The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

Stop! There’s Beauty In Unfinished Art

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(Pic #1) Sketch by iconic French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. So much more interesting this way.

The underpinnings can tell us so much more….

There’s something about seeing how an artist works, why he chooses a particular line, and when he decides that’s enough. I love watching them create, or even catching signs of their intentions by what’s left for us to see. Sometimes I try to peel back the layers, and occasionally, they do it for me.

Check out the Lautrec piece above. That mid-section never needed to be painted. Those scratchy marks — all sketchy and loose — make the painting even better. They kind of let the viewer know how the artist saw his subject, and let us in on that very personal view. I like that his art seems to sit there for a moment in time, in its raw form, letting us finish the strokes or the color that he never added.

I felt the same way at the recent Italian Chalk Festival in Santa Barbara this week, when artists from all over the globe began their works in pastel on the hot mission pavement. They were all given two days to complete their 4 x 8 squares, but I couldn’t help but hope they would never finish.

(Pic #2) Technically incomplete — this is a way cooler art experience. Il Madonnari (the annual Santa Barbara Italian Chalk Festival)

(Pic #3) Pastel illustrating the benefits of leaving parts untouched. The lack of form in the bottom half of the blacktop asks the viewer to literally “fill in the blank.”

(Pic #4) LOVE the unfinished foot on this yoga gnome.

(Pic #5) Check out the sketchy, unfinished mountainous background in black and white. Loose, unexpected and interesting.

The Fear Factor: Make It Work For You

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(Pic #1) “Little Monsters” – My first sketch with a stylus on the new iPad, using an app called “Pro Create.”  Totally freaking.

Learning something new can blast you into a supercharged creativity zone.

New tech? Color me paralyzed. It happens every time I’m introduced to a new fangled gadget or upgrade. Heck, for the longest time I even balked at learning the tech of blogging. But my fearless techie friend Amy sat me down in 2010 for weekly sessions until I was able to “enter through the back door” as they say, and troubleshoot my own writings and photo layouts. I went kicking and screaming, but she swears I was just a big baby with irrational fears of technology.

(Pic #2) Illustration by San Diego artist Beau Hufford, using the Pro Create App.

Fast forward 8 years: I’m still kicking and screaming, but the difference is I’m starting to use my fear to make each new artistic experience an exciting adventure. Yesterday, I bought a new iPad, and it was my first day using a stylus (on the screen of any device) — and it felt weird. But exhilarating. My good friend and life-long illustrator (Pic #2) Beau Hufford told me about the insane Pro Create App, and I had to jump in.

I expected to be frustrated and clueless when I started, and guess what — I was right. But the joy I felt in teaching myself something fresh and new far outweighed any angst. In fact, I couldn’t put the pen down. I couldn’t stop exploring all the digital paint brushes, fat and skinny lines, magic markers, and a tool that shoots out spray paint in real time.

The cool bonus in learning new things like this is that it’s good for your brain. According to CCSU Business & Development, “practicing a new skill stimulates neurons, which forms more neural pathways and allows electrical impulses to travel faster across them.” That means we learn better. It can even help us stave off dementia.

And oh, by the way — these innovative artistic experiences end up being way cheaper than therapy.

Angels Of This Earth

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(Pic #1) Going viral: Soldier passes by Colette MIller’s Angel Wings installation in Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. March, 2015. With this one dramatic photo, the Los Angeles street artist “gets ink” in scores of mainstream publications. She says, “It changed everything.”

The extraordinary impact of one woman’s mission to shed some light.

At first, when I saw photos of random angel wings on social media, I had no idea what kind of global footprint this trailblazing artist was leaving. But Colette Miller’s interactive street art initiative called the  “Global Angel Wings Project” has taken flight beyond the decaying urban walls of Los Angeles (where she started), and taken her to countries (many in conflict) all over the world. She’s painted in Cuba, Kenya, Australia, Turkey, England and Japan. (Map of wings locations.)

I caught up with her in Yokohama this week, as she installs sets of wings in that densely-populated Japanese city on Tokyo Bay. She told me in the beginning there were no grants, no agents, and no sense of what was to come. She was broke, and only relied on the messages that came to her during meditation: “get it out there.” She was fed up with the bombardment of commercial messages in cities like Los Angeles, and vowed to fight manipulative marketing campaigns with something that would lift and inspire. “Wings kept coming to mind,” she told me, “and I had to act on it.”

She says her “dream installation” would be on the walls between Israel and Palestine, underscoring “the similarities between the two, rather than their differences.” 

Colette describes her background as fairly “global.” Her mother grew up in Indonesia and Holland “and after World War II basically became a war refugee. She met my father in Hawaii where he was studying Buddhism, Philosophy and Art at the University of Hawaii.” Colette says her exposure to art started early, when her Mom took her to museums and bought her an easel when she was a toddler. She says she knew very early on “the difference between a Van Gogh and a Gauguin.” The artist is also known as a performer in the heavy metal band “Gwar” during its formative years between 1986-1987.

Since 2012, from pets to politicans, the range of fans and “selfie subjects” is astounding. If you check out Colette’s website, you’ll find pugs and policemen all taking a moment to record their angelic experience. Check out some of the favorites below.

I follow her now on Instagram, where she posts her latest installations from all over the world…. and she is not slowing down. Miller says she has completed about 150 outdoor angel works, but she is not trying to collect followers or earn a spot as the hottest social media sensation. She just wants to be authentic with her mission, and remind us that “we are all angels of this earth.”

Link to Colette Miller’s web site

Link to Los Angeles wings locations

Link to Colette Miller limited edition prints

 

(Pic #3) My first pose in front of an original Miller. Arts District, downtown Los Angeles.