From the fragility of life one expands to the idea of overcoming.  This has different implications and connotations for each individual.  However, a butterfly has survived egg, larvae, caterpillar, cocoon, and now it is in the final life stage as an adult butterfly.  Everyone has struggles and the cocoon can be a dark and lonely place.  It is interesting that while I am in a cocoon–I am painting butterflies.

The butterfly has worked hard through the hardship of fighting out of the cocoon and stretching it’s wings.  It is interesting that compassion is not for us to stretch it’s wings for it (and inadvertently kill it), but for us to let it succeed.  In a way the struggles we face make us stronger.  Do they make us stronger in preparation for the next bigger challenge we face?  Do not take me as implying that we need to ignore our community, neighbors, etc and leave them to their fate!  If the caterpillar crawled away from it’s only food source, then we certainly should put it back where it can feed.

There is beauty and joy in having overcome and survived.

Golden Quiver, 12" by 9", 2011

Butterflies are highly affected by the sun.  On a cloudy day, they will sit in their cage with their wings closed and practically hibernate.  When the sun comes out, they fly around.  The warmth and light invigorate them. View more butterflies in my gallery.

This week, one of my students came in and needed hands-on practice using her camera.  I grabbed a vase of flowers that I had sitting around, shone a strong light on them and walked her through how to use her camera.  We took a lot of pictures, so that hopefully she will feel more confidence with her camera.  The following are two photographs that I snapped.

Having been in Florence the week before, I was struck by the  instillation that Urs Fischer presented.  Here stood the destructrion of one of the sculptures in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, Italy.  The sculpture that the instillation is based on, The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna, contains a man holding a woman in the air with a crouching man at his feet. The scene is of the abduction of a Sabine woman with her husband at the bottom looking up.

Fischer’s instillation contained a wax representation of the original stone sculpture from Florence.  It started out whole and melted throughout the time frame of the exhibit.  I found an article on this exhibit that has images of this piece a few months before I experienced it. When I visited the Biennial, the upper two figures of Urs Fischer’s sculpture had melted leaving the lower figure looking in anguish not at his disappearing wife, but at the melting burning decaying destruction of the sculpture itself…or is it the destruction of what the sculpture respresents?

On the edges of the sculpture are office chairs that are also decaying.  The chairs are also wax and melted throughout the time frame of the instillation.

Below is a photograph of the sculpture, The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Giambologna.

Sketch while sitting with my husband at a refuge in the mountains near Falzarego Pass.

Duccio Trassinelli a professor of Industrial Design, started Studio A.R.D.I.T.I, and began exploring furniture design.  He is particularly interested in lamps, light and the use of low-voltage.  According to The Artistic Time 2, a 2010 collection of the artists and shows at the La Macina di San Cresci, he would define his work as “method, pioneering, technology as poetic resource, no compromises, technical know-how, modern tradition, play, and freedom in space.”  A reflection of these ideas is in the works.  At times, he collaborated with other artists to create works that incorporate inlay-ed wood or art glass.  You can find Trassinelli’s designs at the Pieve di San Cresci, the MoMA in NY, and Center Pompidou Paris among others.

Here I enjoy how the reflectors are placed in a design of beautifully inlaid wood.

Shadow and shape of light break the space around these lamps. The lights in these designs can often be turned and used as directional strong lights as well as reflected soft lights.

One considers how although a file room is something that most people keep hidden,  these pictures expose it.  Unlike the previous photographic series, these images , although connected and building upon the viewer’s knowledge of the physical space and concepts communicated, can also stand alone.  When one walks along each image provides a different space of the room and the images succesively build on one’s knowledge of the place and ideas depicted.  The artist found interesting forms and play of light and shadow in the clutter of the filing room.  The concept of a cluttered filing room has the potential of being referential to the viewer.  Do I have an internal cluttered filing room in my memory?  The inclusion of the window in several of these black and white images both provides a light source and speaks to me of a world that exists outside of this file room.

Ryan Gander from London, England produced the piece pictured above entitled Out of Sight (All on my own).  This piece is located in the Arsenale at Venice Biennial Art 2011.  The figures are reproductions of a Degas ballerina and are juxtaposed (along with the blue cubes and white plinths) to appear as mirror images.

The instillation and title begin reflections concerning isolation and the effect that has on the way we percieve the world around us.   The artist did not create his own figurative  sculptural design, but refers to Degas ballerinas.   It was a particular choice.  Are the two blocks juxtaposed to keep the figure company, or do they trap the her?  Maybe they hide the figure?  Also the figure is kneeling on the ground.  Do we look down upon this compilation or join it on the ground in order to empathize with what is going on?  When one is on their own, are they really alone?   Are their multiple parts to a person?  Does looking into oneself keep someone from percieving the rest of the world that is around one?  Interesting questions arise from ones contemplation of this piece.