Creative Thresholds

by Kim Vergil

Beyond the Curtain 20×20

Blizzard Conditions 24×30

Descending 30×30

Face à Face 24×30

Fenced 20×20

Fire in the building Hot Hot 12×12

Horse Rider 30×30

Miss Lady 30×30

Opening Celebrations 30×30

Place of Reflection 30×30

Portrait of a Masked Woman 48×36

Sitting with Fire 30×30

So Says…. The Sea 36×36

Tipped 36×48

Wolf and Company at the Door 30×30

Woman in a Red Dress 24×30

Artist: Kim Vergil

I can remember my dreams all the way back to my childhood and now, paying attention to and working with my night dreams has changed the way I see life and my creative process.  I am a Mixed Media artist working and living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  Using my photographs of everyday life from the mundane to the fantastic as a starting point of raw material I collage them onto a canvas like we use the images from our everyday lives to create our dreams…  I use paint as the emotional energy that binds these images into a whole.  Then the adventure of discovery begins.  Once I have discovered the dream scene, dreamscape or dream mood that resonates for me within each piece I can return to a technique and sense of focus that fine tunes the story.  The hardest part and my goal is to work with and never lose any of the original energy, brushstroke and spirit within each piece. If a portrait shows up with one eye there is a reason and I leave it that way.  I always try to put ego aside and work as much as possible from the wealth of the creative, unconscious mind, that true nonjudgement part of ourselves, as possible.

I still get butterflies in my stomach every time I work on a piece and wonder where it will lead me next. Nothing is predetermined about my work.   An excitement of finding the characters and a sense of place is always present while I am in the creative place.  My work is about being curious about life and living and Searching and finding meaning within the Chaos.  I love to decode my night dreams and discover the messages from the deep that are revealed.  The imagination is filled with unlimited potential to decode, reflect, problem solve and grow. This work is about sharing portals into the imagination that create stories, my stories and your stories and sharing them out into the universe.

Dreaming is an essential part of our lives, learning to decode and use our dreams to understand the chaos of the world around us is a tool.  I feel part of my works are a playground for learning to seek out, find and see the world through new lenses.  Enjoying the process of searching and finding story.  Our stories…Then using these stories to look back at ourselves to better understand ourselves.  Every evolving, always changing and forever fascinating.  Welcome to the journey….

www.KIMvergil.com

https://www.facebook.com/ArtistKimVergil/

https://www.instagram.com/kimvergil/

https://www.pinterest.com/kimvergil/

by  Zoë Boston

Artist: Zoë Boston

HER NAME IS ZOË BOSTON.

Zoë is an artist in almost every sense of the word.   She has been drawing for as long as she can remember, but did not begin painting until she returned to the West Coast.  Born in Los Angeles and raised in Upstate NY, she now resides in the Oakland Bay area.

Zoë’s inspirations come from God, life, love, music, and everything in between.  She is dedicated to being true to herself, which in-turn, transforms her work into passion on canvas.

“My goal has never been to be different. Most humans are trying to be different, and, as a result, most are actually quite the same. My goal is to be myself, andjust being myself already makes me different. There will never, in all of creation, and throughout time, be anyone like me or you again, so be yourself and love who you are!

As far as what I do, what you see on canvas, I’m calling it art to simplify the means of my expression. These pieces were birthed from the passions of life, living freely, being myself, and loving who I truly am. I use acrylic on canvas to express myself, and I continue to grow with each new piece.

You are not just witnessing art, but pieces of my life’s journey. I look forward to being able to share it with you!”

Website: ZOEBOSTONART.COM

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theycallmezb/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZoeBostonArt/

Email: Zoebostonart@gmail.com

You can find more of Zoë’s work at the following locations.

Abrams Claghorn Gallery
1251 Solano Ave
Albany, CA 94706
(510) 526-9558
http://abramsclaghorn.com/

Zachary’s Chicago Pizza
5801 College Avenue
Oakland, CA 94618
(510) 655-6385
www.zacharys.com

In addition, Zoe’s work has been featured on the cover of, and included in, the December 2016 publication of TrapXArt magazine, Volume 2.

by Gavin Garcia

Ana – oil on canvas

KB Bed

KB with cushion – pen and paper

Life model I – pen on paper

Lying with her – Mono print

Self-portrait

KB II – pencil on paper

Ana portrait – mono print

KB

Drypoint, self-portrait

KB with cat – pencil on paper

Where there used to be a theatre.

Neil Young

Dylan

For Francis

Artist: Gavin Garcia

I am an artist and a musician from Gibraltar, living and working in London. Within my work I try to explore the human form through the study of individuals whilst hoping to create images which capture the vulnerability and beauty of people. At times I focus on the surrounding landscape and its encompassing attraction, be it man made or crafted by nature. By drawing, painting and printing I use the strength of line as well the power of colour to create images that hold meaning.

Website: www.gavingarciaart.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gavingarciaart

Twitter: @gavinkgarcia

Video to recent interview: https://www.facebook.com/gbcthehub/videos/1168111816606273/

by Carla Aaron-Lopez

Carla writes about the experience of being an emerging artist. Her previous posts are: Notes from kingCARLA, Notes from kingCARLA 2, Notes from kingCARLA 3.

Kevin Bongang, Mural in Edgewood neighborhood, Atlanta

“Kevin just snapped,” said Corey. And he did.

One year, his drawings looked a certain way and the next year they were on another level. They took on their own whimsical nature unlike the controlled squiggles that Kevin was known for drawing. His color palette no longer looked like someone studying color but of a man that had created his own world and the colors informed the mood of the characters that inhabited this make-believe space. I was blown away by someone that I felt had potential but wasn’t sure where he was going with all that. Half of the time I don’t even know where I’m going.

I had this conversation about Kevin with Corey, an artist friend of mine, a few years ago before I left Atlanta. Corey is another person that also snapped when it came to his art. It is his series of female portraits that are just striking. At the time, I didn’t really understand the ramifications of Corey’s statement about Kevin or what it meant to truly snap artistically. Years later on a spontaneous trip back to Atlanta, I saw one of Kevin’s newest public art murals and began to understand the power of snapping as an artist.

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Demoiselles_d%27Avignon.jpg

As much as I’ve studied art, there is a legit moment when the artist snaps. The work changes and evolves to an actual visual statement versus a singular creative object. Hobbyists make creative objects. Artists make visual statements that force viewers to think and see the world differently . As cliched as it is to use Picasso as an example, he snapped the day he walked into a museum, saw some African masks and changed the direction of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. That same painting changed the entire direction and nature of modern art in the late 20th century. Picasso makes art history and we all know the rest of the story from there.

What went through his head the moment he saw those masks? We can speculate but we weren’t there nor can we go back in time to have a Being John Malkovich moment and crawl into his mind to see what he really thought.

We just know that it was at that moment, he snapped.

Honestly, I’m waiting for my moment to snap. I’m in awe and envy of my friends that have had their moment. I want to evolve but I have let fear get in the way. Fear of not making something mind-numbingly great. Fear of not hitting the black intellectual nail on the head. Fear of getting fired for making super controversial feminist (yes, I’ve finally admitted that I am a feminist) work because I’m a middle school art teacher and the list goes on. It’s these types of fears that keep me from progressing the way I would like to as an artist and I don’t know when or how I’m going to get rid of them. I’m on the side of my proverbial mountaintop but scared to continue.

Eventually, I’m going to snap too. Or just be stuck in waiting until I quit making art.

I look up to many artists that have all had that moment somewhere in their career. Sadly, majority of them are men due to the art world’s lack of compassion for all women artists. Even more sadly is that if those same women artists have never had children and it wasn’t because of a biological reason (see Frida Kahlo), I lack total respect for them. My life doesn’t align with theirs. They will never understand the beauty and harsh reality of motherhood. They will never understand the intense paranoia of doing something that could possibly take food off your table and clothes off your child’s back. Face the facts, I live in the South and Southerners don’t do controversy very well. That’s a reality for me while others can get away with it. I stand in the wings of life’s grand stage secretly applauding their controversial actions.

I’ve lacked in producing any work this past year because I’ve finally achieved the goal of getting my career as an educator and financial life together. Not only have I been concerned with making my art but seriously, how was I going to pay for this? How were supplies going to get into my home? These priorities force me to think and see art differently. Encounter new ways of executing old ideas. Boldly steal concepts from my favorite artists and force them into my fold. I figured out a long time ago that if I wanted to make the bold, controversial art, I needed for it to be large, attention-getting and everything that I feel I cannot be in public.

I want the work to be disgusting and unladylike. I want to do it under a pen name of a white man and totally fuck with the perception of gender and power because why not? White men rule the art world. I want the work to have everything that you hate in it. Pictures of outer space and shit. Big, fat ass strippers because why not? Throw in little nods to slavery and the black experience here and there because black and white people love that shit.

Maybe I have snapped and I don’t know it yet.

Maybe I’m fantasizing again.

Or maybe I’m bored and unchallenged because I am a middle school art teacher who spends nothing but time sharpening my foundational sword.

There’s only so much I can do right now in this moment.

–    Ms. Lopez

Artist: Carla Aaron-Lopez

Instagram: @iamkingcarla

Twitter: @teachkingcarla

by Andrew Hitchen

Surprise

Guilty!

Escape

Laundry

Umbrella

Paper Christmas Tree

Yoga Mat

Paper Moon

Origami Fish

Paper Boat

Bandages

Paper Stars

Owl Impression

Paper Bird

Duvet Cover

Andrew Hitchen is a freelance illustrator based in London, UK. His distinctive style of drawing has earned him numerous commissions for magazines, newspapers, theatre groups, events and indie record labels over the years. His current artwork is now a fascinating blend of traditional and modern techniques, drawing inspiration from Pop Art, Graphic Novels. Surrealism, Cartoons, Music and Children’s Literature. Andrew is also the creator of the popular ‘Things To Do With Yesterday’s Paper’ series – a collection of whimsical drawings involving a mischievous black cat and its various creations with a sheet of old newspaper. The illustrations in this series have been described as “unique, memorable, and lively” and have been attracting the attention of both children and adults alike.’

Redbubble: www.redbubble.com/people/hitchen/shop
Website: www.andrewhitchen.com
Facebook page: facebook.com/paperclaws
Society6: https://society6.com/andrewhitchen
FAA: fineartamerica.com/profiles/andrew-hitchen.html.

by Matías Sierra

Artist: Matías Sierra

I was born in Argentina and from my childhood I had a love for art and its creation. My relationship with art began in school and continued in a private studio where I worked with different materials and media like ink, paint, drawing, and modeling with clay. At thirteen or fourteen years old clay became my choice and it still is. I am a self-taught artist. I don’t have a background in art studies. Since 2005 I have lived in Montréal, Canada. I’ve presented my work in several group shows. In 2012 I had my first solo exhibition and another in 2014.

My inspiration is everywhere. Sometimes it comes from myself–from my own experiences or general ideas I pick up. I take these ideas, model them in my mind, and sculpt them with clay. I work directly from mind to clay, making no draft in paper or digital mode. The body is the source to express my ideas.

Websites:

http://matiassierra.net

http://matus76.deviantart.com

Matías was also featured in Creative Thresholds in 2013. Check out “Sculpture by Matías Sierra.” 

By Michel Verhoef

My photography  tries to communicate emotion. Some of my images may be classified as art photography, while some may be seen as a documentary or a crossover between both. I usually want to capture an emotion within our daily lives that is laying a bit deeper, or very deep, or a just-below-the-surface.

You may see my love for the old-style photographers in my work: the Bressons, the Friedlanders, the Parrs or even a Norman Rockwell could be hidden in there. Just to name a few. The Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf is also a great inspiration.

Essentially I want to keep the scene as original as possible without changing it by copying or adding in information from other pictures. The basic mood of a picture has to be already in the picture through the real-life content of the scene. I just need to enhance my images by dodging and burning to emphasize the feeling and to guide the viewer’s eye. Every picture needs to tell a story, preferably through an interaction between people or between people and their environment. In most cases my subjects are people who demand a quick response from the camera’s shutter and sometimes a lot of patience is required to get people used to that lingering-guy-with-a-camera.

Child in time

Hot but stylish

Immigration

Dorana Alberti

But I want to stay

Garçon s’il vous plait

Everlasting pose

Strings

Beach confession

Happy days are here again

One child policy

Oxygen

It takes two

Tango mirrored

Tango

Michel Verhoef was born in Germany and immigrated to the Netherlands at age nine. His father was a Dutch jazz musician and his mother a German housewife. Verhoef started at about that young age to make his first pictures with a Brownie that he got from his mother. From her he inherited his feeling for the visual art photography. It has always, though, stayed a hobby besides his actual job as a housing engineer.

Website: http://michel-verhoef.artistwebsites.com/

Michel’s Recommended/Interesting Links:

Magnum Photos–The Changing of a Myth

Berlin — Erwin Olaf (video)

by Shirley Benton

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 2 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 2 ft

Acrylic on Board, 4 X 4 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 2 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 2 ft

Acrylic on Board, misc

Acrylic on Board, 4 X 4 ft

Acrylic on Board, 4 X 4 ft

Acrylic on Board, 4 X 4 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 2 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 4 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 3 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 X 4 ft

Acrylic on Board, 2 x 4 ft

Acrylic on Board, 4 X 4 ft

Artist: Shirley Benton

Creating abstract art is an inward journey for me and my work is continually evolving. By staying in the moment and with very little planned, the creative process takes on an energy and motion all its own. The tactile experience of opening the paints I’ve selected quiets my mind and the layering of color provides a way to express a range of emotion from simply playful to much deeper complexity and tension.

I am a self-taught artist whose creative production revolves around exploring emotion and expression through color and form. Using simple tools and a lot of experimenting, I apply and blend multiple layers of acrylic paint on hard board which is then framed and ready to hang. Delving into the unknown with each new piece is filled with play, celebration and inner revelations. It is an act of possibility and discovery for myself. Sharing my work with others who bring their own unique interpretation enhances a connection and creates additional layers of discovery. The personal and the shared, the unknown and the final outcome are what keep me in the studio.

My work has been displayed at The Grand Impromptu Gallery, Allied Arts Center, Artistic Expression Gallery, Four Winds Café, Ruby’s Collections, Artifakt Signature Gallery, Obscurities and Tacoma Art Slam. Juried art award for “Gemini” from Allied Arts Center.

email: shirleybentonart@gmail.com

facebook: shirleybentonart

facebook: Small Studio Big Paintings

website: shirleybentonart.com

Instagram: shirleybentonart

by Tullio DeSantis

Being Born for the Seventeen Quintillionth Time

Born in the Big Bang

Compassionate Heart Open Mind

Dark Energy

Dawning of the Age of Intelligence

Heart of the World

Retinal Painting

Sea of Subconscious Desire

Survival of the Kindest

The Value of Life

Tullio DeSantis, born in Reading, PA in 1948, graduated with an interdisciplinary major from Gettysburg College on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Upon graduation, he moved to the west coast and, in the early 1970s, began exhibiting his artwork in galleries in San Francisco, Tokyo, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), while he was completing his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute. Since his arrival on the west coast, he had been publishing his art and writing for the Rip Off Press, one of the premier underground publishers of that era.

After moving back to the East Coast, Tullio rented a studio in Chelsea, and mounted his first one-man show in New York at the Tradition Three Thousand Gallery in the East Village in 1987. By that time, He had received a Pennsylvania Council of the Arts grant for a collaborative project initiated with Keith Haring. DeSantis was one of the first writers to publish extensively on Haring while he was still an anonymous graffiti writer.

From the late 1960s through his death in 1994, poet Allen Ginsberg and Tullio DeSantis carried on a philosophical and aesthetic relationship yielding several poems and drawings. Tullio’s interest in collaborative art continued throughout the 1990’s, as he worked anonymously on the Internet in various art collectives. His work was reviewed in the Village Voice (All Hands off the Keyboard, 10/24/2000) and represented in the International Prix Art Electronica in 1999.

Since the turn of the millennium, Tullio has continued to produce and participate in a long list of collaborative Internet projects, including The Facebook Show, produced by the Detroit Museum of New Art, The Internet Archive, a multimedia art/science project with Pery Burge, who worked as artist in residence in the Thermofluids Lab of the University of Exeter, UK, and currently, a series of works in traditional and digital media produced in collaboration with artist Dee Shapiro.

Tullio is an Adjunct Professor of Art at Reading Area Community College. He also owns, with a partner, MindReflector Technologies, LLC, a brain-computer interface company specializing in neurofeedback, brain and mind training software.

Artist Web Sites

http://www.tulliodesantis.com

http://www.tulliodesantis.net

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/tulliofrancescodesantis

https://plus.google.com/+TullioDeSantis

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tulliodesantis

http://instagram.com/tulliofrancescodesantis

Other Sites

Media Research and Critical Thinking

http://www.mindovermedia.org

Mind Training and Neurofeedback

http://www.mindreflector.com

by Justin Christenbery

The Artist, 30″x48″ acrylic on canvas (8/2014)

Looking within, potential can be acknowledged and worked with. The fire of the heart-mind is stoked and the image is forged, quenched, and re-forged a thousand times within the mind’s eye before a move has even been made.

Forward, 36″x48″ acrylic on canvas (10/2011)

Through the common link between all things, we flow.

Movement in Blue, 30″x40″ acrylic on canvas (7/2014)

The style that I’ve been cultivating for the last several years continues to evolve and seems to finally be crystallizing into something worthwhile here. Consciousness sings into form the formless. Then, being gently takes consciousness’s hand and leads the song into an undreamt of place where the clouds of confusion are forgotten.

Incurrence, 42″x54″ acrylic on canvas (2010)

Within our sometimes tumultuous lives and inner worlds, calm remains forever present and available.

The Abandonment of Doubt, 42″x42″ acrylic on canvas (9/2014)

Life is Surging at this very moment. Around you- through you… As you. Your mind is a tool slowly & tenuously mastered- a lens, of sorts, that you use to focus this Life-that-you-are. This is where many trip up: The mind only ever remains a tool, and as powerful as it can become, it will never compare to or replace the Pure Life that we are. If the mind is a lens, how much greater is your Self which puts it to work? The mind is useful. YOU are essential- and quite skilled at Living w/out minding your mind.

Stop trying to listen to your heart so that It can become you. Forget thinking and embrace knowing. Flow happens… Mind is first absorbed and then blended into Being, and Life’s sweetest nectar is tasted.

The Return, 33″x44″ acrylic on canvas (2009)

This piece marked a fork in the road of my development as an artist. In 2009 I was doing a lot of blended directional work (hence the strong verticals here) with the goal being to get my mind to stop worrying so much about what the image would become. Having covered the canvas, I noticed a great sense of depth near the middle and decided to pursue that sense of perspective and immersion within a saturated environment and was rewarded with a painterly evolution.

The Offering, 24″x30″ acrylic on canvas (3/2013)

This piece was commissioned by a Family & Marriage therapist and now hangs in her office. I am constantly amazed by and forever grateful for the gift which, in having been given to me, I am able to multiply and re-gift to so many others.

Justin Christenbery lives in Cornelius, NC where he works out of a home studio and maintains an active presence in the creative community. He regularly does live paintings alongside various bands and musicians with hopes of sharing his inspiration with audience goers. He is currently exhibiting new works at Kadi in Downtown Cornelius’s Historic Oak Street Mill. The show runs through March 12th, 2015.

More of his work can be seen on his personal (under-construction) website: http://JustinChristenbery.com. He has a secondary online portfolio which is overflowing with work from the last 10 years, and where prints of his art can be purchased: JRChristenbery Portfolio

Commissions are always being accepted(he does realistic portraiture as well!

Email him at: LivingBrushArts@gmail.com

Follow him on Facebook: Here

Christenbery working on a live painting on plexiglass. (photo courtesy Brooklyn Nicole)