Fine Arts: Amy Barker-Wilson

The Archetype of Beauty and the Mystery

2009-05-05T21:20:00.000-07:00

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein

This is a central purpose of all art, to act as a medium, to hold a mirror up that calls us to pay attention to
the world in a way we have not yet seen - as a mystery, as a path - art leads us to that door by awakening
awareness, by showing us things in a way we have not yet seen them, even if they are the most common
ordinary things....because it is not the 'things' but the way they are seen - that opens the doors of perception
and leads us into the Mystery called Life. amy

The above paintings are visionary, using sacred geometry and ancient symbolic arts.. used to
heal and focus ....see Alberto Amura's beautiful website below:

http://www.lighttide.com/art/

The OUTLOUD PAINTERS at the SANDY SPRINGS MUSEUM

2009-04-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Opening Reception for the unique group of abstract painters called THE OUTLOUD PAINTERS
took place at the wonderful SANDY SPRING MUSEUM Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful opening,
complete with music and tours of the museum.
The exhibit of this group has a wonderful feel on integration. Maybe that is because all the members
stand on their own artistically speaking, award-winning artists, but most of them actually paint together
weekly. It is rare to have this kind of support for painters of this level as well as the chance to exchange
and paint in the same studio.

The exhibit will continue till the end of May. It is worth the lovely drive out to Sandy Springs
near Olney, MD. Additionally a tour of the surrounding Quaker community is available, ie.
the museum. It is a quite fascinating history, the craft and spirit of earlier times, as well as
the interesting "underground railroad" connection of the Quakers who brought many African-
Americans to come into the free states and live in the community as well.

Visit the painters at www.theoutloudpainters.com and Sandy Spring Museum at www.sandyspringmuseum.com.
Photos above: 1. Shaune Bazner and her painting, 2. Donna Grossman, Amy Barker-Wilson's paintings,
3. Judy Baldinger, Donna and Shaune, 4. Donna G.,Tory Cowles and Carol Jason; photographer: michiyo mazuuchi

Women Artists/Women Healing

2009-03-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

Women Artists/Women Healing: Multicultural Artistic Narratives of Trauma and Survival is a five-part narrative series featuring literary readings, performances, exhibitions and facilitated discussions. Tomorrow Tuesday March 31st is the last panel talk of the series, 6 pm at the Adams-Morgan location of CentroNia.

Kathy Kieler a Hungarian-American artist will feature her works there, in a series about transforming loss. Her works are fine detailed drawings and paintings with a mood of vulnerability and sustainability. Visit the website to see more of her work.
Featured here: Envoi, 2000, oil and alkyld on wood, 42x80"

http://womenartistswomenhealing.wordpress.com/ for more art work and information about this group.

I also have been asked to feature some of my work which will be there for the evening only. I am happy to be affiliated now with this group as one of my purposes is truly the transformative nature of art and its international language! I will send updates as I know them..Featured here (above) : We are Never Alone, monoprint, 2008, 24x18 in.

Gathering women artists, healers, veterans, and survivors from across cultures and disciplines, the series showcases the resiliency and expression of the human spirit, seen through the lens of female artists and speakers.

Join us every Tuesday evening in March from 6-9pm at CentroNía in Washington, D.C. as we explore the connective tissue of humanistic themes that entwines us all.

Interact with the artists, performers and panelists to learn how lives are transformed through artistic, creative and personal expressions. Listen to voices of survival, be it the ravages of war and strife, or crime, poverty, and oppression and find out how faith, healing and empathy are entry points for promoting justice and healing from within and beyond one’s own personal experience.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, each program begins at 6pm with a light reception, art exhibit and performance, followed by a facilitated panel discussion at 6:45pm. Audience interaction is encouraged.

Women Artists/Women Healing is produced by Elizabeth Bruce, author of ‘And Silence Left the Place,’ stage actor, playwright of ‘Sheila’s Iron,’ and educator. The series is associate produced by Alivia Tagliaferri, author and documentary film-maker of Ironcutter Media, and Timothea Howard, political activist, visual artist and program manager of CentroNía’s Community Schools Program.

Women Artists/Women Healing is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, and hosted by CentroNía (1420 Columbia Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009). The series is also funded in part by the Readings & Workshops Program of Poets & Writers, Inc.

Gathering women artists, healers, veterans, and survivors from across cultures and disciplines, the series showcases the resiliency and expression of the human spirit, seen through the lens of female artists and speakers.

Join us every Tuesday evening in March from 6-9pm at CentroNía in Washington, D.C. as we explore the connective tissue of humanistic themes that entwines us all.

Interact with the artists, performers and panelists to learn how lives are transformed through artistic, creative and personal expressions. Listen to voices of survival, be it the ravages of war and strife, or crime, poverty, and oppression and find out how faith, healing and empathy are entry points for promoting justice and healing from within and beyond one’s own personal experience.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, each program begins at 6pm with a light reception, art exhibit and performance, followed by a facilitated panel discussion at 6:45pm. Audience interaction is encouraged.

Women Artists/Women Healing is produced by Elizabeth Bruce, author of ‘And Silence Left the Place,’ stage actor, playwright of ‘Sheila’s Iron,’ and educator. The series is associate produced by Alivia Tagliaferri, author and documentary film-maker of Ironcutter Media, and Timothea Howard, political activist, visual artist and program manager of CentroNía’s Community Schools Program.

Women Artists/Women Healing is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, and hosted by CentroNía (1420 Columbia Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009). The series is also funded in part by the Readings & Workshops Program of Poets & Writers, Inc.

Tomorrow Tuesday March 31st at 6:30 pm will be the final panel discussion of the project WOMEN ARTISTS/WOMEN HEALING: MULTICULTURAL ARTISTIC NARRATIVES OF TRAUMA
AND SURVIVAL, a five part narrative series featuring literary readings, performances, exhibitions and facilitated discussions.

Gathering women artists, healers, veterans, and survivors from across cultures and disciplines, the series showcases the resiliency and expression of the human spirit, seen through the lens of female artists and speakers.

Join us every Tuesday evening in March from 6-9pm at CentroNía in Washington, D.C. as we explore the connective tissue of humanistic themes that entwines us all.

Interact with the artists, performers and panelists to learn how lives are transformed through artistic, creative and personal expressions. Listen to voices of survival, be it the ravages of war and strife, or crime, poverty, and oppression and find out how faith, healing and empathy are entry points for promoting justice and healing from within and beyond one’s own personal experience.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, each program begins at 6pm with a light reception, art exhibit and performance, followed by a facilitated panel discussion at 6:45pm. Audience interaction is encouraged.

Women Artists/Women Healing is produced by Elizabeth Bruce, author of ‘And Silence Left the Place,’ stage actor, playwright of ‘Sheila’s Iron,’ and educator. The series is associate produced by Alivia Tagliaferri, author and documentary film-maker of Ironcutter Media, and Timothea Howard, political activist, visual artist and program manager of CentroNía’s Community Schools Program.

Women Artists/Women Healing is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, and hosted by CentroNía (1420 Columbia Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009). The series is also funded in part by the Readings & Workshops Program of Poets & Writers, Inc.

http://womenartistswomenhealing.wordpress.com/

Growing Young

2009-03-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

"IT TAKES A LONG TIME TO BECOME YOUNG." - Pablo Picasso

Some say that all our adult lives are spent trying to return to what we
instinctiely knew as chidren. Ofcourse it's not quite like that because
what we really wish to do is to bring together the Consciousness of the
adult capacity with the Life flow and Life force that simply moves through
the child without resistance by ego or even by Knowing. The tree of Good
and Evil and the Tree of Life, reconcililng. So with our best art, we find we
are both these - the playful child knowing now limits, enjoying, moving
with a large force of body or spirit or a melody within with, carving out a
vision in paint one would be unable to articulate as it is primary process,
and lies below the level of the conceptual mind acquired in school; --
and the adult --analytically observing what we have done , using all our knowledge of
what constitutes 'good art' and all our experience of how to work toward that
vision. In so doing art we are reconciling and uniting all our parts, our history,
our being so alive when we were young, into the present moment. As Joseph
Campbell so well put it: What is it we really want in life? We want the experience
of BEING FULLY ALIVE. As the artist, we learn how to tap into what we are/were
and find it flow has not lessened.

Women of Avignon - Picasso
River of Life -- Amy Barker-Wilson

ART IS FREE -- W. Kandinsky

2009-03-28T20:52:00.000-07:00

THERE IS NO 'MUST' IN ART BECAUSE ART IS FREE - Wassily Kandinsky

One of the goals of the Blaue Reiter to which Kandinsky was a prominent

member was the use of art for spiritual expression. I wonder what that word

'freedom' meant to a Russian at the turn of the 20th century - in relation to

what it means to Americans at the turn of the 21st, here in a country founded

on that idea.

Kandinsky wrote in "The Spiritual in Art" about the laws of color - how colors

behave in relation to each other in art, having studied the works of Steiner

and Colert, some physics. So his freedom didn't mean that the 'laws' of art

were not there - but that something beyond that, the spiritual, allowed this

action to be perceived as a Whole, from another level, where we approach

that 'mysterious' ingredient that makes art a Unity beyond its parts.