coyleart

party like it's 1999

Things are a lot heavier these days than they were back in 1999, that's for sure. Oh the 90's! Young upstarts with technical prowess were making money in the internet frenzy. Clients with generous budgets were there for the picking, and quite a few of them needed illos or flash animations for their new websites. When I wasn't working I was traveling and my aspirational lifestyle bible was Wallpaper Magazine. Cue the trip-hop and acid jazz soundtrack...

And the big news this time 8 years ago was all the concern over just how nasty the lurking Y2K bug would turn out to be. Wallpaper captured the feeling in it's cheeky, James Bond jet-setter style with this cover image:

The feature article contained lots of great tips on the well-dressed bunker, including the suggestion to stock up on champagne, cigars, gold bars and keep a manual typewriter on hand, not to mention the crossbow.

These days Wallpaper is a little too serious for me, but I cherish the stack of issues from the time when it was more fabulous fun. Parties with underwear models strewn about, holiday recipes for reindeer cutlets and port infused cranberry jelly. Some of the uber-hip illustrators whose work appeared regularly and became a source of inspiration for me were: Jordi Labanda, John Pirman, Bo Lundberg, and Liselotte Watkins. Of course I'm biased, but without the illustration the magazine is looking pretty sedate and well, sober - it's not 1999 anymore.

It's time to lay in that supply of champagne.

WACSO

I found this site today in my wanderings and must share.

Check out WACSO his drawings are great, and the commentary next to each makes me love them even more. And looking at this NYC series made me wish I had paid a visit to Bemelman's Bar - I will have to make a point to go next time I visit NY. I sure do love me some Bemelman's art.

Walking into the bar made me weak in the knees. Seeing his actual drawings on the walls of what i consider to be the “perfect” New York bar. Old school. Waiters in tuxes. Jazz supplied by a live band. Woman in fur coats. Doormen. $20 martinis. God i love New York. I felt like i stepped back in time to 1940 something.

Sounds good to me.

Also, here's a link to a post on my music blog about a house concert I went to recently. I was inspired to bring my camera and got some interesting shots.

The concert took place a tiny bungalow style house, so the musicians were crowded into the dining room with a grand piano (the drummer was almost squeezed out into the hallway) and the audience watched and listened from the sunroom and spilled over into the kitchen. The whole thing made me realize that you don't need a grand space to host something like this. The evening was about the love of music and the hospitality of our host Mary Jo, who fostered an instant community out of all of us there. It was a beautiful evening.

Roger Brown

There are a lot of artists whose work I love, but there are a few that draw me into their world so completely that I could pore over them endlessly. Romare Bearden is one of those, Roger Brown is another. To me, his work's magnetic quality has to do with the narrative woven through Brown's work, the americana comic book style and yet it looks like nothing I've ever seen. I think Roger Brown invented something truly unique, which is rare, and he did it at a time when it was practically in defiance of everything that was happening in the art world around him.

I'm affected by the combination of nostalgia, invention and cultural commentary in his work. I'm taken in by the dramatic cloud shapes and landscapes that have a mesmerizing rhythm and a forbidding cast. I love his buildings and houses with their yellow-lit windows and tiny people in silhouette.

Roger Brown also has a great story, and it was a bit of legend when I was in school at Auburn in Alabama. The very idea that someone from from the next town over, whose dad owned the James Brown Family restaurant where we used to get our meat-n-3 over in Opelika, could move to Chicago and become a famous painter.

I've had my eye on him since then, from the tail-end of the 80's and into the 90's when he did a couple of Time magazine covers, while his paintings were hanging in so many museum collections I could visit them in my travels. Sadly he died at the age of 56 in 1997, but he left an incredible body of work and a few houses full of collectables (he was a voracious collector) to the Art Institute of Chicago where they are available for those who are inspired by the life and influences of a great American painter.

So on my recent trip to Auburn, I felt especially lucky to run into a show of Roger Brown's paintings and collected artifacts at the Jule Collins Smith Museum. If you are anywhere near there, go take a look. The show will be up until January 5th. Some of the artifacts are from a collection that resides in his house museum in Beulah, AL, which is nearby, but we didn't have time to investigate that. If you go, or if you've been there, let me know!

And I can recommend a little bbq spot between Auburn and Atlanta called Sprayberry's in Newnan, GA. Be sure to go to the original Sprayberry's (converted gas station circa 1926) and not the new one next to the highway, yes it's the same food, but atmosphere counts too. Their sauce is something to behold - it's the tangy vinegar style I prefer - and the slaw is sweet and sour and goes right on the sandwich - perfect! Get some brunswick stew too, okay? Ahhh, this is what I love about the south, bbq and fine art all in the same afternoon.

illustrationists unite!

Last week I had the fun of getting out of my lonely studio and meeting up with some fellow illustrators at the Art Institute of Atlanta. We had a chance to talk shop and even enjoy some of the delicious, rich and artisticaly arranged cooking at the culinary school on the AIA campus. The chair of the Illustration & Design department is Dan Henderson and I've linked his name to his website where you can view his strange and wonderful work. His amazing works are done in charcoal and are like nothing you've ever seen. You can catch Dan every year at Dragon*Con. I also met David Moyers, another illustration faculty member and I hope to get a chance to check out his work once his website is up and running. My other fellow Atlanta freelancer was Aaron McKinney and he's been working on some very cool stuff - you can check it out at his eponymous website.

back home again

Last week, I had the pleasure and honor of participating in a symposium at my alma mater Auburn University's College of Architecture, Design and Construction. The title was "Outstanding Women in Design," and I was invited to represent the school of Graphic Design alongside 6 other graduates who represented their respective disciplines. I had the chance to meet and chat with some great women, all successful in careers ranging from Architecture to Building Science to Urban Planning and it was inspiring to say the least!

Above are Dean Dan Bennett, Lee Ann Gamble of G+G Architects and Myra Deyhle, Interior Architect/Designer of LRK I was so impressed with both of these women's portfolios and their aesthetics. I also met Leslie Norvell, a Landscape Architect from Philly; Rebecca Burleson, a builder of enormous amazing projects; Shayla Jones Beaco, an inspiring City Planner and Heather Bailey an Industrial Designer and engaging speaker.

My talk was entitled "Making a Career of Creative Freedom," and along with showing my portfolio and talking about my work as an illustrator, I also hoped to offer a little inspiration to students headed towards careers in design and illustration. One theme I heard repeated a few times over the course of the day was the importance of finding out what you love to do, whatever it is that is really you and using that as your guiding force along your career path. It seems self-explanatory, but I think it's one of the great challenges of having a creative career.

Knowing who you are and what you do best (usually because it's something you love and have a passion for) is the ticket to finding fulfillment in your career. And I don't think jobs or assignments always provide the best ground for exploring those things for artists and designers, so you have to make a real effort to seek it out on your own, even as you are working and doing your best to pay the rent.

In some ways, that is your "career in creative freedom," and it runs parallel to your work career, it's the place where you spend years in a quest for what resonates deeply with you and time developing your talent and showing what you can do with it whenever you can. I'm amazed at the opportunities that come out of the work I do on that parallel path. And while I'm working there, I'm a little free-er from the pressures of other people's expectations, is it on schedule? will somebody else like it? will it sell? we all have to give ourselves creative freedom.

Aside from all this other stuff, Auburn is just a lovely place to be in the fall.

And here's a place filled with lots of happy memories of art school. Biggin Hall. 1950.

And just on the opposite corner from Biggin, a tradition at Auburn, lemonade from Toomer's Drugs.

I was lucky to have some great professors to inspire me at Auburn. (that's Professor John Morgan to the left, I missed my chance to get pictures of Ross Heck or Ray Dugas) I rely on the solid foundation in graphic design training I got there, along with the opportunities to study other studio arts like printmaking (Charles Munday), painting, ceramics (Gary Wagoner) and photography. And who could get along without art history? The other great thing about art school at a big university like Auburn, is that you have ample opportunities to explore other fields of study like literature and writing, sociology, music, physics and I benefited from all of those. Among the working illustrators I've met over the years are many interesting, smart people with a lot going on in their imaginations; all those different classes, explorations and tangents can broaden your possibilities.

If you want to know more about the school, check out Auburn's new graphic design website designed by Professor Wei Wang.

And thanks to my husband (architect, webmaster, designer, photographer, editor, supporter) Clayton Daspit for taking all the pictures!!

Anna Maria on Martha!

Got my tivo ready to capture fellow artist and surtex friend Anna Maria Horner on THE Martha Stewart show today. And I can't wait to read her blog entry on the whole experience. Like up close...can you tell? can you see the bionics? Martha!!!

gear shift

This cold I've got is really stubborn and so I've had no energy for the blog - or much else the past few days. But today I'm finally getting to catch up on work projects and be in illustrator mode. Here's a photo from last Saturday's recording session - I can hardly believe I did this, (my first time) and mercifully the engineer is on vacation for the next two weeks, so I don't have to think (or obsess) about it for a little while and can get back to illustration and my kleenex and hopefully get my voice back to full strength. For now, it's back to the drawing board - and very glad to be back!

design inspiration: Adrian

I'm seriously under the weather today, everybody I've seen this week has come down with a cold and now it's my turn. So it's not a bad time to curl up with a good book – and this one is full of gorgeous pictures. It's one of my favorites, Gowns by Adrian, The MGM Years 1928-1941 by Howard Gunter. And here's the link to it on Amazon, in case you must have it and can't leave your bedside and box of kleenex. The price seems to have gone way up - so you may want to shop around, it retailed for about $40.00 when I bought it last year.

Adrian's phenominal design work is credited in part with the success that MGM studios maintained throughout the depression years. He set trends that borrowed from many moments in history but were distinctly his own and a part of the great art and design movements happening at the time, from the Bauhaus, Cubism, Surrealism and 1930's modernism. He offered a fantasy of forms and glamour that moviegoers craved.

The book is comprehensive and even offers whole sections devoted to some of the greatest stars he costumed, from Greta Garbo to Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford. You can delve deeper into the work of Adrian at Turner Classic Movies. Or read this review of the original show and book at The New York Times Enjoy!

santa fe

spent almost a week enjoying this beautiful town with it's gorgeous blue skies

from the cathedral on the square

ristras and cow-skull, how southwestern can you get?

sun-saturated color

our visit coincided with Indian market

this town may set the record for artworks-per-capita

lots of lovely places to rest in the shade and catch a passing breeze

art imitates life and life imitates art at every turn

arrowmont school

I am about to take my summer vacation, but I’ll be back late next week with some photos to share. For now, I’ll leave you with some memories of a week-long art vacation I took back in the fall of 2005 to the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in the mountains of Tennessee.

the main studio and gallery building

I took a course in fiber arts, on printing and dying techniques. I can’t recommend this school enough - it offers the chance to be absorbed in the experience of learning and making things with the camaraderie I've missed since art school. Every night after dinner, I found myself turning right around, along with my fellow students, and heading back to the studio for an evening of printing.

the studio!

Author David Rakoff describes it far more eloquently in his article for The New York Times, where he writes about his experiences at the John C. Campbell Folk School, in North Carolina.

one of my first projects

My instructor for the week was Christine Zoller, if you’re interested, her next class is in mid-October and the details are here. You can see the studio and some of my work from the class in these photos. I would take this class (or any other) from Christine all over again if I had the time, there was so much to learn and I loved every minute of it.

Geri working on dyeing silk

The Arrowmont School is in Gatlinburg, TN, and for any non-southerners out there, the town of Gatlinburg is the last place you would expect to find any serious art-making going on. Airbrushed t-shirts, Thomas Kincade paintings and googly-eyed souvenir toothpick holders are abundant in the center of town. But when you enter the secluded campus of Arrowmont, you leave that all behind you. You can look at the mountains in all directions and breathe in the mountain air, but trust me, you will most often be at work in the studio, and there’s no place you’d rather be.

Me and my table-mate Mary Ann

This was one of my first experiences working with fabric, but many of my classmates were dedicated quilters looking to learn new techniques to add to their creations. Their love of textiles, stitching, color, dye, paint and silkscreen were inspiring.

Working with thickened dye

You can find out more about the history of the school here. It began in 1912 as a settlement school to teach the people of southern Appalachia traditional handicrafts, so they would have goods to sell and improve their own economic conditions. Today there are classes in painting, drawing, weaving, wood turning, metals, jewelry making and other media.

On the drive home to Atlanta I stopped to admire the beautiful Smoky Mtns. National Park. What an amazing week.