Seeing is Believing

Once Destined for Dump, Street and Traffic Signs
in Disrepair Upcycled by Savannah Artists

What do you think of when you see a stop sign? Stop, of course. What runs through your mind when you pass a speed limit sign? I better slow down. Such signs are intended to force instinctive reaction, with little or no conscious thought. Beyond the instructions they provide us as drivers, street and traffic signs are not exactly fodder for much musing. Unless you’re Miriam and Jacob Hodesh. Read more…

The Dead, in an innovative spin on the concert souvenir, have partnered with on-demand publisher Blurb to offer custom, collectible photography books for each show during the band’s current 2009 tour. Read more…

New Site Features Video Content
Produced By Various Arts Institutions

ArtBabble, a new site that went public this week, could very well become an online mecca for those interested in the visual arts. At least that’s what its creator, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, would like to see happen, as would its various partners—institutions ranging from The New York Public Library to MoMA and Art21.

Read more…

Musicians, Visual Artists Collaborate
to Offer Peek at Creative Process

Earlier this month at the opening of its “Seeing Sounds” installation at Gallery S.P.A.C.E. in Savannah, the Creative Force Artist Collective—a newly formed group of about 20 diverse local artists—pulled back the curtain on the seldom-seen creative process, revealing what is for many a mysterious enterprise. Read more…

Supporters of the arts received good news late Friday when the Senate voted 60 to 38 in favor of a $787 billion economic stimulus bill following a 246-183 House vote earlier in the day. The bill included $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, which seemed to be in serious jeopardy mid-week. Read more…

Critics of the economic stimulus plan (read: impotent Republicans in Congress) have, throughout the debate over the size and scope of the package, cherry-picked various programs—ones, of course, that they don’t like or that run counter to their ideology—as evidence of “pork.” And in some cases, both in the House and especially in the Senate, Democrats have caved, stripping billions of dollars from the package in the name of bipartisanship, despite the obvious ways in which these programs would have played important roles in moving this country forward during tough economic times. Read more…

A Conversation With Michelle Oravitz,
Translating a World Beyond the Senses

Since discovering the work of Miami-based artist Michelle Oravitz a few weeks ago, I’ve been captivated—regularly revisiting the images as I search for the right words to accurately assess it, without understating its brilliance while avoiding the trap of hyperbolic adjectives. The former has proven far easier than the latter.

Her paintings transcend typical classification, managing to touch opposite ends of the creative and emotive spectrum in each of her pieces: free-flowing yet intricate, stirring yet serene, at once personal and universal, spiritual yet sensual, trance-inducing and thought-provoking. Her fusion of potentially inharmonious colors—bright and intense warms playing off vibrant and soothing cools—triggers an electric dance on the surface of the canvas, revealing a multidimensional world akin to one experienced by the meditative mind.

In an effort to capture the essence of Michelle’s creations, one word, alas, best applies: captivating. As the welcome screen of her Web site accurately proclaims, “When Colors Dream, Eyes Listen.”

And while the Internet plays an increasingly important role for artists, expanding exponentially opportunities for exposure, the true power of Michelle’s paintings—like most—is fully realized on the wall, not the computer screen (as my wife and I can now attest).

The 35-year-old mother of two, yoga instructor and independent artist—featured last month in Yoga Magazine—draws on her personal experiences practicing yoga and meditation, channeling those peaceful vibrations into dreamlike images on canvas. Her work elicits no immediate or obvious comparisons to more well-known, influential artists; her style is all her own. One of her pieces appears in the film “The Unborn,” others on album covers and in books. She has also been invited to the prestigious Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea, an international juried exhibition in Florence next December.

Michelle recently took time to discuss her work and her creative process, where she turns to for inspiration, what role art plays in her life, how she would advise aspiring artists, and much more with The Madness of Art. Read more…

Despite the increasingly unambiguous value of arts education in American schools, thanks to scores of studies and surveys in recent years, government funding of arts education, and the arts in general, seems to ignore those established, consequential benefits—not only for students that are directly impacted, but all of society. Read more…