Shea Hembrey

I was introduced to Shea Hembrey: "How I Became 100 Artists" in class yesterday.  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/shea_hembrey_how_i_became_100_artists.html  He is a contemporary artist, and I never thought I would be interested in contemporary art! 

I like "Flipped Earth" by Neo Reynolds (?), one of his imaginary artists.  She used the 20' long mirror to reflect the image of the sky in the ground, so it is as if you are looking down the sky.  I like the concept of using sky to cleanse barren ground.  Below are the pictures from ted.com  There are no diagonal lines in the original pictures. 

A couple of days ago, I posted "Sky above Clouds" by Georgia O'Keeffe.  I commented that nobody can see anything below clouds; the horizon reflects more of eternity.  What I was impressed about the US when I came first time was its vast sky, which I felt could swallow everything on the earth, including me.  Now Shea's imaginary female artist uses sky to cleanse earth, mother earth.  Though Shea is a contemporary artist, his imaginary artist uses a very traditional archetypal approach.

I'd like to share one more picture that I took in January 2009 in my yard.  Again I was impressed with the Big Sky, but here frozen branches spread out to the sky for warm air so that they can restore their life; they were frozen all day, though.

Right now I am stuck with the sky.  I will go back to the topic of wind turbines soon.

Sky above Clouds

I was going to discuss wind turbines today, but my image of America as Big Sky reminded me of Georgia O'Keeffe's Sky above Clouds. I thought Georgia O'Keeffe's works are mostly flowers. So when I was walking down the stairs in The Art Institute of Chicago, I was shocked to see the simplified yet definite existence of clouds. I just wonder why she decided to draw Sky above Clouds.  Definitely Sky above Clouds present a world of no problems; the world underneath is covered by her clouds, and all you can see is the rosy horizon.  You are above everything.  All those clouds, though identical, are all different sizes, and none of them look they are blown by winds; they just stay where they are.  They are not influenced by anything else.  The clouds I see from the earth change forms constantly.  While O'Keeffe eternalized small flowers in such a large size, she also shrunk the sky as our size.  The canvas is very wide, and it looks big, but compared to the real sky, it is very small! 

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/images/standard/WebLarge/WebImg_000001/8222_355125.jpg

Big Sky is the first impression of the United States for me, but the sky with various types of clouds represent unstable world.  If I happen to be drawing Sky above Clouds, I might be drawing anything and everything I can see between clouds! I just wonder where Big Sky and Sky above Clouds will take me.

Big Sky

Big sky was my first impression when I came to the States (Iowa) decades ago.  I went to visit my host mother in Minnesota from August 9 to 11 and saw this big sky while driving from Sioux Falls SD to St. James MN.  I didn't get a chance to take pictures of this big sky while driving, but I did take a picture of the sky and cornfield in St. James.  While driving, I saw a cat crossing in front of my car and this brave cat disappeared into the cornfield. Hoped it wouldn't get lost.  Then I saw another cat in St. James crossing the street and disappearing into the cornfield.  Maybe I thought they went into the cornfield; maybe they just stepped into the cornfield and came out right after I drove by.  The image of cats, cornfield, and wind turbines somehow stuck in my head.

I thought wind turbines are the next power source, so I started checking about it on line, and found pros and cons.  I will discuss it next time.