Vintage Fans: Retro Style on Etsy

Handpicked on Etsy

Whirring motor twirling whirling blades....something in a vintage fan brings out my inner poet, for better or worse. My silliness aside, vintage fans caught my fancy today and turn my thoughts to warm summer days. These delightful small appliances inspired the artistry of two photographers and eight talented vintage sellers, who used skillful eyes and their camera to tell a story. Old fans like these not only send cooling breezes about your space, but they inject nostalgic ambiance into a room, charm the eye, and create a lovely rhythmic white noise and pleasant commotion. Click on the pictures to go directly to these Etsy listings, and find out which of these fans are pictorial art and which are working electrical collectibles. Prices range from $20.00 to $149.00.
From to left to bottom right, today's featured Etsy sellers include: rescueme, thesundaytimesmarket, AliciaBock, sydg, oldcrowfarm, lucysnowephotography, happydayvintage, bohemianvintage1, OhHelloVintage, grynbergs

Iconic Seattle on Etsy

Handpicked on Etsy
Seattle landmarks inspired today's featured Etsy artists. While looking for rain-inspired Etsy creations a couple of days ago, I came across these Seattle related pieces that not only capture iconic images associated with my city, but are also new ways of looking at familiar landmarks. I now want to run downtown and find the exact spots that motivated these creations. To me this is a reminder that no two sets of artistic eyes see things in the quite same way, and that there are countless ways to interpret and convey a common theme,
My Invitation to You: Re-discover your own city or town by looking at it through other pairs of artistic eyes. Find Etsy creations that capture your own city, town or village and heart them in your faves, then comment here telling me to have a look at your picks for consideration as an EtsyLounge showcase-feature with you as the curator.
Click on the pictures to go directly to these Etsy listings. Prices range from $12.00 to $45.00.
From top left to bottom right, today's featured artisans include: MikeUlatowski, VenomousSwan, pixcraze, lisaburch, MarKhed, lisaburch, ChristopherBoswell, matthewporterart, DonShan, leciawood, artbydi, BunkFossStudio

Yellow Ochre: Color Scheming on Etsy

Handpicked on Etsy
Continuing Monday's ochre theme, today's search was for the yellow version that evokes golden honey sweetness spiced with flavors of tumeric, ginger, mustard, saffron, curries. One's hunger for delicious, warming yellow is easily satisfied on Etsy's search pages, in nearly every category of unique handmade creations from fibers to jewelry to pictorial arts. Enjoy this tempting feast and click on the pictures to go directly to these Etsy listings. Prices range from $4.00 to $134.00
From top left to bottom right, today's featured artisans include: deserttalismans, honeytree, jenjensirene, AwakenJournaling, marysworkshop, mcrdesigns, FrenchPressKnits, treacletofee, seaglassdesigns, TwinDreamCreations

Romance Part II: Goose Bumps,Tredipation and Awe

Handpicked on Etsy
Today I look at romanticism from the perspective of "trepidation and awe" in which artists invite nature to thrill, titillate, raise goose bumps and send a chill up the spine. 18th Century Romantics weren't merely having a bit of fun with the occult or spooky. They were taking an intellectual stand against a clinically scientific, rational way of viewing and categorizing the world. Emotion, precisely because is was not rational, was embraced by these artists as a source and goal of the aesthetic experience. Endeavoring to elicit strong emotional responses to their works of art and literature, the Romantic Movement not only addressed melodramatic themes of love, yearning, loss and sentiment, but also themes including supernatural powers, and nature's power to evoke a mood, a sense of foreboding or wonder, or literally wreak havoc with a poisonous flower or its stormy turbulence. These aspects of nature would remain mysterious and out of our control, despite scientific advances in our knowledge and understanding of it. Today's compelling selections struck me as being modern-day expressions of similarly romantic themes. Click on the pictures to go directly to these listings. Prices range from $1.00 to $94.95
From top left to bottom right, today's featured artists include: ImagineStudio, judemcconkey, shelostit, magickmermaid, BillyCurrie, twistedsisterarts, lancerika, ara133photography

Romance Part I: Idealization on Etsy

Handpicked on Etsy
Romance is associated in common culture with love and idealization, though it actually imbues the arts in more complex philosphical and intellectual ways. In 18th Century Western Europe, scientific advances and the Industrial Revolution inspired a Romantic Movement in the arts, born as a protest against the environmental & socio-cultural impacts of mass production and the rationalization of nature. Naive folk art and handmade was embraced as 'noble,' and artistic themes included trepidation and awe associated with wildly untamed nature -- I'm saving those motifs for another day. Today, I focus on the sentimental side of romance. These selections from Etsy artisans include images of scenery portrayed in an idealized way, and handmade creations reflecting a nostalgia for Victorian Era style. Click on the pictures to go directly to these Etsy stores. Prices range from $12.00 to $1210.00
Today's featured artisans include, from top left to bottom right: dgordon, The7thMagpie, TravelingChariot, sarahseven, bonheur, garyhellerphotograph, starwillowstudio, ambersky

Fractal Geometry on Etsy

Handpicked on Etsy
A Fractal, known to mathematicians as The Mandelbrot Set, is very simply defined as an object that displays infinitely complex self-similarity at all scales. Mathematically inclined artists can use Benoit Mandelbrot's iterated equation, Z = Z2 + C, to generate digital fractal images, or freehand art influenced by the fascinating iteration and recursion of fractals.

Inspired by the recent fascinating Nova feature about fractal geometry, I became curious to see whether Etsy artists consciously use fractals as inspiration and was pleased to find a few to showcase in today's feature.
While fractal patterns are evidenced everywhere in nature, from fern fronds to jagged mountain ranges, it is another of those phenomena we are often oblivious of or take for granted, until either a mathematician or a skilled artist invites us to focus on the mesmerizing beauty of natural repetition. Click on the pictures to go directly to these Etsy listings. Prices from $6.00 to $200.00.
Today's Etsy artists include: Roo84, Fractalgirl, kellydietrich, infraliminil, HAzevedo, lunarcus, ArtisticallySpeaking, bibbidibaubles