Category Archives: Art

Freedom Works for Robert Strini

Dialogue, photos, paint, wood, 10'x7'
 

  Freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express one’s self. Freedom to communicate your conscience. Artist Robert Strini has been answering the call for over 40 years. “The biggest key in my life was when my father said to me, ‘I don’t care what you do or how much money you make, as long as you love what you do,’” says the son of a country Italian butcher who loved his trade. Strini’s father also took his young son to lectures on the power of positive thinking. His mother was a generous-hearted, hands-on homemaker. Given … Continue reading Freedom Works for Robert Strini

Telling the Story: Photos by Stephanie Gross

Stephanie Gross photography
 

  Stephanie Gross was intrigued early by pictures and their stories. “I spent a lot of time as a kid looking at pictures,” she says. ”My mom was a docent at the National Gallery and she used to walk me through the West Wing. We’d look at paintings and she’d talk about their composition, how your eye moves around the frame, and about the stories they were telling. For me, it was like this giant picture book that we could walk through. I think a lot of that has stuck with me.” While first fascinated … Continue reading Telling the Story: Photos by Stephanie Gross

In Our Various Guises: The Art of Lawrence Anthony

Circe mixed media
 

  The human figure—mothering, meditating, slinging a spear or dancing the salsa—step center stage in Lawrence Anthony’s inventive imagination. He depicts his original cast of characters in various guises and mediums—from stone, bronze, wood, to plastics, polychromed or natural. “My life’s work in drawing, painting and sculpture has drawn from the human figure as its main source and has dealt with the relationship between figures through the physical, spiritual, and emotional ties that bind us together,” says Anthony, a resident of Summerland, Florida. “Using the figure, I was always interested in the relationship between the … Continue reading In Our Various Guises: The Art of Lawrence Anthony

Angel Wings & Other Aspirations: The Art of Dimithry Victor


 

  Dimithry Victor, a self-taught 16-year-old artist from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, admits to having “many aspirations and goals, the most important ones to make people think and change the world through art.” No small ambition. “I know art can be used to express emotion, and get people to pay attention to a certain topic or even make them feel emotions. That is what I plan to do with my art.” Dimithry’s interest in art came by way of comics and cartoons. “When I was a kid I used to copy and learn from comic book … Continue reading Angel Wings & Other Aspirations: The Art of Dimithry Victor

Ebb and Flow: Paintings by Annie Wildey


 

  “I’m not a high summer, beach-going dweller,” says artist Annie Wildey, a native of Britain who grew up far from the sea. “But I love the beach on the quieter days, the days when people wouldn’t think of going to the beach – when it’s foggy, just before or after a storm or when it’s snowing, “I identify with the ocean when a storm is brewing or passing, when the surf is up, when flurries form, when the fog looms or is lifting, when the horizon is obscured or the sky begins to clear. There’s a … Continue reading Ebb and Flow: Paintings by Annie Wildey

Looking for the Light: Fax Ayres’ Photographs

Camera on top of books by Ansel Adams
 

    My mother gave me her old Nikkormat camera when I was 13 years old. She’d spotted my interest in books of photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and set me on an evolving path. I used the Nikkormat as a photographer and Editor-in-Chief of our weekly paper at the Taft School and again at Northwestern University’s newspaper. My Nikkormat was in hand during six years in Alaska, including three years in Gustavus at the mouth of Glacier Bay National Park where I basked in views of icy straits and was lucky enough to have a … Continue reading Looking for the Light: Fax Ayres’ Photographs

Geoffrey Stein: Revealing The Seen and Unseen


 

    Geoffrey Stein, intrigued with “the seen and unseen,” employs paint and collage to reveal portraits of power and vulnerability. “I paint to find out what I think about the world; to discover the things I do not have words for. I savor the slips of the hand that express one’s unconscious feelings about the person being painted. I am interested in the conversation between abstraction and realism,” says New York artist Stein. “I do not want to make an academic copy of the model or a photo realistic illustration. My paintings explore the … Continue reading Geoffrey Stein: Revealing The Seen and Unseen

Winning and Losing: Andrew Shurtleff Photographs


 

                                 For photographer Andrew Shurtleff, the goal in covering sports and political events is “to report the story — whether winning or losing — through photographs. I look for moments that reveal what’s really going on.” Shurtleff, as director of photography for the Charlottesville Daily Progress, has photographed the competitors — UVA sports teams as well as visiting titans of politics — from President Barack Obama, to Justice Anthony Scalia, Republican contenders Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and front runner Donald … Continue reading Winning and Losing: Andrew Shurtleff Photographs

Rick Weaver: The Art of Imagination


 

  Rick Weaver seems an artist equally interested in what can and cannot be seen. Whether working with paint brushes, carving tools or modeling clay, his creations blend the subject at hand with what he imagines is missing. Initially trained in classical drawing and painting, Weaver now concentrates on sculptures, life size as well as those larger and smaller. He’s currently completing a commission of a Native American boy for an art association in St. Augustine, Florida. He’s  shaping the 54″ statue in wax eventually to be cast in bronze.     The young Native … Continue reading Rick Weaver: The Art of Imagination