Hi Everyone!

We’re excited to launch Creative Clues, a new monthly feature of Art Starts at Louisville Visual Art. With each new Clue, we’ll provide some pointers to help you succeed and improve.

Creative Clues Showcase

CLUE: DOTS
Deadline for artwork submission is March 31, 2022 at midnight.

LVA celebrates Women’s History Month by studying Pattern and being inspired by the artwork of Alma Thomas and Joyce Koxloff, and for International Women’s Day, March 8th, the artwork of Maria Prymachenko of Ukraine and Yayoi Kusamu of Japan.

In the majority of art museums, most art is by male artists. Where are all the women artists? Why do you think we don’t get to see as much art created by women?

HOW TO: Patterns, Patterns Everywhere

In art, a pattern is an element (or a set of elements) that happens or appears in a regular and repeated way. You see patterns everywhere, look at your sweater, the stars in the sky, the stripes on your tiger cat. Artists use patterns as decoration, as symbols, or as an entire piece of artwork. Patterns can be organized or random.

Look at the yellow, clay balls created by an LVA Camper, they turned the art table into a work of art, using the art elements of Color and Form to create the art element of Pattern.
Like the stars in the sky, the snowdrop flowers in image 2 go on forever (or maybe infinity), making a pattern of white dots all over the yards in the Kentuckiana area, (look for these little guys popping up the beginning of March). How would you make an artwork with pattern out of the snowdrop flowers?

Alma Thomas

Alma Thomas, 1891-1978 was born in Georgia. She was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum and is known for her colorful, abstract paintings. Notice the patterns! She was the first graduate of Howard University’s new art department in 1924, and taught school art for 35 years in a segregated junior high school in Washington, D.C. Upon her retirement, devoting her time solely to her artwork, the light in her garden and photos of the Apollo moon missions were her inspirations. The White House hung a Thomas painting in the Obamas’ dining room.

To learn more about Alma Thomas visit: https://nmwa.org/art/artists/alma-woodsey-thomas/

“Through color, I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.”
Alma Thomas

Joyce Kozloff

Joyce Kozloff, born in 1942 in New Jersey, is an American artist who helped form the Pattern and Decoration movement in the 1960s. The Pattern and Decoration movement was interested in breaking down the hierarchies of art in the Western world, and was inspired by African, Middle Eastern and Asian art. Joyce Kozloff’s patterned paintings evolved into large room filled installations made of hand painted tiles and fabrics. She has been active in the women's and peace movements throughout her life, and was also a founding member of the Heresies collective, a publication about women and the feminist art movement.

The Pattern and Decoration movement was formed out of feminism. This movement was a reaction to reaction to the Minimalism and Conceptualism movements.

How would you use art to change something that was not fair or equal?

To learn more about Joyce Kozloff visit: http://www.joycekozloff.net/

Maria Prymachenko

Maria Prymachenko (1908–1997) is one of the most renowned artists in Ukraine. A self-taught artist, she started drawing in the sand with a stick while caring for her family’s gaggle of geese. Her grandmother and mother taught her the traditional Ukrainian art of embroidery which inspired her design and painting, notice the Patterns and Decoration in her colorful animals, flower arrangements and illustrations of folk life and the designs in her blouse. Pablo Picasso was inspired by this colorful artist, he once said of her after visiting an exhibit of her art at the Paris World Fair, “I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian.” Maria Prymachenko practiced the “philosophy of the good.”

“I make sunny flowers because I love people, I create for joy, for happiness for people, so that all peoples love each other, so that they live like flowers throughout the earth…”
Maria Prymachenko

What elements of art can you find in her painting Pretty Pig, above? If you picked out an animal, how would you draw or paint or sculpt “goodness” in that animal? Would a repeated Pattern help you emphasize your ideas?

To learn more about Maria Prymachenko visit: https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2018/02/maria-prymachenkos-fantastic-world-of-flowers-and-animals.html

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama, born in 1929 in Japan, is a worldwide know artist. Since she was a young girl, she has suffered with hallucinations, which lead to the dots – seeing dots in an image as far as she could see, “our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment”. In the 1960s and 1970s she was inspired by Andy Warhol and he in turn was inspired by her creativity, and she was friends with Georgia O’Keefe (another extraordinary American female artist). Moving back to Japan, she continued to create paintings, sculptures and giant room filled installations – with dots, and patterns. Yayoi Kusama is in her 90s now, and she still paints every day. She says, “Every time I have had a problem, I have confronted it with the ax of art.”

What pattern would you use to cover the world? The Universe?

To learn more about Yayoi Kusama visit: https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-yayoi-kusama

Infinity Dots Project

Study the Yayoi Kusama painting below, Flowers. Remember how she talks of dots covering everything, and all the dots blending into the environment, to the stars, to infinity. Using dots as your infinity symbol, you will design and paint an Infinity Dot Painting in the manner of Yayoi Kusama. You may make an abstract design, a vase of flowers, or your choice. In the examples below, we are using the snowdrop flower picture from the How To: Pattern description. Also notice, she would make a cracked pattern for some backgrounds.

You will need:

heavy paper or cardboard
acrylic paints (We are using acrylic paints because we will be layering paints on top of each other. If you use water color or tempera paints, those paints will smear when you apply a new layer on top of them. Acrylic paints will not smear.)
paint brushes, very small to medium sizes
palette or a reusable foam plate to mix paints
pencil
water bowl
paint rag or paper towels

What other symbols for infinity can you think of? How would you use these symbols in a painting, sculpture or an installation (like in the Infinity Mirrored Room)?

"You can’t sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it”
Faith Ringgold

Send in your DREAM artwork

Deadline for artwork submission is March 31, 2022 at midnight.

Content: family friendly (LVA will determine if artwork is appropriate to share online.)
Ages 5 to 105!
Photo Guidelines: here is a nifty link, if you want to learn to take great pictures of your artwork

Consent and Permission: By filling out the form below, you give LVA permission to display your artwork and information in the Creative Clue Showcase. *NOTE: if you are under 18 years old, please have a parent or guardian complete the form.
Address: email artwork to: artstartshere@louisvillevisualart.org
Social Media: you may share your artwork on Instagram: #artwithinreach, #ArtStartsAtLVA

LVA will notify you if your artwork is in the Creative Clues Showcase at the end of the month. artstartshere@louisvillevisualart.org

Send Us Your Artwork

Remember to use your past How To pages to come up with creative solutions for your new clue:

January 2021 - Winter -Thumbnails

February 2021 - Heart - Research

March 2021 - Chair

April 2021 - Spring

May 2021 - Breeze

June 2021 - Light

July 2021 - Together

August 2021 - Trees

September 2021 - Apples & Pears