Playing Favorites: Chapter 7

Welcome to the 5th edition of The Pulse -- The State of the Art -- a survey in words and pictures of the online artist community. The Pulse is a collaborative project that aims to introduce you to new artists, help you get to know familiar faces even more, and allow you access into the creative hearts and minds of a very talented crew of individuals. More than 130 artists have answered a series of questions which make up The Pulse. Their responses will be presented in a series of online posts which will run every Sunday.

Style File, Techniques & Tools, Master Class, and It's Still Life were the first four projects posted and links to all these posts can be found on the sidebar of my blog. The fifth project, Playing Favorites, continues now...

Participants were asked to: share a picture of a favorite piece of art that you have created and explain its meaning to you...
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Chris Miser

"I wanted to collage with tissue paper, but I never had before. I'd seen a woman create a huge canvas entirely out of bits of tissue, and I loved the effect. It reminded me of cubist works, mosaics, or pointillism. This is my first attempt at it, and I loved it. I learned that a woman who had just bought her first home alone loved it even more than I did, so it made me very happy to give it to her as a housewarming gift."

Arabella Grayson

"Mosaic Heart. I took what was available at the time - a red crayon, a page from the newspaper, a brown paper bag, my broken heart - and created something beautiful at a time of great uncertainty and despair. That first piece - a mosaic heart affixed to a piece of paper bag - affirmed my commitment to leading an authentic life...to being an artist."

Dina Wakley

"This art journal page is a tribute to all my art friends from all over the world. Birds of an 'art' feather flock together! I love to teach and create with like-minded artists. It's comfortable and fulfilling."

Trudi Sissons

"I love gardening and, in particular, I love irises. I used a photograph I had taken of one of the iris blossoms in my garden and created a digital illustration using images from Evelyn Ducote's stock - Vintage Paris. I love the feeling I get when I become entirely consumed by creating and seem to lose myself inside the art."

Judy Shea

"withlovefull. This piece has many textures in it from polymer clay to fabric to beeswax. It means serenity and love to me. This really shows that I am a very tactile artist. I want people to touch my art and feel the surface and the grain. I also tend to use colors that show a bit of my Middle East heritage."

Tari Goerlitz

 "Germerica is a multi-cultural portrait of my son. It's faceless because it isn't about him as an individual. It's about identity and how people keep trying to define 'what' children are when they are born to parents of different nationalities."

Eileen Bellomo

"This piece was done for a fellow artist in one of the many collaborative art journals I have been involved in. It was a breakthrough piece for me, as I felt I was really finding my style in mixed media. Collage, photographs, junk mail, paint, ink, rubber stamping, paper piecing all found their way into this piece, and years later, I still love it." 

Patti Edmon

"The series of journals I made for my first commission was magically free from the devils of expectation. This one is one of my favorites because it symbolizes the essence of creating...a peaceful entry through endless doorways."

Donna Joy

"As of this moment, this is a favorite for several reasons. There are several private pilots in our family - so the plane represents that. The little boy in his toy plane represents childhood - we all wanted to fly and had the gift of playing without even thinking about it. The actual art piece is one I created after not creating a thing for over 5 months. Made me feel like I might actually get my groove back."

Dave Dube...

 ...from the following still life

"Flash Gordon and Atlas Rocket Chalk. Although this piece is on new paper, I've tried to move off of the Old Paper occasionally to put some of these vintage ideas of mine in a new light. Thew slate and Rocket Chalk were given to my wife by her mother, and they in turn came from her Aunt Florence, who was a schoolteacher in the 30s in Oregon. The cartoon is a copy of a Flash Gordon comic strip panel that I own. The Atlas fruit jar is one in my collection."
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Next "Playing Favorites" will be posted on Sunday, October 7th.