Friday Finds
Ashley Meyer’s “The Souls and Spirits Within Me” is an exploration of one’s selfhood through the rich histories of her grandparents. What is so remarkable about this sketchbook is how Meyer takes the notion of a family tree and explodes it, pairing her own re-worked drawings and cutouts of familial photographs with collaged images of the wilderness of her native Alberta. It’s a sketchbook that manages to feel both timeless and expansive in its crossing of generations, culminating with memorial portraits of the relatives she both did and never met. At a time when many of us find ourselves either physically with our families or keeping touch with them miles apart, Meyer’s book creates a space for self-reflection. Ashley currently works as an art educator and you can see more of her drawings and paintings here.
With spring right around the corner, the dreary gray gloom of winter is beginning to lift. The sun is out shining for longer, tufts of green leaves are beginning again to sprout on branches, and soon our parks and lawns (and our vases) will be filled with blooming flowers. Aleen Montchal’s “Sundial” brings that vibrancy to life through bite-sized, colorful paintings of houseplants and science fiction-inspired landscapes. Montchal works as a florist and that eye for color and botanical forms are present in her abstract style. Each illustration appears in two iterations: one in color, the other in black and white. It’s a great way to see how tweaks to an artist’s color palette can completely transform the same subject matter.
We’ve all been there before—staring at a blank page or a canvas or a workspace, trying to figure out how to get started or racking your brain for ideas. “Sometimes, Making Art Is Hard…” by Sarah Bowen offers many ways out of that creative block. Featuring a pensive, art-making sloth as our guide, each page offers a prompt and a word of encouragement to get you back into your creative practice. Bowen’s own medium of choice? Polymer clay! She uses that material to not only create all kinds of precious tiny creatures and objects, but lead workshops on miniature sculpting for budding artists of all ages. Whether your project takes the form of a sketchbook or not, it can be daunting to start (and finish them too!). Bowen’s book is a delightful reminder that you’ve got to push past the voices of discouragement in your head and use art to process what is happening in the world around you.
With a looping scrawl of pen, Susan Sainsbury describes her “Untitled” sketchbook as a “collection of images inspired by dreams & passport.” Each two-page spread is a gorgeous collage of paper scraps, some of glossy floral bouquets and fabrics ripped directly from magazines while others are weathered with inked text and marked by handwritten fragments. Sainsbury never quite settles us into one particular place. Rather, she creates a whole host of immersive, sensory landscapes. The longer you look, the more you start to imagine the smells emanating from rose petals or feel the gentle breeze coming in from an open window or hear the rustling of branches in an overgrown garden. You can view more of Sainsbury’s multimedia collage work here.
Patricia Roncone’s “My Rock Collection” is a great reminder that even the smallest everyday objects have their own unique beauty. After collecting each stone from travels to the beach with her family, Roncone decided to render each splintered pattern and individual blemishes and her sketchbook became a way to draw and paint on a daily basis. Roncone is interested in experimenting with watercolor, using it to draw our attention to moments of splendor in the natural world. As a cofounder of the Intergenerational Arts Movement, she is concerned with not only fostering personal creativity, but connecting individuals and communities to arts resources that can educate and empower creatives of all kinds. In the back of her book, Roncone writes that “rocks bathe in water, wet, unique, and exquisite, still chipped, scratched but strong,” a message that speaks to us all.