Spirit Of The Season

How do you capture the spirit of a season? The color contrast in Season of Light shows the warmness of the orange sunlight against cool, crisp atmosphere of a manganese sky. Naked trees stretch and yawn, ready for a long nap. Jagged cast shadows lead us into the scene, where rooftops continue the angular movement and create an upbeat rhythm, much like the Autumn of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

Season of Light is a typical New England coastal scene, with its stonewalls and white houses, ideal backdrop for all that is autumn. Soon, the red chimneys will swirl smoke and stand out vibrantly against the white New England snows.


Season of Light by Melody Phaneuf
Oil Painting, 30 x 25

Open Edition Prints, Tiles, and Note Cards make great gifts.
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Golden Days: Explore Boston's Fenway Studios Oct 25-26

Crisp days, glittery light —autumn in Boston is an extraordinary season. October is a favorite time to taste the cosmopolitan flavor of the city and bask in the 19th century’s architectural splendor. Ravishing gardens, premier galleries, elegant boutiques, and historic allure combine magnificently in golden light....read more


Golden Days by Melody Phaneuf
20 x 16 Oil Painting of Boston Garden

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Open Studios events and times at MelodyTheArtist.com/FenwayStudios.



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Still Life With Oranges

Orange, green, violet. A secondary triad has more subtlety ....more


Still Life With Oranges, by Melody Phaneuf
30 x 25 oil painting

Open Edition prints are available at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop.

Everything Matters

Young artists often ask me questions about their artwork that are prefaced with “does it matter if…” My first response is “everything matters.” But that is the abbreviated version.

I ascribe to an idea very like the “Broken Windows Theory,” discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point. An epidemic theory of crime, Broken Windows suggests that the impulse to engage in certain behavior initiates in the environment rather than the person and that the festering epidemic can be reversed by tweaking environmental cues.

The link between environment and culture makes perfect sense when you think about the Greece of Plato and Aristotle, the significance of beauty, and the accomplishments of Greek culture. Beauty was the ideal that was studied and applied in every aspect of life. Each proportion was measured. It all mattered. Then ponder the great scientific advances of the Italian Renaissance, born in surroundings of the Medici aesthetic. Beauty mattered.

Our Boston building, Fenway Studios, hosts an annual Open Studios event. Visitors come to see Art and the artists who create it. I love to chat with people who are interested in what we do. One sentiment that was consistently expressed by many who loved the paintings was the wish that they could afford to buy. I thought about the reality of this—that often, living with art is limited to a certain income level, but shouldn’t be.

Believing that everyone deserves to live with beauty, I partnered with color reproduction expert, Martha DiMeo, to begin producing a small line of affordable prints and note cards. Seven years later, we have launched an online store, expanded the number of images available for prints, cards, and bookmarks, and have created a line of botticino marble tile murals and coaster gift sets.

Living surrounded with aesthetic pleasure may seem like a little thing that doesn’t matter. I would argue that it makes your personal world a better, kinder place and you contribute the same to the whole. That matters. We are doing our part to make beauty a component of everyone’s life. Everyone deserves a pleasing environment.

Shown above: Sunflowers of Dordogne Fine Art Coasters
Melody The Artist Home offerings at http://melodytheartist.com/shop

Harbor Sunset, Visual Banquet

Measure:

2 Parts Yellow
1 Part Orange
2 Parts Violet
3 Dashes Viridian
Pinch of Rose

Gently whisk the orange into the yellow. Cover the top third of a rectangular canvas and set aside the remaining mixture. Apply 2/3 of the violet to the middle third and lower right corner, cut in viridian and allow to set. Use the remaining yellow-orange to cover the raw canvas; swirl on violet. Sprinkle entire mixture with a pinch of rose. Arrange shapes so that there is a contrast of direction. Be sure that dark and light pattern in the upper third creates a rhythmic, cradling movement leading to the shapes below. Hold the key in the middle range, but spice with a major interval of twilight. Allow the surface to rise and form a firm, interwoven texture. Serve immediately.

Have you ever noticed how a delicious banquet awakens each taste bud, delighting and satisfying emerging desires for salty, spicy, sweet, sour or bitter? And texturally speaking, imagine the dullness of dining on soup, squash, applesauce and Jell-O? Bereft of mastication for any length of time, you might even consider wrestling the dog for his chew toy.

A painting should have the same considerations, variety to delight the eye and charm the spirit. Light, dark, warm, cool, round, rectangular, soft, firm, transparent, opaque, curvy, angular… There are an infinite number of condiments in Nature’s buffet. Artist and chef alike are fluent in the language of their dominant sense’s expression. They are mavens of discernment, selecting which proportion of this-to-that delectation will attract then gratify.

A delicious painting, like a favorite meal is remembered and desired again because it satiates a longing that only that particular taste titillation can fulfill. When that hunger is of the body, food fulfills; when of the soul, art nourishes.

Bon Appetite!

Harbor Sunset by Melody Phaneuf, is available in Open Edition Print and Note Cards.

http://melodytheartist.com/shop

Harbor Sunset, by Melody Phaneuf, Boston, MA
Oil Painting, 28 x 22
Studio Visits (617) 236 4322

Eggs and Shells, A Study in Low Major

I love a low major key. Light emerging from darkness evokes a primal awe and lends dignity to vibrant color arrangements.

Eggs & Shells is a quiet celebration of yellow and blue. Eggs and milk carafe, combined with the eye-opening contrast of color and light make it ideal for the kitchen, a perfect “breakfast’ painting. A lively rhythm emerges from the broken-color technique despite the restraint of key.

I use this painting as a moment of contemplation in the morning. It gives me contented energy to start my day.

Eggs and Shells, Open Edition Print, Note Cards, and Custom Tile Murals at http://melodytheartist.com/shop

The Bridge, Connection to Paradise

Nowhere else can we find the delight that beauty brings. A life bereft of aesthetic pleasure is unmerciful and dulls the senses. Often surprising and elusive, an encounter with beauty elevates and inspires a gracious attitude.

Imagine my joy when, during a customary walk at Gloucester's Good Harbor Beach, dreamy light revealed such beauty of pattern. The radiant effect of blue sky delicately woven with lemon sun mirrored from the water suggested a timeless threshold. I was struck by the eternal quality of the light, the metaphor of moving water as life’s passage, and the bridge as connection to a paradisiacal world. This epiphany was inspiration for painting The Bridge, Good Harbor.

A lovely tribute to the iconic quality of the image is its popularity. Tile coasters, open edition prints, and cards are sold in Cape Ann gift stores and the Gloucester Museum, as well as our online store. It is a great pleasure to share my experience of beauty with others.

~

Artist Melody Phaneuf lives and paints in Gloucester, MA and at Fenway Studios, Boston. Phaneuf is well known for her evocative landscape and still life paintings and has achieved significant acclaim for portraiture. She has exhibited at Galerie Herouet in Paris, The National Arts Club in New York City, and with Art du Monde, a traveling exposition in Japan. Phaneuf’s paintings are regularly displayed at Northshore Arts in Gloucester and The Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo showcases the artist’s original paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards. Online ordering at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

The Bridge, Good Harbor, 28 x 20 oil painting by Melody Phaneuf is available in fine art prints and tile coasters.

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