SARAH STONE

New Work

       

"transitions"              "hallows eve heads"

     

"de obscuridad, luz" 

2008

Receptions of the Dead

Para Siempre, clay, wood, acrylic paint, metal letters

Please join me at two receptions this October for Dia De los Muertos:

1) Ten Women gallery hosts our Dia de los Muertos festivities on the night of Oct 3rd in conjunction with Abbot Kinney First friday (which means the whole street will be jumping with activity)

when where etc:

Ten Women Gallery

1237 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice.

90291

310- 452 -2256

and

2) The Folk Tree Gallery in Pasadena's 

25th Annual Day of the Dead Altars & Ephemera exhibition

THE FOLK TREE                                         

217 South Fair Oaks Avenue                
Pasadena, CA 91105    
(626)795-8733

Saturday, October 4, from 2 - 6 P.M.

Dead or alive, I hope to see you there!

"Sacrifice", wood, acrylic, clay, wire

Midway

"Torchy" 4x8" water color, acrylic, graphite; "Feejee Mermaids: Alive!" 9x12", acrylic, clay; "Mathina" 9x12" acrylic, graphite

Mandragora

"Mandragora" is the botanical name for the mandrake plant. a rooty, parsnip like plant thought to have mystical and medicinal powers. Apparently a sedative in small doses and an insanity producing narcotic in large ones, in Medieval times Mandrake was thought to provide cures for demoniacal possession.Mandrake roots were thought to resemble little men. Placing a root in your house averted bad luck and brought prosperity. The root only grew under the gallows of hanged murderers, and to dig a root was sure to kill you. Dogs were tied to the root to pull it from the ground so that the shrieks of the angry mandrake would not harm the human.This piece was inspired by the 2006 movie, Labyrinto del Fauno, by director Guillermo del Toro, a very visually inspiring director.

Deep Water

Deep Water came to me after I went through a couple of very disturbing and traumatic episodes in my life during which I had to re-examine strongly held beliefs I had about myself and the people closest to me. One of these incidents was the death of my father, which revealed a lot of dark things. The text in this piece reads: "Mariners use caution when traversing these waters". It is a piece of text copied from a nautical map to indicate dangerous shoals. The piece is largely about the loss of innocence that comes from seeing the weaknesses in ourselves and others, and accepting them for what they are. On a broader level, it is about losing the trust we had in people who were supposed to be taking care of us, like our government. I tried to imagine the most innocent thing in the world, and what came to mind was an infant mermaid- a mer-baby. This is a skeleton of a mer-baby, the death of innocent ideas, beliefs and trusts. How do we navigate the abyss of the soul when we no longer have a boat to cling to? Do we give up, or become better swimmers?

Persephone Rising

Persephone, also known as Kore, is the Goddes of Spring and the embodiment of Earth's fertility. She is a young, beautiful girl, the daughter of the Harvest Goddess Demeter, who, as the traditional story goes, was abducted against her will by the God of the Underworld, the dark Lord himself, Hades. Hades "made her his wife", also presumably against her will, and Hermes, the messenger of the Gods,was sent to  intervene on behalf of Zeus and Demeter to negotiate a hostage release. But Hades wanted Persephone so badly that he tricked her into eating 6 pommegranite seeds, food of the Underworld, which bound her to Hades for 6 months of every year.

In my interpretation, the relationship between Persephone and Hades, or, if you will, Spring and Winter, Life and Death, Light and Darkness, is a relationship of eternal love and interconnectedness. Persephone is bound to her husband, and he to her, as the sky is bound to the Earth, the water to the shore, the stars to the night sky. How could one want to exist without the other? Their love is THE love, that which connects us all and brings all life full circle. Persephone rises to the surface of the Earth, bringing new life, as represented by her full womb and the green branch, while Hades holds her in a loving goodbye embrace, rooted as he is to the core of the world. In her inevitable leaving, she reassures him of her return.

Ten (more) Women, on Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice

I am proud to announce that, after waiting with baited breath for acceptance, I am now a full-fledged member of the Ten Women Gallery on Abbott Kinney Blvd, in Venice. Curiously close to my old digs on Van Buren Ave. where I lived while working at Roger Corman studios, I will now be back every Saturday afternoon at the Venice gallery, 3pm until closing so, drop by and say hi! It's a great scene down there, the people who come in always have something interesting to say about the art, and the other artists in the gallery are fabulous. We'll be having an opening on the first friday of August, so mark your calendars. I'll keep you in touch as the day approaches.

In Clear Light, Life   Sarah Stone, 2008

Kickshaws and Bibelots

"Kickshaws" was a 16th century American interpretation of the French "Quelque Choses", meaning, literally, "Somethings". "Bibelots" also comes from the French, from the word "beubelet", a small object of curiosity, beauty, or rarity. The image to the right is called "Totem" and represents transformation and new beginnings. It is 2" x 3", approximately.

The butterfly has a long history of symbolic references in art. In Greek, the word Psyche means "soul", and the goddess Psyche was the personification of the soul in female form, and sometimes in the form of the butterfly. 

Come Visit me at Ten Women!

I'm at the gallery every Saturday morning from 10- 2pm. drop by and say hi! It's gorgeous down at the beach and there are plenty of things to do in the neighborhood, at Main Street and Ocean Park.

Rapture of the Deep

I did two different RoD paintings, both were inspired by two things which fascinate me: deep sea creatures- the kind that live in the super hot vents and deepest abyssal zones; and the surrealists game "Exquisite Corpse" in which one person creates a third of an image or story, another person creates another third, and the third person creates the last part. This creature came from studying numerous photos of deep sea fish and combining them, a la Exquisite Corpse, to arrive at these strange and whimsical triptychs.

Available at Ten Women, Venice.