Friday, July 18, 2008

Max Stone: Young Artist At Large



I’d like to introduce you all to an up and coming young artist named Max Stone. He is now working in the BAD! Kitty Art Studio and has a web page on the Bad! Kitty web site. (we will be updating his web page over the weekend with his new works and words)


Max is 9 years old ( going to be 10 in October) is in the 4th grade. He has just started his own
blog to talk about his art and other things that interest him. It’s a pleasure to work in studio with such a creative force as Max, he knows how to have fun when he works. Max has had a true creative spirit his whole life, he loves color, texture and strong graphic subject matter. His favorite style of creating is mixed media abstract. He is currently working mostly in acrylics but has expressed recently that he would like to start learning about oils, so we will start working on that in the fall.

As Max’s Mom, Agent and Personal Bouncer I am really proud that he is ready to share his new works with the world. He is very confident and sure of himself when he works, it’s all about how he feels. We have our own working space in the studio, and he rarely if ever askes for instruction in his work. He has watched me paint for years andwill ask how to do things and even ask me to show him when I am working on my own paintings, but he never asks for me to help him on his work. He says it has to be all him, and he is sure of that. He is really a pleasure to work with. All three of my son’s are gifted in the arts, math, sciences, sports and music, but Max is the first to want to market his talents to the world at large. I’m always saying that around him, “Max, you my friend are a young artist at large!” He has no problem “talking art” with anyone anytime. When we go to galleries and look at art together, he throws in his two cents as readily as any adult present, and has often talked to the artists themselves to ask how they did something he saw and liked. It’s impressive, really. I asked him why he wanted to sell his art, and he said, “why not?” I mean it really is that simple and easy isn’t it? He wants to make his own money so he can buy more materials to work with, whatever he wants, which right now is a real stand up easel like mine. He is tired of working small canvas and wants to steal my large ones all the time, so I have taken to giving him the large works that don’t work out after a while so he can paint over them. It’s expensive being an artist, and he wants to be able to pick his own supplies, I’m raising a Man with moxie. Now that there are two working artists in the house, I am sure we will soon be insufferable. Middle child has perked up his ears to the recent “business endeavors” of his youngest sibling and has started a cartoon strip, we will soon see if he will want to publish the results or not.


Can you remember the time when kids mowed lawns, baby sat, and sold lemonade to make money? Now they can safely stay home and talk to the entire globe from their living room. Oy! The amount of vigilance I will be giving this endeavor is super high, OMG. The one thing I won’t ever do is hold anyone back from their dreams, so if he feels ready to take on the world, I’m right there with and for him.
So, check out the newest artist to join forces with BAD! Kitty Art Studio and take a look a Max’s blog. We will be posting new pictures of his latest works and WIP’s later today and over the weekend, so don’t miss it.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Heather
http://www.badkittyartstudio.com
Support Living Artists
Buy some art today

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Daily Art- Trapped in a woman- Birthday wishes


“Sometimes I feel like a Drag Queen Trapped in a Womans Body”

Mixed Media laminated paper collage

8″ X 11″


To purchase this work Click HERE

The Quotes that inspired the work:
“My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived,thoughts which the body thought - with these I deal.”

~Henry David Thoreau

***

“The first thing that strikes the careless observer is that women are unlike men, they are ‘the opposite sex’ (though why ‘opposite’ I do not know; what is the neighboring sex’?). But the fundamental thing is that women are more like men than anything else in the world.”

~Dorothy Sayers

***

“Let us not hesitate to be the messiahs of our age.”

~Lucretia Mott

***

I am a Woman. I am a Human. I am More than a Gender. I am simply just More. We are all at the epoch of non-gender thinking. We are Human, and we could all be so much more. To find the truth of ourselves, sometimes you must go inside to find your way out. I love Drag Queens, I always have, they are some of the bravest and most loving people I have ever known. Strong, beautiful and talented these humans have always been powerful hero personalities for me. I honor them in this work. Besides, they will take off a shoe and beat you to death with it, in a heartbeat. They are warriors of the light. So, watch yourself. :)
The text at her elbow reads:

“Nuer warrior in ceremonial costume: the Nuer believe in an omnipotent God who is responsible for good fortune and for bad, who is in the sky but is also on earth with man. Man is God’s opposite, the created as against the creator, but his ‘breath’ or ‘life’ comes from God and returns to God again after death.”
***

I hope your day is full of Wonder and Joy, thanks for being here today.
On a side note, my two best girlfriends in this world are celebrating their birthdays yesterday and today. Stop by and tell them happy birthday won’t you, I’d love to see them both over run with well wishes. Tell them Heather sent you. *Big Grins*
Happy Birthday Dina! Happy Birthday Vikki! All my love to you both.

Heather

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Giving The Finger- Five Red Dice and an Update


pictograph oil painting using Mexician cave art by Heather Brown Truman copyright 2008

New Work
oils & acrylics
18″ x 24″ x 2″
The quote for this work:
“Archaeologists have not yet discovered any stage of human existence without art. Even in the half-light before the dawn of humanity we received this gift from Hands we did not manage to discern. Nor have we managed to ask: Why was this gift given to us and what are we to do with it?
And all those prophets who are predicting that art is disintegrating, that it has used up all its forms, that it is dying, are mistaken. We are the ones who shall die. And art will remain. The question is whether before we perish we shall understand all its aspects and all its ends.
Not all can be given names. Some of them go beyond words. Art opens even the chilled, darkened heart to high spiritual experience. Through the instrumentality of art we are sometimes sent—vaguely, briefly—insights which logical processes of thought cannot attain.
Like the tiny mirror of the fairy tale: you look into it and see—not yourself—but for one fleeting moment the Unattainable to which you cannot leap or fly. And the heart aches…
Dostoyevsky once let drop the enigmatic phrase: “Beauty will save the world.” What does this mean? For a long time it used to seem to me that this was a mere phrase. Just how could such a thing be possible? When had it ever happened in the bloodthirsty course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Beauty had provided embellishment certainly, given uplift—but whom had it ever saved? “
~
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(It saved me, I'm one that was saved by this beauty)
Good day all,
It’s been a tough couple of weeks here at BAD! Kitty Art, we have been working really hard and sleeping too little. Not that much has changed, just it was harder this last two weeks inside the brain pans of the adults here. Stress, it’s a killer. It’s a “shoot the muse and leave her for dead”, as well. The kind of stress that comes from the pressure of a deadline, a pre-determined deadline, I can take really well, become even more inspired even. The un-determined long haul stress is what I am talking about. The one week rolling into another, and the laundry still isn’t done, kind of stress, that’s killing me. That and the boys are on summer break, so they are either trying to quietly kill one another * quietly, because they both in get into trouble for actual fighting, no matter who “started” it* or they are asking for something. OY! OK, enough with the kvetching, on with some fun stuff.
Oh, one last thing, I am thinking of naming the newest painting “This is me, giving whimsy the finger”, what do you think, kind of catchy isn’t it? *grins*
I hate, no double hate, no not really, I loath my work being called whimsical. It really drives me crazy. In the beginning of my career, I’ll agree I did do a lot of work that was funny or based on something I thought funny. I still do from time to time, but not as much because when I started getting solo shows and events, the reporters started to write their reviews and commentary on my “Whimsical work”. Drove me bat-shit, so I stepped away from satire for a while, to get some “real” work done. These days I just don’t care enough about what anyone else says about my work, but I still inwardly groan when ever some one says , “your work is so whimsical!”. Now I just smile, and ask if they like it enough to buy it. *BAD! Kitty Grins and bears it* OK, now really…no more kvetching…well a girl can hope anyway. “)
This new work falls into what has been called “whimsy” for my style of work… eh, whatever. It is really a very cool collection of pictographs from the Mexico regional native peoples spanning over a few centuries. The main figure is from the 17th century for example, the moon in all it’s phases, from a later date. Every line in the entire work is actually a snippetof ancient language. I mixed all the ones I liked [ read: remembered] together, and came up with this painting. Like shake ‘n’ bake for art. I have all theses reference books, and I love pictographs and ancient text of all types, yes, I totally wanted to be Indiana Jones as a kid, real bad too. It’s carried on into my adult life and has become a large part of my work, telling big stories by focusing on the small details of a universal, easy to understand, human symbol’s. (I call it Heather-speak, shhh, that’s a secret) Seriously, I want you to get my work, not have to study it. I also want to teach, and remind the soul in each person my work may encounter. Either to wake them to something within themselves (reaction), or to re-mind them of something they have forgotten from the symbolic images (resonance) I use. I have not done a painting recently that wasn’t in my own language, and after painting
‘Seasons of Love’ recently I have been back in love with ancient hieroglyphs and pictographs. The only thing about my cave painting is I’m a very modern cave-person, it gave me a fun excuse to paint bubble wrap and stick it stuff. I love that repeated circle over and over, it’s my favorite. For fear of being “trendy” or Whimsical” I have not been playing as much, you know, just playing around. I’ve been all serious and productive and insightful but it has not been a party place, round here. ( I’ve been the serious BAD! Kitty or as serious a this kitty gets anyway)This work was plain old fun. I turned up the dance groove and spaced out for a while, it was great. I just hope I didn’t put the picture together in some way that says something in a real language, good lord I can see it now…people standing there getting mad because I insulted their mother or something. I was just playing around, I don’t know what all the images mean and I didn’t take the time to find out while I was playing, (or since, I guess I don’t want to know either) then it would have been work. Not fun, putting down the time to play around in my own head space…priceless. I hope you enjoy seeing it.
Ok, on to the other thing I wanted to tel you all about, because the way things are going I’m sure not posting as much and I think it’s really fun.
I cam across a blog called
Five Red Dice. It’s this guy named Alan Mizell, he lives in Austin TX and he had these red dice and started trading them to see what he could turn them into. It’s a fun read, a fun project and I don’t want to give too much away, but you should check it out, maybe you have something to trade for what he has now, which is pretty cool and a total upgrade from the dice. Just go look, like I said I don’t want to give away the suprise, it’s fun.
I hope this post finds everyone well, good and happy.
Heather
http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Daily Art- New work- Seasons of Love


‘Seasons of Love’
36″ x 24″ x 2″
Oils
Extra thick canvas, needs no frame, ready to hang
To Purchase this work Click HERE
***
Here is the quote for this work:
All that is required for you to live the freedom of your divinity is to again become familiar with returning back to your true nature. Being it and sinking deeply into living as it.
~julie sarah powell
***
It’s been a busy few weeks, but just so you know, I am still out here, painting and creating beauty, passion and freedom.
I hope you like my new work.
Have a great day,
Heather
http://www.badkittyartstudio.com
Posted in Art Talk, Art for the day, Bad kitty art, Original Art, Pop Art, Thinking, abstract art, art in Lexington Kentucky, art of nature, buy art now with paypal, creative Juice, daily painting, figurative art, from the artists studio, growing, large wall art, modern art, nature, new art, oil painting, paypal buy now art, post modern art, self representing artist Tagged , , , , , ,

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Daily Art- Facing Truths



‘Insights: Facing Truth’
Oils
24″ X 30″ X 2″
Gallery Wrapped sides, no staples, extra thick box style canvas/ready to hang
***
Here is the quote that inspired the work:
“You never find yourself until you face the truth.”
Pearl Bailey (1918 - 1990)
***
This work started out as a lark. I really did just start painting and this is what happened. These three heads with their long faces, rich full lips, and expressive eyes reminded me of African Tribal masks, like what the Shamans would have worn. (which I have always had a fascination with, tribal masks of all types, that is) They appeared like magic in my brain pan, so I just went with it.
They are painted in very rich earth tones and warm reds, they will make a dramatic statement where ever they are placed. This is the first in the “faces” series (you can see the rest of the series at my web site HERE in the paintings gallery).
I have enjoyed working in this abstract series, the faces have all shown me, taught me, that I can not hide from my real self.
I am not a rule follower, I am a rule maker.
(for myself, I’m not trying to take over the world here ya know…well maybe just a little)
At the time this series was started
(which I admit I didn’t know was going to turn into a series)
I just wanted to play with a style of painting faces that was not realism, and not cubism, and was not entirely abstract either.
I think I ended up on the abstract side of the street anyway, but it’s in my own style and that’s what I was after in the first place.These heads… well what can I say? You can see they have compassion, information, understanding and something to say.
What do they say to you?
***
To purchase this work Click HERE
***
http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/
Buying art from living artists has been shown to
increase the joy quotient in peoples lives, and improve the signs of aging.
Buy some art today.

Posted in Art for the day, Bad kitty art, Original Art, Pop Art, abstract art, from the artists studio, large wall art, modern art, oil painting Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,