Turquoise Jewelry Shares Preservation Techniques

Turquoise has been used to create some of the finest jewelry throughout the history of mankind. Over centuries, the precious stone has worn by everyone from Egyptian royal, iconic Native American heroes and the stars of the stage and screen today.

Keeping the stone as sterling as the day it was obtained can be challenging for some, but Turquoise Jewelry is offering post-holiday tips to ensure new pieces remain radiant for generations to come.

“Sterling silver turquoise jewelry was an extremely hot item during the gift-giving season,” said Turquoise Jewelry spokeswoman Marlene Fribley. “Those who were fortunate enough to receive it from a friend or loved one may now be wondering how to care for their new piece. We assure you that you won’t find any better preservation tips and techniques anywhere on the web.”

While traditional pieces were mainly the rage, blue turquoise jewelry was also flying off the shelves in retail shops and online outlets.

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To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.

Art of Glass Recycling

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Stephanie Matthews shakes her head when she thinks of the expensive art institute she attended after high school.

"If I known I would be as happy and sell as much playing with trash right out of high school, think of the money my parents would have saved," said the Dunbar resident.

The "trash" Matthews refers to is the glass bottles she repurposes into glassware.

"It thrills me to take an old ugly bottle and make something that's pretty," she said.

Even more appealing is that the item is usually something functional -- tumblers, candleholders, light fixtures, clocks, napkin ring holders, trays and vases.

"I had about 175 items on my Etsy site at one time. This time last year, four or five packages a day were going out the door," she said.

In August, Matthews, 46, moved from Florida back to West Virginia after nearly 25 years away. She moved in with father, Steve Matthews, and converted a three-bay garage behind his Myers Avenue house into her studio.

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To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.

To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.

Portrait of the Fascinating Vincent Van Gogh

Self-Portrait, 1889, by Vincent van Gogh (Norton Simon Museum / 
December 23, 2012)

What is it, exactly, about Van Gogh?

For those of us with a vested interest in contemporary art, who spend much of our time immersed in the work of artists most Americans have never heard of, it is an important question to ponder from time to time — one that the Norton Simon Museum's temporary installation of an 1889 self-portrait on loan from the National Gallery of Art calls again to the fore.

There is no more familiar face in all of modern art history: the piercing blue eyes; the gaunt, sallow features; the imagined spectacle of a severed ear (turned discretely away from the viewer in this, as in most, variations); all swimming in a sea of madly quivering brush strokes.

If you've never seen Van Gogh's visage in one of the dozens of self-portraits he painted in his lifetime, you've seen it on postcards, calendars, coffee cups or refrigerator magnets. The National Gallery portrait, painted three months after Van Gogh committed himself to a mental asylum in Saint-Remy, in the south of France, and less than a year before his death at age 37, is one of the best known, and its front-and-center presentation here is sure to draw the requisite crowd.

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To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.

Oil Painting Travels From South Africa to Utah

MAPLETON -- Steven Lee Adams will soon be receiving a large crate at his studio in Mapleton containing a painting he loaned to the U.S. ambassador to South Africa three years ago. His painting has been hanging in the embassy there as part of the Art in Embassies Program.

In an excerpt from a letter sent to Adams by Ambassador Donald Gips, he thanked the artist and wrote, "As I conclude my tenure as U.S. ambassador to South Africa, I want to thank you for the beautiful artwork you so generously lent to my wife, Liz, and I to display in our residence. Your piece, 'Winter Evening' was a gorgeous addition to our home and we have received countless compliments on it. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Art in Embassies program, an important tool for U.S. diplomacy. As Secretary Clinton said, art provides us 'with another language of diplomacy, one that evokes our universal aspirations as human beings, our common challenges and our responsibilities for thinking through and addressing the problems that we face together.' I am honored that we were able to showcase your work to the scores of South African, American and other international visitors we have hosted over the last three years."

President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, started the AIEP in 1964 by. The program places more than 5,000 works of art on loan in 170 U.S. embassies around the world.

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To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.

Tiffany & Co. Harvests Undersea Jewelry

If any readers out there want to spoil the ladies of DSN with some diamonds, we will gladly accept any of these lovely pieces from Tiffany & Co. (my favourite shop, of course). I just stumbled upon this fabulous collection designed by Jean Schlumberger, who presents a delicious array of jeweled ocean creatures.

For a cool $125,000, you could be the belle of your next scientific conference ball, strutting in with this gorgeous “Jellyfish clip” attached to your LBD or BCD. Who wouldn’t want to be dripping in 2.97 carats of diamonds?



If shapeless invertebrates aren’t your thing, consider splurging on this “Two-fish clip” ($105,000), featuring 19th-century-inspired paillonné enamel fins:



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To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.

Cast-glass Sculptures: Novato's Boyadjiev's Journey to Freedom

IT IS NO SURPRISE that Latchezar Boyadjiev's artworks have names like "Freedom," "Breakthrough" and "Passage."

They aren't just words to the Novato artist.

"My story is freedom. Freedom to do anything you want to do in your life," says Boyadjiev, whose journey to the Bay Area in 1986 included an escape from communist Bulgaria and months in an overcrowded refugee camp before being granted political asylum here. 

That drive for personal and creative freedom is reflected in the emotional energy, sensuous lines and outrageously vibrant colors of his contemporary cast-glass sculptures, one of which is included in "Playing with Fire: Artists of the California Studio Glass Movement," an exhibit of works by 22 artists at the Oakland Museum of California through March 13.

It's one of numerous events that museums and galleries across the country are staging to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the studio glass movement.

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To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Merry New Flying Spaghetti Monster Day! "The 2012 Film & Script Awards" are now up on Love Unlimited Film Festival & Art Exhibition website!

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Merry New Flying Spaghetti Monster Day!

"The 2012 Film & Script Awards" are now up on Love Unlimited Film Festival & Art Exhibition website!  With Wonderful Holiday Background Music by Michael Bublé in the above video in a song titled: "Grown Up Christmas List" as we provide our list of award winners at the below link.

http://bit.ly/2012LoveUnlimitedFilmAndScriptAwardWinners

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays and Merry Happy New Flying Spaghetti Monster Day! "The 2012 Film & Script Awards" are up on Love Unlimited Film Festival & Art Exhibition website! Background Music by Michael Bublé - Grown Up Christmas List.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays and Merry Happy New Flying Spaghetti Monster Day!

"The 2012 Film & Script Awards" are now up on Love Unlimited Film Festival & Art Exhibition website!  With Wonderful Holiday Background Music by Michael Bublé in the above video in a song titled: "Grown Up Christmas List" as we provide our list of award winners at the below link.

http://bit.ly/2012LoveUnlimitedFilmAndScriptAwardWinners

Happy Holidays to All of You

To learn more about an amazing fine art exhibition, please visit Love Unlimited Film Festival and Art Exhibition.