Pretty as a Penny

The humble penny.

Throw away currency, by today's standards.

They can be found laying scattered on sidewalks and streets, tarnished copper distinguishing them from the trash and collected debris.

Head's up, pick it up.

Collect them on shelves, in dishes and jars.

A stack of twenty five equals a single quarter.

A pile of five hundred, a five dollar bill.

You can't get very far on penny power.

But artist Jacqueline Lou Skaggs sees things differently.

Where we see the raised smoothness of Abraham Lincoln's profile, and the rough, textured ridges of the monument in his name, Skaggs sees a blank canvas.

Her series Tondi Observations is a collection of twelve tiny paintings, each done on a found penny.

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A penny for your thoughts?

xo

This Is All I Know

I am loving everything about these paintings by Portland based artist Amanda Blake.

The faces, the colors, the sweet backgrounds.

Lovely ladies, created in oils on wooden boards.

Blakes original works are available here, with limited edition prints available here.

xo

My White Trash Family

Kim Alsbrooks makes art out of trash. Quite literally.

While living in the American South, Alsbrooks came up against the deeply rooted ideology of class systems. Frustrated, she took a cue from museum portraits, once painted on ivory, and began creating her own series of cameos, but this time on crushed beer cans, cigarette packs, and french fry containers.
 And thus was born My White Trash Family.

A portrait of the classes for the modern age. The times, they are a changin'.

xo