My Ode To Billie
Karen Safer, a native California photographer, artist, writer, and poet with a musical bent, was exposed to California motifs: light, palm trees, the sea, music, and vernacular architecture that defined and influenced her left-handed aesthetic. An early life of travel shaped her love of the exotic paired with an eye for the accidental, unusual, “formal” and “the beautiful” that jiggled the lens/frame of her eye. She received a master’s degree in art, worked in major design and international architectural firms, and photographed in over 230 countries (and territories). Influenced by artists and photographers from Atget to Cindy Sherman, she has won numerous awards in national and international competitions/exhibitions, is included in private collections, and is a member of many arts and other organizations. She is a self-described old romantic soul with intellectual cravings.
I got a camera and some crayons as a kid,
journeyed along a path in life – far from what I’d expected,
moved from youth to middle age,
did some work, had some fun, got high, got low,
and just continue doing it – never tiring of the next visual surprise.
– Life is still a mystery, after all.
My Sister Carm
Charlene’s art journey started at a young age, from about the age of 5 she used to paint alongside her Granny with oil paints. Charlene went on to graduate from the University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. She has explored a wide variety of mediums including printmaking, charcoal, pencils, acrylics, inks, photography, and watercolor painting.
One of the most significant moments in her life was losing her sister to depression. Following this, Charlene has made it her goal to release kindness and happiness into the world, usually through her art, but often just by simple everyday acts of kindness, like complimenting a stranger. Having suffered from mental health issues herself, Charlene understands the inner turmoil of feeling depressed and wanting to be happy. Of succumbing to feeling grief but staying in control of those emotions without letting them overwhelm you. Of trying to feel things as opposed to bury those feelings.
She uses her art to help keep her mental health and is currently exploring meditative art. Her aspiration is not only to be happy, but also to release positive emotions into the world, be that via her artwork, or her honest demeanor as a human.
This is my beautiful sister Carmen. She battled silently with depression. We had no idea that she was at war with life. When she lost the battle and took her own life, it shook me to the absolute core of my core and cracked my soul in half. I miss her every single day. I miss her laugh, her jokes, her insights, her friendship. I miss our connection.
My Souls Chromaticity
In 2020 at 65 it had been decades since I made a body of art. Since then, I’ve been honored with 3 first-place awards in photography. The University of Delaware gave me a one-woman show. My work has been seen from coast to coast including several times through the HMVC Gallery in NY and Las LaGuna Gallery in CA. Pictorem based out of Montreal, Canada, has me as a featured artist. Two books were presented to me. Nobis II and Emerald Coast Review.
The photographs I create are abstractions in fluidity, rich in joy, color, pattern, and curiosity. I’ve been printing on aluminum. I grew up in the Mid-Atlantic and later spent much of my young adult life in New England. For the past 28 years, the Deep South has been home. I have a Master’s in Social Work and worked as a social worker and a realtor. In the South, I married and raised a daughter. I also helped plant the seed that grew into the Mississippi Children’s Museum and worked at 2 art museums as a docent for 17 years.
I create photos as peaceful, playful, healing stimuli by drawing upon different objects and melding them into a unified whole. While working I often think about how our country needs to heal and find unity. Part of my process is setting up compositions and visually weaving together beautiful glass, flowing fabric, and sometimes surprise elements with vibrant colors and patterns into integrated fluid formations. I then photograph tightly cropped, close to my setup. I intend to transcend and transform objects into images that visually excite while calming the soul.
A lifelong passion for art and artists influenced my work. I nod to feminist artist Miriam Schapiro, a leader in the Pattern and Decoration Movement. She frequently celebrated the invisible women designers of fabrics within her work, in both painting and printing, creating what she called Femages. (feminist collages). Having lived much of my life by the shore, I have always loved the play of light in watery reflections. In turn, I am drawn to artists that capture light. The glass sculptures of Stephen Rolfe Powell delight me by turning solids into liquids and back to flowing forms of solid in a graceful play of movement, pattern, and light. The last of many admired artists I will mention is Color Field artist Mark Rothko, he believed in the visceral effect of color and advised his viewers to stand very close to his large images with an open mind to let the effect move the observer. He wanted people to have an experience with his pictures. I also seek to have my work have a visceral impact on the viewer.
In these unsettling times of polarization, and social, political, and environmental strife, I’m transforming light, pattern, and color into a visual oasis. I seek to make abstract images that embrace the value of joy, rich with fluidity and kindness. As an artist and former therapist, I invite the viewer in.
Each of my images can be ordered in small jewel-like prints or large dynamic pieces. I have been printing on ChromaLuxe, a high-definition aluminum, and on white Dibond aluminum panels framed or unframed.
My Spiritual Mothers
Drawing since childhood, Barbara focuses on the figure and faces. She graduated from Thiel College, Greenville, PA with a BA in Fine Art. Besides being a seasoned portrait artist, she has also been a graphic artist, typographer, theater set designer, Ukrainian Egg designer, and political cartoonist. She primarily works on medium-toned paper using colored pencils.
Barbara counts as one of her many commissions a portrait of one of Jimmy Carter’s grandsons. It is said to be hanging in his office at the Carter Center. Three of her portraits have been exhibited at the Atlanta International Airport where each of them received an Honorable Mention.
She illustrated and designed a book on spiritual awakening written by Dianne Hiltman, “Now Give It Away”, which is available on Amazon. Drawing political cartoons has been a wonderful way to express her frustration. Her audience sees them as yard signs and greeting cards.
My Spiritual Mothers Surround Me
Exploring her physical and spiritual journey in life, this young and innocent Everygirl isn’t alone. Her own journey will be inspired and informed by the brave women who came before her; women who gave their emotional, intellectual, and physical support to the causes they believed in. Some women pictured and named here either risked or gave their very lives to further their political and spiritual beliefs. Everygirl has much to learn from their life, sacrifices, and struggles.
As a portrait artist, I find great meaning and power in the image of the face. Names are very powerful as well. In some belief systems knowing the name of deities or demons can summon and overpower them. Coupling the faces and corresponding names renders this piece an amulet, accompanying Everygirl and therefore us on our separate paths. We are never truly alone when we remember our Spiritual Mothers.
My Story
Reema Ameer was born in Baghdad, Iraq into a family of artists which exposed her to different forms of art from an early age.
Known for her uplifting style, Reema’s work evokes a sense of hope and love. She transferred her personal painful experiences into poetic artworks.
Born into a family of celebrated Iraqi artists, I have grown up immersed in creativity & art. I am a painter that uses her personal painful memories of war & experience with the loss of loved ones after a bombing into beautiful creations that evoke a sense of hope, peace & love.
My Sun Shower Goddess Chalk Pastels Version
Anson Liaw is an accomplished illustrator based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Upon graduating from the Communication & Design Department’s Design Advertising Program at the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University), his illustrations have become an integral part of numerous projects, spanning magazines, book publications, corporate communications, packaging, and advertising.
Anson’s illustrations embody a critical viewpoint, addressing a wide spectrum of subjects, including social, political, and cultural issues, and lifestyle matters.
Drawing inspiration from everyday life, personal memories, and imagination, he skillfully combines various elements to construct new and unexpected meanings. His work sparks discussions, encouraging viewers to engage, appreciate, and discover something new about the world every day.
Anson’s talent has garnered recognition and accolades from prestigious organizations such as American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles (SILA), Applied Arts Magazine, and 3×3, The Magazine of Contemporary Illustration, among others. His illustrations have been featured in renowned publications and exhibitions worldwide, including Luerzer’s Archive and “Illustration: A Theoretical and Contextual Perspective,” Third Edition by Alan Male (Author), Bloomsbury Visual Arts in the United Kingdom.
Throughout his career, Anson has collaborated with a diverse range of clients, including Time Magazine, McDonald’s, The New York Times, Nestle, and The National Ballet of Canada, to name a few. Additionally, he shares his love and passion for the arts by teaching at OCAD University and Virtute Innovation Academy in Canada, nurturing the next generation of creative minds.
“I feel I am useless as an artist when I am happy. Pain is what creates my artwork. The painful experiences that people go through as they journey through life in the world around us from childhood to adulthood which in many ways is full of chaos and hardship are what sparks and motivates me to possess my objectives to make purposeful artwork that hopefully generates meaningful and fulfilling empathetic connections to people. As I observe and interpret the world around me combined with creating my artwork, I discover time and time again that true beauty lies within the darkness and that sometimes nightmares are the birthplace of some of the best ideas for an artist.”
My Sunrise
Kimmy grew up along the California coast. Coastal scenes from her childhood (such as the ocean, sky, and sunsets) emerge as a strong voice in her artistic expression, although often in quite abstract ways.
A self-taught artist, Kimmy was heavily influenced to continue her art by her one art professor in college, San Francisco Bay Area artist Frank Lobdell. It was through his teaching style, that she realized the freedom of expression available through art and particularly through painting. With the simple words keep painting and no other critique, Lobdell‘s encouragement has kept her painting through her adult life. Her art does not fit a category as she was drawn to artistic expression as a place of absolute freedom.
Kimmy’s eclectic style uses vibrant colors, natural light, texture variations, and layers of alternating mediums, often including natural or reused objects as collage elements. Kimmy also uses photography to capture multiple paintings and the inclusion of shadows and other features. Her art captures a feeling at a moment in time, often in a natural environment.
My Two Flowers – Mera Do Phool
Subodh Maheshwari was born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, North India where she learned folk art and classical music. She passionately believes: “In the threshold of my life, my present is the window to the past and a key to the future”. She acquired her degrees and studied art at Agra University, California State University of Fullerton, and the University of California Irvine. Subodh has won numerous awards, including the Regional Fellowship Award at UCI in 1986, the Bharat Gaurav Award in India in 2015, and the 60 Masters Award in 2017, 2018, and 2019. She is also registered in Marquis’s “Who’s Who in America”, the standard in biographical information. Her paintings have also won awards in a variety of categories including landscape, open, all women, nature, elements, seasons, and abstract.
Subodh is a diversified artist who enjoys telling stories through her artwork, whether it is through landscape, flowers, or abstract art. Her art is a fusion of Eastern symbolism and Western composition, influenced by 16th and 17th century Rajasthani and Mogul art, and accented by poetry, passages, and phrases in Hindi, Sanskrit, and English. She admires Georgia O’Keeffe for her floral influence, and Frida Kahlo for her courage. Whether it is the serene beauty of nature, her spirituality, or the current political climate, she finds inspiration. Having a life shared between India and America, she sees the beautiful similarities, like love which transcends all borders. Highly individual in her style, her works are described as emotional, mysterious, personal, spiritual, and humorous.
Mystery Of The Forest
Taskin Butt has been drawing and painting since she can remember. She works across various mediums such as oils, acrylic, and mixed media and has worked with pen/ink. Her landscapes are a reflection of her external worldly experiences while her abstract works are a reflection of her inner intuitive experiences. She derives her inspiration to paint from everyday life and the beauty and grace of nature around her. Her emotions and feelings dictate which colours and shapes are brought onto canvas resulting in multi-layered abstract and figurative images. Through her dynamic use of colors, vibrant paintings take life. When she paints, she follows her inner voice, her intuition flows, and playful soulful landscapes merge with multi-meaning abstract. She loves variety and does not follow any specific trend but has created her own distinctive style. As she follows her intuition the paint almost paints itself, and her trust in the painting process creates momentum that sustains the entire painting journey. Her work reflects her free spirit and intuitive and spontaneous vibration. It celebrates her love for nature and at the same time expresses her inner experiences through paintings that evoke a sense of serenity and spirituality, influencing the viewer in a positive and healing way as some themes she expresses include freedom, hope, renewal, and connection. She has been selected to be represented by Rossocinabro Gallery, Italy, Monat Gallery, Spain, and Monteoliveto Gallery, France, and believes learning in art is a limitless journey with never-ending possibilities. She aims to continue to grow in her artistic journey and her ultimate aim is to have her art shared and make someone smile or move emotionally through her work. When Taskin is not painting in her studio, she is meeting other artists and visiting new places. She currently works from her own studio in Nairobi, Kenya.
Growing up in a place like Africa, a land full of color, vast open landscapes,s and scenic coastal areas has contributed to my deep passion for art. I am inspired by nature and I truly feel that there is beauty in every piece of the natural world. After graduating, I participated in various United Nations Environmental Art initiatives such as the ‘Art for Environment Project’ showcasing paintings by artists representing environmental themes such as deforestation, water and plant conservation. Some of my artwork is observational and inspired by places I have visited while others express my inner feelings and emotions. I have received training from an American-based Fine Art Company – Artists Network F & W Media Inc. as well as continuing to learn from other professional artists. I believe nature has a lot to offer and believe the power of art increases exponentially when we realize the roles we can play to preserve the spaces in nature and the memories that sparked our passion. Such experiences as walking along a beach and hearing the crashing waves against the shoreline or the fresh breeze on a peaceful day or even the excitement of seeing a flower blossom are moments that I feel art allows me to express and share with the world. I regularly use the palette knife and apply impasto to my work and believe it adds texture and depth. I have had the pleasure to have my work exhibited locally in my home country and globally.