Dancing With The Stars, Black Swan, High School Musical, Glee. What do all of these movies and television shows have in common? Dance, of course! Dance of all types has been in the movie public gestalt for years: In the 1950s: Singin’ In The Rain In the 1960s: West Side Story In the 1970s: Saturday Night Fever and Grease (yes, both featuring ex-Sweat Hog, John Travolta) In the 1980 (probably the most dancing of all decades): White Nights – featuring two of the greatest dancers of all time: Mikhail Baryshnikov (Ballet) and Gregory Hines (tap) Flashdance Footloose Dirty Dancing In the 1990s: Strictly Ballroom In the 2000s: Billy Elliott (2000) The Company (2003) Black Swan (2010) (Interestingly enough, these three are all ballet movies) The popularity of Dancing With the Stars has ignited the public’s imagination in all sorts of dance for the last 14 years! Yes, that’s…

Artistic inspiration comes from a variety of sources: nature, people, other works of art, a piece of music and dreams.  Dreams, especially, are the diamonds mined from the unconscious. For the father of the Surrealist movement, Salvador Dali, dreams, visions and symbols supplied fantastical images for his work. Dali described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs.”  One of his favorite recurring images, bent and flowing watches, look as if they’re made of wax, melting away on a hot summer day in the desert. Dali’s The Persistence of Memory (1931) is one of the best known surrealist pieces, and the piece utilizing this type of watch.  For Dali, his inspiration for this came to him in two ways: from Einstein’s theory that time is relative, unfixed, and fluid.  This idea, in turn, was demonstrated by a piece of cheese melt in summer heat, transforming into a runny mess. His…

From landscapes to lighthouses, from cottages to cabins, from mountains to Main Street, Thomas Kinkade captured the essence of nature and glimpses of Americana. However, Kinkade is best known for his ethereal works of lush landscapes and colorful cottages with a fairytale feeling. His stone cottages nestled within a forest surrounded by secret gardens and sparkling streams invite the viewer in. His paintings vibrate with a stillness and quiet magic, providing a respite, a place to hide away from world weariness and worries of everyday life. Delicate and dreamy, Kinkade’s works are eye candy for the spirit, with a lightness that lifts the spirit. All artists derive their inspiration from somewhere, something or someone, whether conscious or unconscious. For Kinkade, he consciously mined his inspiration from his faith, from nature, from the world around him. There are striking similarities between Thomas Kinkade and the great Impressionist master Claude…

With the death of Thomas Kinkade, the stories and scandals surrounding the artist are unavoidable As with any public figure, all eyes are trained on the lone personality in the spotlight, the one who stands center stage. In a way, we as a society secretly wish for public figures to stumble or fall. We delight in scandals. We gasp in mock horror when tales of infidelity or other stories of excess are cracked wide open, scrambling our preconceived notions of what our artistic heroes are or should be. Jealousy fans the flames of fallen fame. Darkness is the underbelly of light. Most would say the opposite, and one cannot exist without the other. To get light, we must have darkness; without bad, there cannot be good. But, rather than standing in opposition, it’s more of a continuum, a spectrum. Kinkade is not the first artist, nor will he…

At only 54 years old the self-proclaimed “Painter of Light®,” Thomas Kinkade, was found dead in his California home on April 6. From his copyrighted tag, “The Painter of Light®” to his mission statement, Kinkade combined a talent of universal enchantment with savvy business acumen. With over 1,000 works, Kinkade was a prolific genius who captured the zeitgeist of the public. By marketing to his audience with reproduction prints and other licensed products (calendars, greeting cards, etc.), Kinkade reached millions of people who might not otherwise have any interest in art. His paintings are said to hang in 1 out of 20 homes, proof of his mass appeal and marketing genius. Kinkade’s works include an array of subjects: bucolic cabins, nature scenes, lush gardens, classic cottages, inspirational scenes, lighthouses, stunning seascapes and classic Americana. The play of glowing highlights, color and shadow lends a spiritual feeling to his…

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else.” – Georgia O’Keeffe Earth Day embodies Georgia O’Keeffe’s prophetic quote. How could she know upon uttering those words that the Earth Day movement birthed on April 22, 1970, generations would move to protest the horrors done to the Earth while raising the rallying cry – and acting – to protect it. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson – who was a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin at the time – had the idea after witnessing the destruction the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill had on the land and the ocean. The time was right and the country’s mindset was ripe to reap the heightened awareness of pollution – and environmental protection. On that very first Earth Day 42 years ago, an astounding…