Fantasies in Textile Art

Fantasies in Textile Design
by CallieArt

I wish I could break into the textile art scene.  The how to go about it is what baffles me most.  I have spoken to people who think I have already made it, I have not in my mind.  I can do the designs, and win some contests, or donate designs to my local cycle club for them to design a shirt with, but how does one actually get picked up from a company to have a line created?

I have sent my ideas to puzzle makers and scarf companies, and have looked into mass producing a line on my own. But you really need to sell it somewhere, creation is just one step. I did once sell a design concept to Yeshiva University for a scarf creation, that worked out very nicely.  I have had a painting used for a book cover, and designed art for the MTA subway station.  I have the bug and desire to do more.

The idea of taking art and transposing it in yet another level intrigues me. I will continue to push the piece, take it in different directions to see just how far it can go. Hopefully I will catch a companies eye and be asked to create a line in my style. Until then, persistence and playfulness ensues.

Below: Gunk Cyclists wearing CallieArt shirt.

Koi Study, by Callie Hirsch

I will never forget the first time I witnessed Monet's Stacks of Wheat Series.  It showed me the relevance of doing a study on one subject.  To really meditate on the visual and see just what it has to offer.  Below is my Koi Study.  Their beauty and mystery is captured and frozen in time beneath.

Taken over a series of visits to the Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY.

New Works on Paper, 2016

No Gray Areas, 2016, 9" x 11" acrylic on hand made black paper.



Nerves Unfurling, Reconnecting

Recent surgery left me tired and hardly able to paint for long periods of time. Working at home on a table, the following works were created. As the weeks went by, my hours at the table grew.  This series kept my spirits up and the tv off.  I call it the Recovery Series, or on my website: Nerves Unfurling, Reconnecting.





Nerves being cut greatly assists with recovery, it keeps the pain manageable. but then they start growing back, reconnecting, and at times, misfiring.  The sensations are jarring, it makes you really ponder the body's healing process. The twitching lessens, the feeling of normalcy returns, and you are happy to be of healthy body and mind once more. These paintings reflect the moods I encountered while waiting for the sense of normalcy to return.  Patience is what I was told I needed, I think what I really wanted to hear is that I would return to a normal state, that my recovery would not forever scar me and leave me misshapen.  I wanted re-assurance.  Art making allowed me to leave my body and just be in my mind, to forget for some period of time what I was going through.  Of course in the end the body pulls us back in.  The fight of mind over body can only be sustained for but so long....  For sale on Etsy,

Open call to sculptors

Robbie Gordon is looking for sculputors to add to his LA outdoor gallery.  I visited with him on my way to my new gallery in Palm Desert.  A stop off in LA, via Route 1, gorgeous.  If interested, please go to his website and see what he is about & how to contact him.  Would certainly look good on your resume to have your sculpture represented in LA, and Robbie is very fair with his commission fee.

The gallery in his home is reserved for his art, which is in abundance.  He is quite the passionate artist.

Artists, Best Business Practices

Business Week Article

An excerpt from Business Week article:

Send Out Postcards

Callie Danae Hirsch, 43: Paintings

Web site: www.callieart.com
Studio: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Day Job: Telecommunications analyst at New York University

What works: "No one is going to make your career for you. As an artist, you need to get your work out there to the public. I send out postcards for all my shows, and people seem to collect them. I update my own Web site, put together address lists, and create the postcard design myself. I also show in non-traditional places. My work was featured in the luxury furnishings shop ABC Home in New York City, in celebration of Earth Day. I also enter juried shows constantly and participate in artist residencies, which afford me time to concentrate on my art."

A visit to the Tentacle Exhibit at the Monterey Aquarium, CA

The show was amazing, so many tentacle creatures to experience.  The octopus unraveled at the flash of my infrared beam on my camera.  I adore the cuttlefish, and they had them in abundance.  I was delighted to witness two cuttlefish in a mating dance ritual, it was simply incredible.

 Mating ritual!

I was in a trance watching the sea life in action.  They had to kick me out at closing time.

Please help to save our oceans, vote to save our planet when considering a president this election.  Life is not about money, it is about the continuation of life, help keep our planet healthy.

 ~ callie

Featured in NYU ~ Art Digest ~ Fall 2015

Moonlighting: The Artist in the Office Next Door 
by Renee Alfuso

By day, Callie Danae Hirsch programs telephones on campus as a communications analyst for NYU's Technology Operations Services. But when work ends she heads home to paint, relieving the day's stress with her iridescent acrylics.

Hirsch (STEINHARDT '96) has been an IT employee at NYU for the last 25 years but has always made time to pursue her passion for art, earning a master's degree in studio and environmental arts and exhibiting her work in numerous international shows. She even won a commission to design a subway station for the MTA Arts for Transit program.

All of Hirsch's paintings are inspired by nature, and her lifelong fascination with sea creatures is reflected on her canvases. "In my art I bring to life the enigmas that exist just below the surface," she explains. "Deep in the fabric of my being is the desire to generate excitement about the world in which we reside."

Hirsch's dream is to someday visit the Great Barrier Reef, using the sales from her paintings to fund the trip. In the meatime, Hirsch says she loves working at NYU - which allows her to be an artist but still pay the bills - and enjoys that her office job is so different from her creative outlet. "I think if I had to work in something like graphic design all day, I wouldn't want to go home and create because I'd just be burnt out, so IT is such a wonderful opposite, " she says.

- Renee Alfuso