Mystical Clouds Flambe

The city could not compete with the silhouetted water towers in the distance.

"The Building of the City Beautiful", Joaquin Miller's Poems

This series was influenced by Joaquin Miller's book, "The Building of the City Beautiful". I stumbled across his book from 1905 at Strand bookstore, NYC, with beautiful pages and gorgeous tattered edges.  I applied black gesso just below each title and created my personal vision of city beautiful. It is an intermingling of theories and cultures, a city where from chaos comes unity.

I found the language too filled with religious content, so I redacted it.  From this darkness emerges new life. The outcome is my interpretation from his title, each page a new experience of the theme.

Upon further research, the poet Joaquin Miller, turns out to be an extraordinary character.  Born either in 1839 or 1841 in Indiana, in a town he claimed his father founded while heading West by wagon. He worked as a pony express rider, fought Indians and then joined them for a year, and finally found his resting spot in Oakland, California, now called Joaquin Miller Park.  He was a great believer in quality of life with natural surroundings.

"The park's 500 acres are heavily wooded with coast redwoods, coast live oaks, and pines. Many of the trees were originally planted by Miller himself. The Oakland Hills location provides panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay area. The park features include miles of hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails, an off-leash dog area, an amphitheater, and picnicking."

Joaquin_Miller

Callie
callieart.com

A Time of Horrible Change, 2016

An election year like never before.  An artist's job is about reflecting the times as they are a'changing.  Well here it goes!  I am expressing.  I live in the great world of NYC, and people are becoming more aggressive, with our president elect's permission.  A man deeply absorbed with his best interest in mind, with no regard as to how the real world works.  He is so incredibly out of touch with the people he made promises to, and yet they bought his rhetoric and now we all will pay for that insanity.  How did this come to be?

Tell Me Your Octopus Story

A new idea for a children's book encounter: the child tells you, the listener, a story of their own creation. Each page, book encounter, leads to a new and mysterious story. Encouraging the child's mind to imagine...

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