About SASLA~

Aaaaah, I'm in a rapture. The precious small packages arrive in the mail with sender addresses of Thailand, Australia, China, France, Canada, Czech Republic and of course the US, and it's like Christmas opening them !


I drool over the cool beauty of lace-patterned Sea Sediment Jasper in it's mellow rainbow of colors; Ammolite with it's fiery ancient dazzle, Mosaic Jasper with it's improbable Picasso-esque patterns and colors, Mystic Topaz with it's hypnotic shimmer; they all just blow my socks off and I handle them as Midas might handle his treasure. I pair them with known quantities, stones most jewelry lovers can relate to: Amethyst,Citrine,Topaz,Ruby,Emerald,Opal,Sapphire now and then a small Fancy diamond or two. I get a kick out of introducing gorgeous stones many have not heard of, like Amazonite, Aventurine,Carribean Larimar,Moldavite,Spessartite,Sphene,Boulder Opals, Koroit Opals,Ametrine and more.


I find the geological formation of each stone utterly intriguing. For example, millions of years ago Ammolite was actually living creatures, sort of cretaceous little buggers. Now they glow incandescently, mysteriously in extraordinary little slices of earth history. They happen also to be almost as costly as Opals, very price-y and, there is a limited supply. Ametrine is an uncommon formation wherein Amethyst and Citrine occur in the same crystal rock formation; the resulting polished and cut stone is spectacularly colored deep purple on one end that gradually fades & slips into a golden yellow on the other, just incredible~



Then there's the silver. God, I love the alchemy of silver and making it obey my command; hammering, twisting,wrapping,soldering,melting and re-shaping; simply luscious stuff, yummy to work with if sometimes tempermental.



When I finish a piece, it is a time for reflection, for considering the metaphysical properties of the stones I used and how they complement each other as well as the aesthetic of the piece. I wonder how the buyer will feel wearing it; if she'll feel as pretty and special as I mean each piece to be.



I am very mindful of the properties of each stone as I work. I reccomend to buyers certain stones for certain issues they may have in their lives.For example, Ammolite is known to help with personal protection and insight; great for law enforcement or emergency personnel, soldiers and others whose work puts them at phsycial risk; it is also well known to enhance insight and even to assist childbirth.


Coral is known to help with diplomacy,peace and intuition. ( I use only farmed coral,natural Coral is an endangered species so DON'T BUY IT UNLESS IT'S FARMED !)


Turquoise is known to be an amazing overall healer, fosters insight and serenity, fights infections and opens the Chakra for love and spirituality.



There are amazingly specific uses for each stone and buyers should choose thier jewelry not just for the color or design but mostly for the properties each stone possesses and use them to your best advantage, making your life more of what you wish it to be.



Well, I have a bench full of sparkling darlings waiting on me to give them a new life, a new shape, something to delight and assist their new owner.



My line, Sasla, is named for my great-grandfather's great grandfather, Valentin Sasla Pfost, can be purchased using PayPal or any credit card ( securely, of course). Write me at Circe2001@aol.com for details, extra photos and pricing.

NEW~!! SASLA OOAK Fine Jewelry by Susi Franco

Great Fakes and Forgeries

NOTE- The ptg above this line is the REAL Gaugin; the "forgery" is the one at the top of the page in a frame.

Long time no blog ! I've been a VERY bad blogger, just too frenzied with painting for an opening, then two big shows AND managing two websites; somehow Life gets in the way of my blogging. sigh~

It's one of my New Year's Resolution to be much more attentive to my blog, so be sure to come back and give me a shot at redeeming myself. :)

I thought it might be fun to show you how a painting gets made, or at least, part of my personal work process. For seven years now, I've been doing a big show titled "Great Fakes and Forgeries" at the famed Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, artist-owned and operated, very classy place.

The objective of the show is to invite artists to copy the Great Masters, either as a dead-on look-alike, or a dead-on look alike with clever little twists. One year a guy did one of Van Gogh's many self-portraits, but added a backwards baseball cap and earring to Vincent. The work was so astonishingly accurate that at first you thought maybe it was actually an undiscovered Van Gogh ! ( okay, maybe for only 20 seconds or so, but you get what I mean. :)

The show is great fun and annually draws a monster crowd from all over New England; it is quite a tradition to attend it each year. Some of the artists start a year in advance working on their "masterpiece". Mine took only two months, but here's how I did it.

Deciding what Master to "do" is always the biggest issue for me. I usually do Van Gogh or Klimt and have good success with them, but wanted to stretch myself a bit more this year. After several days researching online and at the library, I settled on Gaugin. I agonized over which painting of his to attempt; I found five I felt I could do a decent job with, then began narrowing it down to the final one.

I read as much as I could find about Gaugin; reseraching the artist is an absolute imperative to understanding their work. I learned lots I didn't know and that helps inform my work.

I began with a red underpaint; I am very fond of the cadmium reds. I use an acrylic underpaint because it acts as a siccative ( drying agent) for the oils, and does so very effectively. Use of an underpaint helps the work take shape so much more quickly, and I never get any bouts of EWCS ( Empty White Canvas Syndome).

Not much for pencil sketching, I usually employ a thinned dark color, like burnt umber and "sketch" with the brush directly onto canvas.

While that's still damp, I begin to add in my masses and shadows and start working up the values. I let that dry a bit and then begin adding the colors for each object in the work. At the very end of the painting, I add the highlights.

It was a hoot framing this painting.

I was so sure I had a 16"x20" frame in my studio that I could use for this show, that I didn't go check it out. Bad artist gets the dunce cap. The frame I was counting on had alot of "show wear" and dings, and the corner joints had separated a bit, not suitable for use as it was.

I had to fill cracks, sand, paint it with gold paint, then a triple-clear coat after the gold dried. I couldn't get the filled-in cracks to smooth out the way I wanted, even using a Dremel craft sander. Exasperated & determined not to spend amy more $$, I had a brainstorm: I'd use some fancy heavy rag content art paper I'd bought and stashed two years ago, sort of decoupage it over the ugly corner joints. The paper was a gorgeous black and gold marble. It came in large 8" squares, which I cut diagonally into triangles. I saturated each triangle with archival bookbinder's glue, and using a palette knife tip, worked each triangle over & around the corners. I hurried the drying time with a hair dryer.

After putting my label on the back, I noticed the frame was just the teeniest bit tacky, so had the genius idea to lean it close to my gas stove fireplace.
Of course, I went in the bathroom to get my face on, talking to Casey ( a little Brussels Griffon dog I'm fostering) as I dressed.

Maybe 5 minutes into it I smelled wood burning. I realized what it was and did a cartoon-character skid into the living room and snatched the ( very hot) frame away from the stove. To my amazement, it hadn't actually burned at all, but the paint was raised into an ornate sort of Art Nouveau design where the heat had made it blister, in a perfectly straight line across the bottom of the frame. I liked it so much that I decided to do the top edge, too, so I let it "simmer" for just a couple minutes.
( this is SO not a job for the faint of heart !)

Once again, the design raised up in heavy bas relief along the upper edge. The frame that had started out a beat up and ugly duckling had now been transformed into an elegant swan befitting my painting. Laughing so hard I had tears, off to the gallery I went. Of course, they admired my "unusual" frame ~~~~

Here are pics for you, of how I did the Gaugin. The painting I chose is titled "Two Tahitian Women On The Beach". My "forgery" is titled "Two Tahitian Women With Tunes", amd you'll soon see why. :):):):)

If you're in or around Newport for the month of February, do stop by Spring Bull on Bellevue Ave to check out my Great Fake and the unorthodox framing I did for it.

'Til next time, stay open, think creatively.~
Warmly, Susi

A Little Preview Of New Works

Rainy Days and Mondays---

My problem is not that I don't paint daily, because I do; I just don't always have time to upload work and post it daily. Aaaaaaaaah, for an assistant, my kingdom for an art intern !! sigh~

This little work is part of an 8 painting series I did titled " Rainy Days and Mondays". I had in mind the Mammas and the Pappas, their song. Although the song talks about the melancholy of rain and that dreaded first day of the week, I really liked the lovely melody and the harmonies, and sort of transposed that into the colors I chose. I used a knife and an impasto gel which allowed me to achieve a great deal of texture.

I also employ special iridescent and duochromtaic oils, very price-y but worth the incredible mineral effect they give. If you change positions while viewing the work, the color changes also, from blue to blue-green, or from violet to pink, adds just an amazing dimension to the work.

I wanted to show that rainy days aren't always cold and bleak and grey, that there can be warmth in the rain, that the pit-pat-pit of rain drops is pure music, and inclement weather is beautifully atmospheric, lends to contemplation and serenity.

I always promised myself I'd never become one of those artists that paint the samed durned thing over and over, that I wouldn't get caught up in that obsession. For me and my world, there are just too many wonderful things to paint, to attempt, to prevent ever getting tightly focused onto one subject only.

There are those who'd say painting one subject repeatdely makes you excellent at it. I grasp that concept and even agree, but it just doesn't work for me too often. I'll do series of things, maybe 5 or 6, rarely more than that, and then I'm done with it, onto the next idea, the next challenge.
I think I have Artists's ADD. :):):) .

This 6"x6" work is done on a Gallery-Wrap canvas, a satisfying two inches deep. The sides are painted as well, extending the images around the sides, meaning no framing needed.

This work is 65.00 and may be purchased by emailing Circe2001@aol.com.
I check my mail frequently and will process your secure CC or PayPal transaction asap. Shipping ( in USA) will be 9.95. International buyers email me with postal code for a shipping quote.
Thanks for taking time to look, and hoping you can enjoy some rainy days of your own !!

"The next time it begins to rain, try to forget what your Mother told you about "catching your death of cold", lie down on your belly, nestlke your chin in the grass and get a frog's-eye view of how raindrops fall....raindrops make the blades of grass bend down, then the blade pops back up again....the sight of hundreds of blades of grass bowing down and poppin gup like piano keys strikes me as one of the merriest sights in the world..." -Malcolm Margolin, The Earth Manual-1985

Figuring It All Out....

My 3 year old grandson is visiting me for a while,

something I have fervently prayed to have happen since he was born. He lives in Florida and I am in New England, so we've been together very little, aside from our weekly phone calls.

This time with him is so very precious and I find myself trying to crystallize each moment, each funny thing he says, each lower-lip pout, into perfect memories I can access later, when he goes back home; when I am missing him so terribly.

I wonder if when he is older he will recall this time with his Mierme and his Father's family.

It is a curious thing, how we long for our most cherished dreams to be realized, and miraculously when they are, we may find there are aspects we had not counted on or factored into our poignant prayers. The heart hopes for happy things, rarely considering the downside.

For me, it is sacrificing my drug, painting, for the heart-rending love of being with this dear child, flesh of my flesh. He needs so much, this little one, and I am deliriously happy to provide it; but I find myself struggling with having any time to paint or write, acitivities which are soul-nourishing for me, as necessary on a daily basis as food and oxygen.

He is so frenetically busy !! He scampers about, finding one potentially hazardous thing after another to get into. I had forgotten how lightning-quick a toddler can be !

In a nanosecond's time, he found and opened up my sacred Tibetan Monk's prayer wheel, with it's yards of fragile paper prayers written in tiniest Sanskrit, wound up in meticulous tight spirals around it's spindle. My heart froze as I quietly told him to put it down, desperate to keep this artifact safe from curious little clumsy fingers...it had survived almost 50 years, and it's presence in my home is a spiritual anchor for me.

Thankfully, it survived Nicholas's investigation, but only barely. :)

I've had to fence off my studio because of the baby-dangerous items in easy reach there ( there is no door). The protective fence not only keeps Nicholas out, but makes it even harder for me to get in, one more layer of difficulty to accessing my work.

I suppose one could say Nicholas is helping me define just how important painting is to me, in addition to gifting my Grandmother's heart with myriad priceless memories.

I've given him crayons and paper to play with, which occupy him about as long as a fly lighting on a surface, then he moves on to the next wonderful mystery to look into. I gave him markers and construction paper, with pretty much the same result. He is a a true Techie Baby, completely besotted with anything eletronic. He has not one but three age-appropriate computers, which he plays with sporadically when not doing search-and-destroy in my small apartment.

He is tenacious in his curiosity about anything new, and at age 3, pretty much everything IS new.

On Monday while he napped, I hurried in my studio, desperate to try and tear off a small work. The painting you see here was the product, done largely with knife. I found it satisfying to do the work; acutely aware I had a time limit, a point at which my beautiful little Prince would awaken and demand all of Mierme's attention once more. It obliged me to work loose and fast.

I am pleased with the bright colors, the depth of texture and the almost gestural shapes. It seems to me to be a happy work.

I can thank Nicholas for that.

Since he is in the act of re-programming my TV remote control ( not in a good way) as I write, I need to get to the point.

Our dreams, our goals may have their origins in ethereal realms. When we manifest them into reality, into the harsh world of everyday life busy-ness, the shape of our wishes often transmute into a different form than that we hoped for. Doesn't mean there aren't wonderful reality-based benefits to realizing our dreams, or that the experience is any less blissful, just that it is important to temper our hopes with a modicum of pragmatism sometimes....to balance the shift between wishing and wishes actually being.

I think most people experience this phenomenon in the area of romantic relationships, hoping for Love to arrive on their horizon, transforming their life in some mystical way we can erroneously assume Love will do. When that bugger Reality sets in, and toothpaste lids are left off and dirty socks are strewn everywhere, the shine can wear off fairly quickly...and one begins to doubt whether it was really Love at all.

The danger here is that in asking the Universe for our most dearly held wishes to become manifest, we can lose sight of the reality, that all dreams have price-tags, and rightfully so...spiritual and life-costs we will be obliged to pay when our longing emerges from it's chrysalis into our living room.

There are always benefits, unseen at first, to balancing goals with reality....Nicholas has reminded me of that important lesson, in the most precious of ways.

This little 11"x14" work in the upper right corner is the product of my learning from my grandson. I'm doing something I usually eschew, posting this work on Ebay. If you'd like to bid on it, click here.....

"We have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions"

(Carl C. Jung)

"The final goal of human effort is man's self-transformation".

(Lewis Mumford)

Thanks for stopping by....more soon !

Warmly: Susi

URGENT ARTIST RIGHTS ISSUE

Usually I write about Art, the process of making it, how it affects our lives and throw in a little esoterica/philosophy on the side.

Today, however, I'm going to ask my readers to consider taking action on a great wrong done to an artist; a courageous woman who made her work under threat of death. I submit this story to you, with hopes that you will be moved to visit the site and take action, send an email; take maybe 3 or 4 minutes out of your life to help restore to an 85 yr old artist her stolen work. Here is the story:

In one of the darkest hours of human history, one of the children's barracks in Auschwitz, an astounding art drama unfolded.

This is where children were kept before taking them to the gas chambers. Dina Babbitt was an artist in the camps at the time, and one of the captive barracks captains asked her if she would paint a mural on the walls of the barracks to brighten up the lives of the kids. She chose Snow White, knowing that if she were caught doing it, she could be in big trouble.

After the mural was painted (the kids loved it, probably the last joy they would ever know) she was paid a visit by Josef Mengele. He was the guy who conducted horrific experiments on people in the camps, so naturally Dina was concerned for her life.What an ugly surprise she got !

Mengele was taking photos of some of the 13,000 gypsy prisoners in Auschwitz as part of his effort to prove that non-aryans were genetically inferior to aryans. He was not happy with the limitations of the camera, so he wanted Dina to paint portraits of them to more accurately capture their skin tones !

Now at 85 years of age she's trying to get her paintings back, and a museum that obtained them ( illegally) refuses to return her work ( they also send her releases to sign every time they reproduce her work, for which she has NEVER received even ONE RED CENT) .

Dina is having risky major surgery for cancer, and hundreds of thousands of artist the world over are sending emails to the museum in question to demand the return of Dina's work to her. She lives in California and has for many years. Several Congressmen/women have even written laws to facilitate the return of Dina's work, trying to help her get back what is rightfully hers, the stolen work, before she dies.

Here's a link to Dina's site:

http://www.dinababbitt.com/

I ask you please, PLEASE to consider going to the site, reading the info there and clicking on a link to send an email to the museum asking them to return Dina's paintings. This is an issue which should touch the hearts and conscience of all in the Arts, all who love Art; I ask you for your help; we CAN make a difference. Artists the world over are participating, no reason American artists & Art Lovers can't.

Here's Dina's site again...the email for the museum is in it, just click to send an email to them, giving your name and state/USA.

http://www.dinababbitt.com/

Thank You for taking time to read, hoping with all my heart to get a good response to this. Please consider sending the link to Dina's site to your friends/relatives. It would be a terrible sin for this woman to leave her life without her precious work, the faces of those who were about to die, back in her rightful possession. Just FYI, International Law fully supports Dina's ownership and rights to her work.

Your thought for today - "The quality of mercy is not strained". (Wm Shakespeare)

Seneca The Younger said "All Art is but imitation of Nature". Well, at first blush that kinda teed me off when I read it, but then I re-considered. Are we not imitating Nature in the strictest sense, particularly when we create ?

In Nature, there are seasons necessary to creating,to bringing something new into the world. The crops lie fallow and dormant in winter; Spring renews growth, life shoots through the soil, upwards toward the sun; summer brings blossoms and then Fall, the Harvest. The creative process is very similar; we process our ideas and allow them to germinate ( Spring); we allow our ideas to manifest and burst forth, whether on canvas, paper or bronze, ( Summer); we complete the work and once again return to thought for inspiration ( Fall) and the finished work is sold or stored ( Winter).

Our relationships tend to have seasons also. The rush of new love, the deepening of understanding & intimacy, the getting-comfortable-with-each-other, and sometimes, sadly, the end of the relationship either through death or severing of ties. If we could but learn to see these changes in relationships as seasons which are natural as Nature herself, perhaps we could also develop more respect for the weight of the process involved in being a significant other in someone else's life; perhaps then we could all learn to make better ( more relationship-organic) decisions, behave more humanely and lovingly with each other.

Just a thought.

This $65.00 small work ( 6"x6") can be purchased through www.FineArtBySusiFranco.com, or by emailing me directly. I check my emails daily, so you will get a prompt response. Thank you for taking time to share part of your day with me.

Warmly, Susi