American Impressionist Edward Henry Potthast

American impressionist Edward Henry Potthast
By kris reyes

American impressionist Edward Henry Potthast was born on June 10th, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He first showed his artistic side when he was very young and would mix his watercolors to come up with some of the most beautiful, vibrant colors.  At an early age his family sent him off to design school.  It was there that he met Thomas Satterwhite Noble, a portrait painter who helped Potthast develop his passion for oil painting.

Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt, 1952 portrait by Carl Van Vechten

“The river is constantly turning and bending and you never know where it’s going to go and where you’ll wind up.  Following the bend in the river and staying on your own path means that you are on the right track.  Don’t let anyone deter you from that.“
– Eartha Kitt

When Eartha Mae Kitt was born in rural South Carolina in 1927, no one could have predicted that the unwanted daughter of a black Cherokee sharecropper and a white man — abused by the family with whom she lived as a child because of her “yella” complexion — would become an artist whose unmistakable voice, straight talk and intoxicating beauty would make the world swoon for generations to come. 

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut

“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”
– Kurt Vonnegut

Article by Ulla Kelly, Artistic Lemonade Contributing Writer

Born on Armistice Day, 1922, Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most easily recognizable names in science fiction literature, and his work is often characterized by his own unique sense of humor.   His best known book is probably Slaughterhouse-Five, which was also one of the films made from his books. He was also a graphic artist, providing illustrations for some of his novels and became well-known for simple ink drawings of abstractions of faces.

Theatre as Therapy

We’ll be posting the next featured artist profile here soon, but since much of the Artistic Lemonade community shares an interest in Art Therapy and/or the performing arts, I thought it would be appropriate to post a link of interest here. Theatre is increasingly being recognized as a powerful form of therapy and self-discovery for people with autism.   ARTRAN, the Applied Theatre Research and Autism Network, is an international organization focused on the use of applied theatre techniques to help individuals with autism.  I hope that Lemonade readers with even a passing interest in the subject will stop by their site to learn more about the exciting work that’s going on in this growing field.

– Melody Daniel, Artistic Lemonade Editor

Jarreau’s Jazz Legacy

(main article by Joey Perry,
Artistic Lemonade contributing writer.)

“I don’t know where we got the notion that God wants us to suffer. Every living thing tends toward the good or we would have been gone a long time ago.”

– Al Jarreau

Editor’s note: At Artistic Lemonade, we often profile artists who have overcome great struggles through art. Sometimes, though, we have the privilege of profiling an artist like Al Jarreau who embraces the many gifts of his own life and finds joy in touching the lives of others and helping them make Artistic Lemonade through his music. As you read the following profile of Jarreau’s work, please think of the positive influence it has had on the millions who appreciate his music.

The world came to know of him and has been entranced by his rich, soothing vocals since 1975. Long before that, though, the spark had been ignited in one of America’s most tantalizing soulful vocal jazz artists: Al Jarreau. He began singing early in life, and by the age of four was already performing for awe struck audiences within his hometown of Milwaukee WI. Music, while playing an important role in his upbringing, did not become the driving force or passion in Jarreau’s life until much further down the road.

Paul Gauguin

(article by Carolyn Osborne, Artistic Lemonade Contributing Writer)

“It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.”
– Paul Gauguin

Before the invention of photography, the only way you could preserve your mother-in-law’s image for posterity was to get someone to draw or paint her. People also did death masks where they put plaster on the face of the dead person, but that’s a little grotesque. Painting, then, had a very important function—it was one of the chief ways of preserving an image.

Over four or five hundred years, western European painters had created some effective means for translating a three-dimensional landscape, still life, or face into the two dimensions of the canvas. This function ended as soon as the first photograph was taken. Now one’s second cousin twice-removed could be photographed and her image retained forever.

Art and Healing

Cure Magazine has published an article focusing on the healing power of art for cancer survivors. Check it out at curetoday.com.

Maya Angelou

This article was written by Artistic Lemonade contributor La Vaughn Rynearson.

Maya Angelou could easily have surrendered to despondency and despair given the countless obstacles life placed in her way. Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in Saint Louis, Missouri, she was sent to live with her Arkansas grandmother at the age of three when her parents divorced. There she was exposed to the cruelty of southern bigotry and prejudice at first hand.

When she was seven, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend and kept the horrific secret from all but her brother, Bailey. After the man was killed by her uncle, she blamed herself for telling anybody and entered a world of self-imposed silence for five years. Becoming pregnant in her senior year, she dropped out of school at age sixteen and gave birth to her son, Guy, and then set off on her own to raise him as a single mother. She worked at a wide variety of jobs to support herself and Guy, at times being a Creole cook, a cocktail waitress, a streetcar conductor and, reportedly, even a madam. Her first marriage ended in divorce.

She became friends with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and took part in the civil rights movement; his assassination, which occurred on her birthday, provided additional trauma. She gathered up these appalling experiences and combined them with the deep religious faith imparted by her grandmother and her own indomitable thirst for knowledge.

Writing her first autobiographical book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, provided her with solace while helping her deal with her grief over King’s death. The alchemy of her resilient personality and talent miraculously served to transmute the lead of loss into the gold of triumph and she soon found herself a figure on the national stage. She studied dance with Martha Graham, acted in Jean Genet’s The Blacks and toured with the opera, Porgy and Bess. She became conversant in Arabic, French, Italian and Spanish. Several United States Presidents tapped her for service; President Clinton asked her to compose and read a poem (“On the pulse of the Morning”) especially for his inauguration. She has written more than thirty books and several screenplays, yet still found time to serve as the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. Her wide range of accomplishments and intellectual interests has truly made her America’s Renaissance Woman and an inspiration to all.

Links:

• Dr. Angelou’s profile from the University of Minnesota Voices from the Gaps project
• Biography at the National Women’s Hall of Fame
• PBS African American Lives profile
• Information from the African American Literature Book Club
• Maya Angelou’s official web site
• Dr. Angelou’s department at our Lemonade Stand

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Pablo Picasso

“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.”
– Pablo Picasso

No artist before Pablo Picasso, and arguably no artist since, has seen the level of notoriety in his or her lifetime that Picasso did. Pablo Picasso, born October 25, 1881 in Spain, was said to be a child prodigy. Though he is most famous for cubism, Picasso painted in a number of styles, such as realism, caricature classicism, and surrealism.

Clara Smith

Clara Smith became a hit blues singer in the 1920’s when she left South Carolina and settled in Harlem during the great migration. Clara was known as the “Queen of the Moaners.” She recorded a song in 1925 with her rival, Bessie Smith, who she described as her “sister” even though they were not related. In the song, they pretended to be competing with each other for the affections of the same man.