Don't ask for the water.

Anna Betts

I really like these pieces.

I love that this is "student work", that they're so simple, so quiet, and so bold. They're really just so... everything-that's-good-about-Etsy. 

 The same woman who makes these tiles also happens to be my new favorite blogger and etsy shop, so check it out!

Sh-Boom

Sarah Morris

I like this.

and this.

and this.

and this.

Meanwhile, I'm making this:

It seems anti-climactic... but I'm starting to think that it's not. I've always loved line, pattern, repetition, and anything that confuses the eye (or, more accurately, the brain). I'm interested in the difference between what exists and what we perceive-- and the differences between the collective "we see" and the individual "I see". One could argue that these differences are easiest to discuss through op art but I think it trickles down through the styles and is important to each individual viewing experience, regardless of genre. As an artist, I recognize people's differences in perception and I'm acutely aware that I view the world through a different filter than everyone and anyone else. I desire to communicate visually with others both because of and in spite of these differences. 

These pieces remind me of this struggle and remind me of these ideas more acutely than a lot of other work and this reminder enriches my other viewing experiences.

Brown Sugar

Melanie Bilenker

picture taken from The Jealous Curator 

She uses her hair to capture and create moments in jewelry, Victorian style.

(Roughly) in her own words:

The Victorians used ground hair and pigment to secure the memory of a lost love. "In much the same way, I secure my memories through photographic images rendered in lines of my own hair, the physical remnants"

I love these. They're intimate, precious, careful, well-crafted, and beautiful.

All I want is you

Emily Eveleth

It's no secret that I love doughnuts. I blame it on watching too much Twin Peaks.

I also happen to be continually mesmerized by fat and the body. It's malfunctions and disfunctions and proper function. As a scientist, I've dedicated my life to figuring out how things work and how we work on a microscopic level but this obsession has made me prone to romanticism of the body as a whole. 

 When the complexity of something small like a cell is so overwhelming, it's hard to comprehend an entire body working, short of magic. For me, these paintings capture that magic and question the relationship between our bodies and what we put in them.

To me, the body is gross and gorgeous. What we do to it and feed it is equally gross and gorgeous. Gross and gorgeous is really my thing. and it appears to be Emily Eveleth's thing, too.