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Posted by libby

We're traveling today. Miss Ava's going to be at the wheel and Chelsea, here we come. Back at you on the weekend.

permanent link   libby 8:30 AM
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Posted by roberta

simpson, vollis
Post by Rob Matthews

Vollis Simpson [creator of the Giant Whirligig at the Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. See previous post.] lives in my parents' town, Wilson, NC. The field of Whirlygigs is there. It was initially set up because someone, I think a relative of Simpson's, had died at a sharp turn on a country road in an accident. He started building the Whirlygigs there to get people's attention at night because there are reflectors all over the thing. I don't know if that's true or not but that's the story in Wilson. Anyway, it's a massive thing. My aunt drove me out to it when I was about 15 years old. She drove me out there at night with no warning about what I was going to see. Scared the crap out of me when we finally got there and the headlights hit it. Next time I'm in Wilson, which should be in August, I'll try and snap some photos for you.
Here and here are some links I found with more on Simpson. (image is detail of the Baltimore Whirlygig. Note Simpson's name, left, on the piece.)

--Rob Matthews is a Philadelphia artist and regular contributor to artblog. His show "The Assumption" at Gallery Joe closes tomorrow.
matthews, rob

permanent link   roberta 6:48 AM
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Posted by libby

For a terrific array of Los Angeles-based (mostly) graffiti artists, check out the show at Union 237. Scion--the car (the corporate sponsor of this traveling show) gave a bunch of street artists 3 x 8 foot wood panels this year. Last year they gave them actual vehicles! (right, installation shot of "Installation")
choe, david
The work is a little uneven--after all, the scale is small for guys used to painting entire walls--but there are some terrific pieces in the mix and a lot of high energy. This piece is by David Choe. Other notable pieces included work by Eyeone, Saber, Swank, Blaine Fontan, Buff Monster, Freddi C, and Kofie.

permanent link   libby 5:09 PM
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Posted by libby

Twins Seven Seven, the Nigerian-born artist who now lives in Philadelphia, has been named the 2005 UNESCO Artist of Peace.
seven seven, twins
Seven Seven, who has been showing work at Indigo Arts Gallery for a more than a decade and also had some work in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's "African Art, African Voices" show, will receive the award from UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura at a ceremony in Paris on May 25. The ceremony will be attended by His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Chairperson of the African Union. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Wangari Maathai (2004) will also be receiving a UNESCO award at the ceremony.

Seven Seven is being honored partly for his promotion of dialogue between cultures as well as for his career as a painter, teacher and musician. Seven Seven was one of the original artists of the famed Oshogbo School (named for the city of that name), which arose in the newly independent Nigeria of the early 1960s. His work is now in museums and private collections around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution.

Seven Seven has lived and worked in the Philadelphia area for much of the last decade. You can see more of his work and some info about him here on the Indigo gallery site.

permanent link   libby 4:23 PM
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Posted by libby

Sorry, but my computer was in pieces until a few minutes ago. And I'm not confident yet that it will serve me. It feels like it's struggling (I put in a new cd burner and it's making a lot of noise and I haven't yet tested it because I wanted to post some things first.)
frattare, megan
After looking at a bunch of academic figure studies, the University of the Arts Crafts Senior Exhibit at Nexus was downright refreshing.


First I fell for a spring-green set of crocheted booties and hat and video, "Brooklyn's Dream: Pretty Pretty Pitbull" by Megan Frattare. The clothes were for a pitbull. The video was of the pitbull frolicking, sometimes dressed, sometimes bare. With the little cap on, the dog looked like one of Bo-Peep's sheep. This piece is the art equivalent of a David Letterman Show Silly Dog Trick. Who knew a pitbull could be such a sweetie! Pretty pretty original and goofy (top image, the outfit, and right, a video still of the little bo-pitbull).
shatkin, lydia sydney

Then I spied a line-up of cast concrete television facades on the floor, some big, some small (no plasma screens or other supersized wonders), some tinted. "Mute," by Lydia Sydney Shatkin was fulfilling a fantasy for me. And in concrete, no less. Let's sink the lot of them in the Schuylkill and get real lives (left, the silent screens).
lenker, nicholas
Close by were Nicholas Lenker's clay sculptures of holiday spirits. Lenker, according to his statement, was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, so ordinary holidays were forbidden--and mysterious--to him. Here's "The Birth of Easter" (right), an imagining of how such a holiday could come to be, and also an imagining of wildness and fertility. He also had some armless gryphon-headed "people" in stripes called "April Fools." All his pieces had a Medieval affect, sort of like court jesters and celebrations gone wild--religion mixed with pagan rituals.
quave, elaine
And Elaine Quave's "Analyzation Process" (left), inspired by watching as someone died, is a sort of contour map of what it means to be alive--and not. The skin tones and skin patterns coat what are essentially small blocks of clay of varying heights, arrayed like the buildings of a city in model scale. But the prone figure looks to be about the real size of a real person. I was reminded of Tim Hawkinson's and Antony Gormly's taking their own measure in stratified sculptures, but the intent here seems to go to the magic and scariness of what it means to be alive.

The show also included the work of 36 students, and besides sculpture, there was plenty of crafts--some swell jewelry, dresses, pottery and other well things.

permanent link   libby 4:09 PM
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Posted by roberta

urban, jason
Post from Jason Urban


Hello Libby and Roberta,

AVAM is defintely the flagship of the Baltimore art scene but there are quite a few other spots worth investigation should you get back down there. School 33, the Creative Alliance, Area 405, Chela (which may or may not still be around), and Spare Room are all worth a visit depending on the month. And there are quite a few DIY-type spaces. In the year I lived there (before moving to Philly) I found it to be a very open and friendly city to work in... very supportive and there's alot of character. The residents pride themselves in eccentricity- the John Waters Factor. But I guess artblog can only cover so many towns, right? (image is Urban's painting "George Reeves Memorial")

[ed.note: sad but true, Jason artblog only stretches so far. But we hope others will check out your suggestions and report back.]

--Jason Urban is a Philadelphia artist whose work was shown at the late Spartaco Gallery. Read Libby's post for more on that show. You can see his painting in the juried "Young Art Alliance" show at Philadelphia Art Alliance. Brian Wallace of the Galleries at Moore College put the show together.

permanent link   roberta 2:58 PM
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Posted by roberta

saunders, wade
Post by Sid Sachs

[ed. note: this post responds to my post about Wade Saunders' exhibit "Domestic Life" at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery.]

Dear Roberta,
I should add that Wade Saunders made all the works at UArts with the assistance of Tony Darnell. Without Darnell's technical skill and input, it would have taken Wade a lot longer to produce the work. Tony is acknowledged as such in the brochure from the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery. (image is installation shot from Saunders' exhibit "Domestic Life.")

--Sid Sachs is Director of the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at University of the Arts and a regular contributor to artblog.

permanent link   roberta 1:32 PM
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Posted by roberta

cardiff, janet and miller, george bures
Tonight's the opening of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's "Pandemonium" at Eastern State Penitentiary, the penal relic from 1829 that has now become host to some great art. (pictured are Miller and Cardiff at this morning's press preview. Miller's been in Philadelphia for six weeks working on the 14-minute live percussive audio piece.)

Installations by local artists also opening tonight at ESP include works by Linda Brenner, Nick Cassway, Dayton Castleman, Michael Grothusen, Alexa Hoyer, Matthew and Jonathan Stemler, Tricia Stuth and Ted Shelton and Judith Taylor.

Reception's from 5 pm-7 pm. Free and open to the public.

permanent link   roberta 1:28 PM
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Posted by roberta

barry, mark
[ed. note: this post follows up on Libby's post about our trip to Baltimore to see the American Visionary Art Museum.]

When we got out of the car in Baltimore at AVAM, Libby and I found out that Baltimore is the city of brotherly hugs. Our host, Mark Barry, warned us about it when he greeted us with a hug. Every time thereafter when a hug came our way -- and they kept coming as introductions were made inside AVAM, he looked over and said “See.” (top image is a couple of the Baltimore huggers, Mark Barry, AVAM board member, artist and blogger, r, and Rebecca Hoffberger, Founder and Director of AVAM, l. The two are standing in one of AVAM's six gallery spaces)
simpson, vollis
Even without the hugs the day trip would have been a high.

“I’m interested in fresh thought,” Hoffberger said to me when I asked her how she got interested in folk art. She had bristled at my use of the term “folk art.” She doesn’t like the term at all and prefers visionary.

In my press kit was a page defining visionary art. It explains the difference between “folk art” and visionary art and made me understand Hoffberger’s distinction.

Quoting:

“Although there is a kinship with folk art, in that both tend to be made by everyday ‘folk” or people, we define folk art as art-making traditions that are learned at the knee, or by familiarization with an art tradition of a specific ethnic or geographic group (i.e., Amish quiltmakers, Hopi Kachina dolls, even colonial portraiture)....Visionary artists are self-taught, intuitive people who find their own way into the making of art in an intensely personal way. Visionary art dances on the edge.” (image is movie star, Divine, a Baltimorian and maybe possibly not a hugger, memorialized as a statue at AVAM.)
The Rouse Center

Hoffberger went on to say visionary thought could be a new melody, a scientific advance, or even social policy. One of the AVAM outbuildings, (there are three altogether laid out on a kind of campus), the James Rouse Visionary Center which opened in 2004, is dedicated to the late local developer whom Hoffberger considers a social visionary. (The Center, which includes classrooms, a sculpture hall and banquet rooms, was completed with a grant from the Jim and Patty Rouse Foundation, a 2004 Baltimore Sun article says).s, david

(image is "Fifi" the kinetic racing poodle and a car covered in Bromo Seltzer bottles inside the Rouse Center. Below is Fifi's close up shot.)

Rouse, known for the planned community of Columbia, MD, apparently was an open-minded businessman whose humane vision, among other things, allowed him to cancel a new development he was planning after he learned that the site was the last mating grounds for the American woodcock. He apparently stayed up all night at the site with a biologist friend watching the birds' mating dance and was transported in this thinking. More on Rouse here.


The Rouse Center, one of two barn-like red brick buildings next to AVAM, houses classrooms and banquet facilities upstairs and downstairs and the “Visionary Village” which includes “Fifi” and other large kinetic sculptures from the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race (sponsored by AVAM and now in its third year, I believe -- See AVAM's website for pictures). (image is the Rouse Center in the background and another equally huge red brick building used by AVAM for parties and for large sculptures.)


The AVAM campus includes a wildflower garden, a hand-carved wedding chapel which you can see peeking up in the lower right side of the picture above. Barry said the wood was from his backyard and that he helped gather it.

Everything at AVAM has a touch of Baltimore in it. This is one of the things I loved about the museum. It seems completely enamored of Baltimore lore and people. Thus, the large “Bromo Seltzer” car -- encrusted with the famous blue glass bottles, refers to Baltimore's lineage as the town where Bromo Seltzer was made, Barry told me. (image above is a closeup of the Bird's Nest by David Hess on the Rouse Center, left is a closeup of the Bromo car.)

Another Baltimore idiosyncracy is the painted window screen, and the Rouse Center contains a re-creation of Baltimore row houses with stoops and painted screens. (below)

The tradition of painting screens that goes back to 1913 when a grocer, William Oktaver painted a scrren for his corner store and started a hot trend. For more info, contact the Painted Screen Society at paintedscreens@verizon.net. The Society has posters of the screens ($10) and a videoDVD on how to DIY ($25).



And for those who love push-button exhibits of motorized gizmos, there’s the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre (CMT), (pictured) a group of small-scale kinetic sculptures with wings that flap, people whose heads get lopped off, and all manner of Rube Goldbergian delights. CMT began in England and was at Covent Garden once upon a time. The CMT will be in residence at AVAM until December 2006.


Main Building

AVAM’s main building is an architectural retrofitting of an old industrial building carved into great gallery spaces, with big windows and a majestic open spiral staircase. Here’s a shot (right) of a window cut out of a wall inside the building. I love the abstract “picture” it creates looking out into the hallway. Visionary sculptor David Hess made the ballustrade for the staircase and also the large Birds Nest balcony on the Rouse Center and the gates to the garden.

(image is Barry descending the open staircase)

I’m leaving perhaps the most prominent outdoor landmark of AVAM for last -- the 55-ft. tall wind-powered Whirlygig in the plaza outside the main building. Created by 76-year old visionary artist and mechanic/farmer Vollis Simpson, the piece spins in the constant harbor breeze and acts like a magnet drawing people to it. (pictured from the second floor balcony, the Whirlygig (image below) seems to be made of scrap metal-- I recognized some tin cans. Barry said Simpson had an entire field full of Whirlygigs on his farm. I like the thought of that a lot better than the giant windmills I've seen which give me the creeps. )



Hoffberger’s vision and energy put this sprawling, ambitious, exuberant package together and I can’t wait to see it again. “Most museums are fortresses,” Hoffberger said. "We made a decision to make it a welcoming campus.” They’ll be planting giant sunflowers along the Key Highway side of the campus she said -- a little bit of the country in the city.

By the way, one reason to re-visit AVAM is that the theme shows change every year. We were lucky enough to see the "Holy H20" show and the breathtaking and heart-wrenching Esther Nisenthal Krinitz Holocaust embroideries. Next year’s show, which will open in the fall, I believe, deals with character. “We tackle themes that have bedeviled mankind,” said Hoffberger. I love that big ambition. Only a visionary could think it.

(image, in a picture taken by Libby, is a mirrored mosaic on the outside of the main building. Hoffberger said they worked with students from a local school and hope to be able to cover the entire building with mirrored mosaic.)

permanent link   roberta 5:24 PM
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Posted by roberta

houser, jim
In the Weekly today, my love letter to Jim Houser, young visionary artist whose installation at Spector is one of the best ever. Here's the article.

(image is painting of Houser by his late wife, Rebecca Westcott. The piece is one of several of Westcott's works selected by Houser to be in the back room during his show, "Babel.")

And in Sketches

-- names of the second round of artists in the 40th St. Artist in Residence Program (if you don't know about the program, it's a good one -- 6 months of free studio space and an opportunity to do a community project);

-- news about Jim Mundie's art appearing in Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, S.C.;

-- and news of Judy Herman Director of the Main Line Art Center winning an award from Artist's Equity. MLAC has a good-sounding show on subversive domestic objects opening May 13. Click link for more. The show's curated by freelance curator, Mary Salvante, who is Director of Art Programs at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Sketches appear directly under the Houser article in PW.

(left is detail of Houser's installation "Babel." The large quilt-like painting in the middle is one that a local museum is working on buying, I'm told by gallery sources.)
westcott, rebecca

permanent link   roberta 8:30 AM
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Posted by libby

A conference on encaustic painting will be held Sunday at the Wallingford Community Arts Center. The related show of 20 artists' work, "Oil and Wax: chapter and verse" runs May 9 through June 16, and will move to Siano Gallery for the rest of June and July. The show, curated by Alan Soffer, includes among others Moe Brooker, Michelle Marcuse, Tremain Smith, Soffer and his wife Libbie Soffer, and Phil Zuchman (image, Zuchman's "Sky").zuchman, phil

And speaking of waxing poetic, another art blog has crossed our crosshairs. It's out of Portugal and its by a guy who goes by Vvoi, short for Vvoitek, short for ???.

permanent link   libby 4:50 PM
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Posted by libby

I forgot to mention that the American Visionary Art Museum (see next post) was ranked number four on Travel Holiday's list of the top 25 U.S. Museums, after the National Gallery (oy, doesn't that immediately discredit the list?), the Menil Collection and the Frick Collection. I don't know what year this was assembled but the museum has been open only since November 1995.

The Travel Holiday score card rated the museum as entertaining on any number of levels--an A for the goods, the display, the building, and fun factor, a B for shopping, and an A- for food (I thought it deserved an A for both). To put the is perspective, The Barnes didn't even make this list, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art was number 18, a somewhat shabby performance, with B for the goods and shopping, B+ for display and fun factor (really?), and A for the building and food (say what?).

My personal score card would also mention AVAM is a place children would enjoy.

permanent link   libby 2:56 PM
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Posted by libby

For months, fellow blogger Mark Barry has been trying to get us down to Baltimore for the American Museum of Visionary Art. Uhhh, it's south. Uhhh, it's a day's commitment. Uhhh, we can't get it together. Uhhh, we were so wrong.

It was great.

Between Barry and museum director and visionary founder Rebecca Hoffberger (top image, Hoffberger left and Barry right), we got a warmer welcome than anything north of here can possibly muster.



Here's a picture of the fresh eggs from his very own chickens that Barry gave me (oh, yeah, he also gave Roberta her own eggs). Try to picture going to a New York museum and getting that kind of treatment.









Besides, Barry brought along his wife, Sandra Magsamen, for lunch at the museum, with a swell view of the river that new condos across the street will soon obliterate (rumor has it Oprah may have bought one). Magsamen runs a business that started out from working with psychiatric patients and finding people had heartfelt things to say that they often didn't say out loud. Check out her website, and she means every word she puts on her many products. Here's a picture of the perfect couple.

We got a tour of AVAM from Hoffberger, who has more energy than four walls can hold. But ultimately it was her life's work--the art and the building itself--that swept us off our feet.


A mix of the fantastic and unlikely in the permanent collection include this wonderful man with violin case, all made out of toothpicks by artist Gerald Hawkes (left).hawkes, gerald










This exuberant image is by Mary L. Proctor (she calls herself Missionary Mary L. Proctor, and like a lot of these artists, she has a religious calling). Her vision has expanded to selling on line and out of the back of the family car. Here's Proctor's website.proctor, mary l.





And this shot of DeVon Smith's mechanical critters also shows the attention to detail in the building itself, with its beautiful, crafted railings. Smith's work made me think about how different the intent was from Tom McCloskey (see my post here and Roberta's here) and Alan Rath. There's a delight here in the variety of looks, the reuse of vernacular materials, and the ways the figures glitter and move almost overwhelm the word messages. When the looks are so entrancing and entertaining, that's plenty.smith, de von


The work in the permanent that impressed our traveling companion, Alex, a high school student who was staying with Roberta last week, was this model of the Lusitania by Wayne Kusy, also made of toothpicks. The 16-foot long ship is made with 194,000 toothpicks and five gallons of glue. It took approximately two and a half years to construct, according to the Anatomically Correct website.kusy, wayne


The exhibit that moved me to tears was "Tapestries of survival," a series of 36 embroidery/collage pictures with narrative by Esther Nisenthal Krinitz that tell the tale of her families everyday lives in a Polish village interrupted by World War II. Of all the Jews in their village, only Krinitz and her sister survived the Holocaust. (from the picture: "October 30, 1942. ...Instead we went to the depths of the forest and waited for nightfall." embroider and fabric collage, 1994, 20 x 20 inches).krinitz, esther nisenthal




Krinitz, who was a dressmaker untrained in art, began the project at age 50 in 1977 to pass her memories on to her children. It took her 22 years to complete the story ( from the picture: "September 1942 ...the Gestapo made a surprise raid and in our nightshirts, lines us up by the river and terrorized us with their guns as our Polish neighbors looked on," embroidery and fabric collage, 1992, 36 x 38 inches).





The contrast of the beautiful, cheerful images with the horrors they depict gives this work its impact along with the complexity of each vision. The words and the pictures have the clear-eyed, unembroidered directness of herself as a child, witnessing awful things (from the picture: "September 1942. After the morning raid, the Gestapo were retruning. We fled across the fields to the woods, my mother directing me to separate," embroidery on cloth, 1992, 22 x 22 inches).

"Tapestries" will be there until August, and it's reason enough to go to Baltimore.

The other terrific exhibit is "Holy H2O: Fluid Universe." The range of work is great, including straightforward paintings, amazing beadwork, sculptures and models, just about every form of expression in art.

Among my faves were these:

Steve Shepard has several complex paintings including this fabulous triptych, "Doomeddead." His subject is water and pollution, and one of his paintings was inspired by a report that the Thames fish aren't reproducing because the male fish are being rendered sterile by the hormones women who take birth control pills excrete.shepard, steve



This is a detail from a mixed-media room installation--a beaded shrine to sirens by Nancy Josephson. Every inch of the walls are covered with glass beads (detail from "La Siren").josephson, nancy







Tom Duncan's "Slave Ship" is a depiction of death in the Middle Passage, horrifying, thought-provoking and filled with details.duncan, tom








Here's Rose Walton's "Jonah and the Whale."walton, rose












And here's Mark Casey Milestone's surreal oil on wood painting ("Untitled").milestone, mark casey

The program notes get into that space of weird science, where people mistake art thoughts for scientific thinking, but that doesn't mean it's not meaningful.

By the way, this place has a good gift shop, filled with real pieces made by individual artists.

Roberta will take the outsider story outside the four walls of the AVAM.

We also stopped at the Baltimore Art Museum, worth the visit for two exhibits--The Cone sisters' collection of Impressionist art and lace and an exhibit of slide art, that suddenly passe practice whose time came and went in the blink of an eye. The slide show will be gone in a blink of an eye, too--May 15. Oh well. Among its highlights Jan Dibbets' two-wall view of land and sea ("Land/Sea"), and a room installation of projected windows by Krzysztof Wodiczko.

permanent link   libby 2:03 PM
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Posted by roberta

adler, jonathan
Post by Matthew Singer

Dear Roberta and Libby, First of all: I love artblog. I love Libby's very detailed, thoughtful, insightful, thought-provoking analysis of Kathryn Frund's show at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art. (see Libby's post here)

For what it's worth, I wanted to let you know that Jonathan Adler (whose show "Re:form" at the PMJA closed in April) introduced his Salvador vase in 2001. (image is Salvador vase) It's part of what he calls his Muse collection, which also includes body parts as decoration tributes to Dora Maar, Georgia O'Keefe (image below is Georgia vase), Gala Dali, etc. The PMA shop has been selling JA's stuff for a long time--at least since the late 1990s.

[ed. note: Singer is referring here to my post about Adler in which I mention the seemingly cosmic alignment of Adler's works at the PMA giftshop and in the show at PMJA. Not so cosmic I guess. Check out Adler's website for more about his product line which includes pottery and design objects all influenced by his immersion in 1970's era Reform temple architecture. It's great stuff.]



Finally, one bit of self-promotion. The editor of Modernism Magazine read about "Re:form" in an online journal called Nextbook, and asked me to write a feature story about Jonathan (2,500 words and lots and lots o' pictures). I turned in the draft last week--it's supposed to run in the magazine's fall issue, so I'm hoping to see it in print in September or so. ALL BEST! Matt


--Matthew Singer is the curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art

permanent link   roberta 7:06 AM
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Posted by roberta

towbin, janet

[ed. note: this post refers to street art mentioned in my previous post.

Post by Janet Towbin

Dear Roberta and Libby,
I have been following street art for a long time and taking photographs of most everything I see on my walks in the city. I had seen and photographed the “sniper” on Walnut and 20th last week. (I think of the image as a “terrorist”). It’s a block away from where I live. I walk to Moore College up 20th street two to three times a week and it was something I noticed immediately.

Today, as I walked to Moore, I had a feeling there might be another work on that building and while I didn't see one, I found another armed warrior on a building nearby on 20th and Sansom Street! This one is a G.I. sniper warily looking as he comes to the end of the building facing Sansom St. I am sending you a shot of it which is nearly impossible to get because of its location on the building and the tree blocking the work. I have many stencil and sticker graffiti shots from around the city. It is my favorite pastime; finding these wonderful gems on the street. My best, Janet Towbin

--Janet Towbin is a Philadelphia artist whose drawing "Small Wonders" received the Arcadia University Purchase Award (Work selected for University’s permanent collection)in the 2004 Works on Paper exhibit.

permanent link   roberta 5:55 PM
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Posted by roberta

kirkland, jt


J.T. Kirkland runs “Thinking About Art” blog which has been covering art in the Washington D.C. area since June, 2004. The young Kentucky native and self-taught artist is having his first solo exhibit, "Studies in Organic Minimalism," at University of Phoenix in Reston, Virginia, (through June 25).

I was interested in the work which combines minimalism and craftshop DIY-ism (the art is made of wood panels which Kirkland laboriously drills holes into to make simple organic patterns. (See his website for more images and info) I liked the loose gestures in the wood combined with a more pointy-headed formalism. I was also interested in the implied violence of the work (holes in wood made by drilling but evoking bullet holes)coupled with its calm organicity -- a complex package masquerading as something simple. So I emailed Kirkland some questions and got some great, thoughtful answers. Turns out Kirkland is a wood visionary. Here’s part of our Q&A. I'll run part two later in the week. (top image is "Expanse" and below is a detail of the same work)



RF. OK. So this is a get to know you warm-up question. Are you a sculptor?

JTK. I guess by most people’s definition I am a sculptor. However, I think of myself as a painter and drawer (is that even the proper word? Draftsman? I don’t know…). Though the materials I use and the techniques I leverage align somewhat with sculpting, I just haven’t gotten very comfortable with that notion. I’m much more comfortable with the idea of me being a painter or drawer. I’m not sure what that says about me.



RF. Where’d you go to school? Art school? Self-taught? Dad had a workshop you hung out in as a kid?

JTK. I attended Centre College in Danville, KY. It’s a very small liberal arts school with an enrollment of 1,000. I majored in Economics and took only one art class – Introduction to Glassblowing under Stephen Rolfe Powell. He opened my eyes to AbEx and Minimalism. Outside of one other community class I’m very much self-taught. While there are times I wish I had more formal training, I’m very happy with where I am today. I consider myself lucky to be where I am. (image is "Peninsula")

My Dad is a huge woodworker and has made furniture almost his entire life. But as a child I hated being in the garage and it drove my Dad crazy. I didn’t like to be around the machines or to sand or anything else. I would have much rather played sports or video games. All of this makes it even more ironic that I ended up working with wood. And my Dad has been incredibly pleased by this as evidenced by me receiving some sort of power tool for the past few years of birthdays and Christmas’s. But without that background I wonder if I would have even thought of the power of wood in art. Like a lot of people who ignore wood, I bet I would never have recognized the beauty it holds.


RF. Is this body of work a continuation of an on-going theme or project or idea you’re interested in?

JTK. This body of work is definitely a continuation of a theme. That theme revolves around depth. I’m fascinated by the idea of real and perceived depth. Previously I was making abstract paintings on MDF. Prior to painting, I would drill some sort of hole pattern into the MDF. These were frequently just geometric shapes or line. Next, I would spray paint layers of color. A simple example would be a layer of light blue with a layer of gray on top. Once I have the drilled piece finished in terms of paint, I’d hand sand the piece with even strokes in a crossing pattern. After a while the various layers of color would appear so that you would see the light blue and the gray. The resulting composition would be quite random and who knows how it would work with the holes. I found this quite interesting. I liked the depth of color which was real and perceived, combined with the very real depth of the holes. I liked the idea of precise holes and random coloring. I liked the juxtaposition. (image above is "Shadow" and below is detail from the same work)



While I haven’t abandoned this mode of work I began to think of ways to achieve similar effects in a more mature and thought-provoking manner. I wondered why I was painting on wood. Why not use wood as painting? Suddenly my work became much more real. I was able to hone my interests in Minimalism and stripe paintings (you’ll see stripe paintings on my web site, and I own a few too). I’ve been profoundly impacted by the work of Agnes Martin and I think it’s easy to see her work in mine (i.e. grids, Minimalism and even to some extent stripes).

permanent link   roberta 8:31 AM
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Posted by libby

I stopped by Omar Rodriguez-Graham's MFA installation at Temple Gallery last week, and should have put up a little something in time for First Friday (these final-project shows come and go so quickly, it's a miracle if I get something up fast enough to make a difference). Anyway, Rodriguez, who curated "Pulp" (see post) out at Tyler earlier this year, locked himself in his studio for several days and videotaped the experience. The products from that experience make up the content of his exhibit (left, Rodriguez at the gallery).

The most successful of the products was a time-lapse recording (in addition there were several large paintings based on video stills, a real-time video, the paintings he made while locked in the studio, and a giant "contact sheet" grid of video stills).

The time-lapse piece was a distillation of the experience--one second of recording time taken every five minutes, and then played back. Like so many art videos, it has its slow moments, but then there are the funny cuts when he's in motion, appearing in one spot, then another, or remaining in the same spot and repeating the same motions.
rodriguez-graham, omar
The piece reminded me of the Roxana Perez-Mendez's funny "Terra Incognita" piece (see Roberta's post), a video shown in the same exact back-room space at the Temple Gallery in which she screened a recording of herself doing things like reading a fashion magazine and painting her nails as she plays the role of a bored astronaut-ette orbiting in a space capsule out in space.

But Rodriguez really has isolated himself and what crops up is agitation, paranoia, a loss of time orientation--and a distillation of what it's like to be an artist isolated in a studio.

I talked to Rodriguez about what he was doing. "In graduate school, you're always under observation," he said, "always being pressured to move forward (developing new art work) in constantly accellerating speed. The video raises questions of motion and no motion, recording, time productivity versus futility." He also had thought about how video surveillance in the parking garage keeps recording, even when no one is there, and he drew a comparison to the recording continuing as he slept (right, the video of Rodriguez in the studio).

He had no watch and lost track of time in the space, which was sealed from outside light as well as from people. Because he was painting, he was worried about the fumes, so he set up a good filtration system and he set up a monitor outside so people could peek in on him and rescue him if necessary. He stayed inside for about three-and-a-half days, and then couldn't take it for another moment. His original plan was a week. But the goal wasn't about endurance but about the situation--time versus productivity. The final time-lapse video takes an hour.

"It was an experiment in failure--the romantic notion that an artist locks himself in a studio and comes out with a painting. It's almost like being a prisoner--painting because you can't do anything else." (left, giant contact sheet)

Rodriguez is going back to Mexico City soon. He's not sure where he'll land, but he hopes it's a mix of creating art and curating.

permanent link   libby 7:30 PM
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Posted by roberta

We at artblog love it when friends, whom I'll call private eyes of artblog, notice things around town and report in. This week, I had two reports of new street art by three artblog private eyes. Here's the scoop:

Anarchist sod on South Broad Street?

A mystery patch of sod carved to look like the anarchist symbol turned up Tuesday morning on the vacant lot a few paces from Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Romy Scheroder told me when I stopped in the gallery on Wednesday to look at Wade Saunder's art.

Sheroder, R-W Gallery assistant and an artist in the MFA program at Uarts, said she noticed the sod carving -- and a few other objects that look like sand bags -- behind the cyclone fencing when she was on her way into the gallery Tuesday.


I have to say the sod installation (see image above, arrow points to the suspect sod) is tres subtle from the street and it would take a daily passerby who was also an artist -- and one familiar with what the anarchist logo looks like -- to spy the addition to the weedy lot. Let's just say I didn't see it until Scheroder pointed it out. What took my notice instead was a photo chained to the cyclone fencing -- it seems to show a dead deer with a pink pink "x" spray painted on it.

All in all, I don't know if the deer relates to the sod or vice versa but as street art goes it's a good try, not 100 percent successful.



Sniper on Walnut at 20th St.

Marcia Kocot and Tom Hatton, artists whose collaborations I admire (they show work at Larry Becker Contemporary Art) emailed the following intriguing tip:

Hi Roberta. Have you seen the sniper on the roof? (north west corner of 20th and Walnut) We didn't have a camera with us at the time. Go soon, who knows how long it will be there.
M&T

From any other source you might think a sniper siting at 20th and Walnut would be alarming. But when M&T emailed I somehow knew we were not talking about real rifles. (image shows the painted image of a man in black aiming a gun at something below.)

Is it anarchists again? Or is somebody just objecting to the super-ubiquitous Dali-cizing of the city? Note the Dali banner, part of the saturation advertising campaign.

Thanks to our tipsters for keeping us apprized of the street scene around town. Meanwhile, Libby and I will be bringing you reports of the Visionary Art Museum this week. Stay tuned.

permanent link   roberta 6:05 PM
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Posted by libby and roberta

The mothers of artblog wish you a happy, safe and beautiful day! Now, go have some fun and don't get into trouble. Love, Roberta and Libby

permanent link   libby and roberta 12:07 PM
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