Tag: alison bessesdotter

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Do You Know Your Worth?

 

Baroque Love Glisters Molten Gold 9″ x 12″ Watercolor/Ink

A friend and poet Ishmael Street performed this piece at http://www.thebrewworks.com/allentown-brewworks/ Ishmael, thank you for sharing your words and intellect with us. The night was an ending to a day I don’t want to relive–but hearing your voice speak those words changed how I see the world. Ishmael – I put this piece up for you in return for your generosity. It is a watercolor I painted called Baroque Love.

UNTITLED by Ishmael Street

Do you know your worth?
Are you an Earthly Queen or
Eternal Goddess?
See a Goddess knows she more worthy than
The sun and moon
She is never subdue
She is worth everything
She is the universe and the stars
Are her children
Love is she and she is the supplier of
Unlimited love
She is never alone
She is exist for eternity
Do you know your worth?
Are you an Earthly Queen or
Eternal Goddess?
A queen know she is royalty, knows she should be
Treated as royalty
She holds this title of queen at birth
Her worth is determined by how she treats others
She knows can’t make everyone happy but
She must rely on others for the longevity in her
Kingdom
She holds power in her own kingdom and she may
Reign over her kingdom for only a short while
Do you know your worth?
Are you an Earthly Queen or
Eternal Goddess?
Maybe Neither
Maybe just a child of God
Needing a label a crown to define your
Worth told by others who looks into a broken
Mirror every morning calling it
Self esteem
So let your light shine
Liberate from your fear
Revolt against your insecurities
Then your presence will liberate others.

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How I Paint

I soak watercolor paper in a tub of cool clean water for 2-3 minutes, remove the paper and press between 2 clean bath towels. Working on a flat surface with large squirrel mop brush I begin with loose watercolor washes. I do not work the a lot, but I continue to add and push the paint with either brushes or my fingers. This is an integral part of the work for me, once dried the fingerprints are like landmarks. Rarely I will use a blotter, but occasionally I will do so with a rough rag to create texture. Additionally, I use found objects placed in the paint and left to dry so as to draw paint to those areas. Other times, I might use harmless natural resists like castile soap, oatmeal or salt to obtain depth in the work.
At this point I usually allow the work to dry. Once dry, I can re-wet and add more paint and texture or move on to ink in the large areas. Inking is done with smaller brushes and pens. There is no planning or completion of inking at this time, the piece is open to re-working or starting collage in an inked area or adding paint. The inking is the mind engaging part where I can get lost for hours, allowing ideas to form, transcending the hum-drum-slow-rattle brain chatter and get some peace.

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New Bridge Group

A conceptual art group is being let loose shortly in Allentown, PA – the New Bridge Group. NBG has arisen out of the need to bridge artists and community together.

Allentown and the surrounding area have generated groups of artists and like all groups they go through changes. In 2008, The Chen Arts group was started to provide a place for local visual and performing artists to meet, network and collaborate. The intention was to have open group shows. For a time that worked—artists drifted in and out. In autumn of 2011 a buzz was heard about the future of Chen—changing from the unstructured open format to a more structured organization. In the meantime, the city embraced some serious structural changes and altered the landscape to provide for an arena and remove some older buildings—one is the House of Chen restaurant where Chen Arts group based its name.

Members E.A. Kafkalas and Alison Bessesdotter of the Chen Arts group ran head-long one winter evening into a local sculptor Steven Condra. Alison and E.A. invited Steven to exhibit with the Metamorphosis show. They explained that the next Chen show would be themed Bridges Outside the Box, representing a change that was needed to start a new movement in town. Steven was intrigued—because he had also formed an idea about bridging artists together—snapping together the free thinking 20th century German expressionists with a modern twist called The New Bridge Group. Synchronicity was in full force; it was the mash-up of their concepts about building bridges between artists and the community. The intent would be to create and maintain a vibrant and productive artist group in Allentown with a tribal feel. When asked what that means, Alison explains that the tribal concept is about creating genuine relationships with true freedom of information, and a future of limitless potential bound only by their imagination. Audacious—it may well be, but the New Bridge Group/Chen Arts wants to change the world view of art and the relationship to earth and community. Alison says “The time is right for this, the core is in place and the only thing we need more of is you.”

The 2012 Metamorphosis show was organized by E.A. Kafkalas who is quick to explain, “the success of the Metamorphosis show was truly an effort of everyone involved in the production—it was not the effort of one person.” The show opened with the sale of 9 pieces of work from a diverse group of artists at the 2 week event in January 2012.

Today The New Bridge Group/Chen Arts are planning the next show Bridges Outside the Box. The show runs from May 27th through June 10th at the community room of the Allentown Art Museum. For information on becoming a member or just to see what all the fuss is about, see the NBGArtists Facebook page or http://www.nbgartists.org/ to find our next event.

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Finding my tribe

I never knew what was missing, an imperceptible feeling of some little chink out of my metal, a small scaley plate-like chip was blown off like a shingle from a roof-top in the winter howling. Asking for resolution brought solutions and people and ideas then no people and the essence of the art changed as it happened. it all just evolved, adapted together but seeing the evidence of it as i was full of living and not noticing was the real challenge. all at once the concept was so evident at the forefront of my mind, I came to see that i just knew, knew the history, the future and everything in between. Almost like the Bene Gesserit women of Herbert’s Dune novel, they inherited the information from all those who came before them. My work  I feel//think embodies that often. All the abstract work of the people that are my tribe exists in me, like all other parts of my mitochondrial DNA, it blasts through no matter what I do.