July Mailbag: Cracks in the street as art, a house as an art gallery, a Klimt exhibition in Bordeaux, France plus much more

As regular viewers of the AnArt4Life blog know, on MailBag Day I like to feature an image that represents the Delivering of Mail. Today I have chosen to showcase an English postie who is doing his best to not only deliver the mail but to uplift the human spirit at a time when we are all feeling our world is in need of a hug and a laugh.

And today we have another reason to smile as we welcome a new subscriber T in France - it is a very good day indeed. Welcome aboard and we hope you enjoy being part of our community.

A little about our English mailman before opening our mailbag.

A postal worker on South Tyneside is delivering his rounds in fancy dress to "lift the spirits" of the community during the outbreak of coronavirus. Jon Matson, from West Boldon, said when he was no longer able to work alongside his co-worker, he asked if he could do his rounds in fancy dress. So far he has dressed as Little Bo Beep and a Greek soldier for his deliveries in West Boldon and Boldon Colliery.¹

And now to open our MailBag to see what we have to look at this month. It is a very full bag.

I'm going to commence with something Julie found which is an artist who uses cracks in the street to create works of art using chalk!

Watch the video and you will be amazed!!

Further down in the mailbag I found from Trevor in Canberra an interesting article on the JARtB House which was the Gold Winner of the Melbourne Design Awards 2020. This house is a work of art!

The primary function of the building is to blur the boundaries between House and Art Gallery. Every aspect and space of the JARtB House and it’s site has been designed so that art plays a central theme for the various programs and functions
Spaces and programs are linked through art privacy, translucency and light are mediated and expressed through art. Art now has function!²

Follow the bookmark link below to enjoy this architectural wonder.

JARtB House

The primary function of the building is to blur the boundaries between House and Art Gallery. Every aspect and space of the JARtB House and it’s site has been designed so that art plays a central theme for the various programs and functionsSpaces and programs are linked through art privacy, transl…

DRIVENxDESIGN

Next
You may recall that Julie wrote two blogs on Gustav Klimt recently (see below for the links). Julie has also discovered that an exciting new exhibition of Klimt’s work has just opened in Bordeaux, France after being delayed due to recent world events. This exhibition is a digital light and sound show similar to the one shown in L’Atelier Lumiere in Paris, (which Julie featured in her second blog). But the exciting thing about this new exhibition is that it is being held in a disused submarine pen, built in 1943, and left abandoned ever since the end of WW2! The exhibition makes spectacular use of the water and walls of four of the submarine pens! Click here to see a short video clip of this fascinating installation!

The Genius of Gustav Klimt

Bringing the wonderful paintings of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt into focus with a background of the personal challenges which eventually led him to find his glorious & unique style. (Image: klimtgallery.com)

Anne Newman ArtistJulie

The vibrance of Gustav Klimt!

In this post we learn more about Klimt’s “Golden Phase”, his relationship with Emilie Louise Floge, and the intrigue surrounding some of Klimt’s paintings (Image: klimtgallery.org)

Anne Newman ArtistJulie

I have had communication from both E in London and John Pickup in Queensland saying how much they enjoyed the posts on Gustav Klimt.

From K.M. in Sydney, a link to a wonderful article on Pet Portraits and how to draw your dog's portrait, brought to us by Vickie Nelson from Artists Network.

It’s a Dog’s Life: Expressive Pet Portraits

A little artistic license makes for personality-laden pet portraits. By Vickie Nelson My two biggest passions are watercolor painting and dogs. Over the past several years, I’ve enjoyed combining them to depict some of my favorite canines’ personalities in engaging pet portraits. I’m enchanted by th…

Artists NetworkArtists Network Staff

And a lovely email from John Wylie in South Australia saying how much he had enjoyed looking at our Naive Art post. Here are some highlights from John's email:

And from Julie

“Further to my recent blog on Silo Art across Australia, I notice that a calendar for 2021 is being produced highlighting some of the silos around Australia. You can order via the website if you are interested in that, or any of the other items which provide more detail on the locations of all these marvellous sites around Australia.

Follow this link to Australiansiloarttrail.

This site also gives a list of street art towns, of which Heesco’s town of Yarram is just one.

Follow this link to Australiansiloarttrail Street Art Town

An Alert from Jane to-

Remember - Check Out the Footer at the Bottom of Each Daily Post

At the bottom of a daily post, last year‘s feature post was the rich azure blue of Yves Klein. I was thinking of him the day before writing my post of Blenheim Castle, as when I was there in 2018, his work was showcased in some of the rooms - an assault on the senses amid the opulence of the art and tapestries. Since then I’ve seen his works elsewhere and have grown to appreciate his style in its own light.

A Note From Anne
Don't forget to watch out for the Special Wednesday Feature being conducted by Jane as she takes you on a wonderful journey through the best of the Magnificent Mansions she has visited as she travelled the world. The next mansion in her journey is Knossos on the island of Crete.

And finally for those of you who have been following the videos on Fortuna Villa in Bendigo, Victoria here are the last two in the series.

Credit:

1. Coronavirus: Postal worker dons fancy dress to 'lift spirits', BBC News 29 March 2020, (bbc.com)
2. drivenxdesign.com
3. ABC Gippsland
4. nytimes.com
5. invaluable.com
6. brown.edu