Fine Art

Wondering how to incorporate Art into your home?

Published on: by judelobe

When think­ing of ways to dec­o­rate a home, art is a great way to show off your per­son­al style, while adding a touch of lux­u­ry to any room. Remem­ber any­one can go out and pur­chase prints, how­ev­er, not every­one knows how to make the most of these pieces. Make your home stand out and have your home express your loves, by uti­liz­ing art through­out your home that reflects you. Design­ers share these five ways to incor­po­rate art make your home be your per­son­al space.

1. FIND WORK THAT SPEAKS TO YOU. It does­n’t have to match the col­or of your sofa. You can always pick out col­ors from the paint­ing for pil­lows to com­ple­ment the sofa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. LOVE SMALL ARTWORKS AND/OR WALL ART?
More can be bet­ter. Hang in a group­ing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. IS THERE A PARTICULAR ARTIST WHOSE WORK RESONATES WITH YOU?
Hang one artist’s pieces togeth­er for an impact state­ment.

4. LITTLE WALL SPACE?? How about lean­ing a paint­ing on the man­tle against the wall, or on the floor?

Just a few ideas. And where to buy art? Seek out your local art gal­leries, espe­cial­ly those owned and oper­at­ed by local artists, and art coun­cils. Art Coun­cils are won­der­ful places to find local artists work.

ART IS FUNCTIONAL. It lifts your spir­its every day. 

 

DECORATING TO EXPAND A SMALL ROOM">DECORATING TO EXPAND A SMALL ROOM

Published on: by judelobe

HOW TO DECORATE TO EXPAND A SMALL ROOM

Look­ing for an easy way to do it? Hang a large land­scape paint­ing in the room. Give the illu­sion of space with a land­scape paint­ing that has a dis­tant hori­zon. It will become your focal point and if you are in the mood to change your envi­ron­ment, you can use the col­ors in the art­work to deter­mine your wall col­ors, accent pil­lows etc.
Art lifts our spir­its each time we look at it. Lift your spir­its by tak­ing a trip to your local art gal­leries. Buy local. Sup­port your local econ­o­my and your local artists.

Endan­gered Land­scape, Jude Lobe
As Evening Falls Over Pamil­co Sound, Lolette Guthrie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or, you can make a vignette in a cor­ner by mix­ing sculp­tures, pot­tery and framed small paint­ings. Bring togeth­er small tables of vary­ing sizes or cubes to place your spe­cial art­works, and plac­ing them next to a seat­ing arrange­ment or in a cor­ner.

Use the win­dowsill for dis­play of small paint­ings or sculp­tures.

TIPS FOR HANGING ART

  • When hang­ing art, if the art­work is heavy, hang with 2 pic­ture hang­ing hooks 4″ apart. This shares the weight.
  • Con­sid­er the height that you hang sin­gle art­works. They are best hung at eye lev­el, which aver­ages 60″. To do this you mea­sure up from the floor 60″ and that is where the cen­ter of the pic­ture should hang. FORMULA: Divide the height of the frame by two; from that num­ber, then sub­tract the dis­tance from the top of the frame to the hang­ing wire; add this num­ber to the 60″ mark and and mark where the bot­tom of the pic­ture hang­ing hook should be.
  • All art is bet­ter hung with pic­ture hang­ing hooks rather than nails or screws, as it helps dis­trib­ute the weight.
  • Hang small­er art­works in group­ings of var­ied sizes.
  • If a paint­ing is very small, frame it with a large dou­ble mat before hang­ing on the wall.
  • If you have a man­tle, con­sid­er just lean­ing it against the wall rather than hang­ing it.

 

LUMINOUS SKIES TO ABSTRACT">LUMINOUS SKIES TO ABSTRACT

Published on: by judelobe
As Spring Arrives

Lolette Guthrie is a land­scape painter who works most­ly from mem­o­ry. “Nature is the exter­nal sub­stance in my work; nuance of col­or that evokes an emo­tion is the inte­ri­or sub­stance. While I some­times work in pas­tels, I am pri­mar­i­ly an oil painter.  Regard­less of the medi­um, how­ev­er, res­o­nant col­or is the core of my process.  I love to jux­ta­pose lumi­nous pas­sages of sat­u­rat­ed col­or with more mut­ed tones com­bin­ing lay­ers of opaque col­or with trans­par­ent glazes. I find that by vary­ing the thick­ness of the paint and apply­ing many lay­ers of glaze I can achieve a sense of lumi­nos­i­ty and hope­ful­ly an aware­ness of the light in the air, some­thing I am eter­nal­ly try­ing to cap­ture.”

“At times my work is pared down rep­re­sen­ta­tion; at times it is abstract.  Regard­less of the genre, each piece begins with a loose idea that evolves grad­u­al­ly and intu­itive­ly. At some point I always lose myself in the process. Then the paint­ing takes on a life of its own and I become aware that the can­vas that is telling me what to do.”
As The Sun Shines Through

Raised in a house­hold filled with art, I have been paint­ing for as long as I can remem­ber. My father was a fine artist and com­mer­cial illus­tra­tor and my ear­li­est mem­o­ries are of stand­ing beside him at his easel watch­ing him work and ask­ing ques­tions, and of “work­ing” near him. He often asked for my advice, seemed to take what­ev­er I had to say seri­ous­ly and urged me to explore my own artis­tic inter­ests, how­ev­er, he active­ly dis­cour­aged me from pur­su­ing art as a career. I, there­fore, majored in psy­chol­o­gy and art his­to­ry in col­lege and worked for many years as an ele­men­tary school teacher but I nev­er stopped draw­ing and paint­ing. Even­tu­al­ly, I returned to school to study art and received a BS in draw­ing and paint­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin in 1984.

Pri­or to mov­ing to North Car­oli­na in 2004, I exhib­it­ed wide­ly in both juried and invi­ta­tion­al exhi­bi­tions in Wis­con­sin, Wash­ing­ton, DC, Vir­ginia, Mary­land and Geor­gia includ­ing such pres­ti­gious gal­leries as the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, The Mil­wau­kee Muse­um of Art’s Bradley Gallery, the Car­di­nal Gallery of Art, Annapo­lis, MD and the Goodyear Cot­tage Art Gallery, Jekyll Island, GA. I was also Artist in Res­i­dence at Hunt­ley Mead­ows Park in Alexan­dria, Vir­ginia for 8 years where I was for­tu­nate to have had sev­er­al solo shows.

ENJOYING BEING IN THE MOMENT">ENJOYING BEING IN THE MOMENT

Published on: by judelobe

BE IN TOUCH

by Jude Lobe

This last Fri­day in May, 2019, I will be fea­tured in the show, BE IN TOUCH, with Gar­ry Childs and Pat Mer­ri­man. For this show, I was inspired by the role of Shamans who, for as long as time remem­bers, have worked to nego­ti­ate life-giv­ing har­mo­ny to all things in the envi­ron­ment. Their belief is expressed in the Native Amer­i­can quote, ” We do not inher­it the earth from our ances­tors, we bor­row it from our chil­dren.” As care­tak­ers of this plan­et, it seems to me we have much to learn from nature if we just be qui­et, observe and lis­ten.

When I am hik­ing along a trail, seat­ed on a deck look­ing out over waves of blue and pur­ple moun­tains, sit­ting with my dog, kayak­ing through marsh­es or just walk­ing in my yard being aston­ished at the array of shades of yel­low daf­fodils bloom­ing in places I did­n’t even plant them, I become present in nature. It’s a calm­ing and stress-reliev­ing feel­ing to be in touch with nature.

In my art­work, I cre­ate my impres­sions and remem­brances of the feel­ings I had when alone with nature. My land­scape paint­ings, aren’t recre­ations of the scenes, but rather an expres­sion of the emo­tions I had while com­muning with nature. My cop­per sculp­tur­al works are sym­bol­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Native Amer­i­can spir­it guides, par­tic­u­lar­ly heal­ing guides that help with bal­anc­ing our spir­i­tu­al, emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal health. The encaus­tics, nature in theme, play on the theme ‘Be in Touch’, being very tex­tur­al.

Look deep into nature and then you will under­stand every­thing bet­ter. – Albert Ein­stein

 

< Left: Top — Sun­scape, cen­ter — the Crow Saith, Bot­tom — Bod­hi Beleaf

WHISPERS & ECHOES">WHISPERS & ECHOES

Published on: by judelobe
Michael Sale­mi: Man­zani­ta Crevasse

Wood­turn­er, Michael Sale­mi, writes of his new work: “Whis­pers and echoes—small sounds with rever­ber­a­tions that are heard again and again. This is an apt metaphor for my recent work.  Of late, I am focus­ing on mak­ing sub­tle changes in form, col­or and mate­r­i­al that I hope res­onate through­out my work. In some work my echoes are literal—repeating pat­terns with­in a piece or through­out a group of pieces. In oth­er pieces, the echoes are fig­u­ra­tive as I attempt to incor­po­rate design fea­tures that I have learned from oth­ers. Whis­pers are, of their nature, qui­et. I like to think that my work qui­et­ly con­veys a sense of bal­ance and peace. I pre­fer under­stat­ed dec­o­ra­tion that whis­pers rather than shouts.”

Vis­it Michael Salemi’s Artist Page

 

 

ALL ABOUT THE STORY">IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STORY

Published on: by judelobe

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STORY: Behind the Scenes, by Elizabeth Keckley

The Hills­bor­ough Gallery of Arts, an artist-owned and oper­at­ed gallery in down­town Hills­bor­ough, NC, presents the sev­enth annu­al fea­tured show, It’s All About the Sto­ry. Each year gallery mem­bers choose a local author and book or sto­ry col­lec­tion to respond to in their own medi­um. Pre­vi­ous authors include Michael Mal­one, Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith, Allan Gur­ganus, John Bemis, and Nan­cy Pea­cock. This year the artists have select­ed a work by a per­son who plays a very sig­nif­i­cant role in the his­to­ry of Hills­bor­ough, Eliz­a­beth Keck­ley. Her mem­oir, Behind the Scenes, or Thir­ty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, describes her remark­able jour­ney from slav­ery in Hills­bor­ough to free­dom as an accom­plished dress­mak­er and con­fi­dante of Mary Todd Lin­coln. Each piece in the group show, It’s All About the Sto­ry, is inspired by Keckley’s inspir­ing book. The show runs from Feb­ru­ary 1st–Feb­ru­ary 20th.

Recep­tion
Feb­ru­ary 10
3–4:30

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