Sunlight diffused through the stained glass windows as this artwork, huge at 1.8 million times smaller than Earth, slowly rotated above our heads.
Gaia is a seven metre diameter version of Earth, created by Luke Jerram to give audiences around the world a sense of the overview effect of looking back at our planet from space. Continue reading
From the Baylor Street Art Wall in Austin, Texas, shared for Becky’s Month of Blue Squares.
Art in the garden has freedoms and challenges. We have to expect nature to intervene: the elements will work upon the piece long after the artist has put down her tools. Continue reading
What we see depends on who we are. Continue reading
A pink and turquoise kraken seizes a sailing boat
Kraken are giant, predatory sea creatures from the North, something like an octopus or squid. This one has, not unusually for its sort, seized hold of a passing sail boat and now has the terrified mariners at its mercy (unless, as we cannot see any onboard, they were all partying onshore when the kraken sneaked into the harbour). It’s a detail from a painting on a hotel car park wall we stopped to admire.
Strictly speaking, the second is fence art. It’s a detail too, of a large design featuring birds, animals and vegetation that runs around the back patio of a restaurant in Key West. It’s worth reading this one upwards, so you get used to each level of the story before taking the next leap.
Pink flamingos painted on a fence
First, leafy foliage with two pink flamingos. So far so good. They wear a decorative form of eye makeup. One is wearing a coronation crown that Queen Elizabeth II would not be ashamed of (it looks lighter than her own). The artist has added a scroll and swirl design to add movement and break up the background. A space craft is leaving the scene to fly off into a universe of stars. Continue reading
Crow, bug, goldfish and tealfish wool art waiting for new homes
At Chimneyville Arts Festival in Jackson last year, one stand was a Shakespearean comedy, full of colour, reverie, laughter and life. Was it just in my imagination that Falstaff, Feste, Caliban and The Man In The Moon cavorted with felt acrobats, goofy-looking puppets, elves, Pod people, birds, bees and bugs?
A lady dressed in a bright jacket sat quietly by the stand, rising to greet visitors with a Duchenne smile. This was Debie Deaton, a member of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi. Continue reading
This patchwork of art squares by children (to inspire us to eat more healthily) was part of the Royal Horticultural Society’s campaign for school gardening at the Tatton Park Flower Show.
It has the side effect of making me smile whenever I look at it.
I’ve written before about the inspired partnering of plants with art glass at Chihuly Garden and Glass, Seattle. Here are some more pictures with a blue theme, shared for Becky’s March Squares.
I’m sharing this spacedawg advertising art for Becky’s Spiky MarchSquares. Someone may have de-spiked the picket fence, but luckily for me, the light gleams are spiky. Continue reading
I ought to warn you that I intend to approach this challenge in a free and easy fashion, anticipating that my blogging buddy, Margaret, who set it, won’t mind in the least. So this street entertainer may have had a little help to get himself up in the air… Continue reading
While I was in Mississippi, we were passing Suzie Cranston’s house when a ball of energy with a beaming smile bounced out of the driveway, exclaiming “I’m painting them! You must look! And I’m really enjoying it!”
She’s the lady, some of you may recall, with perhaps a hundred birdhouses in her garden.
Waving us down the path to her workshop, she pointed out the detailing of the ones she was working on. Any bare wood had been painted over with cheerful colours. Continue reading
Wool and metal bug by Debie Deaton
Debie Deaton sculpts with wool, creating colourful, upscale toys and puppets like this little bug. I met her at Mississippi’s Chimneyville Arts Festival earlier in the month and was immediately taken by her lovingly made, character-infused creations. A whole booth of these animated figures, each one unique, but all united by her humorous house style, is a carnival. Continue reading
