Folk Art Angel, A College Senior and Frank Lloyd Wright

Teach art online for middle school you say?!?!? Well, I did not realize just how much I feed my soul with art during the week in my classroom with my students. So, here we go... I have to have a schedule. I started last year and I decided as an empty nester that I needed to have a goal of 30, 30 and 30. What does that mean? Well, I want to listen to 30 books, 30 podcast and create 30 original pieces of art in a year. If not more, but that is the minimum. Yes, last year I exceeded my goal and much to my surprise was over joyed with accomplishment.  So, with Covid-19....I decided now would be a good time to work on some art for my daughter's college house in Memphis. She is a rising senior and will live in the house for 2 more years as she will be working on her Masters. 

Week 1 of Distance Learning and Social Distancing...my eyes were hurting and my bootimus tootimus was numb from sitting in front of the computer for so long. Y'all, I had no idea just how much I walked around on campus each day. Week one, Day 2 - I only had 1,000 steps. So, something had to change. I found my groove. I started to be mindful of my time and intentional about computer time.

I have made sure to have some studio time for me. In here, I listen to books. Currently, I am listening to Loving Frank recommended by my friend Meredith.

What is the book about? 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/898885.Loving_Frank

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.

So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright.

Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion.

Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story.

We purchased the house last year for our daughter who is in college. I love the way it has lots of character. We decided to do a little artsy stuff to get started like the fire place. We finished it last summer. Check it out:

Memphis House and the Artsy Fireplace Logs

Check back in for the finished Fire Pit Project.

I do love some Howard Finster, so this angel has a Finster Vibe to it.
We have blogged on Howard here:

Santa Gone Finster Folk Art for Christmas!
Howard Finster Folk Art Fun with Self-Portraits
Howard Finster Portraits

Yes, each word was chosen for a reason. These are traits that I believe a college kid should have...especially mine =)

Plus if it is hanging up in the house it is a reminder to be better and continue to grow...

Frank Lloyd Wright on Arrogance | Blank on Blank

“Any man who really has faith in himself will be dubbed arrogant by his fellows” - Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957, as told to Mike Wallace Hear more outtakes and watch the full interview @ http://blankonblank.org/frank-lloyd-w... If you’ve ever been to Illinois, you’ll know all about the defining features of its landscape - namely, that it’s pretty much flat. But architect Frank Lloyd Wright did something new when he made buildings that somehow became one with the prairie. Long, low lines, and interiors that brought the light and space of the outside in. With the same approach, he built homes in the woods around waterfalls, on high bluffs that take in the stretch and space of the land below. If you’ve ever visited one of his houses, you’ll know how they manage to make you understand more about exactly where you live. As part of our special series, The Experimenters, where we’re uncovering interviews with the icons of science, technology, and innovation, we found this 1957 interview with Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s part of a collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin celebrating The Mike Wallace Interview, a TV program that ran back in the late ‘50s. Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs and style seem very nice, very clean now, but at the time, he was a controversial personality. And like most famous architects, his work was as much hated as respected. And that’s what Mike Wallace wanted to talk about. Here’s the tape. Additional support from PRX and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Watch Sally Ride on the dumb questions the media asked her: http://blankonblank.org/sally-ride More Experimenters coming soon: Temple Grandin, Carl Sagan, Dame Stephanie Shirley, Jane Goodall, Richard Feynman, and Buckminster Fuller Subscribe for new episodes of Blank on Blank every other Tuesday... it's free: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c... More Blank on Blank episodes: http://blankonblank.org/pbs Executive Producer David Gerlach Director Drew Christie http://drewchristie.com Series Producer Amy Drozdowska Assistant Producer Jessie Wright-Mendoza