Sunday, July 22, 2018

The Creative Mind of Amy Córdova

http://stevenboone.com/artwork/amy-cordova/mysterious_stranger.html 

Saints, shamans, spirit beings, extra-terrestrials, creatures of every type, the sun and moon . . . these are just some of the subjects of the creative mind of Amy Córdova.

I first met Amy at a dinner hosted by mutual friends. She was dressed liked an artist with a colorful blouse and skirt, and Native American jewelry. After discovering her art background, I asked if she would be interested in putting her work in my gallery and working there while I went to Venice, Italy to live. I planned to be gone several months.

 It has been six months since I returned and Amy and I have become partners in many walks of life. We make art together, manage the gallery as a team, share meals, read fairy-tales together, pray together and more.

In less than a week my gallery is hosting a one-woman show for Amy. It is during Spanish Market in Santa Fe; appropriate because of her Spanish heritage. Fortunately, my gallery is just steps away from the plaza, where all the activity takes place.
http://stevenboone.com/artwork/amy-cordova/amazing_grace.html


The name of Amy’s show is Querencia, and refresh to “a deep rooted longing and love for a specific place and those who inhabit that place.”




For more, click here: Amy Córdova

Saturday, July 14, 2018

The Earth Is One

 It is a rite of passage each year in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The second weekend in July brings artisans from all over the globe together for an extravaganza of popular, of-the-people art: the International Folk Art Market.

People come from far and wide converge on the grounds of Santa Fe's Folk Art Museum. I love most having the unique opportunity to see artists from places I might never visit, dressed in their native costumes and gathered in one place amidst all of their artwork. Tents shelter everyone from the sun.

I ask people and they are usually delighted and honored when I take their photograph. Then I see what Baha'u'llah meant when he said, The earth is one country, and mankind its citizens.

Sunday, July 08, 2018

Drawing


I have loved drawing nudes for as long as I have been an artist. It is an age-old practice in western art. Art history books are full of them. Some of the most famous museum pieces in the world are “au naturel”. The most impressive I have seen in person is Michelangelo’s colossal sculpture in Florence, Italy, called David


 The drawing group I attend on Tuesday nights is devoted to figures. A model of either sex takes poses for three hours. This particular group likes mostly short “gesture” poses lasting from 1-10 minutes.

When I am drawing a gesture pose, my skills from years of study are used fluidly and instinctively. I don’t have time to worry about mistakes—or correcting anything. It  is all impulse.










The longest pose is about forty minutes. Then I can gauge proportions, study foreshortening, make corrections and take time shading.


What greater art is there than the human form?


Sunday, July 01, 2018

Nineteen


The nineteenth anniversary of the death of my nineteen year old daughter Naomi is nearing—July 5, 2018.

After she died I thought of the meaning of the number nineteen. It is made of the numerals 1 and 9; the beginning and end of all single digits. It includes all the rest of the numbers, so symbolizes unity. Adding one and nine makes ten: 1 + 0 equals one. Oneness.



It was not an accident that Naomi completed her life at nineteen. I often thought she was burning through lifetimes rapidly. Like a shooting star, she shone brilliantly through intense experiences, shedding brilliant light in a short burst before suddenly disappearing. Naomi burned the dross of existence through intense suffering and redemption. She said, “Hardship is something that will make us stronger. I don't know if I have complete evidence of this, but I think that in every situation there is good in it.”

The day we went to a doctor and he gave us the terrible news that she had Ewings Sarcoma, a virulent cancer, I realized this world is shifting sands and not permanent, yet I wanted with all my being to know we could trust her life would continue here on earth. It seemed impossible to think otherwise.
Knowing she had cancer that most certainly would destroy her, the first thing Naomi did on arriving home from the medical clinic was to make a beautiful drawing using colored pencils. A serenely peaceful figure garbed in a beautifully embellished blue gown seems to be listening in meditation. A halo is around her head and her hair streams in rivulets like sun rays in all directions within the orb. A SPIRIT being stands upon a butterfly wing at her shoulder within the halo, seeming to talk to her. A necklace around her neck holds a feather. Behind, two seedlings are growing and blossoming. From below, a tender green shoot with leaves and tendrils grows up and out of the top of the picture. No sign of fear in this artwork, only peace, light and signs of Divine guidance.

And this is what Naomi became before kissing life goodbye and embarking on her journey in the next world.