Month of Love

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Sarah Gay-O'Neill - #nofilter Valentine

Quirky awkward Valentines are my favorite.

Much like love, sometimes you dive in with #nofilter.

Carly Janine Mazur - #nofilter Valentine

9" x 12" oil and acrylic on board

Breakups are a an unfortunate aspect of love. It can hurt, a lot, but eventually with time the pieces are put back together... perhaps with the help of someone new!

Amanda Atkins - NoFilter Valentine

In elementary school, I loved celebrating Valentine's Day. Everyone making their own mailbox and giving out tiny colorful envelopes with hearts and stickers inside is something that still thrills me today.

The way we first see love as children is my idea of unfiltered love. Valentine's Day is one of the first little celebrations of our understanding of love, and celebrating it at school paves the way for the belief that love is for everyone - our friends, our families, our community - and not just a significant other.

I am lucky enough to work in an elementary school and partake in this fun ritual. It's one of my favorite days of the school year. This picture of a happy city classroom was done in pen and watercolor.

Jason Cheeseman-Meyer -- NoFilter Valentine

A lot of the sound and fury of love is all about capturing a person. For a moment, for an evening, for a lifetime. But it's not the volume of the sound or the frenzy of the fury that determines success.

Tim Durning- #nofilter Valentine

I didn't put any filter on my ideas for this piece, so when I thought "valentine," I thought ooey-gooey-lovey-hearts-and-kisses and tried to go a little silly and sweet.

Craig Maher - #nofilter Valentine

The filter that never comes down is the privacy of someone's inner world. The beauty of intimacy is sharing so much, loving that sharing. But sometimes a stray look hints at that hidden place.

Lee Moyer - The #nofilter Valentine - Wednesday

Algernon: If you ever get married, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.

Jack: That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.

Algernon: Then your wife will. You don't seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Alice Stanne - #nofilter Valentine

I thought about the true meaning behind different gifts of Valentine's Day candies. So many of them seem so trivial and not particularly expressive of love at all. You know a guy is a keeper when he skips over the candy completely and buys you a whole cheesecake, now that is true love. This is definitely worth looking at bigger to catch some of the smaller text.

Daniel Fishel - #nofilter Valentine

When your completely enamored with someone, you tend to have tunnel vision and view everything in a lens viewing everything to be fine. Especially when you've been seeing someone for almost a year. It was a cold day in November when I rode my bike to south Philadelphia to see my girlfriend over breakfast. I waited on a bench in the cold until she came by before heading to the South Street dinner near her place. I was reading Philly Weekly as she was walking over and when I went in to give her a kiss she moved her head to the side. It was probably the most awkward morning and breakfast I would have with someone because I knew that this was the breakfast that would buffer for the break up. In a streak of good luck, I noticed as I was unlocking my bike that both of my tires were flat. I had to walk my bike a good twenty blocks home completely choked up. I even considered ditching the bike. Looking back in hind sight, I missed all of the signs of what making my "perfect relationship" with this beautiful intelligent women go wrong. We were becoming two different people with different ideologies of how to live and where we wanted to go. I was also moving to NYC and she was going to spend a half a year in Italy. What do you expect in your early 20's?

Lee Moyer - The #nofilter Valentine - Tuesday

For today's Month of Love entry, I asked my friends what they considered an overlooked part of what love means. What can I tell you? Their minds were in the sewer....

Monday, February 3, 2014

Tim Paul-#nofiltered Love

UPDATED!

Took longer than I thought!

Unfiltered Love! PDAs!

Richie Pope-The #nofilter Valentine

When the "honeymoon phase" wore off, it turned into something much deeper. I loved her so much that I wanted to share my entire world.

After a few years, we moved in together.

Lee Moyer - The #nofilter Valentine

For the better part of a year, I've been creating fun-loving series of Small Gods for the 21st century.
The goal is daily practice, using different techniques and covering a wide range of subjects.
When Kristina suggested a Month of Love, it sounded right up my street….

Elisabeth Alba - The #nofilter Valentine

Immediately what popped into my head was the idea of the anti-prince charming... that Beauty had to actually look past the terrifying/hideous exterior of the beast to find love... she actually got to know him first! This could also work with some versions of the princess and the frog. Sometimes love is not all about love at first sight or having to know first date that he or she is the one... I know it took me a few dates with my fiance to go from 'but I didn't want a boyfriend' to 'yup, want a boyfriend, this boyfriend.' (not that he's a terrifying hairy beast! well... actually...)

Also, did anyone else hate human-beast in Disney's version? I mean... why would you want to trade this for this??? Seriously...

Kevin Jay Stanton - The #nofilter Valentine

Valentine's Day for me isn't a whole lot different from other nights I spend with my boyfriend. Usually he cooks, maybe I cook, we watch a movie, sleep. There's one ritual though, which I think counts as celebrating V-Day: discount chocolate. February 15th is prime-pickings for leftover chocolate and the prices are cut deep. I barely eat chocolate normally, but I'm looking forward to this year's trek for CVS's slashed priced candy (my favorite are the scalloped ones)!