Art Connection.

With little money to spare for the art world, I think potential buyers are looking for timeless pieces that are show evidence of skill... making beauty a very lucrative theme.

Brad Knunkle and Felix Mas are examples of contemporary artist who are selling their work despite the economic downturn. Both paint with the spirit of Klimpt; both in theme and technique with the use of metallic pigments and inspiring female subjects.

Klimpt.

"We want to declare war of sterile routine, on rigid Byzantinism, on all forms of bad taste...Our succession is not a fight of modern artists against old ones, but a fight for the advancement of artists against hawkers who call themselves artists and yet have a commercial interest in hindering the flowering art"

This is a quote from Hermann Bahr, the founder of a group of artist known as the "Secessionists", Klimpt being one of the main contributors.  The Successionists expressed the theme of femme fatal, strength in beauty (the same narrative of today's fashion).

Portrait of Fritza riedler 1906

Felix Mas.

Felix Mas

Brad Kunkle ( http://www.bradkunkle.com/)

Brad Kunkle.

These are my favorite contemporary artists at the moment. Both Mas and Knunkle's work capture a personal moment of romance...which is one of the most powerful places of female strength.

Be inspired.

Change in the season?

A couple of weeks ago my mail was backing some major lb's. To my surprise and delight, the weight was that of the fall issue of W. Thank you for not being 20 pages long...

The silhouettes for  fall 2010 reference a few different moments in fashion History; 1920's Weimar culture/ early 30's American glamour, post war 1950's and the early 1960's. As much as the looks vary over these time periods, the narrative is relevant; These were all moments off feminine strength in fashion history.

1920's in the Weimar republic was a flaunting time for sex and sin. Women had enormous power over the wallets of  night clubs visitors and thrill seeking roamers. The looks were radical and liberating as society emerged from the bourgeois.

exotic dancer, Anita Berber 1920

Donna Karan fall 2010

Fall 2010 Pucci.
expressing a similar perspective on daring sexuality.



1930's America; crashing economy brings rise to the escape of the beauty queens and classic design giants.  Jean Harlow,  Chanel, Schiaparelli,and Vionnet.

  

Jean Harlow

Escada fall 2010

Vogue Sept 1933, Augusta Bernard.

1950's Post war America: Star struck by faces like Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Anna Magnani; Balenciaga is king, Marilyn Monroe is photographed by Ceil Beaton, Suzy Parker is Avedon's choice, sexual liberation brought by birth control pill. These were the bombshell years...

Vogue 1947 shot by Irving Penn.

 

1960's: man in orbit, pop art, subculture, underground music/ movies, relapse of the 1920's: graphic short hair, shorter than short skirts, modernity, moon clothes and mods. 

1960's Harper's Bazaar, Mainbouche.

Does the modern take on made moments indicate out lack of interpretation of present day strength? Maybe silhouettes are instinctual and move in cycles like evolution.

In 1963, Warhol described the future of now. Modern liberation allows everyone to do anything at anytime.  Fashion is a collage...and it's pretty great. 

Inspired

My  californiacation was not just a judgement trip. I left feeling very inspired by some artistic discoveries.

cherry wood carvings @celebration gallery, US Grant hotel downtown San Diego.

http://www.meekyungshim.com/


Mee Shim has a studio in the little Italy area of down town San Diego. I was blown away by mystical narrative and modern use of realism. Mee uses symbols from asian folklore and collages it with modern artifacts like advertisement pages and graphic styles. Her work is personal but does not force an emotional response on the viewer.  Being an artist myself, I know the value of manifesting your emotions through a timely process to better understand them, but I am still turned off by art that is just the artist demons and is meant to disturb.  Mee's work is obviously emotional, but there is still a sense of beauty which allows a universal relation.

My other new thing is heritage based art. I love the soul of craft and seeing how contemporary artists interpret it.

Stephan Doitschinoff aka: "Calma" ,Brazil.
http://www.mcasd.org/vivalarevolucion/

Mexican skulls

I don't care if Old Town is a tourist trap, I'm so into the skulls for the day of the dead. They have the vibrance and spirit of the beloved Frida.  I even bought a few mexican style dresses...but they were made by Ecuadorians...
regardless, my inspiration stands. 

                                     

Heritage is what gives these pieces substance. Perhapes it is the social climate of uncertainty that        demands a sense of origin ; helping us to better  understand ourselves in the now...

Unexpected art scene.

Often on the weekends I escape the stimulation of urban advertisements and drive to my  mom's country house in Uniondale pennsylvania. Endless mountains, dairy farms and miles of trees. Over the years I have been introduced to other locals and urban escapees. As it turns out, there are not just deer hiding away in the trees, but an enclave of artists both bloomed and in bud (such as furniture designer Andre Joyau (http://www.andrejoyau.com/) and Sculptor Pam Kelly).

Pam Kelly

Pam Kelly

cabinet by Andre Joyau

 The first Friday on every month, artists show their work in the downtown area of scranton. I had the privilege to view the work of Pam Kelly ,and even more of a privilege to be witness to the efforts to build an artistic community in an area starved for something new. 

The beautiful brick buildings of this coal mining town have been renovated to accommodate cafes, stores and galleries. The small streets and alley passages gives downtown a very Euro feel; like the Berliners who inhabited abandon factory buildings for parties  after the fall of the wall. It's astonishing to feel the pulse of an area that  so recently sat in the peripheral shadows of the steam town mall .

Down town Scranton

frame store/ store/book store/ cafe.

inside the store, "outrageous" 

    Now for some background..  

A place known to some as "scrotum" , Scranton has a very surprising history . In the 1800's  the Wurts brothers discovered coal in the region and formed the Delaware & Hudson canal company that was " the first million-dollar private enterprise in the United States, and it led to the first suspension aqueducts that were built by John A. Roebling of Brooklyn Bridge fame and later to the first operation of a railroad locomotive, the "Stourbridge Lion," in America. " (You may  now close your books, please revise for the midterm). 

Scranton was not just a place for the Office, but a stop over for wealthy railroad owners .But over the past decades the lights of the electric city have dimmed, looking as though a war had passed through. Desolate stores, empty streets and over populated malls. 

It makes me so happy to see such a positive response to an artistic effort. 

GO FORTH!!! 

casual sunday bests

A family of tomatoes were crossing the street. The baby tomato lags behind and gets hit by a truck. The mother turns to the accident and yells "KETCHUP!"

...which is precisely what I'm doing.

This past week I ventured to the west coast of San Diego to visit  family. My experience there felt like an alternate reality, bizarro New York. I stayed down town, which feels like a set on a western film. Clean, sterile, and untouched...the litter is taken care of by the large number of homeless holding signs of how the C.I.A. ruined their life...human swiffers? the city has been surrendered to commercial businesses and tourism, while the dominant space of living are the amazing beaches, which seems to be the point which San Diego fashion aesthetic revolves around. (Maybe all the business men and women are like super heros with their swimming costume always ready to go under their mild-mannered corporate facade...)
The style that I did recognize was very categorized; neo-pierced punk, new wave, thrift, surfer... looks that come in a box.

me in my Californiacation attire.

But it isn't all the west coast. Fashion for non-fashion people (as in those whose interests do not lie in anticipating the release of a magazine) has been watered down to a degree where messiness and often stupidity can be worn to any venue. This look is also embraced by American royalty (celebrities), who for some reason have been put in a position to have an opinion.
More than once I've been complimented with the line "you don't look American"... for being well dressed and that is a true shame...

My theory of this blithe movement is the emergence of the (once) subculture into the forefront of social values. Fashion works off the many mediums of art, therefore there will always be a correlation between music, art and fashion. I have seen a dominance of Rap and graffiti culture within the art world.  San Diego's museum of contemporary (both downtown SD and La Jolla) feature an exhibition about The urban dialogue . Showcased artists  are collaging ideas of waste, war, trash, irony and graffiti culture.

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 Shrine to the modern gods.

                                                                                                       

  

The more interactive art pieces made music with trash and found objects. American artist David Ellis in his piece "trash talk" rigged a garbage can with percussion components that would make the litter come alive with music. A similar approach seen in la Jolla's branch where the artist used garage sale lamps as the vessel for a musical performance.  In many ways we are a generation of waste, but it is the artist who finds  beauty at the bottom of the can.

The day I joined the future of now.

I'm not quite sure what is stranger, my resistance to blogs or the fact that they are a modern validation of opinion...

What it comes down to is our depravity of individuality. Cross cultural connection is wonderful, but the down side of overexposure is the lost of sacredness...that's obvious, and the kix-mom-approved way of saying we all look the fucking same (question: can one curse on a blog? This is a good way to find out).

Back to ze point: Live journal- Myspace-facebook-youtube-twitter-blogs are all methods of showcasing yourself and proving that other people care to read watch or listen to every painstaking thing we think. This was my resistance. I think plenty, but I never saw the point of throwing it up on the internet and waiting to see who mops it up. But an obvious peace has been made, and here I am.

With that being said, I will give the proper hat tilt and introduction to my whole schtick:

I am the designer of my world. My college label is Parsons graduate, BFA Fashion designer, but my passion for art, fashion and thought go far beyond the over sized diploma (which I have yet to open).

Fashion is like the stem cell of Art. Just as the mind it balances several difference disciplines and images.

  It is living, breathing transforming art. The body decorations that define and absorbed the experiences of your life.

It maybe hard to consider this when you step through the thresh hold of H&M , but those companies are just evidence of desire. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, even if people in fashion pretend that they don't eat it...(I , on the other hand, happen to fucking love pie)

To conclude this introduction, This blog will be my perception of the world , wearing fashion tinted glasses.