The cold is gradually receding, I'm happy to report. And I didn't let it stop me from participating in a brief visit to Nashville to visit with the philosopher's parents, visit Be Dazzled, and poke around Nashville just a little (really, just a very little. It was rainy.)
Stopped by The Arts Company, where I discovered two artists whose work I just love. The first is Javier Barbosa. Go look-- need I say more? Ok, I will. What you cannot see online is that they're also very shiny. I know, this is my technical artist's language I'm using now. But really, they are. It looks like he gives them some serious varnish. Colorful and shiny with varnish! I'm a simple person, really.
The other artist is Brother Mel. You can read an interview with him here. What bowled me over about his work was the breadth of it. A fantastic bowl made of recycled flatware. Watercolors. Scupture. A lime green deco garden bench. Everywhere we looked, there was some fantastic object from what looked like a different body of work, but by the same person. Apparently he has a new 'thing' every year, and never looks back. It really got me to thinking about what can happen when an artist ignores commercial considerations (well, really there are a couple of ways that scenario can turn out, and this is the prettier of them). But really, no 'oh, that sold, maybe I should make more' or 'I hear blue is in this year' or 'recycling is big these days, maybe I should stick with that'. Just fearless creation. Fearless creation coupled with a lot of hard work to become so good in each new medium.
Anyway, it had me fantasizing about daring new necklaces the entire drive home.
[and I don't understand why blogger won't give me paragraph breaks today]
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