I’ll be at the Rose Bowl Market in Pasadena, CA, this Sunday, July 12, from 9am until 3pm. Here is a link to more information about this amazing market. It is held one Sunday a month, and attracts many vendors and big crowds: Rose Bowl Market.
I’m in a booth with Burgundy Blue, a baby’s and kid’s clothing designer. Look for the booth with the hearts across the top. I’ll be featuring my heart paintings, and also a few of my small abstract works.
You can see what’s currently available at MyAbstractHeart.com.
Featured here: “Red on Gold”, available in 8″x8″, 9″x9″, 10″x10″, at My Abstract Heart.
©Kris Cahill http://myabstractheart.wordpress.com
Brand new from my studio, “Purple Heart On Orange” is a small scale painting in vibrant summer hues. I’ve added it and 5 other new pieces to the My Abstract Heart website. I love how the heart looks like it’s glowing from within, as if there were embers burning deep inside. Purple and orange are two of my favorite colors, and putting them right next to each other adds a whole new punch, as they are opposite each other on the color wheel. This only means that they increase each other’s strength. Hmmm… I’m sure there’s a whole new post just in that last sentence.
I find this color combination to be a very happy one as well, and in person this painting is vibrant, brilliant, and in a very good mood.
And now, a few quotes on hearts:
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.” ~ Anna Quindlen
“I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile.” ~ Goldie Hawn
There’s a lot of quotes to be found out there about following your heart, knowing your own heart. We are living in a time when that is just the thing to do. Whenever you feel a heaviness at the heart, it is a good time to sit still and reflect on whether you are listening to that very wise knowing part of yourself. It is up to nobody but yourself to find what is true for you. Once you do this, you can be sure of living a true life. You can fool a lot of people, but you cannot fool your own heart.
‘Purple On Orange’ 2009, 8″x8″ $60. Available at www.MyAbstractHeart.com.
©Kris Cahill 2009 http://myabstractheart.wordpress.com
One of my very favorites of all, ‘Purple Heart On Blue’ didn’t leave my home for the first few years of its existence. Then one day, I decided to let it go, hung it in my booth at the Bucktown Arts Fest in Chicago, and sold it soon afterward to friends who’ve got about 10 of my heart paintings in their collection so far.
What I love about this piece is its depth, colors, and the light glowing around the heart itself. I used a lot of metallic and interference acrylics in this piece. The glowing spikes around the heart are violet interference acrylic, which is also liberally sprinkled through the heart itself. This heart looks alive, like it’s beating.
I painted this piece in 2000, one month into the new millenium. I was beginning my spiritual training as a clairvoyant. When I look at this piece now, I can see all of that. It was a magical, decisive time in my life. I was taking steps then that have had far ranging effects, up to this moment in time.
I am taking new decisive steps again now, and it’ll be fun for me to see what art I create as I do so. The way I see it is that every minute is another moment in time to begin again, to create anew, to make choices that one will realize one day. How wonderful to have the opportunity to do so!
“Purple Heart On Blue” 2000 29″x26″ Sold
©Kris Cahill 2009 MyAbstractHeart.wordpress.com
Visit my website: www.MyAbstractHeart.com
I worked with a woman years ago who was known to declare, whenever one of us wore red to work, “it takes a lot of courage to wear red!”. She couldn’t see herself in red, so I think she was a bit scared of it.
This brave red heart came to me as a courageous emblem, Bravery with a capital B. What does it mean to have a “brave heart”, anyway? Here’s a few fun items I found on the topic. Actually, much more than I expected to find, while googling Brave Heart.
First, there’s a guy on Flickr who calls himself Brave Heart, find him here.
Then of course, there’s Mel Gibson’s movie: Braveheart.
A fund for children with heart defects: The Brave Heart Fund.
I am amazed at the number of groups and organizations who call themselves “Brave Heart” in one form or other.
A few quotes on courage:
- Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
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Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1937), Courage, 1927
- Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
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Anais Nin (1903 – 1977), The Diary of Anais Nin, volume 3, 1939-1944
What does “brave heart” mean to you?
‘Red On Gold’ 2009 10″x10″ at www.myabstractheart.com
Every Sunday, you can find me and my heart paintings in a booth at the Brentwood, CA, Farmers Market, from 9:00am-2:30pm.
Here’s the address and directions:
Brentwood Farmer’s Market
741 S. Gretna Green Way
Los Angeles CA 90046
Map it
Look for the booth with all the small heart paintings across the top. I hope to see you there some Sunday!
Featured here: “Pink On Black Heart” 2009, 10″x10″, $70. Buy it now.
©Kris Cahill 2009 www.myabstractheart.wordpress.com
Visit my website: www.MyAbstractHeart.com
In revisiting my previous work, I’m finding new inspiration. “Crayon Heart” was painted in early 2000, and laid the groundwork for several other pieces like it. I like how the colors look like they are dripping all over the painting, as if a bunch of them just decided to arrange themselves together to form the heart shape. I had the image clearly in mind of what I wanted to achieve with this piece. It is a successful painting, as far as I’m concerned.
I also wanted to highlight that fork again. This painting is forked to an extreme. It may be hard to see in this photo, but the black background is also very textured, with the black mixed with metallic gold to produce varying shades. In person is always the best way to see art, but this photo isn’t bad. The colors popping on the dark ground work well, and are more interesting because of all that texture.
Now that I’m doing hearts again, I may want to revisit this one. I’ll let you know if I do, and show the results here.
“Crayon Heart”, 2000, 29″x27″ Sold
This is an early work of mine, ‘Bronze Heart’, painted in 1996. This entire painting was created using plastic forks for brushes. Forks were my main tool for a few years, from 1995 on. In 1995 I went back to school to take the painting classes I didn’t take the first time around. The first day of Beginning Painting, the instructor told us all to bring something besides a paintbrush to paint with the next week.
As I walked into the school cafeteria before class the next week, I realized that I’d forgotten to bring an object to paint with. Looking around, I saw, what else? plastic forks! They became my favorite painting and mark making tool for a while, teaching me much about texture and energy in a painting. My teacher was such a brilliant woman to give us this assignment, and I told her so at around 100 forked paintings later.
‘Bronze Heart’ has a unique quality that I’ve never quite repeated. Each painting has its moment, and it seems pretty pointless to me to try to duplicate that moment. I am different in this moment than in any other, so it stands to reason my work will also be.
“Bronze Heart” 1996, 30″x22″, Sold
©Kris Cahill 2009 My Abstract Heart
Visit my website: www.MyAbstractHeart.com
One from the archives, ‘Blue To Red’ is an old favorite of mine. This painting was a breakthrough for me in that it felt more wild and abstracted than some earlier works had done. I was able to bring a new kind of abstraction into my work with this piece, the first painting I made in 2004.
I wanted a new kind of texture in my paintings. Influenced by the ancient ruins of Rome, where I’d just recently been, I began changing the way I used the paint in order to find some answers. I started applying the paint to the vinyl surface with newspaper. Ripping sheets of newspaper into small sizes, I paint onto the paper and then use it as a ’stamp’ to get the paint onto my canvas. Very pleased with the results, the depth it was possible to achieve, I added this technique to my repertory and continue to work with it today.
Here’s a more recent example: ‘Explosive Heart’. Painted earlier this year, it is a beautiful example of the qualities I was going for in that earlier work.
Top: ‘Blue To Red’ 30″x25″, 2004. Sold
Bottom: ‘Explosive Heart’ 14″x14″, 2009. Sold
My Abstract Heart ©Kris Cahill 2009
Another sweet small heart, perfect perhaps for a baby’s room. ‘Pink On Blue’ is just 8″x8″, small enough to fit into a small area, yet large in impact. I made a companion piece, called… ‘Blue On Pink’! This painting is the same size, 8″x8″.
Both pieces are wired and ready to hang. Acrylic on vinyl in reverse, making them easy to wipe off.
Find these paintings at MyAbstractHeart.com.
©Kris Cahill 2009 http://MyAbstractHeart.wordpress.com
So many abstract hearts to paint, so little time! I do so love to paint my mixed up hearts, and they always seem to sell quickly. Here is “Mixed On Blue”, 8″x8″. The energy of this piece reminds me of the ocean breezes. They are an interesting weather phenomenon out here on the west coast, with its general predictable and boring sunny blue skies. Honestly, I’m not complaining, just reminding myself that variety is truly the spice of life. Even sunny and 70 degrees everyday gets a bit bland after a while. I must say I prefer it to the predictability of Chicago in February. Yes, you will freeze.
You can find this on my website: MyAbstractHeart.com.
Featured here: “Mixed On Blue” 2009 8″x8″ $60.
©Kris Cahill 2009 MyAbstractHeart.wordpress
