Moving the Blog to Typepad

I have decided to move the blog over to typepad. The platform is more flexible and will allow me to do more things.

Please click here -------------->  Isabelle on Typepad


Thanks for following me over :-)

Fairy Tales and Vampires invading Etsy: The World of Vladimir Stankovic

One of the reasons I love Etsy is that selling your work there (or even shopping for that matter) is the best way I know to “stick it to the man”. It means that you don’t have to wait until established galleries or major art dealers decide that your art is good enough to be shown, you can just show it and sell it yourself, and meet other art makers in the process.
You would be amazed at the amount of incredible artists you can find on Etsy. One of them lives right up there in the coldest part of Finland called Lapland (and I had to double check this on my map) where they have their share of monsters and scary creatures, at least in the mind of Vladimir Stankovic. His shop is called “Fairytales and Vampires” and his images are so beautiful I have a few of them on my Christmas list. Check it out:




Beautiful Feeling



Magic Mushrooms



Secret Gathering



Praying Mantis



Her Majesty






Northern Dream




The Servant Girl


http://www.etsy.com/shop/vladimirsart?ref=seller_info

Savage Surrealism: The Art of Roland Topor

As a little kid growing up in France I had little exposure to art or culture. I was however, without knowing it, already interested in drawing and painting. French television at this time had only 3 channels (I don’t think they have that many more today) and I remember clearly being shocked and intrigued when artist Roland Topor started showing his strange surrealist style in TV programs for adults and even for kids. I think it left on my mind a strong impression and influences my taste in art to this day. Roland Topor was a painter, an illustrator, a writer and a filmmaker and created the most bogus and fascinating kid’s program I have ever seen called “Telechat”. Here you can see his portrait and a sample of his illustrations:














There is not very much on the net about him but here are a couple of links. One a Facebook page and the other on Wikipedia.

Art, Zen and Tea

My intention for today was to take a trip to old Hollywood to discover the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. I had heard the current exhibit, “Five Elements, One World” representing mainly Japanese artists, was a sight to see. I made it there and enjoyed the art but what really impressed me was a demonstration of a Japanese Tea Ceremony. They call it "Chanoyu" and it is an art form in itself. Tea is prepared and served following a slow and mindful ritual. It must also be done according to the 4 principles of Harmony with the universe, Respect, Purity and Tranquility. Tea was prepared, served and enjoyed with precise and mesmerizingly slow movements, each of them meaningful. This took me back twelve hundred years ago, before the maddening invention of multi-tasking.....




Here are some images from the gallery:

by Michael Moon

by Shiu Miu

by Emi Motokawa

by Renee Amitai

If you would like to see more you can visit the gallery here

The Digital Art of Maggie Taylor

I discovered Maggie Taylor’s art only this morning and immediately fell under her spell. She uses photography, a computer and a scanner to compose haunting images with a surrealistic vision. Here is a sample of her work, you can see more of it on her very magical site.

Girl in a Bee Dress


The Rehearsal


Mood Lifter


Boys with Thinking Caps


The Beacon

The Artist Statement. We are kind of faking it.

"If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint" -Edward Hopper


" An artist cannot talk about his art more than a plant can discuss horticulture" -Jean Cocteau


Have you ever been to an art exhibit and seen a mysterious, beautiful and clever piece of art? Wanting to know more about the intention of the artist you started reading the artist statement only to find yourself more puzzled and slightly put off by the overly sophisticated language, complicated sentences and annoyingly confusing paragraph?
My guess is that more often than not artists have no clue why they create the art they create.
They only know that they are naturally compelled to paint or draw or take pictures but trying to explain why seems completely unnatural. Check out this hilarious video, it clearly demonstrates what we are going through when writing the dreaded artist statement:

Garden of Eden

Artist Irene Hardwicke Olivieri has a lot to say. She says it in her paintings with lines of text in tiny letters running along the curves of naked women. She also says it with armies of bugs and caterpillars or tiny critters running along the trees and also great big beasts. Her paintings are a lush description of nature, often made on pieces of wood or doors, I love the naive quality of it.