Defining Fields

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The work in Defining Fields has a zen-like formal quality that stems from a hands-on working process. The simplicity of marks, shapes, and color create a quiet presence and belies the generous amount of time spent to create the tactile surfaces. They offer the viewer a chance to tune out and contemplate what is in front of them.

Elisa Soliven arranges pieces of colored ceramic into grid-like compositions embedded in sculptural clay vessels. The muted color of the clay forms embrace the separated pieces and hold them together creating a community of colored shapes that maintain an individual sovereignty.

Jimbo Blachly paints abstract spaces that are symbolic of thought processes and levels of understanding.

Ideas for Sports-Themed Cakes

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Decorating a cake is technically an art because it also requires creativity. Day by day customization and the idea of themes are making way into occasions more and more. Parties are being organized in specific premises regarding era, genre or theme. However, the origin of which can be the costume parties we have been to in our childhood, it has now evolved from the go-as-you-like parties to parties with specific themes nowadays.

The easiest customizable food is cake. The more cakes are being personalized the more reasons that kids will love it! So we can evidently know what kind of a party should be thrown to our sister, brothers, kids – the little ones who matter the most! Sports cakes are emerging as creative favorites among retailers as well as purchasers. Cakes in shape of sports cars, equipment and fields are a magnificent show for children as well a piece of inspiration. Moreover, the flavors they come in are delicious; so it is a 100% money back satisfaction. Parents might think that ordering a simple birthday cake will be a better option than ordering some fancy thing with colors all over it but it would be better to go for themed cakes to make children happier. The demand for personalized cakes is increasing as people understand how cool the themes are!

Are you a fan of Federer? Why not transfer the legacy to your kid? Do it on his/her birthday, make it special. You can bake a cake or order from the stores designed as lawn tennis court! Yes, but made of kiwi and vanilla cream! Put nets of chocolate, two chocolate players on either side and you are ready for a tennis-themed birthday! You can add pictures of the William sisters, Sharapova or any tennis player you love. The cake would be an inspiration for your kid and his/her friends. Decorate the dining or lawn with racquets and tennis balls, use green and white balloons, you can even use flags and there you go with your customized cake. You can also decorate like that of a table tennis. You can check pingpongperfect.com for some pegs. The ambiance will be breath-taking for your little ones. The whole idea shows how much you care and more will the children feel your love when they see the effort.

Not an outdoor person? Well let’s just change the theme a bit, why not make it table-tennis? All remains same but just an extra chocolate slab is added, obviously to make the look like a table tennis table! Tennis is a popular game and cakes based on it is a marvelous idea yet you can always try football, baseball even basketball! Personalisation can be of any kind you want, party hats matching with the cake can be a great idea. Even adults can be thrown into a customized party. After all, sports is for everyone! To make it decorative real fruit slices can be added. Golf is also an excellent cake theme. Small vanilla dollops can be the balls and biscuit sticks can be the golf stick.

No matter what preferred sport is the theme of a birthday party, what matters is that it has to be memorable. The cake is very symbolic that is why choosing the best cake design also matters. It would be great if the design is something that has a sentimental value for the celebrant.

Make it Real

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The work in this exhibition blurs the definitions of Realist and Representational art. While the artists are making work based on observing what they see, their work is not specifically about rendering for the sake of rendering or mastering a technique. What makes their imagery resonate is how their ironic humor, unique use of materials, and commitment to subject matter draws the viewer into their work.

Hilary Doyle paints the people she observes around her. Her inquisitive yet analytical approach towards materials creates innovative portraits that draw attention to abstraction, surface, and an awkward humanism.

Amy Hill paints portraits in a highly stylized manner that evokes different art historical genres and styles such as the Rembrandtesque images of her heavy metal musicians or painting modern day hipsters in a manner reminiscent of the Renaissance. Her work causes the viewer to contemplate the relationships between aesthetics and fashion that exist between art historical genres and her modern day characters.

Yoichiro Yoda creates a world where two passions exist simultaneously, Heavy Metal music and Old Historic Buildings. In “Desert Plain” he superimposes one of his favorite groups Judas Priest onto the sands of Coney Island with the “Childs Restaurant Building” in the background. He is an advocate for preserving old theaters and places that are in danger of destruction. It is his serious commitment to his subjects; their odd juxtapositions and primitive rendering that create an ironic and strange personal narrative.

Kazumi Tanaka recreates objects such as musical instruments and an old record player using materials such as animal skulls and her hair. The objects are a meditation on memory and loss. In her video piece “Messenger” she plays on miniature instruments that are based on her reaction to visiting Hiroshima during the 70th anniversary of the end of World War 2. The use of her hair and the dead skull are a nod to the effects of radiation and the recent nuclear disaster in Japan. The miniature size is a way to give voice to those that are vulnerable, powerless, and negatively affected by the bad decisions of others.

The artists in this exhibition approach their subject matter and their process through different means albeit stylistic, instinctual or conceptual. The alternate and multiple thought processes that exist within each work allow the viewer to see a representational world in a different light.

“What A World, What A World”

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I find myself saying “What a world” a lot. Usually in response to some incomprehensible human behavior or some new social/political development that I can’t believe is happening. I associate the phrase “What a world” with The Wizard of Oz, when the Wicked Witch of the West is melting and speaks the words “What a world, what a world…Who would have thought that some little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness.” Even as a child this intrigued me, how the evil side can also be astonished by behavior and circumstance. We assume that ethics, morality, beliefs start from an objective vantage point. The current political crises, that seems to pit multiple incompatible and mutually incomprehensible world views against each other, is a terrifying embodiment of this phenomenon. More prosaically perhaps, we see the challenge of understanding the world through another person’s eyes played out in art, where idiosyncratic visions lead artists to create objects that are sometimes utterly mysterious to other minds. This of course is not a bad working definition of art itself, and of its discontents. Some of it I love, some of it I don’t.

For this exhibition I’ve chosen sculptures I love, but whose meanings are somewhat elusive to me. I like also that they communicate a sense of wonder, and I like how they look, behave and feel in space.
Sculpture is physical and in our world, and it is a given that artists create their own worlds. I’m interested in how this artwork fits into the real world, whether physically, contextually, intellectually.

Anna Rosen makes sculptures from her grandmothers world. A world of ceramic tchotchkes and hand painted flowers on every surface. Rosen inherited all her grandmothers things and incorporates them into sculptures that speak to me in a language of wit and charm.

Caroline Cox makes cosmic universes of swirling blue filament and clear orbs. These dramatic pieces can be interpreted as planets and worlds as we know them in our universe, clear and simple, yet messy and disorganized.

Jane Benson’s elegant assemblages using furniture and household objects and string instruments cut in half defy gravity, with the theme of division and connectedness comment on weighty political states of middle eastern states.

Harry Finkelstein’s sculptures include handmade and found objects, with the insertion of geodes and chunks of natural rock. These natural elements come from the earth. They are real world elements but look like what we in art classically define as abstract.

Matt Freedman & Jude Tallichet’s dripping keyboards hung out to dry are a wry nod to surrealism, a parallel world invented by art. They are fun colorful and bright but why did they make these? When I look at them I expect them to disappear in Cheshire cat style.

Ron Baron takes vintage doll houses and mounts them floorside to the wall embellished with trees and all things miniature. Sideways we look at a miniature suburban world…care to comment?

Donna Huanca’s mucked up unwearable stilettos are a contemporary compliment to Dorothy’s ruby slippers…

Parlours are the public space in the private worlds of one’s home, and this complex nexus makes The Parlour Bushwick the perfect gallery to stage this challenging but beguiling exhibition.