Art And Artwork On A Budget (Continued)

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Swiss Alberto Giacometti is noted for his bronze objects that are thin and elongated, almost appearing as if they were without weight and inertia, their meager impression is increased by the contrast with the rather compact bases that Giacometti places them on.  Alberto Giacometti found his own unmistakable style, giving his figures a maximum in expression by reducing and densifying them.  The relation between figure and space became the central issue of his artistic work.

Swiss Alberto Giacometti Shown With Some Of His Sculptures

I would like to offer up some sculptures that have a 'Giacometti-esque style'; they are also beautiful, but are more affordable.

 "Walking Horses," Affordable Art Sculptures
 Available From Something Beautiful Shoppe,
 the Tallest is 22.5" High and 23" Long

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POST UPDATE:

This singular equine horse by Swiss Artist Alberto Giacometti , the "Cheval A La Tete Haute," French transl. of sculpture name is Horse With The Head High, is a bronze sculpture with a greenish brown patina, height is 6-5/8", circa 1978, sold at Christie's Auction for $39,175.

*End Post Update.

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"Reaching For the Star," More Affordable Art Sculpture Available From Something Beautiful Shoppe

"Scooter," Sculpture More Affordable Art Sculpture Available From Something Beautiful Shoppe

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Brian Kershisnik Contemporary Artist - Original Oil Paintings Sell for $50,000 Plus  

"Dancing On A Very Small Island," Is Available As An Affordable Giclee Pigment Print Of An Original Oil Painting by Brian Kershisnik, Signed And Numbered By The Artist and Available at the Something Beautiful Shoppe

Stroll back up and note contemporary American artist Brian Kershisnik's "Young Astronomer," is the lead-in art for my article here.  Kershisnik's figures take on an ethereal, otherworldly quality, sometimes because of their apparent weightlessness, and at other times due to their quirky justapositions with other figures or props.  There is often a narrative element to the work, as if the viewer has just walked in on the delivery of the punch line to a joke that has just been uttered out of earshot.  His favorite themes tend to deal with family life and personal relationships. Though not overtly religious, some of his works have dealt with religious themes especially as they intersect family and personal relationships.

Brian Kershisnik artwork is hot and will only becoming hotter.

But, check this out - you can purchase limited edition, signed and numbered by Kershisnik, giclee prints at very reasonable amounts.

Brian Kershisnik is an American Contemporary Artist, Born in 1962, Who's Original Oil Paintings Are Going For $50,000 Plus.  Yeah, Kershisnik Has Some Talent

  

"Angels," Is Available As An Affordable Giclee Pigment Print of An Original Oil Painting By Brian Kershisnik, Signed And Numbered By The Artist and Available at the Something Beautiful Shoppe

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"Emerging Artist," Jeanne Bessette Abstract And Figurative Art

"Day Dreamer," figurative art piece by Jeanne Bessette

Emerging abstract and figurative artist Jeanne Bessette was featured in Art Business in an article entitled, "Success Out The Wazoo." The following is an excerpt from that publication.

"Jeanne is an emerging artist who is taking the East Coast by storm, and has now cast her eye on California.   With  9 galleries, and counting, she was on the  December cover of Art Business News, just landed two new commissions,contacted by even more galleries, approached by a school in British Columbia to teach workshops and a California agent  who works with placing art in corporations. Jeanne Bessette has this uncanny ability to wave a  magic wand, and viola!  Success."

Top Emerging Artists, "Art Business News," Jeanne Bessette (top row, 2nd from left)

"Woke Up Full Of Awesome," figurative art piece by Jeanne Bessette, Prints Available Summer 2013

Jeanne Bessette's art shown at the ArtEtude Gallery, Inc., located in Downtown Asheville, North Carolina

Jeanne Bessette's originals are more affordable, selling for under $10,000, she is considered an emerging artist whose paintings reside in numerous private collections in the United States and Canada. Ms. Bissette is an American contemporary abstract artist, her work influenced by Nathan Oliveira and Richard Diebonkorn. She works primarily in acrylics and mixed media.

Reminder:  Jeanne Bessette's prints will be available in Summer 2013.

Art collectors:  Keep your eyes on this woman.

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Decorating with a rich palette is highly appealing but so often unfortunately exorbitantly expensive.  Artists that are on the rise (like Jeanne Bessette) offer originals that are more affordable as well as prints of her original artworks.  Similarly, Brian Kershisnik's magical art that is $50,000 plus can be in our living rooms, in limited edition prints, signed and numbered by him.  Again another approach to collecting art for our homes is purchasing high-style reproductions of original art pieces, like the Walking Horses Sculptures shown above, from the Something Beautiful Shoppe, that I call 'Giacometti-esque'.  They are high on appeal, at a lesser cost.

The Something Beautiful Shoppe is one of the few venues carrying art and artwork at affordable prices. 

Go embrace art and artwork for your home.

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Karim Rashid - Profiled For Wearing One Color

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Karim Rashid Industrial Designer. White half the time, pink half the time.

Why white? In college, I was obsessed with wearing all white. I felt angelic and free. But then, in the early eighties, I started wearing black. That was status quo in the avant-garde. If you were interesting—a designer, an architect—you wore all black.
How long did that last? I went to Rome to do my master’s in ’82. I wore all black, with pink hair. But that was considered Fascist. I had to tone down my dress.
Why didn’t you return to black back in New York? Every profession has dress codes. In 2000, I was on a panel with nine architects, and I wore a white suit. Everyone was wearing black except me. I felt detached from the incestuous profession.
Now you also wear pink. Why? Sometimes I think it’s because my mother dressed me in pink when I was a child. She wanted me to be a girl.
How do people react to a grown man in pink?I make them smile. They say, “You make me happy.”

SILLS HUNIFORD ASSOCIATES

"Creating a home with great style, one both

beautiful and efficient, is no simple task."
About: Sills Huniford Associates has an extraordinary talent for transforming interiors with furniture and furnishings from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to create environments for modern living. Sills and Huniford find inspiration in 17th and 18th century furniture, old masters paintings, Italian, Belgian, French and Austrian architecture.

Namedropping clients: Nan Swid, Vera Wang, Anna Wintour, Yves André Istel, Linda Wells, The Newhouse family, Tina Turner, Jane Pratt, Brooke DeOcampo, Lauren and Richard Dupont, The Starwood Properties/St. Regis and The Rockefeller family. Sills Huniford Associates projects have appeared in numerous publications including Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, House & Garden, World of Interiors, Vogue, Maison & Jardin, W, Italian Elle Décor, French Elle Décor, British House & Garden, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar and the Herald Tribune.

SHA Bedford Home Project, Click Here For More Info.

SHA Aspen Home Project, Click Here For More Info.

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*Postnote:  Sills Huniford Associates partnership has since dissolved, I bring you this portfolio, but offer up Stephen Sills Associates as an alternative.  To view the SHA portfolio including residential and contract work, click here.

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Click here for info on ordering Sills Huniford book, "Dwellings: Living With Style."

Karin Blake - Architectural Digest Top 100 Interior Designers List

Minimalist and Americana and/or folk art aren't often paired - but designer Karin Blake has been combining them successfully for awhile. She's been on the "Architectural Digest Top 100 Interior Designers List" since its inception and she was a minamalist before there was even a word for it. Restraint is Karin Blake's signature.

The Malibu, California-based designer is a true believer in Mies van der Rohe’s philosophy that less is more. “I value negative space,” says Karin Blake, whose concise, highly edited interiors combine the whimsy of folk art with the precision of Modernism. The designer, who has many art collectors among her clientele, notes that there is a “gallery” feel to her interiors. “There’s not a lot of clutter,” she says. “Each piece stands out, even if it’s a table. I even avoid lamps whenever possible."

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Speaking of the Cape Cod summer home she purchased three years ago, ”My children were being raised in California, it was important to get them out, to get to know the East Coast.” Especially Maine. “Maine attracted me because it doesn’t have the crowding and commercialization that’s happened in other areas. I had a little farm on Martha’s Vineyard, which I stupidly sold. When I lived there, the island was so charming, making what has happened since so sad. Maine, however, filled that void.” She pauses, laughing, “No T-shirts.”
Though the original house sat lakeside on over 100 acres, “the place was in terrible condition. The floors were a mess, it needed painting inside and out, and we had to gut the kitchen. Beyond that, the two barns had to be completely salvaged.”
“I love strong, primary colors,” Blake says. “A little bit of red in every room really helps.”
A daunting task but one Blake jumped on, ultimately creating a 15-odd-room (tiny ones notwithstanding) summer vacation haven, a much-improved version of the original home, where she and her family spent “at least a month every summer.” Even more personally, its warren of rooms provided the perfect backdrop for the true passion of this decorator’s life—collecting folk art. Indeed, a walk through its cascade of spaces is a flight of the imagination, a merry jaunt through whimsical Americana.

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Karin Blake - Malibu, CA Phone: 310-456-8010 Fax: 310-456-1093

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The above article is part of an ongoing series Highlighting Top Interior Designers; other top designers recently highlighted include: Jennifer Post *** Lillian August *** Carol Bolton Hicks *** Geoffrey Bradfield *** Paul Vincent Wiseman *** Sills Huniford Associates ***

Karin Blake is one of many hugely talented designers listed in our Directory of Designers . Feel free to peruse the Directory for help with your design project.

Architectural Digest

Jacques Saint Dizier - Top 100 Architectural Digest Interior Designer

When you learn how to see ideal proportions, you feel great satisfaction. You can use your knowledge of proportion in every aspect of your life. Although there is a scientific standard for ideal proportions, your eye can be trained to see and envision proper proportions as well as to recognize ill proportion. To the untrained eye, proportion is abstract and complex, yet it is the most pervasive principle of seeing. The ancient Greeks called proportion the soul of what we see.

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Sometimes determining ideal proportions can be overwhelming. If you are in need of some professional interior design assistance, our Directory of Designers can help you locate a professional in your area. Working with an interior designer helps assure you get the look you desire while helping eliminate costly mistakes.

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He says that every person has a truely-unique feeling regarding his or her home. He believes it only makes sense that every home be unique. Perhaps cliche, this thinking may explain why Jacques Saint Dizier (1) earns accolades from the toughest critics designers can face - their own clients and (2) is on the list of Architectural Digest Top 100 Interior Designers .

Saint Dizier Design has completed outstanding projects both commercial and residential all across the globe. His design firm Saint Dizier Design is responsible for the exquisite interior design at the historic De Anza Hotel, the tallest hotel in the San Jose central business district. The De Anza is a 10-story concrete and steel-reinforced, high-rise building and is San Jose's most luxurious hotel. It is also significant for its architectural style; it is one of San Jose's few Zig Zag Moderne (Art Deco) buildings and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Saint Dizier also operates a San Francisco based home furnishings and design store called Saint Dizier Home. The highly successful shop carries numerous product lines including: * Hickory Chair * Henredon * Ralph Lauren Home - Saint Dizier's Shop has one of the largest collections of Ralph Lauren in the San Francisco area).

Saint Dizier started his design profession working 12-years in New York City for Angelo Donghia , who in the 70’s and early 80’s, enjoyed a client list that was a virtual who’s who of celebrities and design stars (including Halston, Liza Minelli, Donald and Ivana Trump, Mary Tyler Moore, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren).
He currently splits his time between Healdsburg, Sonoma County with his design firm, Saint Dizier Design and San Francisco the location of his furniture and design store, Saint Dizier Home.

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The above article is part of an ongoing series Highlighting Top Interior Designers; other top designers recently highlighted include: Jennifer Post *** Karin Blake *** Lillian August *** Carol Bolton Hicks *** Geoffrey Bradfield *** Paul Vincent Wiseman *** ___ *** Sills Huniford Associates ***

Jacques Saint Dizier is also listed in our Directory Of Designers, click here.

William Hodgins

From an Architectural Digest article about Top 100 Interior Designer William Hodgins, "It isn’t often in a designer’s life that he can honestly say, as William Hodgins, the Boston-based designer, does,'“I’ve just finished an apartment for clients who live in the very best place you can possibly live in Boston.”' That place is a penthouse apartment on Commonwealth Avenue with broad terraces that offer dazzling views of the city’s skyline and overlook the Boston Public Garden. It also offers room service, provided by the nearby Ritz-Carlton.That place is a penthouse apartment on Commonwealth Avenue with broad terraces that offer dazzling views of the city’s skyline and overlook the Boston Public Garden. It also offers room service, provided by the nearby Ritz-Carlton. "

Again, from Architectural Digest, The award-winning interior designer works exclusively in residential design. Where he goes for research and to find inspiration, however, is less restrictive. Recently there was a trip to London, where he consulted with antiques dealers and various craftspeople before going on to the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris. Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia followed, and all the while he was “looking, looking, looking,” he says, and “sometimes making thumbnail sketches along the way.” Hodgins, who oversees a staff of seven, is known for creating rooms in a wide range of looks, experienced as he is in any number of styles; however, most of his clients come to him for his characteristically light and airy classicism.

Contact:

232 Clarendon Street
Boston, MA 02116
617-262-9538



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Equestrian Style Decorating (Cont'd)

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Whether you are a lifelong equestrian, an admirer of the
horse sport, or someone who just loves the equestrian look, having equestrian style in your home adds character and tradition. Home interiors done in an equestrian style have a special allure, even to those not into horses.


No doubt the equestrian style was popularized when Ralph Lauren hit the fashion world by storm. He made the two most expensive sports in the world - nautical and equestrian styles - livable for mainstream people. It became possible and affordable to have the sporting lifestyle look. And while many people suddenly took up stirrup pants and hunting jackets, decorating with equestrian style has been around for hundreds of years.

I'm familiar with the sport because my daughter Sarahjoy Crain, shown at top, has long competed in hunter jumpers and she is fortunate to be able to work at what is also her passion, as a horse trainer in Dallas, Texas at Elmstead Farm.

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Two Divine Equestrian Ranch Estates:


Belgian Thoroughbred Home In Flanders -
From Architectural Digest: Interior Designer Jean-Jacques Hervy who studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and apprenticed with Parisian antiques dealer Didier Aaron before opening his own business in 1970 was brought on board for this special project, developing a house out of a barn - that wasn’t designed to be lived in.

The owners, a leading Belgian industrialist and his wife, a member of the French and Belgian Olympic dressage teams, developed a 30,000 square foot barn structure. They used the infamous Calumet Farm in Kentucky as their design scheme, including cedar boards painted white and trimming of red lacquer.

Belgian Thoroughbred Home In Flanders


The first floor had stalls for twenty-four horses and a manège; other areas were designed as meeting rooms for seminars on equestrian topics, with the couple living in another building on their property.
After the death of her husband, however, the widow decided to make the barn her home, transforming the meeting rooms, which held up to five hundred people, into living quarters. It was at this point that Interior Designer Jean-Jacques Hervy was called in. About the style he developed he says, "I did the house in le style Rothschild but still comfortable enough for jeans and boots."

 

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Hacienda Yokdzonot Equestrian Home

Hacienda Yokdzonot - is a hacienda of Old Mexico, hidden in idyllic isolation that has been restored and is now a favorite spot for dining and entertaining guests. Owners Christopher Holder and Margaret Andrews worked the property into their wedding plans and eventually their daily life.

Yokdzonot (meaning built over a natural underground well) is home to twenty magnificent horses: ten are broodmares and the others are in training and used for show jumping. Their most illustrious horse is A. Beulgari, the son of Abdulla, who won second place in the L.A. Olympics. The property features two riding rings; one is a large grass ring that sports many jumps.

Hacienda Yokdzonot is a famous bed and breakfast in Yucantan Mexico and has been featured in books and been used for various television dramas and documentaries because of its outstanding landscape gardening and interior design. Click here for more info, or Email at: info@ecoyuc.com

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If you would like to bring some equine style into your house, whether you are a barn person or just a lover of horses, your love for horses doesn't need stop at the barn. Equestrians enjoy having decorative horse elements in the home.


The equine sculptures shown at left are available from the Something Beautiful Shoppe.


No equestrian space would be complete without a showing of a bit of horse tack, the equipment leather goods used in riding and training horses. Whether you choose stainless steel stirrups or bits, old horseshoes, or leather strap goods, these pieces strategically placed are key elements to bring your space to life.
A favorite is a silver mint julep cup used to hold pens or flowers. Stirrups make good bookends. Harness brasses can be framed or mounted cleverly over light plates. Snaffle bits can serve as window panel tie backs. Equestrian books are another design element that is readily available and brings authenticity to your space. These books are available as novels, training books, or picture books.

To add softness and comfort to your space, yet still maintain style, consider adding needlepoint or horse themed equestrian pillows. Throw pillows come in many styles and colors. Look for traditional fabrics and authentic embellishments like fox hunt buttons, harness brasses, or other pieces of horse equipment.
Bringing equestrian style to your home or space adds character.

For more Equine Art And Decor, click here.

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Broccoli Grape Pasta Salad

If you're a broccoli salad fan, you'll love the combination of these colorful ingredients.

Be sure to cook the pasta al dente so it's firm enough to hold its own when tossed with the tangy-sweet salad dressing.

Yield:  Makes 6 - 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 of a 16oz. package farfalle (bow-tie) pasta
• 1 pound fresh broccoli
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup diced red onion
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
• 8 cooked bacon slices, crumbled

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to to 350 degrees.  Bake pecans in a single layer in a shallow pan to 5 - 7 minutes or until lightly toasted and fragrant, halfway through.  
2. Prepare pasta according to package directions.
3. Meanwhile, cut broccoli florets from stems and separate florets into small pieces using tip of a paring knife.  Peel away tough outer layer of stems, and finely chop stems.
4. Whisk together mayonnaise and next 4 ingredients in a large bowl ; add broccoli, hot cooked pasta and grapes and stir to coat.
5. Cover and chill 3 hours.
6. Stir bacon and pecans into salad just before serving.

From Southern Living