BEAUTY: Ceramics For Easter--Juliette Clovis

French artist Juliette Clovis created lovely porcelain eggs at La Manufacture La Seynie, the oldest Limoges porcelain manufacturer in France.

https://www.julietteclovis.com/

BEAUTY: Painting for Easter--Christopher Fry

For Easter, here are some wonderful, moonlit rabbit images painted by Christopher Fry...

https://www.facebook.com/ChristopherFryArtist/

BEAUTY: Painting for Easter--Anne Siems

For Easter: lovely rabbits and hares by Anne Siems.

Top to bottom: Bell Hare; Field Rabbit; Hare Over Gem; Hare Tortoise; Hares and Pottery; Rabbit and Snail; Rabbit Hop; Shy Rabbit; Stickyweed Rabbit

https://www.annesiems.com/

The Bunny Trail

It's bunny time...

I've said it before, but if you ever want to see a grown man turn into a 5 year-old boy, just show me bunnies...

Annie Lennox Retrospective

It's another Diva Wednesday and Annie Lennox is reissuing two of her albums on vinyl. She is such a lovely, engaging, wise person. Just see for yourself as Annie looks back over her career, her life and her music in this beautiful new retrospective interview...

http://www.annielennox.com/

"Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

I am looking forward to this biographical film of Fred Rogers, otherwise know to millions of children (who are now adults) as Mr. Rogers. Just this trailer alone brought me to tears. I grew up watching him on his television show, "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" (I would come home and lay down on the sofa with my mom to watch Mr. Rogers and all the puppets in The Land of Make Believe) and it brought back to me a sense of calmness and earnestness which is sorely lacking in the world today. There are no leaders we--adults or children--can look up to, to trust, to know that they will work for the betterment fof our species.

The trailer mentions his powerful messages for not only children, but for adults as well. But the thing that I admire the most about Fred Rogers was the fact that I learned much later in life that he was an ordained Presbyterian minister. Never once can I recall him speaking of God or Jesus or promoting a religious agenda. He embodied a kind of secular morality and secular humanism that can exist outside of man-made religions who do not have a copyright or monopoly on things like kindness, decency, bravery, friendliness, or love. These are qualities that have nothing to do with and do not depend on a God or a religious figure. And for that, he has my eternal admiration.

The film's website says:
"For over thirty years, Fred Rogers, an unassuming minister, puppeteer, writer and producer was beamed daily into homes across America. In his beloved television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred and his cast of puppets and friends spoke directly to young children about some of life’s weightiest issues, in a simple, direct fashion. There hadn’t been anything like Mr. Rogers on television before and there hasn’t been since.

Though he may be best known today as a soft-spoken, cardigan-wearing children’s television host, in reality, Fred Rogers’ career represents a sustained attempt to present a coherent, beneficent view about how we should best speak to children about important matters and how television could be used as a positive force in our society.

In Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (Twenty Feet from Stardom) looks back on the legacy of Fred Rogers, focusing on his radically kind ideas. While the nation changed around him, Fred Rogers stood firm in his beliefs about the importance of protecting childhood. Neville pays tribute to this legacy with the latest in his series of highly engaging, moving documentary portraits of essential American artists."

The film is set for a June 8, 2018 release.

http://focusfeatures.com/wont-you-be-my-neighbor/

BEAUTY: Murals--Camille Javal

My abstraction and color kick continues!

Look what I found!

Gorgeous abstract murals by Australian artist Camille Javal. Regular readers may recall I am an interior designer, and I would just love to be able to source Camille for some swirling, hazy, colorful works on my clients walls...but Melbourne is a long way from Northern California.

http://camillejaval.com/

Marks Of Life In Death

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”
--Michael Ondaatje (previously here), from his novel THE ENGLISH PATIENT

BEAUTY: Painting--Antoine Cordet

Antoine Cordet's monochromatic acrylic and oil portraits are doodled with what appears to be watercolor and gouache. Ghostly graffiti.

Top to bottom: Centuries vs. Centuries; Home Run Amnesia; Keep The Crown In Your Hand; Liquid Bell; Lovely Collective Hysteria; Ogitrev Vertigo; Palace; Raised by The Mist; Umbrella Bomb; unionhillwave

http://antoinecordet.com/