The Art of the Altar ...

Laurie Beth Zuckerman

ICONARTE

Altar Installations

"I refer to myself as an altar junkie, since I am hooked on creating obsessively intricate altar installations honoring my deceased ancestors. I amass eclectic collections of well-loved antiques—the building blocks of my altars. More is more is my personal motto and justification for my hunter-gatherer addiction. My found-object assemblage altars and memory vessels are the ideal format for my approach to visual excess, with synchronicity guiding my visual directions. The gestalt of each altar amounts to more than the sum of its myriad parts—transcending the material world to reveal mysteries from the spiritual realm."

"My practice began in 1992, years after my passion was ignited by an encounter with a cool blue chapel in San Blas, Mexico. This was the first Catholic sanctuary I had stepped into, and I was instantly drawn to the immortal entity of Mary, the Jewish mother who grieves for her crucified son, Jesus. This exhilarating experience fueled my desire to recreate such beauty and reverence in my own home."

"Consequently, I have constructed dozens of altars and memory jugs to display in museums, universities, and galleries, with no guidance other than my intention and aesthetic intuition. Years of experimentation, and research travel to Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, and Trinidad, helped me to meld Hispanic Catholic altar sensibilities with the earthier aspects of African Congo, Brazilian Candomblé, Cuban Santería, and Haitian Vodou religions. After my parents passed away, I began making memorials expressly to them. Altarmaking enabled me to examine these life-altering events, as well as the tragedies befalling my Russian-Jewish ancestors during the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, The Holocaust, and other untimely deaths."

"I regard my altars as three-dimensional paintings, coordinated by color and composition, plus the cultural and historical significance of the objects I acquire. These are nostalgic works, steeped with layers of symbolic resonance and personal reflection. The emotionality and physicality of the altars made painting and drawing seem flat and limiting, but this year I returned to drawing. I am developing a series of black and white studies from my cast-iron bust of a Madonna, which I interpret as the Mother of Sorrows—in honor of the mothers in my family who have grieved their children's' deaths."
--Text from "Philosophy" by Laurie Beth Zuckerman ©2015

  

"Memory Jugs" by Laurie Beth Zuckerman (three of a series)

Thanks for visiting Enchanted Revelries today - I hope you'll stop by again next week! Be sure to check out the other offerings of the participants on today's Beverly's Pink Saturday blog hop!

Now, go make something beautiful!

 ´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´? Tristan

 

"Madre dolorosa: Spanish Veil" 

graphite drawings 22"x30"

©Laurie Beth Zuckerman 2015
 

Sassy

sassy: adjective \ˈsa-sē\ impudent, lively, spirited, vigorous, distinctively smart and stylish, showing no respect for people in authority, saucy, pert, confident, chic.

 

 Greece, 1960's

 

The Brooklyn high school pants protest of 1942. "Should high school girls of Abraham Lincoln High School on Ocean Parkway...be permitted to wear slacks to class?" The question was asked by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in March 1942, in an article about 16-year old Beverly Bernstein who was suspended from Lincoln for showing up to class wearing blue gabardine slacks. Outraged classmates showed their support by coming to school the next day in pants. Sassy!

 

Indochina, 1918. There's the sassy girl in class on the left!

 Harlem, 1928. The sassy girls of a Harlem dance school.

 

Cleveland, 1924. Charlie's Angles? Three employees of the Cleveland Trust Company being trained to defend the main vault in the company's office.

 

Someone's great-grandma and 

great uncles somewhere in 1948.

 

New Orleans, 1953. Sassy dancing in tuxedos and tulle at the Bon Temps Carnival Ball.

 

North Dakota, 1898. A young Teddy Roosevelt, arguably America's sassiest President - until Barack Obama!

 Handsome faces of the sassy Tuskeegee Airmen, WWII.  The group included five Haitians from the Haitian Air Force, a pilot from Trinidad and a Latino airman born in the Dominican Republic.

Dayton, Ohio, 1944

 Russia, 1897. Anton Chekhov looking the sassiest!, 

considered to be among the greatest writers of 

short fiction and theatre plays in history.

 

France, 1944. Marquis, rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters, near Toulon, France. Brave, patriotic ... and sassy!

 France, 1946. Shepherds on stilts. More about Sassy Men on Stilts.

 

Mexico, 1940. Someone's sassy grandpa looking suave in his 20's in his military ID.

 

Nebraska, 1910. Mamie Griffin, a sassy Nebraska woman.

 

Bronx, 1942. Sassy kid at the Bronx Zoo.

 Atlantic City, 1920's. Very sassy girls showing side boob in the twenties!

Berlin, 1924. Gay Ball

 

New York City, 1939. Man arrested for cross-dressing emerges from a police van feeling and looking sassy!

 Hollywood, 1931.  Frankenstein chilling on the set.

 

1955. That oh-so-sassy Joan Collins in Land of the Pharaohs

 

 China, 1901. Eating rice with a smile and some sass!

 1967. Sassy!

Hope you're going to have a sassy Saturday! Be sure to check out the other offerings from the participants in today's Beverly's Pink Saturday blog hop!

Then go make something beautiful!

 ´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´? Tristan

 Just because she's pretty fabulous and sassy!

Leggo My Madonna! ...

There are those for whom Madonna’s birthday is always cause for celebration, but today the Material Girl turns the big 6-0. Fans all over the world are paying tribute, but one has honored her with a special gift: Artist Sam Hatmaker handcrafted a one-of-a-kind set of Madonna Lego Minifigures dedicated to the Queen of Pop.

“Legos, like Madonna, have been a big part of my life since I was a child,” Hatmaker says. “I thought since Madonna was turning 60 and the Minifigure, which was introduced in 1978, is turning 40, I should do something special for both of them.”

Appropriately, the first Madonna Lego Minifigure he designed was the pop star circa 1978, when she was art modeling in New York.

All the Madonna Lego incarnations were made from official Lego pieces, including accessories and fabric (except for the bow on the “Material Girl” Minifig). The “Rain” figure even incorporates the original 1978 Minifigure legs, which don’t move.

Hatmaker painted any pieces that were not available in the correct colors, and designed stickers for the various chest decorations. “The MTV ‘Vogue’ figure took the most painting since the skirt piece is only available in red,” he says. “But her boa from the Oscar performance of ‘Sooner or Later’ was the hardest part to be satisfied with. Making something that small that looks soft using just Lego parts was not easy.”

 

There are 20 Madonna Lego Minifigures in the Queen of Pop’s birthday collection, including iconic representations from “Like a Prayer,” “Erotica,” “Like a Virgin,” “Bedtime Stories” and even a kimono-clad Madonna from “Nothing Really Matters,” but Sam says he could easily think of 20 more to do.

 

This is hardly Hatmaker’s first foray into Lego art. A Golden Girls Lego set he created became a viral sensation.

He’s currently working on a series of celebrity portraits using colored Lego blocks as tile, each portrait containing between 2,000 and 4,500 tiles.

In all the Madonna Lego Minifigures project took more than 40 hours to design, paint, package and photograph, and they’re all for sale on his website, SamuelHatmaker.com. But what would the diva herself think of the Madonna Lego set?
“I think she would be flattered and recognize how much respect I have for her,” Hatmaker says. “Madonna changed the world — and my life — in many ways. She pushed buttons and tried to open people’s minds, always with her tongue planted firmly in her cheek. She continues to make art, and push for us to love ourselves and others, and tries to make the world a better place.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Happy birthday, Madonna!

 

 Artist Sam Hatmaker

Be sure to check out the other participants' offerings on today's Beverly's Pink Saturday!

Now, go make something beautiful!

 ´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´? Tristan

 Before Hatmaker's Madonna series, he created the Cher in Logos Trio!