Kamaka Pineapple Ukes

Sam K. Kamaka and his famous pineapple uke

I love Kamaka's ukes that are painted to look just like a pineapple.

"The most famous ukulele design invented by Sam Kamaka, Sr. was the pineapple ukulele. He came up with this shape in 1916 with the purpose of making a small ukulele with a fuller and warmer sound, although there is another story that the pineapple uke was just easier to make (no bending of the sides)." Read more history here:

Kamaka Ukes

The Art of Amy Crehore

Wuthering Heights and Balthus

Illustrating the book, "Wuthering Heights" (1932-1935), shaped the painting career of Balthus. Many of his paintings were derived from these drawings. As you can see, it's all about angles and geometry with Balthus. That is why I find him so fascinating. For more glimpses of the book : Art Textbooks

and a quote from Balthus via Philosophical Conversations:

‘I am a very emotional man, perhaps too much so… My youth was an absolute whirlwind of Feelings, exactly like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, which I illustrated. I was completely at home in this novel. It described my youth perfectly. I was in love with Antionette – de Watteville – and I was determined to win her. But Antionette, on top of being a difficult girl, was already engaged to someone else. I reread her letters every evening. I think that, like Heathcliffe, I didn’t want to leave adolescence.’

And, from artic.edu Caty Telfair :

"The drawings that Balthus produced for Wuthering Heights proved to be seminal for him as an artist; no fewer than ten of his later best-known canvases draw compositional elements directly from these illustrations."

The Art of Amy Crehore

On Painting

I still have one more day to go on my new painting. It's psychedelic and the girl figure has a twisty-turny pose, so it's a been a puzzle to get just the right balance of angles and curves. This painting has a lot of geometry. And I'm going a litle crazy on it.

Stay tuned.

The Art of Amy Crehore

Marion Peck News

Here's Marion Peck standing in front of a magnificent painting at the opening of her exhibit at Billy Shire Fine Art over the weekend. It must have taken her a year to paint this painting. Photo courtesy of Val Gal Art . You can read more about her opening by following the link. More power to women painters! I can totally relate to the time spent, the attention to detail and layering of oil paint to get these effects. Good job Marion.

The Art of Amy Crehore

Odalisque by Gauguin

The new gallery of 19th and 20th-century art at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow includes Gauguin's "Te Arii Vahine" ("The King's Wife"), from 1896. She's posed like an odalisque, but she's the king's wife (not a slave girl). By the way, my new painting will be unveiled early next week. It has taken much longer than expected.

(Thanks to Chris Keeley at Daily Dreamtime)

The Art of Amy Crehore

The Genius of Ishikawa Toraji

Playing 1936
Standing Nude 1934
Black Cat 1934

These prints by Ishikawa Toraji are inspiring in so many ways. The colors and sense of design, the gestures and narrative. It's so great to discover someone's art that I can completely relate to. See more of them here:
Hanga Gallery

The Art of Amy Crehore

Odalisques in Art

Gustave Caillebotte
Henri Matisse

Here are two odalisques that have a similiar feel and pose, although they are done by two vastly different artists. Caillebotte's is so naturalistic. Matisse's odaliques are all about patterns and colors. He did dozens of them.

I realize now that the new painting I am working on is an odalisque of sorts. But, it is also much more than that. It is narrative, surreal and imaginary, not posed. And my girl is not asleep.

I will unveil the painting some time this week. I still have some details to finish up. Stay tuned.

Here's an interesting essay: THE ARCHETYPAL FEMALE IN MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION: THE ANIMA AND THE MOTHER by Dr. Joan Relke (Feb. 17,2007)

"The existence of the anima in the male unconscious is easily attested in mythology and the history of art, both largely the product of male writers and artists. With the anima such an obvious psychological reality in men, one would think that women, if they have as Jung says, a male counterpart in their unconscious, would project male images in the creation of artistic images. But now that women are free to make 'serious' art, the images that appear are rarely male. Instead, a multitude of female images have been born."- an excerpt from Europe's Journal of Psychology

The Art of Amy Crehore