It's all about Dolls

"promise not to tell"



I am kicking off this New Year blog entry with a doll piece I did a couple of years ago. It has all the elements that I like, assemblage and painting. I hope to incorporate these elements into new work for the doll show the jafagirls are doing in June.

To dear family, friends, fellow bloggers and visitors

Happy New Year


One of my absolute favourite videos last

Found Art Card

What prompted the Card

False Kindness

Have you ever met someone who acts so kind but inside they are seething with resentment, jealousy and/or bitterness. I knew a woman like that once. She always acted so kind and volunteered to do things, proclaiming what a good Christian she was. Then resentment or jealousy would start to nibble away and she would find reasons to dislike the person or

Creative Motivations

Can you believe I actually think I've run out of things to say, which is ironic considering the failed painter just gave me this very cool award. LOL!! Thankyou Noonan :)

Okay, I have this to say. The holidays are upon us and I can't get my teeth into any serious studio work, which is not to say I haven't spent time plotting. Still I have felt a wee bit guilty about it and then I reread an

On a brighter note

acrylic on canvas board, slightly altered on the computer


Fellow Jafa pal Nancy and I watched the Jackson Pollock movie starring Ed Harris and I thought I would give dripping a try. Hum! What is it people say about it being easy? It isn't a horrible effort, but it doesn't have the lyrical qualities that a Jackson Pollock painting has. Seeing his huge paintings in the real is magnificent.

The Story of the finger bone

Here is the backstory to this piece called "Gold". As I was putting it together I decided I wanted to use a real finger bone. I felt it would add a discomforting brevity and remembrance to all those lost in the annals of history. Perhaps help it be remembered as one of those lessons from history where thousands of innocents died for greed of gold ( in light of current claims lobbied against

Effigy Dolls: Concepción

“As the world grew cold and grey, it was once feared that the sun was approaching the end of its life. It was at the time of the winter Solstice or Brumalia (Dec 25th according to the Julian calendar) that Saturnus, the god of seed and sowing, was honored with a festival called Saturnalia. At the temple of Saturn a sacrifice was made to placate the gods and to ensure that the great light of the

Sketchbook: Painting of a Robin Redbreast

I used to love seeing the fat little robin redbreasts in England. When I was growing up it was considered good luck to see a Robin at the first of the season.Do you know HOW they got such bright red chests?
According to an Old English folk tale "when Jesus was dying on the cross, the Robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in pain.

Found Art: What a Woman!

Rosa Murillo's Found Art Tuesday theme was "woman" and I thought how there are some women who inspire the phrase "what a woman". Louise Nevelson is one of those women.

Discarded Computer part, clay bead skull and a little picture of Louise Nevelson. The picture on wood slides out and on the back is her quote.

”When you put together things that other people


have thrown out, you’re really

Sunday Musings: A matter of Context

I saw an odd thing when taking the dogs for a walk


  and I found it oddly disturbing.
It's not like I am not used to seeing road kill, but somehow seeing a squirrel gently placed on a settee on the side of a road put it into a different context, into the unexpected. I wasn't seeing a piece of road kill anymore, I was seeing a beautiful little animal in deathly repose and felt a sadness for it.

Agitated

more info

which is what happens when I start to get that itch to paint (start of a new series) but I'm not quite ready yet. So I am puttering around doing everything and nothing, doodling in my sketchbook, dithering about on my blogs, preparing my studio and supplies, doing found art (decided to join Rosa Murillo's found art Tuesday project), knitted a hot pink scarf in a week. Been years

Happy Halloween

Artwork by yours truly

GroanersDid you hear about the cannibal who was expelled from school? He was buttering up his teacher.

How does a girl vampire flirt? She bats her eyes. source: brain candy

Boo-tiful Art



A transferred copy of a drawing my kids did
when they were little onto fabric and embellished with paint and beads.

Exhibit Video

It is just a wee video before the crowds hit at 6pm. Nothing fancy, but me thinks you get the picture (ahem, excuse the pun). Sorry I missed you Howard, darn it I was just so busy being a cleaner and then a chicken saviour after the reception ;) but I hoped you enjoy the little tour of Yellow Springs.







Effigy Dolls: Yea! We have another doll to add to our list: dinahmow, jafabrit, cynthia

Example of Yukky Graffiti

Last year I took this photo of the side entrance to Grainger Market , which was built in the 1830's in Newcastle, England. I used to pop into this pub many moons ago, hence the reason for taking the pic, plus I loved the big red doc martin. The scribbles on the side wall is the type of graffiti (tagging)that is really ugly, that has no aesthetic appeal or enhances what is an already a very

BOO!

graffiti sticker for October by jafabrit

Okay, it's a wee bit early for that, but I love October. This is the month when I can open all the windows, smell the leaves, kick leaves, have a leaf fight. Sit outside by the chiminea sipping hot apple cider and watch the flames crackle.


ART NEWS
I once heard an author tell an interviewer she found it hard to discuss her book because she had finished

Catching a mood in a painting

"catching butterflies"
hanging on a wall somewhere in Yellow Springs


Can't remember if I have shown this or not but, I did this a few years ago. Doing any kind of foreshortening is not my idea of fun but even with the challenge of doing the fingers and thumb I so enjoyed doing this painting. It was the mood, the lights and shadows, the brushstrokes and my fave palette, black and white. I

Resin Painting: Political Art

"saints of misinformation"

So it is finished, YES!!!!!!!! It's funny how when you take the pressure off yourself to create you start creating again LOL! Anyway I am finished with all the work for my exhibit next month. So what I did was divide the panel and then cut out around the face with my scroll saw. My husband asked if the face was a photograph. No, it is an oil painting . It is not

For the Love of Vintage

Have you ever come home from shopping and just wanted to set your goodies out and enjoy them for a while? I bought a couple of things from my favourite gallery (gregory's studio of wonders) which ALAS is closing down by the end of next week :( A fellow blogger here wrote a beautiful entry about Gregory's Gallery and it's closing.
I was so pleased with my finds because I have had a yen to get me

Shrine Box and Effigy Wish Doll

"shrine to wishes"

So here she is hanging around :) with a naked dickie bird, a piece of coral my husband found in Hawaii, a charm in the shape a corset, a beautiful little reverse painted vase my daughter gave me, and inside the vase one of my favourite, favourite smells, English Devonshire Violets by Pateman Brothers. She wears a flower chocker made from a patch of suede coat I used to

From Sketchbook to Painting

I thought I would stop faffing with ideas and just get down to working with the sketchbook image I call "dribble!dribble! Since I have enough work for my exhibit I can afford to play with this one. If it works, great it will go in the show. If it doesn't work, so be it.
                                             ****************

A Litte Art Hsitory
One of the first recipients for a sex change

shrine box sky

Oh yea! whoop de do, my major painting for the day was painting a blue sky in the shrine box I made to display my effigy wish doll. However if you think I am complaining then you would be wrong. It was just LOVELY and soothing.





TIP OF THE DAY: When putting on your mask don't forget to check and blow out the interior of your mask so you don't get a wee spider up yer nose. YIKES!!!!!!!

Sketchbook: sketches and painting notes

"she thought" is a photo of a painting I did a few years ago and is about the horrors of the Pol Pot regime. I know she doesn't look Cambodian, but I didn't want to copy the photograph that inspired this painting (looking into the eyes of this woman in her pre execution photo was just too sad). I left out her arms on purpose, an allusion to helplessness to save her baby. The reference  

Wooden quilt kimono

It is "almost" finished. I actually was able to get all the hardware done (with help from dh) and get it hung yesterday. Now I can work on the fabric part of it, then glaze it. Then of course I will take a much better photograph.

If I were to this again I wouldn't LOL! but IF I did I would have drawn the whole thing out on paper first. Working with something lying flat gives you a skewed

Heart paintings and Skatepark fest

You're
reading art by corrine bayraktaroglu originally
posted on Jafabrit's Art. 


Thank
you for dropping by.







Oh yes! this jafa loves hearts :) I think I will make a couple of them for the guest room, and the others are for the exhibit in October at IN A FRAME gallery in Yellow Springs.

Unfortunately due to copyright theft I had to delete my flickr account which is why you don't see an

This Art Life

My husband bought me this teapot 11 years ago in honor of my new found passion, art. I have about 35 teapots in my collection, and I use them all at some time or another. You see I LOVE tea, a strong cup of tea with milk and sugar.When I first came to America there were two things I remember specifically rejecting, paper napkins, and iced tea. Paper napkins I thought a waste of money, and

Worry Dolls and Rocks

I am making a few worry dolls for the art ball machine using left over fabric from the pillow I made for the guest room. I can't make a lot as they take a wee bit time, but I do like to put a few special things in the art balls to keep up the element of surprise.



The legend of Worry Dolls




My son took a pic of this "zipper stone" at the JUMING Museum located about an hour from Taipei

Vampire Rabbits & decorating mojo

I actually deocrated a room and LIKED it. I am not very motivated or adept at decorating, let alone comfortable at picking a colour scheme for a room. I painted a crappy old gold sideboard the same blue as the walls, bought a new suede swivel chair, lamp, mirror and fabric for a throw pillow.
I did have the depressing realization that I don't have many paintings of mine I could use to dress up

Sketchbook: Bunny strikes again

Except it isn't the bad pink rabbit (still haven't got around to working on it). No this is the Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle. The story about it is in the link. I started working on a new graffiti panel with the ideas from this sketchbook page.

Well I can't believe this and I am not sure whether it is a good thing (master of bullshit or a great yakker), but I got TWO awards LOL! My family always

Prams in trees and it's Monday Morning

Gregory at Gregorys Studio of Wonders on Dayton Street just loves to decorate the outside of his shop. His newest thing is hanging odd things in trees. Anyone visiting has to go in, the place is like a Vincent Price Mansion full of odd things, wonderful things, incongruous things. LOVE it.


Current Mood. Dead Chuffed because I have been awarded the "rockin girl blogger" by Noonan. Sweet!

WIP: Wish Doll / Marketing questions

NOTICE

Dear Visitor
Thank you for visiting my blog and my apologies.
 Unfortunately due to the continued infringement, mining and exploitation of my images by individuals, spammers and companies I no longer have the incentive to show images on my blog.


She's coming along, although she needs more hair, another leg, a few embellishments and some accessories. She is a wish doll because I put a

Effigy Doll

Well here is a peek of how my effigy doll is evolving. It's funny how Cynthia has started with the head and I have started with a torso lol! While cynthia's is an expression of ugly feelings, mine is about what I wish, more of a wish doll really. Rather curvy, hint! hint! to the powers that be, nudge! nudge! say no more! oooo la la :)

Anybody else want to join in our doll challenge?

I think

Graffiti Paintings

I finally finished this painting and unfortunately the resin makes photographing it a challenge. I cut out a door and used black plastic coated wire for the hinge. My son prefers the country to a city so I decided to show that with a little painting I did of the countryside. The car is one of his toys from when he was little :)
Bad Bunny on the left got rubbed out. He was too small, so I will

Evil Footstools and WIP

Take a good look at this, because this is an EVIL bloody footstool, I swear it! It attacked me yesterday morning and trapped my little toe. My husband had to extricate me from it. In between my foot in a bucket of cold water, and drinking Tequila's I spent the day full of self pity. On the bright side it means I have to sit at my studio desk and make 160 little bits of art for my art balls, plus

Photos of Gatlinburg and Smokey Mountains

Err, so this is the what the Chimney Tops trail looked like in the Smokey Mountains. I had to swallow a lot of pain meds, bloody mary's and pack ice packs to recover from 2 hours of hiking on this. It is normally a 4 hour hike, but I couldn't make it, despite meds. Oh it was worth it though, just gorgeous. We stayed in Gatlinburg, which incredibly has retained its charm despite a HUGE

I'm off for a few days

So I will leave you with my feathered friends here until I get back.


I've got ballsART BALLS
And it isn't what you might be thinking ;)
Nancy and I are planning on getting a vending machine. We already have the capsules and each capsule will have a little piece of art and a note (a joke, or saying, or trivia or little arty-facts).

Keep yer fingers crossed I can even go on a driving holiday,

Cockroach Time!

Yep, it's time for my seasonal found objects, "decorated rubber cockroaches". Since painting has slowed down while I completely finish my three panels I decided to start my cockroach collection. I did these one's last year, but my new one's are pretty much the same. The screaming mouth roach is one of my favourites. Mine of course are nothing compared to the live cockroach brooch which sport

Art of Nature & Nature of Art

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity . . . and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. "
William Blake
One of the many reasons I love living in Yellow Springs is Glen

sketchbook doodles

When I did these doodles I had no idea what purpose they could serve other than a nice day sketching in Princeton University Museum with a friend of mine. Now I am looking at them I am thinking there are a number of motifs I could use in my graffiti panels. It seems to work out that way. I often don't like my current sketchbooks and it is only after a while that I go back and browse through my

sketchbook: graffiti

After I had glued the WIP pic of the painting I'm working on into my sketchbook the page looked empty and sad, so I played with the graffiti theme. I added bits of things I found around the studio too, like the kissing couple (wrapping paper). The eye top right is from a printout of my angel reverse painting at the left.


Voices



There are some voices I love listening to, and one of those

Assemblage: method & materials

"state of mind"


Dr. John asked: Is there anything you can't use as an artistic medium?

I don't know as I haven't tried them all yet, but I am working on it ;) I would like to paint a junction box in Yellow Springs, but I need to research how to prepare the surface and get permission.

Here is a work I did a few years ago using goat skin stitched onto a box I constructed from spare lumber, a

Happy Feet

My legs were slim back then, on that evening long ago dancing with my irish friend Althea. We were doing the bump to james brown in a disco called Grobs in Newcastle, England. I started dancing with this fella and by the time the evening was over Althea says in her thick irish accent, "you're going to marry him". I said, "don't be daft". Well here I am 31 years later and it is our wedding

Kid's Art and Kippers

I used bugle beads and small beads for the eyes on this one by my son. It is of course mr. and mrs pacman in love and the stork deliving a baby pacman :)

Media and method: I gesso black fabric, trace on the design, paint outlines and fill in with acrylic, use quilting thread around some of the edges, and then embellish with black embroidery thread, beads, buttons etc.

Kipper Trivia


new

WIP: Oh Poo!

"oh Poo!"
I'm stuck in the loo, can't escape, how about you! Okay! Okay! I am NOT a poet. If you don't enjoy potty humor poetry then skip Porcelain Poetry, but if you want to see some AMAZING bathroom fixtures then visit Clark Sorenson's wesbite.
Some artists have already done their paintings for the ChamberPot Gallery, so I thought I had better get my act together and start mine. This is based

Painted Wine Bottle

"Transmutation"

I did paint ON glass once, this is oil on glass with a Harry Lauder branch and is in the gallery "in a frame" in Yellow Springs. My daughter has this fabu tree called a Harry Lauder tree in her front garden. The tree is named after a much beloved scottish entertainer who performed using its crooked branch as a cane. The shrub itself was discovered growing in an English

Artistic Influences

An Interview

Andy Warhol interview at bbc4

Andy Warhol Quotes

I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.

I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs


Favourite Objects



Found this at the Lambertville fle market years ago. It's a really ugly dog sculpture, but

Photograph of Queen Victoria monument

Queen Victoria at St.Nicholas Square, Newcastle.






One of the the things I miss about England is the architecture, the monuments, the history. This statue was one of my favourites in Newcastle (near the Vampire Rabbit at the Cathedral Buildings). Here is a link to a fabulous photo, but what most of the links don't tell you is that the monument sits atop a Plague pit in "which over three

What sort of art do you do?

I've always found this a little challenging to answer since it isn't easy to categorize what I do. I happened upon a website, thanks to a poster on Wet Canvas, called Interstitial Arts Foundation. It is described as "art that flourishes in the borderlands between disciplines, mediums and cultures. Art that blurs the divide between fine art and craft, high art and low. Art that crosses boundaries

The HouseMouse Artist

You're
reading art by corrine bayraktaroglu originally
posted on Jafabrit's Art. 


Thank
you for dropping by.
a little doodle in my sketchbook



I get like this every few months. A need to stay home and enjoy solitude, days of uninterrupted creativity. A time to catch up on letters, the family diary, and pottering around the house. Of course most of my time this morning has been spent

Pottering Around

This is a tiny portion of part of a larger project that the The John Bryan Community Pottery in Yellow Springs, Ohio is sponsoring, which "is a community-wide tile-making project!" Sometimes the arts council will have their meetings at the pot shop and as we talk biz we make a tile. I did the little blue good luck "evil eye" cockroach (that you can barely see) at the bottom. My second one is a

sketchbook: quilt patches in paint

I've always loved quilts and have done the occasional pieces of work that show my love of quilts. Somehow I see a correlation between quilts and my sketchbook. Just like patchwork quilts a sketchbook is a patchwork of ideas, colours, shapes and forms symbolizing the channeling of creative energy coming together as a whole.







On the other hand Ms. Robinson's work is rich with texture,

Found Art and Dark Star Books

For some reason I am having a difficult time getting a good close up on my decoupage stones.

Will try again today.

The owner of Dark Star Books had seen one of my found art decoupaged stones and asked if I would make some to sell in her book store in Yellow Springs. I am quite chuffed about this as Dark Star is a very unique book/comic store to visit, and besides who can resist


Mr. Eko.

Abstract Painting

"moon howl"

acrylic on canvas



Well, again Phillip has inspired another post with a question about abstract art and my interest in it. I painted "moon howl" in 98. I did try to incorporate text into it,but wasn't happy with it and so partly obscured it.









Did these in 2002 and they are acrylic reverse paintings on plastic. These were so much fun to do, just playing with paint,

sketchbook: ex-voto painting

"As a child I dreamed of cats howling at the moon

&

heads following in the night.

The wolf stalks, breath is cold and my heart beats & beats & beats.

I prayed let this night be over, be over, be over,

but the head still follows

&

the wolf waits in the dark corners

&

there is no escape

from the demons that haunt us in the night."





Obviously this isn't what the original

A Rose is a Rose

"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose."

which translates to

"things are what they are".

Gertrude Stein




One of my earliest lessons in drawing was not to draw what you *think* you see, but what it is and what you see. The painting study on the left was about seeing light/dark and shapes (I squinted my eyes when looking at the rose). The drawing on the right is obviously about only

Sketchbook: african violets

NOTICE

Dear Visitor
Thank you for visiting my blog and my apologies.
 Unfortunately due to the continued infringement, mining and exploitation of my images by individuals, spammers and companies I no longer have the incentive to show images on my blog.









Drawing of African Violets from life using black and white conte crayon on grey drawing paper.
"To the ancient Romans, violets were