Artfully

very year for our anniversary Kirk and buy each other a piece of art. It all started one year when we bought these two paintings:


This is "Dante" by Brian Boner. I love so many things about it - I love the skin tones and the way he has painted so much texture into the painting - I love this image of a little boy in his swim trunks - he looks like he is sunburned, which is a common sight around our house at the beginning of summer. I love it because so much of my kids lives have been spent in swim trunks all day. Brian is one of our favorite artists.




This painting above the couch is the "The Wish" - it is a painting of Brian's wife - this painting gives off so much positive energy it's amazing. I just love this and I never get tired of it. It's moved from one wall to another but I would always want this somewhere that I could see it everyday when I left or entered the house. It's just gorgeous painting.

What happened was we went in to buy one painting and we ended up with two because we liked them both so much. I'm not even sure how many years ago that was - but we've bought art for each other every year since.

This year I can't even buy Kirk a painting because he is dead set on getting a painting that possibly doesn't even exist yet and definitely isn't for sale yet. He is kind of obsessed with this artist named Lu Cong. In April there will be a show of Lu Cong's work at the Bonner David gallery in Scottsdale and Kirk is on the waiting list for one of his paintings. Here are some past works of Lu Cong:



This year I am seriously considering getting something from a local artist. Lately I have seen several things at 1st Fridays (or 3rd Fridays) downtown that I really like - So I am thinking about something like this:





These are encaustics by Lisa Sipe - she had a show last month at Eye Lounge and I really love these.

Or maybe:

This image doesn't do this painting justice - Rick Toerne paints in this super poetic way that I have liked for a long time. He shows his stuff at The Longhouse and I have thought about getting a painting by him for quite a while.

Or maybe:



These photos by Jason Koster were in the room next to Lisa Sipe at the Eye Lounge last month and I really, really love them. The thing is the images just really stuck with me. His photographs are so strong. The women all have this internal strength that he manged to capture so well - I have thought about them multiple times since we saw them last month. Normally I don't buy photography - I do like photography a lot but never usually enough to want to own something by someone else. These are different though.


These encaustic are by Christopher Jagmin - his show is this month's show at Eye Lounge. These just have a really great playful quality that I think would make a happy addition to a wall in my house.

But I'm very undecided...

Any thoughts?