Repeating Patterns
Repeating Patterns
A pattern designed over 100 years ago can still make its mark in today’s world.
One of the antique theater seats from the Music Hall at Andrew Carnegie Free Library in Carnegie.
. . . . . . .
For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Window Into the Past
Window Into the Past
Faded paint, faded wood, faded glass even, dusty with years of grime, so much that this image looks nearly monochromatic, the only coloring offered by the iron oxide from the old nails.
It’s that old carriage house in my neighbor’s back yard again. There’s just something I always find so inspiring in its details and it often becomes the subject or the backdrop of photos; it’s on my walk from my home to Main Street so I see it nearly every day. Here’s a view of the Black and White Barn and in Bird on a Fence.
Vintage Lady
Vintage Lady
Not sure who her features are patterned after, but between her molded and painted features this tiny Baroque lady is a marvel. She’s only about four inches tall, yet the lace trim on her dress and the flower in her hair are extremely detailed. She might need a little skin cream for those cracks though. I just wonder who she’s looking at for all of eternity.
Grandmother’s Garden
Grandmother’s Garden
Made by hand with very careful stitches, all those little patches of color are sewn together and carefully bound in yellow, then quilted, all made out of scraps from house dresses and curtains, one woman’s legacy from years ago. I can picture the eras the fabrics came from, and the garments.
My Morning Desk
My Morning Desk
On lucky mornings I get to spend some time here at the corner of my deck. Perhaps I watch the sun rise, or I watch a morning already in progress, soak in the colors, the light and shadow, what nature offers that morning, awakening my senses and sensibilities for a creative day ahead. No computer, no phone, no electronic devices except my camera, but a tablet and pen, sketchbook and drawing materials. Such days are never often enough.
Old Wood
Barn Floor
I visit a shop and have merchandise in an old barn, unheated and uninsulated, the sun streaming in through the occasional windows and the narrowing boards of the walls. Here the sun shines on hand-hewn oak worn to a sheen with age.
Window Into the Past
Window Into the Past
Faded paint, faded wood, faded glass even, dusty with years of grime, so much that this image looks nearly monochromatic, the only coloring offered by the iron oxide from the old nails.
It’s that old carriage house in my neighbor’s back yard again. There’s just something I always find so inspiring in its details and it often becomes the subject or the backdrop of photos; it’s on my walk from my home to Main Street so I see it nearly every day. Here’s a view of the Black and White Barn and in Bird on a Fence.
Summer Tea: 2011
Summer Tea
A colorful tea set with a backdrop of colored glass lit by they sun on a bright afternoon. Seen in Carnegie Antiques, it was all just so colorful and gleaming it was hard to resist.
It’s always interesting to see what is collected, what is saved, and what survives to be shared again, sometimes the most unlikely things! If you’re local to Carnegie or the Pittsburgh area, don’t forget to stop in at Carnegie Antiques, and the shop’s owner is also hosting an estate sale this Saturday, July 21 that looks like a collector’s dream.
Summer Tracks
Summer Tracks.
This was just behind Main Street, but it could be anywhere or in the middle of nowhere. The hills are green but on a day with glare like this the color is almost gone.
It was at this point along the tracks that I thought of the painting “House By Tracks” that I also posted today.
I did fool around with filters and such: Desaturate>Photo Filter Deep Yellow>Diffuse Glow, then some layers with feathering for the edges.
It’s only June, what will become of August?
Just for reference, here is the original photo.
Le génie a pour son domaine L’immortalite: 2010
L & F Moreau Lamp base
How’s your French for translating that?
“The domain of genius is immortality.”
This has been a difficult assignment, though. Usually a collector’s item can be found on the internet, and all related information about artist, manufacturer, tradition, social culture, etc. can also be easily found; collectors tend to be a diligent and detail-oriented lot, and it never ceases to amaze me how much some people know about their subject. And, of course, because these items are bought and sold all the time, it behooves everyone to put it on the internet with as much information as possible.
However, I can’t find much at all about this piece or the artists because it’s locked in one of the foreign-language pages I can’t translate very well.
The sculpture was made by two brothers, Louis Auguste and Hippolyte Francois Moreau, part of the Moreau family of sculptors from Dijon, France (yes, also famous for the mustard). Louis worked in bronze and metal sculpture while Francois was a painter and sculptor. They collaborated on many, many highly ornate and detailed decorative pieces in the Art Nouveau era, mostly lamps and clocks, and signed their pieces “L & F Moreau”.
These ladies are proclaiming the truth, I’m sure, with the long traditional court trumpet, those clingy, flowing dresses and one with a laurel wreath on her head the other wings and holding two laurel wreaths. I didn’t photograph the whole thing because I wanted to be able to see the tablet with the phrase, plus it just gets lost with everything else on the table.
Now, the phrase—I think it’s Socrates, or inspired by him, because he has a list of other “the domain of…” phrases, but here I’ve lost out again. I just can’t find the origin of this phrase.
You never know what will show up at your local vintage consignment shop, in this case, Carnegie Antiques. It’s always worth a look.
Vintage Lady: 2011
Vintage Lady
Not sure who her features are patterned after, but between her molded and painted features this tiny Baroque lady is a marvel. She’s only about four inches tall, yet the lace trim on her dress and the flower in her hair are extremely detailed. She might need a little skin cream for those cracks though. I just wonder who she’s looking at for all of eternity.
Antique Afghan
Grandmother's Garden
Made by hand with very careful stitches, all those little patches of color are sewn together and carefully bound in yellow, then quilted, all made out of scraps from house dresses and curtains, one woman’s legacy from years ago.
At Carnegie Antiques
Vintage Glass, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
I spent the afternoon minding the shop at Carnegie Antiques today and decided to paint a little sketch of a table of glassware that has recently arrived at the shop.
Judi, the shop owner, had organized this table of decorative glassware last week; when I was in I was enchanted by all the colors and shapes and patterns. Remembering it, I decided the next time I was in I would paint that table of glass.
Unlike other subjects, glass is translucent, both having a shape and allowing other shapes to be seen through it. It has a color but other colors can be seen through it as well, modified by the color of the glass. And instead of casting a deep shadow, it casts a pool of colored light on a table top.
Detail of painting.
This painting is about 10″ x 12″ in chalk pastel on Wallis sanded pastel paper; you can see the color of the paper in the lower left corner and here and there throughout the painting. I painted it in about 90 minutes, then touched up a few things when I got home with pastel colors I didn’t have in my little traveling box. There are four different shades of blue here, two shades of green and three of the cranberry glass. My traveling box is a cheap set of mostly primaries and secondaries, perhaps an extra shade of some of the like red-orange or apple green, plus black, white and mid-gray. I can capture quite a bit with those pastels by blending in place, but not always the nuances of glass.
I see things I’d like to work on—the background for one, which I like rough and sketchy but I want a little more color in it and can’t decide which. I began with pale yellow, then added blue, then green then pale violet. On the table I may mess around with the glass a little more to define the pieces, but mostly the doily under the blue bowl in the center does not look like a doily. It will come to me.
Detail of painting.
But there is glass from nearly every era there, opalescent milk glass, Depression glass, colored, etched, painted, plus napkins and napkin rings over on the right and two hobnail lamps with cranberry glass, one a nice respectable table lamp and the other a naked lady with a lampshade on her head. Those Victorians knew how to entertain themselves.
When it’s done, I think I’ll buy one of Judi’s highly decorative vintage gold frames and use that to frame it.
Though the shop sells vintage items from the mid-19th century to mid-20th century, I have a room with my artwork in the building. It helps to be friends with the owner, and I’m grateful to have this display space and also enjoy my time there where I am totally unplugged—no cell phone, no computer or wireless, just a radio or a recorded book if I care to bring one. It’s a real break from the usual day. I put out the “open” flag and people stop in to browse, what fun.
Detail of painting.
I usually do a little rearranging and cleaning in my little room, sometimes a lot, but when I don’t have a lot to do I bring a project with me that, again, can be done while unplugged, like writing, which I will often do in pen on a good old-fashioned tablet, or a crochet project, and a take a lunch I can heat up. After the busy-ness of working at home it’s nice to get a quiet spot now and then.
Time
Time
A collection of old watches, none working, some pretty bent up, but still holding that reverent mystery of time, and our keeping of it. I just wonder who Grace Jarret was, and why she received an engraved watch. It was all in the jewelry counter at Carnegie Antiques.
Today 