They can’t shoot a moving target
There are many gals named Shirley – the influence of Shirley Temple. However, I’m glad my mom named me after a song where the lyrics include, “Oh June” and that rhymes so sweetly with tune. Now let’s talk about Shirley MacLaine Beaty. She’s a film, television and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author. I’m sure most of you reading this have enjoyed her work in the movies, on television and in the theater. Shirley MacLaine’s father, Ira Beaty, was a professor of psychology, public school administrator and real estate agent. Now here’s where much of this lady’s talent came from. Her mother was a drama teacher. Now who can write about Shirley MacLaine without thinking of her handsome brother, Warren Beaty. To get back to his sister, where did Shirley’s talent start? Well, her mother decided to enroll her in ballet class at the age of three and that’s when her interest in performing blossomed. After ballet, she moved on to other forms of dancing, acting and musical theater. In high school, she was on the cheering squad and acted in school theatrical productions. From 1980 to the present, the lady garnered many best actress awards. She was married and divorced, and she and her ex-husband have a daughter. She has an interest in spirituality and reincarnation. She’s written a series of autobiographical works that describe these beliefs. MacLaine has claimed that in a previous life she was the brother to a 35,000 year old spirit (chaque un a son goute). “I don’t want older folks to be invisible.” How can she be?She made six movies in the past three years. They can’t shoot a moving target.
It started as a hobby
CJ Hendry says she is around thirty-one years old. If you’re wondering what the CJ stands for, it stands for Catherine Jenna (I like those two names better than CJ). Hendry was born in South Africa and raised in Brisbane, Australia. She found it hard to choose from her many choices. She studied architecture before dropping out to pursue an art career. Hendry lived and practiced in Brisbane prior to moving to New York. Her practice started as a hobby. She had no formal art training and considers herself “not very creative.” Her works are primarily hyper-realistic, large scale ink drawings of luxury objects that sometimes take 200 hours to complete. This is something I found humorous. She works with ink on paper and her pieces are achieved through layers of what she refers to as scribbles. Wait until you learn how much this lady is getting for her scribbles. She uses photographs with edited saturated lighting, a ruler and a pen as a guide to their placement. Hendry credits her fame to social media, attributing her first sale in 2014. It is a depiction of boots that sold for $10,000. Then she expanded her practice with a launch of a collaboration with a fashion house. The resulting exhibition marks Hendry’s first time working with color and wax pencils. The difference, the artist explained, is that “color is very difficult because you’ve got to use different colors to create one.” Currently, she sells her drawings for tens of thousands of dollars each. Pretty good for an artist only 31 years old. She is catching the eye of everyone from Kanye West to Vogue. Coming to New York turned out to be the right place for CJ Hendry. Her pen and pencil sketches are so meticulously detailed they look like they were photographed. At 31, she is what you might call an Instagram artist – someone who started out and thrived. You won’t find her collection in a gallery. Instead, she hosts her own exhibitions and sells out her work. We’re so lucky that when she grew up, she turned to art.
