposure nighttime photos, and band performances. Film and digital. Have I left anything out?

Need anything for your wall? Thanks, I already have some.

Swan Lake

I am amazed at what the human body can do. This is a fabulous performance of Swan Lake....graceful, acrobatic....and did I mention amazing? I'd love to see the entire ballet.

How one thing leads to another

First a friend sent me a link to the latest post of extremely various prints on BibliOdyssey, which is an astonishing nexus of historic imagery right on Blogspot, but then with very little trouble I found this other entry, of pages from an ancient German manuscript which is kind of more my thing.

But then I found some images from the Kohler collection right here in Madison, which I actually got to look at some pieces from, white gloves and all, in a book arts class a few years ago. And that after all is why we are here.

The Last Lecture

If you haven't seen "The Last Lecture" given by Randy Pausch, please go make some tea and settle down to watch it. It is one most inspiring things I have ever seen. If you don't have an hour and 45, here is a reader's digest version on Oprah. I'm sure you will agree that he is a remarkable person.

Molly Cliff Hilts

You will find a very nice slideshow of an encaustic painting demo. Very nice indeed! Lovely rich colors!