Mystical Clouds Flambe

The city could not compete with the silhouetted water towers in the distance.

"The Building of the City Beautiful", Joaquin Miller's Poems

This series was influenced by Joaquin Miller's book, "The Building of the City Beautiful". I stumbled across his book from 1905 at Strand bookstore, NYC, with beautiful pages and gorgeous tattered edges.  I applied black gesso just below each title and created my personal vision of city beautiful. It is an intermingling of theories and cultures, a city where from chaos comes unity.

I found the language too filled with religious content, so I redacted it.  From this darkness emerges new life. The outcome is my interpretation from his title, each page a new experience of the theme.

Upon further research, the poet Joaquin Miller, turns out to be an extraordinary character.  Born either in 1839 or 1841 in Indiana, in a town he claimed his father founded while heading West by wagon. He worked as a pony express rider, fought Indians and then joined them for a year, and finally found his resting spot in Oakland, California, now called Joaquin Miller Park.  He was a great believer in quality of life with natural surroundings.

"The park's 500 acres are heavily wooded with coast redwoods, coast live oaks, and pines. Many of the trees were originally planted by Miller himself. The Oakland Hills location provides panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay area. The park features include miles of hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails, an off-leash dog area, an amphitheater, and picnicking."

Joaquin_Miller

Callie
callieart.com

A Time of Horrible Change, 2016

An election year like never before.  An artist's job is about reflecting the times as they are a'changing.  Well here it goes!  I am expressing.  I live in the great world of NYC, and people are becoming more aggressive, with our president elect's permission.  A man deeply absorbed with his best interest in mind, with no regard as to how the real world works.  He is so incredibly out of touch with the people he made promises to, and yet they bought his rhetoric and now we all will pay for that insanity.  How did this come to be?

Tell Me Your Octopus Story

A new idea for a children's book encounter: the child tells you, the listener, a story of their own creation. Each page, book encounter, leads to a new and mysterious story. Encouraging the child's mind to imagine...

More can be viewed at:
Calleart.com

Cemetery Creatures

Above photo: ground hog

An early evening stroll through Green-Wood Cemetery, NYC, displayed an above normal array of animal life.  Below are some of the creature sightings.  Typically I see and hear frogs, geese, and turtles.  This particular evening was filled with ground hogs and young raccoons running around in search of food and water. The monk parrots are always found here, they have a huge communal nest on the Gothic entrance of the cemetery, on 25th Street.

Enjoy!  Callie Art

Feast of Lights, Oil Painting Commission 2016

Feast of Lights

2016, 48" x 40" Oil on canvas 

This series was created as a commission for a risk management firm in the Wall Street area, NYC. Designed to have a calming affect, with a stirring of anticipated excitment.  They are in the drying phase, soon to be delivered to the company.  

Unwarranted anxiety about how they will be received swells.

Fantasies in Textile Art

Fantasies in Textile Design
by CallieArt

I wish I could break into the textile art scene.  The how to go about it is what baffles me most.  I have spoken to people who think I have already made it, I have not in my mind.  I can do the designs, and win some contests, or donate designs to my local cycle club for them to design a shirt with, but how does one actually get picked up from a company to have a line created?

I have sent my ideas to puzzle makers and scarf companies, and have looked into mass producing a line on my own. But you really need to sell it somewhere, creation is just one step. I did once sell a design concept to Yeshiva University for a scarf creation, that worked out very nicely.  I have had a painting used for a book cover, and designed art for the MTA subway station.  I have the bug and desire to do more.

The idea of taking art and transposing it in yet another level intrigues me. I will continue to push the piece, take it in different directions to see just how far it can go. Hopefully I will catch a companies eye and be asked to create a line in my style. Until then, persistence and playfulness ensues.

Below: Gunk Cyclists wearing CallieArt shirt.

Koi Study, by Callie Hirsch

I will never forget the first time I witnessed Monet's Stacks of Wheat Series.  It showed me the relevance of doing a study on one subject.  To really meditate on the visual and see just what it has to offer.  Below is my Koi Study.  Their beauty and mystery is captured and frozen in time beneath.

Taken over a series of visits to the Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY.

New Works on Paper, 2016

No Gray Areas, 2016, 9" x 11" acrylic on hand made black paper.



Nerves Unfurling, Reconnecting

Recent surgery left me tired and hardly able to paint for long periods of time. Working at home on a table, the following works were created. As the weeks went by, my hours at the table grew.  This series kept my spirits up and the tv off.  I call it the Recovery Series, or on my website: Nerves Unfurling, Reconnecting.





Nerves being cut greatly assists with recovery, it keeps the pain manageable. but then they start growing back, reconnecting, and at times, misfiring.  The sensations are jarring, it makes you really ponder the body's healing process. The twitching lessens, the feeling of normalcy returns, and you are happy to be of healthy body and mind once more. These paintings reflect the moods I encountered while waiting for the sense of normalcy to return.  Patience is what I was told I needed, I think what I really wanted to hear is that I would return to a normal state, that my recovery would not forever scar me and leave me misshapen.  I wanted re-assurance.  Art making allowed me to leave my body and just be in my mind, to forget for some period of time what I was going through.  Of course in the end the body pulls us back in.  The fight of mind over body can only be sustained for but so long....  For sale on Etsy,