Artistic Style

Alyson Stanfield’s post What is Artistic Style? hit the nail right on the head –

An artist’s style is not good or bad. It just IS. The execution might be criticized, the colors might be perceived as ugly, or the composition seen as weak, but the style is what it is.

Artistic style is your calling card, it is what differentiates you from the pack. While your style may develop over time, I believe the bones of what makes your art shine is there from the beginning. I think every artist struggles to find their voice and stick with it, especially with the glut of visual art on the internet. The pressure to conform to trends and popular themes is around every corner. Standing out is about pushing those distractions aside and letting your personality speak for itself. If you allow your personality to lead your creative process, a personal style emerges.

I’ve struggled with defining my artistic path. Sometimes I’ve felt the pressure to “pick just one thing to focus on” and the term “cohesive body of work” has had me chasing my tail on more than one occasion. I’m starting to realize that having a definitive style is less about making all of your artwork look similar and more about standing out and having your artwork recognized as coming from you.

Having a style doesn’t mean you must produce the same work over and over again. It simply means that you have created work that others identify with you.

I agree completely.

Friday Faves: Andrew Logan jewelry

I discovered Andrew Logan's jewelry in the book, the Art & Craft of Jewelry. I was so awestruck by his creations that I tracked the book down on Half.com and purchased it right away.

The book is full of how-to projects, one of which was supposed to instruct the reader on how to make these cool little brooches and pins but the directions were very vague. I was unable to track down the "putty" that the artist uses to embed the glass into otherwise I'd be making these right now! I've tried every putty like adhesive that you can imagine and NONE of them work. [The product is referred to as "plastic cement" and is supposed to be gray in color. Any leads would be appreciated!]

The artist has created some giant mosaic sculptures that can be found in the UK and his artwork, Cosmic Egg, lives at the American Museum of Visionary Art in Baltimore, MD.

Dream

I love this print. It totally speaks to my love of outer space.

Deep, deep sea

Deep Sea Angler, 13x7", stained glass & ceramic. © Eve Lynch

I had been struggling to find inspiration and despite thinking that I was going to be without ideas forever, I finally broke through and finished a piece of artwork that really kept me interested.

I started working on this reef scene almost a year ago and somewhere along the way I lost interest and set it aside. This happens to me a lot and I contribute it to me trying to do a "brain dump" and get the idea out before I lose track of it. Once a project is set aside, I find it very difficult to get back into the rhythm and complete it. I attribute this to artistic growth. Once I've past a certain point in my journey, I can't go back and edit something from that time period. However, this piece was an exception to that rule.

I have to give some of the credit to this talented artist: Lisa Peters. She created the two ceramic "tiles" in the center of the reef. They were originally designed to be cabochons or buttons but they were saying "coral reef" to me. I have a pretty fabulous stash of Lisa's cast-offs [if there is such a thing!] and when I happened upon these pieces, it started the ball rolling on this artwork again.

Breaking from my tradition of using opus palladianum, I decided to cut the glass into small tesserae and lay them in some sort of formal pattern. Working like this was definitely outside of my comfort zone but my son commented on how it looked "like a real Roman mosaic" so I guess I made some headway.

I created the Anglerfish out of polymer clay and affixed him to the finished mosaic. I really love mixing the rigidness of glass and ceramic with the flexibility of clay. I used to think that I had to choose one or the other but I've realized that I need to let the artwork emerge as I see it and forget about the rules.

Weird Mosaics

My artwork is often referred to as "weird". The term has gotten a bad rap really. Weird is often associated with things being out of sorts but in my book, weird = good.

When I began making mosaics I wasn't interested in depicting flowers or copying projects from pattern books. I just wanted to make all those creative ideas I had been storing away come to life. A lot of my ideas are off-beat...but off-beat = special.

Along the way I've become a lover of the unusual and I've tried to take note of the other mosaic artists that are practicing the "art of weird". There are several.

One such artist is Shannon O'Brien of Mosaic Geek. I discovered Shannon and her mosaics when she published this blog post about me. I am wild about her little robot character and her Pac Man mosaic [my fave game back in the 80's - second to Pitfall]. Coincidentally, I've had some robot sketches in my notebook ever since I watched Wall-E [the girl robot shares my name!].

I guess great minds do think alike!




















I've vowed to keep an eye out for Shannon's future work. You should too.

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Do you love (or hate) what you create?

I cycle through various emotions as I create a piece of art. Sometimes, I am totally enamored with what I am creating and other times I absolutely hate it. Sometimes the hatred is so strong that it causes me to stop working on a piece altogether, sometimes it lasts for a brief time until I "work through" it.

These ups and downs don't always end when the piece is completed. There are very few works of art that I have created that I feel a strong connection to once they leave my hands. I can think of only one that I love so dearly that I do not want to part with it; the others I am connected to only slightly and some I dislike altogether. Sometimes I feel a longing for pieces that I have sold, long after they are gone, even though I didn't care for them when I had them in my possession.

I posed this question on CMA and found that many other artists feel the same. Even accomplished mosaic artist Sonia King admits to feeling a sway of emotions when creating her artwork. Maybe the emotional ups and downs are simply part of the process. I'll have to learn to live with them and take them as part of creating rather than trying to focus on only the positive energy.

Marinating ideas

I'm preparing for an art exhibit entitled Recycle It in February and I'm attempting to pull months of marinating ideas out of my head and into existence. I had a few competing ideas circulating around but I think I have managed to pare it down to one. If all goes as planned it will be a tweak on natural history incorporating some natural elements. The piece is completely finished in my head but I've yet to glue a single piece of glass anything...but I do have a small collection of feathers, shells, beetles and other curiosities piling up.

I often have 3 or 4 pieces of art at work in my head, especially when I am too busy to work on anything. I've had months to think about the recycling challenge but I have a few pesky zombie ideas bouncing around that just won't stop nagging at me. I may have to get them "fleshed" out just to keep my sanity. It didn't help that I received a request for "Zombie Love" - a take on my piece Yeti Love. I will never be able to get that fabulous idea out of my brain!

I think I'll probably end up staring at my materials for a few more days (or weeks!) and I'll spend some relaxing time modeling zombies with polymer clay. Definitely a more accessible medium to work in. I hope to be less overcome with ideas and more involved in bringing them to fruition.

Dark Side of the Moon

I've been working on two tempered glass mosaics for an upcoming exhibit, Pequeno Formato. Last year my mosaic, La Catrina, won 1st place in the exhibit and I wanted to make an effort to do something totally different from that piece. I work alot with Day of the Dead themes and I wanted to break through to the other side so I created a set of space inspired artworks that sprouted out of an idea that I kind of fell into while I was playing around with polymer clay.

Clay speaks to me differently than glass and I feel like it has a way of manipulating itself into whatever I may be subconsciously focusing on. Outer space, with all its twinkling stars and planets, is built into my inner consciousness and these celestial images routinely charm me into using them in my artwork.

(I'm a very practical person and after reading that last paragraph back I realize that it sounds completely nuts but...it is the way I feel.)

Dark Side of the Moon I and Dark Side of the Moon II were created with tempered glass and other mosaic materials such as millefiori, stained glass, mirror and an assortment of beads and glitters. The pieces are a tribute to the magnificent worlds that lurk right outside our galaxy.

Ironically, NASA broke the news that they discovered a significant amount of water on our moon right in the middle of me making them!

Tempered glass at its best

A great example of how such a simple (and often discarded) material can be turned into something fantastic. And to think this is only paint, glue, glass and grout.

Stunning.

by artist Erica Hoverter of Zoe Mosaic Designs

Heartistry

Lin Schorr is one creative (and ambitious) mosaic artist. She has organized, designed and ultimately pulled off one of the coolest and most interesting collaborative projects I've ever seen...and she's donated all of the work to the Providence Park Hospital in Novi, Michigan! How's that for spreading the mosaic love?

Speaking of "love", Heartistry is just one of the 4 projects that she has undertaken.
She has been collecting submissions from mosaic artists from all over the world for this project, like this cool broken but mended heart (my fave submission so far) from artist Michele Curow.
This is my kind of mosaic...off the beaten path.

I was one of the contributing artists on the project until I received the materials and decided that this project just wasn't for me. I worked on a submission for a few hours but most of my ideas were too "out there" for the collaboration. A heart shaped skull or an anatomical Poe heart weren't exactly going to fit the theme for this one, as the finished project will be hung in the cardiology department. I just wasn't willing to compromise my artistic vision for something that I really wasn't into so I bailed out of the project and let someone else take my spot. I'm glad I did. I'm having much more fun seeing what the other artists are coming up with rather than struggling to create something toned down.

Lin's other collaborative murals are stunning. I submitted a puzzle piece for Amuzapalooza, a giant puzzle created using 50 pieces submitted by artists. It was interesting seeing how my submission gelled with the other artists designs. The finished works are visually stunning and represent the best of what a community of artists can do...and to think that most of the artists came together on Flickr! Very cool.

Be sure to take a look at the two murals that started it all...

Swirlendipity I and Swirlendipity II

Mosaic Swap - Part 2

I have been dying to do a mosaic trade with Rebecca Collins ever since I first came across one of her squid mosaics so when the opportunity arose I was more than happy to get crazy and try something totally new. We both have a unique style and our trade was destined to happen. [You can read about the details on part 1 of my mosaic swap post here.]

I was excited when Rebecca picked my theme "man eating plant" because I knew that I could really work something wacky into the piece. I've been sidetracked by polymer clay lately anyway so it was a no brainer to sculpt the plant and then hand paint it.

I started with a quick sketch and then sculpted the jaws of the plant and created its stem and leaves. I used iridescent white glass cut into small pieces for the teeth and hand painted the entire thing using several thin coats of acrylic paint and a nice thick coat of gloss sealer. Alot of my inspiration came from the Little Shop of Horrors plant. I've never seen the movie but that plant has such character!

I kept the actual mosaic part very simple using regular plate glass laid over a painted background and then sprinkled some iridescent glitter onto the grout spaces to give it some added interest. I finished the piece by lining the edges with tacks to give it a real edge. It is a dangerous man eating plant after all!

I really loved making this piece and I had a hard time letting it go. I forgot all about it once I received Rebecca's wonderful trade in the mail though. Trading art is a very cool experience and a great way to build your art collection. I'm certainly open to doing it again.

Mosaic Swap - It's a Throw Down!

I am just getting around to posting about my art swap with artist Rebecca Collins from Art Paw! Forgive me, it is long overdue!

Rebecca and I share a love of the unusual. She is a multi-talented artist that creates colorful pet portraits and she also does mosaic art. She chooses some interesting subject matter...octopuses (my fave!), bats and beetles. I stopped by a lovely vampire bat mosaic photo of hers on Flickr and commented how "we should do a trade". She replied within minutes and we were off and running.

She thought we should each choose a subject that we haven't worked with before so we each picked three themes that we could throw into a hat and decide on.

Her three picks:

1. lizard
2. snake
3. a rainbow - do something cool with a rainbow

My three picks:

1. squid
2. man eating plant
3. imagery/scene inspired by the movie Fern Gully (I still want to do this one!)

She instantly connected with "man eating plant" so we decided to go with it. We each created a 6 by 6 inch mosaic using interesting materials. Rebecca's finished mosaic can be seen in it's full colored glory here. She is also an internet guru so she created a video blog about the swap, you can view that here.

Her mosaic is fantastic and has some of the coolest features like little skulls and bones littered around the plant. She has a unique personal style of mosaicing that involves setting words under glass and then mosaicing around it all. She even covered the sides of her mosaic, something that is rarely done. The finished work is really cool.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I'll talk about "Man Eater", the piece that I created for her.

I need to refresh

I've been losing interest in mosaics for the last few months. I think I am trying to do too much, trying to accomplish everything and by doing that I'm actually losing ground. This year I accomplished my goal - which was to enter a lot of exhibits and get some press but I feel like I'm back at square one with my art. I wish I had a refresh button!

My last big project was completing my large mosaic skull. That project wiped me out and made me want to run from cutting glass. I think it burned me out entirely. Ever since I've been messing around with simpler things but nothing feels right.

In an effort to "keep producing", I recently turned to tempered glass mosaics. Working with tempered glass requires a lot less technical skill but offers me a chance to be creative and still make something worth oohing and ahhing over. I'm working on series of outer space themed artworks using the TG and polymer clay sculptures for an upcoming exhibit.

I'm hoping to get back to cutting glass sometime after the holidays. Maybe I'll have found my refresh button by then.