"Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you."
- Maya Lin
Visit www.mayalin.com to find out more information about Maya Lin and her current Art Works.
Maya’s design turned into the polished, black granite wall with the names of over 58,000 individuals who were missing in action or killed in Vietnam. The memorial now sits in Washington D.C. It was dedicated in 1982 on Veteran’s Day, and is known to many as “the Wall. psarts.org
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
"Don’t think about making art just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." – Andy Warhol
Love him or hate him, Andy Warhol was one of the most influential artists of our time; most famous for creating the avant-garde Pop Art movement. Before Warhol's time, the visual arts movement was repressed in the feeling that it ignored modern and consumerism principles. Pop Art is now one of the most recognized forms of art today. Thanks in part to Warhol's exploitation of celebrity culture and advertisement.
What do you think Picasso was trying to say with the following quote?
"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun."
"To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect. "
-Alexander Calder, 1898-1976, American Sculptor
Alexander Calder was born in 1898, in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. He was born into a family of artists. His father Alexander Stirling Calder was a prominent sculptor who created many public sculptures in the Philadelphia area. Calder's mother, Nanette Lederer Calder, was a professional portrait painter who studied art in Paris before moving to Philadelphia where she met her husband Alexander Stirling Calder.
In 1902, at the age of four, Alexander completed his first sculpture - a clay elephant. In 1909, when he was in the fourth grade, Alexander sculpted a dog and a duck from a sheet of brass. The duck, which could rock back and forth, is one of his earliest examples of his interest in kinetic (moving) sculpture.
Although Calder's parents supported Alexander's creativity, they discouraged their children from becoming artists, as the life of an artist is often uncertain and financially difficult. In 1915, following his parents advice, Calder decided to study mechanical engineering, and enrolled in the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Four years later he received his degree.
Calder's interest in art never left him. Though he had tried to please his parents by becoming an engineer, he decided to pursue a career in art instead.
In 1923 Calder began attending the Art Students' League in New York. While attending this school he also worked as a freelance artist for the National Police Gazette. For one of his assignments he spent two weeks sketching scenes from the Ringling Brother's and Barnum & Bailey Circus. This project marked the beginning of his fascination with the circus.
In 1926 Calder moved to Paris where he began to build toys that moved. Eventually his collection of toys became a miniature circus which performed in the USA and Europe.
Calder's interest in kinetic art led him to create mobiles. Many of his later works are large delicately balanced mobiles produced for public buildings throughout the world.
Alexander Calder died on November 11, 1976 in New York. He is most remembered for inventing the mobile.
Elephant (1928) by Alexander Calder | Wire and Wood
Lobster Trap and Fish Tail (1938) by Alexander Calder | Sheet Metal, Wire and Paint Mobile
