Virginia Arts and Crafts

An Enchanted Night Of Art ~ Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Artist’s Invitation & Registration

Artists are required to pre-register by April 10, 2013 

Artist’s Name:                                                                                                                                                             

 City, State & Zip Code Address:                                                                                                                                  

PHN:                                                    CLR:                                                     EML:                                                   

Brief Description of Artwork – To Be Shared:                                                                                                  

q Oil Painting   q Watercolor    q Drawings   q Photography  q  Other:                                                                                    

Member Of Art Leagues:                                                                                                                                              

 The Fairfax Art League members and all other artists from Northern Virginia are invited to help present a one night of creativity, inspiration and networking for the local community. Artists must register in advance to showcase your artwork.

This special Marriott ArtNight event will be held on Wednesday, May 15, 2012 with a special reception from 5:30 to 8 PM at the SpringHill Suites Fairfax Hotel — Fair Oaks, located at 11191 Waples Mill Road in Fairfax, VA 22030 between Routes 50 & 29, near Highway 66. Artists must provide their own art easels, art bins and art title / price will begin to hang this show from 3:30 to 5 PM that same day. Complimentary food and refreshments will be served. This is a FREE event for you and it will be open to the entire community. ArtNight at SpringHill Suites is a new initiative designed to give local artists visibility, while exposing the local community, corporate accounts and the hotel guests to the local art scene. Marriott launched ArtNight at SpringHill Suites in 2010 and throughout the month of May. SpringHill Suites properties around the country are hosting similar inspirational events to highlight local talent. The initiative is an extension of SpringHill Suites’ core element that focuses on style and design.

IMPORTANT: All participating artists must be pre-registered this year by April 10, 2013. This will allow us time to promote the artists and this art show. There is no registration or entry fee! The Marriott will not take any sales commissions. While there is limited room for up to 15 Northern Virginia artists to share the available space, this is a unique opportunity. We will only be able to register the first 15 artists on a first-registered basis.

Register Now: If interested in exhibiting your artwork, you may register with Larry Oskin at LOskin@MktgSols.com. Additional set-up instructions will be shared with those who register by May 1. Set-up time will be from 3:30 to 5 PM with at least 5 to 10 pieces per artist. With advance planning this year, JoAnne Reifel of the SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Fairfax plans to share announcements with local business owners as well as her hotel guests. We will ask everyone participating, to help us promote this event to family, friends and the community. A press release will be sent out to the local media with the names of all registered artists. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: 

Larry H. Oskin

Art Beautique, Inc.

Marketing Solutions, Inc.

10875 Main Street ~ Suite 205, Fairfax, VA 22030

PHN:  703-359-6000  EXT: 22, CLR:   703-508-6800

EML:  LOskin@MktgSols.com    WEB: www.ArtBeautique.com   WEB: www.MktgSols.com

The Phillips Collection Image: Gifford Beal, Three figures in front of U.S. flag, circa 1910-20. Graphite pencil, watercolor, and gouache on wove paper, 5.4 x 5.1 in (uneven cut). The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Gift of Gifford Beal Family. Courtesy of Kraushaar Galleries, 2011.

A New Art History Experience in the Roanoke Valley

By

B. Scott Crawford

It is hard to believe that this September marks Gathering in the Galleries’ second birthday!  For two years lovers of art and art history have gathered each month to discuss great works of art.  Over the course of this period we have examined art from numerous periods and representing several distinct genres.  Through a healthy dialog, together we uncover the numerous “truths” tied to each work.  We explore aesthetics as well as overall composition.  We dive into art history to understand how the work fits within a larger narrative.  And, of course, we try to set the work in a larger socio-historical context to better understand external forces that may have been coming to bear on the artist as he or she created the work.

Through this series, and through the series’ relationship with the host location, Studio School (http://thestudioschool.biz/), I am happy to announce that a more formal class will be occurring this fall.  The class I will be teaching is Paintings as Windows to the Past.  It is a six part series that will explore the history of the United States, from the colonial period through the Cold War, by identifying important historical themes found within works of art.  Each session will use several works of art as a springboard to launch an examination of important historical themes rmelated to the history of the United States.  Is it art history?  Is it history?  Is it art appreciation?  Well, yes!  This will be a truly interdisciplinary approach to learning – it will serve as a model as to why it is important to tear down traditional silos that separate academic disciplines.

For example, during the early colonial period, the European understanding of the New World was complex and varied.  While some Europeans truly believed that the New World possibly contained paradise, or the Garden of Eden, others depicted the New World as a region in a natural state that was, in the words of the seventeenth century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  Europeans viewing the New World through this lens believed that the New World was a barbaric and savage environment while the Amerindians inhabiting the New World were simply barbarians and savages.

The above image by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues from the 16^th century clearly portrays the New World as a dangerous environment filled with heathens.  The Amerindian practice of ritualized torture, such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, scalping, burning enemies at the stake, and dismemberment in and of themselves gave Europeans perpetuating the barbaric model of the New World plenty of evidence to prove their case.  However, in regard to these various acts, what Europeans failed to understand was that the ritualized torture Amerindians practiced held deeply rooted cultural meanings that aided those societies in maintaining a delicate social balance.

While not all Amerindians practiced ritualized torture, the groups that did embrace such acts did so in order to instill social order.  Eastern woodland Amerindians, for example, tended to go to war for social reasons.  “Mourning wars” allowed kinship groups within larger tribes to replace lost family members or to find opportunities for revenge.  The object of a mourning war was to capture individuals that could then replace lost members or serve as the focus for the release of violent emotions and for the taking out of revenge for previous losses.  Those not accepted for adoption into the tribe became the focus of torture and execution.  In this manner, the entire tribe was able to participate in the tribe’s victory and experience a catharsis as the members of the tribe released possible pent up aggression through torturing the victim.  Those that were actually adopted could expect to live a long life as long as they truly attempted to become active members of the tribe.  In this manner, Amerindian warfare and ritualized torture promoted group cohesion, and it allowed younger warriors to learn how to die bravely if they ever found themselves captured and the focus of another tribe’s catharsis.  Amerindians expected victims to not only refrain from showing any pain as they endured an agonizing death, but also to literally sing their identity without pausing or wavering.  If the victim did not cry out in pain or stop singing his identity song that recounted his exploits in previous battles, then the victim retained his identity, his honor, and if the victim impressed his torturers, he might retain his life.

Traditionally, Amerindians perceived the taking of prisoners to be a great honor for the warrior.  The catharsis that prisoners allowed tribes to experience was an essential component of Iroquois, Huron, and other eastern woodland Amerindian societies as aggression and rage could escape the tribe’s members as a captured warrior felt their rage unleashed on his body.  Among the Huron, for example, individuals could express rage, grief, and anger in only this manner.  In a sense, torture, execution, and even cannibalism allowed tribal members to appropriately purge themselves of emotions that might otherwise materialize in ways considered dangerous and unacceptable to their tribe.  What was savage and barbarous to Europeans was simply social control to the Amerindians.

The images of Jacques Le Moyne, the first European artist to travel to the New World, are wonderful “windows to the past.”  They graphically reflect the artist’s understanding of the very foreign cultures he was meeting.  In this manner, they provide us a means to understand how some Europeans understood Amerindians.  But most importantly, they serve as a wonderful means to explore historical themes and concepts.

I hope you will join me on September 12 at Studio School as the six part series found on page 3 of this catalog begins – http://thestudioschool.biz/classfly/2012FallWeb.pdf !

A Taste of What is to come:

Introducing Dating Jane

by

B. Scott Crawford

For those of you who follow this blog or have possibly seen me give a presentation on the topic, you know that I have just completed a three year research project on a painting by Lilly Martin Spencer found in the Taubman Museum of Art (or is it now art center?).  This research is currently being compiled in the form of a digital book that I hope to have published sometime in November 2012 through the iBook store.

In the book I advance an original and more accurate interpretation of the painting serving as the focus of the book, a painting titled Jane Eleanor Sherman Lacey and Her Son Edward.  I also explore in great detail the historical context surrounding the painting, as well as examine the genre of postmortem portraiture in relation to Lilly Martin Spencer – a heretofore theme in relation to the artist that has sadly been underrepresented in the scholarship surrounding Spencer!  In actuality, postmortem portraiture played an important role in the artistic career of Spencer.  Also, my research has revealed just how important photography was to Spencer as she created postmortem works – a theme also overlooked in the study of Spencer and her work.  Through her reliance on and use of photography, an important irony unfolds in relation to her work as she operated within this genre.

In the end, I hope the book will not only bring attention to a painting in Roanoke and in some small way help a museum on the brink of failure – a true tragedy – but I hope the book will put forth some new insight into the creative process of a wonderful 19^th century American female artist.

The working title of the book at this stage is Dating Jane: Domesticity, Death, and Photography in a 19^th Century Portrait. The cover of the book, as it exists at this time, is found above.  For my blog this month, I would like to share with you the first chapter of the book.  In this first chapter, which is a very short chapter, I briefly introduce the painting and I clarify how I view the interpreter’s/scholar’s/viewer’s relationship with art. I hope you enjoy this introduction, I hope it provides you with an apt metaphor for our relationship with art, and I hope you will share your thoughts about the painting and/or this first chapter!

Chapter 1

Detectives, Mediums, and . . . Art?

She came to the Art Museum of Western Virginia, now Taubman Museum of Art, located in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1988.  With her was her son, Edward.  As museum staff and the general public got to know her over a twenty year period, she impressed them all as being a good mother – in fact, it was her nurturing, motherly manner for which she was best known.  Not only did she have her son with her at all times, she held him in a loving, yet controlling, manner. In many ways she served as a model of middle class values associated with child rearing.  Jane Eleanor Sherman Lacey became a wonderful addition to the museum in 1988, but it would be just over twenty years before she was fully understood.  Was she only a good mother?  Or did she hold a secret – a secret that would allow those that came to know her to uncover a fascinating story that has little to do with motherhood?

This book is a story about how a woman and her son impacted my life over a three-year period.  This woman, Jane Lacey, and her son, Edward, became a major focus of my life beginning in April 2009.  Over the next three years, I literally journeyed over 500 miles in space and over the course of approximately 160 years in time in order to get to better know her and her son.  For you see, Jane and Edward came to the museum both in image and in spirit, but not in person.  Jane and Edward are the subjects of a portrait the museum purchased in 1988; a portrait simply titled Jane Eleanor Sherman Lacey and Her Son Edward, which was painted by Lilly Martin Spencer sometime during the 1850s. Spencer preserved their images for posterity through the use of oil paints and a canvas.  Those images in turn gave Jane and Edward a degree of immortality, thus allowing their spirits to at some level remain tied to the portrait.

This journey became very rewarding to me as I was able to convincingly show that the portrait of Jane and Edward did indeed hold a secret; a secret that had been lost for at least sixty years, if not longer, and a secret that escaped staff, students, and general viewers that engaged the portrait at the museum beginning in 1988 when the portrait was first displayed publicly.  Only by developing a strong relationship with the painting was I able to uncover this secret.  Ultimately, this is one of the primary points of this book: that to appreciate a work of art, a viewer must develop a relationship with the work.

Too often visitors in museums move from work of art to work of art only giving each work at best a cursory once over.  They look at a piece of art, they register an initial reaction, and then they move to the next work.  Museums have generally failed to help visitors learn how to engage a work of art and to in turn recognize that in actuality a guest will experience the greatest reward from going to a museum by spending a large amount of time with relatively few pieces of art rather than by simply looking at an entire collection.

Dr. Robert Schultz, Roanoke College, who served on the Taubman Museum of Art’s education committee during my tenure as director of education for the museum, used to comment about how the area in front of a painting was almost mystical as it facilitated a conversation across time and space.  At one level, the viewer of a work of art does indeed have a conversation with the artist and the work as he or she reacts to the work emotionally and then, if he or she takes the time, begins to explore the work’s various layers of meaning.  Ideally, this space in front of the work, the space witnessing a conversation between viewer, artist, and work of art, can enlarge as other viewers step forward and share their thoughts.  Thus the conversation moves from metaphysical to physical.  Through these conversations the viewer establishes an intimate relationship with the work of art; a relationship that can grow each time the viewer revisits the work and formulates new thoughts as they develop over time.

This conversational experience is one that I, as education director, embraced and endorsed.  Even after leaving the museum, I continue to do so.  Ultimately, the methodology I developed to aid viewers as they engage works of art was based on the belief that a viewer’s experience with an artistic creation is indeed metaphysical as much as it is physical.  Tapping into pop cultural trends, I would explain to audiences that they really needed to view themselves as both detectives and as mediums as they engaged art.

Just as in popular shows at the time, such as CSI, Law and Order, and NCIS, those who view works of art must explore the works as if they are detectives examining a crime scene.  Every detail must be closely examined.  The viewer must commit time to researching the art’s historical/socio-economic context, as well as the history of the artist. Next, just like in the then-popular TV series Medium or Ghost Whisperer, the viewer gives a voice to the artist who at the very least is probably not immediately present or could very well be deceased.  Through defining the voice of the artist as the viewer interprets the work of art, the viewer-now-interpreter is the medium between the art, the artist, and a larger audience that is also engaging the work of art.

So now follow along as I have a conversation with Lilly Martin Spencer through her work Jane Eleanor Sherman Lacey and Her Son Edward.  This book will chronicle my investigation of this work much as if we were exploring a crime scene – I will deeply explore details of the work and present evidence I have gathered.  In the end, an interpretation of the work will be conveyed that is diametrically opposed to the understanding of the painting that has surrounded it for more than 60 years.  In this manner, I will serve as a medium as I give a voice to not only the artist, who is deceased, but also to the sitters in the painting, who are also deceased.  I hope you enjoy this journey, and I sincerely hope that after reading this book you will look at works of art somewhat differently than you do now – if that is indeed the case, then I will feel as if I have had some degree of success.

___________________________________

And so the first chapter ends – and an adventure begins.  Of course, many of you know the ultimate secrets held within the painting Jane Eleanor Sherman Lacey and Her Son Edward, but I promise you that you do not know the whole story.  This book will provide details I have not shared in past writings or presentations – and even some new perspectives on the Taubman Museum of Art and its leadership will come to light.  So stay tuned!

History Repeating Itself . . . or at Least Casting an Echo By B. Scott Crawford A truly iconic image is coming to Roanoke as part of an upcoming temporary exhibition at the Taubman Museum of Art. This particular image probably captures the pain and suffering brought on by the Great Depression better than any other. The image, typically referred to as Migrant Mother, strikes at the heart of humanity as it depicts a down trodden mother with her children. Dorothea Lange, the photographer, captured this image of Florence Leona Thompson and her children sometime in March 1936 after the Thompsons were temporarily stranded in a migrant settlement off US Highway 101 in California. The Thompsons had been picking beets and were moving to find more work when their car broke down. In this image we see the worry, desperation, and anxiety the Depression brought to thousands of woman who were trying to provide for their children. And yet, within this gaze there is strength and determination; the economy has not beaten Florence Thompson!

Florence Thompson was married for the second time in 1936. Her first husband was Leroy C. Owens, and according to the 1930 census they had five children and had been married for eight years. Sometime in 1931, possibly 1932, Owens died, and by 1936 Florence had married George Thompson. It is clearly a child Florence had with Thompson that she holds in her arms, while the other two children are most likely from her marriage to Owens. While Florence, by 1936, was trying to take care of her children as she followed her husband as he moved from place to place trying to find work, in 1930 it appears Florence had a somewhat more stable life as her husband at the time was a “clean up man” in a sawmill, suggesting a life less migratory in nature. While the individual image of this “migrant mother” is probably the most generally recognized, in actuality, Lange shot a series of photos using Thompson and her children as subjects. As with the image above, each image in the series does more than simply capture the plight of an average American family negatively impacted by forces larger than life: an economy run amuck! What we find in this series is a reflection of suffering and determination; the American spirit hurt but not broken. In essence, Lange humanizes what statistics cannot do. Lange takes statistics and gives numbers related to the economy that were unprecedented and gives them a human face. In essence, her images are what roughly 25% unemployment actually looks like. Her images are what a migrant workforce looks like; a workforce unsure if work even exists around the next turn in a very long road. President Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged photographers to document the human suffering related to the Depression so such images could in turn bring support for the New Deal as he tried to pull the nation out of a crisis unlike any the nation had faced, at least in regard to economic instability. Art thus became a way the president could give an actual face to human suffering in order to bring about support for his overall political agenda.

Unfortunately, a similar economic crisis, but by no means as bad, has wrecked havoc with the United States’ economy recently. The fallout of the housing market has sent ripple effects through the economy that has brought homelessness to groups who once thought they were secure and has pushed unemployment to levels that are uncomfortably high, albeit not as high as during the Great Depression. In some ways, new and unprecedented government legislation has resembled the unprecedented legislation tied to the New Deal. With this economic downturn we have witnessed bailouts, printing money to avoid deflation, and increased legislation to “reign in” elicit activity in the financial industry. In a Keynesian manner somewhat aligned with some of the policies of FDR, government has stepped in to steer the nation’s economy back into more navigable waters. Interestingly, a different photographic documentary has unfolded in regard to the recent recession. While I am sure images exist that chronicle the human suffering tied to recent issues related to the economy, I have not seen anything quite as moving and gripping as Lange’s photographs. What I have seen is an emphasis on anger and outrage directed toward Wall Street, the increasingly generic term used to refer to “capitalism,” banking, and the wealthy. Interestingly, President Roosevelt, when advancing programs to combat the Great Depression, initiated such programs to keep such anger and even revolutionary rhetoric at bay. Roosevelt, while instituting what many would refer to as “socialist” programs, was passionate about insuring the nation’s democratic-republican ideals were not shattered. He was witnessing in Europe how a poor economy could easily turn individuals into desperate souls looking for answers in more forceful solutions such as fascism. Roosevelt did not want revolution; he wanted economic stability to keep revolution out of people’s minds. Roosevelt did not want class warfare; he wanted the democratic-republican experiment to survive. To Roosevelt, survival meant a more energetic government in the economic arena.

In the media and in the so-called “Occupy Movement,” we hear much about greed; almost as if greed were something the generation of businessmen operating in the 1980s and forward invented. However, a political cartoon published in 1898 reveals that greed has been with the nation throughout its rise as a commercial power. In the image, depicted below, Greed is “personified” as a vampire bat! The target of the cartoon is the newly emerging department stores, the venue through which mass production could thrive. The department store becomes the nest from which Greed operates. The nest is littered with the bones of the victims of the department store and commercialism.

Recently at a Gathering in the Galleries event we discussed a genre of art that became popular toward the end of the 19th century, coinciding with the rise of department stores. The painting we discussed, pictured below, was The Faithful Colt, by William Harnett, ca. 1890. The Faithful Colt was part of a genre that concentrated on extreme trompe l’oeil thus allowing the viewers to, for a moment, be deceived into thinking that they were actually viewing various American Civil War artifacts that are the focus of the work. Arguably, the emerging department store window scenes that were similarly decorated as they displayed various products for sale influenced this genre. The window displays were intended to stop pedestrians on the streets, attract their attention, and lure them into the store to buy whatever it was that was on display. The opening scene of A Christmas Story, though set in the mid-twentieth century, captures the power such window displays could have on potential consumers. As the image below depicts, these windows truly had a mesmerizing effect. To the creator of the political cartoon above, such trickery was driven by greed.

Of course, greed was nothing new to late 19th century Americans. Just as banking was beginning to truly emerge in the Western world, as the sin of usury was becoming less of a focus, thus allowing Christians to lend money and charge interest, Hieronymus Bosch reflected on greed as he created a panel in a triptych he painted sometime around 1487. In this portion of the triptych, pictured below, Bosch shows us a man in bed as Death makes his appearance at the door, armed with an arrow to end the man’s life. Surrounding the man are demons. One demon holds out a sack of gold, which distracts the man as an angel tries desperately to save the man’s soul by directing his attention away from the money and toward the light of Heaven shining through a Crucifix in a window above. With the man focusing on the sack held by the demon, and thus succumbing to greed, the angel is fighting a lost cause. Bosch also reflects greed through the cleric in the room who is not performing his religious duty and administering the man’s Last Rights but is already, before the man has even died, ruffling through the man’s belongings to see what he can take!

Greed is clearly nothing new, and while it may be one of the many variables that have brought about the recent economic downturn, it is by no means entirely the fuel driving economic crisis. And yet, continually this “sin” emerges as the focus of so much political rhetoric. Unlike Lange, who tapped into a humanity through her photographs that is stunning, imagery tied to the Occupy Movement has focused on anger. While we are still too close to truly analyze what we have witnessed and detect truly iconic imagery tied to the recent recession along the lines of Migrant Mother, there is one image that most assuredly will be tied to the recession that will be somewhat iconic: the Guy Fawkes masks Occupy protesters have embraced.

The somewhat ubiquitous Guy Fawkes masks have provided the Occupy protesters with an image to unite them. In actuality, the masks became popular when the hacking group Anonymous wore them during protests before the recent financial turmoil. Nonetheless, the masks have come to signify a broader movement than Anonymous. But why Guy Fawkes? Why turn to what for all purposes was a terrorist who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605? Well, as Billy Hallowell has pointed out in a short piece he recently wrote, it is more the romanticized Guy Fawkes the protesters embrace rather than the historical Guy Fawkes who allowed religious zealotry, in this case Catholicism, to take him to the brink of bringing down a government building and killing who knows how many government officials. According to Hallowell, the protesters have embraced a version of Guy Fawkes depicted in comic books and in the movie V for Vendetta. In the movie, the character V wears a Guy Fawkes mask as he fights against a totalitarian regime in the near future. In fact, in the image above of the two Occupy protesters, the protester on the right holds a grammatically incorrect sign quoting V: “People shouldn’t be afraid of thier [sic] government; government should be afraid of it’s [sic] people!” No matter how Guy Fawkes emerged as the hero of choice for Anonymous and the Occupy Movement, the mask associated with Fawkes is currently the iconic image tied to these movements. Will this image become the image symbolizing the recession of 2008, or will other images become more important? It is hard to say at this point, but what is possibly most evident is that this image will not resonate with mainstream America as much as Lange’s photograph of Florence Thompson. And that is what ultimately makes Lange’s photography important. Through subject, lighting, and composition, Lange captures a story of finding strength when facing adversity. Her photographs have a psychological edge that is quite powerful, even timeless. Thus, her work is worthy of our praise, admiration, and interest, and I hope you will find the time to see these works when they are in Roanoke! And if you are wondering, it appears that Florence Thompson survived the Great Depression and lived until 1983 when cancer and apparently a heart condition took her life. Her tombstone reads: “FLORENCE LEONA THOMPSON Migrant Mother – A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood.”

Pictured above, Florence Thompson (seated) with her daughters

The Art of Letters

Letters are a wonderful thing to look to for inspiration, particularly if they belonged to someone else. One computer, an afternoon and a letter from your Grandmother to anyone, is all it takes to write a story. It’s a novel if you have a collection of letters. Or make them up. The ‘letter’ format, that is, grounding a story into a series of letters is one of the most intimate forms that can be used. For a great example, read Elizabeth Forsythe’s  A Woman of Independent Means.

Emails don’t have the same panache, unless they ARE from your Grandmother. And the method works well with memoir material. Say you don’t have a Grandmother you can get to. Rent one. Visit any nursing home or veteran’s center and you will find a lifetime of stories suitable for fictionalizing. Don’t forget to make it fiction. You are looking for inspiration; you don’t want to have to shop for a lawyer as well.

But most senior citizens, particularly if they have few visitors, are just waiting to be your next project. Take a digital recorder, a notebook and some soft cookies. The older they are the better.

Until next month, gentle reader.

Lots of stuff about the Sidewalk Arts Show 2012 Posted on April 4, 2012 by Gwenda This is just some information collected together in one place.

Possible changes to the Sidewalk Arts Show participation requirements. A single tent can be shared by two people by permission of the CEO of the Taubman Museum, David Mickenberg. If you choose to do this, find a partner to share with you. Each person should fill out the application form; and both people should submit their information together (in the same envelope/package). The cost should be as follows: $35.00 (per each person entry fee) $20.00 for tent rental (@$10.00 for each person) $200.00 for space for tent (@ $100 for each person) The total for each person will be $145.00 (Deadline extended until April 16th) ____________________________________________________________ Guest post and comments : from http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2012/03/guest-post-no-more-fences-for-the-sidewalk-art-show/ No more fences for the sidewalk art show? Photo courtesy of Ron Bill By Ron Bill I am an area artist who has been a participant in the sidewalk art show organized by the Taubman Museum supported by various sponsors. When I read over the 2012 prospectus for this year’s show I found that the museum is no longer providing fences for artist’s to display their art. For the last few years that has always been my preferred choice to display my art. The only option is to rent a 10 X 10 foot tent space for $200 (on top of the $35 non-refundable entry fee). Up until this year, artists had the option of renting a 4 or 8 foot fence section (8 foot cost $100, 4 foot was less). I called Aimee Hall, museum special events manager, to inquire about the change in policy concerning art display space. She explained that they lost their location to store the fences, the look of a tent only show is more professional and clean looking, that most shows offer only tents anyway and that, all and all, it will be a more enriching experience for the artists and spectators. All of this sounds well thought out but, as you well know, you can put a good spin on anything. I think the real reason is the museum just doesn’t want to fool with storing, putting up and taking down the display fences. Their decision to remove display fences from the show will eliminate an entire section of Roanoke area artists from this show. You have to sell at least $235 worth of art to break even (not including the expense of investing in a tent if you don’t have one). For a sizable segment of Roanoke’s artists, this year’s show will probably be a scratch when the joy of displaying their art to the public is weighed against the cost. I have seen the sidewalk art show slowly change over the years from a place where area artist of all levels of professionalism and talent could display their work to a much more polished financially driven art show. I will have to disagree with Aimee Hall in that many art shows don’t have fence display areas. Not at all true. The Lynchburg show is a good example, and probably a better show, more in tuned with the artists. Tents can be very confining and hot as the devil and if you have ever tried to move through the traffic between rows of tents you know that it’s difficult at best. If the cost and trouble of dealing with the fences is the motivating factor to do away with them, then shame on them. I doubt the cost is that much and volunteers do the setup labor. It should be about the art. They’re an art museum for Pete’s sake! Did I mention the museum will gladly sell any artist a tent if he needs one? Your thoughts? Posted at 08:00 by Dan Casey | Category: Guest post | 7 Comments 7 Comments » 1. Amazon has 10′ x 10′ pop up canopies with 4 zippered sides for $130. May be better deals as I only spent about 30 seconds on this. Comment by Ernie — March 9, 2012 @ 8:42 am 2. Good grief. Dan, enough with the entitled diva posts, please! Comment by tass — March 9, 2012 @ 8:46 am 3. Ron, What do you expect? The museum cannot be profitable based solely on membership and admittance fees, so they have to find other ways to generate any income they can find. Unfortunately for you local artists who wish to participate in the art show, you’re an easy target. Let them know you don’t approve….sit it out this year. If enough of you sit it out, they’ll have no choice but to reverse course. It’s hard to have an art show with no vendors and no vendors = no customers. Comment by RightWing — March 9, 2012 @ 8:53 am 4. Quit crying and deal with it or don’t go. Life’s not fair. It’s simple really. Comment by Uptheriver — March 9, 2012 @ 10:21 am 5. I’m still feeling sad for the peeps who didn’t like their new streetlights. Now this? Comment by Kristen — March 9, 2012 @ 10:55 am 6. Thanks for the kind words about the Lynchburg Art Festival. Please join us this coming September. Comment by George — March 9, 2012 @ 3:48 pm 7. This show has been a tradition since 1958. As artists, we do deal with it, we weather the storms, the wind, and the hot sun, what we shouldn’t have to endure is the treatment of the artists by the Taubman. Since they took over the prices, elitist attitudes, cliquishness, and pretentiousness has increased. The organization of the show has become more chaotic, with mistakes in spacing, incorrect charging of fees, etc. In my opinion, the quality has gone down as well. Sure, an artist can rent a tent, but what about those of us that do not have flats? You need those to hang on, you know? That was the appeal of the fences. Another consideration is that most artists do not have enough room in their vehicles for art, equipment, flats, and tents. Really…. The Roanoke Valley is home to a plethora of local artists, what a shame there is not a venue for them and them alone. Those in charge need to realize that they have this wealth of art and artists and need to appreciate and showcase them much more than they do; they need to include more than the ‘elite’ few. I have been here since the mid-1950′s and am well aware of the artists, the show, it’s history, and the passions behind it. It is disturbing to first find out the art is down by the railroad tracks with the noise and the stench of creosote, now this? I find this not acceptable. I have to say, Taubman folks need to rethink this. Perhaps one of the reasons is that membership is down and the museum is not a success is because of the ‘art’ etc. it offers. You have to know your audience; good writers know it, and successful artists know it, good managers know it. Look at your population and come up with a plan that does not make the museum look elitist and snobbish. Offer some programs that are more reasonable. What we really need is an art center, a place to include shows which include local artists, and the community at large on a regular basis. There is certainly room for improvement. Sad thing is, the artists of this valley are paying dearly for someone’s poor decision making. Lynchburg does have a wonderful show! They are good to the artists and also have much more organized community art happenings. It is a one day show, and in the fall. (Lynchburg, pat yourselves on the back!) Please pull it together, or else we all stand to loose. Comment by Doodles — March 26, 2012 @ 8:55 pm _________________________________________________________ Meeting at Taubman Museum on April 1 to discuss Sidewalk Art Show changes Have any thoughts on the changes to this year’s Sidewalk Art Show? Feel free to let me know in the comments. The Taubman Museum of Art has sent a letter inviting artists to attend a meeting 6 p.m. April 1 in its auditorium to discuss concerns about changes to the 2012 Sidewalk Art Show. When the museum released its call for applicants for the show, a Roanoke institution since 1958, a few artists immediately noticed a change in the prospectus. The museum used to offer rates ranging from $50 to $190 to rent space along a length of fence to hang artwork, but the upcoming show no longer offers that option. According to the prospectus, artists can pay $200 for a 10-by-10 foot space to put up a tent, or they can pay $275 for both the space and a tent purchased from the museum. That’s in addition to the standard $35 entry fee. Taubman Executive Director David Mickenberg clarified that the tents can be rented — they do not need to be purchased. A letter dated March 22 states tents can be rented for $20. Though complaints about the changes have been few, the museum still offered a mea culpa for not discussing them with the regional arts community ahead of time. “We failed to discuss these changes with you and integrate your feedback into our decision making. That will not happen again,” stated the letter. Mickenberg said the change was necessary because the museum has lost the use of the facility where it had been storing the chain link fence it used for the festival. Finding a new place to store it was too costly, Mickenberg said. Last year’s show featured 175 artists. Mickenberg said last week that he did not expect the change to drastically affect artist participation. About two-thirds of the artists who take part already use tents, and of those who used the fence, only two artists made use of the $50, one-panel option last year, he said. Having the entire show take place under tents will increase the quality of the experience and address concerns about sun and weather exposure, he said. The letter also addresses an attempt to change the judging process. The prospectus requested that artists submit four digital images for each judging category entered, with the idea that images would be judged off-site. The museum now plans for all the categories to be judged at the show. The letter stated, “we understand how upsetting this was to some of our artists … All awards will be judged just as in years past.” If you want to attend the April 1 meeting, the museum asks that you RSVP by March 30 by calling 204-4139 or emailing ahall@taubmanmuseum.org. The show takes place June 2 and 3. The deadline for artists to register is April 1. For more information, call 204-4131 or SAS@taubmanmuseum.org. 1 Comment » 1.I have considered exhibiting my art at this venue, but the entry fee has always been too high to support my cost in the long run. I do hope local art continues to be appreciated. Comment by Carolyn Nelson — March 26, 2012 @ 8:51 pm

Taken From http://aestheticamagazine.blogspot.com/ – always worth a look.

Tuesday, 13 March 2012The Figure in Space | Alice Channer: Body In Space and Edward Thomasson: Inside | South London Gallery | London

Text by Travis Riley

Having been given the opportunity to exhibit at South London Gallery, Alice Channer took the bold step of creating an entirely new set of works to fill the impressive gallery space. The resulting exhibition, Out of Body, consists only of works made this year, and in many respects, appears to be as much a single installation as ten smaller constituent works.

Measuring the full ten metres from floor to sky-lit ceiling, Channer has hung three images of classical British Museum sculptures, printed on metre-wide strips of heavy, white fabric, entitled Cold Metal Body, Warm Metal Body, and Large Metal Body. The images are digitally stretched, and their proportions considerably distorted. In its overextended form the printed stone seems to pour from the ceiling, pooling on the floor where the fabric comes to rest. The scale of the works allows them to take on their own dizzying gravity as the spectator faces them. The statues depicted are all without head or limbs, essentially bodiless, however the implication of form beneath the remaining drapes of fabric is enough to give an immediately human impression. These banners of bodily space without form are emblematic of the other works on show.

Just as the banners fill the vast, vertical space in the gallery, the installation of pieces Reptiles and Amphibians, seems designed to fill the considerable floor-space. The titles are easy to locate in the works, which are mainly composed of smooth curves of polished stainless steel positioned to imply a reptilian gate. Amphibians comes complete with a ragged tail and lolling tongue, both made from aluminium cast Topshop leggings. The leggings are dotted about both of the works, cast in order to replicate the curves of the steel, but positioned in parallel, the materials are always spaced and never touching.

The walls of the gallery are filled with similar intent. Eyes, takes up the entirety of the left wall, and Lungs the majority of the right. The works consist of thin, looped aluminium frames covered by a thin layer of spandex. Each frame is hung separately, such that they can be horizontally spaced across the length of the room. Affixed by a flat spine, the frames curve outwards from the wall in an angular, imperfect semi-circular form. Each has a distinct shape, and viewed along the gallery wall there is a sense of sequence and accumulation; every form becomes superimposed into the next. In Eyes the sequence is sporadic, the distance between the frames and variation in form, frenetic. Conversely, Lungs has a rhythm. The impression of breathing, the heaving of a chest, is unavoidable. The spandex layer provides the skin, sometimes taught, sometimes bunched up by the motion of the frame. Between the two lungs is Arms. Two aluminium cast cuffs poking from the wall. These bring the exhibition full circle. The gauntlets are much less about their own physical frame, more about the space they contain, a space filled by an imagined human form.

On the first floor of the gallery is a second exhibition, which provides a remarkable, if coincidental, counterpoint to Alice Channer’s. Both are about the human body and space, but whilst Channer generates a general human image without body, Edward Thomasson’s exhibition, Inside, generates a vision of the person trapped inside the body and the body trapped in the world. His video (also titled Inside (2012)) consists of three cross-edited scenarios. An acupuncturist delivers a simple treatment, female prisoners receive art-therapy, and a woman and man sing a song called “Not Safe Inside”. The scenarios seem disjunct, yet somehow are effortlessly viewed as a whole. The video is narrated by one of the prisoners, who explains a difficulty in expressing feelings, and she, along with the music, provides an informal backing track to the overarching series of events. The web of reference in the video is so well spun, that even as we follow the camera inside the singer’s throat, the whole scenario remains plausible and indefinably rational. The final, self-reflexive narratorial statement, spoken as the prisoner stares toward the camera, mouth-unmoving, awakes you from the sequence, but leaves the debate about personal and private, physical and metaphysical space, ringing in your ears. “You’re inside my head, after all.”

In both exhibitions there is a focus on space. In Thomasson’s, space is constrictive. Physical space contains the prisoners, and emotional space is equally suppressed. In Channer’s, form (human or animal) is in the spaces within and between works. Her sculptural pieces are predominantly made up of flat surfaces. Space is found and trapped by folding, stretching, and shaping these surfaces around it. The negative space is not empty. The viewer is left to find the missing figurative element of each sculpture projected into it. On the reverse of each of the three banners is a small gesture that alludes to actual, undistorted human scale, such as a direct print of Channer’s arm and hand. The images are separated by less than a centimetre, yet cannot be viewed simultaneously. The sculptures are figurative; the figure is deliberately fragmented, but fully represented.

Alice Channer: Out of Body and Edward Thomasson: Inside, 02/08/2012 – 13/05/2012, South London Gallery, 65-67 Peckham Road, London, SE5 8UH. www.southlondongallery.org

Aesthetica in Print

If you only read Aesthetica online, you’re missing out. The February/March issue of Aesthetica is out now and offers a diverse range of features from an examination of the diversity and complexity of art produced during the tumultuous decade of the 1980s in Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, opening 11 February at MCA Chiacgo, a photographic presentation of the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s latest opening, Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection. Plus, we recount the story of British design in relation to a comprehensive exhibition opening this spring at the V&A.

If you would like to buy this issue, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Better yet call +44 (0) 1904 629 137 or visit the website to subscribe to Aesthetica for a year and save 20% on the printed magazine.

Caption:
Installation view from Alice Channer: Out of Body at the South London Gallery, 2012.
Photo: Andy Keate.
Image courtesy the artist and the South London Gallery.