Contributed by Holly Knott / Skaneateles Artisans

Art Fundraiser - Harvest the Arts: Skaneateles Artisans, 11 Fennell St., Skaneateles. First Friday, 10/3, 6:00 – 9:00pm. Skaneateles Artisans is holding a silent auction fundraiser of member artwork. Half the proceeds to be donated to the Skaneateles Outreach Program; the other half will support Bob Hood’s Haitian Fresh Water Project. Through 10/25. Auction ends Saturday, 10/25, at 4:00 pm. The gallery offers off-street parking and accepts major credit cards. Visit their website at www.skaneatelesartisans.com. For more information, call 315-685-8580.

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By Cary Briel / Skaneateles Design

Many people from Skaneateles travel to NYC periodically, either on business, or for pleasure. For example, to see a show. If you do this yourself, the next time you’re there, you may spy a stranger drawing you, your wife or kids. And if so, you could simply chalk it up to the eccentricities of the environment, for example if you happen to be standing in Central Park, Greenwich Village, etc. But it may be more than that. There is one artist in NYC who has set a goal to draw every single person in New York. Sounds crazy? But, then, this is the guy who drew every piece of art in the MOMA. His name is Jason Polan.

Jason explains like this:

I am trying to draw every person in New York. I will be drawing people everyday and posting as frequently as I can. It is possible that I will draw you without you knowing it. I draw in Subway stations and museums and restaurants and on street corners. I try not to be in the way when I am drawing or be too noticeable. Whenever I have a new batch of drawings I will post them on this blog. If you would like to increase the chances of a portrait of YOU appearing on this blog please email me (art@jasonpolan.com) a street corner or other public place that you will be standing at for a duration of two minutes (I will be on the corner of 14th street and 8th avenue on the North-east corner of the street from 2:42-2:44pm this Thursday wearing a bright yellow jacket and navy rubber boots, for example).

Check out Jason’s blog here. Perhaps you’ve already been drawn!

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By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design

Warmer temps and fun happenings have begun to rear their wonderful head in our little corner of the world (Skaneateles, NY). There are a plethora of events to choose from this week-end. First Fridays is a big one, yes it is held on Friday. In fact every First Friday of every month.

Skaneateles Artisans will be having the opening of a new exhibit featuring artists Kathleen Schneider (watercolors), Teresa Vitale (painting) and Dee Ann VonHunke (jewelry) with marimba music by Genoveffa Vitale and refreshments. In support of First Friday, the Packwood House is pleased to present an artist demonstration chosen by the Skaneateles Artisans. Bella Blue will display Gretchen Hamlin’s work in their window, she is a glassblower. Lorraine Savidge, threadpainter, will have her work at White and White. Check out the full list of exhibits you can view this Friday HERE.

Live music at Creekside Coffeehouse on Saturday from 7:30PM - 9:30PM. Listen to Bob Lyna for FREE.

Sunday from 10AM - 4PM St. James Episcopal Church will be holding their Earthworks Art Show. About 16 artists, whose work is natured inspired, have been invited to take part in this event. Holly Knott is one of the artists. I know this because I stumbled upon her blog recently when she blogged about some awesome new bags she was creating. Her inspiration for these bags is our beautiful crystal clear lake here Skaneateles, NY. Here’s a pic of her first one below:

Phillipe and Jeremy Schwimmer will be hosting Art on the Lake at their East Lake Road home Sunday from 4PM - 6PM. Art on the Lake is a gathering to celebrate the arts and the communities they impact. The event will feature an exclusive viewing of paintings by John D. Barrow, on loan from the John D. Barrow Art Gallery in Skaneateles. Participants will enjoy the special art viewing, cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and lively conversation. For reservations call the Everson Museum of Art at 315-474-6064.

And I saved the best event for last (IMO) the Fingerlakes SPCA will hold their 12th Annual Pet Walk and Festival on Sunday from 12PM - 4PM. Registration begins 11:15 AM at the Austin Park Pavilion - corner of Austin Street and Jordan Street. This event is held annually to raise money for the SPCA homeless animals residing at their shelter as they await their new families. With operating costs increasing, this fundraiser is vitally important to their success. This event for animal lovers, benefits all. You can enjoy a fun-filled day of activities for your family and pets while helping out your local SPCA.

So with all of this going on this week-end there should be no excuse for sitting around on the couch watching TV … right? Have a great week-end everybody

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I really love how Gustav Klimt saw the world. Differently, and magical. I think I ’see’ things like he did when I dream, but only when I dream, and I have that same feeling, that of dreaming, when I look at his paintings.

Here is another wonderful Gustav Klimt painting. The subject is Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist and the hostess of a prominent Vienna salon. The painting is considered one of Klimt’s masterpieces. This painting was also involved in a restitution battle between a niece of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer who argued that it was seized along with four other Klimt paintings by the Nazis during World War II. In January all five paintings were awarded to the niece, Maria Altmann, now 90, who lives in Los Angeles, and other family members. The painting has also gained notoriety as having fetched the largest sum ever paid for a painting, when it was purchased for $135 million dollars by Ronald S. Lauder for the Neue Galerie in Manhattan. It’s a truly wonderful painting.

Click the thumbnail for the full size image.

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One of the most wonderful artists to have graced this earth in my opinion is Gustav Klimt. Knowing what makes his work so special is no more difficult than simply looking at one of his paintings or sketches. Here is Mada Primavesi, painted by Gustav Klimt in 1912.

Click the thumbnail for the full size image.

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“King Lear and Cordelia”, oil on canvas, private collection

Click here for larger version.

In William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, Cordelia, Lear’s youngest daughter, is disowned by her father for refusing to flatter him. Cordelia is held in extremely high regard by all of the good characters in the play—the king of France marries her for her virtue alone, overlooking her lack of dowry. She remains loyal to Lear despite his cruelty toward her, forgives him, and displays a mild and forbearing temperament even toward her evil sisters, Goneril and Regan. Despite her obvious virtues, Cordelia’s reticence makes her motivations difficult to read, as in her refusal to declare her love for her father at the beginning of the play.

Cordelia’s chief characteristics are devotion, kindness, beauty, and honesty—honesty to a fault, perhaps. She is contrasted throughout the play with Goneril and Regan, who are neither honest nor loving, and who manipulate their father for their own ends. By refusing to take part in Lear’s love test at the beginning of the play, Cordelia establishes herself as a repository of virtue, and the obvious authenticity of her love for Lear makes clear the extent of the king’s error in banishing her. For most of the middle section of the play, she is offstage, but as we observe the depredations of Goneril and Regan and watch Lear’s descent into madness, Cordelia is never far from the audience’s thoughts, and her beauty is venerably described in religious terms. Indeed, rumors of her return to Britain begin to surface almost immediately, and once she lands at Dover, the action of the play begins to move toward her, as all the characters converge on the coast. Cordelia’s reunion with Lear marks the apparent restoration of order in the kingdom and the triumph of love and forgiveness over hatred and spite. This fleeting moment of familial happiness makes the devastating finale of King Lear that much more cruel, as Cordelia, the personification of kindness and virtue, becomes a literal sacrifice to the heartlessness of an apparently unjust world.

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