Alex Alvis Art

Artist Inspiration Sunday

I'm back to artist inspiration Sunday.  A little inspiration to get us all through the week.  I tell you what, I can use it too.  I don't know about you - but for me, every summer is so crammed full of activities and family and shows and trips that having enough energy left to create art is sometimes a very hard thing to muster up!

So if you don't know from reading my earlier Inspiration Sunday blog posts, I have a book in my library called Artist to Artist Inspiration and Advice from Artists Past and Present compiled by Clint Brown.  And I randomly turn to a section of it and share with you what is in that section.

This part of the book are quotes about artists and gender and race.

"I believe that it is crucial for women artists to situate ourselves in the context of our own gender, class, and ethnic histories and struggles rather than in relationship to male histories."
-Judy Chicago

"I don't paint like a woman is supposed to paint.  Thank God, art doesn't bother about things like that."
-Alice Neel

"True strength is delicate."
-Louise Nevelson


Shinique Smith in her studio

"Maybe in that earlier phase I was painting the woman in me.  Art isn't a wholly masculine occupation, you know."
-Willem De Kooning

"I find that women can be creative in total isolation.  I know excellent women artist who do original work without any response to speak of.  Maybe they are used to a lack of feedback.  Maybe they are tougher."
-Elaine De Kooning

"All artists, Negro and white, have the problem of making a living, of finding a gallery or a place where they can display their work and often with the Negro artist these problems are attenuated."
-Romare Bearden


Pinaree Sanpit 

I love to tell a story.  The history of the United States fascinates me...The part the Negro has played in all these events has been greatly overlooked.  I intend to bring it out.
-Jacob Lawrence

"I feel that women 'and men,' but I mean the 'individual,' can be totally feminine and still be totally powerful."
-Louise Nevelson

"I don't think the quality of being a good teacher or a good artist has anything to do with sex.  I think it's objective:  you either are or you aren't."
-Alice Neel


Alexandria Smith

"At no point do I wish to be in conflict with any man or masculine thought.  It doesn't enter my consciousness.  I think art is anonymous.  It's not competitive with men.  It's a complementary contribution."
-Dame Barbara Hepworth

There you are alone in the huge space and you are not conscious of the fact that you have breasts and a vagina.  You are inside yourself, looking at this damned piece of rag on the wall that you are supposed to make a world out of...Inside yourself you are looking at this terrifying unknown and trying to feel, to pull everything you can out of all your experience, to make something.  I think a woman or a man creating feel very much the same way."
-Grace Hartigan

"I think it would be reasonable for critics to look upon the art scene and ask themselves 'What are women thinking about the world?'...If men seriously said, "What are women?  How are they responding to life as shown in the art?' it would be so interesting!"
-Isabel Bishop



Mona Shomali 

"I feel totally female.  I didn't compete with men and I don't want to look like a man!  I love being a lady and dressing up and masquerading and wearing all the fineries.  I'm breaking down the idea that the artist has to look poor, with berets.
-Louise Nevelson

"Historically, women have either been excluded from the process of creating the definitions of what is considered art or allowed to participate only if we accept and work within existing mainstream designations."
-Judy Chicago

So that is it for today's inspirations to start you on the way to a fabulous week!
I hope you have a mountain of creative work and inspiration.

'Till tomorrow ~

~Alex

Beyond Fear

Oh!  I suddenly thought of Peter Max - who I saw at an art show years ago...he was showing his Heart Series.  Here is one of the paintings from that series.

 This is how beautiful one heart...your heart is.  Keep it faithfully - then share :)

Wishing you an artful and love filled Saturday ...and every day.

~Alex

Dog Days of Summer - Day 5

Happy Friday everyone!  Today's book is by Charles Portis and it is called True Grit.  Perhaps some of you have heard of it.

And our search will be True Grit Art.   Let us see what we get in Google Images for that!

Oh funny.  This is my favorite.  It was listed in one of the best of street art in 2011.

It's called True Grit Grin:


Isn't that just fantastic?  You just gotta love it!

And now for our book:

....I have opened to page.........163

Rooster was holding a bottle with a little whiskey in it.  He said, "You keep on thinking that." He drained off the whiskey in about three swallows and tapped the cork back in and tossed the bottle up in the air,.  He pulled is revolver and fired at it twice and missed.  The bottle fell and rolled and Rooster shot at it two or three more times and broke it on the ground.  He got out his sack of cartridges and reloaded the pistol.  He said, "The Chinaman is running them cheap shells in on me again."  LeBoeuf said,  "I thought maybe the sun was in your eyes.  That is to say, your eye."  Rooster swung the cylinder back in his revolver and said, ""Eyes, is it?  I'll show you eyes!"  He jerked the sack of corn dodgers free from his saddle baggage.  He got one of the dodgers out and flung it in the air and fired at it and missed.  Then he flung another one up and he hit it.  The corn dodger exploded.  He was pleased with himself and he got a fresh bottle of whiskey from his baggage and treated himself to a drink."

This is a wonderful book and was a great movie - twice.  My favorite will always be the first one though.

Dog Days of Summer - Day 4

Today Yay - the week is well on it's way to the week's end.  For some of you that's a good thing, for some of you it is a bad thing, for artists it is a mixed bag really.  Today though - OUR BOOK!

It is.......The Art of Power by that rascal Thich Nhat Hanh

An images google search brings up many images after the entry ZEN POWER ART - but one that I really liked was this one:


This is a painting done by Marcia Baldwin called Power Inside of You.

And - as for our book quote today:

.....from page......112

At first, people are infatuated with an image they see as beautiful.  They want to possess this image, and they suffer because of this.  But after they wake up and see that it is a deception, they push away this image to look for another object of infatuation.  They may wander their whole lives, from lifetime to lifetime, unable to find the real object of their love.  But if we can find someone who has a steady faith in her own goodness, beauty, and truth, we can look at this person as a reflection of ourselves in order to return to ourselves and be in touch with the basic goodness, beauty and truth in us."

And, I think with all we create too.

Thank you for reading today and I hope your day is full of the steady faith of your own goodness.

'Til tomorrow!

~Alex

Dog Days of Summer - Day 3

Oh  -  this is just so darn much fun - a book - and image search based on it's title - and a random page transcribed from the book.  If you have just landed on this page - you may want to go back to the beginning of these posts...which would be Monday, July 14.

Today's book is one of my very favorite books, A New Earth written by the indomitable Eckhart Tolle.  First a visual.  I will put in Google Images search, NEW EARTH ART.  Let's see what happens....

"You want peace.  There is no one who does not want peace.  Yet there is something else in you that wants the drama, wants the conflict.  You may not be able to feel it at this moment.  You may have to wait for a situation or even just a thought that triggers a reaction in you;  someone accusing you of this or that, not acknowledging you, encroaching on your territory, questioning the way you do things, an argument about money....Can you then feel the enormous surge of force moving through you, the fear, perhaps being masked by anger or hostility?  Can you hear your own voice becoming harsh or shrill, or louder and a few octaves lower?  Can you be aware of your mind racing to defend it position, justify, attack, blame?  In other words, can you awaken at that moment of unconsciousness?  Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost, that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the victorious character within that theatrical production?  Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?"

I just love ET.

Time for me to get on with the day and I hope your day is bright and beautiful and peaceful.

'Till tomorrow!

~Alex

Dog Days of Summer - Day 2

Okay - you may be surprised to know that I don't just read art books.  '*GASP!*" you say? 

No - it's true.  My book library grows smaller these days though because nowadays I am working on art most all the time and have to use my hands to hold tools instead of books...but thank you books on tape.  Audible loves me.

Today's book is called "Growing a Business." by Paul Hawken.  So, of course - starting with a related Google Images search...I shall see what typing in "Growing Art" will...well let's see what that gives us?

Oh well!!   This is just too cool! 

I found this!  GROWING ART! 

It's from the My Modern Met website. 

Growing grass sculpture from artist Mathilde Roussel:








That is just amazing.   AMAZING!   Sorry - I'm a bit blown away.  Takes chia pets to a whole new avant garde level....

Okay - back to the book opening....what will it be???  ah...page 150...

"If you are fearful or grasping of money, your customer, the bank vice president, or the investor will spot this immediately, and the task of securing support will become immeasurably more difficult.  In order to be a growing business and attract capital, you must project a sense that the world is expansive.  Generosity, ampleness, and abundance draw money to ideas, people, and businesses.  This is not a mandate for waste or glitzy promotion.  It is simply knowing that your product or service touches a rich, fertile vein in the marketplace.  In other words, have confidence in yourself and your business.  This feeling will come through clearly in your dealings with people who have money, and they'll respond."

So what do you think?  Does that resonate with you??  How does that make you think about how your represent yourself and your art?  Interesting concept to think about, yes?

Okay - it is time to go on to other things...  TTFN :)

~Alex

7 Dog Days of Summer Inspiration

Every summer I marvel at how incredibly busy my life becomes and were on one hand I wouldn't trade it for the world, on the other hand I just want winter to be here NOW so I can hibernate and relax and languish in art once more.

Perhaps you are feeling the same way.  So I have broken out 7 books from my library to give us all some good thoughts to ride the wave of the remaining months of summer with our sanity somehow in tact.

I am just going to open each book each day to whatever page it opens to and write down the paragraph my finger lands on and the rest of the writing below that paragraph and we'll see what happens.  It may not mean a darn thing to me, but it may mean a whole heaping lot to you.

But first - a photo of a work of art.  Since the book I am opening is The Courage to Create by Rollo May I will do an image search for courageous art and see what comes up. 

Here we go....

Ha ha ha....See there?  This is EXACTLY how I've been feeling these last few weeks!

"Paul Cezanne strongly believed that he was discovering and painting a new form of space which would radically influence the future of art, yet he was at the same time filled with painful and ever-present doubts.  The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one.  Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.  To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction:  it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment.  To every thesis there is an antithesis, and to this there is a synthesis.  Truth is thus a never-dying process.  We then know the meaning of the statement attributed to Leibnitz:  "I would walk twenty miles to listen to my worst enemy if I could learn something."

Paul Cezanne