Global to Local in Ecuador

You will undoubtedly find inspiration in watching these young people empowering young people to create transformation in the world.  I know I did.  Kudos to them for all their efforts.  This short video will tell you who they are and something about their goals.

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

Excelsior Academy Students Visit Indigenous Village 235 in Ecuador

Here's a short video of the student group that my daughter and her colleague took to Ecuador. The students here are speaking about their perceptions as they visit an indigenous village. It's amazing to hear these students speak, and if you're a humanist, you will love this!

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

Global to Local - Excelsior Academy

I’m so proud of my daughter, Jacqueline Hesse, and her colleague Christine McCartney, both teachers at Excelsior Academy, who believe in grassroots action and empowerment. I’m posting this to support their quest to teach and empower their students, who are fighting poverty and other problems in Newburgh, NY, by volunteering and travel education, to help revitalize their community.

It’s truly inspiring to listen to these fine young people who are trying to help themselves and their communities!
Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

Praising Abstraction

Blooming Joy - Acrylic on Canvas - c Lynda Lehmann

If we are going to discuss the validation of art by virtue of “skill” or “meaning,” we have to give abstraction a fair shake. To my way of thinking, abstract art is more interesting (if not more beautiful) than realism, because it presents a visual experience that has no precedent in reality. It presents something totally new and is its own reality. Realism refers to a single point in time and space even when it is arresting, compelling and speaks to universals.

But abstraction can be richly layered and full of ambiguity and mystery that yields fresh nuances of visual experience with each viewing. To me, abstract art comprises a rich, multi-dimensional experience because it doesn’t cater to the constraints of time and place. The new visual experience it presents is of value in and of itself, and does not require a literal meaning in the usual sense. As a matter of fact, it may call on the viewer to be a more active participant in the viewing, because it reaches beyond our usual scope of perception and lends itself to the subjective reality of each viewer. Art does not need to refer to political or religious ideologies, or even the continuum of human emotions and experience, to garner its meaning. 

It simply is, and therein lies its meaning. And to me, abstraction is very compelling in its visual (and emotional) richness.

As for the “skills” part of the equation, Kandinsky (among others) manifested a high level of both imagination and skill that many realists don’t possess. Good abstraction is difficult to achieve, often involving both concept and great discipline that match or exceed many realist paintings.

Abstract art is often devalued because, to many people, it “looks” easy. To me, it represents the creative experience at its best.




Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

Web of Light

Web of Light - Image c Lynda Lehmann 2016

Sunlight plays over the surface of a New Hampshire stream, illuminating the pebbles and rocks beneath the flow and adorning them with golden spangles of light that dance and change ad infinitum, creating a calming and hypnotic light show.

I have tweaked and stylized this image with software, to add contrast to the colors and lights and darks.  I hope it fills you with a sense of awe, as it does, me!  

I would rather watch the mystery of nature's cycles unfolding, than have riches in my hand.  My heart and soul sing along with the gurgling light song of the stream. 

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

The Magical Time Before Twilight

The Magical Time Before Twilight  - Image c Lynda Lehmann

With the approach of twilight, mystery shrouds the forest and the islands that dot a pristine Maine lake.  Day is not quite finished with her light play on the lake surface.  But night will move in with moonlight, twinkling stars in the ink black sky, and capricious winds playing in new rhythms over the water.  

With each soft puff of sweet lake breeze, my heart fills and quickens.  I am replete.

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

A Tree in Maine

A Tree in Maine -  by Lynda Lehmann Art c 2016

Here's a beautiful tree I photographed one spring, in Maine. There were four or five of these Kwanza Cherry Trees in a row, about 20 or so feet from each other, and their pink was just exploding in the sunlight!

Seeing all those cherry trees in a line, glowing pink and magenta in the sun, was wonderful serendipity, a touch of welcome color when walking down a road past grisled forest where the green was broken only by tree trunks and fallen branches.

The sunlight on the trees made the scene seem bigger than life.  Isn't it amazing how the light makes all things pop, indeed, seems to make things come alive?  In short, light seems to make things "real!"

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

Musing on Creative Process

Orbiting Seashells - Digital Art c 2016 Lynda Lehmann

I believe the "logic" of abstract art is purely an internal logic: a logic of the visual language. Some or many elements compete for various positions in the totality of the piece, and those elements can be compared to the elements of spoken language. Some areas are dominant, like the subject of a sentence. Some carry the "action," as a verb does. Other areas of the composition are transitional and create linkage between one area and another, kind of like a preposition. 

This is just my own perception. But in my thinking, I have run into this metaphor again and again. And I'm fascinated by the language comparison: in this case, with the analogous visual parts making up the analogous (visual) "whole." 

In what way do YOU regard abstraction?  Maybe you think of it in a musical or psychological or religious paradigm?

Lynda Lehmann c 2013 

from "Peripheral Vision: Inner Sights by Lynda Lehmann"

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

Return to Blogging

Fantasy with African Violets and Peace Lily - c 2016 Lynda Lehmann

I have gone through many life changes since I last blogged here or at my Mindsights Blog, which you can visit here: www.mindsights.wordpress.com.

You’ve likely gone through a lot of life changes as well, and I hope that you are finding good outcomes.  I hope to post more frequently and to not have to drop the ball again.  I had met so many good and interesting people while blogging that I can earnestly say it was one of the most interesting and fulfilling endeavors of my life.  Mostly because of YOU!  Blogging would have meant nothing were it not for the persons behind the posts.  And that’s obvious.  Nonetheless, good feelings are always worth sharing.

So I will begin now by offering some of my words about art and creative process, and try to post much more often, both images, writing and whatever other forms of communication seem appropriate.

You can read my short #‎essays on #‎art, including ART AND POWER here: http://www.creativity-portal.com/articles/lynda-lehmann/ and share your thoughts with me!

My best to each of you.  Much time has passed, but our creative passions have a way of re-igniting themselves, post adversity.  Or perhaps they are a potent force that helps us prevail both during adversity and after!  What’s your feeling about that?  How has creativity, whatever form it takes in your life, worked for YOU?

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops! And please pardon my bog appearance while I get used to platform changes! 

Beautiful Seashells on Your Postage Stamps!

 

Ocean Gems Seashell Treasures in Magenta Stamp by CrystalShellandStone
Browse Sea Stamps

Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase. You can also find cool, artsy gifts at my Zazzle shops!

Return to Blogging...

  

To my readers and blogging friends whom I met so long ago, on our respective blogs.  I don't know how life threw me off course (but then again, I do) but the tides have taken a peaceful turn and my little boat is upright.  So I am aiming for solid land and to blog and produce a lot of art and gift products, the things that give me joy.   
I know we have all gone through all kinds of changes.  Sometimes getting back on our feet is tough. My advice is to hang in there and believe in the future you were trying to make for yourself. 
I hope to find you again if you are still blogging.  I will try to intersperse the usual nature articles and poems with my more "commercial" posts. I hope to keep it going!  My best to you!
All Photos c Lynda Lehmann
Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All photos, images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings, photography and digital art, or make a purchase.  You can visit my Zazzle shops for cool gifts that are unique and artsy.

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Note: You can click on each photo to see a larger version. All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites listed in my sidebar if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art, or make a purchase.  You can find cool gifts at my Zazzle stores!