Untitled, Mary and Me

Welcome to Studio Saturday! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

Last weeks winner is Greer! Congratulations! You have won one of Heather's Snowflake pendants! Send Heather an email and she will get it right out to you.

Welcome to the Studio of Cindy Gimbrone!

Today, I'm sharing my studio with Lee Krasner's painting, Untitled and Mary Harding.

Each month the Art Bead Scene hosts a monthly challenge for jewelry designers. As one of the sponsors for the December challenge, I thought it would be a nice end to the year if I could collaborate with another sponsor to make a special set of beads inspired by the December Challenge painting by Lee Krasner. In my last Studio Saturday, I talked about the collaboration in the making with Mary Harding.

Interestingly, Mary and I had personal stories to share about the painting and the artist. Mary had lived on Long Island near the Pollack Krasner home while Krasner was still alive. She shares her experience of first seeing the Pollock-Krasner home today on ABS:



"When I first stepped off the train on a warm day in June in East Hampton when I was in my twenties, I was sure I had found the most beautiful place in the world. That was back a bit before East Hampton had become the very, very hot spot that it is today. My first visit and many others always traveled it seemed in Pollack's footsteps because my husband to be had spent summers since childhood in Maidstone Park just a few miles further on from Springs Road where Pollack died and had lived. As a young artist, he had idolized Pollack. I was shown his home, I was treated to the vast expanse of lush marshland and glimpses of bright blue water that surrounded it. I remember the dense scrub oak woods and the feeling of fresh salty air, and a sense of freedom and adventure that such a legacy seemed to imbue to us as young and wanna be artists. It was indeed magnificent scenery and would be inspiration for
sure.

Lee Krasner was hardly spoken of except that she was his widow and still lived in their home. She was to wait quite some time before she received her duly earned recognition."

When considering which paintings to use in the ABS Challenges, I purposefully set about looking for female painters. Often overlooked during their lifetime and well after, there is a rich body of work to choose from.

I love the graphic nature of Krasner's Untitled and I was fortunate enough to actually see it at the Albright Knox in my hometown.



The painting is rather small but is full of texture and life. I wish the ABS readers could have seen it, you wanted to reach out and touch it. You can't see the texture of a painting from a picture of it and it's a shame because texture is what gives the painting vibrancy and life. Untitled has it and I stood in front of it for a long time taking it in.

Mary and I talked about our experience with the artist and worked to capture that in the color palette we chose. In lieu of texture, we chose a vibrant green as an accent to make the rest of colors come alive.




We hope our beads inspire designers to see the passion in often overlooked paintings and make them come alive for you. Our collaboration has been exciting and fruitful. Mary and I will be writing more this coming week on our blogs. But now, for this week's question:

Is there a color, a painting, an artist or artform you think gets overlooked? Leave me a comment and you'll be entered to win one of the "Untitled" flameworked glass art beads I've made for this month's challenge!

I look forward to reading your comments!