Posts by Kathleen Reeves

Some artists can make you feel the wind on your face and the sound of the leaves as they dance. Lesley Haflich is one such artist. She paints mostly natural settings that seem to come to life. They breathe and flow. Lesley worked as a commercial artist for most of her career. One day, with encouragement from her husband, she began to paint the beauty she saw in her part of the world. We invite you to appreciate the moving beauty in Lesley’s paintings.

Artist Georgette Unis seems to conjure trees and horizons onto her canvas. Only someone who is in relationship with the natural processes of land can partner with them and assist in their becomings. Nothing is painted in isolation from the world, because the artist understands the effects of sky, air and weather and she captures that and brings us into the relationship as well.

Kurt Wenner is an American artist living in Italy, most known for inventing 3D Interactive Pavement Art. This art form uses a hyperbolic anamorphic illusion that transforms a pastel drawing on the pavement into a 3-dimensional illusion. Wenner’s images often appear in textbooks to illustrate mathematical principles, perception, perspective, or other arts and science-related topics.

It is clear that the Western mind is divorced from Nature, the primary condition that has led to the current ecological catastrophe. Artist Angela Manno feels that the only way back, indeed our own survival, depends on nothing less than a re-enchantment with the Earth as a living reality. It is for this reason she chose to depict non-human species in a traditionally religious form – the icon. Her aim in creating these works is to elevate non-human species to their rightful and equal place in the community of being.

We have a great need to visually express ourselves—be it on a cave wall, the side of a building, inside a subway car, on a piece of paper or canvas. Veronica Michalowski explores multiple mediums, allowing the creative idea to lead the way. She elevates the ordinary, such as eggs, guitars, even sewer covers and explores their possibilities.

“I am crowned in Lukumi” is where artist Lolei Pavão begins. In this month’s Novel Becomings post, we explore art from the religions that grew from Africa. As African religions encountered other places they began a process of becoming something novel. In some of these practices, religion is a way of life, and can never be separated from life. Here we see art that is part of religious practices, and we get a rare peek into some of the religions of the African diaspora and the sacred art that guides us through this story.