Art Foraging - This Week's Catch

Thomas Allen

 

Roy Lichenstein Foundation

Jesse Treviño

 

 Sue Coe

b. 1951 

Electric Kool-Aid

I don't know about you, but I live in a really dynamic community of intellectuals, hippies, queers and weirdos.  Could be the reason that I feel so much at home in The Happy Valley. Because by nature I am a bit shy, I love to be in and among the bands of off-beats. If I'm going to be a silver-haired, lefty nerd with a married gay daughter, I'd rather blend in than stand out. If you know what I mean.  ;-)

All of this to say that occasionally I'd like to post a photo of my beloved Happy Valley that alludes to that free spirit of the Western Massachusetts that I love so much. As my mind meanders around all sorts of connections that I have yet to put into words, I want to call this feature Electric Kool-Aid (Acid Test).
Okay, so we're not quite San Francisco and the 60's are over, but we've created our own brand of pranksters. It works for me.

 In the North Quabin region of Franklin County, there is an annual Fall event that pays homage to garlic, sustainable farming and all-around wackiness - The North Quabin Garlic and Arts Festival.  Rarely timely with my news (cuz hell, I don't have to be if I don't wanna), I'm sharing with you a sampling of photos from last Fall's festival. I hope you enjoy it.

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

 We arrived in the grassy parking lot to the strains of The Beatles Drive My Car. As we were walking to queue up for the shuttle ride up to the festival, we saw that the music was blaring from this funky truck and that a peculiar yellow man was playing to the beat with a sort of...mobile?

Don't ask because I have no idea what any of it meant. Call it Burning Man, Western Massachusetts style! ;-)

 Peace, Love and Understanding,

Pagan Sphinx

Linking to :

Weekend Reflections 
Shadow Shot Sunday
That's My World

Happy Hour Friday

Artist of the Week / Linking to ABC Wednesday

K is for Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

1886-1944

Black is like the silence of the body after death, the close of life.
  ~Wassily Kandinsky, 1911

In 1911, a new group of German artists began exhibiting their work to the public. Der Blaue Reiter was to become the high point of German Expressionism, but it also opened the way towards abstraction with its stand for free experimentation and originality. It is Wassily Kandinsky, the most influential member of the group, who is most often credited with the distinction of painting the first ``abstract'' picture, in 1910.

The Blue Mountain

1908-09

Guggenheim Museum, New York City

Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St. Ursula

1908

 The First Abstract Watercolor

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for color, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential. (Wassily Kandinsky)

WWI

1913

"Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated." (from On the Spiritual in Art)

Moscow I

1916

"Color is the power which directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with the strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul." 

                ~Kandinski

Red Oval

1920

That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul. 

~Wassily Kandinsky

Yellow, Red, Blue

 1925

Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris

Orange Violet

1935

Twilight

1945

Sources

Olga's Gallery

WebMuseum Paris

The Guggenheim

History of Russian Painting

Humanities Web
The Painter's Keys

Linking to ABC Wednesday

Surrealistic Sunday

 If you are a regular reader of The Pagan Sphinx, you know that I often stretch the true definition of Surrealism by including in the feature Surrealistic Sunday, examples of work that is not authentically surrealistic, but contains some visual elements that remind me of surrealism. This oil painting by Diego Rivera is one such example that I ran across recently in Art Knowledge News. 

Rivera, is in fact, better known for his flirtation with Cubism than anything Surrealistic. Though one of his wives, the iconic Frida Kahlo, was pronounced a surrealist by the chief founder of the movement, Andre Breton. 

Diego Rivera Virtual Museum