The 'Sound Of Many Books" Brian Kershisnik Art

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I am so in love with artist Brian Kershisnik's artwork.  

A splendid example is "The Sound Of Many Books."  Kershisnik tells us about this piece:

"a contemplative woman

surrounded by books

listens to the stories

each tells."  

For book lovers everywhere, like me, this artwork floats on clouds.  It so represents what books do.  Books awaken you in the morning and tuck you in at night. That's the power of books.

That is also the power of a Kershisnik piece. When I am in a library or book store, I am surrounded by books - I move slowly, listening to the stories they tell. 

Just listen.

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As I write in my article, Art And Artwork On A Budget, artist Brian
Kershisnik's artwork is hot and only getting hotter.  His 132" x 96" original oil, "She Will Find That Which Is Lost," is available from the Park City Meyer Gallery for $82,800.  Kershisnik is a contemporary American artist born in 1962 whose originals are selling for hefty amounts.


But check it out, you can purchase limited edition, signed and numbered Brian Kershisnik giclee prints at very reasonable amounts, from the Something Beautiful Shoppe.  Click to see available prints.

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Crisp Lemon Cookies Bonus Recipe

Prep:  30 min.  Bake:  15 min./batch + cooling  Yield:  54 Servings

Ingredients

1-1/3 cups butter, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup vanilla or white chips, melted

Directions

• In a large bowl, cream butter and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the lemon juice, peel and vanilla. Gradually add flour and mix well.
• Shape dough into 1-in. balls. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Coat the bottom of a glass with cooking spray; dip in sugar. Flatten cookies with glass, redipping in sugar as needed.
• Bake at 325° for 11-13 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool. Drizzle with melted vanilla chips. Yield: about 4-1/2 dozen.

Sweet White Wine

Enjoy this recipe with a sweet white wine such as Moscato or a sweet Riesling.

A Something Beautiful Thought:

Art that modifies human behavior exemplified by Candy Chang's "Before I Die," project and equally by the much-embraced Banksy, in "The World Is My Canvas," is a particular favorite theme of mine. 

"Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth (1917 - 2009),
is a profound example of art that modifies human behavior.  

One of the best-known American paintings of the mid-20th century.American, the 1948 painting depicts a woman lying on the ground in a treeless, mostly tawny field, looking up at a gray house on the horizon; a barn and various other small outbuildings are adjacent to the house. 

Here we can enjoy the alteration of our perspective on physical and mental handicaps/illnesses. Beautiful, it's simply beautiful. 

This artwork is on display at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, part of its permanent collection. 

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An intriguing  tidbit about "Christina's World" - The 'gray house' shown in this iconic artpiece was Christina Olson (and her brother Alvaro Olson's) home; it is also depicted by Wyeth in many paintings and sketches that date from the years1939 to 1968.

The Olson House was designated as a National Historic Landmark in June of 2011.

Click here to see more about the historic Olson House, located in Cushing, Maine.

Click here to see my

Collection Of "Something

Beautiful Thoughts"

Artwork On A Budget

To me art and artwork represent the soul of a home

yet I've found that especially in the United States,
people tend to be nervous about art and collecting art.

I understand. Check this out.


Famed American fashion designer Marc Jacobs, the head designer for Marc
Jacobs, as well as Marc by Marc Jacobs, with over 200 retail stores in 80 countries has stated,

"I had it in my mind that only incredibly grand, extremely wealthy people lived with art of any sort." (W. Magazine )

Can you believe that! Please let me share it is possible to overcome this reticence and it can be accomplished with style and on budget.

Click below to see and read more about how to select amazing art and artwork for your home, for your soul and, do it on a budget.

Click here to see article and & Chicken Cucumber Sandwiches Bonus Recipe.

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Art Objects Make Room Come Alive (Continued)

Article Continued From Main Post, Click Here

Objects of art are sometimes awfully energetic - for being inanimate objects, of course.

We know clay is not alive, as in, clay is considered a non-living material. However, when clay is sculpted into a form, it can take on its own unique personality. Knowing how objects interact with us and our surroundings can be enjoyable as well as helpful in the creation of beauty.
This object, this ceramic piece, caused the stir. Looking through a Guild Catalog,

I saw the object WAS that cannonball girl. I was seven years old. It was MY curled-up body. My knees drawn tight to my chest. I could feel the impact of hitting that water. I was under the warm summer sky. I felt the SPLASH! It was me, me, me. There is nothing like a cannonball! For a split second, I was the art.

Objects can have so much energy that there are times when we become one them, such as with Marie E.v.B. Gibbons’ “Cannonball Swimmer.“ I melt with it. When we can see and fuse with an element of beauty, either natural or man made, this energy is unique and can make for special moments. The Cannonball art piece is not just a beautiful sculpture, rather I know Gibbons’swimmer intimately, she now has her own personality.

With objects that we already are endeared to (such as a framed photograph of a friend or an unique art piece that embodies a passion) we can make sense of this energy. If we place a cherished photograph on a small table, among a displayed collection of items, the strength of its energy makes it seem larger than it really is. The perceived size
of the object is changed by its energy.

Recognizing how we interact with our surroundings, it's understood that what we see can affect the quality of our lives. Objects that we use in our environment are not seen in isolation. We must endeavor to place items as artistically as our eyes & our brains are capable of. If we want to consciously create a restful room, for instance, we will reduce items that individually and collectively cause tension to the eye.

Objects can cause emotion. The more we learn about their essence and the energy they give off, our world and how we see it and enjoy it is improved. In learning to recognize and more fully appreciate our surroundings we are more able to create beauty in our own lives.

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This article is one in a series of Design Concepts, to go to the entire list, click here.  Bedside table photo is from House Beautiful, framed horses (no longer available) are from Pottery Barn.

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Mini Black Bottom Cheesecakes Bonus Recipe From Food And Wine

These yummy desserts are from Food and Wine’s Grace Parisi and they're a favorite dessert to make any time of the year -- and a hit everytime!

Ingredients

Vegetable oil spray

24 plain chocolate wafer cookies, preferably Nabisco*

3 tablespoon(s) unsalted butter, melted

8 ounce(s) cream cheese, at room temperature

1/4 cup(s) sugar

2/3 cup(s) fromage blanc (6 ounces), at room temperature*

2 large eggs

2 teaspoon(s) pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup(s) seedless raspberry preserves, warmed

 Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with foil baking cups and spray the cups with vegetable oil spray. In a food processor, crush the chocolate wafer cookies. Add the butter and process until fine crumbs form. Spoon the chocolate cookie crumbs into the prepared baking cups and press with the bottom of a glass to compact. Bake for 5 minutes, or until almost set. Leave the oven on.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar at medium speed until smooth. Beat in the fromage blanc, then add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.

3. Pour the cheesecake batter into the baking cups, filling them three-quarters full.

4. Bake the cheesecakes for 15 minutes, or until slightly jiggly in the center. Remove from the oven and spread 1 teaspoon of the warmed raspberry preserves on top of each cheesecake. Transfer the muffin tin to the freezer and chill the cheesecakes until set, about 15 minutes.

5. Remove the cheesecakes from the pan and peel off the foil baking cups. Transfer the cheesecakes to a platter and serve. The mini black-bottom cheesecakes can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

*  Substitutes, you can use crushed Oreo’s instead of chocolate wafers and mascarpone cheese instead of fromage blanc (since they are impossible to find at a regular grocery store), but they still come out pretty amazing!

This recipe will become a staple in your home!  

[image source: Food and Wine]

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Decorating With Art And Objects D'Art

I hang art everywhere and every type of art everywhere, including some highly unusual places. If I had my druthers art would surround me from the ceiling to the floors. Enjoy these examples of art and objects d'art displayed particularly well.


At left - My eye is pulled to see both the U.S. flag and the framed oil painting portrait. They're inseparable. I see that when the portrait is hung with the flag as a background, the intent is one big, oversized artwork.  The horizontal stripes, in the portrait, and the color in the woman's jacket, and in the chair she's sitting in, serve to reinforce the flag.  The quirky table lamp doesn't get in my way, I am still able to enjoy the vignette and rather the lines of the lamp highlight the woman's face. The lines of the table base add to the whimsical feeling of the room.

Photo at right - Mantles are perfect settings for displays of art and decor items. It is suggested that the width of the art piece or grouping equal the width of the hearth. I like here that a white floral has been placed in front of the hearth opening because without it the opening would seem to have a big gap, like a missing tooth in a pretty smile. The floral arrangement also serves to guide the eye, causing us to see the art work and then we are drawn to go down and around and then back up.

Below Left -  Author, Cosmetics Mogul and Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee Georgette Mosbacher draws attention to her library ceiling with an antique map affixed to the ceiling. It may help in your decorating to consider that ceilings are actually just fifth walls of a room - don't overlook your ceilings. You can decorate ceilings with art (as Mosbacher has done), paint it a contrasting paint color or paint something more elaborate such as cloud-filled skies, or other theme trompe l'oiel.  By working the ceilings into your design scheme it pulls the eye up; and if you have especially high ceilings (as does Georgette Mosbacher, who's Fifth Avenue apartment is directly across from the Metropolitan Museum Of Art), decorating them is a good way to help keep the ceiling in scale to the rest of the room. (Photo of Georgette Mosbacher's apartment is from Breaking the Rules: Home Style for the Way We Live Today ) A note for fun: notice in this photo, Mosbacher has a fur throw that appears to be casually laid on one of the two upholstered chairs. This is probably the fun type of decorating one does when their windows open up the the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attendees to functions look like small figures milling about the esteemed Museum of Art.  (This photo is from "Decorating With Pictures," by Stephanie Hoppen.)


Don't just fill your shelves. Consider that a wall covered with bookshelves continues to be a verticle place to hang pictures. Color your bookshelves. Decoratively arrange your items on the bookshelves. Decorate & dress them - personalize them. The books you store on your shelves are just the beginning. Just as any verticle surface, the final dressing can be hung framed artwork. From Elizabeth Mayhew as published in House Beautiful. You can read more decorating ideas by Elizabeth Mayhew in her new book, Flip! for Decorating: A Page-by-Page, Piece-by-Piece, Room-by-Room Guide to Transforming Your Home .



Below Photo - The homeowner here was very tricky. By hanging these artworks on the back of the door, the closed door looks like any other wall.

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Be brave with displaying art and objects d'art.  Browse magazines, tear out sheets of 'looks' that you like. Over time you will enjoy creating beautiful things, especially things that are beautiful to you.

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