Gilding the Lily

Tribal Dance

Posted by Cranford
Tribal Dance

The foliage is made to look like metal work, much like the Mayans and Incans did. I twisted parts of the petals, then blew a digital breeze across them with such force that at places individual pixels came loose. The frame is made from four heavy pieces of poplar, that are actually joined in the traditional fashion in angled corners. I shaped them to evoke interlocking peace pipes and carefully used dark walnut stain in a gradient to separate the pipes visually.

The overall message of the piece is about how digital technology even with all of its networking and social media still seems to leave us alone and separated. We need to engage in more natural, primitive social contact in order to maintain emotional and psychological health and happiness: The Tribal Dance.

Image is museum quality printed on canvas which is stretched on a 25″ x 25″ custom frame. The overall dimensions of the piece are 31-1/2″ x 31-1/2″ x 2″.

Price: $500 plus shipping

Email me your name, address and phone number, so we can arrange payment and shipment.

Miss Jessie Warhol

Posted by Cranford
Miss Jessie Warhol

This started out as a pair of Miss Jessie daylily blossoms blooming next to our driveway. I photographed them, then tweaked the photo in Photoshop. Then I mirrored the image and inverted the colours. After that, I arranged them checkerboard fashion and added two green borders. This was then museum quality printed on canvas. which I stretched over a handcrafted frame. I made a sleek, modern frame of poplar and coated it with multiple layers of black lacquer, then varnish. This is my favourite daylily! If you look closely, you can even see a tiny insect on one of the petals.

It is named for Andy Warhol, as it is an homage to his Marilyn Monroe serigraphs and Campbell Soup Cans. I never appreciated them from seeing them in books and magazines. I saw them in person at a museum on the University of Minnesota campus around 1990. they were breathtaking, in person! This is why my website is named what it is! Art IS always better in person. Buy some. Take it home.

Overall dimensions are 26″ x 26″ x 2″.

Price: $350 reduced to $150 plus postage

Email me your name, address and phone number, so we can arrange payment and shipment.

“Here’s Looking at You!”

Posted by Cranford
"Here's Looking At You!"

This is my first photo of a daylily from 2014. The bloom was looking straight at me, dead center in the photo. I superimposed an iris, that is a human iris, onto the bloom. The bloom was the exact shade of yellow my mom used in our living room when she redecorated it. It was the first time she was ever able to redo a whole room at once. The iris is the shade of green she used. I made the background the unique shade of aqua she used. That color became very popular in Golden Valley, MN. The florists my mom used would dye flowers that color for our parties. People would see them at our house or at the florists’ shop while awaiting delivery and request it for themselves. It became known as “B.J.  Blue”. My mom’s name was B.J., short for Betty Jane.

Then I asked John Haggerty to help me by making the shape of a camera bezel for the frame on his Shop-Bot. I painted it black and inserted the museum quality print on canvas in the back.

~14-3/4″ diameter x 3-5/8″deep

Price: $350 plus shipping.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take Paypal, so all credit cards are accepted.

Bee’s Eye View

Posted by Cranford
beeseyeview

Another photograph in my Lily Gilding series, this one has been filtered with a yellow “neon glow” then dabbed with touches of orange at the centers of the blooms to signify scent. Bees are especially attracted to the bright colors of the blossoms and filter out the greens. It is said, in fact, that perhaps they only see yellow. They are mostly guided by scent. Hummingbirds are especially attracted to yellows and reds. So this photo is all about the birds and the bees.

skep
Skep

I made the frame out of native PA poplar and ribbed it reminiscent of the traditional bee skeps, then coated it with nine coats of black lacquer. It is museum quality printed on canvas.

The canvas is 24″x24″. The overall dimensions of the frame are 29-3/8″x29-3/8″x2″

$400 plus shipping

SOLD

Widow’s Bonnet

Posted by Cranford
Widow's Bonnet

This is from a photo of daylilies by our driveway taken in 2007. The “bonnet” is the spent blossom from the previous day. I filtered it to wash most of it to black. The name for this piece is “Widow’s Bonnet”. This is why she is wearing black. It is also why she is surrounded by about a 4″ ring of hammered copper. This represents the “Widow’s Mite” in the Gospel story. Daylilies are the lilies of the field that Jesus was talking about, which we are “to consider, for they do not labor, neither so they spin, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Yet they are gone in a day, to be replaced with another equally beautiful bloom the next! The mite was the smallest copper coin with a hole in the middle; it was worth so little. That was all the widow had, yet she gave it to the poor at the Temple collection box. Jesus pointed out that she had given more than all the rich who had gone before and after, because she had given all she had.

So this piece reminds us of these two lessons. There is more than enough to go around every day, if only we share it. Give everything if necessary to make that happen.

This is a photograph that has been altered and museum quality printed on canvas. The frame is hand-hammered copper flashing tacked over a black painted, plywood base. It is 18-3/4″ diameter.

Price: $300 reduced to $100 plus shipping

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit cards are accepted.

Phoenix

Posted by Cranford
phoenix
“Phoenix”

This is from my Lily Gilding series. I don’t paint daylilies. I paint with them. This is a photograph of a Backdraft Daylily, from a couple of summers back, right next to our front step. I modified it using several filters and adjustments, then cropped it just right. I call it Phoenix as it shows the persistence of new life and hope, even in the midst of entropy and crumbling bricks.

The border and frame paint are taken directly from the colors in the photo. Each time you look at it, be emboldened to hope and to work for positive change that we may rise from the ashes of our brokenness to see in each and every man, woman and child, a sister or a brother, worthy of dignity, respect, and care.

This is museum quality printed on canvas. I custom-made the frame from native PA poplar. The canvas is 24″x24″. The overall dimensions with the frame are 27″x27″x2-3/4″. The price is $450 plus shipping. (I have been told the frame is worth that alone.)

Sold.

I can make another. I have committed to making no more than 10 total. Each are signed and numbered.