Tag: butterflies

A love Poem

1          Love poem

 

My butterfly life, never settling with the flower of a wife,

I wonder if I am capable of true love or if I am cursed to wonder.

How my arms ache to hold, how my lips burn to kiss

But, I do not want a butterfly wife.

I don’t want a pretty little miss who doesn’t mind who she kisses,

I am a man who needs a real wife.

 

I am a man with a butterfly life. I am not a gypsy,

nor travelling salesman who sells potions and lotions from door to door.

I do not hunt for a wife only long for a love.

I don’t just want some other cute young tipsy,

nor a woman who has a tendency to mother.

I don’t want women who constantly smother or call you guilty.

 

 

Oh my butterfly life I need an anchor.

Life so fleeting, that it is constantly moving and never settles too long.

I have been through so many changes and have had so many stages.

Some say I am pretty, and for my flesh hanker.

Say that I am infamous, that I’m famous, because I own many pages.

Oh, but, I am also lonely, and desire only her.

 

by S.Bryant

3366693-silhouette-of-butterfly-on-a-black-and-white-background

Alessandra Marie: Artist 

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Alessandra attended the Pratt Institute where she graduated in 2012 but remaining in New York where she currently lives and works.  It’s been a pleasure to see her style evolve and to see her art embraced into the eyes of countless viewers and I’ve always wanted to sit down and talk to her about all of it. She has gained a lot of recognition though interview, blogs and social media which I guess is a sign of the times.

All her works are with coffee stain, ink and pencil then Alessandra adds gold leaf details. This creates these wonderful dreamy pieces with an almost art nouveau feel I think.

  

My favourite interview answer when asked about her work :

Alessandra: Well – I don’t work with color! It’ll start to come in eventually (in certain areas), but my mind doesn’t work like a painters’ does. I see and compose work in terms of pattern, as opposed to light.. At first I perceived it as a serious disadvantage, but now I’ve found that it enables me to overcome some obstacles in interesting ways. It goes back to that Picasso quote, “If you have five elements available, use only four. If you have four elements, use three.” You can’t keep the intention of the piece pure if you’re too focused on balancing a bunch of irrelevant parts.

And yeah, Klimt was where the initial idea for gold came from! Growing up, my grandparents had some lovely Japanese lacquer boxes with gold that were great too.. I’ve always thought they were beautiful, and the execution on them inspired the work as well.

  

Having a go myself was going to be a challenge. I didn’t have gold leaf so I just used metallic pens to match the iridescence. I have to say learning to control and predict what the coffee stains would do took several test attempts.

My attempts:

   

 

Final piece…

  

Franziska Schenk: 



Franziska Schenk, artist in residence at the Schools of Bioscience and Physics at the University of Birmingham, is attempting to overcome this incompatibility by studying the ingenious ways in which a wide range of iridescent effects are created in the animal world. As iridescent ‘pigments’ mirror Nature’s design, biomimetics can offer vital clues on how to convert these novel materials to the painter’s palette. The current research builds on related projects, namely an Arts Council funded residency and show at the National Marine Aquarium at Plymouth (2004-5), and a recent AHRC-funded art and science project. The latter involved a residency at the Natural History Museum in London and collaboration with Professor Andrew Parker, the Museum’s leading expert on iridescence in the natural world.



Expanding on work inspired by the coelacanth, chameleon and cuttlefish, Franziska has now turned her attention to butterflies. Captivated by their ephemeral beauty, fragility and capacity for continuous change, she is developing paintings that oscillate in colour, depending on the light and movement of the viewer. Having worked on adapting colour-shift technology from its inception (circa 2000), gradual emergence and now rapid expansion, the new series marks a further stage in her quest to arrive at ‘chameleonesque’ paintings. 



About Franziska 

Franziska Schenk (BA Art Ed, BA Hons and MA Fine Art) is an artist and lecturer in Fine Art at Birmingham City University. Exhibitions with particular relevance to Interact include: ‘Vibrant 2’ (2006) which formed part of the ‘Colour and Chemistry’ project initiated by Sherborne House, ‘Mantle of Many Colours’ at the National Marine Aquarium Plymouth (2004-5) and ‘Times of Our Lives: Beginnings’ at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester (2000). Other work has been included in group shows across England and in Germany. Awards in support of this research have been received from the Arts Council of England, AHRC and BCU.