Is Paper Mache Art In fashion In style ?

I think my art may not be in fashion or in style with the art world of today but I think it may have some relevance to future generations. I do not try to be top designer artist or do what is trendy instead I do what makes me feel good. Paper mache from newspaper,  products cardboard boxing and packaging materials. Recycled wood, metal and tins cans may not be in fashion in the highest end art galleries but I am going to introduce to on their blog some paper artists that will astound you with the sophisticated way in which they use their materials. 

I like using nature's materials and industries castoffs and disposables. I like making art from what have become landfill. My hair is greying, my turn on earth will soon be up, I want to leave an impression that bridges the gap between generations. I want to shake the heavens for art's sake and leave a material trail of energy that may be of some good effect upon the quest of peace on earth.

Fairies and Faeries Come to My Open House

When I built this fairy house with my wife Debbie in 1993, I thought the fairies would find their way to our house and I still do. Maybe they have come when I'm asleep or maybe I can't see them. They are still welcome and at this Christmas time I declare to one and all faeries to come to the fairy house we have made for them.

It is not too late, fairies of the world, if you show your faces I could still will you the house. I grew up with stories of leprechauns and really would love to see the little folk. I think we all want to see little people, after all we all love babies and children so much. I thought to declare an open house at this time of year might bring them out.

It's a beautiful house. It doesn't have the look at all of contemporary art. It looks more like it was made by elves and faeries in the woods, like it could be a woodland house from an old fairy tale. That is the beauty of modern art, it does not have to look modern or stylish, it just needs to be original.

I am an American artist with European roots who thought he might become a famous artist he could make a beautiful and attractive enough house to lure the fairies, elves, gnomes ad dwarfs out of hiding. A hobbit or two would have been nice, there is room enough in the house.

I imagine I could have lived in a time when little people lived on the earth. I thought that by making architectural sculptures such as these made from nature would have a more primitive and naive feel to them which could coax them into taking up residence there. I know now they live in more hidden places and probably wouldn't leave their woodland comforts to visit my apartment. But all of you are invited to our open house. If you are going to be our area, drop me an email and we'll see that you get to see fairy house the faeries forgot to visit.

I would still love to see this house have a good home and want to make a whole village for the little people of our time. I think much of the art world misses the boat. What is needs is more original work that bridges the gap between our world, future worlds, and the civilizations that have lived on the earth before us. That is why I like showing and viewing online art, it is the best way for all of us to connect and create a more beautiful world together.

The last link here is of a movie we made together in another attempt to reach into the fairy tale realm. You can see more about the fairy house and the movie by following this link,
youtube link of Debbie showing Fairy House
Inside our art gallery showing many Fairy Houses

This is the link to our movie, more on that in the next post
http://www.enchantedtreehousemovie.com/

The King And Queen

I love this picture my wife Debbie painted a few years ago. We were taking care of my mom who was a painter too but was too ill to paint. So we would take our paintings and sculptures in to show her and get her critique. It was a good time for all of us, we loved each others company and the art works we produced during that time.

There is always something of a happy ending to all of Debbie's work. I love her ability to paint like a child and what may be dreams and fantasies to some are real to her. Her works are very spontaneous and carefree. She is a beautiful woman who loves life and beautiful things.

Thank you Debbie for making my life an open book full of beautiful art.

The name Debbie means busy bee, and that she is! And it is form she that I get my name, that is to be the bee for this busy bee.....that is to be debbie's... BeeBoy!

Check Out Her website and blog

htp://beautiful-art.blogspot

www.artmajeur.com/debieschramer

A new Boy Came Into The World Yesterday

Good Morning Everyone. Life is Beautiful. My Brother Dan's daughter Erin delivered a new baby boy yesterday, how's that for a new wrinkle. Their happiness begins. I love new babies, it has been awhile since I held one. I want to be a grandfather. I would try very hard to be like Heidi's grandfather. I will walk around very funny and talk in a very funny voice. And I will make toys and animals, plant gardens and build sandcastles. I will dance funny and make everyone happy to be together and we shall have hugs, lots and lots of hugs. We will look at flowers and bugs and butterflies together and be in a constant state of amazement. We will have tea parties and sculpting and painting days. Oh what fun it will be to be in the warm sunshine and walk with our birds and smell the food that is cooking in our house. You may still be in Heaven watching me write this but someday we will look back and see the plans we made for beautiful days.

www.michaelschramer.com

An Artist's Prayer

Who touches us when we pray? Have you ever felt a divines presence when praying? So often now when I close my eyes and offer up the sincere desires of my heart I feel so comforted. Art is so beautiful for me when I am working on it I feel taken to a peaceful place. The world has so many problems, my wish is that one day we can all(everyone in the world) stop long enough all work on art so that we could all calm down. How long would it take, three days a week, two weeks? I know for me I had to stop doing any other except to create and by the fourth or fifth day I found peace.
This bas relief was an attempt to show the beauty and comfort that comes to me when I am in prayer. I sculpted it in clay at first then poured plaster over it. Then made a punch mold into that in clay that was later fired. This one though I cast in aluminum at a workshop in sand casting. I love this work. Kimbal Sterling and his wife bought the original.

www.michaelschramer.com

The Story Behind This Sculpture

I like doing people like this. My sculptures become so real to me as I work on them. They speak tome in ways no other thing can. I guess in this way they are so very good for me. I spent many hours on my knees, at mass, in the catholic schools I attended, staring at the sculptures of the saints and the holy family. It was my favorite thing to do in chruch. I called this girl "Goddess in Embyro". I made her from styrafoam, wood, wire, paper mache and paper clay. I even used paper towels, which I braided and taped. I started her then put her down and worked on other things and kept coming back to her like an old friend. It hurt but I sent her to Kimball Sterlings folk art auction. I think I knew what I was doing without knowing it. I changed her name to Janis Joplin because I felt this girl I had had found her peace and Janis had not. Janis's songs had touched when I was younger but I felt that she had not fully blossomed they way she could have. I guess I was thinking about how she had been taken so young and I had lived to find my bliss. Well it turned out the buyers didn't know the whole story and I was fortunate they didn't buy her. I was also blessed because Kimball would not sell it way below the estimated value he gave it, so he protected me in a way and I was able to get her back. Was I happy, it was like getting your cat back after she has strayed for several days only he had her for over a year. I really love this little girl and it's ok with my wife Debbie, she is like the daughter we wanted but did not have. We have had so man lovely students like this over the years, they come and they go, I will post some of thier pictures soon.

Mike

www.michaelschramer.com

Driving Miss Daisy

Schramer Family History

This is a picture from the St. John's church in Winfield Illinois. Where the Schramers first lived aftr coming here from Germany. These are beautiful windows that were donated to the church by Schramer families. My trip to Illinois with my wife Debbie in April of 2004 to attend the Bishop Miniature Show in Chicago where we showed our art work gave us this opprotunity to visit theses places and feel the spirits of family members past. It was a great trip.

I just signed into rootsweb.com and hope to be creating a family tree of the surname Schramer.
I searched the messages boards there trying tohelp my wife find information on the brausewetter name and found people wanting to know more about the schramer name. I found one person there having alot of information and will be contacting her. I have alot of information and thought, If I post my family tree it might help someone.

Some of what I have is mostly the John Schramer born 1796 came to Winfield Illinois in 1857 from Irrel Prussia. I have since seen records from 1500's in Austria, and a Mountain in Austria called Schramer Hohe. Many of the people who contributed to my collection have passed on now I feel a great debt to them and want to see all of the information I have gathered organized into clealy visible lines for all the sc hramer and relitives to see.

There will be a link from there to here.

www.michaelschramer.com

Mike

The Man With All The Answers, a Will Rogers Parody.

I started out wanting to do a self portrait and it is for the most part. I made an adhesive cast of my face and attached that to a styrafoam head. I didn't want it to be all that realistic because that would be unrealistic, afterall I don't view the world that way, I see only the end of my nose and my hands mostly. So I did not look in a mirror. I had a basic impression of my cheeks, nose, mouth and forhead and oh yes, my eyes which were closed; now what I wanted was the artistic me to come out, the one that is me not the one that I see. Since the sculpture can transfer feelings to me and me to it, I gave him the blonde curly hair I would have liked. In some ways his little smirk and hair remind me of my uncle Jerry.
I made this man in the garage while listening to the musings of my mind and the music of Cindy Lauper, Billy Joel and Andre Boccelli. Now days I listen to John Mayer's Continuum and the sound track from "Finding Neverland". During the work, I would show my mother, who would say "Oh my God, Michael, I don't know about him", and I'd beam back and say "he's my little buddy" and she would laugh and it made us both feel good. When I finished the painting this man I drove with my wife and mom over to my brother Danny's house to see him and his wife Cathy. Dan would always come out to help mom walk up to the house and he leaped two feet that day when later he went back out to the car and saw this man sitting in the back seat of our car, he thought he was real. Scared him good he laughed and laughed, we all had a good laugh.
I envisioned this man as a sort of a wry spokesman who shared his observations on the quandries of our life and times. On the bottom of this unusual sculpture, I wrote these comments: Why is it that we get to vote on only the presidential candidate and his running mate and not his whole cabinet? Afterall, it's like buying a baseball team with only the pitcher and the catcher and then the rest of the team is just thrown in there after the deal is done. Secondly, why were Martha Stewart and her ex-boyfreind the only two found guilty in their case? Someone in the securities departmant leaked information or why would they have been so hasty to sell their stock? The securities department is supposed to protect people like Martha and Sam by not letting out the results so they will not be tempted to do anything wrong. What you do not know cannot tempt you. Someone leaked information about the results of the food and drug administration's testing.

I am trying to find out where this "Will Rogers-like" man is? If you know or have seen this sculpture, please contact me. I miss this work very much and just want to know who owns it. I made it in 2002 and 2003 and he was sold at the Steve Slotin Folk Art Auction in 2003. I also sold two sculptures that were called "The Walkers" and two paintings called "Rowanda Man" and "Rowanda Woman" (that can actually be seen on my website). I would like to know the whereabouts of those works as well. It is just nice to know, as an artist, who has collected your work.
Mostly, I want them to know who has This Man With All The Answers? I can never get the walkers back because that what they do, walk away but this man means so much more to me now that our mother is no longer with us. To whoever owns it, I would like to buy him back if they are interested and make them another one.

Mike The Sculptor
www.michaelschramer.com

Self-Teaching Artist

The little chair pictured above is the kind of art I produced in 1987. I would say that I am a self taught artist but that would sound like I'm all done and indeed I am not finished creating my art nor will I ever will be. Neither do I want to write pejoratively about formal training. Actually I had three college classes and a metals casting class at the Crucible in Berklely. My first two classes since high school were in 1987. I enrolled in two art classes, one in drawing and one in design, where I was taught somewhat to mitigate my hibernating art desires into useful expressions. The third class, some 10 years later, was in scuplture; by then the younger students in the class were calling me "the already accomplished one", "the Picasso", "the new Giocometti". My experience in school was transitory but my desire to make art was ample, so I took to teaching myself. I was zealous and determined so the work came fluidly. I am still teaching myself and improving, although I lament at not being able to the have the freshness and naiveity with which I began. The desire to create was the sustaining confidence that infused my work with burgeoning and poignant experiences. I felt replete, I could now approach my work with frankness and facetiousness.

To play, to humor myself, to reach the boundaries of my creativity and push them out; this gives me joy.

I do not mind selling my work if I can have a good conversation with the buyer and we can understand something about life together. I like to know who has my artwork in case I should like to visit them again.

I welcome your engaging comments.

Michael Schramer