A Few Exhibitors from the 2011 Peter Anderson Arts Festival in Ocean Springs, MS

Last Saturday and Sunday was the 2011 Peter Anderson Arts Festival here in Ocean Springs. I went around and was moderately impressed with some of the things I saw.

I  talked with one of my favorite potters from Mobile AL, Charles Smith. I have admired his work for many years now and It is always a pleasure to converse with him and see his great pottery.

 I really liked the pieces that were being exhibited by Steve Burrow of Sea Oat Studio in Gulf Shores, AL. His works were richly embellished with applied detail and lively slip trailing. His pottery covers the gambit from subdued all the way to baroque intensity.

Colette Martin Waite of Daphne, AL, was also exhibiting and I have to say that I found her canvas with the Hydrangea's and the watermelon to be absolutely delightful. It has that special quality that just stands out and shines. Her work is always traditional but still has a fresh quality that many artists works do not possess.

Craig McMillin  of Studio McMillin, had some very fine pottery works also. I was extremely impressed by his mammoth bowl with it's snowflake like crystalline glaze in it's center.

I also had a chance to chat with Mary Kay Samouce of ADORN by Samouce, who popped into South Coast Antiques & Gallery for a bit. I so enjoy her rethinking of traditional jewelry design by refashioning vintage and antique pieces into bold and elaborate modern pieces that are way more art than craft.

The Influence of Roger Dean on the Art of Michael W. Moses

I am often asked where I come up with my ideas for my art. I always tell people that I have spent almost my entire life looking at art, antiques, and jewelry. Studying styles, colors, and techniques. Most of my works are based on nothing other than my own personal visions.
There have been a vast number of artistic influences involved in my artistic development and it is not as much that I tried to copy the artists that influenced me as much as I have strived to recreate the feeling and mood that I felt when I viewed their art.

The artist Roger Dean is one of the artists that made me realize that there was more to art than just creating things from our world, we can create things from other worlds...Alien worlds! One can create the most fantastic of creations and with a little skill can convince the eyes of others as they look at our art that they are viewing something that exists in reality.

when I first saw Roger Dean's work on album covers in the early 1970's, I was taken by how he used so many of the artistic elements that I had always been intrigued by such as art nouveau, antique Japanese prints,and the aesthetic movement and blended them in his own unique way to create a view of things that had only been seen in dreams previously.

Mister Dean's works are exceptional in that they create a world where we not only see what is before us in his images, but we can also see in our minds eye what is beyond the image. They make us think and wonder and they force us to step further into his work. I guess I can say they make us use our imaginative skills a little bit more. The magic of Roger Dean's work is not always so much as what he has created as in what is just a few feet outside of the view that we see.

To see more art by Roger Dean please click the picture below and visit his gallery at his website. One may also visit Roger Dean on Face Book.

 

The main reason for this post though is that August 31 is Mister Dean's birth day and I would like to wish him 

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

 

Cute kittens and Pensacola Museum of Art's Art in the Park Arts festival

Here is a photograph of one of our new kittens. Our cat Kitty K. Kitty, just had kittens last month and this is a picture that I took of one of them  the other day. It is just so cute!

I have been doing a bit of pottery painting of late and will have a few new pieces to show you soon.

This Friday I will be going to Pensacola, FL to be one of the judges for the 2nd annual
Pensacola Museum of Art's Art in the Park arts festival.