A smattering of symmetry

New work: Famous Fictional Family Feud

Mary Frances Foster — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:13:58 +0000

Detail of final pieces; show below as a pair

I was glad to participate in the fifth installment of the annual Famous Fictional exhibit at Mad Art Gallery, curated by Dan Zettwoch. This years interpretation was Family Feud – over 30 artists were tasked with making two portraits, each depicting a family from either literature, cinema, or television. I selected The Catcher In the Rye, a favorite from literature and The Wonder Years, a definite favorite from television.

I don't feel like going into it if you want to know the truth I N S P I R E D B Y The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
Yep that was me, Kevin Arnold – lone wolf I N S P I R E D B Y The Wonder Years, 1988 – 1993

paper, graphite and acrylic on 6" x 6" panels

Pricing available upon request

Polaroids, Papers & Pavement = Unity

Mary Frances Foster — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:55:06 +0000

Letter Exercise, Polaroid on found paper; St. Louis; May 2011

Fuji Instax Wide

Now Playing: Pavement; Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Mysteries and Manners

Mary Frances Foster — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:50:56 +0000

The Mourner; Maureen O'hara Mixed Media on Antique Photographs, 7 x 5 Inches

Alex Gross via Junkculture

Completely enamored with this half in particular of a series by Alex Gross; a collection of over 20 small mixed media pieces on antique cabinet photographs from the 19th Century. He now offers a selection of the Heroes, Villans and Monsters as limited edition giclee print sets.

His work suggests the unspoken distress of humanity—that, which is understood by all, yet remains hidden from human consciousness.

36 minutes of veiny florals

Mary Frances Foster — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:34:31 +0000

The Design Center of Philadelphia University | Alyson Provax

The Time Wasting Experiment project by printmaker and fiber artist, Alyson Provax, pairs nicely with swatches from the Design Center.

The Time Wasting Experiments are an ongoing series of letterpress prints I've been producing which document time wasted. These are in part inspired by tracking 'billable hours' but also come from the compulsion to always be doing things and producing objects. This series is a sort of audit of how I spend my time, but the prints could also be thought of as permission slips allowing you to spend a period of time in a wasteful way. This project is ongoing...made with hand-set 10pt Caslon lead type, and printed on an old Vandercook press that is affectionately known around the studio as Tony.

♫ Etta James You Got It

Tennessee ten

Mary Frances Foster — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:29:49 +0000

St. Louis, Fall of 2011

Pentax K1000 SE; 35mm

Stopped to get a few photos of the hand painted lettering on the old Tenneessee 10 bar and was lucky enough to find Slaughter's Cleaners across the street! A few more shots here

♫ The Middle East Land of the Bloody Unknown

And all the people were singin

Mary Frances Foster — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:59:01 +0000

Dylan ticket stub archive

♫ Bob Dylan & The Band The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

transfixed by his uncanny way of seeing

Mary Frances Foster — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:42:22 +0000

A new venture for the new year; I'm aiming to fill a little 5.5" x 5.5" sketchbook with assemblages focused on various polaroids taken throughout the year, and hope to do the same for each year thereafter. I'm imagining a narrow shelf, archiving each year ...or at the very least a better way to have and hold my plethora of polaroids. I'll plan to share finished pages here and there. Michael shared a section from his current read after a walk through Carondelet Park last week. I thought it paired nicely with the shot I got of our leggy silhouettes that day.

The town which is alive, and beautiful, for me, shows, in a thousand ways, how all its institutions work together to make people comfortable, and deep seated in respect for themselves. ...A building or a town becomes alive when every pattern in it is alive: when it allows each person in it, and each plant and animal, and every stream, and bridge, and wall and roof, and every human group and every road, to become alive in its own terms. And as that happens, the whole town reaches the state that individual people sometimes reach at their best and happiest moments, when they are most free.

- an excerpt from The Timeless Way of Building, the first in a series of books which describe working alternatives to our present ideas about architecture, building and planning by Christopher Alexander.