For Inspiration - Anna Emilia Laitinen

Doing all of this project work and requiring a little break, I must confess my feet are getting a little itchy and my heart a little sore. The paintings of Anna Emilia Laitinen are sending me crazy for my dreamland, Finland.



In a visual sense, Anna Emilia's paintings embody everything I love about Finland: the forests, lakes, the architecture of houses and how everything is so close to nature. Anna cites that "the weather gives colour to my paintings" and you can see that each piece has a theme that draws on the icy, blustery winds of autumn, blankets of snow from winter and the brighter hues from springs and summer. Her works with florals are nothing short of exquisite and combine technical composition with an immense amount of detail and a well composed colour palette to create wonderful representations of Nordic nature.

Be sure to take a look at Anna Emilia's Weather Diary where she writes beautifully poetic posts of her thoughts, ideas, works in progress, and of course, so many wonderful photographs of her beautiful homeland.

For Inspiration - Stella Vine

Stella Vine has been my favourite artist for about 5 years now, but as a textile design student it was never really going to be relevant or complimentary to my own style. So this year I decided to take a module in Contemporary Art where I'd be able to practise writing critically from both a theoretical and aesthetical viewpoint, partly for fun, partly in preparation for my dissertation. I've looked at comparing the visual and personal elements of Stella Vine's work to the feminist theories behind the work of Bulgarian/French philosopher Julia Kristeva, relating all possible perceptions to the idea of the alien woman for it is without choice that both women in their own industries are feminists.

“It was perhaps also necessary to be a woman to attempt to take up the exorbitant wager of carrying the rationalist project to the outer borders of the signifying venture of men”
Julia Kristeva Writing in such an academic manner is something that is very new to me, so I'll let you know how I get on, but for now I hope you enjoy my favourite pieces of Stella Vine's work, most of them are available for you to view in all their high resolution glory at Stella's tumblr here.