Summer #ootd
Category Archives: Karen Tashkovski
So Worth It
Worth is an amazing luxury clothing line, which is sold via their website, www.worthnewyork.com and through individual stylists. The Worth collection is in town until August 3, 2017. It will eventually make its way back, adding the holiday collection in October. I visited the salon on E. Seneca Street in Manlius, New York today with my friend Jackie Terribile, the Small Town Stylist.
The clothing is truly magnificent. Exquisite fabrics – the finest silks, cashmeres and buttery soft leathers and suedes. OMG, everything is as light as a feather, and fits true to size.
Each item from the collection is available to view in limited sizes and from there orders are taken. It is a collection definitely worth seeing, feeling, touching and wearing. The quality inside and out is just the best – everything so beautifully finished with attention to the tiniest details. Love, love, loved it! <3
If you visit the website to shop, you will find opportunities to join the team. You can find a stylist in your area or become one. These clothes are in the realm of direct sales and not available in stores. Naturally, seeing the merchandise in person is best because the camera doesn’t always do justice to perfection. I am still intoxicated by the gorgeousness of those leather jackets. I am in some sort of fashion heaven right now….
Parking
There are things I have always liked doing and still do – swinging on swings at a playground, lol…playing jacks and Chinese jumprope, blowing bubbles with a ninety-nine cent bubble wand. They never get old. The best things in life from childhood – because when you were little you were free to just have fun and dream.
My summer has been a lot of that. A world filled with possibilities and joy. I discovered a new park today. It is on the west side of Syracuse, New York past the Delavan Center on W. Fayette Street, called Lipe Art Park.
I love that there are people in this city committed to improving abandoned areas, in this case a former railroad yard. Sculptures flourish beside positive message murals and flower garden vignettes, like set decoration for a movie with a backsplash of real-live moving trains. It has this surreal flavor of being elsewhere. Unexpected urban beauty.
I’ve driven past it loads of times and never noticed it until a Facebook post inviting me to visit unveiled it to me, which is just so amazing. I found a playful atmosphere there – a happening – Blinded by the Lipe! with music, food and new interactive art.
The best things in life are free.
Come This Way
Point of Contact gallery is located in The Warehouse building, 350 W. Fayette Street (near the intersection with West Street) in Syracuse, New York. It is an annex of Syracuse University located in the Armory Square area of town. Its mission is to provide an arts dialogue with the community focusing on Latin American culture.
In the summer, however, the gallery opens its doors to a juried exhibition, welcoming all local artists to participate. Currently, Sum Art 2017 is up until mid-August. The art reception was last night.
For some reason, every time I enter this gallery, it starts out feeling like Dr. Who’s Tardis – bigger on the inside. Last night, as I winded my way around the exhibit taking quick snapshots here and there around the many patrons who attended finding myself in the second room and nearly impaling myself on a tall wooden sculpture, I realized that idea is an illusion.
It isn’t so big and yet, this show really packs a punch. So much to delight in – to see. Large scale works and tiny collage pieces. Realism in both painting and ceramics juxtaposed with pricey abstracts. There was something for every individual aesthetic.
Last year I bailed on this show, lol. I made up for it last night, even getting an Instagram fashion post out of the dealio – thanks to contributing artist Penny Santy (photo cred)!
Maybe next year I will go a step further and enter my artwork…. (???)
Gallery Hours: The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 12-5 PM to the general public.
Allentown
Left Hand Path is the title of the latest art exhibition hanging on the walls of Apostrophe’s Art Gallery, 1100 Oak Street in Syracuse, New York. Glendon Allen has curated an exhibition that includes ten artists –
Charles Buechner
Ray Madden
Star Daniels
Jessica Whitely
Dylan Allen
Risa Fox
Maggie Carlin
Sherry Spann Allen
Katelinn Carrier
Glendon Allen~ Curator
It is a family affair. Both Glendon and his brother Dylan are graduates of Syracuse University. Their mom, Sherry Spann Allen, is a recently retired art teacher, as well as a nationally recognized abstract artist. Their dad, Peter Allen, is a successful local graphic artist, painter and musician. Alice, Dylan’s daughter, poses here with her artwork on the wall as well. (She said it was a giraffe!)
Left hand path is a term to describe the religious practice of dark magic. (I Googled it.) In this case, the artists are aligning with the feeling of being placed in the category of outsider. Their emotions play a significant role in the production of their artwork. Discord is at the center of this vibration, although the work here is a combination of action strokes and calm precision. A sort of beautiful aesthetic meets the doom and gloom of the future kind of thing.
The above prints were available for immediate sale, the rest can be purchased once the show comes down next week. Apostrophe’s is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays and by appointment.
Passionate Union
I feel so much satisfaction in the completion of these heart paintings. I made them during Memorial Day weekend but only put finishing touches on them, including titles, a little while ago. They are sprawled on the dining room table currently, waiting for me to find a place to store them/sell them.
Hearts are my thing. They are everywhere in my life – heart paintings in all media abound on the walls of my house; I even find heart stones, (literally, everyday) when I walk the trails of Green Lakes. I love love. I find beauty everywhere, particularly in the heart motif, and coupled with the vibrant hues of oil paint infused beeswax and its subsequent texture in my artwork, it fills me with gratitude, a sort of passionate energy and joyous warmth. I desire to share that feeling with everyone in the world.
One person’s positive energy is stronger than a roomful of debbie downers, lol. It would be lovely to think that my good vibes saturate these paintings and in that way I can spread seeds of love into this universe. Corny, I know, but genius. There is power in the unity of spirit. Believing in goodness is the stuff of legend. <3
Encaustic American Pastime
Last month I created these baseball paintings. I finally got around to mounting them onto the chalkboard painted masonite today.
They are very experimental. I did not set out to do a baseball theme – in fact, I bought the hardboards with the intent to do more horseshoes paintings. So, these just happened. They kind of came out of nowhere.
I love the texture of encaustic. The smooth areas juxtaposed with thick globby drips, the creamy wax and the gorgeous smell… It is an intoxicating medium. I added paper money to these, both real and imaginary. I also had this wonderful feather-infused rice paper that I loved incorporating. So cool!
No plans yet regarding what to do with them. I guess find a place to store them until an opportunity presents itself. The serendipitous approach.
School’s Out for Summer!
I’m finally getting back to blogging now that I’m in summer mode. I will post soon about more new encaustic paintings, once I get around to mounting them onto the chalk boards. I have a dozen new heart paintings and a dozen abstracted baseball ones that I am loving. They are currently residing on my kitchen table – and on the surrounding counter space. No current plans for exhibiting them as of yet.
I still have artwork up at Kimberly’s Salon on James Street in Eastwood and at Syracuse Yoga down the street on Thompson Road. Not sure what is up next for me, but that makes the journey so special. I made the paintings for a purpose; just not sure what that purpose is as of yet, lol.
If I can get my friends to put up with doing the photography, I will try to post #ootd pics on Instagram during July and August. Although I am usually the one who takes our obligatory selfie when we are all out and about, I am not a fan of those selfie pics where the fashion blogger cuts off her own head or shoots a foreshortened image from above. By not a fan, I mean I really don’t want to do that. So…we’ll see.
Here are some outfits from the past few weeks. Kinda fell off the wagon with posting them here. We were having technical difficulties with the lighting in the classroom. I had to double edit the pics to adjust the brightness, so there are inconsistencies – I guess I will hold to that excuse. We take dozens of pics in a short time and I swear I am always changing out the pose, but for some reason I like this crossed legged thing-a-ma-bob that I have been doing a lot. It feels like the most natural and most comfortable position for me especially when I am wearing a dress or skirt. My go-to vogue. My work colleague Brad calls it my stance.
My new favorite things – Halston Heritage and everything by Rachel Zoe! OMG, I love her! I now own five pieces – two dresses and three tops. I am on her site literally every day. I want more!
I’ve discovered something called the Amazon wish list. It is a public list of things I desire. All I have to do is dream while on-line shopping and perhaps these things will actually materialize in my mailbox on the condition that fairy godmothers/Santa Claus/tooth fairy/Easter bunny/patron saints of fashion do exist. That is wishful thinking at its finest. How cool is this?
I <3 fashion. Love, love, LOVE!!!
Lighting The Way
I managed to convince a dozen friends to meet me at the Chinese Lantern Festival last week. It was my birthday, a week night, and it was sunny here for the first time in over a week. Perfect conditions to enjoy this exquisite happening at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse, New York.
You enter at Gate 6 and follow the signs to the parking lot inside the fairgrounds. The event is open every night (except Mondays) from 5:30 – 10:00 pm until June 24, 2017. It is $15 per person but they have daily specials; there was a $2 discount last Thursday for “best friends day” in addition to it being my special day! Check their Facebook posts here. I think there is another deal coming up for Father’s Day this weekend.
We arrived at around 7:00 pm. There are a few food vendors and an ice cream truck, and a bunch of crafts to purchase from booths at the far end of the festival enclosure. At 8:30 pm, performers take the stage – acrobat and rhythmic gymnastic style stuff with Asian melodies and lavish costumes.
By 9:00 pm the sky becomes that beautiful Prussian blue before turning dark then the statues transition into glowing visions of beauty. What an incredible light show and photo opportunity. It is truly a magnificent experience! Once you witness it, well…I think it is unforgettable. So worth the admission price. I am so grateful that my friends indulged this whim of mine. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love you all sooooo muchy-much. <3
Angels
I tweaked and re-worked/finessed/finished twelve more angel paintings. It is such an incredible feeling to complete this project. It is Futura, the painting series I have been talking about making for many years. Now I must manifest the perfect venue to display all twenty-four of them. They are encaustic and mixed media on masonite mounted on chalkboard (the chalkboard was edited out in these pics). They are 8″ x 10″ mounted on 11″ x 14″ board. Priced at $111. <3
