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Jessica Libor

~ Studio Journal

Jessica Libor

Tag Archives: culture

Valentine’s Day Painting Giveaway

10 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by Jessica Libor in art, beauty, fashion, lifestyle, Uncategorized

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artists, creativity, culture, dress, female artist, flowers, howto, jessica libor, landscape painting, morris arboretum, oil painting, PHiladelphia, retro look, valentine, valentine's day, vintage look, vintage style

Happy week of Valentine’s Day!  To celebrate the holiday of love, I’ve decided to show my appreciation to my patrons and collectors!  On Valentine’s Day at 3pm, I’ll be choosing a winning participant to receive this original framed oil painting I’ve done.  If you win, wherever you are in the world, I’ll ship it to you…free!

To enter, all you have to do is share this blog post on a form of social media, and comment below on a reason you enjoy my work.  That’s it!  This contest is also being run on my Instagram account, @jessicaliborstudio.  If you win, I’ll message you on February 14 to get your shipping details.  The painting is called “The soft sky and silky river,” and is an oil on canvas, 2.5 by 3.5 inch painting.

It reminds me of one of my favorite vacation times ever, when my family and I went canoeing for the weekend down the NJ rivers.  I saw wildlife, fish, cloud formations, forests, and had the sensation so peaceful of floating on the water just how a bird does.  So remember, just two steps: 1. share a link to this post on social media. 2. Comment below on what you enjoy about my work.

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, this look was created by pairing a velvet top with a long pale pink skirt,  and a small simple velvet choker around the neck.   The pictures were taken at the magical, fairyland “fernery” at the Morris Arboredum, a beautiful gem in the suburbs of Philadelphia.   I normally have long hair, but created the bobbed look by curling with hot rollers and using a hair net to create the illusion of shorter hair.

Recently I’ve been getting into vintage styling as a creative outlet, and will also be using this blog as a place to share some favorite looks, as well!  I can’t help but feel that fashion is an extension of art, and the two fields influence each other, and certainly my work.

Good luck with the contest, and Happy Valentine’s!

xo,

Jessica Libor

www.jessicalibor.com

The artist’s role in society

30 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by Jessica Libor in art, beauty, Inspiration, Journeys, lifestyle, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

advice for artists, arch street press, art, artist, beautiful art, beautiful paintings of women, beauty, Bible, calling, classical realism, creative, culture, drawing, dress, female artist, inspiration for artists, jessica libor, lera auerbach, painting, pay, pennsylvania academy of the fine arts, philosophy, profession, queen victoria, service, society, thoughts, winterhalter

queen-victoria-1842-1 by winterhalter

“Queen Victoria,” by Winterhalter, 1842.  Victoria’s job was to lead her people well.

Recently I’ve been thinking about professions, pay, and service.   Why do some professions pay more than others? For instance, why does a doctor get paid more hourly than a barista?  This has nothing to do with the worthwhile efforts of either of the people holding these jobs.  You could be the best barista on the planet, make the best cup of coffee in the world and serve it with pleasantness, with a design in the foam of your own making.  However, as long as you stay a barista, you will not be compensated for your time and expertise in the way that a doctor will.  Why?

Because people need doctors.  “But I need coffee!” you may exclaim.  You may feel that you need coffee, and you may be addicted to coffee, but you do not need coffee to survive.  However, if you had health issues that needed fixing, you would need a doctor.  A doctor meets a need that the world has.  Many times, a very urgent need.   There is also the skill level that is necessary to become a doctor, one that takes into account years and years of intensive, difficult study and exacting practice.  Enough practice that the doctor can then do what they do best, whether it is general practice or surgery, and feel confident enough that they will not mess up.  You can’t just wake up tomorrow and be one.  It requires decades of planning and dedication.  This service they provide to mankind makes them valuable.   No offense to Baristas here–I love coffee! 🙂

This got me thinking about art and the profession of an artist.  Why would someone become an artist?  At first glance, it seems that making art serves no direct purpose to mankind.  Does it make you healthier?  Safer?  Smarter, calmer or wiser?  Perhaps a little.  Is it simply to amuse?  To inspire?  To send a political message?  There are too many kinds of art to say that all art is for one purpose and one purpose alone.  As varied as there are people on the earth, so are the many kinds of artworks and motivations of the artists that make it.  But the highest paid artists are usually the ones with the strongest vision and best work–so in the same way that doctors are compensated for their service, artists are compensated for their vision.  The more compelling the vision, the greater the contribution to mankind.

Proverbs 29:18a of the Bible reads, “Without a vision, the people perish.”  Perhaps it is we as artists who take our profession too lightly.  It’s a lot of fun to paint, to sculpt, to create things out of your head.  This enjoyable aspect of creativity has given some artists guilt over making a profession out of something they enjoy so much.  But have we as artists ever truly stretched ourselves to find out what the capabilities of our creativity are?  Most of us are capable of far more than we imagined.  It is the job of artists, and creatives, to make this vision in the culture we live in today.  Because it’s vision, hope, imagination that make life worth living.  If you look at it that way, an artist’s job is one of the most important jobs in society of all.

Do you feel called to be an artist?  If you feel that it is a calling, then what if you thought of it also as a responsibility to the world?  That you, not doing your best, would be taking away something great that mankind would otherwise have without you.  Are you truly doing your best?  As Lera Auerbach states in her book Excess of Being: “The gap between good and great is much larger than between good and bad.”  What if you created not for the fame, accolades, fortune or respect, but out of a duty to give your best to the world?  To not think of it as an indulgent thing, but in a service-minded way.  Your art serves a purpose, a unique purpose only you can fulfill.  It is up to you to discover what exactly that is, fulfill it, and give it to the world.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment and start the conversation!

By Jessica Libor, June 2016

 

 

 

An artist should never avert their gaze

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Jessica Libor in art, Inspiration, Journeys

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Tags

art, art school, artist, artist bios, artist interview, artwork, beautiful art, city, contemporary art, creative, creativity, culture, design, getaway, halloween, Installation Art, jessica libor, Master of Fine Arts, moma, new york, New York City, NYC, pennsylvania academy of the fine arts, weekend

View from the Moma, photo by Jessica Libor

View from the Moma, photo by Jessica Libor

This weekend I spent an entertaining, delightful and educational weekend in New York City. The entertaining part was from spending Halloween there with some friends, and getting to see first hand all the revelry the city had to offer. What struck me most was how almost every person we saw was dressed up in some interesting costume, had painted their face in an artistic way, or was at least wearing an eye catching hat. My favorite costume was two people dressed in white, who had a cloud-like hat on their heads, glowing with blueish white lights. From the cloud-like hat ribbons of white streamed down, also lit up at intervals with the sparkling blue-white lights. At first I was confused. Were they clouds? Angels? Ghosts? But as the pair moved down the sidewalk and the ribbons gently swayed backwards, I got it. They were jellyfish.

While in town, I stopped into the Modern Museum of Art to see what was there. Going through the galleries, I stopped at what was interesting to me. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a museum, I feel guilty if I don’ t stop, look at, and read everything. But under time constraints, I let go of that guilt and just stopped at the pieces that struck me. I tried to disassociate myself from being an artist and trying to learn something–to be a person just enjoying the art.

Looking at Jacob's Ladder.  Photo courtesy of John Warner.

Looking at Jacob’s Ladder. Photo courtesy of John Warner.

I liked Jacob’s Ladder by Helen Frankenthaler, an American artist who lived from 1928 to 2011. The label said, “Although it shares a name with the Biblical tale of Jacob’s dream ascent toward heaven, and with an ancient Egyptian toy, Frankenthaler insisted this work had no preplanned illustrational intention: “The picture developed (bit by bit while I was working on it) into shapes symbolic of an exuberant figure and ladder: therefore “Jacob’s Ladder.” Working in New York in the 1950s, Frankenthaler painted large-scale unprimed canvases on the floor to explore new ways of handling distinctively thind paint. The artist said she borrowed from Jackson Pollock her “concern with line, fluid line, calligraphy, and…experiments with line not as line but as shape.”

My favorite piece was a huge installation/sculpture by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang called “Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows. It was made in 1998 and had to be over 20 feet long, and was suspended from the ceiling high above you. It immediately had a magical, transportative effect on me when I saw it–the whimsical nature of a flying boat, and the feathery aspect of all the flocked arrows stuck into it, immediately had a “wow!” effect and also made me curious what it was all about.

The wow factor.  Photo by Jessica Libor.

The wow factor. Photo by Jessica Libor.

The story behind the piece made me even more fascinated. The label said, “The work of Cai Guo-Qiang often merges cultural and political concerns of both the East and West. This fishing boat, excavated from his hometown of Quanzhou and flying the Chinese flag, is pierced with thousands of arrows. The title refers to a legendary episode from the third century in which a resourceful Chinese general had to replenish a depleted store of arrows. According to the tale, the general tricked the enemy by saying across the Yangtze river through the thick mist of early dawn with a surrogate army made of straw, while his soldiers remained behind yelling and beating on drums. Mistaking the pandemonium for a surprise attack, the opponents showered the decoys with volleys of arrows, which the general then appropriated, returning triumphantly with a freshly captured store of weapons. This work suggests the enduring importance of cunning and strategy, not only in the distant past, but also in the present, as geopolitical power dynamics seem to be in constant flux.”

The piece, even though it was about war, politics and cunning, was still magical and beautiful. It reminds me of a quote I read recently by Lera Auerbach in her book Excess of Being, “An artist should never avert his gaze. Look at it. However awful it may be, it’s life, real life in all its majestic and gory glory. What do you see? What do you see? Now, give it form.”

Another view.  Photo by Jessica Libor.

Another view. Photo by Jessica Libor.

I came back refreshed and excited to work on my own art again, with lots of new ideas. That’s what travel is all about, I think–getting outside the normal routine of your life and seeing new things, people, and places, so when you return you see your own home and life with fresh eyes and appreciation.

Waterfall park...photo courtesy of Elizabeth Mier.

Waterfall park…photo courtesy of Elizabeth Mier.

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