Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci, the dog in his Renaissance Outfit

I have always felt an affinity for Leonardo Da Vinci, so much so I named my dog after him. I call him Vinci. Leonardo was born in April under the sign of Aries, as I am. I love that he is a scientist and an artist and a visionary thinker. Artists who are intellectual in their work are of great interest to me. When art is beyond representation and takes much deeper forms is impressive to me. We continually learn more, even centuries, later about this mysterious man who was truly a genius. As our science has improved we have learned more about his work using x-rays and looking at the under paintings of his most famous work. His use of symbology continually offers new insight into the political and religious issues of the time. Leonardo's ability to be so talented in so many areas made him into what we now coin in terminology as the Renaissance Man. I found this interesting facts to share with you . Enjoy.

answers.com

• Leonardo dug into graveyards at night to steal corpses and study human anatomy
• He was a left-handed dyslexic and procrastinating perfectionist who left many paintings unfinished and destroyed most of his work.

ArtPromote

• Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the icons of the renaissance. Together with Michelangelo and several other great artists and artisans of the period Da Vinci left a legacy of art, thought, science, and culture which has profoundly affected all ages since. Like all (well – most!) humans he was interesting and we share with you some interesting facts…

  answeringgenesis.org

  • Leonardo drew the plans for the first armored car in 1485.
  • He also designed the cannon, a machine gun, gliders, turnspit for roasting meat, canal system to irrigate fields, and invented the parachute.

  EBSQ Self Supporting Artists

  • Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti were not the best of buddies.
  • One of the quirks of Leonardo was that he wrote many of his notes using mirror writing. Some believe this was to keep his thoughts secret.

  buzzle.com

  • It took Leonardo Da Vinci about ten years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips.
  • He never married or had children and had a reputation of being a man of high character.

  about.com

  • Paper was far more expensive and harder to get hold of in Leonardo’s day than it is today. Which is why he made more intensive use of it, “filling” most of every page.
  • Unusually for the era in which he lived, Leonardo Da Vinci was a vegetarian, for humanitarian reasons.
  Leonardo enjoyed purchasing caged birds so that he could set them free
• Da Vinci is best known for his masterpieces; Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rocks, and The Last Supper.

Leonardo Da Vinci Quote: When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Making the World a Better Place through Art

I would love to have feedback from all of you in your area of the world as to the ways we can use art to make the world a better place. It can be for an individual, a group of people, for the globe..it can be for a greener world, or a more peaceful world, or a world where we bypass politics and reach out to each other. In living in many other countries for extended lengths of time, the one thing I learned well is people are wonderful everywhere, it is the governments that divide us and make us feel distance from each other. I have learned so much from other cultures and learned quickly that my culture is not the center of the world, but that I am a citizen of a larger world and we are all a member of the human race. We share a planet, we breathe the same air, and depend on the same resources. We all love, feel pain and sadness, we all hurt, and we all struggle and suffer with bad times and obstacles. We are more alike than we are different. I truly believe art can make a difference as a flux for people to work together in a peaceful hopeful way, learning and sharing. When I lived in the Philippines I learned how close family relationships can be, I learned how loved a child can be by all the members of a family, I learned that patience and a soft voice can go a long way. I learned what being a host was, when a guest was present. I also learned the loudest people in any room were Americans.

When I lived in Turkey I learned what hospitality was truly about. I learned loyalty to friendship were paramount. I learned religions different from my own were not threatening, but interesting. I learned about the value of tradition. I have learned the value of traditional functional arts.

I have learned from where ever I have traveled and lived. It is the university of the world, if you are open to learn. I learned no matter how small the country, how rural the area, there were things that were superior to civilized countries.

Here is a site I recently saw on line that supports local artists in rural areas and supports indigenous cultures. It is called Better World Arts. Another positive idea that is helping end gang graffiti and promote a more peaceful environment is the Philadelphia Mural Project. To see all the murals takes three different tours and several days. The key to the success of the program was community involvement.

If you have difficulty leaving comments on the site, just e-mail me directly with your ideas and suggestions. My e-mail address is rabbits5@aol.com

Please join me in this quest, together we can do a lot! Lets reach out and make the world a better place through the arts!

Rabbit's Moon studio: Outsider Art/New Orleans

Rabbit's Moon studio: Outsider Art/New Orleans: Outsider Art I mention New Orleans a good bit in my blog because I have friends and family that I go to see often there. I have seen New Or...

Outsider Art/New Orleans

Outsider Art

I mention New Orleans a good bit in my blog because I have friends and family that I go to see often there. I have seen New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina devastated a large portion of the city. Tv coverage could not convey the total expanse of the destruction, street after street, block after block and neighborhood after neighborhood. It looked as if an atomic bomb had gone off. I remember flying in to the city at night not long after Katrina wondering where all the lights were and then it dawned on me how much of the city was gone. People are tough inNew Orleans and it is a city that is far too unique to lose. Jazz and blues are back, the wonderful restaurants in the French Quarter have reopened and the city is coming back, but it has taken much longer than people thought. The struggles were tougher than anyone imagined. I admire New Orleans and the people. They love their city and their culture and they did not give up.

In my many visits to New Orleans through the years I have become enamored with the Outsider Art that I have seen on the streets, in galleries, cafes, and museums. The Hard Rock Cafe in New Orleans has a wonderful collection and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art also carries outsider artists. I love the combination of words with image, wood with metal, and the honest naive imagery. It gives all people access to art and expression who have not had art training. I love the pure honest approach to this art, it is expression at its most basic form....no pretense....it is what it is.

This Week our Friends from These Countries Visited Us!

Thank you all for helping make Rabbit's Moon Studio Blog such a success! We are United in Art!

United States

Russia

United Kingdom

Germany

Ukraine

Australia

Croatia

Lithuania

Poland

Brazil

Singapore

Romania

Self Portrait/Raku Artist

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. ~Charles Horton Cooley

The World of Glass Fusion continued...

Glass Fusion

Clicking on this will take you to a glass fusion org.

In the first photo you see some of the choices of dichroic glass. It is a very expensive glass to buy because of the production process. I will include a link for you to research the process if your are interested. Some of these designs almost seem holographic.

The photo's below are by one of my fellow classmates who love dichroic glass also. These have a black background that you can see when the pieces don't meet. The colors are so rich to the eye. I love the highly textured pieces, as well as, the gold. When one buys sample packs by the half pound you get what ever color or design they put in the pack. So sometimes it is what you want and other times not.

The examples below are another example of woven glass.

The photo below is Betsy W's work, one of three Betsy's in a small art class. Funny I went my whole life with never having another Betsy in my whole school, much less a small art class. Betsy is putting square sections together to meld in an almost abstract Joseph Albers' pattern for hanging in a window.

The three photo's below are the work and planning of my classmate and friend Monica. She has a detailed meticulous approach to her craft, and it shows beautifully in her work. Monica is from Peru and using many of the Incan designs in her art. I include a photograph of her planning pattern she creates to follow for the design. It shows the intricate careful planning she puts into her work. Artists work very differently in their planning and art processes. Some artists plan ahead and make models or drawings to follow, others research and think but work intuitively. I am the latter.

The Wold of Glass Fusion

Here you see my classmate and friend Monica's woven glass piece set in a mold to form. Before this step are several more. Each piece has to be hand cute and put in a mold for the long sections twice and the woven together and then fired at this stage to form a bowl shape. Monica was experimenting with what we call stringers, which are small strands of glass. They proved to be very delicate, breaking at points, but still a very nice design. The studio we work in for glass is part of an art program offered by the city of Tampa. The program is reasonable and quality teachers are offered. It is a unique program for a city recreation department to do and one that needs to be expanded over the city and modeled for other areas.

Gauguin on Art

"I shut my eyes in order to see" - Paul Gauguin

Collage/Pieces of our Lives

Collage

Is oft thought of as a sub class to painting, drawing and sculpture. It is truly interesting that part of the art world has taken that position with its wonderful rich history. I have loved collage most of my life. I think it actually started with watching my Mother put together family photo's with clipping out bits of embroidery or lace to enhance the presentation. I can remember how carefully she would set aside pieces of her favorite bits of material and thoughtfully arrange each vignette. I watched with awe, and remember thinking I didn't know you were allowed to combine photographs with other things. I had not seen it done in anyone else's home or other place. It was unique to me and seemed to allow me to think differently.

Africa is not always given its due to the history of collage. Picasso is given credit and Braque, but it is not always mentioned that Picasso drew many of his influences came from African art. Rauschenberg, Johns, Cornell were artist who brought collage into the modern art world. Now it is a mainstay trending over to assemblage and all types of mixed media and found object collage. Curators and judges no longer cast an eye of disdain, as in the past, but have accept video artists, installations and other innovations.

The history of art is change, innovation, and exploration. Bright colors were thought to be a horror is certain periods of art, impressionism was thought unskilled art, and Van Gogh's work was not accepted in his life time. So art is meant to be in constant evolution and more that the realistic representation of a scene or object. Art is meant to challenge us, make us think, and to inspire discovery and exploration.

For me collage and assemblage are the archeology of the present and future. There will be a time when people study our objects for hints of how we lived as a civilization. I love old, worn, used, touched, lived with objects: they speak to be of times just past and times present that are moving into the past. It is the visual poetry of our lives, our beings journey in time. We leave a mark, we leave evidence we were here, we worked, we lived, and we existed on this earth at this time.

The World in a Week at Rabbit's Moon Studio Blog

Thanks for visiting this week! It makes us feel really good a Rabbit's Moon Studio to know so many people all over the world are are supporting the arts.

United States

United Kingdom

Russia

Germany

Ukraine

Australia

Brazil

India

Lebanon

Canada

Taiwan

Rabbit's Moon studio: Florida Highwaymen/Black Artist's of the 50's

Rabbit's Moon studio: Florida Highwaymen/Black Artist's of the 50's: The Florida Highwaymen , as they were later called, were a group of African American painters who painted mainly landscape paintings for tou...

Florida Highwaymen/Black Artist's of the 50's

The Florida Highwaymen, as they were later called, were a group of African American painters who painted mainly landscape paintings for tourists traveling the main highways of Florida. There are many books written about them. Their work has become very collectable over the years. A few of the painters are still alive today and still give talks about their experiences painting in an earlier Florida.

Florida was a tropical heaven, not yet populated as it is today. There were tens of thousands more egrets, herons, osprey's and other birds. The waters were not yet polluted. The gulf was crystal clear and the natural springs bubbled up as they had for hundreds of years. Even when my family moved here from Mississippi in the early 1950's I can remember the sting in my nose of breathing in the salty air on Indian Rocks beach. Florida was truly its name, the Spanish word meaning flower. Oleanders and bougainvillea bloomed, citrus trees were ripe with fruit, and concrete had yet to be poured and tar slathered on the shell roads...the boom times would come, people would retire here by the hundreds of thousands each year...the waters would become mercy, the sea life disappear, and the birds would lose their habitats. But before all that would happened the Black Highwaymen would capture the pristine beauty of an environmental wonder.

Several years ago when I was teaching art, I did a school wide program on Florida that was centered around the arts. We had a professor from the University of Florida who came and gave a wonderful presentation on the Black Highwaymen. I wasn't sure how that would go over in an elementary setting, but the parents were fascinated and filled the auditorium. We also had a Seminole Indian princess who traveled from the Everglades Reservation and presented the history and culture of the Seminole Indians. We had a live Florida panther for the kids to see, you can imagine that was a huge hit for kids. The entire schools was decorated with drawings, paintings and interactive areas the kids created while learning about Florida history, culture and environment. Over a thousand parents and children attended the event that included visual art, dance, drama and food. The arts are a strong conduit for learning and disseminating information in a way children learn. It is being lost today in the rush to test, we have forgotten how to teach in the ways children learn best. I doubt any child who went through this unit on Florida will ever forget it and will tell their children. Experiental learning, problem solving and discovery are what the arts are....it is how brains are developed. Saving the arts in schools should be a paramount in every learning environ.

Thank you Black Highwaymen for adding to the richness of Florida and capturing its unique beauty.

This is the second reference to African American Gardens of the South.

This site also takes you to Amazon.com. I am not advertising, just showing you the book cover and author.

http://www.amazon.com/Places-Spirit-Traditional-African-American/dp/1595340645/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323027866&sr=1-2

This is one of the references to African American Garden's in the South. I will also add the second. It takes you to amazon.com, but you will see the book cover.

http://www.amazon.com/African-American-Gardens-Yards-Rural-http://www.amazon.com/African-American-Gardens-Yards-Rural-South/dp/0870497626/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323027557&sr=1-1

The Art of The Southern African American Garden of the Past

There has been a book published recently about the gardens about black families of the South and their gardens. I saw the reference briefly and will need to go back and look it up for you, but it reminded me of these photo's I took in New Orleans. This was a small garden outside a restaurant near the 9th ward that was so devastated by hurricane Katrina. I love the garden for its naiveness and honesty. As an artist I am enamored when people with no art background are creative in their everyday life. I am not sure if this was meant to be a version of a black saint as St. Fransis of Assi, or another religious figure. I love the contrast, the almost reverse image of face and hair, the bright colors that seem to call from the Islands. But I just love people wanting

to be creative. Naive art, outsider art, primitive art-what ever we may call it, is the human spirit wanting to create with what ever skills they have.

The African American Gardens of the past often had any objects that could be found easily in the immediate environment and then utilized into the garden whether it be an old paint bucket, a used black rubber tire, or a piece of this or that. These were families who had little and made something from the little they had. However I think the influence from African and the Islands many of these people originated from. As a child of the South I remember these gardens well, but had not thought about their influence and uniqueness until I happened upon the reference to this book. I look forward to tracking it down and sharing it with you.

Rabbit's Moon studio: Pop Art

Rabbit's Moon studio: Pop Art: Pop Art Popular Art The definition below is from Wikapedia. I think it is interesting that icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis keep bein...

Pop Art

Pop Art

Popular Art

The definition below is from Wikapedia. I think it is interesting that icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis keep being rediscovered from one generation to the next. If we step back from the world we live in daily and view it from afar or even with a different eye as Warhol did and many of the Pop Artist it helps us to understand culture in a way we might not. I think that is one of the functions of the artist. Jung called it "artist as shaman". The artist can interpret or translate the world we live in with an almost spiritual intellectual view.

There are times when the average person does not understand what an artist, or art movement is conveying. At times it seems not to make sense and with that frustration people will reject or ridicule the art or artist. But as with Warhol and the Pop artists we begin to see the what the influence of mass culture and commercialization had on us as individuals and as a society.

"Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States.^[1] Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art. Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation.^[1][2] The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.^[2]

Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.^[3] And due to its utilization offound objects and images it is similar to Dada. Pop art is aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony.^[2] It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques.

Much of pop art is considered incongruent, as the conceptual practices that are often used make it difficult for some to readily comprehend. Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of Postmodern Art themselves.^[4]

Pop art often takes as its imagery that which is currently in use in advertising.^[5] Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, like in the Campbell's Soup Cans labels, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the shipping carton containing retail items has been used as subject matter in pop art, for example in Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box 1964, (pictured below), or his Brillo Soap Box sculptures."

The statement below gives us insight into what Warhol was thinking and his meaning in creating Marilyn.

It makes one think what will be the next art movement and what will it tell us about our own mass culture now. Who will be the shaman artist that reveals that to us? It is exciting to me to ponder.

"Warhol is a pop artist, meaning he takes images from popular culture, commercial products and advertisements and recontextualizes them within the framework of the art world. By using a familiar image like Marilyn Monroe, he flattens the image of her to show our shallow understand of her. She has become an icon of pop culture, and no longer a person with depth and character. Her iconographic portrait is a symbol for beauty and fame, and no longer for the person she is/was." W.C. Chatton

Welcome Ecuador!!!

Welcome Ecuador!!! It is so nice to have you with us. We look forward to learning more about the artists of Ecuador.

Rumi

A Mother's Love is a Powerful Thing

98 years old

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.
::: Rumi :::

Test Tiles for Transfers on Ceramics

Test Tiles for Mixed Media Art Project

These are not decals, this an actual printing on clay using a ceramic ink on raw clay, then fired. It has taken us much practice and experiments to get this to work. In these pictures you will note the image looks pixilated, it is due to the canvas the clay was rolled out on. There are many variables that effect the look of the image.

I am working on a project that will use images and thoughts from my Mothers life, as a type of portrait and honor to her, but in general to all women of my Mothers generation who survived two wars and a great depression-they are made of stern stuff, but who also wore there badges with grace and compassion. My Mother was beyond a sewer, she was a seamstress, a tailor, and artist with cloth and needle. She also was a science teacher majoring in biology and chemistry. Her love of nature and science was passed on with great love to myself and my brother, and like a stone dropped the ripple effects go on to our whole family. Now her grandsons hunt fossils and points with great glee...a gift given from another generation. At almost 99 she still is a presence in my life, even with the effects of a massive stroke 9 years ago, she can still communicate love, grace, compassion and determination. I am always in awe of her being and thankful for the gifts she has given me and others. So it will be in an art piece, perhaps many, that I will honor her as Mother, as Earth Mother, as life giver, as woman, as love....it will be a theme in my art to honor these gifts. As Dali, Jasper Johns, and many other artists develop a symbology of language that reappears in their art, my art is developing its own language, its own alphabet. So these test tiles are the beginning of a mixed media piece in the making. As the piece progresses I will share it with you.

Beads Galore!!

Asheville Bead Store

Asheville is the home of some of the finest craft artists in the United States. Here is one of the craft store suppliers that support crafters who do jewelry and beading. Take a look at their large selection. The staff is friendly and helpful. There is even a leather couch and fireplace to relax by. They also offer classes. Check it out. It is eye candy big time!

http://www.chevronbeads.com/( clickable in the column of websites of interest to your right)

Art is a calling

There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.
::: Henry Moore :::