So I’ve just returned from the art fairs in Miami, a week long art extravaganza with over 24 art fairs on exhibit at the same time. They range from Art Basel Miami Beach which exhibits top tier galleries with blue chip art that sells often for millions of dollars to hotel fairs such as flow, aqua and red dot to tent fairs such as Pulse, Nada and Art Miami. I am the co producer of the flow fair. We invited 29 galleries from across the country to set up in the Dorset Hotel on Collins Avenue. We remove the furniture, dealers install their own lighting and away we go. Here are some pics from my room to give you an idea.

Grace has asked me to write about affordable art. Of course that term is relative. In the art world, affordable is classified as $10,000, in fact there is an art fair entitiled the affordable art fair and their requirements are $10,000 and under but for our purposes I will focus on art $1000 and under.

Bishop Lennon is based in Portland, Oregon. She is best known for her 4 x 4″ canvas alphabet paintings. These are $50 each plus shipping. You can also customize your own letters for $75 + shipping. She also does sweet painting of birds. These retail for under $300. You can see more at http://www.bishop-art.com

Elaine Coombs is an artist based in San Francisco, CA. She paints beautiful paintings and works on paper of trees from walks she takes in Marin County, the Lake Tahoe Area and in San Francisco. She uses a palette knife to apply the paint in dot formations that create the image. It is a new form of pointillism and it really works. From afar the work is so realistic people often mistake them for photographs but when you get close you see the texture and the dots, almost like a pixilated photo. Elaine’s pieces start around $600 for a small painting and about $750 for a 34 x 15″ framed work on paper. To see more visit http://www.elainecoombs.com.

Ivy Jacobsen is another Bay Area artist who paints trees in lush gold tone landscapes. Her paintings are serene, full of mystery and great movement across the surface from her use of a medium called bronzing powder. She writes, “I discovered a powder consisting of copper and zinc called bronzing powder several years ago. It has steered the direction of my work since then. I mix the bronzing powder with oil mediums to create a paint mixture to brush on to the canvas or I sprinkle the powder directly onto a wet canvas surface. I am drawn to the iridescence and luminosity that using bronzing powders can achieve. Often times I will apply thin layers of oil paint and resin over the dry bronzing powder surface to achieve variation of color and depth. I sometimes apply sheet music, poetry, hand-made papers, nail polish, mixed media, and other found objects to the surface of my paintings.” Her works range from $600 to a 12 x 12″ painting to $2000 for a 3ft painting. More work can be seen at http:///www.ivyjacobsen.com (and in the first photo of the post above).

[Images above from the Flow Flair]

I promise to post more great art and gift ideas tomorrow. After the whirlwind of Miami and trying to catch up at home this is all I can muster up for today. Happy art viewing! Julie

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