The House Up On the Hill

Since I was a child, every week I visit my pop's house up in West Grove, PA. The Lamborn's built the house and to this day it still belongs in the family. My great grand parents on my father's side built the house in the 1930's once when it was just flat land before all the hovering green trees, my nana lived there raising my father, and my father and mother raised me there for part of my life. I adore that house, much of my art is inspired by this enchanting place. 

Its up on the hill with stone walls that welcome you up the lane, with many flowering bushes that are like comfy guards in pales pinks and whites. The house is brick with white siding and stone stairs in two areas with an open porch with the front doors in an unusual spot. 

Up the lane behind the house you are welcomed by a pebble lane, a blooming garden and a wooden elevated deck which once was my set of my cooking show as a child. It slowly has decayed over the years with a weeping cherry tree folding over. Up in the bank behind the house are numerous wood piles and what I like to call the graveyard which is the home of three dead skeletons of Broncos. 

Sometimes I like to sneak over to the neighbors yard which has a little vine hut that I do photoshoots under, goats and a mountain that I used to climb as a child. 

With the seasons always changing, nothing is the same and I find myself taking so many photos there. Below are photos from the past few months welcoming spring and summer. 

 

Vanitas Inspiration

I'm currently working on a new painting inspired by vanitas themes, meaning “emptiness”, “foolish pride” and “vanity” in latin, the vanitas theme were common in medieval funerary art and during the 15th century these became morbid and explicit, showcasing an increased obsession with death and the over tone of Memeto Mori. These paintings were often a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure and a certainty of death. Vanitas paintings along with some of my Skeleton Krew paintings try to remind the viewer of how temporary human life really is.

The vanitas work of art was especially associated with Northern European still life painting in Flanders, Holland and the Netherlands during the 16th and 17th centuries.

COMMON SYMBOLS include:

~ skulls: certainty of death

~ rotten fruit: decay and aging

~ bubbles: sudden death, brief death

~ smoke, watches, hourglasses: short life

~ musical instruments: short lived, lasting only one day

~ fruit, flowers, butterflies can be interpreted the same way

The current painting in progress features a young woman in mask and white dress, she is revealing her bones and is holding a skull and is pinned with drooping roses. Behind her is an hour glass already empty, she is of course already dead hence a part of the Skeleton Krew. I'm looking forward to share this collection and my newest paintings in my art show come January. 

Top image: Vanitas Still Life, 1603. Jaques de Gheyn the Elder (Dutch, 1565-1629) Oil on wood; 32 1/2 x 21 1/4 in. The Meropolitan Museum of Art New York, Vanitas Still Life

Bottom image: Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, Ex minimis patest ipse Dues (God is revealed in the smallest work of his creation), from Zeeusche nachtegael (Middleburgh, 1623), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Library

In Love With Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray. By Morgana -Angelik, ©Vivica Meyers 2006.

Often times I get inspired by novels, paintings, poetic fairy tales and classic films. One of my favorite characters in literature and film is Dorian Gray. The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde, is one of the last works considered gothic horror fiction and has a Faustian and an underlying homoerotic theme.

Dorian Gray is a young handsome man, who becomes the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is dazzled by Dorian's physical beauty and becomes obsessed with him; he believes that Dorian's beauty is the reasoning for his approach in his work, therefore creates a magnificent portrait of him.  The painting was so perfect that it makes Dorian wish he was immortal and inevitably stop the aging process. His wish was fulfilled, soon after the painting becomes more grotesque day after day instead of Dorian himself. The portrait serves as a memento of Dorian's fate and his narcissistic ways, and with each sin he lives the painting displays a form of disfigurement. 

This character truly fascinates me, these black and gray earrings were inspired from The Picture of Dorian Gray. Being infatuated with Dorian (amongst many), these earrings hold the physical beauty that Dorian always searched for. Last year I had created these designs, unfortunately I ran out of these lovely beads…but finally I have more in stock. 

Keep your eye out next week for these earrings or similar pieces.

Please email me if you would like to reserve a pair!

LEFT: The In Love With Dorian Gray design has engraved crystals infused with a jet black floral pattern that are matched with black rhinestone spacers and a clear gray glass bead on a gun metal chain.

RIGHT: The Victorian Gray pair are based on a modern girl living in a Victorian past; they have a twist of present simplicity and detailed flourishes of mourning colors. They are made from large lucite drops that are matched with a gray matte bead and a vintage crystal. 

~ The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wikipedia. February 2009.