Hidden In France

A Painting a Day keeps the doctor away

Felicity of All Things Bright and Beautiful was kind enough to remember my Frenchness (Frenchosity?) my esthetics AND my stomach and sent me this link:

This reminded me to write a post about 'One Painting a Day'. Those are incredible, entirely humble paintings that capture how luscious food, fruit and everyday items are when you know how to look at them. Why humble? Because those artists just whip up one lovely painting after another, charge a ridiculously low amount for them (we're talking under $200 for the most part, often for $100.) post them, then move on. There is no pretension in those paintings a day and they allow people who love nothing more than owning original art to indulge without breaking the bank too much. My guess is that they paint like I blog, just to keep things loose, keep the juice flowing.

So here there are: a few of my favorite of the moment found on the Daily Painter site. Most of these artists have their own blogs too.

Abbey Ryan:

Jelaine Faunce:

Ann Elisabeth Schlegel:

Lisa Gloria:

and last but not least, Felicitiy's find: the work of San Francisco born and French resident artist.Rebbeca Loulou. ( I have to admit that I don't know if this qualify as a painting a day work but it reminds me of it, so that's good enough. )

Warning: do not look at this art on an empty stomach.

This last one is my favorite french pasty. Impossible to find in the States, not the fanciest to look at but the BEST: A religieuse au café.

There are so many more painters a day I love. I might have to do another post on this.

Oksana Badrak

Leah at More Ways to Waste Time is so on a roll right now she makes my head spin. This time her post has sent me in a flurry of research to find out more about artist Oksana Badrak whose work is sold on Poketo.

Those are plates

And wallets

Oksana Badrak isn't Japanese like her images might suggest. She is Russian born. She calls herself an "image maker" and is part of a generation of artists who have had digital technology to use as an added medium. I dig this idyllic world where you feel that something could go terribly wrong at any time.

here are a few images from her website.

I have in mind to see Iron Man this afternoon if my nine year old lets me take him there. My husband will only see experimental/intellectual movies preferably in foreign languages with Serbo-Croatian subtitles, my fifteen year old would rather go blind than be seen in a movie theater with his mommy, my girlfriends think I'm insane and point blank refuse to go and I am totally embarrassed to see an action movie alone. So my nine year old (who'd much rather see Narnia) is my one chance to see the love of my life, the alcohol imbibed, drugged-up and aging but STILL SMOKING HOT Robert Downy Junior!!! This will take some motherly cunning on my part so wish me luck.

A few hours later: Isabelle just sent me the following e-mail and I LoL'ed my tushy off: "....je viens de lire ton dernier post (super d'ailleurs la gonzesse) mais tu as epele son nom avec 3 orthographes differentes. Barak? Barack? Badrack? I am konfiouzed."

Sorry but her names sounds a LOT like a certain presidential hopeful so yes, I was Konfioused indeed, as I usually am. I warned you not to count of me for the facts.

Still standing under all the lovin'

Thank you for all the lovely b-day comments you guys! Awww...

I have had four birthday cakes so far. FOUR! Saturday dinner because my sister was coming over. Sunday Lunch (it was really a birth-O-cado, or avocado with a candle in it. Don't ask.) Sunday dinner when friends surprised me with one of those gooey-icy number that will give you diabetes just from being in the same room, and this morning a banana bread fresh from the oven at the crack of dawn (my husband is a romantic-insomniac-who-bakes.)

With each birthday cake came the full-on birthday song, delivered with gusto.

And the day's not half over.

My presents: Bougainvilleas and roses I got to choose at the nursery. Also, my three men dressed up in full tennis regalia --hats, sunscreen, water bottles... the works--yesterday and left the house looking mysterious. Only they were just pretending to go to tennis. To fool me. Because what they did instead is go to the bookstore to get me a gift. My question is why? Why the complications? Why the secrecy? It's not like I didn't know they might have to go shopping for my b-day. Go figure.

They got me the collector's edition of Battlestar Galactica.

Yes. I am a dork, i confess.

Also terribly sweet but not as fattening as all those cakes are those dainty prints by Hadley Hutton. My favorites for today, sold on Etsy for only $25 a print.

La Porte Rouge

Now how talented can a single person be?

There are artists whose work you look at and say “I recognize this person.”
I love the deliciously poetic world Nadia, a.k.a. One Silent Winter lives in. Her pictures which you can also find on her blog La Porte Rouge have such an eerie, nearly magical feel to them that I almost expect a unicorn or a fairy to appear. Her sensibility is unique and new, but the most surprising is that she is somehow capable of reinventing colors. Tell me of I’m making this up. Have you ever seen pinks look like this:

and reds or blues look like this:

(I would give a limb for this necklace by the way.)

She can also make yellows and greens look like this:

And blacks, look like this:

I am baffled. How does she do it?

But it's not just about the colors of course. Its about Nadia's eye, her vision, how each picture is its own small world, a more hopeful, happier world.

And more pink

Je vois la vie en rose en ce moment. This too shall pass. It's just so warm and beautiful outside. We heated the pool yesterday and had a house full of kids. Best friends popped in. My husband actually relaxed and planted tomatoes. I cooked a lamb tagine. I was hit in the head hard by a gigantic grasshopper. Not in that order.

Janet Hill's latest paintings really make my spirit soar. I want to live in them. You can buy them here but you must hurry. The paint might not be dry that it will be gone already.

Sans parapluie and Lucas Rise

I'm done blogging for the week, i swear! It's just that i took a tiny little look-sy over at Design Sponge and found this. Oh my, I am weak...

These were created by an artist based in Buenos Aires. his name is Lucas Rise and the name of his company is Sans Parapluie. (without an umbrella.) His bio says that he spent most of his teenage years painting street signs (as in grafittis, I'm not sure) and now he spends his days painting while 'having mate' (mating maybe?) Anyway, he seems way cute and all this Psychedelic fun and Argentinian steamy hotness is just what I need right now.

Janet Woodward Hill

This is me on no sugar. Me on no Yeast. Me on no wine. me on no cheese. Me on nothing fermented. My regular diet relies so heavily on foods combining at least four of these elements that I’m at a complete loss as to what to eat. It's just that a certain something is raging through unmentionable parts of my body. (glad I don’t have male readers.) Ouch, eeech!

This one’s a frigging monster.

But that’s okay cause I can live on fresh water and art alone and I (and all of you I’m sure) have fallen in love via Absolutely Beautiful Things with the work of Janet Woodward Hill.

This is as close as it gets to love at first sight for me. Delicate colors, great compositions, fantastic light. I want them all. And they’re affordable too since they are mostly tiny (The largest I saw was 8 x 8. )

Check out the website for more. I have lost myself in her blog and forgot all about my.... Thank you Janet. Sorry for putting your lovely work and my gross ailments in the same post.

I spy, with my little eye.. a green chair!
(There will be an update on that soon as I've been receiving many green chairs contributions and more are coming every day.)

Janet is prolific painter and there are so many more, which I must get back too right away.

Sayonara.

Edmond Kiraz's Parisiennes

I grew up on Edmond Kiraz's Parisiennes. Not sure I should be proud of that, since they were not much of a role model. They were the tiny-breasted women with the impossibly long legs in my mother’s womens magazine, and bore a striking resemblance with Kate Moss though they were first created in 1950. Gold diggers, true; shallow, yes; anorexic, most likely. But also modern, unconventional, sexy and a whole lot more fun to emulate at the time than the remarkable Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir.

Every French person knows about Les Parisiennes, they are part of our collective culture, and the Musée Carnavalet in Paris is offering a retrospective from May to October.

Here are more (titillating, you've been warned) images here:

"It's a good thing that my husband's birthday takes places during sale season."

"He dumped me after giving me a taste for luxury."

"Neighbors are watching, you should behave more like a newlywed."

sign says: death to bourgeoisie. "You are not going to go out with a stain on your pants, are you?"

"I would like to find a rich man that I wouldn't marry for the money."

Charlotte Liddle

Lori Marie of Pretty Little Things (and my favorite owl-maker) is gearing up for the photographers to come and take picture of her tiny house. I can’t wait to see the photographs. Meanwhile she posted about the delightful textile creations of a Charlotte Liddle, a British gal young enough for her resume to showcases a stint as waitress in 2001, but who already proudly runs her own design company. Charlotte Liddle's press release defines her style as “fun, frivolous and predominantly about fantasy and fairytales. The vivid colours are reminiscent of her fondest childhood memories of long hot summers, tea parties and ices cream sundaes.”

Oh I love that word: frivolous. And I adore the collection.

Wow! no?

and look at those... aahhs, to be eighteen again and wear a size six shoe...

Benjamin Lacombe

Found on the French blog couleurs doudette, the wonderful world of illustrations of a young French artist I didn't know.

Benjamin Lacombe is only 25. Wow!

Who's that girl?

Who is Oriettacat? And why should you care?

Because she is a lovely artist that’s why. If don’t know her name, or her nationality it's only because I don’t now how to navigate LiveJournal to find that information (and/or I’m too lazy.)

Aren't you glad you don’t rely on me for the facts.

I am so totally charmed by her work, though. So kawai, so cûûûte I can hardly stand it. But smart too, take a look.

I know she answers to the name of Christina. She also creates dolls (Some Blithe and some made from scratch) that are adorable and for sale on the Japanese online art gallery and store JunieMoon. Orrietacat, if you read this, tell us more about you. The world needs to know.

Jane Schouten's home

We interrupt our scheduled blogging program to link to Smoke and Ochre whose post made my heart beat twice as fast today. She posted amazing pictures from the home of artist and graphic designer Jane Schouten from the Netherland. Read Smoke and Ochre blog to discover the house. For me it was love at first sight.

Here is my selection. That house killed me. really.

I still haven't recovered...

Here are a few things Jane made. Youcan find more example of Jane Schouten's talent on her Flirk page.

By the way, what the H@#ll are those things that keep appearing below my post? Do you see them too?

Applegate Gallery group show

An exciting art exhibition (and one hot opening ) are going on this week-end at Santa Monica’s famous Applegate Gallery.

"The greatest gift of all"

The Applegate gallery is opening a group show of wonderful contemporary artists, including blogger’s darling Camilla Engman (who is apparently living la dolce vita in Rome at the moment), Rober Palacio, Judy Ragagli, Rick Reese and best of all Isabelle Bryer, who was kind enough to let me preview of her latest work right here on Hidden In France. Yeeaah!
All of Isabelle Bryer's paintings are acrylic on canvas.

"Leave if you must"

"I Love You To Pieces"

"Bird grower"

"We shall sail into the night"

"Tree house"

Here is some of the other artists featured:


Rick Reese

Robert Palacios

Julie Ragagli

Camilla Engman

If you're in L. A., here is the invitation opening for the Applegate gallery show, which lasts through March 8. Everyone else: there might still be time to get a plane ticket.

Katy Allgeyer's heart-filled life.

Why not get a head start on the heart frenzy that will without a doubt assail the blogosphere in the early days of February by introducing my own personal heart maker, Katy Allgeyer. Katy has recently left us, the excitement of Los Angeles and absolutely everything else behind for love!

So when Katy paints hearts, we listen!

These days Katy shares her time between North Carolina and Maine and paints, paints and paints some more. (That's when she is not too busy being in luuuurve.)

Don’t miss Katy's heart-filled OnlyHearts cafepress store. Her beautiful acrylic on canvas original heart paintings aren’t all sold yet, and for under one hundred dollars you can give your sweetheart an original work of art for Valentines day. Beats the old chocolate box in originality and is 100% non-fattening.

On Katy's website so you can see more out more of her work. Here is a taste of her lovely paintings and mixed media on canvas.

Martine Camillieri and the poetry of plastic

Martine Camillieri is a French “artiste Platicienne” which means that the medium she works with is plastic. She defines her occupation as platicienne, detournement du quotidien, poétique de l’ordinaire. Tough translation. Here is my best shot at it: “ hijacking of the quotidian, poetry of the ordinary."

I had to laugh when I read her mission statement, because I so totally get it. Here I translate again:
“I work with plastic , a material extremely easy to find, because practically (and unhappily so) indestructible. But I like plastic as it appeared in our lives in the 60s. Green, yellow, red, pink, vibrant colors that have rocked the bourgeois interiors of that time, rather than colors such as off-white, straw, sand and ocean, colors that have nowadays become the bourgeois acceptable esthetique.

The website is filled with delightful stuff. I just wish the photos were larger so that I could play' I spy with my little eye' and spots the orginal elements she has “hijacked.” I love her ephemeral tables on the theme of Bollyfood. There is a wonderful sense of playfulness and humour in her compositions.

Thank you Design Sponge for this great discovery!

Here are quite a few pictures. I just couldn't choose! All images taken from Martine Camillieri’s website

Multimedia art

Lately there has been an amazing influx of multi media, and often eco friendly artists that have found their ways to my consciousness via the blogosphere. The ones below leave me speechless.

Found in the beautiful French blog Le territoire des sens this chandeliers that reminds me of a gorgeous jellyfish made with bottle ends from Stuart Haygarth

Also from Territoire des sens a construction from Chris Kenny composed with pieces of maps.

And now, a lovely find by Dear Ada, some work by the multi media artist Hunt Rettig.

I will look into the links for those artists later. My internet is acting up. Again.

How strange, how weird, how incomprehensible.

Who is the mysterious artist whose work is featured on this website. Mysterious because I do not speak the language (can’t even figure out what language it is) and mysterious because I do not know what this medium is called, or if these creations are made from scratch of from borrowed elements. So please, if you can help, tell me the name of the artist behind these strange images. Of course, I'm irresistibly attracted by the colors and the childish imagery. I'm weak that way.

Karine Jollet

With the holidays fast approaching, I have begun my quest for uniquely French gifts. The fantastic site Favorite Choses features (as well as sells) the textile artist Karine Jollet's lovely pillows. Look at them. They're so simple, so zen, yet so original. This, to me would be the perfect French gift: unique, eclectic and gorgeous. And ––ahem.. is it wrong to say this?––I can see myself copying the heck out of this lovely idea and making my own homemade gifts this holiday season. My trusty sewing machine and myself absolutely excell at straight lines. (That is, in fact, our one and only specialty.)

----oh no! last minute: those are modèles deposés! Trademarked! Do not copy. That would be stealing and very wrong.

But there is so much more to Karine Jollet work. Her art is a marvel of craftsmanship and falls under the category the french would call unclassable, or impossible to classify. It’s definitely art, the medium is mostly textile, and the result a hybrid of sculpture, modeling and sewing. I find her work eerily beautiful and sometimes a bit disturbing. Take a look. You can find karine Jollet's work in a group exhibition entitled Anatomanie in Paris this November. Check it out. Lots of weird stuff there. Good weird.

Nathalie Mouliner

Nathalie Mouliner is Nathkipeint. Paper maché, vibrant colors, three dimentional poetry: this is so me! When I discovered her work, I had a cute attack and just about dissolved into it. Check out Nathalie Mouliner's photo album for a whole lot more loveliness.

Tara Donovan's installations

Tara Donovan is a new York City artist who makes everything out of nothing, or makes unbelievable, transcendent masses of nothing out of everything. In one word: she’s a magician. Just gives a few––okay, give her a lot of––drinking straws, old pencils, styrofoam cups. Give her the mundane and the mass produced, she's not afraid.

The following pictures are taken from the Ace gallery's website.

paper plates!

plastic cups!

chewed up pencils!

pins!

toothpicks!

I am flat on my arse in awe of this woman.

Is it cool in here or is it Mat Daly?

Cool shoes, cool show, cool shades. Cool is one of those noncommital words we use when we don't want to make the effort to use, like, vocabulary. It has lost all meaning.

But if there was ever a time to use the word cool, it would be as applied to the work of Chicago-based artist and printmaker Mat Daly.

There is something entirely original, yet, somehow retro about the posters I have chosen to feature here. To me they are wildly stimulating because of their originality, and at the same time familiar because they remind me of those artsy affiches you can find in and around Paris usually (illegally) glued to the side of buildings or billboards to promote obscure theater pieces. It all feels very underground, indie and hip. Just cool!

Mat Daly's art and posters can be found in various exhibitions and galleries.Check out Mat Daly's website for the info and to purchase his work. The poster prints are quite affordable, between $20 and $100 depending on their rarity.

Chloé Rémiat

I know I posted about the French artist Chloé Rémiat before, (which can be purchased at the online art gallery Les Petits Pois Sont Rouges) But somehow, barely six months after Hidden In France has been created I’m already entirely perplexed as to where is what, why and when. I should might will to go back and assign labels to each post one of these days. Never mind, let’s post about her again, because his time I found Chloé Rémiat’s blog! It is filled to the brim with those tenders scenes she creates with espiègles and puzzled looking dolls. Her blog is also a gold mine of links to French Illustrator’s websites.

Chloé Rémiat’s dolls are sprouting everywhere around France lately.

In breakfast bowls of chocolat chaud,

In the Bretagne region, at the Marmite Insolite store,

In old-fashioned jelly jars,

In the new window of the marvelous boutique Les fleurs in the 11th arrondissement of Paris,

and even in the air it seems, and Chloé was clever to devise what she calls an attrappe fée, or fairy catcher. She caught a good one there

Kaffe Fassett ceramic magic

Woahhhh.. was it good for you too?

I found this little gem of unbridled color enthusiasm via Wandering Stars, a creative blog I happily discovered over the weekend when she left a comment on Hidden In France. (I love it when visitors take the time to say hi. Don't be shy!)

Wandering Stars had just purchased vibrantly colored fabric from London-based and California born artist Kaffe Fassett.
He was unknown to me, though apparently quite famous in the needlepoint in-crowd. I had to check him out immediately. I had to see what a man who creates needlepoint patterns AND holds a record for double consonant in his name looks like.

I clicked and clicked and came to this incredible bonanza of shapes, colors and textures. This artist in so versatile and fearless, he clearly deserves every one of his double consonants.

It's Sunday night and I'm too lazy fatigued to put the legends where they belong, so fill in the blanks by checking Kaffe Fassett’s website. Happy Sunday!

Ohmygod.. Isn't this amazing?!!!!

Brilliant work by the stylist. The roulotte, the quilt and a couple of purring cats and I'd be set for life.

Unbelievable.

I love that weaved thingy in the center. Is it tapestry or quilting? Not able to tell after a couple of glasses of Merlot.

Me! Want! Art!

Poking my head to see what some of my favorite French (and not so French) artists and artisans are up to this month:

First of all, my friend Isabelle Bryer’s beautiful yet chilling painting Don't Tell Me was selected by Orange County Center for Contemporary Art to raise awareness on global warming.

Look! Stephen Mackey painted an eyeball. Kewl!

Jude Miller’s latest flowers are absolutely exquisite.

It has come to my attention that Andrew Daniel's Flower in sunlight Giglée print on canvas is still available on his Etsy store for a mere $230, and awesome format 31” by 29”.

Kylie Lambert concocted scrumptuous cupcakes (say that three times fast) for a wedding recently, raising the bar to unsurpassed heights for all of us casual cupcake cooks. (say that three times...)

And--where is my German when I need it most?-- Felicitas Weitkämper has added some Kragen (?!?) as well as to-die-for nunoschals (?!#!) to her collection, though I must say the hutte (#!) are not bad either!

Kragen?

Nunoschals?

Most definitely a "hutte"

Sandrine Herlin continues to delight with new planches d’adhesifs , or sets of stickers for children’s bedrooms.

I am such a fan. Wish I still had babies instead of those two grown kids who have nothing but the worst suspicions when I get inside their rooms and suggest some new cool art for their walls. My bon goût has skipped a generation I’m sad to report.

Celine Saby has a new website featuring new lanterns/lamps but also delightful cards.

Jennifer Sanchez has a whole new series of limited edition prints, the small sizes are only $20 each

Tamar Mogendorff poetic dolls

Tamar mogendorff is one of those souls who has chosen to keep her world unapologetically poetic. With bits of mohair, vintage fabrics, tweed, antique embroidery, buttons, and thread: out of thin air, really, she help materialize dolls with the soft auras of a well-loved teddy bears.

I love, love, LOVE this!
... and I hate, hate, HATE this! Because if you're anything like me, you’ ll tell yourself that this is so pretty and looks so easily, so effortlessly made, that there should be nothing stopping you from making some of those yourself. But in reality you can't, and won't, and don't, and the reason is that, as deceivingly simple as those creations appear to be, they are in fact complexly woven by a very gifted artist.
I could have a tantrum about this! In fact I believe I just did.

Check out Tamar Mogendorff's beautiful website for more love!

Tell me what art is?

Here are two artists I find difficult to resist because, pardon the insult, their work makes me smile, because their work is fun.
Am I the only one to struggle with the common conception that creations, whether it be music, theater, painting or literature, must be insufferable to look at and incomprehensible in order to receive the stamp “Art” with capital letter? Are you telling me that Othello is Art, but the Miserables is entertainment, that Grapes of wrath is Art, but Harry potter a good read, or that Rothko and Pollock do Art, but no one would dare put their work in the same category as, for example, this?

These are by Jen Stark, a young American who studied art in Baltimore and Aix en Provence. She draws and creates amazing sculptures out of paper. A simple enough idea, yet the sculptures are fresh, entirely original and happy.

Annie Cantin is from Québec. She uses blown colored glass, leather, fabric and metal to create those extraterrestrial looking sculptures.

I, for one, rather have these sculptures in my house than anything seen in art galleries, the yucky, somber crapola touted as art.

Now of course I'm not a complete nincompoop. If I were to be given, say, Rothko's Brown and Black or Pollock's Lavendermist, I'd say yes.

Then I'd sell them to buy something usefull and Kawaii like these grocery totes from Fred Flare

Told ya I had common sense!

Le art of Le cupcake

Le cupcake is a blog dedicated to the most ephemeral art of them all: Cupcaking. Yes this is art! I insist. Making this kinds of pastries requires the soul of an artist combined with the dexterity of a watchmaker.

I've made cupcakes in my life, and trust me if I tell you they didn't look like this.

Have you ever seen better looking edibles? Kylie Lambert is from New South Wales, Australia and she is my artiste du jour. Yes, artist! Forgo the art gallery or the museum today, and check out her flikr page instead.

Red nose studio and Chris sickels

This is my last post until I get back from Kauai, so I leave you with something I kept for a rainy days: Something so wonderful and whimsical it literally lifts my spirit on contact:

This is poetry in 3-D by Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studio. Chris illustrates and creates puppets made out of a variety of material such as “wire, fabric, cardboard, wood, miniatures and found objects” says the website. The stop motion films (click under moving pictures) delighted both my eight year old and my fifteen year old. Chris was raised on a remote farm in Indiana, but to me there is something très French about his work, a Jean Paul Goude je ne sais quoi, and his silent puppet’s predicament remind me of Marcel Marceau.
Here are a few images, the legend tells you for whom they were created.

You can find an interesting article about Chris Sikels and his work on How Design. com.

Don’t go too far: I’ll be back soon with photographs of Hawaii!
Have a safe, fun week.

Rick Sharp's retro hawaiian posters

While in Carpinteria, (again! You’d think I spent a month there but it was only a couple of hours) I discovered Rick Sharp's one of a kind hand embellished prints of his work, and felt that pang of joy I get when I see something that so perfectly matches my own sense of esthetic and symbolic imagery. I have modest collection of old hawaiian prints and I adore both Hawaii and the retro look. I'm flying to Kauai on Saturday (Flossie turned out to fizzle to tropical storm level. She did not need my hatred.) So the countdown is on!

Here are pictures taken from Rick Sharp's website:

Stephen Mackey’s genius

Isabelle (her again!) turned me on to the work of Stephen Mackey. I only knew him for his series of angels and fairies, a popular illustrator of calendars and greeting cards, such as his Porcelina series, or his angel series. I only knew him for his cuteness. Delightful work, really, a crowd pleaser.

But I recently found out there is more to him. So very much more. A darker side that wipes off clean all of the cuteness. His technique is masterful, his landscape have a Turner quality to them, and his subjects are SO Botticelli, i.e. Botticelli on acid.

I have to say, rare is the artist who can add disturbing elements to his paintings without annoying the hell out of me, but here, gahhh, I’m totally falling for it. And talk about acid: if you love to be entirely freaked out, check out his eerie electronic music (not to be confused with the work of that other Stephen Mackey, the musician and music producer.) as you lose yourself in the paintings here.