Martini: Head Clog I
Martini: Head Clog I. Glitch series. Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 18 inches, 2016 by Sarah Atlee. $910
For purchase inquiries, contact Cerulean Gallery at 214.564.1199
According to the AV Artifact Atlas, head clog banding is a glitch that occurs when dirt or debris clogs one of the video heads in a MiniDV or DVCam. "Typically, a head clog will appear as wide alternating lines of frozen video or an alternating pattern of color indicating a loss of read/write capability at the video head."
It's also what happens to me about three sips into one of these.
You guys, I'm addicted. To STRIPES. Just can't get enough of 'em lately. I stripe socially. I stripe alone. I stripe in the morning. I stripe before bed. Sometimes I stripe all day long. Best problem I've ever had.
Are you like me, and you want more stripes in your life? I suggest starting with my Stripes Are Cheap Therapy board on Pinterest.
About the Glitch Series
In the Glitch series, I use vibrant acrylic paintings to reimagine traditional still lifes for the digital age. My recent compositions combine tempting, succulent foods with "glitches" painted directly onto the canvas. An avocado is interrupted by the irregular curves of a cracked screen. The natural beauty of an heirloom tomato is marred by low-resolution errors and broken pixels.
Historically, still life paintings are windows onto impossibly perfect worlds. This illusion of perfection continues into our daily lives on the Internet, as we live from one Insta-worthy moment to another. Why not use the flaws of online technology to break into that illusion?
Martini: Head Clog I will be available at Cerulean Gallery as part of the exhibition On Edge Part I, featuring work by Sarah Atlee, Fritz Danner, Nic Noblique, and Victoria Taylor-Gore, on display 16 September - 28 October 2016. Visit Cerulean Gallery to learn more.
All Things Fowl for A Hiding Place
All Things Fowl
Scratchboard, 10 x 8 inches, 2016 by Sarah Atlee. $330
For purchase inquiries, contact [Artspace] at Untitled at info@1ne3.org or by calling 405.815.9995
This post first appeared on my Patreon page.
A Hiding Place: Artists Respond to Poetry
"As children we all played hide and seek. We learned through that game: the stillness of hiding and the necessity of being found. Both are essential to living the communal life. this collaborative project expolores these themes through poetry and art. We have generated a creative conversation of the senses, of image and movement and language, so that what is hidden can be known."
- From the statement by curator and poet Jane Vincent Taylor
All Things Fowl is based on Jane Vincent Taylor's poem, "Being Little Catholic Girls." A snippet:
We lit candles. It was dangerous. Incense smoked out all things foul.
About the Imagery
The composition is based on traditional Byzantine icon paintings. Guillem Ramon-Poqui's book The Technique of Icon Painting (Amazon) is a great resource on this topic.
Who's that hen? The nun's habit and background images are inspired by the early Christian mystic and polymath, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). You can read about her remarkable life on Wikipedia.
Among her accomplishments, Hildegard invented an alphabet and language known as the Lingua Ignota. The little hula doll in the corner is using Hildegard's Litterae Ignotae to say "Aloha."
Scratchboard is a wonderful process of reductive drawing. It's all about what you take away. And the level of detail I can get with my x-acto knife is so pleasing.
A Hiding Place opens at [Artpsace] at Untitled on Thursday, July 28, and will be up through September 10. Visit the gallery website for more details.
Where My Okies At
I lived in Oklahoma for seven outta-sight years. It's where my art career really began. I'm in Austin now, but Oklahoma will always have a cherished place in my heart.
That's why I have a special message for my Okie supporters and collectors. (Hi, guys! Lookin' good!)
I've lived in Austin for three years now, and I work with two excellent Texas galleries:
Cerulean Gallery in Amarillo Ro2 Art in Dallas
I have a show coming up soon at Cerulean. On Edge opens on Friday, 16 September 2016, and runs through 28 October. I've been working very hard this year to present you with the best paintings I've ever created.
On September 16th, I'll be at the opening with a big big smile on my face.
You know who I would love to see there? You.
Would you consider making the trip?
I'm asking two months in advance so you'll have time to make travel plans. Amarillo is about 3.5 to 4 hours by car from Oklahoma City. You won't believe how that time flies when you're carpooling with friends.
In addition to the amazing art show at Cerulean Gallery (wink), here are some other things to do during your visit:
Have chicken fried steak at Lucille's Roadhouse
Take selfies at Cadillac Ranch
Indulge with wine & cheese at OHMS Cafe & Bar
Wake up to Roasters Coffee
Take in two great exhibitions at the Amarillo Museum of Art: Light on the Plains: Frank Reaugh pastels from the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum Side by Side: Larry Bell and Gabriel Dawe
Take the challenge at The Big Texan
Hope to see you there!
672 Tiny Paintings
Sushi Leftovers Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 18 inches, 2016 by Sarah Atlee. $910 For purchase inquiries, contact Cerulean Gallery at 214.564.1199 or caroline@theceruleangallery.com. UPDATE: SOLD
This post first appeared on my Patreon page. Join today for all the goodies!
How did I complete 672 tiny paintings?
One at a time.
I'm loving the grid these days. We're old friends. It's a beautiful device, bringing order out of chaos, or merely giving chaos something to lean against.
I often use a grid for making a preliminary pencil drawing on a canvas. It saves me a lot of time, and it's easy to cover up with subsequent layers of paint. The fun starts when I decide to let some or all of the grid be part of the final image.
In the case of Sushi Leftovers, I created a much smaller grid than normal. This is an 18" x 18" canvas broken down into three-quarter-inch squares. 24 squares times 24 is 576. But wait, where are the other 96 tiny paintings? Answer: I always paint my edges. That's four more groups of 24 for a grand total of 672.
I thought based on my experience that breaking one complicated image down into a bunch of smaller, simpler ones might make things easier. Not in this case! But this series is all about the play between digital imagery and traditional painting. So the squares became pixels. Some of the pixels are functioning normally. Others are ...broken.
Enjoy!
Sushi Leftovers will be part of the On Edge exhibition at Cerulean Gallery, 16 September - 28 October 2016.
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Food Tells a Story of Love
This post first appeared on my Patreon page. Join by July 31 2016 for your free bonus drawing!
"I loved to cook, so I cooked. And then cooking became a way of saying I love you. And then cooking became the easy way of saying I love you. And then cooking became the only way of saying I love you." - Nora Ephron, Heartburn*
Inspiration comes from all around. My love of food isn't just from my own experience. I'm also moved by other people sharing their love for food. For a heaping dish of inspiration, I turn to the movies.
I like to watch movies in the studio. Or, more accurately, I like to listen to movies via headphones while I work. There's a part of my brain - you know, the little voice that whispers that everything you do is crap and you should probably give up forever? Yeah, I need that part to take a seat while my good creative stuff is flowing. A little background narrative is a great place to park the verbal critic so I can create in peace.
However, some movies demand my full attention. And not just my eyes and ears. They take over my tastebuds, too.
What makes a good food movie? It's not just pretty shots of sumptuous dishes. Food tells a story of love. Love of craft, love of nature, love of color and texture and flavor, and the way we take these things in with all of our senses. We use food to show love, and a good food story does too.
It also makes us hungry. So here, in no particular order, is a list of movies that I absolutely cannot play while I'm working. Because of the drool.
Links point to the films' entries on IMDB.
Chef (2014) This movie is a love song to the Cuban sandwich. Ham, pork, cheese, mustard, pickles, butter, bread. Also, follow your dreams and that stuff.
"Okay well my credit cards are maxed out and we're not charging for food yet so we're gonna have to wait on the sound system."
"Yeah, but you look happy, baby, don't you?"
"So happy. So happy."
Chocolat (2000) It's not all sticky sweets in this quaint French village. Raw cacao beans? Ground chile pepper? Roasted rabbit with chocolate mole? Seconds, please. And while we're in France...
The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) What happens when Too French and Not French Enough become neighbors.
"Now, last night, we served this. Miserable, overcooked asparagus. In this restaurant, the cuisine is not an old, tired marriage. It is a passionate affair of the heart!"
Ratatouille (2007) I'm now realizing how heavily my list skews French. We're not even done.
"How do you tell how good bread is without tasting it? Not the smell, not the look, but the sound of the crust. Listen. A symphony of crackle. Only great bread sound this way."
Babette's Feast (1987) Classical French cuisine ventures out to the austere reaches of Denmark. Food so rich you'll feel a little ashamed of watching people eat it.
The Lunch Box (2013) Have you heard of the dabbawalas of Mumbai? They use a meal delivery system so complex and accurate that the Harvard Business School marvels at how well it works. Until one day it doesn't.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) The world is so big that it seems hard to believe that anyone could be the best at something. But here's Jiro. Not to mention Jiro's rice dealer, who only sells his best grains to Jiro because no one else in the world can cook them as well. And don't get me started on the omelettes.
Julie & Julia (2009) And we're back in France. Does anyone in the world love their cuisine as much as the French do? Maybe they deserve it.
"Every time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining, and you say, 'what is in this?' The answer is always going to be 'butter.'"
*I recently read Heartburn for the first time, loved it, and can't wait to see the movie. I have a feeling it will land on this list with a bullet. Ephron also wrote the screenplay for Julie & Julia.
Honorable Mention: anything directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Spirited Away, Ponyo, Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle, and so on. Every Miyazaki film has at least one spectacular food scene in it. It's practically its own subgenre. Here's a starter kit.
These are my favorites, and there are plenty of food movies I haven't seen yet. What should I taste-test next?