Foodies as artists

Tomatoes!  Luscious ripe and ready for summer. I am thankful for garden produce that artistically adorns the table and overflows the trug strongly hinting at being made into preserves.
Food art is summer's flow, culinary centre pieces are consumed and conversation spills around its enjoyment.

Wouldn't it be nice if art was as accessible as tasty new potatoes and juicy strawberries?  Discerning the finer flavours and subtleties does require some consideration and curiosity not too disimilar to the visual artists' produce.
Taste is a developed sense, art appreciation is too.

It is hard to not want to draw and paint food, I have done before and maybe this summer again...

A little bit of yellow duplo

This little bit of duplo makes me smile.  

Some subject matter is more fun than others.

Yellow

is my

favourite

colour

Sovereignty and mis-understanding

Detail of 'Te Tiriti O Waitangi'

working images on sovereignty

Te Tiriti O Waitangi continues to provoke and challenge my work and the way that as artists we engage in the presentation of its meaning.  The constant pull and push of how this gets worked out in art practice in Aotearoa is both superficial and intense.  What is our dialogue as artists?  How are we investigating identity collaborately or are we content to remain separate entities as we explore our identity?
I am challenged to keep listening and work together as artists, but how does this look?  More questions than answers arise in this journey.  Are there examples of beauty that convey the heart of this precious treaty?

Giggling as I go

'Cultural Transition' was only one of many works that brought a giggle as I viewed the recent exhibition The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy.  Here I have added Colin McCahon's 1959 work 'Tomorrow will be the same but not as this is' which Percy's 'Cultural Transistion' references.
Percy was a clever artist and his art captures a humour that is rarely shared in laugh out loud experiences in gallery viewing.

Robert Nettleton FIELD's art praxis

Epworth Farm, c 1928
oil on hardboard
330 mm x 378 mm
(Auckland City Art Gallery)

http://www.art-newzealand.com/Issues11to20/field.htm

October's highlight

New Abstract Oct 2011

Particularly pleased with this one

Sometimes one does some piece of work and then stands back and wishes it was done on more expensive, archival paper.   This is one of those occasions.  I was quite happy with it, still am.  I hope you enjoy this too.

Like it!

Two recent works that explore the name Tauranga- city of refuge or safe anchorage.

Gothic Revival Architecture

This pretty stunning piece of architecture is Deane and Woodward's Gothic Revival for the Natural History Museum, Oxford.  I like it.

Capturing light

Photograph taken June 2011

Try this at home...

This is a new season.  Share it with friends, eat together and be inspired in the conversation that flows. 
Eat a good meal with lovelies.

Food for thought... feed someone and enjoy their company or be fed and enjoy the conversation.

There are new sights and smells and recipes to invent...

HOW TO LEAVE A COMMENT

For all you great followers and website viewers, I have adjusted the comment settings so it should be possible for you to leave a comment.  If it is still difficult let me know via the commission 'here' email link.

Each week I'll endeavour to put a sketch or small drawing on the site, perhaps some paper works and post inspiring ideas and pictures of my work so that you can follow what is going on in my art journey.

Na Emily

Turning Corners

When you turn a corner there is a degree of unknown. We try to anticipate what is coming and prepare ourselves. We read maps and we look for ways to get familiar prior to the drive. However all is lost if a dense fog sets in. Every detail of the road is examined much more. The degree of concentration heightens and our senses become more alert to the road. Speed becomes less of an issue.

Corners come and corners go

surfaces, contours, scenery moves along

This vehicle I'm driving takes me places

While getting there

Observe the signs

Notice the landscape

Remember

the journey

Not so very far from home

I watched a glorious sunrise a few days ago and thought how beautifully the sky was painted. I ponder in a moment like this how beauty calls my soul to look to the Creator of paint and beauty and simply sigh for lack of adequate language. Beauty and glory, Glory and beauty... One is nestled near the other. In my sojourning I reach to honour the One who made beauty and whose Glory leaks in that place. I search to paint the sky, maybe not as my Creator but nevertheless to use a large paintbrush and rich vivid colours, wide armstrokes and to generate beauty that catches the viewer in his steps even if but only for a moment. He is the Beauty I seek to reflect, the small beauty a mere copy of his masterpiece yet a delighted apprentice in his school.