I don’t know what creates these incredible patterns on this palm tree, but I am fascinated by them. I think this one looks like a Chinese scene of people passing. (Click on photos to enlarge.) I’d be interested to hear what figures you see in the tree.
For the Sunday Trees Challenge.
The fun in art lies, for me, in being experimental. Here are a few of the areas I’ve played around with. Different genres, materials and techniques. Art is a way to never grow up. (Click on any photo to enlarge all.)
For, the Daily Post Photo Challenge: Experimental
Big changes in my life in the past three days and no time to write about them. Since the prompt word today is “create,” I’m going to show some art work I’ve probably shown before, but no time to do more. I’ll explain what’s going on when I get back from Guadalajara this afternoon!
Art can be made from anything. These are all pieces made by my assistant and me when we were visiting forgottenman. Please click on first photo to see enlarged views of the work as well as my able assistant. (He made me what I am today.)
The prompt today is “create.”
Every time I see these photos in thumbnail view in my photo file, I think, “Now whose dog is that?” Then I enlarge them and realize they are two views of one of Jan Golik’s fabulous junk art dog portraits. I believe this one is of her own dogs and it looks exactly like him. Amazing.
Okay, now here they are in larger views:
These are some of the pieces I’ll be showing in the La Manzanilla Art Walk on January 28. I have another entire body of work–wall pieces where a part detaches to be worn as a brooch–that I’ll show you in a day or two. These pieces were all made by materials found on the beach at La Manzanilla or La Ribera in Baja:
Click on first image to enlarge all.
Nude Descending the Beach. Wall sculpture and photo, jdb
Off-Kilter
Who cares if your bangs are uneven,
your hem hanging down on the left?
If the picture frame’s a bit off-kilter,
who here would feel most bereft?
Who fusses and dithers whenever
the pizza’s unevenly cleft,
or in the new rug he just purchased,
if the warp is not square with the weft?
When it comes to most talents,
he’s not especially deft.
He has little talent at singing,
and he has neither looks, charm nor heft.
Yet if your smile is crooked,
my dear, I fear you are effed.
for with our friend “Even Steven,”
a mil off is as bad as a theft.
The prompt today is “uneven.”
“Beach Sunset” bone, shell, wood, coral, sponge, beach scrub and acrylic paint, 3.5 x 11 inches, Mixed media assemblage by Judy Dykstra-Brown, March, 2016
Beach Combing
I gave nothing to the sea, so she gave nothing back.
It was as though she looked and thought, “There’s nothing that you lack.”
It’s true that I have all I need of food and friends and fun,
and yet I still lack something that’s waiting to be won.
It isn’t gained by medals, by prizes or by fame,
for it is some other thing, bereft of rank or name.
There is some magic in the world that I go looking for
that has no set place where it lives, no windowpanes or door.
I’ve found it once or twice before, in places far afield
by accident, for if you try to force it, it won’t yield.
It isn’t found at parties, a fiesta nor a fete.
If you go looking for it, the magic will abate.
It’s found in how you do things, in what manner, at what pace.
If you reach too quickly, it will vanish with no trace.
I can’t tell you how to gain it, for I fear that I don’t know.
I just know that when I found it was when I was going slow.
My rental house at the beach is no place to socialize three dogs raised behind high walls and accustomed only to their own company. At home on Lake Chapala, their relationships with other dogs consist completely of sitting on the roof and barking at every dog who dares walk by my house. I miss them, but they are well-cared for by Maggie, who is housesitting. The found art piece dedicated to them as well as a few others recently completed are shown below. All of these sculptures were assembled by me over the past two months from assorted plants, shells, bones, wood and other objects found on the beach during my morning walks.
(Click on first photo to enlarge. Then click on each arrow to view other enlarged photos. After viewing all photos, click on X at top left of screen to return to this page. A link to other found art wall sculptures recently completely is given at the bottom of this page.)
Go HERE to view recently made found art sculptures shown in an earlier post.
I responded to today’s one word prompt, “Object” as a noun. Here is the link for the prompt, in case you want to see how others responded: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/object/
Here are a few of the found art wall pieces I’ve just completed. They are all constructed of material collected on the beach of La Manzanilla during morning walks.
(Click on first photo to enlarge all, then click on arrows to see next photo.)
Sculptor in the Sand
Mario Gagnon is retired from his life as a hospital maintenance engineer in Quebec, but when we retire from our profession, we do not retire from our interests, and his lifetime fondness for what he calls “decorating” comes with him when he comes to the beach. Like most of those camping beachside, he has made the palapa living area of his campsite “homely” in only one usage of the word. From hammocks to wall sconces fashioned from fruiting bundles of palm trees, his environs are beautiful in addition to comfortable.
I revisited him yesterday, partially because I’d forgotten to take a picture of him when I met him on the second day I visited, but I was also there because of my curiosity over whether he altered his sculpture each day. I did find him fussing with the tail of the iguana, but that was perhaps just staging for the bypasser who was currently taking his picture. When the “interloper” (kidding) departed, it was my turn.
This time it was a female neighbor who translated for us and she explained to me something that I had not cottoned on to the first time we’d met. “He can’t understand you because he is deaf and he can’t read your lips because he doesn’t speak English! Formerly, I had thought his friend was interpreting only because of the language barrier, and when I spoke Spanish, thinking it was closer to French, it hadn’t helped much either. Trying to imagine what the beach would be like without its sounds to accompany it, I asked him if he could feel the pounding of the surf. “Yes, he told me, “because I am deaf, my other senses are stronger. When I smell a fire, I can tell how long ago it was lit, what is burning and what was used to start the fire.”
This dapper, handsome man was generous in sharing his art, his home away from home and his time. Here are some of the pictures I took of his world:
(Please click on first photo to enlarge and view gallery.)
If you didn’t see the first segment I did on Mario’s wonderful beach sculpture of the iguana, to see it, go HERE.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 