The Drawing Room: studies in repetition

I will be having a show, "The Drawing Room: studies in repetition," at Voltage Coffee & Art in Cambridge! The show will feature some new work, a lot of sketchbook work, all my ladies as prints, and another old-fashioned photobooth installation for picture taking.

Cambridge is very special to me and I feel honored to be having a show within its city limits. I lived in Cambridge all 4 years of college, and it was home to two of my favorite poets: e. e. cummings and T. S. Eliot. I still love wandering its neighborhoods. There is an old, mysterious feeling of regality that hangs in the air there. This show is, in a way, going to pay an homage to all of these things. And so I began with these two paintings:

"kept by poetry"

"kept by research"

both are acrylic on 9x12" masonite.

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The opening will be Friday March 9th from 7-10 pm.

I'd also like to thank Craft Corners for featuring me in their Best of the Web series! I think a lot of you will love their site - they share a lot of DIY projects and amazing artists/makers. 

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend! What are you up to?

The look on your face yanks my neck on the chain.

I wanted to share this beautiful cover of Neko Case's "Star Witness," performed by Kate Macdonald and Janelle Blanchard in their school's stairwell. Neko herself posted this to her facebook page! These two girls have incredible voices and did so much justice to an incredible artist who is hard to compare with.

I hope you're all having a beautiful week! I'll be back soon with some art and news.

xo, Amanda

pine tree escape

-A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

little things

The Teeny Tiny Art Show IX is finally here!

Opening tonight!

Three Graces Gallery

105 Market St.

Portsmouth, NH

5-8 PM

part of First Friday art walk.

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I sadly won't be able to attend this year, but I know it's going to be lovely! If you're far away, my pieces can be purchased here. I have 6 pieces framed in black wood, as well as a new drawer in the Three Graces flat file filled with my works on paper!

xoxo, Amanda

                              

The Readings of Audrey Hepburn

(reading Vogue with supermodel Dovima, who had an appearance in Funny Face)

About a year ago, I did a post with photos of Marilyn Monroe reading. Tonight I felt compelled to do the same thing for Audrey Hepburn. Both women loved and appreciated literature in their own unique way. That's what's so wonderful about literature; that we all perceive, acknowledge, and admire it differently. Still, we all take something away from it.

I hope you all had a lovely February 1st! Spring is nearing us!

xoxo,

Amanda

things that are unsurpassable

This morning, I spent a few minutes with this birch tree in the gardens before work. I could stare at a birch tree for hours - the eyes, knots, layers, and the charcoal color palette. The markings, folds, peels, and scratches - they are as unique as someone's skin. 

Everyone has something they are in awe of, something that seems unexplainable in its beauty. Something that can be counted on to always restore your curiosity and wonder. Birch trees have always been that for me. It's like my brain can't figure them out, like they're a puzzle. I know that I could read about them and how they grow and why they peel, but there is something about the mystery of them and a feeling that they lead to something else that I would like to keep. For now, I'd rather just stare at them and draw their little dashes and lines and curls.

One of my students said that Russia has endless forests of birch trees. I would like to see that someday.

painted Isabella

Painting ladies in the art-making space at the new Isabella Stewart Gardner wing.

weekend inspiration

 Weekend Inspiration:

-the blouse Dakota Fanning is wearing on the cover of Elle

-geese and cattails (real and botanical)

-Flannery O'Connor's love of peacocks
-art deco home decor

-falling back in love with old things

-neighborhoods of Boston

-math in nature

(30s vanity in the Americas Wing at the MFA)

(a bridge in Sudbury, MA)

I hope you're all having a beautiful weekend! What are you up to?

bogo sale!

I realized I never shared any pictures from the Bazaar Bizarre Boston! So here's all my stuff at BBB. :)

I'm having a middle of winter sale in my shop - buy one print or paper doll, get one free! Purchase one and let me know in the message to seller which you'd like for the free second. 

I'd also like to thank Annie of Vintage Diggs for doing this lovely write-up about me - thank you so much!

I hope you all have a beautiful week!

sunday afternoons

I am officially prepared for Valentine's Day!

 Maybe it's silly, but I love this holiday.
valentines by Rifle Paper Co., Paper Source, and Laughing Elephant.

I spent a little time in Harvard Square today, particularly in the green house..

..and Anthropologie, where I stumbled upon Julia's illustration work in "I Had a Favorite Dress." I love when I see Julia's books among all the others and get to think, "my friend made that!"

Over my past few years in the city, wandering Anthropologie (where it is rare that I can buy something) has always made me feel like Holly Golightly at Tiffany's. 

"The only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!"