Business Cards, Giveaways, Caravaggio & Taxidermy

Yep, I'm all over the place today.

I was going to share more faves from The Gasparilla Festival of the Arts. Sorry, that post will have to wait until Friday.

Silly me - my head is so full of other people's art that I almost forgot to pick a winner for the Uprinting.com giveaway! So with help from random.org, today's winner of 500 custom business cards is....

cjmommy! Congratulations!
I will contact you today with instructions for claiming your prize

Thanks to all who entered this random drawing; it is your interest that keeps them coming. And many thanks to Uprinting.com for sponsoring this great giveaway!

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Last Chance To Enter The Elle Moss Random Drawing:

assorted photographs from Elle Moss

Tomorrow 1 very lucky winner will receive a set of art postcards & winner's choice of one 5" x 5" square format fine art photograph from ElleMoss.etsy.com. To enter this fantastic giveaway simply leave a comment on this blog before 1 a.m. (EST) on 3/11. To see original post announcing giveaway and more photos, click here.

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Caravaggio in Ascendance: A Bad Boy Artist's Time To Shine - On the front page of today's NY Times. This headline made me very happy. Call me frivolous, but I'd much rather start my day with this than an article about the latest celebrity or political scandal.

Christ at the column by Caravaggio

I have been a chiaroscuro & Caravaggio fan for a very long time. If we hope into the wayback machine my 1st artistic interest was in sculpture. The paintings of Caravaggio helped me see the 3-d in the 2-d (if that makes any sense). When I took an art class at 16 we were required to draw. Line & color gave me a great deal of trouble. Drawing was a struggle for me until I used light and shadow to form the shapes of the model or still life.


If you like your art history mixed with drama, Caravaggio is the man for you. One of my favorite books is Peter Robb's M The Man Who Became Caravaggio. It is a riveting tale assembled from court documents and full of speculation. Though the tabloid quality is derided by some, I found it a fun read & also used it as a Caravagigo guide book while visiting Italy years ago. Back then I'd have a the paintings to myself or at best share with a couple strangers. Reading today's article it sounds like it might be getting a bit crowded in front of his paintings nowadays.

If you don't mind some dramatics, I also recommend Simon Schama's hour long video about the painter from his Power of Art series. I'm going to try & embed it here. But you can also click here for google video and either watch it there or download.

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I've been wanting to read this since I first hear about it a while back. The Times review today just reinforced it. I've always been fascinated by taxidermy animals. Not in a Norman Bates creepy kind of way; more of a turn-of-the-century-collector type of thing. I used to live down the street from a natural history museum & spent many hours in the animal display areas. Sometimes drawing, other times trying to take in the vibe of a lost era...ahh, I'm rambling again aren't I? One of the side-effects of using the wayback machine I am afraid.

I just love this cover! It is perfect for weeding out potential readers. (Yes, book covers should do this but not all succeed). There is a line at the end of today's review by Dwight Garner about weeding out readers: " You put 'Still Life' down with a line from Mr. Hirst ringing in your ears — a line that will draw you instantly to this book, or make you stand 10 paces away: 'I just,' he once said, 'like rotting.' "

And on that note - thanks for your patience with today's ravings. Tomorrow back to our regularly scheduled program (though I can't believe it is almost Thursday already). I'll announce the winner of the prizes from ElleMoss.etsy.com plus introduce a new giveaway sponsor and prize. Have a great day & hope to see you there