Ryan Kelley

One of Kelley’s most popularly commissioned and recognized sculptures are his wire trees, which he attaches to small granite boulders. The intricacy of the branches coupled with their fierce, windswept movement is reminiscent of mountaintop flag-trees, called so because of the heavy winds that make the tree’s branches grow in a banner-like shape. When observing the sculpture's tree trunk, which looks like an abstract spiral staircase winding upwards as it splays into spindly branches, one can’t help but feel as if the tree grew on its own.

“I live in the woods, I’ve always been surrounded by trees,” says Kelley. “The tree hanging on to a rock says a lot about the sculpture – perseverance, strength, and holding on tightly to something.”

Byfield's Wire Artist Ryan Kelley

Northshore Magazine.  By Alexandra Pecci  October 2014

"Stone and copper wire don’t typically exude grace, beauty, and warmth, but when they’re in the hands of wire artist Ryan Kelley something nearly magical happens. A stone becomes a solid, sturdy base for trees whose delicate metal branches twist, turn, and come alive, as though they’re caught in a breeze or about to burst into bloom.
“I can take a spool of melted metal and through twisting, you turn something that’s very harsh and very cold into something that looks alive,” says Kelley. “I like to be able to step back and say, it started as a five-pound spool and now it’s a two-foot tall tree.' 

What began as a word-of-mouth business for family and friends has quickly bloomed into something much bigger. He not only creates custom commissions that can fetch anywhere from $100 to $5,000 or more but has also been tapped by Beverly-based interior designer Amanda Greaves to create custom pieces for local businesses. “I think he has a really great energy,” Greaves says. “His trees are amazing.”

And although he’s young, Kelley, at 21-years, is already very involved in the North Shore arts community, working to bring a new, youthful vibe to seaside galleries that are so often crowded with paintings of ocean scenes in gilded frames. He’s a member of the Newburyport Art Association and also serves on its board of directors."

Paul Angiolillo

Paul Angiolillo

When Asia asked if there was anything special I wanted to say about trees, my reaction, after a moment’s thought, was: What’s not special about trees? What hasn’t been rightly celebrated about these giant creatures? I thought I’d Google some quotes about trees. Here are some of my favorites:

It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! ~John Muir, July 1890

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.  ~Denise Levertov

The groves were God’s first temples. ~William Cullen Bryant

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all. ~Ogden Nash,

Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing “Embraceable You” in spats. ~Woody Allen

Friedrich van Schoor, Tarek Mawad, and Achim Treu

Friedrich van Schoor and Tarek Mawad, creators. 

 Sound&Music by Achim Treu.

 Click here to view bioluminescent forest video

The projection mapping "bioluminescent forest" is made by artists Friedrich van Schoor and Tarek Mawad.    The artists spent six weeks in the forest fascinated by the silence and natural occurrences in nature, especially the phenomenon "bioluminescence". They personified the forest to accentuate the natural beauty by creating luring luminescent plants and glowing magical mushrooms that speaks volumes to any visitor that enters the minds of the artists through viewing "bioluminescent forest".


Contact details: friedrichvanschoor@gmail.com, tarekmohamedmawad@gmail.com. 
Please see: www.3hund.com  and the project page: www.bioluminescent-forest.com

Linda Whiting

Linda Whiting

 When I was old enough to climb trees I would spend whole days up as high as I could get and believe that I was a branch of the tree I had climbed.  I just sat there, quiet and connected to my larger branch or trunk.  I ws sure that I had leaves or pine needles but only I could see them.  It was trees that taught me how to meditate  Trees taught me to enter and live in that other space, a space of complete connection.   Later, I found this poem my Michael Glaser:

I have always felt the living presence of trees

The forest that calls to me as deeply as I breathe.

As though the woods were marrow of my bone

As though I myself were a tree, a breathing, reaching arc of the larger canopy

Beside a brook bubbling up to faom like the one deep

in these woods, that call, that whisper home.

 

Cynthia Brody

              Cynthia Brody

     Cynthia Brody has been an exhibiting artist for over 35 years. She studied painting at Parsons School of Design and The New School in New York. Ms. Brody developed a style of mixed media painting that she has expanded upon throughout the years. The bulk of her work incorporates the combination of photo images with acrylic paints and found materials to create a surreal impression. The photos are often used out of context for their visual texture, and it is only upon closer inspection that the viewer begins to discover that what appears to be recognizable is actually something else entirely. Her works incorporate elements of beauty, such as metallic paints and gold leaf, which parallel the adornment of the subjects in some of the cross-cultural pieces. This is contrasted with the strong statements and pensive attitudes of the women depicted. Several of the pieces resemble icons honoring the complexity, angst and beauty of the female experience.

Ms. Brody is also a psychotherapist practicing in Lexington, Massachusetts. Her interest in the psyche is reflected in her artwork. She is the contributing editor of Bittersweet Legacy - Creative Responses to the Holocaust, a collection of art and poetry published by University Press of America. In her work as artist, editor and therapist, Ms Brody strives to raise the awareness and sensitivity of others regarding the human experience and the struggles and beauty, which are an integral part of life.

Opening Exhibit: February 21, 2015

Blue Wave Art Gallery  52 Main St.  Amesbury

Artists’ Perspectives on Trees

February 21, 2015.   

6:00 pm - 9:00 pm. 

This will be an incredible show, introducing several new artists to Amesbury including Jeremy Barnard, Cynthia Brody, Ryan Kelley and Jack Fowler! Join us for this opportunity to meet the artists and share poetic perspectives on nature. We will have a writing wall for visitors to share their own thoughts on trees. 

No. 8 Restaurant will be providing food

and cash bar for this unique opening. 

There will be a mid-exhibit reception March 15, 2015

2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Exhibit runs through April 1st, 2015.

www.bluewaveartgallery.com 

Jeremy Barnard

Jeremy Barnard

    Jeremy Barnard has been primarily a practitioner of black and white photography for the past forty plus years. He is self-taught, his craft having been molded and influenced by the photography and writings of some of the great masters. «My love affair with photography began when I developed my first roll of film and created my first print. I fell in love with the process, the magic.» His passionate pursuit of technical excellence has kept Jeremy involved in every step of the photographic process. He retains control even into the presentation stage by doing his own post processing, mounting, matting, and framing.

                        

 More than twenty years ago the computer made its appearance in Jeremy's work environment. In the beginning he viewed it as an unnecessarily complex typewriter. As it began to insert itself into the world of photography it was easy to be skeptical about the computer's photographic future, since the early results of digital imaging were disappointing. Things, as we now know, have changed radically in the digital world of photography. Output quality has surpassed that of film. At this point it has been over twenty years since Jeremy has shot a roll of film, and he's not looking back.

                         

         Mr Barnard's approach to his work can best be described as an ongoing  process of self discovery. His photographs walk a fine line between abstraction and realism. His early work results from a concentration on people, mostly on the street. In his contemporary work he prefers to make photographs that do not contain people. However, his images frequently contain evidence that people have been there, adding an element of mystery. «I like to make pictures that ask more questions than they answer.»

                        Artist/writer David Raymond wrote in Art New England  that Barnard's photographs «not only convey a sense of place, but a sense of time transcending place,...his work is poetic in unexpected ways.»