Painting & Thought

"...and I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind." --Pablo Neruda

Landscape: In Progress

"...Since I cannot sing, I paint." -Georgia O'Keeffe, 1922

Landscape

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." Anais Nin

Blue Sky

Fall is upon us here in the mountains of N.C., and this landscape with brilliant blue sky captures the moment. I've just returned home from Arrowmont School of Arts & Craft in Gatlinburg, TN, after an oil painting workshop with Baton Rouge artist Libby Johnson. Many ideas are percolating! The show at Salon Blue Ridge will be up until the end of the year, and my painter/sculptor friend Dale McEntire recently added in some wonderful sculptures. Please stop in and see the show!

New Work

Art Show

My paintings are on display at Salon Blue Ridge in Flat Rock, NC. This is a beautiful space to highlight work in!

The Journey Home: Rising Dreams

The Journey Home series evolved from one initial painting depicting land, the tip of a canoe, and water...it evokes ancient Japanese and Chinese poetry: the poet and his lone boat on the sea under a moonlit sky. As a poet and a thinking artist, I'm reminded that we are on a journey...and to grow and find our way, turn from all we know, have known, being fearless...to a unknown sea in our metaphoric lone boat. Over the years, in my personal life, I've done that very thing. Lessons in all experiences! I've since done more of these paintings, and think they will continue to appear on my easel by magic. For me, the small boat symbolizes the soul traveling home. For you, the viewer, let it symbolize whatever you may find within.

One Woman Show On Display: Salon Blue Ridge (link on right)

Esto Perpetua: Night Spaces

This new oil painting is based on black and white tones, and in my on-going series "Esto Perpetua". The painting transcended as I worked on it...many layers, deceptively simple, which is one of my long-time trademarks! Despite a lifetime love of color, this works too. Makes me think of my dad, who loved classic black and white photography. Some things are always beautiful.

New Work: Esto Perpetua

Art & Life

Moving Water

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river
moving in you, a joy. --Rumi

Painting & Thought

Excerpt from "Summer" by Bonnie Joy Bardos

Summer twilight dreams waft into night
onto a dreaming summer moon
kissed by lightning bug wings;
Summer comes on night dew,
bull frog drums,
and untold things.

Esto Perpetua: Blue Field

About my ongoing Esto Perpetua series: I began this series several years ago, based around the Latin phrase of 'esto perpetua' (it is forever) which is written within the painting, worked into many transparent layers for the viewer to find and ponder.These canvases, both large and small, are always one of a kind, and depict nature and the sacredness of our earth. No trace of mankind is ever found in these landscapes, only mystery and peacefulness, quiet beauty, a sense of timelessness and spirituality. My belief is that nature is omnipresent, precious, powerful, and sacred. This series has become my language, my message to a world that needs to hear it. While a quiet, contemplative message, I hope it comes across loud and clear.


Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about. -Rumi

Art Trek Show

One of my paintings at the Upstairs Artspace...shown with Jim Cornell pottery.

A successful and busy "Art Trek Tryon: Foothills Open Studios Tour"! Thanks to all for making it a great event. More information can be found at the link to the right for the Upstairs. Art is work! And...life.

The Landscape

"The true artist is not concerned with the likeness of form, but aims at bringing forth the rhythm that pulsates within it, and then is carried to the beholder.” -- Su Tung-p’o, 10th Century Chinese poet

Sunset: Remembering

You are cloud, sea, forgetting;
you are also what you lost in a moment--
we are all those who have left.
The reflection of our face in the mirror
changes each instant
and every day has its own labyrinth.
The cloud vanishing in the sunset is our image;
endlessly, a rose becomes another rose.
--Jorge Luis Borges

Remembering Sunset

The Art Studio

I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints... -Joni Mitchell

New Work

This delicious Derek Walcott poem appears this month in the Purple Onion's newsletter compiled by Robert Seiler...and I love it. Poetry, good food, art, music all make this world go round. Despite the upheaval in the world, we must ground ourselves, and pay attention to the soul, to the spirit. I'm sharing this poem and others, including some of my own in this blog....please enjoy and find good energy!

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give Bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

--Derek Walcott

New Work: In Progress

This painting is in progress, 30" x 30" on linen...what started out as peaches transcended into apples...who knows where the road ahead will lead! I'm loving the rich, sensual colors. The three golden bars are part of an on-going series that are Jungian symbols for door hinges, a book opening to the metaphysical and more.

Joni Mitchell, from Clouds

"...Something's lost
but something's gained in living every day."

New Work: Esto Perpetua

Esto Perpetua: The landscape of the soul...

Artist Statement

Art, like writing and poetry, for me is an expression of the soul…the deepest self, where time and place do not matter…I am on a higher plane when creating. There is intense spirit and energy in my hands—often I do not know where I will take my painting—I am influenced by color, by thought, and by the natural world around us. I see nature as spiritual and symbolic—and seek to speak the unknown, to convey the unseen. My work is based on intuition, and what feeling I am attuned to at the moment. I feel the world intensely, both the ‘outer’ world, and most of all, the natural world: which is deeply connected to my inner world. The natural and inner world are more important to me.

The Greatest Gift

This beautiful ceramic piece was a recent birthday gift to me from my clay artist friend, Linda Seagroves. Linda studied pictures of myself and Pooh, my spoiled Shar-pei rescue puppy (who is now all grown up), but still a big puppy! She then hand-formed this exquisite clay piece--isn't it unique and lovely? Look at Linda's red glazes on the dress: how rich and deep! The glaze itself also creates definition and depth in shadowing areas. Check out Linda's work under "Linda Burroughs Seagroves" -(click link under artist links at end of this page). You'll enjoy, and leave with a smile. She does nothing run-of-the-mill or boring! In fact, what a great present you could arrange to give someone who is really special to you. Think about that, and support us starving artists out there in the world--it creates good energy.

New Work: Oranges & Thought

New Work

The Mythology of Birds Amid Dreams

The Art Studio

Welcome to my blog, and to my paintings, poetry, and thoughts. Come into my art studio...stay awhile. Feel free to touch the brushes...to look around...that is, if you can possibly find your way through the canvases, easels, piles of paint jars... If you're interested in any of the artworks, please let me know: if it's already sold, I still may have another piece comparable. Packing and shipping can easily be arranged, and I accept Paypal, cash, or check. Thank you for visiting!

"Art Is What You Can Get Away With." -Andy Warhol

Mary Oliver (one of my favorite American contemporary poets) excerpt from The Summer Day

"Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

New Work: In Progress #2

Thoughts: the harder times become, the more determined I feel to create something that transcends to another place, to create good energy and beauty in a world that desperately needs it. Art is life....life is art...have you heard that before? This is the first piece I've put cherries into, but all the symbols I use are intuitive. (Update: This piece is finished and for sale at the Upstairs Artspace.)

The Landscape

Commissioned Work (sold)

New Work

Open Studio: Starting In January 2009!

Open Studio/Art House: Scheduled to begin at my house on Greenville Street, Saluda, in mid-January 2009 on Saturdays from 11-3. By appointment or chance! Drop by and see new works in progress and more, and have lunch downtown at one of our fine restaurants. You can see my work in several of them: Purple Onion, Saluda Grade, and Tosh's Whistlestop cafe. I LOVE Saluda! In Tryon, you can often see my work at Upstairs Artspace, Bravo Design and Interiors, and at Trinity Street Gallery in Abbeville, SC...and so forth.

December Art Shows

Bonnie Joy Bardos and Linda Seagroves will have a two-woman show featuring paintings and clay art in historic Abbeville, South Carolina at Trinity Street Market and Gallery. The reception will be on December 13, from 6-9 with live music and cheer. The exhibit continues through February 2009.

December 18: The Cellar at the historic Saluda Inn in Saluda, North Carolina will feature Bonnie as guest artist from 6:30 to 9:30--, along with exquisite wine tasting in a beautiful stone cellar reminiscent of cozy French cellars. Come see art and taste wine!

String of Pearls Show: Upstairs Artspace

Yellow Bird

Fall Trees

New Work

Crow: Detail (sold)

Between Flight & Dreams: WNC Biennial Juried Show (sold)

Distant Dreams (sold)

She Dreams Of Flight: Sold

Esto Perpetua: Red Evening

Crows Wanna Go School: SOLD

The Landscape of Esto Perpetua

New Work

Blue Nude I

Wings of Butterflies

hope flies on wings of a thousand butterflies trembling breeze of the heart...

Esto Perpetua: SOLD

Link To Newspaper Article

http://www.jazzandpoetry.com/2008/02/out-of-blue-painter-bonnie-bardos.html

Out of the Blue: Lavender & Three: SOLD

Out of the Blue Show at TFAC

Esto Perpetua: The Forever Place: SOLD

This broken ice of a moment shatters under branches of winter sky....and I, fly. The universe speaks my name.

Crows Don't Get NO Respect: Upstate Visual Arts Juried Show 9/2008, ACOHC Juried Show 2009

Out Of The Blue

O

Phenomenon

Moth: a sudden phenomenon,

Insistently

Pressing

Your silvery powdered face

Against unforgiving wire mesh.

Becoming

A fluttering, delicate hieroglyph

Flown from Pandora's box to the impossible wire screen,

All the while

Defying the outside day.

BJB

Crows Rule

Crows Rule
Always

They love shiny earrings
Flying free

Take No Flack

Know Who They Are

Let Me
Be
Crow
Soul

Landscape

Tree Branches

Tree Branches of Winter

There is a beauty
In stark tree branches--
Lace sculptures held in hands of winter sky.

Something there was not seen yesterday,
But spoke today,
As I stood at the old weathered apple tree,
grizzled, fallen to frozen ground.

I silently, reverently, gathered
An armful of dead branches,
Bereft of leaves and life,
held them in my warm hands,

Brought them in the house,
Arranged them in vases--
Where suddenly
Those stark tree branches
Spoke eloquently of green life to come.

BJB

Bird: SOLD

Abstract Art & Minds

An Argument for Appreciating

Abstract Art (from Abstract Minds) by Bonnie Joy Bardos

Recently, a quite sentient and knowledgeable acquaintance of mine protested to me how he just “doesn’t get” abstract art. I was rather taken back, figuring that someone with that kind of intellect would ‘get’ abstract art in a heartbeat! Not so. Now, I like art in most forms, and abstract is definitely a favorite of mine, and has been most of my life. So, here is an argument, for those who may not “get” abstract, to encourage looking at it in a different way!

Art. What IS art? Is it a just pretty picture, we pass by and say “How NICE”, then move on, or is art, perhaps something much more? Art is but an unseen language, the UNKNOWN. Yes, there are many different kinds of art: pretty art, dead art. Pretty dead art. Save us from making only pretty, vapid, dead art! Let art be passionate, deep, thinking. Let it have color and flow. Let it add meaning to this world… take the viewer to a deeper place of thought, away from the shallowness of everyday life, into a thinking place of silences and beyond the known.

Let art be both beautiful and profane. Let art be strange and different. Let art make people think, to question, to know, to wonder. In the things we ‘know’ there are those we do not. In the things we see, there are those we don’t. Consider this the ‘interval’…which leads us to the abstract.

The artistic mind often works in abstract. (nope, no normalcy) I enjoy watching the bees, the butterflies, the hummingbirds. May never a day go by when I don’t see and notice the little things…the ground hog, rotund from summer grass… the smiles in little children’s eyes… the scent of a new book… and even of an old one…

I see the patterns of leaves dancing under the green canopy of summer, and go into another place. I watch the night stars, and consider how small, and how nothing I am, yet I am everything. (Thanks, Buddha). I see art in flaking puzzle pieces of paint off the sides of my old house…in the lily pads and bright flashes of koi in my fish pond, of the delicate veined tree branches tracing the sunset sky. This, is abstract…the colors of the sunset’s vivid hues. For abstraction is taking something we are familiar and comfortable with… and seeing it in another perspective.

Look at Franz Kline’s “Red Painting, Untitled” and feel the colors. Look closely. No, like any art, there is a lot of BAD abstract art. Kinkade (shudder) is a hyperbole romantic painter, painting ‘light’ and fluff. Give me the grit of a Picasso, or the energy of a deKooning. Some of it’s ugly, but if it catches my eye, it makes me think! Frankenthaler, Matisse, Monet, Kline, Kooning, Kahn, Rothko…these painters range from Impressionist to Abstractionist…and I love them all. What matters is that I like it. I’m willing to look and SEE. Some of Picasso’s works are monstrous; yet, I admire him for the genius he was.

When I was a kid, I thought there was only one salad dressing: Thousand Island. Now, at my advanced age, I never touch the stuff! Life’s a banquet, and I’m going to eat it, whether in my art, or on the salad plate. Vinaigrettes, crisp shallotte ones, creamy Vidalia onion, honey and mustard combinations, scented herbal dressings, olive oil and pepper, fresh mango, citrus dressings…so many tastes, and I enjoy them all… just as my taste in art has evolved from pretty art… to the untamed, wild, brazen colors, the strange stuff, the metal boxcar sculptures… rough is good, and I CRAVE a variety. So next time, you see abstract art, walk up and enjoy the ride. Enjoy a new dressing…you may never go back to Thousand Island dressing again!

Orchid IV (sold)

The Journey Home: SOLD

The Journey Home has evolved from this initial first painting, depicting land, the tip of a canoe, and water...it reminds me of ancient Japanese and Chinese poetry, the poet and his lone boat on the sea. As a poet and a thinking artist, I'm reminded that we are on a journey...and to grow and find our way, turn from all we know, have known, being fearless...to a unknown sea in our lone boat. Over the years, in my personal life, I've done that very thing. Lessons in all experiences! I've since done more of these paintings, and think they will continue to appear on my easel by magic. Like "Esto Perpetua" paintings, you will not find a human being. For me, the boat symbolizes the soul traveling home. For you, the viewer, let it symbolize whatever you may find within.

My Saving Graces: Lotus

The Art House

Reflecting Spirit in the foyer...a favorite sculpture...she thinks a lot!

The back deck, where much of my art is painted...spring, summer, fall, winter...if I can be out there, I am. Good place to have dinner too!

Random Thoughts & Wild Brush Strokes:


All images on this site are property of Bonnie Joy Bardos, copyright of the artist.




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