June 22nd, 2010

Mark Hearld: lithographic and linocut prints, paintings, collages. Some people discover artists through posh exhibits, I find them while looking at greeting cards in small town boutiques. Read the artist’s bio and buy his work here.

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Mark Hearld lithograph art
May 17th, 2010

Isabella Huffington Art Exhibit

Did you ever itch to take creative license with your high school bedroom? I had a lovely room with buttercup walls and white plantation shutters. Nevertheless, I dreamt of painting my bedroom walls black and hanging black and white photos. My conservative/sane parents said NO, as concerned for my mental health as for the house’s resale value. I think the wildest I ever got was using scotch tape (quelle horreur!) to adhere Marilyn Monroe postcards to the walls.
ISABELLA HUFFINGTON has elevated high school bedroom collage into high art. And while Arianna Huffington would frown on a bunch of strangers moving into her college-bound daughter’s bedroom, we can get our fix by admiring these impressive mixed media prints.
The young artist held her first exhibit at the William Turner Gallery in Bergamot Station this past Sunday. By the time Queen Bee left, every piece had sold. I like to think of her sharpie on poster board works as postmodern pointillist pop. See more here: isabellahuffington.com

interior design isabella huffington William Turner Gallery cultured cousin collage arianna huffington bergamot station art queen bee
April 30th, 2010

the menagerie

I spent the majority of my childhood conversing with animals. While my ancient babysitter Ruby watched her stories, I dressed my stubby Welsh Corgis in drag and danced with my Golden Retriever. I didn’t have siblings to boss around, so when the dogs tired, I held court over a ragamuffin menagerie of stuffed animals. I appointed Janie-the-Rabbit in charge while I was away at my father’s. She wore a wrinkled nightgown and was missing an eye. I had taken her in after she had escaped from an asylum. 
My elementary school was five blocks from home. On three occasions in third grade, I found my Welsh Corgis racing around the playground. They scheduled their visits according to my recess time. My classmates treated me like a celebrity when this happened, but the school faculty was appalled. After recess, my prickly teacher lined up my class and pumped soap into our hands. Who knows what the children could catch from those mangy, conniving dogs. And then, I’d spend a good hour in the assistant principal’s office with panting Cowboy and Rugby stinking up the place. My wary mother would arrive in her Talbot’s suit and haul them off. A year later, I found my majestic Golden Retriever sitting at the busy cross walk waiting to escort me home. My mother really should have invested in a better backyard fence.
Every summer, I visited my grandparents in northern Michigan. Most afternoons I could find Willy the chipmunk hiding near the old-fashioned water pump. If I put my palm out with peanuts, he’d stuff as many as he could in his cheeks and scurry off to the wood shed. There, I presumed, he would present them to his lady friend Willameena who would swoon over her suitor’s generosity. One August day, my grandmother announced we would have a tea party. All the stuffed animals were in attendance. It was a wonderful fete hosted on the deck looking out at the lake. Town & Country should have covered it. One-eyed Janie was the belle of the ball.

[artwork by amber alexander. prints may be purchased here.]

story cultured cousin art
April 29th, 2010

The Omnibus Gallery in Aspen is one of the most dangerous places into which you could wander. As you stand in front of the original Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge poster from 1891, you sheepishly recall the $16 knock off you hung in your college dorm room. You promise to never buy art at Linens-N-Things again. And then, before you know it, another vintage poster captures your imagination. You convince yourself that you should invest in this work. It seems reasonable for you to take out a second mortgage to buy a poster that is larger than your living room wall; I speak from experience. (That is a hyperbole). And since Aspen can be a pain in the ass to get to, The Omnibus Gallery has a wonderful site so that you may fantasize from home. The Omnibus Gallery

cultured cousin art
April 20th, 2010

Kiss and Tell: Street Art

I was lucky enough to see this film after an agent friend promised “you won’t regret it” in his adorable agenty way and bought tickets. It was incredibly entertaining; I didn’t doze off once despite the bottle of white wine I had bathed in at a friend’s pool that afternoon.
I confess to know very little about the nefarious underworld of street art. I had only heard of Shepard Fairey (the artist of the iconic Obama face) because my friends are friends of his and have his art on their walls (thus making me only two degrees of separation from street art awesomeness). The only other personal knowledge I have about the subject, besides watching Gangland and the opening sequence of West Side Story, is that my first kiss (circa ‘98) was with a graffiti artist in a polo shirt. And no, I didn’t carry his spray cans in my backpack and keep a look out. We were sitting on a couch at a friend’s house while my friend and her boyfriend abandoned us to go listen to the Rent soundtrack. I slowly flipped through a Delia’s teen fashion catalog, seemingly engrossed in the fashion horoscopes, until I hit the last page and there was nothing left I could do but let him kiss me. Poor guy. It had to have been the worst kiss of his life. Apologies, Mr. G., if you ever read this.
Back to Banksy: The big drama with Exit Through the Gift Shop is whether or not it is a documentary or a fictionalized manipulation by the street artist known for pranks. 
 
My vote: it’s fiction. But, I also don’t really care. I laughed a lot. And I got to see a lot of amazing images. And for a couple of hours in the darkened arclight theatre, I got to feel like I was cool enough to be privy to Banksy’s world, real or imagined.
Reading List:
Banksy Puzzles The New York Times. April 13th.

graffiti film inspiration kiss and tell cultured cousin art documentary
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