So those of you who read my art blogs regularly know that I met Richard Branson last year when he was in Adelaide, South Australia for a couple of days.  It was all organized by a reporter Paul Makin from Chanel 7 for their Today Tonight program and if you wish to recap on the crazy and very convoluted story of how we finally pulled that off here is a link 189 ART and Kissing RICHARD BRANSON

It is no secret that I have long admired Richard both for his entrepreneurships and also for the man that he is.  Meeting him was great and the fact that he genuinely seemed to like my art made it all the better.  However there is still a bit of unfinished business – I still want to paint one of Richard’s Virgin planes!

VIRGIN DREAMS

Dreams, we all have to have dreams don’t we, goals to work towards and ideas to inspire us?  Dreaming, well daydreaming is an essential quality for an artist and one of my dreams is to one day paint a plane.  Above you can see one of the ideas I have for a Virgin plane and I do have quite a few other ideas too of course.  It would be something to see my artwork in mega size and flying in the sky that’s for sure, I just love to see art on airplanes.

PROJECT MAPPING

I guess the closest I have been to having my work in a large scale was late last year when my paintings were used for project mapping in Warsaw, Poland.  Projection mapping or Video mapping also known as spatial augmented reality is when an image is enlarged to cover an entire building and then superimposed in a light show.  In my case in Poland my artwork was also animated so it was a moving image.  If you want to find out more about that and a bit of the history of Project mapping here is the artblog 205 Projection Mapping & Art in Animation

PUBLIC SCULPTURES

Well I guess also into the category of large scale would be the public sculptures that I have done over the years.  The largest public sculpture of mine spans 44 meters across and is 3 meters high sitting as you enter the town of Balaklava in South Australia’s mid north.  It was commissioned by the Wakefield Regional Council and took some 18 months to complete.  Dale Gathercole and my husband were an integral part as were many many volunteers from the local community who all helped to make it happen.

THE CENTENARY OF FEDERATION GATEWAY

The idea is that the whole sculpture looks like a Federation house, complete with roof and a veranda.  In the center are two six meter by three and a half meter walls, located at 22.2 degree angle to each other which are rendered to look like sandstone with red brick quoins on the corners and around the doors.

One wall represents 1901 and the other 2001.  In the 1901 doorway we see the back of a life-size woman, made from hand-made ceramic tiles and mosaic, strutting through the door in all her finery, long dress, hat and umbrella in hand.  Through the 2001 doorway, she emerges as the modern woman, complete with short skirt, sunglasses and a mobile phone.  This reflects the changes that our society has undergone during the last 100 years.

If you would like to find out a little more about that here is the link 109 Stories behind the Wall – Public Sculpture

RICHARD BRANSON’S PHONE CALL

So why not dream big I say you never know what awaits around the corner, maybe one day I will get a call from Richard Branson saying “Hey Marie, I’m sending my private plane over to pick you up – we really have to discuss your idea of painting a plane for me!”

Here is a quote I think fits well here by H.F. Hedge;

“Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante or Shakespeare.”

Till next time happy painting or sculpting or daydreaming.

Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

Carols by Candlelight is such a lovely Australian Christmas tradition.  Last week my art blog and painting featured the acrylic painting of Swedish Lucia which was used for Project mapping on the Swedish Embassy in Poland see this story 205 Projection Mapping & Art in Animation This week however the artwork is a wall based sculpture and made from handmade ceramic and mosaic and captures my memories of the Carols by Candlelight celebration in Elder Park here in Adelaide.

AUSTRALIAN TRADITION

The history of the tradition heralds back to the 19^th century in Moonta, South Australia where the Cornish Miners would get together on Christmas Eve with candles stuck to the brims of their safety hats and sing Christmas carols.

The tradition then spread to Victoria and Melbourne and was made popular by a radio personality named Norman Banks.  According to Wikipedia,  Norman was walking home from his night time radio job when he walked past an elderly woman sitting up in bed listening to Christmas carols being sung on the radio.  The woman’s face was lit by candlelight as she sang along and this made Norman wonder how many other people spent Christmas alone.  This in turn gave him the idea and the first ever event was organized in Alexandra Garden Christmas 1938 where 10,000 people attended.

ARTISTS & STARS

These days we celebrate Carols by Candlelight all over Australia in all the capital cities and smaller country towns and they are held on many different dates all throughout December.   The tradition has now spread around the world and people gather usually outdoors in parks and sing carols in choirs and usually accompanied by bands.  Lots of talented artists both very famous and up and coming stars do the rounds of the different shows and they are compared for the most part by Radio and Television personalities.  The audience of course sing along and everyone has a candle or two which they hold up and sway from side to side with the music at times, a very atmospheric sight.

THE ART OF A GOOD CHARITY

The Adelaide event was sponsored this year by Woolworths with the funds raised going to the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation due to the hardworking Marta Harbuzinska, Christina and Natalie Angus and their team and some of the acts featured here were Samantha Jade,  The Collective as well as Humphrey Bear.

ARTISTIC INSPIRATION

As a family we started going to the open concert after our son Kai was born and have only missed a few along the way.  We used to arrive early in the afternoon to stake our claim on a spot close to the stage put down a picnic blanket with a basket full of delicious goodies and lovely wine.  It was a quite a few hours wait before the show began at sunset and we would take turns to head up to the city to shop and walk about.  These days we arrive a little later but it is still something we look forward to very much.  However there was one year that nearly turned us off for life when the weather suddenly changed and turned so nasty we thought we would freeze to death, lol.  We still talk about how the coldness that night was equal to shopping down Canal Street in New York at Christmas time, well nearly anyway!  All wonderful memories for more sculptures, paintings and artworks in the future.

THE ART OF LIGHT

So next year if you haven’t been go along to your nearest Carols by Candlelight no matter what religion or culture you come from it is a lovely event for all concerned.

So here is a quote I think fits well here by Earl Nightingale;  “We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting and maybe carol singing to you all.

Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALEand SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

This week the people of Sweden and Swedish living abroad will celebrate Lucia and the celebration will look very similar to this painting with Santa Lucia arriving with candles alight in her hair.  More about the Swedish tradition later but first I want to share with you some exciting news.

ART NAIF FESTIVAL

I had a lovely email a few weeks ago from Błażej Krajczewski in Poland who had come across this painting of mine above.  At first I thought he may have been familiar with my work and naive art through the Art Naif Festival in Katowice, Poland where I have been exhibiting for the last 3 years but as it turns out he had just found my image on the internet somewhere.

In any case he had been commissioned to make an animation to celebrate Lucia and Christmas which will be shown on the facade of the historic building; the Embassy of Sweden in Warsaw Poland, at the entrance of the Royal Baths this weekend.

PROJECTION MAPPING

This will be done by something called Projection Mapping (video mapping) formerly known as spatial augmented reality.  By using special software photos, films, paintings, animations are then projected onto buildings and the images can fit onto any size of industrial landscape.  It is often combined by sound to create an audio-visual narrative and in this case the music is all Swedish Christmas Carols and Lucia songs.

SPATIAL AUGMENTED REALITY

Projection mapping is rather new however the history goes back to Disney and 1969 when Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride used 16mm film and projected fake disembodied heads to make them look real through optical illusions.  Later on artists and advertisers started to catch on to this idea and were greatly helped by Microsoft and their technological advancements.

PAINTINGS IN ANIMATION

So I am so excited to have this painting brought to life by animation and really wish that I was in Warsaw this weekend to see the festivities in real life, to have my work shown in this beautiful European city on a cold and snow covered landscape projected across the whole building for all to see would be a treat.  Blazej has promised to film the event and I hope to be able to share this with you on Youtube eventually.

If you would like to know a bit more about the Swedish Lucia Traditions and how my family celebrated it here is a link 113 Art & Swedish Traditions, Another weird one

SWEDISH TRADITIONS

Another version of the Lucia tradition is according to folk tales the nights of the 12 and 13 December were the longest and darkest nights of the year and very dangerous as the animals spoke with a human voice and had supernatural powers.  So it was recommended for the people not to go to bed.

THE ART OF LIGHT

Luckily then arriving was Lucia the girl dressed all in white with bright burning candles on a wreath in her hair bringing light to brighten the terrifying darkness.  She would lead the procession dressed in a long white gown and have a bright red sash around her waist and of course the wreath with candles all alight in her hair.  ST Lucia was followed by Tarnor, who would also be wearing white although their wreath was somewhat smaller and made out of silver tinsel.  Not to be outdone the boys would also join in, some dressed in the long white gown too with a long white pointed hat (LOL actually the hat would look like one of those dunce hats you wear in the naughty corner) although it was decorated with stars and the boys were called sjarngossar – starboys!  All carrying a burning candle in their hands.  A couple of boys would also be Santa’s little helpers dressed in red.

These days the processions with St Lucia visits every workplace and school with the celebrations starting early in the morning and celebrated with traditional cakes, biscuits and coffee.

So if you are in Warsaw this weekend come along enjoy the festivities and eat some gingerbread at the Swedish Embassy too.

Here is a quote by Edith Wharton which I think fits well here;

“There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. “

Till next time happy painting, sculpting and projection mapping to you all.

Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALEand SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.