Philbrook Museum Trading Tulips for Tomatoes
Path, from the Philbrook Museum gardens, by Flickr user trp0. Click image to visit on Flickr.
The Tulsa, OK Philbrook Museum of Art is doing something different with their grounds this summer. Faced with a budget shortfall that prevented them from maintaining all of their formal gardens, they decided instead to plant vegetables and harvest them for hungry Oklahomans. NPR reported on this story: click here to listen.
The Urban Tulsa Weekly reports that the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma welcomes the fruit and vegetable donations:
"Fresh produce is one of our most highly coveted items," [community relations director Cindy Stevens] said. "To be able to offer not just fresh produce, but produce picked that day or the day before is something that is a tremendous gift to our programs."
It will help people to eat healthier, too, which is so often a difficulty for low-income families. The seeds and other supplies for the vegetable garden were donated, and with the help of local volunteers, the museum staff is maintaining and harvesting the crops. Read the Philbrook Museum's full press release here.
This is something I love about living in Oklahoma. We seem to have an innate do-it-yourself impulse, and we are serious about supporting our local communities. Kudos to the Philbrook for turning economic hardship into an opportunity to help others.
UPDATE: Speaking of public gardens, here is a cool infographic of the new White House vegetable garden.
Later this month at the Philbrook, I will be giving a public talk about the Peggy Preheim exhibit. Preheim's mind-bogglingly intricate work, mainly miniature pencil drawings, present quasi-personal narratives that pull the viewer into her mysterious world. Come to the museum on Wednesday July 8th at noon to listen and discuss.
This post is part of NaBloPoMo for July 2009.
Profile on the Society of Illustrators LA Blog
Margaret V, acrylic and graphite on masonite, 2005 by Sarah Atlee
The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles blog has posted a profile of me and my work. Click here to read it. Thank you, SILA, for providing your members with an online gallery, and helping the public get to know us a little better.
BookMooch Journal: Thin Places
Namaste, photo by Kim Pierro. Click image to see this photo's Flickr page.
I recently contributed to the BookMooch Journal Thin Places. My entry was the word Namaste.
Namaste has a lot of different translations. My favorite is "The light within me salutes the light within you." This particular translation was used by the Reverend Tom Honey in this talk for the 2005 TED Conference. His speech, titled "How could God have allowed the Tsunami?", calls into question our Western idea of theodicy, the notion that God is in charge and everything happens according to a divine plan. He counters this view with the suggestion that every creature contains divine light as part and parcel of their existence. (Do yourself a favor, take twenty minutes, and listen to his talk. His warm, soothing voice alone is worth the time.)
Live Oak Friends Meeting House, designed by James Turrell.
Artist James Turrell has also drawn influence from this idea of internal light. Turrell's upbringing included education in Quaker spirituality. The Quaker belief system cherishes inner light as the receptacle and source for divine understanding. (How interesting that the disparate Quaker and Hindu faiths should include this same idea at their core.) On his early experience with the Quaker society, Turrell says,
My grandmother used to tell me that as you sat in Quaker silence you were to go inside to greet the light. That expression stuck with me. ...Telling a child to go inside "to greet the light" is about as much as was ever told to me. But there is an idea, first of all, of vision fully formed with the eyes closed. Of course the vision we have in a lucid dream often has greater lucidity and clarity than vision with the eyes open. The fact that we have this vision with the eyes closed is very interesting. And the idea that it's possible to actually work in a way, on the outside, to remind one of how we see on the inside, is something that became more interesting to me as an artist.
You can go here and view clips about Turrell and his work from the PBS' excellent Art:21 series.
Reference Photo and Collage Sources on Flickr
Smorgasbord by Flickr user CharlesFred. Click image to visit on Flickr.
Say it with me, illustrators: "Photo references are good. Use them." Using references is not copying, it is not cheating. Image references are tools. What's an easy way to make sure you're not trodding on another artist's toes? Search within the Creative Commons.
What is Creative Commons? The Creative Commons license is a legal way for creators to easily share their content with the public. It is not a negation of copyright. There are different kinds of licenses depending on the type of content (music, images, literature, software, and so on) and how the creator wishes to share this material. I release my work under a Creative Commons license (there's a link over in the left column of this page) because I believe that information and influence should (and do) flow freely among creators. The license does not prevent me from earning income from my art. I still own what I make. Creative Commons makes it easier for me to share it with others. You can read more about Creative Commons here.
Even with the Creative Commons license, copyright and usage is a slippery slope. When in doubt, contact the creator, ask permission, and give them credit.
The Flickr Creative Commons search is a fantastic tool for finding photo references for drawing, painting, illustration, or the medium of your choice. You need a Flickr account to use it - it's easy to sign up. Click on the word "Search" in the upper right-hand corner, then click on "Advanced Search." Enter your search terms and parameters, then scroll down to the bottom of the search form, where you will find the Creative Commons box. Click "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content." And go. You can also browse by license.
UPDATE: Here's a tip from optimization expert Tim Ferriss. Do a Creative Commons search on Flickr, then sort the results by "Most Interesting." You'll get the best images first.
The Flickr Commons (sounds the same, but isn't) is another bountiful image resource. Here are some goodies I found there.
My collaborative sketchbook pal Karo recently posted her favorite Flickr groups for gathering collage material. They are Collage Images, Vintage Illustration, and Mid-Century Illustrated. These groups collect and display images that are old enough to be public domain, or with no known copyright restrictions. Some of the images in the Collage pool are contemporary creations whose owners have provided them for use by others. The ownership of certain original ephemera objects (which are scanned and uploaded to Flickr) are sometimes in question, but this community of artists (usually) acts responsibly in investigating and attributing the sources of these images. Here is a discussion thread on that topic.
These are just a few of the tools artists can use to build their photo reference library. (Beware, your collection will grow when you're not looking. Mine takes up a full filing cabinet.)
Related: Figurative Collage set on Flickr Great anatomical reference site Winston Smith, collage artist Lawrence Lessig, copyright reform guru
Found on Flickr: Henry's Burden by Dan May
Henry's Burden, acrylic on panel, 8 x 8" by Dan May. Click image to visit on Flickr.
This gorgeous invented portrait by Dan May will be included in the David Lynch tribute show at Alcove Arts in Atlanta. May paints curious organic forms similar to Joe Sorren's, finishing them with fine details to create a fully realized world for his imaginary characters. Check out the individual hairs on this guy's head. Acrylic is a difficult medium, and I love seeing painters who use it this well.
Click here to visit Dan May's website. Click here to visit Dan May's Flickr stream.