Art We Love--a general place to share paintings or other forms of art

[Guest]

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[Jill]

        Just as the Poetry Thread almost fell off the face of the KivaFriend earth, yesterday, I noticed that the same fate was about to befall the Art Thread.   It's been lingering, periously close to the bottom of the Forum Lounge page, just about to fall off into its own nearly unfathomable obscurity.   So, I decided I would go ahead and rescue it, resurrect it, too, as I think it's one of our richer, more colorful threads.  It would be a shame to "lose" it and have it disappear beyond the reach of all but the most adventurous.   
       
      That said, with the possible exception of "heroic measures" I might be inclined to take to save the thread and thus, continue to spread the gospel of my guy, Ry, the Patron Saint of Clean Water for All, this is to put you on notice that, in the future, I'll be leaving this rescue stuff up to the rest of you.  So keep a look-out, and if you see any threads you don't want to see get lost, then, by all means POST in 'em and bring them back to the top where they can shine.
        Now, for some Art....

       Our fellow KF, Spartan, tried to introduce us, last month, to the really engaging work of a Filipino photographer-teacher-farmer in his thread, Truly Hauntingly Beautiful Photos.
http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1231.0.html
http://www.pbase.com/manny_librodo/elnido
(Spartan, you need to post pictures.  We love pictures.  But either way, thanks, his stuff, just like you said, is sensational).

       The guy's name was Manuel Libres Librodo Jr.   His photos of kids capture the sheer and absolutely joyous exuberance of youth, and I just found them to be so SWEET.   The one that follows is entitled, "Personalities," and it's but a sample of what you will find if you go to his website.

      EDIT:  Click on the Pic.  It gets happily wonderfully exuberantly bigger.

[Jill]

           One good photo deserves another.... and another.... and another.   

       Kay posted earlier in this thread a great and famous Oriental Poppies painting by the inimitable American artist, Georgia O'Keeffe.  Throughout the years, I've been enamoured of O'Keeffe's work, as well.  But in addition to her amazingly wide-spectrumed body of work, I've been fascinated, too, as was O'Keeffe's dashing famous photographer husband, Alfred Stieglitz, by Georgia O'Keeffe
as the subject of art, herself -- this art form being the photographic art form.
     
         First, I'm going to include, here, a quote from her that the Post Office included on a sheet of stamps of her Oriental Poppies they'd issued, years ago.   I absolutely loved it, and I saved a sheet of those stamps as much for the quote as for the brilliant flowers.

               "Nobody sees a flower, really-- it is so small -- we haven't time, and to see takes time,
                like to have a friend takes time." 
                                                                                        Georgia O'Keeffe

        Now I'll give you a couple of links where you can go check out some of her incredible work.
http://www.happyshadows.com/okeeffe/
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=%22Georgia+O%27Keeffe%22&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2


         The photos of Georgia O'Keeffe to follow....

[Dottie b]

 "Nobody sees a flower, really-- it is so small -- we haven't time, and to see takes time,
                like to have a friend takes time." 
                                                                                        Georgia O'Keeffe

I once took a course in spring flower identification that solved that problem! It involved staring at the flower's minutest parts with a 10-power hand lens for the longest time and working with a key or field guide to distinguish it from its closest relatives. I had no idea there were so many spring wildflowers until then! So many of them are there just briefly, blooming under the trees in the woods, enjoying the sun until the trees leaf out and the flowers disappear.

Dottie B

[KivanSteven]

Thanks Jill, I love the one of the kids...it such an optimistic feeling picture, innocence mixed with the tranquility of the environment.

[Jill]

       What Georgia wrote .....

        Riffing.... on seeing a flower, on seeing anything.
        I once had a college roommate who took a University Free School class in Chinese Brush Painting. 
Their first day of painting entailed their teacher's sending them all out to sit in a field, sans brushes, sans paint, sans canvas.  Their task was to sit, to be still and, before even thinking about trying to put anything on paper, to try to take in the "treeness of (the) tree" that was to be their first subject -- their first subject, that was, sometime.... not then, but sometime in the future.
     
        To take the time to be still and to try to partake of the essence of the thing.  I loved the thought of it.   The rightness of it.   Ever since that afternoon that she came back and told me, in a kind of a happy wonder, about their (life) assignment, I've found myself sometimes thinking in, searching for essences -- the springness of spring -- and what makes spring so glorious,  the kidness of kid, etc.
I have very much appreciated the lifetime gift of that lesson.

       It brings back Tennyson....
       
Flower in the crannied wall,   
I pluck you out of the crannies;—   
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,   
Little flower—but if I could understand   
What you are, root and all, and all in all,           
I should know what God and man is.

[Jill]

       Georgia on my mind......

[Jill]

      There are so many treasures out there.
I came upon the following, totally by chance.  I love murals.
After I saw these, I was just thinking.....
wouldn't it be something spectacular if somebody would paint a mural for Kiva on their building?
Can't you just imagine it?

      These three that follow came from a project called The Murals of Philadelphia.
I thought they were tremendous.  Check out the link, below.  There are a whole bunch more.  Then, while you're at it,
why don't you go track down some other murals, maybe representing other cultures, to post and to enrich this thread.
Just for fun.  Til some really thrilling loans start showing up on the Kiva website.
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1649278_1421152,00.html

'Reaching for a Star'
Artist: Don Gensler
William Hodges, who lives in the house upon which the mural is painted, says:
"That mural is the best thing that's happened around here.
For 20 years, this neighborhood's been going down,
but when they came and put that mural up there on the wall, it stopped it from going down." 

          The pic will enlarge, nicely, if you'll click on it.

[Jill]

      One of the muralists.
He's great looking, just as the mural behind him is great looking.

The Artist Ras Malik
A sharecropper's son, Malik's talent was first discovered by the army, which provided him, through the GI bill,
the opportunity to study at the Philadelphia College of Art. He has been with the Mural Arts Program since the late 1980s.

        Click on him, too.  You've got to see that smile!

[Jill]

     Okay, Kiddies,  here's your thread back, after this.
Let's see what you can do with it.

The Peace Wall' (detail)
Artist: Jane Golden
Painted on a house in Grays Ferry, one of the city's more racially charged neighborhoods,
The Peace Wall remains one of Philadelphia's most enduring icons of hope.

[Eli]

Oh how I LOVE the murals of Philadelphia.  One of my favorite 'sleeper' television programs is on PBS (Tuesday nights here) and they did an independent film that was about the Philadelphia Murals Project and how they altered not just the landscape but the pride of those in the community.

Independent Lens is a program that airs independent film makers productions. One week it could be on crossword puzzles, the next week on the art of henna to chickens in the city.  Truly an eclectic mix of programming.  My favorite show I've ever seen, and one that made the most impact was 'The World According to Sesame Street', and I would bet the farm that anyone who is a fan of Kiva would appreciate the global outreach that Sesame Workshop (yes, as in Sesame Street) has been doing.  For me, I had absolutely no idea.  We changed our will to include Sesame Workshop it made such an impact upon us.  (www.pbs.org/independentlens/worldaccordingtosesamestreet/film.html)

If you care to learn more about the programming, you can sign up for the once a week mailing describing the topics issued:  www.pbs.org/independentlens.