Watch my video of me and my art tent at Mt. Palomar Fine Art & Wine Festival, where I talk about the inspiration behind my current collection!

It was a beautiful day in Temecula, and we were sipping wine and admiring art, in a lush Tuscan-like courtyard setting. It was the 2013 Mt. Palomar Fine Art & Wine Festival, and it was the FIRST weekend-long art fair that I ever participated in.

I took the opportunity of this bright sunny day to give everyone a personal explanation of my current painting collection. It’s also the first video that I, myself, appear in, so it’s kinda odd to see myself talk on film!

Well I hope you enjoy hearing more about each painting, and please let me know if you have any ideas for future videos, as I intend to make more in the future!

—Tiffinity

Hendrix Voodoo Magick. Original oil painting on canvas, 24” x 36”, © 2013 Tiffany Davis-Rustam.

Can you hear this music come to life?

Jimi Hendrix performing at the Royal Albert Hall in London. © David Redfern / Redferns / Retna Ltd.

This abstract expressionist painting employs a synesthethic experience, where one experiences sound through visuals. Jimi Hendrix, one of my favorite musicians, was a delicious inspiration and exciting challenge for me. The inital sketch for the painting was created with my eyes closed, listening to his wailing guitar and feeling the vibes pulse rhythms through my arm.

[Here's an earlier blog post I wrote and showed some progress photos of the earlier stages. I think it's interesting to see how the color and form was built up in layers over time.]

The undulations of explosive fiery color and sumptuous organic waves of form echo the circular way Jimi embellished a song. It starts off slow and simple, like in the left bottom color, builds tempo with each new line of each verse, has a spacious moment, and then delves into the infamously explorative guitar solo journeys, before returning back to the start and doing it all over again with each new song.

For the complete experience, view painting while listening to Hendrix!

+ Have you found any poems that describe the sound of Jimi Hendrix? If you do, please paste it in comments below, I’d like to reference it alongside this painting for future displays! 

— Tiffinity

To purchase the original go here to my Etsy listing, and visit my Fine Art America listing to purchase all sizes of prints.

The Dawning of Infinity. Original oil painting on canvas, 20” x 24”, © 2013 Tiffany Davis-Rustam.

My own personal journey of spiritual discovery and growth feels like it’s been accelerating lately, and that’s inspired me to make paintings that reflect that inner excitement, such as this one, The Dawning of Infinity.

As a joyful dancer leaps through the air towards the sun, the peaceful energy she emits radiates out in pristine white orbs around her, intertwining into a nuanced infinity loop. The cubistic yellow sun rays beam intense divine light down through the complementary contrast of a thoughtful inky blue. Many gradual layers of white were applied to enhance the eminence of light, and the technique of finely-blended brushstrokes lends a quiet air of surreal ambience.

I hope to convey the outer and inner appearance of feeling the warmth of the sun upon one’s skin, while reveling in the realization of inner joys that uplift and inspire.

Here is the purchase link for the original and prints on Etsy.

A few weekends ago on January 26th,  I had the surprising pleasure of attending the ‘Road to California’ Quilt Show in Ontario, California. I never thought I would be the type of person to go to a quilt show, as my previous judgement of them was akin to “Grandma’s traditional quilted blanket”. Little did I realize how much of a fine art bent quilting is showcasing lately!

Recently I had the pleasure of being introduced to the textile art scene by artist Sheila Frampton Cooper, whose stunning abstracts quilts immediately smashed any precognitions I’d had about fabric art. She told me about this show, and about how much generous support and accolades she’s received from the quilting community.

I’ve started the slideshow here with Sheila’s joyous abstracts: I may have been biased because seeing her work to begin with got me to the show itself, but her’s was my favorite piece. Bursting with exciting jostling shapes that burst out singing loud with vibrating colors, this piece reflects upon a rich inner world of meaning and movement. Next you see her in front of the exciting exhibition she personally curated, featuring a bevvy of cutting-edge quilts that all reflected the theme of “Maps” or places seen from above.

Before I stepped into the show I was expecting mainly the traditional symmetrical quilts, and there was a lot of that too, but in many of the curated quilt exhibits, I was continually blown away at the quality and depth of work I saw there. There was quite a lot of very artistic stylized, picturesque, and abstract art molded into fabric form, often appearing as a new fusion of painting + quilting.

Above are all of my very favorite quilts that elevated the traditional quilt medium into the arena of high art. A lot of these quilts and many more like them won totals of  $1000s in prize money. I found this personally very inspiring & even bought a sewing machine so I can try my hand at it myself!

So take a look at these and and get your mind stretched today.
Opinions always welcome!

When Freedom Comes. Original oil painting on canvas, 27“ x 30“, © 2012 Tiffany Davis-Rustam.

When Freedom Comes.
Painting and Poem by Tiffany 

I know not how a light appears
in such a deeply velvet blackness,
but it did, and always will.

It starts as tiny as a fairy’s wing,
whispering memories of truth
and grows into a lightbulb ring
humming into ears during elusive sleeps of youth
indignity stirs within,
you sense a shroud pulled over eyes

Through the head in time there grows a rising symphony
The tender hearts awaited a joyous dance
while bodies are shackled to weighted clocks,
they force your hand to their machines
holding us down in darkness
while the sun shines its promise outside.

Them who have drawn the the blinds on truth,
have set us into endless race of time for dollars
to put the shoes and house and all our feet
Fining all who dare to step out of imaginary lines.

It’s said that we were made for greater things
than those tiny prison cells.

Out there
somewhere
diamond suns beam from grassy mountains down below
bringing cloaked mysteries to crystal lakes of
clarity for all to see.

When the first spotlight shines in,
When freedom comes,
we shall all have a right to live for ourselves.
When freedom comes,
We will all sing and dance in sunbeams.
When freedom comes
there will truly be life with liberty
and the pursuit of happiness
for you and for me.

The painting When Freedom Comes was painted on repurposed plywood salvaged from a theatre production, with a gritty texture of sand mixed in for texture on the black bars.

Here’s the purchase link to the painting and prints on Etsy.

This slideshow video of mine shows the progression of my original oil painting triptych, Rapture in Lyrical Blue, from start to finish.

Here’s further information about this painting’s process, from a previous blog post, along with purchase links to prints and the original artwork.

Comments welcome! Please watch & share the video if you like it, Thanks!

Tiffany

It’s that time of year again: LA Art Show 2013 came and went last week. I’ve been attending for the past 3 consecutive years and I always enjoy it immensely. Though this year is no exception, I have to be impartial and say that it did lose a bit of the breadth and scope of some of the last few years.

I especially missed the huge variety of sculptures & interactive pieces they displayed in the past, as well as several curiously-absent artistic styles, like pop-surrealism and visionary art. Yet, there’s still amazing artwork to be seen at LA Art Show and always will be, even just due to the sheer size and number of participating galleries from around the world.

As always I will select my favorite paintings here in the slideshow above, but here’s my very favorites out of these:

My favorite historical works shown include Hans Burkhardt,  Pablo Picasso charcoals, and Claire Falkenstein paintings & sculptures (exhibited by the Jack Rutberg gallery from Los Angeles), plus a few rare drawings and prints by Salvador Dali, and Mark Chagall, Francis Bacon, Roberto Matta and Joan Miro, shown at various booths.

As far as interesting new artists go, my highlights of the show would have to be the mixed-media artworks of Huang Cheng-Yuan from the King Gallery in Toyko, China. His paintings are unique blends of figurative form and expressive abstracted technique which channel passionate emotion and create intriguing ambiguous textures and scenarios.

At the show last year I discovered the Neo-Cubist paintings, by artist Yuroz, exhibiting with Murloge gallery. To my delight his work was here again, and I got to meet the artist too. He has the most incredible neo-cubist paintings I’ve ever seen, with very vivid bright juicy colors and dancing compositons of recurrent themes of love and abundance, peace and prosperity.

This year Yuroz debuted a new development in his work: bas-relief sculpture paintings. He’s assembled multiple layers of wooden constructs that pop out of the frame in multiple levels, like the painting is coming to life! This mark of brilliance astounded my mind, as this guy continues to just push the boundaries each time and really has revived Cubism back to life for the 21st-century.

Another yearly favorite of mine is Tony Abeyto’s paintings. Every year he captivates my imagination with his Cubist rays of light beaming down through puffy clouds onto landscapes with rolling hills, and pueblo villages. Also, his more recent works harken the tribal traditions of the Native American culture and display them in a very Neo-Cubist interpretation.

My favorite gallery represented as a while was the BOA gallery from Beverly Hills, California, who had some really exciting abstract expressionist pieces. What I like about their take on contemporary style was their selection of works that were intellectually complex and yet spiritually joyful colors.

Top favorites? The 2 Hans Burkhardt paintings from Jack Rutberg Gallery, the palette knife painting by Françoise Nielly, and Dream Freefall No. 1, by Dorian Vallejo, shown by the Arcadia Gallery.

Let me know what you think, as I always like to hear others’ opinions too!

Last weekend I showed my paintings at January’s Bacon Social event in downtown LA. In a converted warehouse space popped up 20 artists, several local bands, and plenty of bacon any which way you wanted it!

Until recently I’d been a vegetarian for 10 years, but now that I’m eating meat again I thought it would be fun to do an event that had plenty of bacon! Indeed it was a fun event and it was really darn tasty bacon too: bourbon-glazed premium strips, BLTs, bacon mac and cheese, bacon chocolate cupcakes, maple bacon candy, bacon any which way you wanted it, including bacon-flavored vodka!

Enough about bacon though, let’s talk about the art. I myself pulled out a lot of new, smaller, and also less exposed paintings that have been hiding in my studio for a while, and generated a good amount of  interest. I particularly love hearing people’s different interpretations of my work; in abstract art like mine, there is so much fun one’s imagination can have!

I enjoyed meeting lots of interesting new artists, in particular those I am picturing here in my photo album. My personal favorites included painter Jan Zoya, painter Jimmy Williams, illustrator Madnaloy, illustrator Justin Piccari, and photographer Summer Evans. It was also great to see my new painter friend Carlos Nieotos III again.

I felt particular artist artistic kinship with abstract painter Jan Zoya. Her explorative abstractions really gave me pause to daydream, with very interesting hints of colorful shapes and lines floating around in an almost dreamlike transparencies.

Also, you can easily see why I personally would be drawn to Jimmy Williams‘ paintings. His uber bright contemporary pop works sung in psychedelic juxtapositions of color. The highly stylized interpretations of human life and culture were so playfully joyous that it almost made me want to dance.

Carlos Nietos III  never fails to impress everyone in the room, with his masterly romantic interpretations of Dios de los Meurtos portraits that he is known for. DDLM paintings often abound in downtown LA, but after you see the quality of what he does, it ruins you for all others, really. Also he showed his range of talents by doing a live portrait sketch on the spot and then jamming on the bass guitar in one of the featured local rock bands: Harmful if Swallowed. His band rocks hard and dirty, but he’s not fooling me, he’s still one of the nicer artists you’ll ever meet!

Please check out all my other top picks in the gallery above, and let me know what you like.

There are monthly Bacon Social events like this, so if you want to attend, just follow them for more information.

The Hive Gallery in downtown Los angeles had their annual Tarot Show last Saturday night.

I always like the theme of this show, and seeing how various artists created their own versions of selected Tarot cards. The Hive always has a wide variety of figurative works, and here I’m showing my own personal favorites as I’m want to do!

My highlights, as pictured above, include the vivid antics of Stephen Holman’s “The Magician,” the subtle mastery of Alan Kocharian’s “The Tower,” and my new friend Jaime Fortunato Jiminez, and his “Queen of Wands.” The latter of whom goes by Psycho James, is perhaps the nicest “psychopath” I’ve ever met, and he is one of the original Pop Surrealists of LA. He told me that he researched the meaning of this card, and included all the historical details he could, which I feel really made his piece stand out authentically, together with his obvious talent.

Also featured at the show were McEvoy & Rodriguez, and I included one of the most memorable pieces here, as the last picture in the roll.

What’s YOUR favorite/s?

Creation Slideshow for Inside the Revelry Divine, on YouTube

This video shows several phases of development for my painting Inside the Revelry Divine. It’s a brief little slideshow, as I only started taking documentation photos of my work in progress with this painting, and there aren’t so many progress pics, considering how very long this took me! Nonetheless I hope you’ll find it interesting to see the initial pencil sketch conception, and how much it changed along the way.

I did this painting several years ago, and it’s still one of my favorites. I’m so glad it hasn’t sold yet, because I love to gaze at it on my walls!

Here’s the original blog post I wrote describing this painting itself, and leading to online shop links for the painting and prints.