By Langston Hughes
I been scarred and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me,
Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me
Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'-- But I don't care! I'm still here!
Artwork: En Sí Misma (In Herself) by Ben Gonzalez Corea
“I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles”
~ Audrey Hepburn
Digital Art: Audrey Hepburn by Head Cinema
Description
Eustache Le Sueur painted the eight Beatitudes, the ideal qualities Jesus identified in his Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, for the private chapel in his patron Guillaume Birssonnet’s Paris home. This personification of meekness was part of that decoration and accompanied an altarpiece of the Annunciation, monochrome scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary, and a ceiling depicting her Assumption. The Beatitudes, with their patterned gold ground, lined the lower story of this elegant ensemble. Only the Annunciation altarpiece and two of the Beatitudes survive.
“I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.”
~ Beryl Markham, West with the Night
Digital Art: Golden Evening by Jeff Stanford
“All those moments throughout the days, weeks, months that don’t get marked on calendars with hand-drawn stars or little stickers. Those are the moments that make a life. Not grand gestures, but mundane details that, over time, accumulate until you have a home, instead of a house.”
~ Emily Henry, Funny Story
🍵🕯️Illustration by Bettina Baldassari
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The impulse of all love is to create. God was so full of love, in his embrace He clasped the empty nothingness of space, And low! the solar system! High in state The mighty sun sat, so supreme and great With this same essence, one smile of its face Brought myriad forms of life forth; race on race From insects up to men.
Through love, not hate, All that is grand in nature or in art Sprang into being. He who would build sublime And lasting works, to stand the test of time Must inspiration draw from his full heart. And he who loveth widely, well and much, The secret holds of the true master touch.
Photograph: Castle Rock Reflections by Eric Foltz
Description: Lake Powell, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Utah.
"Never underestimate the power you have to take your life in a new direction." ~ Germany Kent
Digital Art • Riding • Eva Grossman
By Kahlil Gibran
It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way. The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.
Painting • Mountain River Landscape • Blenda Tyvoll
“Hygge is about an atmosphere and an experience, rather than about things. It is about being with the people we love. A feeling of home. A feeling that we are safe, that we are shielded from the world and allow ourselves to let our guard down.” ~ Meik Wiking
Illustration by Jess Mason
The present lot is one of a limited number of watercolours produced by Joseph Southall during the First World War. Born into a Quaker family, Southall was a pacifist and spent much of the war campaigning, and producing anti-war posters and cartoons. 1916 saw a major Arts and Crafts Exhibition at the Royal Academy, London. As a member of the movement, Southall presented a very small selection of works at the exhibition, all relating to his pacifist beliefs.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. it's that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frighten us, We ask 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?"
~ Marianne Williamson
Mixed Media Art • Fabulousness • Lynn Coldwell
The soul journeys on, despite the night, frost, or hardship. Its feet bleed, each step laced with pain. Yet it goes on, for it has been blessed with love, longing to share it with others. In its sacrifice, life is born anew.
Visual Art by Laura Makabresku
Description
Two groups of people face off in front of a hilly landscape in this loosely painted, vertical scene. On our left, a pale young man in a white tunic looks with eyes wide and lips parted at a group of three people on our right. The young man's right hand, on our left, is raised to stroke the head of a reddish-brown horse at his right shoulder. He stands with feet planted wide, knees bent, and he curls his left hand into a fist. Behind him, a man holds up a fluttering, light blue cape. A mottled red wall forms a backdrop to this scene on our left. The tight group gathered under a tree on our right stares back at the young man. The trio is made up of a balding, older man, a light-skinned boy also wearing a white tunic, and, closest to us, a brown-skinned woman wearing a marigold-orange shirt and a maroon-red skirt. Behind this group, a pair of pale raised arms suggests a fourth person, but the head is missing or has been painted over. The ground under the people is saffron orange. In the center of the picture, beyond the people, a group of horses stands near a green bank by a river, its surface reflecting white. The far bank is lined with white buildings. Tan and olive-green slopes rise from the opposite riverbank under a pale blue sky with cream-white clouds sweeping along the top edge of the composition. The artist signed his name in red paint in the lower right corner: “Degas.”
By Edgar Guest
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done But he with a chuckle replied That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you’ll never do that; At least no one ever has done it;" But he took off his coat and he took off his hat And the first thing we knew he'd begun it. With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit, He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn't be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure, There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, Just take off your coat and go to it; Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.
Digital Painting • The Old Man and The Sea • Inge Schuster
The lost sparrow hops between pillars of legs, seek fresh lands, like caged hearts.
Painting • Freedom • Jeanie Tomanek
By Hope
I am not my brokenness Yes I was broken in such a way, that when I took a glance at thyself I failed to recognize thyself I am not my brokenness
They misjudged my brokenness and reversed it into bitterness, I was not bitter It was just a cry of a broken soul that they failed to recognize but rather level it as weakness I am not my brokenness
If silence tears were a portion of a million, at this moment I could have been labelled as one If they were an ocean full of blessings, at this very moment my name could have been Abraham If they were a dwelling palace, It could have been at the very right hand of the father I am not my brokenness neither my silent tears
Digital Art • "Repair • Ed Perkins
Photograph 🌹 Tiempo de Rosas 🌹 Juan Luis Seco
