Mitchell Grafton Fantasy Sculpture

Mitchell Grafton is a ceramic artist based in Panama City, Florida. At 19, he began his seven year apprenticeship with Bruce Odell of Odell Pottery based in Panama City. He designed lamp bases for Hart & Associates, an interior design manufacturing company. All the while he was going to a Louisiana technical college for a degree in architecture. After graduation Grafton and a partner started Round Tree Pottery selling wholesale pottery. In 2009, after nine years with Round Tree, he went solo and started Grafton Pottery in Panama City. (Ego-AlterEgo).

Grafton creates whimsical pottery inspired by fairy tales that often take on the forms of animals. The cups, pots, and vases take on human qualities as they enchant the viewer. He specializes in face jugs and ceramic art where his pottery is more art than practical dishware. (Young). In 1991, he won the Pottery Olympics just like his mentor Bruce Odell. His whimsical designs include a preacher vase with a bible and a snake. With a nod to classical movies he crafted a King Kong vase complete with the airplane trapped in the teeth. Also, we have an image of one of his Face mugs. He does take commissions via BlogSpot and Facebook. (Cherrybomb).

Mitchell Grafton, Sculpture

Mitchell Grafton Creates Fairy Tale-Like Jugs, Vases and Cups

Animals Armed With Guns & Snake Oil Salesmen: The Confrontational Ceramics of Mitchell Grafton

Grafton Pottery - Facebook

Grafton Pottery - Blogspot

Sara Erenthal a runaway artist

At 17, in America, Sara Erenthal ran away from her Orthodox Jewish parents to avoid an arranged marriage. She went to Israel to live with family on a kibbutz. She battled her sense of shame as she learned to trust herself, fend for herself, and most important love herself. In her travails she grew up and eventually became a street artist.

Years later, she eventually came back to America to live in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She is a self taught artist who reclaims lost objects left on the street. She transforms these castaways into folk art and leaves it where she found it for someone to reclaim. “When I walk around, wherever I happen to be, and I see something in [a] trash pile outside, like a piece of furniture or a mattress, I like to draw on it and leave it there for people to enjoy. And often, actually, people grab it,’ she said.” (McLogan). Much of her art ends up being reclaimed by its former owners who saw new worth in their old castaways.

She began doing performance art where she stands on a stage in front of strangers and begins telling her story as she strips naked. “Erenthal began to unbraid her hair while the voiceover described her flight from the community, her loneliness, her first time putting on pants. She began to disrobe as she described her first pair of jeans, her difficulty finding her own sense of style, the difficulty of letting skin show for the first time, or letting people touch her body.” (Ungar-Sargon). She found it hard to be naked, physically and emotionally, as she told her life’s story.

On her website, Sara Erenthal, she posted some of her more memorable art. The captions she adds to the street art embellish the everyday objects. One such object is a board where she sketched and wrote: My Art Is..My Healing.” (saraerenthal.com). “Art operates as a kind of therapy for her. ‘Every time I make a piece I'm kind of letting go of something,’ she said.” (Ungar-Sargon). When Sara lets go of her art she is encouraging others accept her emotional release as a gift to others.

Sara Erenthal’s Backstory: NYC Street Artist Makes Art Out Of Trash 

Sara Erenthal's Journey From Ultra-Orthodox Jew to Nude Model and Artist 

Sara Erenthal 

‘Bondage to Freedom’ By: Sara Erenthal 

Jim Carrey After 6 Years

 Jim Carrey acted and sketched since his childhood and for the last six years he painted as a healing process. “For the last six years, he has thrown himself into painting, working so prolifically that some might mistake his home for a museum.” (Cascone). He felt his painting, sketching and sculpture work took over and he became a tool of this creative process. He created the most colorful and at times, outrageous, artwork. By contrast his work was trashed by Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones.

He kept a low profile until he started having a series of art shows. “Carrey kept his artistic compulsion secret until he felt the need to reveal it in the video I Needed Color released by Signature.” (Cascone). I Needed Color first came out in July 2017 and has over five million hits. It can be viewed on Vimeo at the link provided. His work includes sculpture like Ayla, which is life-sized as well as smaller works.

His most controversial work involves political satire especially aimed at President Donald Trump whom he detests. “It's not the first time this year that Carrey has expressed his anger toward the nation's problems, and he usually sums up his angst in the form of original artwork.” (Clark). His anti-Trump artwork depicts Trump in the most unflattering roles possible. Although pro-Democrat he even took a swipe at Congressman Adam Schiff for not being able to stand up to President Trump. He dislikes Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook, depicting it as Fakebook. Carrey himself described his art in the above video as “You can tell my inner life by the darkness in some of them and you can tell what I want from the brightness in some of them.” (Russian). His visual art may surpass his movie work in the years to come. 

Jim Carrey Reveals His Impressive Art Talents in New Mini Documentary: See His Vibrant Paintings

Jim Carrey Spent the Last Six Years Painting. Now, See What the Actor-Turned-Artist Has Created. 

Actor Jim Carrey has emerged as an unlikely political artist and activist — and has attracted over 17 million Twitter followers 

Jim Carrey: I Needed Color 

David Huggins as Painter of Extraterrestrials

David Huggins is a painter living in Hoboken, New Jersey as well as a graduate of the Art Students League of New York City. He claims to have met extraterrestrials when he was eight years old and continues to have encounters with them to this day. He even stated he had sex with a female alien when he was seventeen and future sexual encounters even brought forth human hybrid children. ”Condemnation without investigation is its own form of insanity. I’m writing this piece not to give the impression that I know David is telling the truth, because I don’t know; I’m on the fence about all of this. I celebrate the world of ideas no matter how far out some of them may seem.” (Armpriester). Now there’s Abrahams who did a movie based on Huggins’ experiences.

Movie producer Brad Abrahams did a documentary on Huggins called Love and Saucers (2017) that tells his story of how he meet these extraterrestrials and the sex he had with one of them called Crescent. In the movie Abrahams tells how Huggins started painting his other worldly visitations. “He said it was a release. He was able to sleep for the first time in weeks. And since then, he has painted every single detail of every encounter. A hundred-something paintings. It is art therapy. I don’t know if that’s how David would describe it, but that was a big part of what I wanted to show, too.” (Weisenstein).  In the movie we have Professor Kripal describing the experiences people like Huggins have.

Professor of philosophy and religion, Jeffrey Kripal studied erotic mysticism and eventually abduction literature. Kripal said he believes Huggins’ accounts of alien abductions. “He [Kripal] says the mix of terror and euphoria Huggins describes lines up with age-old descriptions of humans encountering the sacred.” (Weisenstein). Kripal states how religious experiences of supernatural beings descending from the heavens reads like science fiction in today’s secular world.

The experiences Huggins underwent are common to tens of thousands of people on Earth. “One common theme seems to be an alien/human hybridization program. Others report being forced to breed with human-like extraterrestrials.” (Delarme). In the case of David Huggins who painted over a hundred paintings of his encounters. His paintings are published in the book Love in an Alien Purgatory – The Life and Fantastic Art of David Huggins by Farah Yurdozn (2009). Fascinating artwork as you can see here regardless if you believe his story or not.

This Guy Paints the Sex He Allegedly Has with Aliens

David Huggins – an uncommon life 

74 Year Old Describes & Paints His Encounters With Extraterrestirals Since Childhood 

Love in an Alien Purgatory: The Life and Fantastic Art of David Huggins by Farah Yurdozu 

Love and Saucers 

LaVon Van Williams- Sculptor of low-relief carvings

“the freedom of woodworking was refreshing to Williams even as the craftwork involved still called on the hard work and attention to detail” Karin Borei 

LaVon Van Williams became a wood sculptor by learning to carve with a chainsaw followed by refinement with a mallet and chisel. “He adopted the distinct African-inspired carved sculpture tradition of the Carolina coastal Gullah/Geechee people to find his voice.” (Borei). He is an urban folk artist drawing his inspiration from jazz and blues. He originally went to an art school in California where a professor, “insisting black artists have no future in the art world,” Williams went home and turned his back on the established art paradigm. (Jeanine Taylor).

LaVon’s older brother Dave had learned carving from their Uncle Luke who in turn taught his younger brother the craft. Much of his work depicts people playing jazz instruments or engaging in emotional activities, Williams states, “You’re looking for a fantastic movement or a fantastic shape that comes in the piece, and that’s the whole power of the piece. You want it to explode out when the viewer sees it, or you want it to be calm, but yet you still want a powerful presence in the piece, so that it dominates or takes off.” (Black Cultural Center Virtual Museum). This family tradition has born some emotive wood carvings such as evidenced by LaVon’s Five O’ Clock Jump, which is a tribute to Count Basie a jazz musician. 

LaVon Van Williams Jr (born 1958)   

Jeanine Taylor Folk Art 

LaVon Van Williams  

Jeanine Taylor Folk Art, FL