BroadWay Armchair by Boris Bally

It might be easy to dismiss the work of Boris Bally with a simple ,”Oh yeah, he does that recycled traffic sign stuff”. But a closer look at his work, particularly his new “Broadway Armchair” reveals the hand and eye of a sophisticated artist. He manages to marry familiar quotidian imagery with artful sculptural forms. Michael Monroe was led to claim, “An attraction to the bold graphics of discarded highway signage inspired Boris Bally to collect, recycle, and fabricate furniture of great wit and distinction. His chairs – with fragmented words, symbols and arrows splashed across their surfaces – seem to symbolize urban grit and rhythms.” I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Blackbird (Fall Harvest) by Dolan Geiman

Crescent Hall Table by Chris Horney

The introduction of artwork often has a dramatic influence on the balance of a room. Although a symmetrical arrangement, such as a rectangular painting over a sofa or similar-sized pieces on either side of a mirror, is the most conventional way to display art, some works lend themselves to asymmetrical placement. Try any new piece in several settings before settling on a location—and take your time. Once you find the right fit, the artwork will resonate, and the room will feel more complete and composed.

On a Limb Oil Painting
by Charles Munch

Are Charles Munch’s enigmatic paintings contemporary icons for a Nature religion? Or are they a kind of Pop-style exploration of an artistic territory somewhere between Van Gogh and comic books? Munch describes himself as an artist in search of the meaning of the term “semi-abstract”.

“My first college art course was in calligraphy and historic lettering. I also worked as a professional sign painter. I still find something mysterious about letters – how we create such depth and meaning out of these linear shapes.” After graduation, Munch spent three years in New York studying to be a painting conservator. Today he restores artwork for museums and private collectors in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Although Munch says he has no conscious sense of the source of his images, his work in general – and his large-scale landscapes in particular – are an ongoing exploration of our relationship with the land, and the often uneasy tension between humanity and the rest of nature. “I enjoy turning natural forces – growth, weather, and light – into compositional forces in my paintings. When human figures appear, they unaully raise questions for the viewer: ‘What are the figures doing?’ ‘What is their place in the environment?’ ‘Are they fearful or reflective, peaceful, or dominating?’”

Although Munch’s design vocabulary emphasizes the tremendous power of the simplified line and the strong emotion provided by intense color, he downplays the influences of Postimpressionism, Pop, and much of modern art on his work. Instead he cites fifteenth-century Italian painters like Piero della Francesca and Giovanni Bellini as his primary models.

“What I share with the older painters is a determination to create something beautiful, to present a complex subject – perhaps even a narrative – in a profound way,” he explains. “In a sense, I do want my work to function as a kind of icon, as an object of meditation. The similarity between religious icons and signs brings me back to my beginning. I am still a sign painter, but of a different kind.”

Lunas Pigment Print by Charles Munch

Foglio in Turquoise Art Glass Vase
by David Patchen

Read part 1 of this series.

When David Patchen presented Artful Home with a new collection of breathtaking art glass vases, it was all I could do to stop marveling at the sophisticated and elegant combinations of forms, combining murrine and freeform cane, transparency and fluidity. His “Foglio in Turquoise” also sparked my regular exploration of what makes artists tick and what are some commonalities in the collective unconscious of artists.

I love looking at this vase side by side with Karen Kamenetzky’s fiber piece “Roots of Rhythm III“. The similar interplay between form and rhythm, and common uses of color is another one of those remarkable explorations that artists who have no contact with one another encounter. Some say this phenomenon reflects the reservoir of our experiences as a species. Whatever the reason for its occurrence, we are so fortunate to have the end result of this beautiful art.

Roots of Rhythm III Fiber Wall Piece by Karen Kamenetzky