CONTENTS
Page One:
Cassie and Adri Pretorius: On a Lifelong
Safari Together
Page Two:
Peni and Lee Powell: Displaying Their
Flemish Art Collection
Page Three:
Introducing New IAPA Members:
- Stefano Bonfatti: Photorealism
- Pierre Doré: Decorative
Interpretations
- Lestat de Lioncourt: Erotic Fantasy
News from Old Friends:
- Michael Janson: Listed in Russia's
Artindex
- Houba: New Works for Exhibits in
2003
- Dino: Featured in an Interior Design
Magazine
- Update on Husband-and-Wife Team Alejandro
and Gabriela
|
Uomo con
Pentola (Man with Pot) |
From Rovagnate in Italy comes a young pyrographic artist Stefano Bonfatti who started five years ago as a self-taught artist doing street portraits. One day out of curiosity, he tried out his little brother's woodburning kit, and the rest, as they say, is history.
|
Pomeriggio al
Bar (An Afternoon at the Outdoor Bar) |
Since that time, Stefano continued experimenting on his own, later with more professional pyro tools, and then started selling his pyrographic vignettes at local fairs. Last October he began working with a blowtorch as well. Combining the two pyrographic techniques produced that look of antique prints that he was hoping for.
|
Donna con
castagne (Woman with
Chestnuts) |
Through his art work, Stefano wants to
bring back from the past all the
typical culture of the places he portrays,
for example, Brianza (north
of Milan), Lombardy, and Rovagnate (a town
between Milan and Lecco).
He wants to show with his works--conjuring
up the old prints from their
time--the daily life of yesteryear of the
people in that region, through vignettes of their work, folk fairs,
and typical dress.
Stefano quit his job a year ago in the hope
of making his living working as an artist.
View more of his works in his E-Museum
salon.
|
Flower |
Canadian Pierre Doré lives in a small
city about 100 miles north
of Québec City.
He has only been woodburning since 2001 and
has only done 16 pyro works
to date, although none this year. As with
several other IAPA artists,
Pierre found woodBURNING, through
woodTURNING. He says that he was
looking for a way to embellish his
miniature woodturnings. After
researching on the web, he bought himself a
Razortip pyro tool and
The Complete Pyrography book
by Stephen Poole and tried
his luck.
|
Sailboat on
Choppy Waters |
Pierre's sensibilities for composition, light and shadow are readily apparent. He is a gifted artist who likes to experiment with new art forms, and pyrography is his latest. He had to put his pyrography on hold this year because of work and family commitments, but has just joined IAPA to get back on track with this latest one. His goal for his pyrography is the same as for all the art forms he has worked in, to simply create beauty and do work that he can be proud of. See more examples of his pyrography in the Pierre Doré E-Museum Salon.
|
Girl on
Beach |
Mexican artist Lestat de Lioncourt has just joined
IAPA and hopes to participate more with the group. His English is up to
the challenge, but his knowledge of how the group site works is still
problematic (as it is for all of us at times).
View more of Lestat's work in his E-Museum
salon. Lestat, welcome!
|
Oval
Object |
I am pleased to announce that Russian
abstract artist
Michael Janson from St. Petersburg has recently
been recognized
in Russia's Artindex where he
is included in their
bilingual catalogue (Russian-English). The
handsome, hard-cover book
displays about 1000 works by 187 artists of
excellence in his country and includes a synopsis on each artist and his
respective
specialty. What has gotten
Michael's work description a lot of
attention is that his is the only
one citing PYROGRAPHY ON PAPER as the
medium (all of the others say OIL ON CANVAS).
Published in Artindex is
his abstract entitled
Oval Object. It was featured
in his second appearance on
the pages of WOM in March of this year (see
Pyrograffiti
22), so we are pleased to have shown
it here first, and honored that
Artindex noted his
membership in I.A.P.A., his salon in the
E-Museum, and articles on his
work in WOM, as well. Michael, you've made
us all proud--congratulations!
|
The Djellaba
Vendor |
This last June, Algerian Abdulwahab ("Houba")
Mihoub was once more invited to
show his works at a gallery in Algiers. It
was uncertain whether the event would take place, when the city of
Algiers was damaged by an earthquake shortly before the exhibition was
scheduled to
begin; however, it did indeed take place and proved a big success for
Houba.
That very month, he had a second invitation to show his work at a
special exhibit in Gap, France, so his folkloric works of his native
oasis city of Touggourt in the Sahara Desert in Algeria are becoming
known internationally. Look for a couple of these new works in his
updated E-Museum
salon. Congratulations, Houba.
|
Dolphins |
Romanian Dino Muradian has been living in
Bucharest for some time now.
He has been featured frequently in WOM
articles (see, for example Pyrograffiti
19) and other on-line articles, as well
as in American magazines
and
newspapers when he was living in the United
States.
A 3-page article about his work is being
released this month in Romania
in the interior design magazine
Domus. Congratulations, Dino, on this latest success.
|
|
Indigenous
Madonna and Child |
Indigenous Folk
Festival |
Argentinean artists Alejandro Veneziani and Gabriela
Lezcano are another couple
working as a team in pyrography on leather,
who were featured nearly a
year ago in WOM's Pyrograffiti
20. They do both fine art work on leather (that they sell through
their art gallery in Villa Gisell, Argentina) as well as decorative art
items of religious art (that they sell in
Buenos Aires and over the internet). They were looking
then to expand their second
business
and also teach what they do in Mexico. At
present, they have decided
to
search for a new market for the religious
decorative art part of their
business and have set their sights on the
United States, particularly
the Latin American population, which shares
their religious traditions
and
related social customs of gift giving for
Baptisms, First Communions,
House Blessings, etc. This demographic
group was recently cited in the
U.S. national news as now having become the
largest minority group in
the U.S. population.
The two images above are examples from the enormous inventory in
Alejandro's and Gabriela's new catalogue of work from their Taller de
Artesanía
Religiosa en Cuero (Studio of Religious Art
on Leather) at :
www.angelfire.com/ar3/veneziani.
Alejandro and Gabriela, good luck with your latest venture.
Click here to go back to page one
Click here to go back to page two
 |
The AuthorKathleen M. Garvey Menéndez learned her pyrography techniques in Guatemala in 1975-1977. Her sister, Artist Sharon H. Garvey, later joined her there to collaborate on a pyrography project designed to promote this art form in the United States by means of a didactic book and a pyrography tool made by Navarro of Mexico.Thanks to the internet, this is the seventh year of articles on pyrography for the Woodcarver Online Magazine (WOM), started January 1997, and the sixth year of the E-Museum of Pyrographic Art, which opened its virtual doors January 1998. In March of that year, the International Association of Pyrographic Artists (IAPA) was formed and members began meeting on line. Linked from the E-Museum's Café Flambé, which hosts the IAPA meetings, is the Yahoo Groups uniting_pyrographers mailing list, member list, and chat forum set up by IAPA Co-founder Mixo Sydenham of Australia for IAPA members. |
2003, Kathleen M. Garvey Menéndez, all rights reserved.
