Art of a Child

Dear Art lover,

     Part of the problem of my living out of a suitcase is that I do not have access to many of my backup drives or my older images that I rarely use.  I am working to launch a campaign on Kickstarter in March.  I want some of my wax sculptures cast into bronze so they may find new homes.

     For this reason, I have been searching all over for images of me casting bronze back at the Elisabet Ney Sculpture Conservatory in Austin, Texas, many years ago.  Sadly, I lost what images I had online when I transferred my Web site to a new host company back in June (my fault).

     I got a giggle last night when I found a folder that contained a few of my childhood artworks.  These are dated around 1974 and 1975.  The horse is 1974, so I would have been ten years old (if the art fair was in the fall as it is these days).  My mother taught me how to paint in acrylics and all but the last shown here were in acrylic paint on canvas or canvas board.  My mother probably helped me make that orange frame around the horse in the wild, wild west.

     I did not do so well the next year with the mouse. Haha.. All I remember about that artwork was that I copied a card I found in a store and I painted it for the first boy I ever fell in love with.  I was eight years old and my family had just moved to Florida from Germany.  I doubt he was impressed, but I think he never knew.  [I had to force the crush to stop before I entered high school.  I was such a geek.]

    

     I am amused by the frog.  Was I thinking that the shapes of my initials painted LARGE and in bright yellow balanced out the big round sun?  oy yoy.  And the final fish painting:  I was experimenting with texture even then.  That is a crumpled up brown paper bag used as a canvas.  It looks like some cheap school-grade paint in traditional bright kid colors.  I am still hoping to find some picture of my very first mural shortly after these little works were made, but have little chance of that.  

     In any event, these are not bronze casting images.  However, today is “Throw-back Thursday” on Facebook and thus, I thought I would contribute some OLDIES.. have fun.

Like nature images?  Check out Tantalizing Tasmania:

http://www.borsheimarts.com/news/2015_02_ArtNews-TasmaniaLandscapePainting.htm

Please share this with anyone you think might bust a gut over it-ha!  Thank you.

Kelly

~ Kelly Borsheim, sculptor, painter, writer, teacher

http://BorsheimArts.com

Sarina Arts Extravaganza Australia

Dear Art Loving Friend,

I have spent the majority of this past week teaching workshops to children in the schools, as well as to adults in our makeshift atelier up on the stage in the community building that houses the Sarina Arts Extravaganza here in Australia.  In addition to that, I have been working in a local high school to help the kids learn how to create a mural.  I have been consulting with the class to show them how to take their ideas, expand them to fit the project and create a composition.  Because of the time constraints, I was only allowed to talk about several ways they can take their – to date – unfinished designs and enlarge them to create the cartoons needed to transfer their ideas to a much larger space.  [Cartoon as defined in Michelangelo’s time, not today’s definition of the word.]

One of the area schools was thrilled to let us guide the various age groups of their classes around the art exhibit while I spoke about the idea of art being more than “just a pretty picture.”  Art is the safe place in which we can express and explore our humanity … all aspects of it, as well as appreciating the Natural (or unnatural) world we inhabit. I also wanted to tell them that artists train as long as or longer than other professions, such as doctors and engineers.   THAT raised a lot of eyebrows as the possibilities began to open in their minds!  Several asked me if I make a living at art and I told them, “Yes,” and that my life as an artist is what brought me to their lovely country!

Thanks to a suggestion by local artist and art teacher Sally Cunnington, my hostess (and Sally’s artist mother) Janice Ailwood and I asked the children and teens to choose an artwork in the exhibition that made them feel some emotion and use it as inspiration for their own creations.  We were all thrilled at how well they took to this.  I really love the freedom and joy in young children’s art!

I include a few images (not showing any kid faces) and have a few more of Facebook.  I loved this little girl with pigtails’ posture as she drew a mermaid.  Not unlike my own, perhaps, although she is way more flexible than I, even before my spine injury.  [The image of me was taken by Ayfer Mills in March 2014 in Florence, Italy.]

The kids copied the grownups art, other youths art, and a few went off on their own way and drew what they wanted with the inspirations already in their heads.  We must have seen hundreds of kids over a three day span and it was wonderful!  In general, the response here has been overwhelmingly positive and I wonder what sort of long-term impact our work here may achieve. 



I asked a few of the kids in our last class if they could hold their art up to the artwork that inspired them, but not show their faces to protect their privacy.  Isn’t it lovely how different their designs are from the original? 

This last image is my last sunset for this visit to Sarina in Queensland.  Next stop . . . Tasmania!

Thank you for reading and sharing the journey.