LAUGH

I have learned to laugh more. So has Flora. When we laugh, our whole body changes. We get flushed. We warm up. Our core feels lighter, we feel the vibrations of every chuckle throughout every cell in our body. Those vibrations can be global, too. Seeing others laugh makes me respond in kind - or at least want to.

The "speech bubbles" you see are hiccoughs of laughter moving across the surface of Flora's body, as well as inside of her. She is smiling. Her teeth are like little gems of candy - sweet and cheery.

Flora's laughter fills her with joy. She is ready and open for the next wave to hit her, flow through her.

Laughter is enough and needs no explanation, no grounding, no sense of purpose other than it happening. Laughter heals, like a cat purring to speed up its own healing processes. We laugh to bond us to each other, we laugh to heal.

Statement About Flora

Statement about FLORA

Creating the pieces for Flora brought me to a more intimate understanding of my feminine self. Having long rejected feminine themes as creative subject matter meant I had also rejected those characteristics in myself.

Personifying Flora gave me permission to explore themes deemed taboo, cliché and untouchable by most of my creative peers while in art school.

I used her to heal that loss and as a vehicle to claim once again my birth as a female, from infant, to girl, sister and daughter to woman, partner and mother.

I used her to heal that loss and as a vehicle to claim once again my birth as a female, from infant, to girl, sister and daughter to woman, partner and mother.

Anne Elser 2011 Artist Bio

Anne-Davnes Elser began her education at the Cleveland Institute of Art, graduating in 1991 with a BFA in painting and ceramics. In 1997, after returning to Atlanta to study Graphic Design at The Portfolio Center, she began a long teaching career in Graphic Design, Calligraphy, Book Arts and Painting. Her classes range from graduate level classes to adult continuing education at the Kai Lin Art Gallery and Binders Art Supply in Buckhead. Anne also offers private lessons and weekend workshops in all of these areas.

Her latest teaching venture is a collaboration with artist, Performance Coach, and Emotionally Intuitive Facilitator, Debra Armentrout. Their intention is to provide intensive creative workshops for artists of all levels who are interested in going deeper, and unearthing inherent, unique, gifts and abilities, and subconscious subject matter. This lush depth is then made available, usable, to enrich the content of their creative work, as well as their lives.

Artist, designer, calligrapher and educator in the fields she loves, Anne's award-winning work has been featured in design annuals, calligraphy publications, books and in magazines.

Wife to Douglas, mother to Anton, mentor and friend to her students, Anne is not shy about sharing her creative content and process with others. All creative work has a story and gives voice to the important work of knowing self.

Anne Elser 2011 Artist Statement

I see our universe as a living, breathing organism, rich with color, passion, grace and infinite goodness. Believing our worlds reflect everything about us, I use symbol and metaphor while creating in fullness and in love.

The process of making art is opening to the idea of becoming an open channel for the neutral truth, and being an active participant in the deconstruction of our subconscious prejudices. Art is a snapshot of this process and a soulful reflection of the connections shared by all.

VIEW

Somewhere in my memories of growing up I decided it was easier to deny my feminine side and remain in shame, rather than embrace my innate power as a female to create life from the simple ability to be alluring. Creating pieces for Flora has helped me heal a great deal of that shame, where my sexuality can remain less in shadow and celebrated more.

Flora here is wearing a blue dress with scalloped edging. Her underwear is pristine white cotton and she's lifting her dress to show you a little skin, a little lingerie (pretty pumpkin colored silk slip) and the depth in between her legs.

Her desire is as big as the horizontal view of the landscape her body suggests. Limitless blue sky with creamy subtle formations of clouds just beginning, a few crops planted to the left suggest some organization on her part - just how much to reveal to you herself and in what order to the layers begin to peel.

She is having a great amount of fun here, teasing you with her performance.

Flora can feel you watching her.

VIRGIN

This is Virgin, part of the smallest set of paintings I did for FLORA at the Kai Lin Art gallery in Midtown.

She approaches every experience as a new one, and possesses the gift of being a beginner. Her expectations are created within each moment and are enough to keep her fully in them, rather than from a results-driven perspective.

She wears an ermine coat edged with hand-made lace. She is reborn in every single moment. She is egoless and just now beginning to come into color.

Her pages are empty and fresh and clean and white. She is on the verge of filling them with all her thoughts and drawings, yet recording everything isn't as important to her as experiencing the moment. Filling takes time to separate from the moment and to assume a judgement.

She is so at peace, she has no idea others see her as enlightened. Classification doesn't matter to her.

She simply IS.

Garden

And this is GARDEN.

My Dad has a green thumb and I think I got some of his gift. I really hate getting dirty, but love the feel of dirt in my hands as I garden. Holding a plant in my palms and decorating the ground or a pot with texture, height and color is really very fun. And calming. I always feel centered after planting things.


So the calligraphic elements you see on my envelopes have resurfaced in many different ways. Swirls and swoops and flourishes and cusps are all the same really - they arrive in different media, they are god speaking to us in the very language we each know intuitively.


This is my garden, and I am that plant. I am those seeds that wait patiently for their turn, who negotiate their arrival above ground with every change of season. I am that patient seed who comes too early and decides to wait for another turn to come back. I am that tree whose root system gets bigger in the winter while at the surface is as quiet as a whisper. I creak in the bleak wind and ache to show the fruit of my efforts to someone who will notice my hard work.

I listen. Wait. Emerge and reach towards light.

One Moment

This is my most layered Flora painting called One Moment.

In one single moment there is layer upon layer of detailed memories, emotions, present and past, within each person and their body, within a conversation between you and your higher self, between your past and present, between you and the person sitting next to you, the mail carrier down the street, the elements around you, all of your senses, your dreams, the things your body remembers and holds onto... all of it - ALL of these things have a greater purpose and it is their destiny to collide. That is friction, that is action and we can barely manage to wrap our heads around one single element. Our worlds are so vast and complex and we see only what we are meant to see and understand.


The painting is a snapshot of the layers I feel I CAN see. That is it's gift. To reveal to us commonalities and metaphors that help reveal us to ourselves. And I cannot tell you much more than that. I see One Moment as bursting with sunlight, as awakening, as a mixture of so many elements I love about my own femininity - needlework, lips, kissing, flowers, tatted lace, hooks and fasteners, motherhood, childhood, scalloped edges, mouths and teeth, fine fingers, spring pink, blushes, freckles, lingerie, lipstick, smiles.

The one moment began as my earliest memory - reaching for light and the colorful burst of pretty flowers, calling what it did to my face, naming my forehead my "happy." This is unashamed, unfiltered, undiluted happiness and joy. It is not afraid to change the painting, to allow the body to move and shift and settle into finding its posture of comfort within the frame.

My heart is open to this very moment.


To see One Moment for yourself, come to the opening Friday, April the 15th at Kai Lin Art. 7-10PM.

Fecundity!

Here's a little one I finished today entitled Fecundity. She is 6 x 6 and part of a series of seven studies.

Look at all that beautiful blood. Slippery, warm, loaded with life, intense and vibrant, bleeding with enthusiasm, rich and pulsing. Blood cells dividing into a bouquet of flowers, eggs in an ovary waiting to be picked. Feminine Flora. The very best of what we are, how we came to be here, what we already know. Life finding a way.

Come meet her in person at the Flora opening Friday the 15th at 7PM at Kai Lin Art.

FART

No, this piece is N O T going into Flora. Yu-Kai would have a heart attack. So I gave this instead to my brother Peter who turned 40 in March.

Peter and I share a long history of bathroom talk and dirty words. I remember Mom telling us that those were "bathroom words: poop, fart, farty fart face, pee, peenie, boobs, etc" and so we shrugged shoulders and hung out in the bathroom snickering into the mirror saying as many bathroom dirty words as we could manage before dinner.

Yep. Growing up with Peter and Tommy was pretty fucking awesome when it came to bathroom humor, slapstick comedy, inappropriate stories and comments, practical jokes and more. And no kidding, but my own mother showed us how to make your own poop. NO, not the real stuff. Fake poop out of pumpernickle bread, water and a few pieces of corn. Very realistic!


Anyway, I digress. Back to my story. After grad school I started needlepointing and began to make my own patterns. This one I did right before I met Doug (current husband who also loves potty humor, bless his heart) and I never got it framed. Ten years later Peter turns 40 and I've got the perfect excuse to finally finish the project.

A beautiful Fart pillow that I am told looks beautiful in his house.

Modeling

Flora's busy finishing up paintings for the show. She's deep in process as her left brain withers away. Ha! It'll grow back at the opening on Friday the 15th at Kai Lin Art. For all you last-minute tax filers, I've heard the deadline has been extended to the 18th this year.

Introducing Modeling. She's a big one (24 x 36) all about the relationship between mother and son. Lots of blue hues and kisses of brick red and yellow ochre, Modeling refers to the example I present on a day to day basis to my son, who is now 4.5 and growing fast. Modeling comes intuitively and can also be an intentional presentation or idea you give your child. At least that's how I see it.


Recent events in Anton's life have rocked our family to its core. Having discovered weeks ago that Anton has sensory related issues surrounding Sensory Processing Disorder (fuck, I really hate that word! Not Fuck! I love the word fuck. Disorder is the word I dislike because it puts a negative connotation to a unique set of elements.) Why does different have to be negative?


You can already see the inner dialogue I am having with myself. These days, I am trying to let them (my issues) all come up and present themselves to me without pushing them away.

So, back to Anton. He's a strong-willed, sensitive, loving and confident young man. He's amazing. My greatest teacher. Two months ago the preschool he attended asked us to leave because of Anton's sensory outbursts. I had made several deep connections with faculty and staff there and we all loved it. They tried and tried to give Anton what he needed but there came a point where we all realized a change needed to happen.

So POOF, my son was home from school every morning and we had no place to go. I had a speech therapist and an occupational therapist working with Anton and every week was a grueling struggle for me as I tried to process all the new info, bring some kind of order to our lives and heal the stuff inside of me that was hurting. All my work was transferred to the weekends as Anton and I spent all day every day together.

Then one day we found Colleen, an amazing and intuitively gifted art student who decided to accept the part time nanny ad we placed. She comes three mornings a week and plays with Anton while I work. Now I've got time to feed myself, so then Anton can get fed. The production of the Flora paintings pumped into fruition and then somehow, all the OT stuff we were doing for Anton kicked in.

There stood a boy who knows his body, who can look at the Incredible Hulk and say, "Mommy, look how high his engine is running. He needs a brushing!" Anton is progressing in leaps and bounds. Next month we have him evaluated at Coralwood and hopefully placed there for the Fall.

During all of this transition, I tried hard to feel and accept everything that came to me. I was angry. Tired. Hurt. Frustrated. Overwhelmed. Bewildered. Ashamed. And then I thought, FUCK, I am modeling for Anton an anxious and afraid woman. Do I really want to show him that's the best he can do? The best he can expect?


So I stopped. And told myself that there was NO way I could do this perfectly. I saw the Black Swan (with my dad - NOT a good movie to see with your dad! and if you don't know why, go see it.) and the moral core was all about the pitfalls of perfectionism. We met with a PhD who told us Anton was lucky to have two right-hemisphere parents. He told us we were capable. And that our biggest hurdle to overcome was not Anton's "disorder" but our own fear. He said, "Enjoy him. Enjoy him or you'll miss it."

And suddenly, with that statement, it was possible for me to digest the information his OT (Kate Drummond of About Play (amazing person) was giving us and do it intuitively, from my heart as his mother and friend, rather than from a place of fear.
And then things began to fall into place.

I realized I didn't have to do all of this well or correctly. That I could care without obsessing. That I could ride this wild ride and that every step was made for me.

All of this reflection to me is a blooming flower. I am blooming. Anton is, too. Our realizations are happening between us - this shared experience of growth. My god. My GOD. God gives us the child we need to have.

One flourish in this painting is mimicking the other. Mirroring, modeling, blooming. Anton and I make track together in more ways than the literal. He's fascinated with trains and wheels and cars and tractors and I spend so much time drawing roads with him. So you see here and in a couple of other paintings roads, dashed lines, tracks that twist and turn. It's a painterly calligraphic element, it's a train track, it's my life.

Save the Date: The Blooming of Flora at Kai Lin Art

Dear Friends,

The opening of Flora is coming Friday, April 15 and will feature my latest series of paintings of the same name.

I am grateful and very excited to be showing in the very good company of three fabulous artists, Drew Watts, Karen Divine, & Lucha Rodriguez. There are remarkable similarities and differences between us and as a whole, we stand before you with power and grace.

In preparation for the show, I personified Flora in an attempt to explore the core of my journey as a female creative. Diving deep into my earliest memories, initial education as a painter and in homage to the most recent events of my life, I have rediscovered a wealth of subject matter to explore, expand and unravel. It is all truth and there is story behind every stroke.

Come to Flora to see all fifteen of my pieces, some of which you see here.

Below are details. I would love to see you!

~Anne

Exhibtion Opening: Friday, April 15th, 2011

Time: 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Closing Date: Friday, May 27th, 2011

Artists: Anne Elser, Drew Watts, Karen Divine, & Lucha Rodriguez

Concept: Flora is a group show featuring four talented local artist that work in a wide range of mediums from photography to painting to hand-cut paper pieces.

Location: Kai Lin Art / 800 Peachtree Street Suite D / Atlanta GA 30308

Promotions and Marketing: Large viral online, print, and television, media campaign via social media, FaceBook, Twitter, 944, Fenuxe, Midtown Patch, Project Q Atlanta, Yelp, Kailinart.com, MetroMix, Scout Mob, Daily Candy, Common Creativ, Atlanta & Company, GA Voice, Campus Style, Atlanta G Spots, in addition to on-site display. Key members of the art and fashion industry and strong word of mouth promos.

For more info: Contact info@kailinart.com or 404 408 4248

Purge

And this is PURGE, painting 6 in my Flora series at Kai Lin Art. The anthropomorphic shape at the bottom is still Flora, yet also serves as a flower vase. Our ability to not only recover, but over-blossom when pruned severely always amazes me. I love watching this happen in the garden and let me tell you - we are no different. Life always finds a way.

Last year we severely pruned ourselves by moving swiftly out of a house and lifestyle that drained us. It was chosen during a time when Doug and I didn't really know who we were as a couple, much less as individuals, and we just stepped into the path before us without much thought. So we left the church, sold more than half of our belongings, cars, clothes, furniture and other baggage and squeezed into a more comfortable setting closer in town, closer to Anton's new school at the time, and closer to everywhere I teach. It was a major downsize and hurt very much at the time, but DAMN, just look at the results. Blossoming everywhere. I am no longer hiding behind the facade of my past. I am instead, choosing the present.

PURGE is about purposeful change, transformation and all of its components. It is beautiful. We flourish simply from making a choice.

Private Bookmaking Instruction

If you're interested in private bookbinding lessons, I offer 2-hour sessions at $120.00 for each session. I teach several bookbinding and container (boxes) making techniques. We can set up at your kitchen table or my private home studio.

Below is a link to both general and extended supply lists of the products and tools you would need to bring with you. Before a class, you would choose a technique to learn and I'd provide handouts and instruction based on your selection(s).

To reserve a lesson slot on my calendar, a non-refundable down payment of $60.00 is required. The best time for a lesson is after breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

Call 404.509.9676 or e-mail me at Anne@AnneElser.com

Download bookmaking supply list information here.

Kiss

Introducing KISS, the 5th painting for the Flora exhibit at Kai Lin Art. Kiss is all about embracing beauty. I used a fair amount of linseed oil on this one - lots of thick, juicy paint and carved out some texture with a pencil. Painting flowers is nothing new, but it was really frowned upon during my initial training as a painter way back in undergrad. Flowers, pink and anything feminine was met with caution, as was applying sentiment. It was all considered cliché, as was any female art student who dared talk about that subject matter. I could go on and on about the experiences, but just know that I am grateful for them, because working through the issues I created surrounding them has been and still is an amazing journey.

Kiss is about self kissing, being kissed, kissing others, opening to, and actively surrendering into the feeling enjoyment. Flora here is finding her body and she's eating her dessert first before anything else. She rolls cake icing around with her tongue on the inside of her smiling mouth and it's the icing she's eaten first and she relishes in it. Maybe she'll have the cake later. She's sweet and pink and blushing and blooming. Her stockings are black to add contrast to the colorgasm she's experiencing now.

Variation on Pointed Pen with Barbara Calzolari

A note about signing up for both the lecture AND the workshop: If you purchase the workshop, the lecture comes WITH it and you do not need to buy it separately. I accidentally signed up for both, and Binders refunded me the $15.00 lecture fee. (You can, if you wish, only purchase the $15.00 lecture.)


Dear Friends,

I am about to burst with happiness at this wonderful news from Binders. Barbara Calzolari is coming this summer for a Lecture called "Passion for Calligraphy" and a 3-day workshop called "Variation on Pointed Pen."

I took a workshop from her last summer from FOTA (Atlanta Calligraphy Guild) on Fractur and am still quoting some of the things she said that touched me deeply. She talked about a "living letter" and used her whole body in the expression of that movement. She talked about slowing down, on focus, on letting go, and of course, technique. She was very exciting.


This workshop keys on calligraphy and the ability to mold and meld it to your message by stretching the mediums you've at your disposal. So there is a contemporary spin to an ancient art form. As artists, we are invited to interpret as much of ourselves and our worlds into our chosen mediums as we like. As we dare! And we can do it with an open sense of joy and reverence for our journey.

I will be bringing my pens and paper, but also skirts, tees and pillow cases. Shwing!

Variation on Pointed Pen with Barbara Calzolari
Beginner to Intermediate | Sale price until Jul. 14: $175, After Jul. 14: $190
Course fee is not refundable unless another student can take your space
Registration Deadline: Jul. 21 | Min. 10/Max. 15
Thurs.-Sun. Aug. 4-7
Thurs. Evening Lecture: Passion for Calligraphy, 6-8pm
Fri. & Sat. 10am-6:30pm, Sun.11am-5pm

Variation on Pointed Pen with Italian calligrapher Barbara Calzolari will be a once in a lifetime opportunity, not to be missed! Delve into the understanding of lines that become letters with pencil, letters with the oblique pen holder and nibs, focus on words...spacing between them, space between lines and how to give power to a simple text. Look at the object that can live a second life with our writing. Why not inside a coat, on a cigar box, on the pillow or your cat? Calligraphy can be wherever you envision it to be! Learn how to write with a round brush and ink to fit your desired surface. Celebrate your new found expressions at the end of class with merriment and presentation of your work!

Come Again

This is the 4th painting in my Flora series called Come Again. It's the story of my son's premature arrival and rearrival. But not just Anton's, my own in the sense of witnessing the birth of me as a mother, and my rebirth as an artist.

While I would never wish miscarriage on anyone, there was a gift and purpose to it. Of course in the moment it was hard to see. But from a distance, there is grace given you cannot see until you settle down and really listen to what god's telling you.

This woman is still beautiful. She is scarred. And her body remembers everything that happened. She is healing herself. And she's doing it with color and gratitude and anger and grief. All of those thing that make is human and nudge us forward. She has not lost her sense of humor. And one of these days, she's going to find that other blue stocking.

3 New Classes at Binders

Hello friends of ink and paper,

I hope you are all well and enjoying the promise of Spring.

Three new classes are starting in 2 weeks at Binders in Bookmaking and Copperplate Calligraphy. Two have made and have some seats left and we need just one more person for the 12-week bookmaking course to make.


Bookmaking 1: Beginning Bookmaking (DAY)
Need 1 more spot filled to make as of 3.15
Tuesdays, 12 sessions
Mar. 29-Jun 21 (no class May 10)
1:30-4pm
Beginning-Intermediate
Sale price until Mar. 15: $380, After Mar. 15: $395
Min. 3/Max. 7

Bookmaking 1: Beginning Bookmaking (EVE)
only 4 seats left as of 3.15
Tuesdays, 6 sessions
Mar. 29-May 3
6-8:30pm
Beginning-Intermediate
Sale price until Mar. 15: $190, After Mar. 15: $205
Min. 3/Max. 7


Calligraphy 2: Copperplate (EVE)
only 2 seats left as of 3.15
Wednesdays, 6 sessions
Mar. 30-May 4|6-8:30pm
Intermediate-Advanced
Sale price until Mar. 16: $190, After Mar. 16: $205
Min. 3/Max. 7

Live Love Laugh Learn

Recent logo created for a person who embodies the attached sentiments. Creativity is inspired by all four elements. And she's at the center. Bravo Becky!

Flora Info

FLORA is coming!

Exhibtion Opening: Friday, April 15th, 2011

Time: 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Closing Date: Friday, May 27th, 2011

Artists: Anne Elser, Drew Watts, Karen Divine, & Lucha Rodriguez

Concept: Flora is a group show featuring four talented local artist that work in a wide range of mediums from photography to painting to hand-cut paper pieces.

Location: Kai Lin Art / 800 Peachtree Street Suite D / Atlanta GA 30308

Promotions and Marketing: Large viral online, print, and television, media campaign via social media, FaceBook, Twitter, 944, Fenuxe, Midtown Patch, Project Q Atlanta, Yelp, Kailinart.com, MetroMix, Scout Mob, Daily Candy, Common Creativ, Atlanta & Company, GA Voice, Campus Style, Atlanta G Spots, in addition to on-site display. Key members of the art and fashion industry and strong word of mouth promos.

For more info: Contact info@kailinart.com or 404 408 4248

Tattoo

My first calligraphic tattoo to someday soon live on the chest of a man with a very big beating heart. The whole time I'm tweaking it, I'm thinking, "Is this going to hurt? All this ink? Too much stress? Do I really need all those flourishes? Should I be using a pointed pen instead of a broad edge? Will my client curse me while on the table?

This was wildly fun. :)

And if you're interested in the origins of the quote "Look at the sky: That is for you," here's a link he sent me. Thank you Ray!

Snippets of Everyday Life

Announcing the new logo for my cousin Barb's photography business, Snippets of Everyday Life. This mark conveys her keen eye, creativity, warmth, rich color palette, working style and her ability to capture the same in her subjects.

The camera is an amazing machine and we all have one. But there's nothing like having the beating heart of an artist behind the lens with the skill to retouch and kiss a printed portrait. THAT's why you'd hire her.

FLORA. STAY. TRUTH.

Flora is here. She's all girl, all woman, a virgin, a hungry lover, she's a mother, a baker, she sews, and she is brave. She cries. She's very busy. She's always ovulating.

Flora's got great curves and hands that can make anything. She knows how to whisper. She's learning to scream. Flora would like to tell KD to go fuck himself.

Flora always accepts dessert. She has pretty underwear. She sees herself everywhere. Flora never learned her times tables. She learned how to say no before she said yes.

Flora is waiting for a white dog named Inga. Flora has cramps. Flora loves looking in the mirror. You are her mirror. She likes what she sees.

Flora thinks penises look cute until they get big and then, wow - she just doesn't know what to say. Flora has a beautiful ass. Flora bit all ten of her nails off before finishing the first of this series. And then she was fine. More than fine.

Flora will see you April 15th, 2011 at Kai Lin Art.

Flora in Green Stockings

First piece in my flora series to be hung at the Kai Lin Art Gallery in April. I chewed all 10 of my nails off getting her here.

Think she's worth it.

Barbara Calzolari is Coming To Binders This Summer!

Earth-shaking news here for all of you inkers out there, of which I am one: Barbara Calzolari is coming to Atlanta this summer for a lecture and three-day workshop at Binders! More details soon as Binders releases them about specific dates, times and the processes she'll be exploring.



Last summer I took her Fractur workshop from the lovely FOTA Atlanta Calligraphy Guild and I can tell you she is amazing and her point of view is comes from a place of love, intention and movement. Probably movement being at the top of that list. She describes what she calls a "living letter" having a stem from which the flourish begins. I just love this metaphor. We all have a stem. And letters are but portraits of each of us.


Take a look at her site with all kinds of inspiring goodness. I am so excited I could burst. This will fill up fast - so when you hear word - sign up ASAP! This workshop will be exciting and new - a nod to the past with a contemporary bend - just like she is. And I swear - that's all I know. I am soooooo excited!