Happy Halloween! The Fundraising Continues! And Some of My Favorite Posts
I was not going to send out a newsletter until November 4, adhering to my new policy of writing these fortnightly, but this photograph of your devoted webmistress seemed so perfectly suited to one of my favorite holidays (because it’s all about begging, wearing funny clothes, and over-consumption of sweets) that I wanted to use it for the “hero” image of the newsletter this week. The shot was taken by my friend Mary Shaffer, an artist who works in glass, at one of our favorite hangouts, and it seemed a fine accompaniment to a day of masked celebrations.
You will also notice, perhaps, the resemblance to the Countess of Castiglione (Virginia Elisabetta Luisa Carlotta Antonietta Teresa Maria Oldoïni), a former role model of mine and the subject of the photo by Pierre-Louise Pierson below. Virginia Oldoini was born into an aristocratic family from La Spezia, was briefly the mistress of Napoleon III, acted as a muse to early photographers, and may have been influential in the unification of Italy and in persuading Bismarck not to occupy Paris after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. I say “former role model” because I eventually came to realize I would never acquire famous boyfriends or have much impact on geopolitics. Which is a crying shame, but there’s not much I can do about it at this late date.
The countess, alas, spent her later years in seclusion in her Paris apartment, “the rooms decorated in funeral black, the blinds kept drawn, and mirrors banished—apparently so she would not have to confront her advancing age and loss of beauty,” says Wikipedia. I don’t intend to do that. I will simply let my hair go gray and wiry, my jowls sag, and declare it Halloween every day!
The Countess of Castiglione, by Pierre Louise Pierson, when she was in her late twenties
Speaking of begging, the fundraiser launched last week and is doing smartly for its first nine days. If you haven’t heard the news, after a four-month hiatus because I simply burned out, I’ve decided to continue with the site and will begin adding new editorial as soon as I’ve collected sufficient funds to stay off the streets ($20K should do it for the year—I live on very little and still manage to make sure Sylvia has high-end cat food in her bowl). The donations info is here, and it should take about 30 seconds to breeze through the checkout. Meanwhile, I will keep bugging you one by one because it seems to be a more effective strategy than parading in a sandwich board outside Hauser & Wirth.
And since I’m not producing any new posts for the site, allow me to direct you to a few of my favorite first-person reports and essays. There’s my account of a savage studio visit from an artist “friend,” which may in part have influenced my decision to quit painting. And the reason I started painting eight years ago seemed to have a lot to do with childish impulses run amok in late middle age, as recounted here. I’m also fond of my ruminations about why we love what we love when it comes to art, and my slightly acid observations on how to be an art star.So that should give you a few things to read until I can launch into further writing for the site—and I have many ideas collecting on index cards but will have to wait till I can knock it off with the fundraising.
Art star or flash in the pan? Laura Owens, Untitled (2014), mixed media, five parts: 138-1/8 by 106-½ by 2-5/8 inches.
But enough about me. Here’s what members are up to….
Andrea Broyles is showing work at AnArte Gallery in San Antonio, TX, from November 7 to December 2. “This piece is inspired by my daughters, who are on the cusp of venturing out into the world,” Broyles says of the painting below. “It is about the constant journey we are on--choices and consequences and keeping the curiosity and sense of adventure alive, whether it be the inner journey or the exterior one. The idea of the show is embracing vulnerability. Offering ourselves to the world, putting our raw selves out there and accepting that not everyone is going to like it or you. The show will also be accompanied by my first poetry book titled A Rough Night In Paradise.” If you’re in San Anton, the opening is November 7 at 5.30.
Andrea Broyles, Journeys (2019), oil on board, 27 by 18 inches
Anne Gilman is part of a show at the Center for Book Arts celebrating the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth (28 West 27th, through December 14). “In addition to his work as a poet, Whitman is also remembered as a book designer and printer, essayist and journalist,” says the Center’s website. “Calling himself ‘the Bard of Democracy,’ Whitman broke the mold in his prolific writings—calling for for equality, inclusivity and a more humanist world for all to live in.” The show looks at how Whitman’s writings have influenced contemporary artists working in the book arts. The diverse objects on display range from books, drawings, photographs, sketches, broadsides and Gilman’s incredible scroll drawing, below.
Anne Gilman, this place/this hour (2019), colored pencil, graphite, ink, and washi tape on mulberry paper, 321 by 27 inches
“I belong to the SoWa Artists' Guild located at 450 Harrison Ave in Boston's South End, and have maintained an artist/gallerist practice there for the past eight years,” writes Beverly Rippel. “In recent years this area, which also houses 20-plus galleries, has become the art hub of Boston. We have between 400 and 1000 visitors come into the building on First Fridays, Second Sundays, and special art walks throughout the year. Some of us artists, like myself, open our doors to local and international travelers and visitors every Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. When I am not working in the studio, I keep the rooms set up as gallery spaces. The wonderful thing about being present as a gallerist is that I can listen to and directly interact firsthand with visitors, curators, and other artists. There is an intimate exchange of thoughts, impressions and reactions to the work, and relationships are continually being formed.” This Sunday, you might drop by and see Beverly’s wonderful juicy "Pru Skyline, Boston” series; each painting is a mere 7 by 5 by 1.5 inches. It’s so enticing I’m posting two shots below.
Through the end of November, A.J. (Tony) Dungan has an unusual solo show at The Yard: Flatiron South, a co-working office space in downtown Manhattan, where curator Akeem Duncan has hung the artist's explosive figurative works throughout so visitors get an idea of what the paintings look like in sleek functional settings. “All the paintings are based on photos I took at New York City art openings on the Lower East Side between April and June of this year,” he says. “To walk through the space and see the art on the walls is mind-blowing.” Below, an “installation” shot.
“Fresh on the heels of a 24-print installation at the Santa Fe Community College, I am looking forward to the 20th anniversary group show at Exhibit/208 in Albuquerque, NM, from November 8 to December 13,” writes Jonathan Morse. “My images have recently been featured in Raritan Quarterly, a scholarly publication from Rutgers University, where I will also be the featured artist in the next three issues to round out the 2019-2020 volume. My work continues to explore the interface between organic and digital marks, creating a contemporary synthesis and questioning the beautiful, sometimes with a sense of unease. Mark making (and drawing via analog and digital means) connects me to the human imperative to register in physical form my internal musings on the world today and my place in all its flowering, glowering glory.”
Jonathan Morse, Frescoes 4 (2019), pigment print on Moab Juniper rag, 24 by 36 inches
Bob Clyatt is part of the SOFA (sculpture, objects, functional art and design) at the Navy Pier in Chicago, October 31 to November 3. This sprawling annual has been running since 1993 and claims on its website that what distinguishes it from other art fairs is “its focus on three-dimensional artworks that cross the boundaries of fine art, decorative art and design. SOFA is noted for its exceptional presentation, with an elite selection of international dealers presenting for sale one-of-a-kind masterworks in handsome, custom-designed gallery exhibits.” Clyatt has work at Maria Elena Kravetz’s booth, as well as some bronze works in a nonprofit booth managed by another of his dealers, Arte Collective. Some of the titles, he says, “include the music I was immersed in during modeling stages of the work.” Below, an installation shot.
Tamara English is in a couple of shows on opposite coasts this season. At the Museum of the Oregon Territory in Oregon City, OR, she has a 16-foot-long painting called Adored (through January 3, 2020). And at the Hera Gallery in Wakefield, RI, through November 16, she is part of a group exhibition called “In God We Trust, Reflection on Religion in America,” which is billed as “an exploration of both the diversity and ubiquity of faith in America, and the complex ways in which religion intersects with American culture.” Says the artist: “While some of the works focus on the negative consequences of religion in America, mine explores the universality of the essence of each of the world’s sacred traditions, through bringing together the visual vocabularies of different cultures and traditions. Some people say artists are chroniclers of what is happening in the world. Yet, I consider my role as an artist to show what is possible for the future, a future that includes peace and respect for one another.”
Tamara English, Cielo (2019), oil on canvas, 24 by 24 inches (at the Hera Gallery)
Through November 16, Irene Nelson is part of a two-person show (with ceramist Nancy Selvin) at Gearbox Gallery in Oakland, CA. Notes Maria Porges in the handsome and concise catalogue for the show: “Nelson begins with a predetermined palette. She acknowledges that viewers may have their own relationships with the vivid oranges, reds and pinks that dominate this group of paintings, and welcomes all the possibilities that such associations may represent. For her, however, these warm hues evoke memories of India, where she traveled in 2018, fulfilling a lifelong wish.” Visitors will note the interesting common ground between “Selvin’s flamboyant handles….and process-related crevices and cracks, and Nelson’s drawn charcoal lines and painted black marks.”
Irene Nelson, Red Improv (2019), acrylic mixed media, 48 by 48 inches
Camille Eskell is one of four women artists featured in “Re-Orientations: Samira Abbassy, Camille Eskell, Dhanashree Gadiyar & Sheida Soleimani,” at the Living Outpost Gallery in the East Village, New York (through November 9). On view will be two sculptures from her current “The Fez as Storyteller” series, “a group of mixed-media works that explores the impact of her Iraqi-Jewish and Indian cultural legacy and questions the attitudes and indoctrination that insular social and religious systems perpetuate over generations,” says the announcement. A panel discussion, “Re-Orientations, Women Artists with Roots in Iran and India,” moderated by co-curator Audra Lambert, will be held at Artists Talk on Art, Monday evening, November 4, at 6 pm.
Camille Eskell, Sister Fez: “Smear Tactics” (2016), digital imagery, silk, mixed media
Long-time Vasari21 member Barbara Cowlin was the juror for this year’s “Arizona Aqueous” at the Tubac Center of the Arts in Tubac, AZ (through November 17). The annual show features work in water-based mediums on paper. Cowlin is a natural for this one since one of her four major series of the last few years, “Painting Water,” was inspired by the interactions of natural objects and water. “The theme of the show is an exploration of media—water-based pigments on paper used in an inventive way,” Says Cowlin. “The subject matter was up to the artist. Included in submissions were almost every subject imaginable, from still life to abstraction; landscape to people, animals and flowers. It was tricky to create a cohesive show because of this. My first priority was to choose artwork that focused on the materials in an unusual way, combining paper and water media to highlight both. After this I chose additional work with interesting twists on subject matter—humor, pathos. A strong use of design and creative use of color were also important components of my choices.”
Barbara Kemp Cowlin, The Sanctuary (2019), acrylic on canvas, 40 by 60 inches
“My work has always been about the visualization of my experience of my life, giving visual form to what my life feels like,” says Sharon Weiner of the show called "In Bloom" at Fabrik Projects in Culver City, CA (through November 16). “I came to the title as I was preparing work for the show and was looking around the studio and thinking some of the paintings reminded me of the cosmos or nature with flowers blooming. But ‘In Bloom’ is more a metaphor for development of a psychological nature, and the title has meaning to me because of some recent personal experiences.” The reception is November 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
Sharon Weiner, Remembered Days (2019), acrylic on canvas, 54 by 72 inches.
Soon I will start posting works from members new and old who have kicked in to the 2019 Fundraising Campaign. My thanks to all, and please be patient.
I have been broadcasting for years on the homepage that this site is about “connecting artists,” so let me give you a couple of examples. A few weeks back, I paid a visit to new member Ira Wright at his studio in Santa Fe. Even though he’s in his eighties, he’s been painting seriously for only about five years. He’s a strong artist with an original voice, but he had no idea how to the get the work out there. First step, I said, is a website. So I hooked him up with artist Sandra Filippucci, an experienced pro who has spent 30-plus years designing websites, mostly for artists. You can see her excellent work (and Ira’s) here. Next step, she will be managing an Instagram account, preparing the graphics and adding an Instagram Live Feed to his site.
When Colorado-based painter Kate Petley told me she would be showing at Von Lintel Gallery in Los Angeles in February, I immediately put her in touch with Mark Sheinkman, who is one of the gallery’s regulars. I’ve profiled both, and though they are thousands of miles apart geographically, I am hoping they will find much common ground. And can share their experiences.
I am not the Wizard of Oz, but if I can make things happen, I will pull as many levers as possible.
In other news, the local cable channel NY1 offered a short tribute to artist Margaret Zox Brown’s series about New York police officers, who helped reunite her with a missing bag. You can catch it here. I wish it had been longer, but you can see more of Margaret’s work in the online show of portraits I curated this summer for the New York Artists Circle.
And congratulations to Julian Hatton for the review of his recent show at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in Hyperallergic. “The feeling one can get from these paintings, the bewilderment one soon shares with the artist, derives from what the work suggests as a mutually respectful yet mildly adversarial relationship between an animated nature and a skeptical observer,” writes critic Peter Malone. “With a copious gift for invention, expressed through witty references to flowers, trees, rivers, pathways, and other landscape elements…the paintings evolve into stand-alone redistributions of each vista’s essential parts. Landscape, as we think we know it, is a vital yet restrained subtext.”
Julian Hatton, Drift (2018-19), oil on canvas, 60 by 60 inches
When her husband, my dear friend Gendron Jensen, was dying of bone cancer last summer, I helped Christine Taylor Patten set up a GoFundMe site. Her medical bills were absolutely insane (and still are), but in about six weeks she managed to solicit $40K toward relieving some of her debts. Now Philadelphia artist Sandra Milner has turned to GoFundMe to help with expenses incurred since she had an accident on a Septa bus, followed by a heart attack in mid-May. I have written about ways to help fund projects, and GoFundMe is probably the easiest to use for medical emergencies. Even little donations can add up quickly. So if you’d like to lend Sandra a hand, please click here.
But of course I would prefer that none of you ever suffer disastrous medical emergencies. So let’s be careful out there this Halloween.
Here’s that handy donation link again if you’re in the mood to send some treats my way.
