Paintings of Provincetown

Olivia's Panda

Still Life by Olivia

The illustrations of Rima Staines

Her website

Interview

Botanical prints

James Sowerby was an English naturalist and illustrator working in the late 1700s and early 1800s. His collaboration with botanist William Curtis led to a number of printed works about plants and geology.

I have 9 hand-colored engravings that appear to have been removed from a Sowerby/Curtis publication at some point in the last 200 years.

A detail of one engraving is shown here and is available on cards and other printed items in my store, Botanica Prints. I'll add a new image each month. To see all the Sowerby engravings, look at the vertical wall calendar (note that three images appear twice).

The Valley in Oil

For sale on eBay:
20 X 24 inches Oil on canvas by Sunday Painter, William O. Lambert. Think Conrad Buff or Dale Nichols without the rigor...Thiebaud minus genius...Hopper without pathos or painterly expertise...think San Fernando Valley where, in the immortal words of Neal Diamond.."Sun shines most the time...and the feelin' is lay back...".

Still...there's something here. It's got soul and honest intent. A certain guileless modernity, if such a thing existed and if you consider the time and place....

1942...THE VALLEY was not, then, what it is today and there's something to be said for an honest visual document of that time. Think of it: With the world at War, not a shameful carte blanche red herring or a grab for oil money but a war for the soul of the world, a man sets up his easel overlooking his piece of God's Green Earth in California and commits it to memory for us to see...after 65 years. And if someone buys it on Ebay and enjoys it and protects it, it will reach a hundred years and maybe two and come to make sense in a way that we can't possibly comprehend in a 2007 that will someday be an impossibly distant past.

It's an honest picture. I'll start it at 1 honest dollar. William O. Lambert...Sunday painter...painter on and of Sundays in 1942.

Art from inside the institution

A Mexican man who spent nearly half of his life in American mental hospitals is now being hailed as one of the giants of 20th century art.

Martin Ramirez, who was diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic after he immigrated to the United States in 1925, produced more than 300 mesmerizing drawings during his time in hospital wards. More.

The Baby's tattoo, installation #4

Eye of the beholder

These two pictures represent the eye motions of two viewers as they scan a work of art with the goal of remembering it later. One of them is a trained artist, and the other is a trained psychologist. Can you tell which is which? At Scienceblogs.com.

Today's featured exhibition highlight

The pony is their leader #5. 27.5"x29.5", plastic, vinyl, cardboard, metal, foam, 2007

Japanese textile art

The translation of the word, “Kimono,” (literally, “the thing worn”) does not come close to expressing the actual beauty of the garment itself. From the 8th through the 12th centuries, the Kimono achieved its status as the official costume of Japan. Continue.

1878 Picture Book of Africa

The most beautiful painting you've ever heard

"By early October, the summer tourists have left Martha's Vineyard. Marcia Smilack, camera in hand, walks slowly along a barren dock, waiting for something in her peripheral vision to evoke the sound of a cello in her ears or the feel of satin on her skin. When it does, she stops, points her camera at the water, and waits to hear or feel it again. Then she shoots her picture."

Read on.

Wind-powered robot

Moving Sculpture by Dutch artist Theo Jansen . . .

Children's book illustration in 1920s Japan

These images are from the Kodomo no kuni picture book magazine during the 1920s and early 30s.

Mary Blair

Yes, the It's A Small World tune gets old fast, but, when I was a kid, I fondly remember the illustrations of Mary Blair - especially the ones she did for Little Golden books. Disney hired her to design the IASW ride at Disneyland, but, she did a lot more.

Paper art

The paper art of Peter Callesen. Amazing.