Spring Art, Fashion & Inspiration

Ven - Latin American Artist

Vintage Chanel: French Vogue

The Spring Fashion Dance

Occasionally I come across a mix of photos that seem related in some inspired way. The three above remind me of the coming of spring, the natural beauty of birds, the timeless allure of a perfect dress and the energy and movement of fashion on the runway. Enjoy!

Art Inspired Fashion Mix

Artist: Jack Youngerman

Don't underestimate the power of your personal choices. The trick is to learn to see the world around you as a fascinating and glorious closet of opportunity. Stylist are Social Artist...we speak a mysterious and alluring universal language. Listen and See for yourself.

Camille LaMontagne: Changing the Face of Art and Identity

Artist: Camille LaMontagne

Photography by: Graham Meyer

When we think of Fashion it's easy to overlook the work of A Make-Up Artist. In some cases that is precisely the point. The Clothes are the focus, unless you are watching a John Galliano production that is. His work is pure theater, high Art Fashion at it's best. Camille LaMontagne is a fan of Galliano's work and has plans to make her own mark on Fashion runways around the world.

As you can see she explores "Identity" through Illustration, Make-Up, Sculpture and Modeling. Camille is also an accomplished Portrait Artist working in Oil and has won numerous competitions for her work over the years.

She admires the Art work of Nathan Deyoung, Levi Van Veluw, Cindy Sherman and her Father, Paul LaMontagne who is a retired Commercial Artist.

When Camille talks about her work as a Make-Up Artist, her face lights up like a Solar Panel. Her Vision and energy is refreshing and so is her work. The black and white photograph of two Women in knitted headscarves speaks to her complex creative abilities. It stopped me in my tracks when I spotted it on display at 515 in Royal Oak. I will be adding a copy of this photograph to my collection in the near future. It has the quiet impact of a hundred secrets waiting to be told.

The face sculpture made of tissue paper required creative engineering and a lot of patience to produce. It's clever and intriguing. The same is true of the dotted self-portrait project. Her black and white illustration book is a study in transition. Camille modeled for the full body black and white shot and altered the image to create an eclectic visual story.

Author Leonard Koren, wrote "Beauty is an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace." Camille works in this realm fluidly and with boundless passion.

Keep an eye out for her work in galleries, runways and in print as she further explores the Art of Identity, Make-Up and Fashion Illustration.

Camille can be contacted at cla@collegeforcreativestudies.edu

Light, Line and the Power of Discovery...

Artist: Jon Pickell

Jon Pickell is one of those people who works deliberately with "Organic Energy". He's an Artist with many passions. These include photography, print making, fiber print work and Reiki energy balancing.
He admires the work of Fashion Photography Artist: Deborah Turbeville, Lucas Samaras and Helmet Newton. His work however includes a distinct and careful balance of light, line and energy. "Creating ambiguous spaces for his figures to occupy is part of his skill. Many of his portraits imply a situation or activity beyond the viewer's knowledge." Jon has no desire to tell you what to think. He respects what you bring to his Artwork. Viewing his work is a fluid process between Artist and audience. Fashion is an integral element of the above selected photos, but it is by no means the whole story. There is so much more to wonder about in these pieces. I love that about Jon's Artistry, it's a process of discovery.

"Discovery is a sociological cause of change. It involves recognizing and understanding more fully something already in existence. The first image is the result of my Internet research on the characteristics of Radium. "In 1898 Marie Claire unintentionally left a rock on a piece of photographic paper, noticed the emissions from the rock had exposed the paper, and thus discovered radium (Ra 88)." I was struck by the organic line work of the Radium salt alpha particles. Notice the line work in Jon's photographs.

"Pure radium metal is brilliant white (I'm thinking about the flash of a camera bulb), but blackens when exposed to air. Radium is luminescent (giving a faint blue color)." Notice the similar luminescent faint blue color in several of Jon's hand painted photographs.

Discovery....Serendipty.....Coincidence? I'd like to think it is all of these things. It's difficult to fathom how this happens. But it is delightful to wonder about how it might all work together. The Art of the universe is a mysterious and creative energy source. How perfect it is that Jon included Superman in one of his photo stories. His Model marvels at his power and energy and you I hope will appreciate the power of Jon's unique fashion photography. He can be conacted at jonpie at aol.com.

The Painter's Apprentice: Emilio Rojas

While traveling through life, Little Friend came to know a wanderer called the Painter's Apprentice. This man was always surrounded by people asking him about paintings he had yet to paint.

The paintings he described were so ethereal that they resembled music forming in air. The Painter's Apprentice said that the timeless and the eternal could be captured through feeling and sensitivity, releasing the soul toward the spirit's essence. He described a painting of dancing in which the body was a connection between the earth and the soul.

Then he envisioned a painting made of embossed letters - each one a word, a sentence, a prayer, a book wherein the author had woven tales out of history, imagination and dreams. He wanted to create a painting in which the brush strokes and colors were the essence of all that could be ordered and balanced. He also described a painting in which the motifs were feelings formed from the tiniest elements of life in the depths of the interior world.

Then the Painter's Apprentice said that his true aspiration was to paint people. Not those who claimed greatness and then sank into the mud of oblivion. Not those who spoke hurtful words or performed acts of hypocrisy. Not those who used others to climb to the top or exchanged Love's treasures for trinkets, popularity or material wealth. The people he wish to paint were simple folk without disguise, those who were at once ethereal and steadfast. They were the ones whose wings could carry them to the horizon.

Such people teach us how to walk through the valleys of each day. They draw a smile from our hearts and say to us: "To Live is to learn what we were, what we are and what, with the setting of the sun, we shall be. To live is also to understand the human being and the universe, and thus to become a maker of stars. To live is to look at our outstretched hands, one of which contains nothing, the other, everything. To live is to be the immortal energy and light that flow from the Rose of the Heart."

This is how the Painter's Apprentice talked about the pictures he was going to paint. But he never made a single sketch. Curious to see what these paintings would look like, Little Friend followed the Painter's Apprentice for a long time. Finally, when the Painter's Apprentice produced nothing, Little Friend, disappointed, left him. After some time had passed, Little Friend realized that the word was the brush of the Painter's Apprentice and each person part of his canvas.

Poem: by Emelio Rojas, Beloved Author of Latin America. This allegory captures the essence of my passion for this blog. I could easily swap out the word Painter, for Writer, Muscian, Photographer, Fashion Designer, etc......

Fashion Artist, Life and Death Concept Dress

Janna Coumoundouros Bissett explores her appreciation for Fashion in many forms. Photography, Jewelry, Clothing design, Illustration, Mixed Media Art and Personal Style, are all pieces of her creative vision.

The "Maternity Egg dress" is a full scale mixed media piece she completed in college. "It's about life and death and a visual mix of those ideas".

The original material used to develop the dress idea was tissue paper and an empty egg shell. Janna carefully hand stitched panels "quilt style" of a fried egg image to the dress backing material. "I have sewn you together In your Mothers Womb" is a Biblical quote that describes the conceptual and literal process of this Dress project beautifully. A determined, difficult and delicate process.

The Dress was then worn by a pregnant model who was photographed. At the gallery showing those photos were framed in an old Architectural Window and the Dress hung next to the window (as shown in the photo). The Death aspect of the project included a subtle historic "Symbol" of Abortion: "The Hanger" the dress clung to.

In the end the Dress "passed away" due to it's fine construction and the adversities of time. As for the Abortion controversy I can't help but think about ALL the Creative Projects and dreams that never come to pass in our lives....Aborted by Apathy, Circumstance and the Limits of Time.

Speaking of time, the body of work Mrs. Bissett has created belies her age. You can see for yourself: www.etsy.com/shop/lilacpop is her on-line shop.

"I think it's a mistake to write off fashion as being devoid of intellectual content" wrote Cintra Wilson, Writer for the New York Times. I agree with her statement and I believe Janna's Concept Dress proves this point. Of course I also think Project Runway contestants need read this blog post!