Mankind's Fascination with Self-Expression

Ok I have found one of my new favorite artists. I was friend with an artist on Twitter but I never really saw much of his work or knew nothing about him. Today he listed that he uploaded more pictures in an album on Facebook and I decided to check it out. I fell in love. He does alot of painting and the same type of decorpaging I love to use, but haven't been able to use in awhile. On his Facebook he had many images of him working on his work and gallery shows. He goes to schools and talks to the kids. He use to be an elementry school art teacher and now is an law student and full time artist. He is an artist I will be able to get much inspiration from for a long time. Well everything but the law school thing. I'll stick away from that. I have alot of ideas for new artworks to do once summer comes just from viewing his work today.

Oh and Heather.... by the way I know you will notice this from his pictures but he's cute and 28. I know that would be the stuff you would be wanting to know. lol.

On his website http://www.justinvining.com/ he describes himself on his artist profile as:

I am an artist and a full time law student.

Creating is an adventure I get lost in.

I believe in enjoying life and making a difference.

I try not to overlook the small things.

I enjoy hope, beauty, trust and love.

You have to believe in yourself before people will believe in you.

You can also find him at  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2380117&id=17532053549#!/justinvining?v=app_4949752878 and https://twitter.com/justinvining. Below is some pictures featuring him and his work. I would look up more to share about him but with finals coming up soon I'll have to wait until summer break to find enough time for that. If you have time please look him up he is an amazing artist.

This is another artist that I found out about in the Art Calender magazine (http://artcalendar.com/home.asp), Shawn Barber. What made him stand out to me is the concentration of his two painting series, dolls and tattoed portraits. The dolls are creepy and sadistic, because it is so different it kinda interests me. Most of his work is of the tattooed portraits. He not only captures the person but the aspect of the tattoos on their bodies and shows that it is part of them. They are sensual, sexy, and tough depending on the person. He is having a tattoo portraits solo show at Joshua Liner Gallery in NYC on April 24th. Below is a few of his works shown on his website, but if you like to see more his website is http://sdbarber.com/.

I am super excited that I finished the ocean part of the kids mural at the YMCA Crayon Club daycare. I still have alot more work ahead of me to finish the entire thing.

Now I have a few artists blogs as my favorite blogs. I browse through blogs once in awhile to see what work other artists are doing. Just after my last post (that wasn't that long ago at all) I looked at a blog to see what kind of work she has been making. The artist, Diane Whitehead uses color amazingly. A brown bear suddenly has so much color. Her work with color is the trademark to her art. I was about to go to bed but one of her works really caught my eye and I wanted to share it with you.

This friday, April 16, Lexington will be having their second Gallery Hop of the year. It is best described as on their website :

Now into its second decade, Lexington's Downtown Gallery Hop continues to be one of the city's most entertaining attractions. Five evenings a year, the connoisseurs, the collectors and the curious enjoy open house hospitality at dozens of galleries, museums, artists' studios, shops and restaurants throughout the downtown area. Downtown Gallery Hop was organized to highlight the work of central Kentucky's outstanding visual artists and to encourage people to acquire original works of art.

Since last fall I have been wanting to attend this. I've been to a gallery opening night and volunteered during an art auction in Lexington. I loved the environment. I know I would enjoy something like this, but doing this all on my own doesn't seem appealing. I went to the gallery opening night alone, it was fun, but I know I would have stayed longer if I had company. I don't want just any person to go but someone I know that will enjoy the night as much as I will.

If you would like to check this out more on your own, please check out their website. It contains details about the nights, a hop map, how to volunteer, and how to apply to be part of the hop. http://www.galleryhop2010.com/

Tonight I finally finished reading Inkheart. Its one of those things that I can't believe its finally done. I bought the Inkheart, Inkspell, and Inkdeath while Inkheart was in theaters and planned on reading at least Inkheart before I ever watched the movie. This did not happen though since I was too involved in another series. I watched the movie with my sister first, who had read my books and would tell me how it was different. I can't remember much about the movie none except Brandon Frasier (I love him) and enough that made me picture how things looked in my imagination. I can't even tell you if it was good as a movie or not.

I finally started reading the book the end of last summer. Between me starting classes at EKU and joining a sorority, I didn't really know how to find time to read. My sister was getting impaitent with me and wanted me to stop reading Inkheart to read other books and I did. The book got put on hold for several months. When I finally was reading other books fairly fast, finding the time to read, I decided to pick up Inkheart again. This is why I am so glad to finish the book.

The book was slow to start and hard to get into. It was hard at the beginning especially with the movie so fresh in my head. I enjoyed finishing the book when I couldn't quite remember the movie that well, so the book was my main focus. I love two things about this book, Silvertongues that read out characters from the books and the quotes at the beginning of each chapter that would relate to the chapter at hand. The quotes were amazing, it was from books I have never read or maybe never heard of. It was nice to read a different kind of literature. The quotes, the constant talking of other books and stories, and the characters that love to read made me think about literature in general. Its a really great way to get yourself lost in another world and forget your troubles or past the time.

This is obviously no book review. I did enjoy the book, it made me think about some stuff, but I'll probably never read it again. I do have Inkspell and Inkdeath still to read. I normally read all the way through a series before I begin something new. I think I need a quick read or two between these books. Inkspell and Inkdeath are much larger, but I'll probably read through these quicker since there is no movie to tell me what will happen next.

Back when I was attending Savannah College of Art and Design, a magazine called Art Calender (http://artcalendar.com/home.asp) visited one of my classes. This magazine has taught me alot about many independent artists and tips to make it as an artist yourself. The featured artist in my first magazine was Ali Cavanaugh. What caught my eye was the bright, simple colors and the use of the white negative space. The best description she can give her work is a type of fresco. In her bio on her website (http://www.alicavanaugh.com/) she describes her work as, 

"Cavanaugh developed a process best described as neo fresco secco, where she applies watercolor to plaster panels; her figures often are accentuated by stark white negative spaces. Fascinated by the dichotomy of the seen and unseen in the human condition…body and soul…Cavanaugh’s art brings to light the complexity within contemplation. Her signature poetic titles are part of this engaging discourse."

First off, I've changed my name for the blog since I didn't want to cover just art anymore but literature. Then I might as well include all the arts. I'm not so involved with those but I do enjoy them still.

I also want to try to do an Artist of the Week. I know I could never keep up if I made themes for everyday, but I could try this for now.