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...jen o'connor's...Artful Adventures & Daily Inspirations

I Love Art, Adore the Handmade and Treasure the Vintage. I am the Fun Mom, the Silly Friend and the Writer who wants to make more room for beauty in the everyday.

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Sunday, April 8, 2007

Can your draw a circle?





































...can you draw a circle...now draw another, now....overlap them...

I am always amazed at how the rings of my life meet and intersect through the art we love. Our creative spirits, and the reasons we reach for things, why we love to look at something, hold it, stare at it forever; these are the things that bring our circles together.

Diane Allison can draw circles, and straight lines galore. She has them connect and cross, and then double back into to the most fetching designs. Somewhere in the middle of all her shapes and style, I became smitten with the luster of her work, the graphic punch, and really Diane herself.....

Her boards, her art, and her sense of nostalgia fill me with joy. She reaches back in time through her work to merry games long-ago played and begs us to fill new hours with mirth and color. I adore Diane as a great gal pal...it's amazing we've never met...the emails she writes me are filled with humor and reflect a mutual appreciation as we work together. These notes from Diane are often the bits that get me through my day.

Funny, it all started when she emailed me asking if I was looking for a new artists to represent.....I found Diane's work utterly charming - graphically fresh of form, while wholly traditional in craft. I knew early on that Diane must be a "romantic". Diane is charmed by left behind hand prints and their untold stories, so she signs her own work with a paint drenched hand print on the back of each board. That tiny hand...I cannot help but place my own over it as I unwrap each board that arrives here at Earth Angels....

Diane makes her boards high in the Appalachian mountains where she lives with her family, and was first inspired by her love of quilt making and design. Nature supplies her color palette and many designs date from the 1800s. Her exceptional work had been featured in Country Living magazine, Southern Living, Home, and has appeared on Mary Emmerling's Country at Home, as well as in the Museum of American Folk Art and the respected artist medium, Sundance Catalog. And the big news....this July, Diane will be inducted into the Country Living "Artisan Guild"! This is BIG stuff! Congrats Diane....and thanks for letting us present your creations....
....and so the circles continue to meet...I saw this wonderful landscape painting on Diane's blog, and she led me to another artists I am now thrilled to know ... Jennifer Lanne (watch for a future blog post on Jennifer Lanne and a peek into her studio...) Diane is a fan of Jennifer work and now I am too...Thanks again Diane! ...I see one of Jennifer's paintings hanging on the end of the island in your studio... love it!

So Diane, draw those lines, those circles, those dots and spots that make my walls hum with color....and bring me closer to all that I love old and new.

xxoo Jen

5 comments:

Jennifer Lanne said...

Diane is so fabulous...!!! I'm so thrilled for her success and that she shares her many talents with us. Her boards are even more lovely and textural in person...I have four so far.......

Lori said...

Yes I can draw a circle, if I trace a plate!! I love Diane's gameboards and I followed your like to her Blog which is just as wonderful. Thanks.

Laurie Meseroll said...

All of you bear-makers cover your ears--the first time I attended Jen's Spring Fling her home was overflowing with Nicole and Christine's dolls and gobs of gorgeous bears and all sorts of little sparkly delights...my architect's eye shot immediately to Diane's pieces which Jen had placed high above the rest. Diane's boards are truly better than any I've ever. ever seen, and believe me, being on the folk art show circuit I've seen plenty. They are immediately, graphically PERFECT--her balance of color and form is like none other. I want one for every room in my home! They're like a folk art cosmogram--as calming and meditational as a Tibetan mandela. Wow.

jessielavon@yahoo.com said...

Diane's crossroad piece cought my eye,I sent her the Southern storie of the crossroads.Love her art and always enjot passing threw to see whats new.

Diane Duda said...

I can picture these gameboards dancing up my stairway wall right now!
I also visited Jennifer's blog only to find her astride a very large pig! I had to bookmark that just to see what happens next. :)
Thanks for introducing us all to such talented women.


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