She goes by the name “Glass Chi” professionally. These words – glass and Chi – combine specifically to represent both her and her art. Chibuzor Isiogu describes herself as glass-like: fragile, yet strong; the sum of the parts greater than the pieces.
“New Age” can conjure lousy memories of a funky store ripe with too much incense, or a trippy movie scene. But, lest we forget, the so-called New Age did help popularize meditation, yoga and acupuncture long before they became available on every corner.
While the stereotype of starving artists living off of ramen noodles and paint fumes isn’t always accurate – painter Damien Hirst’s net worth is reportedly several hundred thousand dollars, for example – emerging artists tend to have lean funds.
Once a children’s hobby, collecting baseball cards has become as much a National Pastime as the game itself. The first cards were created in the mid-19th century, with tobacco companies later including cards with their products to seduce buyers into purchasing enough smokes to complete the set. Kids got in on the action when cards started appearing in chewing gum packages around the time of the Great Depression.
March 18 and 19 marked the 28th anniversary of the annual Art Detour event hosted by local non-profit, Artlink, Inc. This self-guided tour of artists’ studios, art galleries and local businesses in and around Downtown Phoenix is also the foundation of monthly events like the First Fridays Art Walk and Third Fridays, when a lot of venues hold their opening receptions. The event also featured pop-up spaces, live painting, entertainment and specialty tours.
James Schwarz has a background in theater. Not on the stage, but building it. He's a scenic carpenter, to be precise, surrounded by a world of 3-D art, with all the world his diorama. Schwarz is currently studying ceramic art at Mesa Community College and chiseling his way into the heart of the local art world.
It’s that time of year again, when the annual Paint PHX event brings local and visiting muralists together to create large-scale artwork in diverse and magnificent styles on the walls of buildings around Phoenix.
Have you ever spotted a colorful mural on the side of a building or an abstract sculpture in a park and wondered why it’s there?
If the quality of the art exhibitions that have opened during this early part of the new year are indicators of what to expect from area galleries and museums in 2016, then we are in for an exceptional year. Of these recent openings, one of the most powerful is Betye Saar’s Still Tickin’, which opened at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) on January 30.
Humans have fabricated pottery since some ancient knucklehead threw a ball of mud in the embers. When that clay was stone-hard by morning, a sharper friend had an epiphany, and ceramics was born. Over generations, artisans improved on functional clay containers by making them gorgeous. Now, your locally-made ceramic gem is calling you.
Still life aside, nudes and landscapes are among the most prevalent subjects in art. From Degas and Dalí to Andy Warhol and Thomas Kinkade, nearly every famous artist – whether painter, sculptor or photographer – has depicted the human body or our natural surroundings.
Let’s face it: Your office needs more than a computer, a desk, a thirsty plant and a few random mementos. It needs walls that tell a story – your story.
Each December, thousands of people flock to Miami Beach for Art Basel’s large-scale, self-titled exhibition presenting modern and contemporary art. The organization has been hosting art events since its inception in 1970, and the Miami Beach fair began in 2002. That inaugural event featured nearly 300 galleries from around the world and drew in a crowd of nearly 100,000 people, a big mix of whom were art collectors, gallerists, artists, and members of the media.
Along with losing weight and eating healthfully, saving money is one of the top New Year’s resolutions for 2016. Counting pennies usually means cutting down on daily extravagances like morning lattes and trading nights on the town for Netflix and chill.
You only need one look at Deborah Hodder’s current exhibition at downtown’s Five15 Arts Gallery to completely understand its title: Entangled. The show features the artist’s figurative ceramic sculptures, many of which fuse together multiple subjects into one piece.
Street art is a hard route to fame. While Shepard Fairey (of the OBEY campaign), Keith Haring and anonymous British graffiti artist Banksy all burst into the limelight with their surreptitiously scrawled designs, most street artists hide under cover of night. Their works are constantly in danger of damage, or repainting by taggers and city clean-up crews.
Larry McLaughlin’s little dog sculptures think they’re big. Larry has a pack of “untitled” canine critters about 10 inches high and maybe a foot long. (The dachshund’s specs officially wiggle in a couple of inches longer.)
Opening an art gallery can be an adventurous undertaking. For fine artist and designer Jeff Zischke, who opened Art | Object, a gallery and showroom, in October, it’s also an exciting addition to his already hearty list of career activities.
Rain or shine, the Tempe Festival of the Arts will take over Tempe’s Mill Avenue District for a three-day extravaganza of art, food, wine, beer and entertainment December 4-6.
Though it has been quietly open since April, the Ed Mell Gallery made its presence more official with an inaugural public reception on November 7.
Tell Arizona native artist Chad Little something can only happen “when pigs fly,” and he'll show you a pig flying – specifically, the winged oinker in his cleverly titled painting “The Swine Flew.”
The ungulate art is part of Little's animal-centric art show “Dogs, Frogs & Flying Hogs.” The exhibit, on display at the Cattle Track Arts Compound in Scottsdale through November 28, benefits Valley nonprofit Altered Tails, a clinic specializing in high-quality, low-cost spay/neuter services.
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