badfishstudios art blog

PAINTER SEEKS VIDEO-GRAPHER

new finished work at nieto

new paintings

Waldemar Mitrowski Gallery is inspiring

HOLIDAY ARTY PARTY TONIGHT DECEMBER 9TH 7-11PM

PRESS REVIEWS

"My Process "VIDEO INTERVIEW IN MISSION LOCAL

gallery

open studios

WORK in PROGRESS AT OPEN STUDIOS

PRESS REVIEWS

Georgianne Fastaia's "The Cowntess" is among the works at Art Explosion Open Studios this weekend.

MY ART NEWS

CHINA BASIN SERIES

thanks

At NIETO FINE ART

the sf international art fair

twiilight 48 x 48 oil 09

red freighter

barns on the river

freighters

china basin series at LOCAL PATRON Gallery

ballerina's secret

Transforming the Mistake

musical accompaniment works in progress

barns SOLD

waiting for godot

WAYFARIN STRANGER SERIES on display at

just a perfect day

sorrow

come see the beautiful world

ORISHAS works in progress OXUM

Who is Alice Shaw ? review of (auto ) biography at gallery 16

oyo Ruler of winds and whirlwinds.

Review: Art, More to Like April 2009 By VIOLA

"After the Flood" @ The Drugstore Gallery 2006 art business review

Studio

"After the Flood" @ The Drugstore Gallery 2006 art business review

"He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence." r.m.r.

2012-01-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce a SOLO EXHIBITION of my Paintings at Nieto Fine Art in May 2012

PAINTER SEEKS VIDEO-GRAPHER
I am a fine artist seeking a collaborator on a video/documentary about the artistic process. I am seeking a person to work with me over the course of a few weeks, as a painting evolves .

AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE of what I am looking for is the Video, "Anatomy of Portia" by Anthony May Art. See link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WfBrl5SXhY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

This video project needs to be completed before April 2012.I am offering a painting in exchange for your work. My recent available work can be found at http://badfishstudiosartblog.blogspot.com

Please contact me directly to discuss this project. Georgianne Fastaia badfishstudios@yahoo.com Thank you!

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2012-01-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

poemegranate 7x7 oil 2011

winter couple 12x12 oil 2011

sitting geisha,small works,12x12 oil 2011

beast of burden 2011 framed 12x20

mother and child,framed 9x12 2011

dulcet reverie 36x36 oil 2011 framed

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2012-01-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

"Two Cows" 9x12 oil 2011

"Winter Raven" 12x12 oil 2011

"rain cows" 36x36 oil 2011

"puddlejumping" 30x30 oil 2011 SOLD

me with you 30x40 oil 2011

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2011-12-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

click this image to view his entire picasa web gallery. i believe he lives in the bay area and reminds me of nathan oliveras work. i love his work.

i saw his work at donna seager gallery and was blown away by the emotional energy each painting holds.

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2011-12-09T01:27:00.001-08:00

join me in STUDIO 27 Friday December 9th at The Art Explosion .
I have some older works as well as more affordable smaller paintings to show you. I have also been working on many of the painting requests I’ve had over the years and look forward to seeing you!
warmly, Georgianne

Holiday Art Show!

Over 90 Artists!

Opening Reception

Friday Dec 9th 7pm – 11pm

Art Explosion Studios

2 Locations in SF CA:

2425 17th Street @ Potrero Ave

744 Alabama St @ 19th St

Free Admission

Free Refreshments

Buy Art at the Source www.ArtExplosionStudios.com

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Hom
e

2011-11-23T16:59:00.001-08:00

In July 2009 my painting
"Ballerina” was featured in
ELLE DECOR

Robert Genn: The World of Icons (featured response)
The Painter's keys

"Personal icons as everyday saints"by Georgianne Fastaia, SF, CA, USA

Trinidad original painting 20 x 20 inches

Santeras means "Saint maker" or one who paints saints, as in the Russian
tradition of self-taught artists painting naive religious icons after devout
prayer. There is a difference between making an icon, and having it
become the object of worship, and making a representation that expresses
a truth about God. We cannot depict the Father, the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity.
Herein lies the contradiction of faith, both invisible and boundless, yet evidenced
through our very real humanity.

I set out to describe my faith through a Child's eye. In creating this series I became
a santera: a saint maker interpreting the holy moments of each day. Inspired by the
joy of my infant daughter Sophie, I relied on the spirit to move through me to create
raw childlike images infused with feeling. Many figures float in a timeless space in
which their bodies are painted as shimmering vessels for their hearts. If we reveal
our spiritual nature when we release our fear of difference and our sense of
separateness from one another, then it is inevitable that in the figures grew increasing
similar and androgynous in each new work. I'm particularly fascinated by images
of triplets - as a metaphor for aspects of us - the trinity depicted as three male figures
dancing or floating together as one body. Or as three women, often with one or more
painted over but still faintly visible. These are everyday saints, personal icons
depicting mysteries of joy.

From the PAINTERS KEYS

Unraveling the poetry of the soul
by Georgianne Fastaia, San Francisco, CA, USA

Barns midday oil 48 x 48 2008
My joys are equal only to my capacity for sorrow. In this deep well are the
waters in which I swim to meet a shining and vibrating light, my constant
companion through long nights. The job of the artist is to translate with
conviction and clarity the inchoate longings we all feel for that which i
s authentic and true: to unravel the poetry of the soul.

"Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn
back by an unseen hand. For a second you see—and seeing the secret, are
the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall
and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward
nowhere, for no good reason!" (Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night )

comments for Unraveling the poetry of the soul by Georgianne FastaiaFrom: Darrell Baschak -- Aug 25, 2009

Georgianne, your painting is extraordinary, it is apparant that you have the wherewithal to paint your inner most visions.

Unraveling the poetry of the soul
by Georgianne Fastaia, San Francisco, CA, USA

__________________________________________________________


Orisha of freshwater and pearls 36 X 36 OIL 2009

It’s called the Spring Studio Stroll, but I’m exhausted and frustrated. It was no stroll, but a marathon....
Revived, we went to the final venue—Art Explosion at 2425 17th St. near Potrero Avenure. Immediately I noticed Georgianne Fastaia’s large, evocative oils, part of a series celebrating the Orishas. Ah, an immigrant’s point of view, I thought. Yes, from Brooklyn, she said. What an eye.

Article in MILKSHAKES & MARGARITAS

http://www.artslant.com/ny/articles/bloglist/27955-georgianne-fastaia

______________________________________________________________________________

"After the Flood" @ The Drugstore Gallery
art business review

Comment: The paintings are inspired by Hurricane Katrina, Georgianne Fastaia tells me (and also in part by a devastating Connecticut snowstorm of 1972). She's never been to New Orleans, but rather is taken with the idea of floods, their impact, their devastation, what it means to be hopelessly engulfed by water, and even the beauty of natural disaster. She advances her argument not only with her compositions, but also by painting them on abandoned canvases, then framing them with sections of old floorboards, thereby incorporating the idea of rebuilding after a deluge. Priced $225-$1800. Good show, thoughtfully presented and persuasive.

Robert Genn: The World of Icons (featured response)
The Painter's keys
Midnight artists by Georgianne Fastaia, San Francisco, CA, USA

Ferns 36 x36 oil 2007 original painting

I work in a large warehouse in San Francisco among 70 other artists.
There are a few of us who arrive at midnight, knowing where the 24 hour
Starbucks is and who turn on their headphones and among the sleeping city
, begin. I love to sleep there on my couch and then catch the clear unclouded
grace of the first sun, the still, empty studio and myself struggling towards
something I am happy with.

________________________________________________________

I Spy Vintage Decor and More 2008
Grand Opening - Operation 007, A Glimpse into Our Future

DROWNING PONY by georgianne fastaia

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2011-09-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

PROCESSI believe that what you discard or cover up in a painting is as important as what remains visible. The impetus behind every mark I make on the canvas is to “transform the mistake". I re-use old canvases, actively damaging and rebuilding the surface to affirm a concept of beauty in which our scars make us complex and whole. I have been refining an experimental technique for removing layers of paint which I call a lift. This unorthodox process reveals ghosts of underlying imagery and has become my own form of storytelling: visually communicating abstract concepts of impermanence and fragility. The process is completely unpredictable. By giving up control, I am forced to stay lighthearted and adaptable to the paintings evolution. There is liberation in non-attachment, and it is this irreverence which has, at its core, a fearless leap of faith.

STAGE ONE

sketched in figures,added tone, added soap for first reveal,washed with water

STAGE TWO

STAGE TWO
(detail) added light blue scumbling,tightening and defining overall design keeping to a limited palatte of warm pinksbrowns

FINAL STAGE in the LIFT PROCESS

2011-09-16T18:59:00.001-07:00

I am exclusively represented by NIETO FINE ART GALLERY. Please direct inquiries about my work to Anaya and John Nieto or Curator, John Haas.

Nieto Fine Art
565 Sutter St
San Francisco, CA 94102
Hours:Tues–Sat 10am–6pm
415.393.4511

INQUIRIES: jhaas@nietofineart
Price List available

The Art Explosion Studio
415 368 1620
badfishstudios@yahoo.com
Studio 27, The Art Explosion
2425 17th Sreet, at Hampshire

Please email me to be informed of upcoming exhibitions and Collectors only Sales. Price list available.

2011-09-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

Friends and Patrons,

I'd love to show you what I've been working on this year. See my recent work at

FALL OPEN STUDIOS this weekend or on my new website: georgiannefastaia.com

Detail of Original Painting "Me with You " 36 x 50 2011

Please visit me in STUDIO 27 at The Art Explosion, 2425 17th @ Hampshire

Open Studios

Fri Sept 16th 7pm - 11pm

Saturday Sept 17th and Sunday Sept 18th 12-5pm

Here you will find my most recent paintings.

"Do not copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction. Derive it from nature while dreaming in front of it." Paul Gaugin

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2011-09-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

pic 1 talking with her hands

"talking with her hands" 30 x 30 oil 2011 (painting in progress)

2011-09-01T23:41:00.000-07:00


Orisha of freshwater and pearls 36 X 36 OIL 2009

___SF GATE ART PHOTO FEATURED__________________________________________

Last Chance: Art Explosion Open Studios

« Back to Article

____________________________________
Featured Response in Robert Genn's THE PAINTER'S KEYS http://painterskeys.com/

Midnight artists by Georgianne Fastaia, San Francisco, CA, USA

Ferns 36 x36 oil 2007 original painting

________________________________________________________

I Spy Vintage Decor and More 2008
Grand Opening - Operation 007, A Glimpse into Our Future

DROWNING PONY by georgianne fastaia

Robert Genn: The World of Icons (featured response)
The Painter's keys

"Personal icons as everyday saints"by Georgianne Fastaia, SF, CA, USA

Trinidad original painting 20 x 20 inches

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2011-04-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

Please find my paintings at
NIETO FINE ART

I am delighted to be in the Inspired Company of the Fine Artists at this beautiful Gallery. Owners Anaya and John Nieto share an energy for Art that is matched by the curatorial eye of Gallery Director John Haas. Please stop in to be shown my recent paintings.Nieto Fine Art 565 Sutter Street at Powell http://nietofineart.com/

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2011-04-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

These paintings are inspired by the cargo ships anchored off China basin, as well as old rotting docks & fishing boats bleaching in the sun. This location, at the end of Mariposa and Third has been a favorite haunt of mine since the Auto Auction was still across the street from The Ramp. Originally chosen by a plein air painting group out of the Art Explosion which I was a part of--though unfortunately-- was never able to join my friends due to the birth of my daughter. I am naturally drawn to painting boats on the water as I grew up on the Connecticut shore with my father’s sailboat out front.

view growing up mission rock 30x30 oil 09 available

referencephoto

my flood paintings from 2006,2007

2010-10-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Much thanks to ART SPAN and MISSION ARTISTS UNITED for their efforts at bringing Art directly to the public

A special thanks to Alan Bamberger of Artbusiness.com for covering so many art openings every year, to Stephen Wagner of SF Artists Network, Mike Yokum for his work with ArtSpan and SF ART NEWS and Owen Geronimo at SF ARTFORUM

VISIT ME IN STUDIO 27 Open Studios at Art Explosion 2425 17th @Hampshire

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2010-09-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

woman carrying bundle

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2010-06-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

I am grateful to Sandra Lee Gallery for including a number of my paintings at the SF International Art Fair where "Late for the Party" sold the first night. Although I was not the right fit for The Gallery, I appreciate Sandra Lee's interest in my development as an artist.

Sandra Lee Gallery Contemporary Art

251 Post St. Suite 310, S. F. CA 94108 | 415.291.8000 | art@sandraleegallery.com

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2010-05-06T18:08:00.001-07:00

twiilight 48 x 48 oil 09
Originally uploaded by georgianne fastaia

2010-04-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2010-04-19T19:47:00.001-07:00

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2010-04-19T19:46:00.001-07:00

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2009-11-17T08:34:00.001-08:00

LOCAL PATRON: 1418 Grant Avenuesold

2009-10-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

ballerina's secret 30x24 oil 09 sold orisha of freshwater & pearl 36x36 sold

I am doing a series of abstract ballerinas . If you are interested in seeing my ballerina paintings please email me at badfishstudios@yahoo. I will be sending out a slideshow of completed ballerinas for sale soon.
these photos of my own ballerina girl...inspired my painting, ballerina's secret

A list of mistakes
October 13, 2009
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." (Scott Adams)

Esoterica: There are two kinds of students--recipe takers and recipe fighters. The former listen to the instructor, try to get it "right," and often succeed in doing so. The latter strike out on their own, pay the price of rugged individualism, and fail often. In art, it's all about failure. In art, the journey outshines the destination. In art, mistakes are golden.

Featured Responses

Evoking the mystery
by Georgianne Fastaia, San Francisco, CA,

I believe that to make art with all the questions answered deprives the viewer of the joy of
participating in the act of creation. I believe the self balances tenuously in the ambiguous, misunderstood spaces between people. Exploring the fragility of our connection to each other is the reason I make art.

The primary subject of my work is the existential condition. I use abstracted forms to explore the movement between the joy of kinship and our ultimate aloneness. Self-taught, the choices I make in creating each painting, exploring the border between figuration and abstraction, serve my subject: I want the viewer to feel unsure, pulled into the painting's surface and left with questions.

My work is informed by the desire to "transform the mistake." In my process, I re-use old canvases working into layers of paint, actively damaging and rebuilding the surface to give each a "history." Through this process I seek to express a more authentic concept of beauty while striving to make paintings which retain an
evocation of mystery.

2009-09-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

Artist Interview by Emily Citraro

GEORGIANNE FASTAIA was born in Brooklyn , New York , in 1964 to a middle class family that later moved to Connecticut . Her mother, a High School art teacher, encouraged Georgianne to follow her passion and live creatively, however, she only seriously began painting in 2001. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from San Francisco State University earning a B.A. in Creative Writing and did additional study in Clinical Psychology at Lewis and Clark University , Portland , Oregon .

A self-taught painter, she supports her 2 year old through her work which has been exhibited in galleries throughout California. Her art is also in private collections across the country, and has been featured in Art Week Magazine, The SF Chronicle, and the July 2009 issue of ELLE Décor.

Georgianne experienced some difficult setbacks in life, including moving from home at age sixteen and working while finishing high school and college. She ultimately found herself enmeshed in addiction, yet Georgianne has managed to find a way to thrive in the face of adversity, and looks back at her experiences with candor and hope for the future, stating that in that painful experience lies " the heart and soul of things" and the raw emotion that defines truly felt experience. It is this wellspring of feeling that draws collectors of her work. These difficult times have had a direct impact on her work as an artist, though not in the way one would imagine: through the process of recovery and soul-searching, Georgianne has embraced both the light and the dark, the painful experiences she inflicted upon herself are not recounted with shame but with a sense of strength and optimism. For anyone to begin painting at age 37 and to be selling work a year later; and with no formal training other than a single college course (with Bob Bechtel) is remarkable. To do so after having spent years struggling to recover from chemical dependency illustrates far more of the nature of Georgianne's strength.

When asked how her life experiences impacted her artistic process in producing her enigmatic and beautifully distressed paintings she had this to say, "I think an artist has to have something to share that is authentically their own experience" Periods of my past had been so self destructive that all the artifice which preserves our sense of self -- education, love, family, everything had been stripped away. The process of recovery required rigorous honesty: a willingness to try to confront the unappealing parts of myself. And it required the willingness to do anything to rebuild my life.” Georgianne has now been clean for over a decade. What she learned is reflected in her painting process - to destroy and rebuild the surface over and over until beauty is revealed.

In developing an unorthodox technique of scrubbing her canvases, Fastaia has embraced the distressed aesthetic. Each canvas is covered with layers of paint...Murphy’s oil soap is poured onto the canvas which is tilted to create drips; horizontals and verticals. The soap which is used to clean brushes was a surprising discovery. It eats away layers of paint in what Fastaia calls "LIFTS"----revealing hidden colors below.The process is completely unpredictable and requires a fearless leap of faith for the artist. By giving up control, this process forces her to stay lighthearted and adaptable to the paintings evolution, while staying sensitive to the moments of beauty as they are revealed.

After Hurricane Katrina, Fantasia did a moving series on the flooding of New Orleans .

She explains, "During the ice storm of 1972 we had to evacuate the house. My family spent Christmas in the Salvation Army. What I remember clearly about this were two very contrary ideas coexisting; this awful disaster somehow also held within it a natural beauty that I had never before witnessed, it was as if the world had disappeared into shades of grey. From an early age I was aware of things having many layers.

I seek to reveal these layers which give depth, history, and complexity to my forms. My route is a process which goes against all standard painting instructions; never mix oil and water. I am actively seeking to create “catastrophes” on the canvas and to work them slowly until their beauty is recognizable.”Whether her subjects are rooftops rising above flood waters, or solitary figures alone in their deepest beliefs, they are unified by her treatment of the canvas; a testament to the power of transformation.

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2009-08-31T02:28:00.000-07:00

the lifted veil,
the inability to soothe my child's pain
the series has been an elusive trickster unforthcoming,
hard as lifting rocks to find one good thing
MUSICAL ACCOMPAINMENT
influences,inspirations and musical accompianment to the series poor wayfaring strangers

WORKING NOTES / WAYFARIN STRANGER

For those interested in how a painting gets from here to there. I created these paintings in the late summer of 2009 for the opening of Coda after putting my daughter to bed, between the hours of 8pm and 4am. Alone in the drafty studio, I don two pairs of pants and extra socks and am most productive then, without interruption.

I created a playlist of songs I listened to over and over: The Wayfarin Stranger soundtrack consists of as many versions of Poor Wayfaring Stranger as I could find, Jack White’s live version (obsessively), Mad world, Lou Reed’s Perfect day, and pretty much everything by Jeffrey Luck Lucas.

JULY 20 2009- the lifted veil,the inability to soothe my child's pain....the series has been an elusive trickster: unforthcoming, hard as lifting rocks to find one good thing

In this series I use gesture, color, and texture to explore the places where the broken and the transcendent meet. The paintings are unified by an emotional use of color, and by heavily worked surfaces which almost appear to have sustained water-damage. I re-use old paintings, actively "distressing" the surface by adding then scraping away layers to give each painting a history: histandingwoman.jpgdden then revealed, just below the surface. The way I work with paintings is to respond to what is evolving before me via the chance effects created by this process. My hope is to affirm a more authentic concept of beauty while making paintings which retain an evocation of mystery.

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2009-08-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

barns in the middayu sun sold

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2009-08-04T14:56:00.001-07:00

feeling much better, paintings coming along

.Working notes: for those interested in how a painting gets from here to there. I created these paintings in the late summer of 2009 for the opening of Coda after putting my daughter to bed, between the hours of 8pm and4am. Alone in the drafty studio, I don 2 pairs of pants and extra socks and am most productive then, without interruption.

I created a playlist of songs I listened to over and over: the series soundtrack:--as many versions of

Wayfaring Stranger as I could find, Jack White’s live version obsessively, Mad world, Lou Reed’s Perfect day and Jeffrey Luck Lucas.

The paintings are unified by color palette and emotional overtone-which is why the painting of three Monkeys looking expectantly upward is included among the other strangers, “going over Jordon, ... just going home.

2009-07-31T12:50:00.000-07:00

coda jazz and supper club

mother of saint 36 x 3 1500 horizon 30x 30 oil 900

2009-07-30T04:15:00.000-07:00

feeling much better, paintings coming along.

the you tube clips are the music i listened to while creating the series. listen. you will get a glimpse of the feelings conveyed through the music to the paint.

"Whom will you cry to, heart? More and more lonely,
your path struggles on through incomprehensible mankind.
All the more futile perhapsfor keeping to its direction,
keeping on toward the future,
toward what has been lost.

Once. You lamented...
What was it?
A fallen berry of jubilation, unripe.
But now the whole tree of my jubilation is breaking,
in the storm it is breaking,
my slow tree of joy.
Loveliest in my invisible landscape,
you that made me more known to the invisible angels." Rainier Maria Rilke

this sound sad as my heart

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2009-07-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

someone said to me,
" i saw your paintings. they're so sad."

girls studying

my joys are equal only to my capacity for sorrow. in this deep well are the waters in which i swim to meet a shining and vibrating light, my constant companion through long nights. the job of the artist is to translate with conviction and clarity the inchoate longings we all feel for that which is authentic and true:to unravel the poetry of the soul.

"Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see—and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason! "
— Eugene O'Neill (Long Day's Journey into Night)

2009-05-31T10:47:00.000-07:00

Paintings celebrating the Orishas

Afro Carribean Mothers of Saint

The Yoruba believe that each person has a Guardian Spirit called an "Orisha". Orisha are aspects of the Supreme Being that are manifested as forces of nature. When Yoruba slaves were brought to the New World they brought their beliefs with them. This belief system is known as "Santeria" in Cuba and as “Candomble” in Brazil. The Orishas are considered “saints” responsible for different parts of life with attributes and myths attached.Three freed female slaves in Brazil began worshiping the forbidden African religion by merging Orishas with Catholic Saints.Slaves in America were criminalized for practicing their religion. It is said that is why Brazil got the Samba and America got the Blues…

New Abstract floodscape series
The Floating City: New Orleans After the Flood
paintings about the world turned upside down and the longing for home

In 2006, I responded to Hurricane Katrina with a series of abstract 'floodscapes' After the Flood. Three years later, I revisit the ninth ward with The Floating City. The impossibility of painting the physical reality of the flood allowed me to focus on the emotional reality of an inexorably altered world. My primary goal is to convey the sense of devastation and loss as well as to offer hope forthe city of New Orleans, rising.

on display on the mezzanine gallery at Arterra through May 25th.
Arterra San Francisco's first LEED-certified green high-rise community.
300 Berry at 5th one block from the ballpark

2009-05-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

studio in march 09

Paintings celebrating the Orishas

Afro Carribean Mothers of Saint

reference photos

Oxum the orisha of sweetwater 36 x 36 oil 09
Oxum's dance recalls her bathing in a waterfall, and summoning the forces that control pregnancy and childbirth. The young woman possessed by Oxum dances alongside her mother.

Oxum likes beauty, and devotes her life to it. She is also the goddess of love and fertility, and looks after newborns . The city of Salvadore in Brazil is believed to be run by Oxum; it is said its people love the good things in life.
Oxum's festival Candomblé practitioners believe that every person has an individual orixa which controls his or her destiny and acts as a protector. Each orixa represents a force in nature and is associated with certain foods, colours, animals and days of the week

. The girl with her toes painted yellow for Oxum, the little sun, and the word for power—axé—written on the wall Procreation, beauty, riches, love, and fertility. The mistress of jewels and fresh water. This is Oxum

bahia salvador procession fesitival of oxum

2009-05-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

faceprint of my colors
makeup on paper

saw in thirds from magic tricks series
floating spoon from magic tricks series

envelope 2009
lipstick , envelope
$10,000

palm reading
black printers ink with readers notes

tea leaf reading
teacup, cigarette butt

the real alice shaw

tea photograph, my past left
landscape right

Who is Alice Shaw?
review of Auto (biography) at Gallery 16

There was palpable excitement in the crowded room as people hovered around a table, dropping five bucks into a jar, waiting to get their handwriting analyzed.

I was intrigued by the invitation,, "Alice Shaw has employed others, such as a handwriting analyst, an astral chart expert, a reader of tea leaves and a psychic, to tell her information about herself …then taken what she has learned from these sessions and made artwork in response.

The show was part documentation of this process—her original handwritten show proposal and the letter the handwriting analyst wrote in response, a palm readers scribbled notes upon her handprint, a teacup and the notes “ future health problems”, childlike watercolors and photos of the artist in various personas, interspersed with pairs of photographs and prints expressing dichotomies.

The first piece that caught my eye was face print of my colors, made by pressing paper onto her made up face….faint and wrinkled like a mounted skin, ghostly, yet still bearing the imprint of the artist.

in that sad fleeting visage; mystery.

On my second tour around the gallery I focused on the photographs; distilled, mature, enigmatic, coming finally to a watercolor series of illustrated magic tricks suggesting things are not always what they seem.

I returned to a framed envelope with a lipstick kiss on the back. Why I wondered, in a room full of artworks priced under $1000 was a lipstick kiss on the back on an envelope priced at $10,000? The difference in price was disjointing and made me consider the possibility that the price was an intentional artifice, a clue requiring that I pay attention.

The envelope, mounted in a simple black frame, incongruously almost, freezing in time, that particular kiss: until it became a symbol of a kiss which contained the promise of entering into another, and through them the hope of becoming complete; of understanding the unknowable you. Consider that most tricky of mirrors, love. The desire to be seen through the eyes of another, as much an illusion in the quest to know ourselves as a Russian woman reading your palm.

(Auto) biography uses our own fascination with ourselves to lure us in, as if through her exploration of identity we might be let in on the secret.

A friend commented that the work was hung too low, unevenly and looked unprofessional. My impression was that this was a deliberate choice serving to put the viewer at ease, by making the presentation more accessible, like a model with a chipped tooth. In their imperfection you recognize their humanity, as such I felt the way the show was curated beckoned the viewer to an intimate place, as if whispering, "You can be yourself here." We have our handwriting analyzed, see if we can predict the color of the next gumball out of the machine before we realize she’s winking back at us, as if saying; you don't really believe that stuff, do you?

comment and photos by georgianne fastaia for www.artbusiness.com
apologies for the flash/glare

alice shaw

BadfishStudios Art Blog: Home

2009-05-10T01:10:00.000-07:00

ELLE DECOR

In July 2009 my painting
"Ballerina” was featured in
ELLE DECOR.

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From the PAINTERS KEYS

Unraveling the poetry of the soul
by Georgianne Fastaia, San Francisco, CA, USA

Barns midday oil 48 x 48 2008
My joys are equal only to my capacity for sorrow. In this deep well are the
waters in which I swim to meet a shining and vibrating light, my constant
companion through long nights. The job of the artist is to translate with
conviction and clarity the inchoate longings we all feel for that which i
s authentic and true: to unravel the poetry of the soul.

"Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn
back by an unseen hand. For a second you see—and seeing the secret, are
the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall
and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward
nowhere, for no good reason!" (Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night )

comments for Unraveling the poetry of the soul by Georgianne FastaiaFrom: Darrell Baschak -- Aug 25, 2009
Georgianne, your painting is extraordinary, it is apparant that you have the wherewithal to paint your inner most visions. __________________________________________________________________________________
Article in MILKSHAKES & MARGARITAS
http://www.artslant.com/ny/articles/bloglist/27955-georgianne-fastaia

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Oba/Obba

Guardian of the hearth, first wife, of Changó, legitimate landlady of all cemeteries. Trained in the art of war, she used a machete as well as any male warrior, but was not physically attractive. According to Yoruba myth, jealous of his more beautiful wives, to guarantee Changó’s love for her and she cut off one of her ears and offered it to him in a stew. He fled their home in horror; she fled to the cemetery. She also records the life of each person in heav

Oya
Ruler of winds and whirlwinds.

She rules over the dead and the gates of the cemeteries. She is a fierce warrior and was once the wife of Chango. She represents Our Lady of the Presentation of Our Lord and St. Theresa.
Her colors are maroon and white, and her number is 9

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