photography, writing, interacting, naturing

[Ambo Suno]

On a personal website I have, I keep an Art & Creativity page. Each month or so I feature an additional artist and a piece of work by them, or a demonstration of creativity by someone. I just placed the following - I think you will find the photo to be quite inspiring, as well as the linked sites and pieces:

Bennett Barthelemy who I have spent some time with surfing, sipping tea and coffee, and hanging out with at his parents toy store in Ojai, is another special artist. His media are mainly photography, photojournalism, and writing. However, I’d say that his life and lifestyle are also his media and his art. Bennett feels certain callings strongly and intensely – artistic, humanitarian, and adventurous. How he moves about the planet for work and how he moves about his daily life, reflects his ethics, his thinking and feelings about what is important, and his artistic sensibilities.

I paste here a bio blurb that he has written, as well his statement about the subject/object of the striking photo that I also insert below. His blog and his otherwise dispersed articles are worth reading. It was difficult to choose just one photo from his varied gallery. This image that I settled on expresses so much about nature, light and shadow, human attention, and about man/woman, woman in this instance, finding meaning and deep physical engagement within the home world.

“A simple act – pushing a button – I capture, confine details to a limiting space. A collector of lost seconds. I have a strange relationship with the concept of time – yearning to be wholly present and aware to exist within, to capture, the eternally unfolding moment. Yet much of my life is casting backwards, reawakening lost dreams, reinventing new ones. Caught between worlds and continents, cliff and sky. I exist within the space of a muscle twitch, a furtive glance and a passing thought – forever chasing the fading light.

Molly is just 22 but has been training and climbing with some of the most accomplished and strongest climbers in the world like Lynn Hill and Justin Sjong. This is the third ascent and first female ascent of a difficult 5.13 climb in Colorado. facebook.com/mollymitchellclimber.

instagram @bennettb  website bennettbarthelemy.blogspot.com stock represented at www.tandemstock.com“

[Ambo Suno]

I got a hit quite hard on the rib cage by the edge of a longboard on Thursday, so I am recuperating from the likely break and tear-up for 2-6 weeks, depending. Bennett went down to one of my main breaks this morning and then e-mailed this envy-making photo (whose resolution and size I had to reduce to insert here) that, to my eyes, pops!

[Edward theurj Berge]

Thank you for starting this thread to share some of the art etc. you appreciate. Please continue to post, as I'm appreciating it.

[Ambo Suno]

Cool, t. Will do.

theurj said:

Thank you for starting this thread to share some of the art etc. you appreciate. Please continue to post, as I'm appreciating it.

[Ambo Suno]

Hi t - here is a photo of an acrylic by Jean Smart that I featured - her bio-blurb can be found at Ojai Studio Artists [ http://www.ojaistudioartists.org/ ]

theurj said:

Thank you for starting this thread to share some of the art etc. you appreciate. Please continue to post, as I'm appreciating it.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Here's the link to the Thomas Reynolds Gallery in San Francisco. I used to live and work in the area for a number of years until 2010. My friend Dana Hooper is one of the artists featured there. My favorite is Michael Reardon's watercolors. Click on the artist, then click on the portfolio link therein to see some of the works of each artist.

[Ambo Suno]

Oh, yeah, t, michael's work shown here is special! So much nuance of nature along with the precision of structures. Sweet.

[Ambo Suno]

My neighbor and well-animated artist friend, Alix Mieko Camp, creates jewelry art that has brought her Hawaiian Islands' roots to Ventura, California. It seems to me that she and her business partner and creative collaborator, Alexa Rae Coughlin, also represent in their work a complex blend of natural beauty, thematic feminine power, and contemporary edginess that bends boundaries and bridges craft and art genres.

Much of their work is at once both evocative ancient and attuned to fresh post-modern. I can imagine a woman feeling a quality of Eros and an identification with the timeless attention of women being drawn to adornment. It could be that sometimes reflected in the chains and patterns of metal and stone there is invitation to draw towards the shimmers of beauty simultaneous with a physical power and suggestion of armoring and fierceness that can repel when necessary.

In my generational language I would say that Alix is very hip and social media savvy, with instagram, twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and more.

One might wax poetic and romantic as one journeys through the collections and the Umibozu story: http://www.umibozu.com/about-us .

The picture below is an example of many one-of-a-kind pieces that these young women fashion with their own hands.

[https://www.linkedin.com/pub/alix-camp/b/868/2b0]

[Edward theurj Berge]

Here's a flyer from one of my dance friends on her new opening tomorrow evening, which I'll attend. Her website is here.

[Ambo Suno]

Wow, t, she does some beautiful stuff. And her 'about' page reveals how educated and accomplished she appears to be. But can she dance? :)

[Edward theurj Berge]

Oh yes, she can dance.

[Ambo Suno]

Ok, yeah, but can she cook?



theurj said:

Oh yes, she can dance.

[Edward theurj Berge]

That I wouldn't know, as she's married and I'm just dance friends with both her and her husband. Though maybe one of these days they'll invite me over to a dinner she (and/or he) cooks and I'll let you know.