Ask Mia Risberg how her creative process has changed during a pandemic and she will welcome you into the world of the “Quarantine Chronicles,” a twenty-four piece series as part of a call and response project organized by Shoebox PR. Working out of Ann Arbor with acrylics, oils, and cold wax mediums, Mia was paired with Jessica Chappe, a photographer based in LA. Together, they created “Inside World,” a beautiful representation of life and emotion during social isolation. Mia’s work offers a soothing message of inner-peace: “although the figures appear introspective and isolated they also seem to merge with the natural world. Through their imagination, they expand away from their inside world and strive for connection with others and also with nature, which is something that is always constant.”
Fab Five: Beachcombers
Desk Diaries: Kate Loudoun Shand
Welcome to my creative workspace - my desk is situated in my home studio in the English Cotswolds. Reading materials are always in abundance here - I’m currently working through The Artist’s Way (highly recommend) and also re-reading Haute Bohemians. The Golden Thread is another fascinating read that I’m devouring.
Father's Day Gift Guide
Desk Diaries: Creating Meaning
None of us would have wished for the mandatory global shutdown of our lives as we formerly knew them, and yet so much good has already come from it. A slower pace. Renewed focus on what really matters after all of the BS and busywork is stripped away. Creativity bubbling up in surprising ways. Connecting with old friends (#virtualcocktailhour, anyone?) But perhaps most importantly, a redefined sense of the significance of home, and an ever-growing, fierce love for the people we’re now spending more time with than ever before within these walls. One thing has never been truer - our homes are our havens.
Hue: Sunshine
We may still be quarantined, but can we please get an amen for the ability to get outside and enjoy these first sumptuous tastes of springtime?! Lately, we’ve all been inspired by the life-giving energy of the sunshine, along with the vibrant hues popping up in blooms all around us. The color yellow evokes cheerfulness, stimulates positive mental activity, and invokes joy. Not sure about y’all, but we’ll gladly soak in all the light we can get these days.
Hable Construction Cosmos Sunshine Fabric // Vintage Jar Set // Sydney Harbour Paint // Angels Among Us painting by Ruth Gilmore Langs // Organic Lavender Eye Pillow in Katie Leede’s Pomegranate & Peonies Fabric // Interior by CLOTH & KIND
Hable Construction textiles and Sydney Harbour Paint are available in all colors of the rainbow to members of the interior design trade through CLOTH & KIND Showroom.
SHOP THE SUNSHINE
If you’re ready to start thinking about bringing some color, texture and pattern into your own home, let’s chat about our interior design services to see if it would be a good fit for us to work together. We offer virtual services (handier than ever during these shelter-in-place days) and would love to meet you on a Zoom call soon.
This post was beautifully composed by our girl Rachael Bell, CLOTH & KIND’s Design & Operations Director. Thanks, Rach!
Ann Wood
In these gray days of January, a beautiful meadow ushers forth from the studio of artisan Ann Wood. Ann creates fine, mixed media artwork from paper and wire of flowers and feathers, butterflies and leaves.
Her work is extremely delicate. She manipulates the paper and wire, with drawing and by making very fine cuts with small embroidery scissors.
Ann then hand sews her creations to wool and velvet backgrounds, framing her compositions in vintage frame stock.
Ann's exquisitely detailed work is fanciful, yet realistic. She explains that she is directly inspired by historical botanicals, and long ago craftsmanship.
When I first saw her art, I was instantly reminded of the glorious botanicals created in the 18th century by Mary Delany:
Delany also fashioned her flowers from paper using small embroidery scissors. While Delany's depiction of botanical specimens was scientifically accurate down to the precise color, size, leaf, and stamen, Ann imagines a more dreamlike garden.
How wonderful that we can turn to the artwork of Ann Wood and find a perpetual spring, even in the depth of winter.
EDITOR // This post was penned by our friend and guest editor Lynn Byrne.
IMAGE CREDITS // All images of Ann Wood's artwork from her website. Image of Mary Delany's artwork from the book Mrs Delaney, Her life and Her Flowers by Ruth Hayden.
Fab Five: Scandinavian Love
Flora Crockett
That last name sounds familiar. We associate it with a man who had an adventurous and independent spirit: Davy Crockett. Turns out that Davy's trailblazing qualities have traveled the generations and were imbued in his ancestor, artist Flora Crockett.
Never heard of Flora Crockett? Well it's time you did. The paintings by this forgotten artist were recently lauded by leading art critic, Roberta Smith, for the New York Times as " a body of work that could hold its own in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art or the Museum of Modern Art and in the history of abstract painting." Roberta's "first sighting" of this extraordinary work took place at an exhibition mounted by Meredith Ward at her New York City gallery. The very day Roberta published her discovery, I hurried uptown to see the works for myself.
My first hand view did not disappoint. Crockett's paintings are sparkling. Her color sense is joyous. Hues of complimentary colors of orange and blue, red and mint green, yellow and lavender are brushed on loosely in biomorphic and geometric shapes.
In later works, Crockett further defines shapes, and speaks to negative space, by delineating her canvases with bright, tangled lines.
Crockett paints with a knowing hand. One can see the influence of famous artists like Leger, Miro, and Kandinsky. But Crockett has a signature, crisp, beaming color palette and her free-flowing compositions are unique. Take a look at this painting by Crockett on the left and Kandinsky on the right to compare:
Crockett's artwork also reflects the time that it was painted. This body of work was completed between 1965 to 1973 when Crockett was in her seventies. It was just after the Color Field paintings of artists such as Rothko and Frankenthaler re-invigorated the use of color by making it the point of their work. This painting by Crockett in particular recalls the blocks of color employed by those artists.
By now, you are likely wondering why you never heard of Flora Crockett before. It is a classic tale of a struggling artist working hard to support herself while trying to save money so she could take time off to paint. Sadly the pressures of putting food on the table seemed to impinge on Crockett's artistic creation. A graduate of Oberlin College with a major in art and mathematics, Crockett was employed in the fields of art education, design, sales and engineering during her life. This left time for only 3 solo art shows in her lifetime, the last one in 1946.
Yet her efforts to further her own art education show that her art remained very important to her. In 1918, she married an Italian sculptor and, in 1924, they moved to Paris. There, Crockett found work directing a school for orphans. Somehow she also was able to continue her education at the Sorbonne, the Louvre and Leger's Acadamie Moderne, where she eventually became the director.
After her marriage failed, she returned to New York in 1937, and in 1940, she rented an apartment on 14th street. She lived and painted there for the rest of her life, holding down a variety of jobs to make ends meet. Her last art show was a group exhibition in New York's Overseas Press Club of America in 1965 when Crockett was 73. Interestingly, all of the paintings so celebrated by the New York Times (and seen in this post), were painted after that show.
What sparked this late-in-life creative explosion? Meredith Ward explained to me that by the time Crockett reached her seventies, she was able to retire and finally could devote her days to her passion, ushering in her most productive artistic period. Flora Crockett painted solely for her own pleasure, in her little 14th street apartment, which, in part, explains the paintings' modest size (most are only 24" wide). According to Meredith, at this stage Crockett would not even let her family see her work, turning canvases around to face the wall whenever someone came to the apartment. It's fascinating. Given the freedom of leisure, Crockett's creative genius finally and exuberantly burst forth. And, with the confidence of age, she kept it all to herself, not needing the affirmation of others.
After Crockett's death in 1979, her nephew, Austin Hart Emery, inherited her paintings. He stored them in a barn in Albany. Meredith Ward told me she heard of the works through a friend, who then introduced Meredith to Emery's daughter Mary Emery Lacoursiere, an artist and designer living in Nantucket.
When Meredith Ward saw photographs of the paintings, she was immediately intrigued by this forgotten artist and began the process of cleaning the paintings and mounting the current exhibition. She hinted that there may be more works by Crockett still in storage. How fabulous.
Will the Whitney or MOMA heed Roberta Smith's advice and purchase a Flora Crockett? I hope so. It would be sad if these dynamic and happy paintings were hidden away in private collections. The world should finally be able to appreciate the art of Flora Crockett.
PHOTO CREDITS // Except for the painting by Kandinsky from Bloomberg.com, and the image of Flora Crockett from Meredith Ward, all images of paintings by Flora Crockett are by Lynn Byrne.
EDITOR CREDIT // This post was developed and written by guest editor Lynn Byrne.
Hue: Midnight
FABRIC // Dashes in Midnight from Rebecca Atwood // Chair // Art // Pillow // Cutting board // Interior
EDITOR CREDIT // This post was developed and written by guest editor Molly Velte