It doesn’t take long for the year to roll around and before you know it is Christmas again!  This year as we often do we are going to see the spectacle Carols by Candle light in Elder Park, Adelaide.  It always inspires the creative process and I am sure many artists feel the same way.

CAROLS BY CANDLELIGHT

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.   This time my husband and I together with our daughter and her boyfriend are planning to attend.  It is great that this tradition has now spread around the world and people gather usually outdoors in parks and sing carols in choirs and usually accompanied by musicians.  Lots of wonderful 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 here in Australia anyway.  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 just glorious!

ARTISTIC INSPIRATION

As a family together with my mum and dad we started going to the open concert after our son Kai was born and soon joined by the little miss Hillivi and we have only missed a few along the way.  In times gone by 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 always a few hours wait before the show began at sunset and we would take turns to stake our claim on the blanket whilst some of us would 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.  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!  This time the weather is supposed to be nice and warm so lets hope that is the case.

CERAMIC AND MOSAIC

It was this time last year that 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 features a sing-a-long family around the piano, with some recognizable artists artwork on the walls! (If you look close, you will find Picasso and Miro among others)

Here is a quote I think fits well by Carol Nelson;

“Christmas is a time when you get homesick — even when you’re home. “

Till next time happy painting and sculpting and Happy Holidays to you all.

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.

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.

In this weeks travel and art blog I thought I would share with you an article written by Andrew Fenton for the SA Weekend Magazine which comes out with The Advertiser every Saturday.  His column is called “Wiseguy” and that suits him to a T, as he always has a wiseguys slant to his answers, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek I would imagine when he gives the general public his advice.

ANIMATIONS

This animation of my painting of my trip to Japan to attend my first art exhibition there has been animated by my friend Susan Flashman, if you fancy reading about that adventure here is a link; 57. Art & Signing the Contract and 64. Art & Flying to Japan (continuation of Signing the Contract)

ADELAIDE ADVERTISER

I do always enjoy reading this supplement to our Saturday paper as it is most of the time full of Art and Culture in all its different forms.  Anyway this week’s column starts with the question from P.D at Murray Bridge asking;

I have a fair bit of trepidation about taking my first 27-hour flight.   Do you have any advice?

Wiseguys answer is as follows; “Yes I do, thanks for asking.  To prepare myself for international flights I like to undergo a few dry-run simulated training exercises in the months and years leading up to the journey.

Essentially, I lock myself in a tiny cupboard with my obese friend Nigel and stare at a low resolution portable DVD player from 2001 while watching old episodes of Friends for hours.  Then I neck a bunch of sleeping pills and just as I’m nodding off I get my wife to shout out irrelevant facts about my height above sea level through a megaphone, and randomly open the door every 20 minutes to shine a harsh fluorescent light in my eyes or to thrust a crying baby/ready meal through the door.

This exposure therapy somehow helps alleviate the night terrors I’ve experienced ever since I was assigned a seat in the passive smoking section of a Garuda flight in 1999 which saw me completely wired, awake and sweating for about 36 hours from absorbing the equivalent of 400 cartons of nicotine through second-hand smoke.  But anyway there’s no need to be nervous about your flight.”

THE ART OF FLYING

As I have spent a lot of time over the years on airplanes firstly as an international model flying around on assignments and then later as an international artist exhibiting around the world and not forgetting a love of travel in my spare time too, I can really relate to all of that.

All so true,   however at the same time I really do like flying.  I find it is the one time that I can truly relax.  It is difficult to do too much more than; read, watch movies, TV shows and listen to the radio, eat, drink and sleep.  So I usually totally unwind, well in-between getting poked and prodded by the people behind, squished by the person in fronts reclining chair and climbed over by the owner of a small bladder that is.  Oh the joys of flying!

Here is a quote by Gil Stern that I think fits perfectly here;

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society.  The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all, oh and flying of course.

Love Marie xxx

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

So it’s the week of Easter and this year my Easter surprise was that my website crashed for 4 days!!  Apologies are in order to those of you who tried to unsuccessfully access it, nice to know that it was due to a lot of traffic, so thank you.

EASTER AND ANIMATION

Anyway the story this week is of course about Easter and this will be our third one here by the sea, time flies when you are having fun.  The animated painting is of course a scene from my background as a Swede and the Swedish Easter painting is animated and set to music by my friend Susan Flashman.  I can sense the confusion on your faces as to what witches has to do with Easter so here is the story about that.

COMMISSIONED PAINTINGS

We Swedes are weird, you know in a nice way, and it wasn’t until we immigrated to Australia that I realized that fact.     I was originally commissioned to paint a Easter painting by my American gallery a few years ago.  The owner like me is Swedish and I had free reign to paint whatever I choose as long as it was to do with Easter.

Notice something strange about it, what’s with all the witches on broomsticks I hear you say?  Well that’s perfectly normal – no little cute bunnies for us Swedes, no we have witches flying around and flying off to Blakulla (the Blue Mountain) to meet the man downstairs, you know who I mean!  I think the animation and the naive painting really suits Halloween too.

THE ART OF EASTER

When I was little in Sweden we would dress up as Easter witches, raid mums or grandma’s wardrobe for long skirts.  We wore colorful head scarves and painted our cheeks red, and then we would go from house to house in our neighborhood and knock on every door and be given lollies and sometimes fruit.  Much like the Americans do for Halloween.

PAINTING BOILED EGGS

We would also spend a day painting boiled eggs which would later be eaten during the Easter celebration together with a smorgasbord feast.  We would go and pick small branches and twigs of willow and birch (the ones with lots of soft little fury buds, so cute!) and then we would decorate it with feathers and small witches on broomsticks and other decorations much like a little Christmas tree.  Every Swedish household would have a vase of these on the table.

ORIGINAL PAINTING

The original painting was framed with the Easter eggs on the side.  Yes we would receive an Easter egg too but not one made from chocolate, instead it was made from cardboard with bright pictures on it or from plastic and usually filled to the brim with lollies and chocolates.

But of course mine was a bit different, always being the eccentric (oh yes I do admit that).  So what do you think mine was filled with, something really yummy, that I could not usually eat as much of as I would like of course….a jar of peanut butter that’s what.  Weird kid, weird Swedish kid!

This quote by Matt Lauer made me laugh today:

“Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two but can’t remember what they are.”

Hope you are enjoying your chocolates!

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all!

Love Marie xxx

If you enjoyed this one you may also like another art blog on  Swedish customs 113 Art & Swedish Traditions, Another weird one

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.

On Tuesday this week it was my very overdue turn to have “The Artist lunch” at my house.  You see a bunch of us have been meeting every now and then for the last 20 years, getting together over a good meal and some drinks and talking shop!  Well not just about art, life in general too and along the way we have shared in the ups and downs of life and as you would expect over time there has been plenty of those too.

THE NAIVE GROUP

We were trying to figure out how we met the other day – there were 3 of us “core” people, all 3 naive artists that initially got together, we think it came about when another naive artist Howard William Steer (Story Art) had wanted to meet the new kid on the block, moi!  As he and I had a joint exhibition over in Melbourne very early on in my career, I did not attend the opening so Howard came to visit when we lived in the church and brought Ursula Kiessling with him.

ARTISTS OF ALL GENRES

Ursula paints bush and wildlife in a semi naive repeated pattern – her use of colors is second to none.   How we then met Bronwen Roodenrys (who paints gorgeous sophisticated naive ladies and big cats) is for now a blank, lol but anyway glad we did, and we have added more “core” people to the group and not just naïf but all sorts of artists.  Catherine Fitz-Gerald who paints mainly large succulent and delicious fruits that cover the whole canvas, which makes me hungry every time I see them and Lynley Cooper who can turn her hand to any medium and style and always experiments and surprises us every time often with large scale contemporary works.  My image above is from another lunch that whoops, lol turned into midnight, funny how that happens.  It is handmade ceramic and mosaic and if you look closely on the left hand side you can see me with the ponytail sticking up in the air and hubby a little worse for wear spilling his beer.  Fun time had by all!

ARTISTS & ANIMATORS & WRITERS

The person that hosts the lunch can invite whoever they please and can add and subtract the invitation list as they chose which makes it very interesting.  So in attendance on Tuesday at my place were apart from the aforementioned were Valli Palmgreen, a Finish/Estonian artist who I have admired from afar for many years, she paints quirky pictures with the feel of Beryl Cook but in her own way.  Sarah Philip, the wife of our electrician that did our new house and as it turns out she lives on the same street as us and is a talented muralist and abstract artist.  Jenni Mumford paints in oils in Post-Impressionistic styled landscapes and still life and lives in Encounter Bay with views to die for which no doubt inspires her work.  Also in attendance was Suzie Flashman, my neighbour whose talents include animation (she did my animations on my website) and wildlife photography and she has also recently started drawing in pastels.  Of course we cannot forget Nadine Williams, journalist and award winning Author of the book From France with Love, which is optioned for a movie.  She also runs her own website which is in magazine style and always very interesting.

ART AND FOOD

The only problem now was what to feed these lovely people as I don’t cook, well unless you count burned toast and boiled water as a good menu for a dinner party!  Lucky for them I had a flash of an idea – I am good at assembling, lol.  So off to the supermarket I trot and with help from a great guy behind the counter, who was very amused at my lack of knowledge in the small goods section (as a vegetarian that is not my forte, lol ) I came home with shaved smoked ham, turkey, roast beef and salami.  To that I added cheese, dolmades, boiled eggs, tossed salad, olives, broccoli and capsicum sticks, crackers and dip, red/white wine and sparkling red (my favorite).  The artists brought dips and bread, chicken, coconut rice, fruit and cake, wine and champagne and so we had a feast fit for a king.  Hubby who was supposed to have a rest day could not keep away and was like a bee in the honey pot!  This time around all the artists was women, but that is not the rule!  We finished up just before 5pm and I look forward to the next one!

Another naive artist I greatly admire is Grandma Moses who lived to the ripe old age of 101 and I named my darling dog Moses after her and just like his name sake Moses lived to the grand old age of 18 which for a dog is pretty good.  Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until her late 70’s, a late bloomer so to speak and spent her old age as an American celebrity.  Here is one of her quotes that I like:

“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting and whatever else you are doing,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

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.

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