Art and Photography Blog

Cambridge Art Association Summer Sale

The Cambridge Art Association is holding its annual Summer Sale with all works $300 or less. It runs July 13 through September 4 at the University Place Gallery in the lobby of University Place, 124 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge MA 02138 hours: Monday through Friday 9am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 1pm. I have four works in this show. They are the painting, Still Life with Apples, and three drawings, Mr. Dog (Bela), Morning (the drawing of the bed on the right side), and Sunday Morning (the drawing of the couch on the right). I have seen the show and there are some great values for the money with the $300 price limit.

Cambridge Art Association New Member’s Show

The Cambridge Art Association is holding a New Member’s Show at the Kathryn Schultz Gallery, July 13-28, 2007. The gallery is located at 25 Lowell St. Cambridge MA. hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 5PM, tel: 617.876.0246. I have a painting in the show, Still Life of Potatoes and Onions. I have seen the other works and recommend it.

Comprehensive Retrospective of Frida Kahlo’s Work in Mexico City

I have seen Salma Heyek’s great performance in Frida several times. I am more a fan of Frida as a person than some of her art. But I admire her art as a great personal statement. It is the 100th anniversary of Frida Kahlo’s birth and Mexico is providing the largest retrospective ever of her work. There is a good review, Beyond the Myth, Art Endures, in the New Yotk Times. The exhibit “attempts to look beyond what Mexicans call Fridamania. The result is a rich view of her art and her life, one that broadens the perspective on her career beyond the narrow, cultish view that has at times threatened to obscure her work. For the majority who know Kahlo’s painting only from the movie version of her life or the unmistakable power of her face on a T-shirt, the exhibition that opened here last month at the Palacio de Bellas Artes may come as a surprise.”

As the Times goes on to write, “Among the 354 pieces on display are some of Kahlo’s most famous self-portraits, but through lesser-known self-portraits, still lifes, portraits, drawings and watercolors, she emerges as an artist who gathered multiple influences into her own language. Her first self-portrait, in a velvet dress, was painted at 19 for a faithless boyfriend and already shows the unflinching gaze that marked the later paintings. But here she is graceful, almost ethereal, quite different from the confrontational presence she was to become. A tender portrait of her husband, the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, reveals an unexpected naturalism. “

The show runs at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City that continues through Aug. 19, with an exhibition at Museo Frida Kahlo in Coyoacán that runs to Sept. 30. I have been to Mexico City a few times in the 1960s and would love to see the show and where the city has gone but will likely miss it this summer.

Photos of California Wine Country: Alexander Valley 2007

These were taken in May 2007 near Healdsburg.
     

Photos of Fruit Stand and Flowers at Point Reyes Station 2007

Here are fruit and flowers taken at Point Reyes in May 2007. The coffee shop next to the fruit stand was run by a Boston Red Sox fan.
     

Eliza Stamps - Abstract and Conceptual Work through Lines

Recently I was introduced to the art of Eliza Stamps. Eliza does magnificent drawings and textile art. The textile works are silk thread on cotton, linen, and silk, Many of the textile works take on the linear appearance found in the drawings but some of the newer ones are three dimensional. Eliza is pushing the drawing medium to create abstract works that have a strong conceptual component. As she writes in her mission statement:

“The work is meant to show the inherent sameness of all things, tangible and intangible. on both the macro and micro level. The drawings can be seen as the passage of people through space, the movement of cells through the body, the movement of emotions through the psyche. These patterns, when we break them down to their most basic structure, are often analogous. The work gives the appearance of mechanical production, when in reality it is painstakingly handmade. It is constantly shifting between these two poles. This fluctuation, of the organic versus the constructed, again highlights the idea of the ubiquity of structural similarity…This work is meant to give some order to the often chaotic and enigmatic project of existence.”

Having recently started drawing again, I have great respect for where Eliza has taken the seemingly simple medium. Her works remind me of the conceptual work of my good friend Karen D’Amico. A few years ago Karen built ephemeral three dimensional objects and then photographed them with very inviting results. Karen is aligned with complexity theory and her statement said “identity is a mutable construct, often occupying more than one space simultaneously, residing somewhere in between rather than being absolute.” One of Karen’s London group shows was titled a Fine Line. Eliza’s would fit well in this context.

Eliza’s work, Blighted, also had the feeling of the Russian print makers right after the Revolution who developed abstract industrial themes in linear modes producing some great art. Her work, Conference, captures some of the feeling of networking within a good event. There are many others that cause you to look closely at the complexity within the simplicity. Eliza is currently being exhibited at a number of galleries and museums across the US. For example, two-person exhibition of her work, orderline, can be seen through july 25, Tuesday-Friday 12-7pm at Mehr Gallery, 436 W 18th St (btwn 9th and 10th Aves), NY, NY. I would encourage you to see her works close up and hope to myself.

Sue Orchant’s Enchanting Work in Silk

I was recenelty introduced to the wonderful art of his wife, Sue Orchant. Sue paints on silk. Her work is vibrant and reflects my images on New Mexico, her home state and the Land of Enchantment. At the same time some of her pieces that deal with themes of celebrations, like Continuance, evoke the same feelings of myth as art I have seen from the Faroe Islands. However, works from the colder Faroes have the opposite palette reflecting their bleaker homeland. In both cases you sense joy and engagement with mythical themes. Sue brings this engagement to us through the warmth of the US Southwest. Evocation is another wonderful example of this depth and warmth.

You can find her work at
The Artist's Register
NM Silkpainters' Guild
Turquoise Trail Gallery

Blogs giving painters a new way to sell art

A few weeks back the Boston Globe ran a story on how blogs are giving painters a new way to sell art. It focused on the work of artist Elizabeth Torak and her two blogs, On the Easel and Creative Proess. The article said that Torak still sells most of her work through the Tilting at Windmills gallery in Manchester, Vt., but she said her blog "certainly helps supplement sales" by raising the interest level of prospective buyers. Writing for the blog, she said, requires her to clarify her ideas, which makes it easier to know what to say to collectors when she meets them. This is a by-product of most blogs.

They also mentioned San Francisco artist Anna L. Conti who said the Internet has fundamentally changed the way she sells her work. The article said, “Conti's blog is focused on the day-to-day life of herself as artist, offering one day a detail of a painting that will be on display at an upcoming gallery exhibit, another day the type of framing she used for one work.”

Nice to see more public awareness for art blogs.

Photos of New Orleans 2006

Taken April 2006.  Here are our New Orleans restaurant picks for 2006 from that trip.

             

Photos of New Orleans Zoo 2005

Taken March 2005.