Betsy Walton

Today's artist feature/Etsy discovery is Betsy Walton, who blows me away with her incredible imagery.



This original painting, "Pool People", is available at her Etsy shop for $300. A great price! If you're strapped for cash, though, look what you can get for $30: a limited edition print of a painting called "Possibilities Limited"...



On her website, she says about her work:

"Many of my paintings and drawings explore the tension and balance between the mysterious nature of our existence and the objects and environments we find in everyday life. We can experience the sublime in the same room where we fold the laundry, and perhaps at the same time.

My style is informed by a range of influences including Byzantine icon paintings, American folk art, geometric abstraction, and the work of many contemporary illustrators and painters.

I work with a spontaneous approach and few expectations of specific results. I rarely sketch preliminary drawings before diving into a painting, in the belief that the image formed through the painting process itself will be rich, revealing, and vital."

As an artist, I can totally relate to that last sentence -- it's how I approach my work, too. Really interesting! I love hearing about how other artists come to make their work.

You can also go to her Flickr to see sets of her exhibitions -- lots and lots of great stuff to look at.

Lany Devening

One of my most favorite new finds over at Etsy is an artist named Lany Devening. Over in her shop you can find all kinds of gorgeous silkscreen prints with somewhat tragic, dark themes throughout -- but they are definitely something you can hang on your wall even if you're not a goth kid, for sure. Me, I like a little something "off" or unexpected in the art I choose to display, and Lany's work fits the bill in a thousand ways -- they are completely right. But here, you can see for yourself, just two of the many prints from a series of the United States. And right now, she's having a BOGO sale on them, a steal for $20 for 2, if you can believe it -- each print has 10-15 colors, not easy to do!


Iowa, 8" x 9"


New Mexico, 8" x 9"

She's got plenty more great prints to see, so be sure to visit her shop, tout de suite!

I've been blogged!

Cathy Cullis over at November Moon and her lovely Etsy shop has added me to her Saturday Shopping list this week featuring my last zine, HPRS 15. What an honor! As she'll also tell you, I have "known" Cathy for a long time now on the internets and have a great respect for her creative pursuits, which have developed in an amazing way. I have a small collection of her little dolls in my office that I really love, but her newest sewn artworks are amazing, unique, and really coming into their own. Just take a look at her most recent:



If you're thinking "mutual admiration society," well, I guess you're right. But honestly, I'd have talked about Cathy soon enough anyway. :)

As for me, I just found a couple extra copies of a little zine called Pumpkin that I did a few years ago. It has a rather interesting format that I enjoyed putting together. See what you think!



Regarding zines, I've had a couple Etsyans tell me that they have no idea what a zine is. I've also added the following description to my listings, but in case you aren't sure, either, here you go:

Q: What is a zine, anyway?

A: The zine – a self-published magazine that’s often published by an individual making use of cut and paste techniques and photocopies – has a long history, with its roots reaching back as far as Thomas Paine’s pamphlets of the Revolutionary War era, The Crisis and Common Sense, to the manifestos and pamphlets of the Dadaists and Surrealists in the early 20th century, to the music fanzines of 1970s punk rock and the Riot Grrrl and DIY movements of the 1990s and beyond.

The past few years have seen many zine publishers pushing the envelope with the form, transforming the humble photocopied pamphlet to an honest-to-god work of art. Along with the gain in popularity of book arts in general, zines can be an astounding alternative to more traditional art-making.

That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by!

Hello!

After having set up shop over at Etsy a couple weeks ago, I have been finding out about more and more amazing artists and artisans that I would like to give a flash of limelight -- assuming that I will have a nice legion of readers over there, that is! ;) I will also be promoting my own work in lieu of a dedicated website, for the time being. I'll keep you posted on the status of what I hope will be www.amygreenan.com in the near future, where I will feature my fine art and graphic design work.

So, to start off, I'd like to point you over in the direction of ChociShop, where you can see and purchase some of my art and zines in the meantime. In the next few days, I will be getting this blog gussied up with some links and a banner and things.

I can't wait to tell you about all the great Etsy shops and other awesome places on the web to visit that I have found over the years.

Say hello, why don't you? :)


"I Wasn't Born in 1972", Collage on wood by Amy Greenan.