(There is content on my home blog page at Tumblr relevent to this post, an MP3 and photo that will add context! please give it a look :) http://alexkellum.tumblr.com/ )

I’m so happy when I can hook some one in. Or rather when It hooks them in, (but i’m proud to be a tiny messenger.)  I would love to get you all in!  Its good also to go all in.

  I think I believed as a young person that being an artist meant you get a bunch of paint in a studio, and you go to work, crazily, for hours on end, and then you get recognized by a gallerist, and life will be perfect.  Surely, it is sort of like that, however, making good work isn’t the end,  and its not very easy to make ‘good’ work, even if you are trained and informed and inspired.  I have found that a tremendous amount of internal discipline and fortitude lets me command my present and puts me in a place where I can get closer to it.

This is my ode to yoga post. the wonderful third pillar waiting to sustain you.  if you listen to me long enough, i might get you too …

'Eggs and Glam', 46 x 46 cm, Metal Plated Porcelain, 2013. All rights reserved-Alexander Kellum

GOLD

Alexander Kellum is a New York City based artist.  I do business as a decorative artist, as Alexander Kellum dba Atelier AK. Streams of income for an artist include, galleries, collectors, teaching, art installations, and decorative arts.

This fall it seems all i’ve been doing is gold leafing. Up until Christmas , we spent months with Boyd Reath gold leafing at the Plaza . Since then we’ve been gold leafing in Cresskill, NJ, and the Far Rockaways.

There are so many great artists all across New York teaming up to work together on these projects. It’s impossible to know them all and I am always surprised when I look at New York Magazine and see their ‘Best of’ New York section listing some artisan I have never run across.  In my experience , the best decorative artists in NY are Boyd Reath , Mason Nye Murals, Vicki Khuzami, and of course Alexander Kellum, of Atelier AK. :)

These are images from my recent art installation at Christian Dior’s Hong Kong store at Pacific Place in Admirality.  I have a huge debt of gratitude to Peter Marino Architects for pulling for me in this commission, and making it possible.  Thanks to everyone involved!

check out my recent Triptych commission for a private client entitled ‘Sign Language’

Christian Maychack

I found this artist on the NYFA.org website.  He received a 2012 fellowship in painting.  I really appreciate his work.  He has a masterful understanding of materials, composition, and innovation.  Sometimes I am underwhelmed by the art I find being supported by foundations, in this case, the sentiment is just the opposite. Not only is Maychack pioneering pigments and epoxy clay as an artistic medium but he is using them to cleverly explore the nether regions bridging painting and sculpture.  His use of wood is playful yet precise,  using complementary characteristics of the material as a mirror of itself in this piece.  The ‘mirroring’ of the character of wood as both a material for structure and a material for malleable shape-storming is purposeful. It facilitates the negative space that happens inside the frame and the abstract work with epoxy clay that happens outside of it.  The result is that the movement of the piece, the essence of its energy expands in every direction. Left to anchor this unwieldy motion is unfettered  clumps of Cadmium red pigment (or is it Napthol?), and sweet, ethereal light green swirls in the epoxy clay, grounding the viewer, and showering them in vibrant red and green waves.

These guys are out of control good.  Studio Job.  polished bronze cast art furniture. 

My friend Ross McDonnell being a genius, photographing, living and working in the gang addled communities of Mexico.

http://lightbox.time.com/2013/02/12/auto-defensa-rough-justice-in-mexicos-lawless-mountains/#1

Reblogged from Sight Unseen: Peter Shire at the Santa Monica Museum

I love this sculpture in all its sleekness.  It is like a more fashionable Calder mobile.

Hiroshi Senju

Nightfall 2007

I watched ‘Anna Karenina’ this weekend, and saw some videos of Anish Kapoor on youtube.  Ive been tensing my brain, to figure out what to make or do next.  And I think that all we can do, is make something that we can give, refined and sophisticated, so it can be gratefully received and appreciated.

Harumi Nakashima

Holy Hell. I was walking by Gallery NeC today on a casual Hong Kong Christmas stroll, and ran across these.  These would be impossibly complicated to build , and therefore, impossibly beautiful.

WoW - vid

'Sail Vase' , 14 x 12 x 9 cm, porcelain dipped linen, gas fired cone 6

This is from my recent creative trip to Jingdezhen, China where I was sculpting,  sample making and process brainstorming : )

Tom Friedman, ‘Untitled’, 2000

Wow, I saw this while taking one of my imagination walks in the Hong Kong Public Library. Construction Paper!  I love his medium for this work.

straight jacket

Robert Vickrey ends his beautiful career at 84 : )

Jean Dubuffet

'Cow with a Beautiful Tail'

1954, Oil on Canvas

3-D Wallpaper!  Prototype for a my new line. Foam Cast, Japan Colored Kitty.  Light Weight and Durable atop an venetian medium Strie, painted with Farrrow & Ball Clay Based paint, ( zero - VOC = volatile organic compound ) (www.alexkellum.com)