While I am on leave—we’re not sure for how long—allow me to remind you of some back content you may have missed because you were busy grooming your new Labradoodle puppy or studying old issues of Artforum. Artists, especially when they first join the site, often ask me to have a look at their websites, and honestly I would love to oblige, but I simply don’t have time to give people their due and critique their sites as thoroughly as I would like. So a while back, I asked experts—curators, critics, dealers—to tell me what they thought made for a successful website, and their comments covered the gamut, from the importance of the “portal” image to the appeal of your artist’s statement. I’m especially picky about the latter: If you want to get my attention, keep it brief, and don’t throw a lot of bunk and twaddle at me (in other words, don’t try to be Artforum). Here’s the link to learn more.
Another issue that came up last week over coffee with a friend: She is a talented photographer (without a dealer, of course) who would like to get more aggressive about marketing her work. I see her photos mainly on Instagram, so I told her to try uploading work for sale there (one artist I interviewed for this post, Elyce Abrams, sold 85 paintings on IG in 2016, at $200 to $500, plus shipping….you do the math). Check out the advice from artists and others here.
And now on to news from fabulous Vasari21 members
From May 17 to June 6, James Austin Murray will be part of a two-person show called “Curved Lines” at Opera Gallery Monaco (yup, that’s the same place where Princess Grace used to hang out). "Each artist creates works that are tactile, sensitive and seductive in their simple elegance,” notes the press release. “Murray is a magician of infinite variation contained in the surface of a single black canvas. He uses primordial ivory black paint, made from charred bones or ivory, that mankind has favored from prehistory.” I was honored to be asked to write about Murray’s work for the catalogue, so let me quote myself. His surfaces “offer an almost otherworldly experience, as the striations from the brush take the eye on a roller-coaster journey into pleats and folds, over light-struck hillocks and into shadowy crooks and bends. Depending on where you stand, the paintings can look like a forbidding landscape you could walk right into. It’s a visual encounter that is both unsettling and profoundly seductive.”
James Austin Murray, Calculating Azimuth (2018), oil on canvas, 72 by 72 inches
Karen Fitzgerald will have work on exhibit at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Jacob Javits Center in New York from May 19 to 22. If you’re in NYC and have a thing for furniture (I do, even though I can scarcely afford a Walmart coffee table at the moment), these are often fun shows to visit, crazy mix-ups of practical items and fine art. “Over 900 exhibitors from across the globe showcase the newest frontier of what’s best and what’s next for luxury interior design to more than 38,000 attendees in the design industry,” says the ICFF website.”Expanding with the market it serves, ICFF has more than doubled in the past three editions and become more international in composition.” This can also be a great place to get your work seen by the design industry. Check it out.
Karen Fitzgerald, Night Blind New Moon (2018), oil with 24k gold on panel, 24 inches diameter
Artists who work in glass and other aficionados of art made from glass, take note: There are two days left to make a bid on works donated to help support UrbanGlass. “The organization serves more than 12,000 people annually through their state-of-the-art studio space for professional artists; world-class educational opportunities for students from all skill levels and backgrounds; a growing scholarship fund to enable students in need; and public programs to engage curators, designers, artists, architects, and members of the public through exhibitions, studio demonstrations, performances, and their magazine, Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly.” My friend Mary Shaffer donated Red Guy (pictured below), which has a starting bid of $2000 (her work is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other collections). But you’ll find a lot of cool stuff for as low as $170.
Mary Shaffer, Red Guy (2001, reassembled 2019), slumped glass, found tool, and wooden wall box, 12 by 11 by 7 inches
Sharon Swidler has a show and an open studio in the works this month: First is “Momentum” at Space Annex in Denver, CO, which runs May 23 through June 15. “We've transformed an old warehouse in the historic Baker Neighborhood into a beautiful setting to showcase our talented artists,” says the press release. “This inaugural exhibit will serve as a marker of things to come. We invited all of our artists to create one special piece for the opening and we can't wait to share them with you.” Swidler’s open studio will be happening on Friday, May 17, 6 to 10 p.m. as part of the Cornelia Street Open Studios, Cornelia Arts Building, Ravenswood, Chicago, IL. The painting below is part of the Space Annex show in Denver.
Sharon Swidler, Polar Bear (2018), acrylic on panel, 16 by 16 inches
Through May 27, new member Virginia Bryant’s solo “Fugue States” is at the Chapel Cultural Center in Troy, NY. “The title comes from musical structures and the physicality which are a core part of her methods,” says the press release. The exhibit includes 26 paintings, her largest exhibition since her relocation to Troy, NY. “I worked as a theatrical, garment, and fabric designer in San Francisco in the 1970s and 80s,” she writes. “These experiences are foundational to my present-day practice. As a garment designer in San Francisco, I studied color theory, life drawing and drafting at the Salinger Academy and participated in several of the underground theatrical presentations of designers flourishing there at the time. I developed several painting processes as a fabric designer for garments, including a Rorschach line drip, Shibori, silkscreen, and designs with brushes. My first design project was the tree for a feminist version of Waiting for Godot.”
Virginia Bryant, The Dancer Under the Hill (2019), acrylic on canvas, 38 by 28 inches
There are still a few days left to catch "Jean Edelstein: In Tune with Music and Nature,” curated by David S. Rubin, at Bihl Haus Arts, San Antonio, TX, through May 18. “For the past fifteen years, veteran artist Jean Edelstein has been drawing in Chinese accordion books made of folded sheets of watercolor paper that expands laterally when a book is opened,” writes Rubin. “Because they are lightweight and portable, Edelstein can take them with her to draw on site, whether capturing her impressions of a landscape’s inherent choreography, or synchronizing with the rhythms of a musical or dance performance while sitting in the audience. Edelstein began working with the accordion books during an excursion to China…. Fortuitously, Edelstein just happened to have a Chinese accordion book on hand when she took a popular cruise along the Li River in Guilin. Enchanted by the splendor of the landscape, she opened the book and began sketching what she saw from the boat, recording her spontaneous responses as she traveled. As the boat progressed from one point to the next, Edelstein’s drawing evolved horizontally from page to page.”
Jean Edelstein, The Huntington Desert Garden, San Marino (#127), 2011, ink and watercolor on paper, 9.5 by 6.5 inches (closed); 9.5 by 77 inches (open)
Michelle Goodman is part of the “Site Scholars Exhibition” at Site Santa Fe in Santa Fe, NM. This annual show, which will continue through May 28, is “an initiative to honor college- and graduate-level creative students in the community,” says the SSF website. Writes Goodman on her website: “Some combination of planning and contingency imbue my sculpture with character and surprise. The materials that I use have powers and energies of their own. A quickening takes place when I restrain myself from becoming too proprietary. Using ordinary utilitarian objects as inspiration is key. Metaphor is a natural element in the making. The Chilean writer Robert Bolano said, ‘Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.’ It can be as simple as making something that looks familiar. But is not completely recognizable so that a kind of evocation of meaning takes place.”
Michelle Goodman, Trap (2018), clay/wire, 11 by 14 by 9 inches
Together with eight or ten of her fellow artists, Carol Ladewig is having an open studio next Sunday, May 19, noon to 5.30 p.m. at New Daylight Studios, 3246 Elite Street, Oakland, CA. “Since 2011, I have been making large-scale painting installations that render the abstract concept of time and its measurement into visual and literal form through the medium of color. The ‘2016 -2018 Year in Color’ represents a departure from previous years with a change of structure: the grid form is opened up,” Ladewig writes. “The year is organized by the Solstices and Equinoxes, an early form of de-marking time, rather than the Gregorian calendar of previous years. In this work, there are four sections: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall over two years. The color for daytime is developed using the same process as previous years and night is rendered in a gray color rather than black or dark blue. I chose to change the color and value for night to decrease the demarcation between night and day and more closely reflect the light in the night sky. The wood panels are connected with square dowels, allowing the flow of the days to follow a line, connecting one day to the next much as we experience the passage of time.”
Carol Ladewig, Fall (2018), acylic/gouache on wood panels, 74 by 106 by 2 inches
Camille Eskell has work in three shows this month: She’s in one called “Tradition Interrupted” at the Bedford Gallery of the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, CA, through June 23. Through June 9, she’s in “Far and Wide” at the Woodstock Art Association and Museum in Woodstock, NY. And until October 31, Eskell is part of a show provocatively titled “Women’s Sphere (Is Wherever She Makes Good)” at the Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton, CT. “In 1919, Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and when it was ratified a year later, the majority of women across America won the right to vote,” notes the press release for the Weir Farm show. “This historic event happened because thousands of women, called suffragists, worked for over 50 years to secure their rights. In this centennial year of that landmark legislation, Weir Farm National Historic Site celebrates and honors the effort, creativity and vision of all women.”
From the show “Women’s Sphere,” Camille Eskell, Tattooed Lady: The Raising of Lazarus (2004), resin, graphite, colored pencil, lace, mixed media, 24 by 17 by 11 inches
If you are a Vasari21 member and would like me to post about your news or shows or any other items of interest (but not your birthday—I’m sorry, we have to draw the line somewhere), please please size jpgs of your works at 800 pixels on the longest dimension (this is a Mailchimp requirement) and include title, date, size, and medium. It would be awesomely helpful if you also label the jpg with your name or the title of the work. Often a few words are welcome to give readers some sense of what you’re up to.
A very happy belated Mother’s Day to all of you moms. To those who are not, my heartfelt thanks for keeping the planet a quieter place. Sylvia brought home a gecko from my yard, but it got away before I could photograph her with her catch. The 25 y.o. clerk in Walgreen’s flirted with me. It was a very good day.
Jolly cheers,
P.S. Linda Lynch’s extraordinary drawings will continue to be part of a show, “Notes on the Landscape,” curated by Paul O’Connor, at Philip Bareiss Gallery in Taos, NM, through May 26. If you’re in the area, have a look—this is a wonderful space in a magnificent setting. The exhibition is open Friday through Sunday (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) At the top of this newsletter is Linda’s Prow (from the Lurgan Bog), 2019, pastel pigment on cotton paper in nine panels, 90 by 132 inches
