A Dream Come True: My Affair With Greece!

Last year, after selling the painting ~ Crown Of Thorns ~  to the  Museum, in Athens, Greece, I ecstatically made plans to deliver, rather than ship my precious cargo, to Athens.  
I had mixed feelings about selling this painting ~  my most true, most profoundly moving to myself, work, so far ~ But, I had always a fantasy of Athens, Greece, the islands, and the Goddesses. 

When I arrived in Athens, the initial thrill of opening my hotel room window onto the panorama of the city laid out before me like a jeweled necklace, with the crown jewel on top of the hill before me, the Acropolis, was incomparable. Opening the window, leaning  out to take a picture, I heard whistles from the street.  Gotta love those Greeks, so handsome, charming and the best flirts on the planet, in my opinion.  
I loved Athens, the old city, the Acropolis, and particularly I adored the islands, Mykonos & Santorini were breathtaking, but Patmos has my heart forever. 
Ohhhhhh, PATMOS! Island where St. John wrote the Book Of Revelation. I was there, in the sacred grotto, I put my hand in the rock where St. John put his hand. I felt  tremendously moved, I cried. I shall return to beautiful Patmos, I promise!
Blissfully, after leaving the grotto, I drank ouzo with the Greeks beneath the cliff, blowing kisses and happy  happy  happy !  The best thing is at times ~ anticipation ~  I plan on spending a month or so in the summer, in Beautiful Greece! Especially beloved Patmos, where Goddess Aphrodite bathed nearby. Enchantment is there, gorgeousness is there! ~

After two full weeks of travel, finishing up with a few days stay in my favorite hotel in Rome, I arrived home in the States, where I immediately had miracles happen ~ The first was the next morning, when I awoke to the sound of a beautiful goddess-like voice singing my name,  calling for me to return to Beautiful Athens, Greece and the Islands. I am positively breathless with excitement for my next adventure there! Many Blessings. Featured: Pencil & Gauche Drawing  36" x 48" ~ Luscious Garden ~ by Cherie Bender

HOW THE LITTLE SURFER GIRL LEAVES NY AND ENDS UP IN THE SIGNET GALAXY

I thought up doing a shimmering surfer girl overcoming the plunging waves and ending up in the Signet Galaxy as a sort of visual catharsis for all artists who are alive and kicking right now and still riding! It's been tough but whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.....
The buildings of New York in the background  are also shimmering, but I think they look friendly and besides....she rises above.

I added the i-phone as a commentary of our times. How we are connected through it all and how technology has advanced by leaps and bounds...

What would I do without my i-phone? Music is part of the deal, and history, so I had my web designer install the Beach Boys singing "Surfer Girl" which can be switched on/off by the tiny speaker icon rhs. If there is anyone out there who doesn't like the Beach-Boys .

So this is to the memory of my Mum, a tough but sweet cookie.... just wanted to say thanks to her by creating this little ani movie on my web-site. And good timing! Mother's Day is Sunday May 9th.

Little Surfer Girl is my gift to her and to all who are brave enough. Keep On Surfing!

HAPPINESS!

Now is the appointed time. Time ..... what a concept.

I have been following A Year In Pictures for quite some time as you can see on my list of favorite blogs, and very pleasantly discovered today that one of my favorite photos of Twinka was chosen for the Happiness Project!


"And from Cherie Bender who coincidentally had photographed Twinka at about the same time as Cynthia MacAdams (who I just wrote about) "

I met Twinka while in California and photographed her in Yosemite. It was such a happy and free time and I also met Imogene Cunningham; the slide above captures the sunlight and fragility of the moment... I had taken some great shots in black and white film during  the work shop which were stolen along with all of my photo equipment from my bungalow while I visited with the Ansel Adams family. They very kindly let me stay in their house after that in Yosemite because I was so young and scared! 

The First Night Of The First Day of 2010-Photos by Cherie Bender

.....a heart, two doves, a cat, a fawn, an elf, a fairy, a womb, a vulva, a baby 

these are the forms I see taking shape in  the blue moon as it rose through the branches of my bamboo trees on Friday, January 1, 2010.... as if the moon was being born into the new year.....

"The subject of the artist is emotions and ideas - both"   Louise Bourgeois

THE INCANDESCENTS: Marilyn Monroe; NikolaTesla & Georgia O'keeffe

"If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays" Luke `11:36

"Marilyn In Her Pucci Mirror Blouse" oil on canvas 62" x 48"painted by Cherie Bender: When I paint, I need light.  There is no question, an artist may not paint in the darkness. Light is a necessary part of the creative process.  In actual fact and in the rendering of a work of art, light is an absolute factor.  I am also committed to bringing light into my paintings visually. My oil painting of the incandescent, iconic, actress Marilyn, as pictured here, is a work in progress as I plan on creating an abstract panel in oils, which will make this painting ~ Marilyn In Her Pucci ~ a diptych. 
This leads me to the second luminous presence of this unlikely grouping which I have chosen: Nikola Tesla, inventor, the father of modern electricity.  Born in 1856, the man was a pure genius. As a child he had the vision of harnessing the power of Niagra Falls, New York, having never been there and while living in what is today known as Croatia. Later, he achieved his goal and changed history. Nikola Tesla worked for Edison in this country who ripped him off for  over 1 million dollars which Edison had promised him.  Just before he died, Edison admitted his greatest regret was trying to pursue direct electrical current rather than the vastly superior alternating current invented by Tesla.  Tesla became a US naturalized citizen and was awarded posthumously a patent for the radio which had been denied him by the US during his lifetime and given to his rival Marconi who was later discredited. 

I like very much that Tesla believed in the equality of woman, and predicted that women would become the dominant sex in the future, the "Queen Bees". He certainly was way ahead of his time, and it was spoken about him in his lifetime and even believed now,that he was really an alien or angel from the planet Venus, come to earth to give us these great electrical gifts.


Tesla's luminous presence is still very much with us: along with the many obvious inventive gifts he left us, there is a popular heavy metal rock band "Tesla" named after him; and recently a car, the Tesla Roadster, which runs on lithium battery cells and can go from 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds; David Bowie starred in a  2006 movie "The Prestige" about Tesla's life; The US government owes most if not all  of our early warning defense system to Tesla, and Google honored Tesla in their search home page this year, on his birthday, the tenth of July, 2009, with the G as a Tesla coil ..... these are just a few of his great contributions. Tesla died alone and financially indigent in the New Yorker Hotel in 1973.... although he is greatly honored today.  Which leads me to the third and last luminous presence, unlikely though it may seem, but likely in view of the fact of myself as painter.....

Georgia O'Keeffe. Georgia who has been my inspiration and personal hero ..... a "Queen Bee" of women painters if there ever was, she is most certainly one.



Georgia who did the opposite of all the "city men", Georgia who painted in vibrant, pulsating, moving color when they painted in static grays "I can paint one of those dismal-colored paintings like the men" she said in 1922, and she did so: a painting of a shed "all low toned and dreary with the tree beside the door"  calling it "The Shanty" and hanging it in her next show. "The men seemed to approve of it" she said fifty four years later. " They seemed to think that maybe I was beginning to paint. That was my only low-toned dismal-colored painting."

Because she was her own person, and because she did not do the expected, Georgia decided to live in Texas with her sister for a time, where there were no trees and no one to tell her how to paint them... there was only the horizon.  She and her sister Claudia would go for walks in the late afternoon away from the town and toward that horizon, to watch the evening star come out. "That evening star fascinated me" she wrote. " It was in some way very exciting to me.  My sister had a gun, and as we walked she would throw bottles into the air and shoot as many as she could before they hit the ground. I had nothing but to walk into nowhere and the wide sunset space with the star.  Ten watercolors were made from that star" I am compelled as much by Georgia's sister Claudia with the gun, as by the painter Georgia with the star......  but only the painter left us this incandescent, luminous, shining record. Ten watercolors were made from that star.

BLOG ACTION DAY-BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY Photo by: Cherie Bender

After quite a bit of thought and research about today's Blog Action Day topic: Global Climate Change, and being a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information received, I decided to include these very excellent and pertinent posts and links, so that, dear valued reader, you may decide for yourself exactly what you, personally, can do to aid the cause for Planet Earth:

www.americanprogress.org
www.pewclimate.org
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Greenpeace

So now, for my very own personal opinion, I have to be honest, the Tree hugger blog: a little bit too much, and some of the rest, with the angry children........ well, listen, talk is cheap. What is it that a person, individually, can do?
It's very simple, Give Back

When we first took this country from the Native Americans, we forgot that for every action there is a reaction. This is law. Now, we must make amends and tighten up the belts. That means a little sacrifice and.... how about those Hummers? I mean, they are worse than the old gas guzzlers! I just had to mention. To me, very, very, very, Obnoxious.

If this country, The United States of America were completely serious, we would have a mandatory change in vehicles (allow only hybrids or better) and therefore in the consumption of OIL. Well, that is all I have to say.

PEACE

BLOG ACTION DAY IS OCTOBER 15, 2009