Adelaide Paul, a sculptor, earned her BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics in 1993. Three years later she earned her MFA from Louisiana State University. The main inspiration for her work is animals, due to her strong relationship and love for them. Describing the purpose of her sculptures is further explained by her stating how her work explores, “…the alternately cloying sentimental and brutally callous relationship between humans and animals, both domesticated and wild.”
Paul spent nine years with horses between her high school and college years, so they are often subjects in her artwork.
One interesting thing about her sculptures is her use of material, specifically leather, for the outer layer.
Another subject she focuses on is dogs. Further explanation for this is mentioned in her Artist Statement. “Since the 1940’s, thousands of collies have been bred so that nine transvestite ‘Lassies’ could perpetuate a celluloid myth about a boy and his dog. Collies, Chihuahuas, Dalmatians, Greyhounds and other breeds have, for various market driven reasons, experienced meteoric eruptions in popularity; invariably they have subsequently suffered the consequences.” “In its extremes, American culture posits an alternately cloying sentimental and brutally callous relationship between human and both domesticated and wild animals. Animals are anthromorphized in film, fiction and popular culture. They (and their requisite accessories) are hot commodities; like all commodities, they are also inexorably disposable.”
Besides creating artwork, she also focuses on the study and teaching of animal anatomy. In the year 2004, Paul attended a veterinary anatomy class which changed her way of earning a living and brought out a different aspect in her sculptures. Paul is now employed at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine as a teacher’s assistant in the assistant in the anatomy lab.
Christopher Dresser was one of the first independent industrial designers. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1834 and died in 1904, which put him at around 70 years of age. To say he was talented is a bit of an understatement since he did a little of everything, from wallpaper to textiles, glass to metal ware. He was born into a nonconformist family with a tax collector, or excise officer, as a father. So he moved around a lot till he was a teenager, when he got accepted into the Government School of Design, which was supposed to improve British design for industry by combining art and science. During his studies there, Dresser met many important design reformers of the day: Henry Cole, Richard Redgrave and his mentor, Owen Jones.
This image is of cranes that, along with be very beautiful birds, are apparently the Japanese symbol of longevity. They are flying over stylized waves, all of which is just white images on a dark blue background. Dresser had taken Japanese inspiration to make this, with the composition being roughly the same as a Japanese blue and white ceramic flowerpot.
By the early 1860s, Dresser was working for the Minton factory as a designer and his early work for them was often inspired by Persian artwork, like the vase in the picture above that he made. The shape of this vase takes its inspiration from Persian, with is long narrow top and bulb shaped bottom. It follows his idea of “the ornament must tend to emphasize the beautiful quality of the object and not destroy the form.” He also admired the intricate interlacing patterns associated with Persian ornament.
Dresser illustrated this chair in 1873 as “in the manner of an Egyptian chair.” It certainly looks like a chair from Egypt in my opinion if you take off the armrests. It was stressed while the chair was made that a chair soundly designed allowed the person sitting in it to be more confident — unlike many other examples. Although Dresser accepted the position that some parts of the chair were not perfect, he did approve of it from a stylistic and historical perspective.
It is apparently a toast/letter rack, though if you knew that at first glance I congratulate you. It is a very nice piece of metal work none the less. It does show how Dresser wanted to make easily manufactured, functional, and novel designs. It was an affordable product in the growing consumer market, and at the same time it was well designed. Cheap to make and fast to sell has always been the best way to make money in any market.
This silver-plated tea set was designed in the late 1870s. Dresser had just returned from Japan, which was where he got the inspiration of all the pieces fitting inside of each other. That would obviously save space in the kitchen. While the design is from Japan, the bamboo on the handles idea was actually from Asia, which keeps you from burning your hands on the metal.
A simple biscuit box and lid made beautiful by pattern alone. Actually inspired by nature for this one, Dresser got the idea from frost on a window pane. It represents his idea of “power, energy, force, and vigor” in one pattern. It was originally for stained glass but the common earthenware material combined with the silver-plated mounts appealed to him.
An example of his wallpaper designs; this is one that repeats a fan-shaped flower pattern in gold and red, with a little bit of green to accent the red. It is actually a very nice color scheme in my opinion. Like many of Dresser’s artwork, this one was inspired by Japanese art though he knows this type of art is only for a flat design. He elaborates in Principles of Decorative Design, “The ornamentist when enriching a fabric deals only with a surface, and has no thought of placing pictures thereon; he has simply to enrich or beautify that which without his art would be plain and unornamental.”
Mr. Dresser began designing “art glass” for industrial manufacture around 1880. Reacting against the fashion for cut glass, Dresser and some other designers called for reform in glass production. This glass vase shows how he loved the artistic medium of glass and its fluid qualities. The ornamental features of the vase are found in its coloring and ribbed spiraling pattern, which had to be added to the glass or it would have come out smoother like typical glass. Air bubbles, streaks of color, and other irregularities were intentional, as they emphasized the organic nature of glass.
First off, this is a very awesome bowl. The shape and color are so strange that it will catch anyone’s eye no matter where you put it. Anyway, the bowl reflects various sources that Mr. Dresser relied on. It was made after his trip to Japan in 1876-1877. Japanese prints strongly influenced European decorative arts in the second half of the nineteenth century and, though he didn’t copy the Japanese prototypes, Dresser did use key design elements that suggest Japanese aesthetics. Like the powerful curve of Katsushika Hokusai’s famous woodblock print The Great Wave at Kanagawa is echoed in the shape of this bowl.
This tureen and ladle have a simple sort of elegance, which shows how much Japanese metalwork influences Dresser’s approach to design. He put a lot of attention into the nature of the materials he used, like here the strong horizontal of the banding echoes the flat lid and straight ivory handles. The beauty in this piece really is in how simple it is, as Dresser says, “the beautiful must be truthful in expression, and graceful, delicate, and refined in contour, manifesting no coarseness, vulgarity, or obtrusiveness … the beautiful manifests no want, no shortcomings.”
Toward the end of his life, Christopher Dresser primarily designed for wallpaper and textile manufacturers. He died in Mulhouse, while on a business trip to France with his son, Louis, in 1904. After his death, two of his daughters took over his design studio but were unable to maintain it.
This semester I interviewed, Blythe Mayfield who is a female local artist that lives in Cleveland Tennessee, born in 1981, and still currently lives in Cleveland Tennessee. As for her academic career, she went to the University of Chattanooga for one year, graduated with a bachelor in science with a focus on art therapy from University of Illinois when she was twenty three, and graduated with a master in art therapy from La Trobe University in Melbourne Victoria Australia at twenty five. Her artistic style is much like her personality, very bright and filled with copious amounts of color; giving amazing detail and a dreamy, realistic quality to her work which she incorporates in different medias such as oils, collages, and sculpture.
Mayfield has made past contracts with the alternative schools such as TLC, Teen Learning Center, Goal Academy, and had worked with other alternative city and county schools. She has done other contract jobs besides working with alternative schools Mayfield loves working with individuals because she believes that “creative art is an alternative method for externalizing feelings and conveying messages without having to rely on words alone.” She’s also done therapy in age care facilities, community hospital, maternal and children’s health facilities.
One of the reasons Mayfield got interested in art was because of her Father; who unfortuanitly left the family when she was only three years old; but only used artwork as a means of pleasure. Her mother also practiced in art as a style of painting and drawing, but wasn’t confident in her work after and later stopped all together. Her younger sister is also an artist, graduated from S.C.A.D. with a BA in visual arts and painting; so Ms. Mayfield grew up with a very artistically inclined family. Mayfield also explains that art was a way for her to materialize and process the world around her when she was little and that it was one of the influences that led her to choose her career.
Mayfield illustrates that some of the things that inspire her art work and working with individuals in her field is “The human mind, the fact that we have our own perceptions on life, how differently we perceive the environment around us, and the fact that everybody has their own story.” When Mayfield is soully working on her own pieces, one subject seems to really be involved with her latest work, which is “A woman and her role in the present and how it has changed from what it was in the past, even though there has be some ideals and cliché expectations of the past for a woman that has still bled through here to the present. Another subject that seems to work its way into Mayfields inspiration and interests, are vintage children books, which she explains in great humor by saying “I guess I’m compensating for the childhood that I never really had.” What really seems to be interesting is that Mayfield didn’t get fully involved with art until her first year of college at UTC, yet has become quite successful in her field of work and as an artist.
Mayfields home life was a bit of a trail for her when she was little and as she grew up. Living in a house hold with a single working mother; who became depressed after her husband had left; and not having a strong sense of support, being left alone as a child and not being able to process the world around her. She explains that “art helped me to processes the world around me and not having a father around at the time fucks it up, making art was the only thing to turn to.” Another strange characteristic about her was that she was a cheer leader back in high school; she explains that it was an outlet for her back then and saying that it also “made me more extroverted.” I became more interested in Mayfields home life and asked how her families’ art style was different from one another? She says that for her it’s a way to process her internal world, therapeutic, almost ironic in a way since the pieces come out looking so colorful yet she dresses very differently. Her sister, who she says, is very different in her style, she intentionally goes into her work with a message; usually it comes from a feminist perspective; which Mayfield explains that she pulls out a message after the work has been finished. Her mother unfortunately never had a style since she never kept up with her artist talent after the father left the family.
Blythe Mayfield is a charming and very down to earth artist, not to mention really fun to have an interview with. She is one of the very few artists that you can fall in love with their personality and their artwork.
René Magritte was a Belgian surrealist painter. He was born in Lessines, Belgium on November 21,1898. He was raised in a middle-class family and began taking drawing lessons at a young age. He started painting soon after his mother was found drowned in the River Sambre, the result of suicide. His early paintings are done in the style of Impressionism.
Magritte studied for two years at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. After this, his paintings became heavily influenced by Futurism, and most of his paintings were female nudes.
At the age of 24 Magritte married Georgette Berger whom he had known since childhood. Magritte worked many odd jobs, including working as a draughtsman and designing advertisements, until he was able to paint full-time in 1926. At this time Magritte created his first piece of surrealist artwork called The Lost Jockey.
Magritte had his first exhibition in 1927 in Brussels. After the exhibition he was subjected to harsh criticism and moved to Paris as a result of this. At this time Magritte went back to working making advertisements. Magritte remained in Brussels at the time of World War II. In order to survive during this time, he made fraudulent copies of artwork by Picasso, Braque, and Chirico. He also made fraudulent banknotes. In order to deal with the harshness of living in Brussels during the war, Magritte briefly adopted a new style of painting known as the “Renoir Period.” This style of painting was more bright and flowery than what was common for Magritte. After the war, he was able to go back to his real passion, Surrealism.
In 1955 he painted The Promenades of Euclid. At first the painting appears to be a window overlooking a castle. When you look closely though, you can see that the castle is actually a painting sitting on an easel.
Magritte wanted his artwork to be an experience. Another set of interesting pieces by Magritte are The Lovers. Legend says that after his mother was found drowned in the Sambre River Magritte witnessed her body, with her face wrapped in a sheet. This proved to be a very tramautic experience for him, understandably. Some think that this served as inspiration for these pieces of artwork.
Magritte’s artwork has been displayed many times in the United States. It has been included in several premiere exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While many may be unable to understand the meaning behind Magritte’s artwork, that seems to be okay with him. He explains his artwork in this quote, ” I paint visible images that conceal nothing; they evoke mystery, and indeed, when one sees my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question. ‘What does it mean?’ It does not mean anything because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”
Magritte painted The Son of Man three years before his death. The painting depicts a man in a hat standing with an apple covering his face. One possible explanation of this is that it is a subtle nod towards Adam eating the forbidden fruit in the first chapter of the Bible.
After suffering from Pancreatic cancer for a few years, Magritte died in 1967 and he was buried in Brussels. Magritte was a wonderful surreal artist who has had a large influence on many artists to this day. Although the meaning behind his paintings is not always evident, and possibly even nonexistent, his artwork is very influential.
David Filer is an artist who was born in 1986, in Zimbabwe. Filer always loved animals and began drawing them at only eight years old. He took art in high school and focused on his passion for wildlife. Filer started photographing animals to allow him to observe their every detail up close. He also began falconry, again this helped Filer get closer to the animals and observe them. He continued his education and went on to receive a Information Design honours degree, from the University of Pretoria.
David Filer is currently continuing his career in what he loves, being a wildlife artist (he focuses on African wildlife). He draws in a style considered super-realistic. Filer presently chooses to use graphite in his artwork. He feels that basic black and white and the shades that fall in between can make a piece strong and intense. The intense feel is good fit when depicting wild animals. Filer cares for his work and wants to make sure that it shows even the smallest details. For this reason he uses high quality Fabriano paper.
Filer considers his work to be original. He continues using his skills in photography to help in his work. He takes photographs and then draws from them; however, Filer makes slight alterations so that his drawings are one of a kind. When looking at Filer’s art collection it is easy to see his work is solely his own. He has a unique way of depicting animals that makes a person feel a connection with the animal.
One of David Filer’s great accomplishments was receiving the David Shepherd – Wildlife Artist of the Year award, in 2008. He was the youngest artist to compete and still won against 5000 others. In 2010, he received a “Highly Commended” for “Pangolins Prayer” (image below), in the same competition he had previously won Wildlife Artist of the Year. Another considerable accomplishment is when Filer went on to hold his first exhibit, within hours all of his work sold.
Again in 2011, Filer won the award for David Shepherd – Wildlife Artist of the Year. This award was based on his artwork “Forever and Ever, Amen.” The image is below. When commenting about receiving the award Filer said, “Winning this award is a real validation of my work. It means so much to me to be recognised and to win this title, especially against such fantastic competition. It is very special.” When looking at the artwork it is not hard to see that Filer’s award was well deserved.
It is most likely the love and care that Filer has for animals, that allows him to portray so much of their beauty in his work. Filer says that an animal’s eyes are what draws him to the animal. He believes this is because you can see an animal’s soul through their eyes. In fact, when it comes to trying to portray an animal he has said, “The most difficult part of the drawing are the eyes, when you get those right, the rest of the piece falls into place.” The eyes of the animal in Filer’s artwork seem to be what connects the viewer to the animal. Filer’s time and effort put into depicting an animal’s eyes does not go wasted; they draw the viewer in and give them an emotional connection with the work.
Since the awards Filer has won, he can now choose what to work on and mainly does specific orders for individuals and commissioned works. He has artwork in Zimbabwe at several embassies, as well as all over the world. Filer is a well known wildlife artist and he has reached the goal most artists strive for, to make their audience have a connection with their work. As Filer continues to focus on the animals in Zimbabwe, the art community can assume they will see more great pieces come from him in the future.
Gregory Colbert is a photographer and a filmmaker from Canada. He initially started working in film, creating documentaries on social issues. From there Colbert went on to work in photography. The first showing of his work was held in Switzerland, at Musee de Elsyee, in 1992. After finishing his first exhibit, Colbert decided to travel the world, and he did so for the next ten years. He visited places such as Antarctica, Egypt, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Tonga, Dominica, Namibia, and Burma (Colbert). Below is one of his works.
During Colbert’s traveling he created Ashes and Snow. This is a continuous artwork about the relationships between humans and wild animals. Ashes and Snow is a collective artwork including, a hour film, two shorter films, called “haikus,” and more than fifty photographs. The images are incredible; the animals and the humans seem as though they hold a special bond between them.
The first time Ashes and Snow was shown was in Venice, at Arsenale, in 2002. Colbert’s artwork is now shown in a Nomadic Museum (which started up in 2005). It is a permanent housing for Ashes and Snow and it gives the exhibit the ability to follow the artist around from town to town. Over 10 million visitors have attended Colbert’s Ashes and Snow, since it was first exhibited in Venice. The traveling museum has been to places such as New York, Santa Monica, Mexico City, and Tokyo.
The photos in the exhibit are around 7 ft by 12 ft; such a large size image itself can really draw the audience to the piece. A truly amazing thing about Colbert’s photography is that none of the photos have been altered digitally. The images are truly just moments that the artist caught and captured between people and animals.
Colbert tries to show the connection between humans and animals. Colbert’s artwork incorporates many different types of animals including, cheetahs, asian elephants, meerkats, orangutans, manatees, humpback whales, royal eagles, and many others. Ashes and Snow depicts these animals in their natural environment, with humans in theirs, and together shows how they interact with one another.
Colbert presents the images in the Nomadic Museum by themselves. There is no text displayed with the images. The artist wants each viewer to have a connection with the work and not have words interfere with their own personal experience. The images clearly show intimate moments between humans and the animals they are photographed with.
Colbert is connected to his work, and has a distinct idea that he is striving to get across to his audience. It is clearly drawn out when Gregory Colbert said, “In exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals. The images depict a world that is without beginning or end, here or there, present or past.” It is good to know that Colbert can still find parts of the world where animals and people do still live in harmony.
Colbert’s images show animals that many people consider wild acting almost as if a loving pets. There are still places on earth where there is a mutual love and respect between animals and humans and these images unmistakably depict that. One thing for certain is that as Colbert continues to work on this series there will be more unique moments caught between animals and humans. Many people will be looking forward to future pieces by Colbert.
Angela “Mrs. Angie” Cook is a multi-media artist who lives in Morganton, GA. She was born in 1951 and has been doing art since she was very young. She married her high school sweetheart, Johnny, in 1968. They have four children and nine grandchildren, several of which share Angie’s enthusiasm for art. No one can doubt Mrs. Cook’s love for her family as they are the subject of many of her works in one way or another.
Angie began exploring art by drawing and she has since branched into many other areas such as collage and sculpture but she always starts a project with drawing. Now-a-days she cannot resist adding a little bit of everything to each of her works. Book art is one of her favorite areas to work in because it leaves so much room for experimentation.
Her high school art teacher, Mr. Gary Selby, helped expose her to art and though she has taken many classes at the John C. Campbell Folks School (as well as others places) Mrs. Angie is mostly self taught. She has no official degree, however, her talent and experience more than make up for the lack of that “stamp of approval” that “professional” America seems to find so important.
For a long time Angie did not “take [her]self seriously as an artist” until she injured her wrist while playing with her grandchildren. After realizing how easily she could lose her artistic abilities (and with plenty of encouragement from friends, family, and co-workers) she began working towards becoming a more diligent studio artist without abandoning her passion for teaching. While recovering from her injury (and working a full time job), Angie worked on eleven different pieces (three of which she scraped) that helped her grow both as a person and an artist.
“Fragments of Self” is one of the works she created because of her injury and it represents how she felt while she had little use of her right hand. It is an egg shell mosaic that demonstrates the fragility of life and how every piece, good bad or indifferent, has a place that makes up part of who she is.
After her wrist healed Mrs. Angie was commissioned to create a sculpture for Fannin Regional Hospital that she gave a discount on as a gift. “Ode to Motherhood” took a year to complete after lots of trial and error as well as design changes during the process. It reflects “the continuum of motherhood” through the moebious band around the mother holding her child. She sculpted this piece out of Styrofoam, PVC pipe, aluminum foil, wood, and Winterstone. She had a lot of help from several of her family members and her daughter MeMe was the model for the mother.
Angie has worked in schools inspiring students and showing them that they can be good at something since 1986. Beginning in 1998 Angie has been an Art Consultant for Copper Basin High School where she helped found the learning center in 2003. She is an advocate for Arts Across the Curriculum and has encouraged many teachers to help her show students how art relates to their subjects through field trips and other activities. She is also the main coordinator of the many after school clubs (most of which are art related) that take place Monday through Thursday. She has encouraged many students to push themselves through art and shown them that they can be successful in it. She has also helped expose them to the business aspect of it through galleries, field trips to art Advocacy events (2010), and a mural for the community.
She has also encouraged many students to sell their works and even found buyers for them. (Pictured with Angie is a student whose painting was purchased for a gift to the principal of Copper Basin High).
She is currently working on raising money for a building to house the Art Center on campus (it has been held in class rooms in the school and supplies have been stuffed in Angie’s office and in various class rooms). If and when the facility is built students will be able to leave their works in progress out till the next day/week without having to worry about someone messing with it and they will have a place to present without bothering teachers. She is also training Jenifer Danner to take her place in 2014 when she retires.
Though Angie is not a full time artist she does plenty of art on the side (which she works on in her small studio in her dinning room) and has inspired many students to pursue their talents and passions. She is currently working on assembling a collection of patented DoDollies which are small dolls made from scraps of fabric, scrabble pieces, clay faces, etc.
More information about Angie can be found on her website- http://www.angiecook-artist.com/index.html
Hans Rudolf Giger is a Swiss painter and sculptor who is best known for his design of the alien from the successful 1979 film Alien, and his unique art style. H. R. Giger was born February 5, 1940 in Chur, Switzerland to a middle class family. In 1962, Giger studied architecture and industrial design at The School of Applied Arts in Zurich until 1970. His first ink drawings and painting got him noticed and he started his first solo exhibition in 1966. Afterwards, Giger started to use the airbrush and he developed his own unique painting style with it. Giger’s style involves disturbing fetishistic sexual imagery and surreal, nightmare landscapes with a biomechanical theme. This style is dark blend of man, nature, and machine done in paint, ink, and airbrushes. Giger’s signature art style has inspired many other artist around the world. Ibanez, a Japanese guitar brand, had formed a licensing deal to create a guitar series based on Giger’s biomechanical style.
The Ibanez H.R. Giger Guitars
In 1977, Giger’s most famous book, Necronomicon, served as inspiration for Director Ridley Scott’s film Alien. Giger worked on all the creature designs as well as the environments for the movie. His work with Alien won him the 1980 Oscar for the Best Achievement in Visual Effects. He is also known for the movies Poltergeist II, Alien 3, and Species.
The Museum Halle Saint Pierre in Paris, France opened a six month exhibition called “Le monde selon H.R. Giger”, which means “The World According to H.R Giger”. The Le monde selon H.R. Giger is the largest showing of his artwork out of his home country of Switzerland.
Giger’s Alien.
One of Giger’s dreams was to expand his works from paper to sculpture, and in 1988 he was given the opportunity to do this by designing a bar in his hometown of Chur. Later, in 1998,The H.R. Giger Museum was opened in Chateau St. Germain in Gruyeres, Switzerland. The H.R Giger Museum holds the largest collection of his works.
Giger’s Sculpture: Birth Machine
Giger’s unique dark style has inspired everyone from the everyday unknown artist to famous movie directors, and his skill and imagination will continue to inspire people from around the world.
