Kaleidoscope Gallery

From the brochure of "Kaleidoscope, a gallery":

Kaleidoscope, a beautiful new art gallery and studio which recently opened in Historic Downtown Valdosta, is owned and operated by Fay and Jolie Hyatt. The gallery currently represents 21 local, regional and national artists, most of whom have won many prestigious awards. Their fine art paintings include landscapes, still life, plantation hunt scenes, character studies, abstracts, and florals. Our artists work in a variety of media including oil, watercolor, pastel, and acrylic and their works range from realism to impressionism. We also have some beautiful bronze sculptures, stained glass, jewelry, pottery and wooden vessels. Most of the two dimensional works are original, but we do carry a collection of framed and unframed prints, as well as unframed originals.

Kaleidoscope has a separate folk art gallery where the fun filled works of Arthur Riggs and the primitive folk art of Floria Yancey are currently on display.

The gallery also offers fine art oil portraiture by Fay Bridges Hyatt, who has filled portrait commissions for families throughout the Southeast and Midwest. Sample portraits as well as portraits in progress can be seen at Kaleidoscope. Fay will work with you to paint the portrait you envision.

Kaleidoscope hopes to bring the enjoyment of creativity to others through artistic inspiration and instruction. Fay currently teaches a Monday morning fine art class in oils and will add classes and workshops in a variety of media.

The Kaleidoscope studio will also offer workshops with artists of national reputation. Gloria Mani from Columbus, Georgia is coming in late September to teach a plein air oil landscape workshop. Early in the same month Anne Abgott, a national award winning artist and writer of best selling book on color in watercolor will teach a three day workshop. The workshops with each of these artists will afford local and regional artists, both accomplished in fine art and those still learning, an opportunity to expand on their abilities.

If you would like more information about classes currently scheduled, upcoming artists events, shows and future workshops, please come by or call Fay or Jolie. You can also sign up with us so that we can keep you informed by email.

The goal of Kaleidoscope, a gallery is to provide beautiful, one of a kind artwork for both home and office decor. We want to provide our customers with the opportunity to purchase an original piece of art for every gift occasion including weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. So please come in at your earliest convenience and see all the gallery has to offer.

Kaleidoscope
123 North Ashley Street
Historic Downtown Valdosta
229-245-1289
kaleidoscope123@att.net

Colorblind Contest

Hello Everyone!

My mother has asked me to post for her again photos of her garden. This is for the Colorblind Contest that Garden Rant is currently holding. The deadline is 9:00 tonight, so you'd better hurry if you want to enter. If your garden doesn't clash, or you're not interested in entering, you should at least cruise on over to check out the other pictures and descriptions. Some of them are pretty wild!

So here's Mom's stuff:

Elizabeth on Garden Rant wanted to see pictures of plant combinations that clash - you asked for it. The old-fashioned orangey-yellow daylilies took over the flower beds this year producing some atrocious color combos. See for yourself.

Daylilies and Crinum - Orange and pink! How much more can it clash? Soon the dwarf crape myrtle in between the daylilies and crinum will bloom adding purple to the mix!

Daylilies and Coneflowers - In front of the daylilies are purple coneflowers and in the upper left corner you can just see the magenta coneflowers.

Daylilies and Flowering Tobacco - More orange and pink.

Absolutely Awesome Art

I have found the most absolutely awesome art ever. It's photography, but it's... so different. It's not photography - there's no camera, no lens, no computer. Just him, the items to be captured, the film and electricity.

There is no way that I could accurately describe the process as they do without butchering it, so I am going to cut and paste, and give credit where credit is due: Wired Magazine 17.07.

"Forget the notion of a reverent nature photographer tiptoeing through the woods, camera slung over one shoulder, patiently looking for perfect light. Robert Buelteman works indoors in total darkness, forsaking cameras, lenses, and computers for jumper cables, fiber optics, and 80,000 volts of electricity. This bizarre union of Dr. Frankenstein and Georgia O'Keeffe spawns photos that seem to portray the life force of his subjects as the very process destroys them.

Buelteman's technique is an elaborate extension of Kirlian photography (a high-voltage photogram process popular in the late 1930s) and is considered so dangerous and laborious that no one else will attempt it—even if they could get through all the steps.

Buelteman begins by painstakingly whittling down flowers, leaves, sprigs, and twigs with a scalpel until they're translucent. He then lays each specimen on color transparency film and, for a more detailed effect, covers it with a diffusion screen. This assemblage is placed on his "easel"—a piece of sheet metal sandwiched between Plexiglas, floating in liquid silicone. Buelteman hits everything with an electric pulse and the electrons do a dance as they leap from the sheet metal, through the silicone and the plant (and hopefully not through him), while heading back out the jumper cables. In that moment, the gas surrounding the subject is ionized, leaving behind ethereal coronas. He then hand-paints the result with white light shining through an optical fiber the width of a human hair, a process so tricky each image can take up to 150 attempts.

Because there's no lens to distort the colors, Buelteman's work replicates natural hues far better than traditional photographs. "I'm calling into question what we see every day," Buelteman says. "Is that really a flower? Have I been blind my entire life?" You can see for yourself in his recently published book, Signs of Life."

Okay, so you can see these pics are awesome. The time and work that goes into each shot must make each one a favorite for him. Definitely check out his website and his book." There are even more awesome photos in the book, and it is published by a cool new publisher that I've been checking out, issuu.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

My mom mentioned that one of her blogs used flick to save space on her blogger account, so of course I wanted to know all about that, so they sent me that. Part of the setting up of the process included a test email - seen above, and a note that said I could delete it when I saw that it went through. But, you know what? Flickr has been an awesome site for the several years that I have used it, and I'm going to leave the sample post, so that everyone can see that I support Flickr. I have over 10,000 pictures on there and I have never had any major problems or complaints. Hiccups from time to time, but that's it, so there you go. That's why there's a post called "Flickr."

Roses in Bloom

The Gardening Gone Wild site is having a photo contest in which they wanted roses in a gardening setting. Below you will find my entries for the contest, each taken in either my mother's yard or my own (of roses given to us by my mother).

This one is called Scarlet Bicolor. It is growing in my mom's yard.

We aren't sure what these are called. Several years ago, my mom decided she didn't want them anymore and she gave them to my husband (who does all the yard work at our house, including gardening). When they first bloom, they are really pink, but the longer they are on the bush, the less color they have, although they do remain extremely fragrant.

This is the second one from our yard, but a different bush. They are the same kind, though.

I wish everyone has the best of luck in the contest, and I would like to thank Debra Lee Baldwin for taking time out of her busy schedule to judge the contest.

For more information on the contest and to view other entries, please visit Gardening Gone Wild. Be advised, though, that the deadline is tomorrow at midnight, June 22, 2009.

Tea Pitcher Fountain

I've added a fine art photograph of a tea pitcher fountain to my ebay store. It's a lovely rendition of old timey art. The photograph was taken at a local tractor show. I hope you find it appealing.

Local Art Exhibits

Browsing around the web tonight, I came across this article from the Tallahassee Democrat in Florida. Although there were quite a few other exhibits mentioned, I'm only listing a few here because they pertain to art and photography.

* Brokaw-McDougall House: "I Am Much More Beautiful at Night than in the Morning." Solo art exhibit by Po-Chi Chu. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Free. 329 N. Meridian St. 891-3900.

* FSU Museum of Fine Arts: Artists' League Summer Annual. Theme, "Five Rings of Passion: Love, Anguish, Awe, Triumph, Joy." Works in all media by members of the FSU Museum of Fine Arts Artists' League. Opening reception, 7-9 p.m. today. Free. Through July 10. Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. 250 Fine Arts Building, 530 W. Call St. 644-1299.

* ArtPort Gallery: "The Photography of Andrew Borom." Nature photography. Through June 22. Hours: 8 a.m.-11:30 p.m. daily. Short-term parking is free for up to 30 minutes. Tallahassee Regional Airport, 3300 Capital Circle S.W. 224-2500.

* City Hall Art Gallery: Annual show of artwork by city of Tallahassee employees and retirees. Through July 20. Hours: 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Free. 300 S. Adams St., second floor. 224-2500.

* First Street Art Gallery: "Scenes of Early Summer." Paintings, drawings and photography by Ken Echternacht, Jean Marani and Gloria Vasquez. Through Sun. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. 204 First St. N.W., Havana. (850) 539-5220.

* Gallery at the Historic Capitol: "Legislative Legacy." 25 photographs rich in political history hand-colored by Denise Choppin. Free. Hours: 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10-4:30 Sat., 12-4:30 Sun. 400 S. Monroe St., lower level. 487-1902.

* John G. Riley House: "Remembering Rosewood." In 1923, a black town in Florida, Rosewood, was burned to the ground and most of the residents were killed. Through Oct.r 27. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Thurs. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Fri. $5. 419 E. Jefferson St. 681-7881.

* Museum of Florida History: "Florida Cattle Ranching: Five Centuries of Tradition." The history of cattle ranching from the Spanish exploration period to the present. Artifacts, vintage and current photos and interactive components. Through Aug. 9. Hours: 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri. R.A. Gray Building, 500 S. Bronough St. 245-6400

Even if you can't make it to any of the exhibits, the links will provide a little more information about them. A couple of them are traveling exhibits, so you might be able to catch them closer to your own home. I hope to be able to make it to at least one of them - hopefully Rosewood Remembered. That whole situation has always rather fascinated me.

Hamilton County, Florida Book Available on my Ebay Store

I wanted to let everyone know that I posted my book, Hamilton County, Florida, on my ebay store. I know that many of you have seen the book or heard about it, and I wanted to extend an opportunity to you to purchase it. The copy that you receive, if bought through the link will be a personally signed copy.

While I am here, I would like to thank everyone who assissted in any capacity in the creating, writing, editing, publishing, and marketing this book. The folks at Arcadia Publishing have been incrediby helpful and accomodating.

Without the assistance of all these people, this newest book about Hamilton County would never have been possible.

Browsing Etsy :)

Loving those pocketbooks tonight! Man, I sure wish I could grab me one up, but it will have to wait until another week :)So, I've been checking out etsy and seeing what they have available here lately.

I think I really need this black and white clutch with the yellow trim.

The sad thing is I know good and well that a clutch will never work for me. I carry way too much stuff. I bet that if I was stranded somewhere, I could still survive for at least a day with no assistance. :)

But at any rate, even though I routinely carry messenger bags and large pocketbooks, I still drool over the cute, adorable clutch pocketbooks instead. I guess there are some things that never change.

Here's the second one that I liked, the Leila Clutch.

The final pocketbook that I found this evening was the kind that I normally use. Maybe just a tad smaller, I'd have to measure to make sure. They always have to be large enough to hold a full size single subject notebook and whatever papers I am working on at the current moment. This one is called Green and Turquoise Leaf and Flower Bag.

How to Apply for a Passport

I posted this article How to Apply for a Passport on e-how today. The first paragraph is shown here, but I would greatly appreciate if you would go take a look at the whole article.

"Applying for a passport has become a very important task in today's society. These instructions will give you the necessary documents needed, and the appropriate fees for applying to receive a passport."

Traveling anywhere outside the United States now requires a passport, as of June 1, 2009. This article will walk you through the steps to obtain that passport in a timely manner and with minimal hassle.

Cheers, Marsanne

Ebay Main Screen!

I logged on to ebay yesterday and to my surprise, two of my photographs are featured on the front page!! Check it out when you get a chance. The second photograph on the top row, "The Great Easter Egg Flood Hunt" and the fourth photograph on the top row, "I'll Keep the Light On," are mine. Click on through and see what else I've added to the shop.

Until next time, Cheers!

Ferris Wheel in Motion on Ebay

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have posted a new item to my ebay shop. It is called "Ferris Wheel in Motion" and was taken at Geren's Fair in Valdosta, Georgia. You can view the listing here: Ferris Wheel in Motion. This is what it looks like.

Art with Sharpies

I found this really interesting article about a man, Charlie Kratzer, who decorated his entire basement with $10 worth of Sharpies and Magic Markers. Although he is a lawyer by day, he spends his evenings drawing in his basement - on the walls. Please take a look at the site, since there is a video that demonstrates the breadth of talent. The original article can be found at the Kentucky Lexington Herald Leader. It is really interesting, as he includes drawings of Picasso, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Sherlock Holmes, Winston Churchill and George Bernard Shaw. In addition, there are several scenes from books and movies that can be found adorning his walls.

Check it out soon, because I don't know how long the newspaper keeps thier articles online.