Everyday Moments

 

I saw the work of this artist way back in 2019 at an exhibit at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.  Shizu Saldamando was born and raised in the San Francisco Mission District but she now lives and works in Los Angeles.  Her paintings are portraits of peers, friends and loved ones and honors the connections that happen throughout daily life.  Clicking the link above will take you to a site showing more of the beautiful faces she has painted.  

Ms. Saldamando's work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum, the Smithsonian American Museum of Art and the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture as well as many more museums and private collections.

I was truly impressed by her beautiful portraits. 

Inspired by the Desert Southwest

 Jim Waid is an Arizona artist who was born in 1942 in Elgin Oklahoma but has lived most of his life in Tucson Arizona.  His artistic style is abstract but it's a type of abstract that is clearly influenced by the natural surroundings in the desert southwest.  I found this painting in the Tucson Museum of art and fell in love with the bright colors in the painting.  Jim's works can be found in museums all over the United States including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Denver Art Museum. Locally, he has works in the collections of the Phoenix Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the  Arizona State University Art Museum. He is one of Arizona's most celebrated artists but one many people have not heard of.  

The Dust Bowl

 

I saw this painting at the University of Arizona Art Museum two years ago.  I remember studying it carefully trying to figure out what was going on in the painting.  The painting's title is "Avalanch by Wind" and it was painted by Alexandre Hogue (1898-1994).  

Hogue was born in Missouri but raised from a very young age in Texas.  His mother taught him about "Mother Earth" which became a theme in his artwork.  Today we would call him an environmentalist because of his steadfast dedication to preservation of the land.  This painting was part of a series he painted that was called the Erosion Series.  Those paintings all had to do with the dust bowl era, a period during the Great Depression where the land was laid bare from over use and drought which Hogue believed was driven by human actions.

In this painting you see a storm building up that has caused heavy winds that have forced the dirt and sand over the railroad tracks. In the background we see a train coming and a lone man trying desperately to warn the engineer of trouble ahead.

There is a five minute video discussing this painting here.

The Future & The Past

 

I saw this painting at the Scottsdale Ferrari Art Fair a few weeks ago.  The artist is Dennis Numkena (1941-2010), a Native American architect and artist.  As a child, Numkena attended the Phoenix Indian School and graduated from Scottsdale High School.  After serving in the US Military, he lived for a short period in New York City.  A visit to the Guggenheim Museum inspired him to become an architect.  He graduated from Arizona State University and formed the first Native owned architecture firm.  His artworks can be found in collections all over the world.

This painting caught my eye because to me it looked both futuristic and historic at the same time.  It looks very much like a Hopi pueblo site while also looking like it could be a scene from a Star Wars movie.  

The painting was for sale from Savvy Collectors for $30,000.00