MARLENE ROSE – Creating Life from Heat and Light . . .

From an early age, Marlene Rose envisioned her art as a means of forging past, present, and future. Her innovative sculptures are sandcast by hand from molten glass in an impressive fusion of heat and light. Adding to the uniqueness of each creation is her inclusion of found objects, making each piece simultaneously ancient yet contemporary. Drawing on a Buddhist tradition, she often expresses her desire for peace through her work.

In the end, Marlene’s process celebrates the exceptional properties of glass—transparency, reflection, and luminous color—while each piece also retains the shape and texture of the materials that molded them. Within each, as the artist says, are “kept moments, shards of what I have seen, unnamed emotions, visions, concepts, and memories.” Her goal as an artist is to inject life energy into whatever she makes.

Marlene’s work is in the permanent collection of the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Largo, FL, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Yerevan, Armenia. She’s had museum shows in Largo, FL, Santa Fe, NM, and Mobile, AL, and her work has been exhibited in galleries across the nation with many more to come in the months ahead. For more about Marlene Rose, visit her website at http://www.marleneroseglass.com .

Paul Mobley captures life in between the coasts . . . American Life

As some of you may know, in 2003, I set out to follow a dream of traveling solo from Longmont, Colorado, to the West Coast, by motorcycle. I had visions of dipping my road-worn boots in the Pacific Ocean and feeling a strong sense of accomplishment. I ended up riding 3,800 miles through 8 states, not only from Colorado to the Pacific Ocean in northern California, but up through Oregon and across the river to Washington State before turning back east. I was gone 3 weeks and it was wonderful. Sure, there were times when I wondered what the heck I was doing so far from home all alone, especially when my only company on the highway was the wind (doing its best to blow me down) and the occasional semi roaring past and shaking me to my toes with its jet stream. But the very best thing of all, next to waking up each morning and taking off for a day of unknown adventure, no computers, cell phones, or telephones, was all the small towns, independent coffee shops, and local people I saw along the way.

We get so much scary news all the time; this administration has cultivated an atmosphere of fear. What I saw out there across the country renewed my belief that most folks are just like us, concerned with getting a day’s work done, caring for family, doing right by those around them. Every other person isn’t a serial killer, a con man, a doper, or a rapist, contrary to the nightly news and the majority of prime time TV programs. I especially loved the faces, the weather-worn faces of old farmers, waitresses, young people, parents—of all sizes, ages, and colors. These were faces of people I grew up with, who had seen rural life as I’d seen it. I felt comfortable and never felt anything but welcome. It seems that Paul Mobley saw and experienced the same thing.

About a year after my trip, PAUL MOBLEY was in a coffee shop in rural northern Michigan when the idea came to him as he looked around and saw all these weathered, salt-of-the-earth faces: He knew he had to photograph them. That idea took him on a 100,000 mile trip down back roads, small towns, farmland, and prairie in 35 states. From more than 32,000 photographs, he chose 300 that appear in his new book, American Farmer: The Heart of Our Country (http://www.welcomebooks.com/). His work is so beautiful, his subjects so diverse, so representative of the faces of America today. I thought you might like to know about him and his work. You can see more by visiting his website at http://www.paulmobleystudio.com/ .

-- Rosemary Carstens