31.12.08

Eternal Optimism


Yesterday, I soared home watching the passing miles below and my creativity was taken to a new height by the patterns that emerged. Funny how the sections of land change color and shapes as roads divide into grids and rivers wind natural irregularities into the man made complexity we have implemented in our lives. The clouds make interesting movement in their solitude.

To my left a young passenger embarked on his first venture to New York City, only his second flight in life. Numerous times before I have been at this altitude but never thought of it from this perspective. With ten years more trials underway, I could only encourage him to follow his dreams at all costs. The words "love so large that you want to shrink" ring true in many forms.

Today, I hold a sketch book filled with new life and thank him for transpiring that radiant energy once again. May the new year foster that same youthful optimism eternally for all.

27.12.08

What exactly is a Textile Designer?

Textile designers transform two-dimensional graphic patterns into knitted, woven and printed fabrics or textile products. They decide the type of weave, yarn and the thread count of a woven fabric as well as finish, color and/or printed design.

Traditional textile designers created patterns with watercolors and other hand rendered techniques; thereafter, their artwork was translated onto point paper (graph paper) which weavers used to set up construction looms. Today there are both vector and bit based computer aided programs for rendering graphics that are specific to the type of end good being produced.

Textile designers have an astute understanding of production aspects such as fiber, yarn and dye differentiating them from graphic designers as they provide technical weaving instructions for loom execution. Most textile designers are highly specialized within their chosen field of interiors (upholstery, soft furnishing and carpets) or fashion fabrics for apparel which are very specific for the end good use (shirting, suiting, socks, ties, scarves etc). Their ability to render graphic artwork permits cross designing printed paper goods, packaging and ceramics.

Many textile designers are self-employed, while others work as part of a design team. Typical employers or clients are manufacturing and processing companies (cloth or soft furnishings), fashion brands/clothing retailers, design studios, cosultancies or interior design/decorating services.

24.12.08

21.12.08

Marlene Dumas "Measuring Your Own Grave"


marlene dumas
Originally uploaded by aprilreneegraves

Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave
December 14, 2008–February 16, 2009

Marlene Dumas’ exhibition “Measuring Your Own Grave” at the MOMA includes approximately seventy paintings and thirty-five drawings themed around human figure, race, sexuality and social identity. Many of the her works are extremely sexual if not even pornographic, such as my personal favourite in the collection “Porno as Collage.” Many of her works are mixed medias such as magazine tear-sheets, a book ran over by a car, a collection of letters addressed to Marlene and Polaroid photographs of friends and lovers. Her paintings, when not black and white, are softly coloured in pastel hues giving a washed out illusion with vivid imagery such as genitalia.

Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave is organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in association with The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

17.12.08

Downtown Bakery


Downtown Bakery
Originally uploaded by aprilreneegraves
yes, they have REAL comida mexicana

1st n 4th NYC

12.12.08

Slyvia Hennequin "Darwinain Dreams"

Dutch contemporary artist Sylvia Hennequin (27-02-1969 Mbabane Swaziland) studied Art Therapy and Visual Arts during the turbulent 60's. Both time and environment growing up in the Netherlands created a radical soul destined to create, explore and communicate.

Sylvia’s canvases directly reflect her spontaneous, colorful, expressive, experimental, confronting, emotionally, very dark, lunatic, wild, insane, and crazy personal world, or search for freedom.

Her paintings are snapshots of her own self discovery using a mix of different materials, mediums, techniques, states of being and series of fears, insecurities, dreams and desires.

Monkdogz Urban Art, Inc.
547 West 27th Street
5th floor
New York, NY 10001

Between 10th & 11th Aves in Chelsea

http://www.sylviahennequin.nl/


Sylvia Hennequin
Bunny
2006
mixed media on canvas - 31.5" x 69"
$12,000.

Kenneth Long Thomas "Meth"


Meth
Originally uploaded by aprilreneegraves
December 11 - January 11, 2009

BOWMAN / BLOOM GALLERY

95 East 7th Street

New York City, 10009

Basement (between 1st Avenue and Avenue A)

Gallery Hours: Friday-Sunday 2-6 pm
and by appointment

www.kennethlongthomas.com

Sally Webster, Brigitte Engler, David Sandlin, Tom Burckhardt,Mary Schepisi, Valerie Hammond, Nick Darmstaedter, Kembra Pfahler,Claudia Parducci, John Tottenham, Anne Hanavan, Gomez Bueno,Lisa Bowman, Robert Hawkins, Ricardo Tarrega, Melora Griffis, Toxic,Walter Robinson, Charles Lahti, Kenny Thomas, David Pushkin,Rich Colicchio, Mette Madsen, Richard Hell, Peter Alexander

twitter

I have been introduced to twitter and am unsure if it is the devil or my best friend

http://www.twitter.com/agraves

7.12.08

5.12.08

The Bean


IMG_0143
Originally uploaded by aprilreneegraves
Dirty.

Alighiero Boetti "Thousand Longest Rivers In The World"

Italian conceptual artist Alighiero Boetti (also known as Alighiero e Boetti; December 16, 1940 – February 24, 1994) work “Tapestry of the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World” on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York fully engaged me as a textile designer. Alighiero was considered to be a member of the art movement Arte Povera, poor art, which in the early 1970s disassociated himself with. At which point he became known as the dual persona Alighiero e Boetti an extension of the opposing factors presented in his work: the individual and society, error and perfection, order and disorder. The Tapestry of the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World was made between 1976 and 1982 and is composed of linen and cotton.

4.12.08