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AK 47 Kalashnikov, multicolor original gun with applied Smarties by Kata Legrady from her Guns and Candies series.
Kata Legrady began a series of artworks in 2008 where she applied candies like Smarties to different weapons. She thought the candies evoked the Ben-Day technique used by Roy Lichtenstein in his comic book referencing art and by "covering" and in a sense hiding the firearm or other weapon, it loses its ferocity and power.
Alex Colville, Winter Sun, 2005
Canadian artist Alex Colville painted in highly detailed images in the pointillist style - unusual because of the slow exacting methods it requires - yet his subjects are so "usual" that his methods of achieving his look make you forget that they must have been created by a very meticulous and precise hand.
Kristen Cliffel, The Navigator, 2019
One of my favorite Cleveland area artists ( and there are many) is Kristen Cliffel. Her ceramic work is so clever and visually stunning that I recognize it on sight. She comes by her talent naturally, her mother Martha Cliffel is also amazing.
John William Waterhouse, The Decameron , 1916, The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight
The subjects for John William Waterhouse’s paintings The Decameron and The Enchanted Garden are drawn from a book by 14th century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio who tells the tales of seven young women and three young men secluded outside the city of Florence during the time of the Black Plague.
Both of these artworks are owned by the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight (an early “planned” community outside of Liverpool) a small and delightful museum to visit.
Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon, 1909, Seattle Art Museum
I went last year to see the Grand Canyon in person and it does live up to the hype. There were a lot of people in the park and lines of cars to enter but once you got down to the edge of it and looked out without being able to see where it ends, nature suddenly got very large and civilization sudden got very small. Manifest Destiny
Dali never knew his bother who died of a stomach aliment at three years old, nine months before Salvador was born. Dali’s parents told him he was the reincarnation of his brother and he always felt they were like Castor and Pollux. From the Dali Museum: Dalí wrote a brief, elusive description of this work when it was first exhibited. “The Vulture, according to the Egyptians and Freud, represents my mother’s portrait. The cherries represent the molecules, the dark cherries create the visage of my dead brother, the sun-lighted cherries create the image of Salvador living thus repeating the great myth of the Dioscures Castor and Pollux.”
My family was fortunate to have another trip to Michigan's Mackinac Island again this year. We stayed at the Grand Hotel, whose legendary front porch and beautiful surroundings are a treat unto themselves. I wandered into the gallery area in the main Parlor which exhibits paintings from the world renowned Manoogian Collection. The Manoogians have exhibited over 400 paintings from their collection at the hotel for the past 25 years. Here is a sample of some of the pieces on display this summer.
Fairy Hordes Attacking a Bat, John Fitzgerald, British, 1832-1906
The works on display include 19th and 20th century examples of many different types of painting genres and by a large collection of artists.
Rabbits, 1878 by Charlotte Mount Brock Schreiber, Canadian, 1834-1922
The George R. Rich Family Having Afternoon Coffee at the Villa Quisisana Overlooking Oresund, Skodsborg, Strandvej (Denmark), 1885 by Wenzel Ulrik Tornoe, Danish, 1844-1907
A Liberated Woman by John G. Brown, American, 1831-1913.
My assumption is that the cigarette and the way she looks down at the viewer indicate her liberated status.
Statue of Liberty Celebration by Frederick Rondel, American, 1826-1892.
This is just a small sample of the artwork on display, there are many fine examples of portraiture, tromp l'oeil, landscapes, still lifes, etc. The art on display makes an already worthwhile trip all the more special.
I participated in Cleveland Rooms to Let 2016 where curated a room that will feature the dinnerware designs of Cleveland Artist, Designer and CIA professor, Viktor Schreckengost. The installation will be called Everyday Dishes and is based on an exhibition I curated in 2004 at the Northern Clay Studio in Minneapolis called The Dinnerware Legacy of Viktor Schreckengost. The dishes Viktor designed when he worked for Salem China and American Limoges in Sebring, OH in the early part of the 20th century, were the dishes that people used to eat their daily meals and would have bought at stores like J C Penny, Sears and Montgomery Ward. They were not the good dishes that only came out a couple of times a year, but the ones that they grabbed for their morning toast and set their dinner tables with. The Rooms to Let Cleveland event will took place on May 21 & 22, 2016.
Shovels by Cal Lane
Artist Cal Lane uses metal as her palette and a torch as her brush. She creates amazingly intricate designs in found metal objects. Tools, pieces of old cars, etc anything rusty that she can transform into her lace-like creations.
