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This One Stopped Me: Artomatic Part Two

May 24,2008

Artomatic is so big - this one is spread out over 8 floors and has over 700 visual artists - that after the first half hour I found myself pretty much sprinting through because, let's face it, life has only so many hours that one can commit to this and I already knew it would be a multi-day affair. So it takes something special to slow me down, much less to get me to stop for more than a few minutes. Tracy Lee's installation, "Refused:Return to Sender" did it. I'm not usually a big fan of conceptual work and the installation is not particularly compelling visually, but something about the collection of snapshots stuck on the wall as if on a teenager's bulletin board, the slides in plastic sleeves and the old-fashioned baby photo book pulled me in and I read the narrative. It tells the story in clipped, bleak prose of alcoholic parents who utterly and completely excised their two adult children from their lives, going so far as to return all family snapshots and refusing to accept the mailed announcement of the birth of their first grandchild. Then I looked more closely at the photos on the wall that seem at first to be typical family snapshots of Mom and Dad with kids at play, having a picnic, etc.and saw that each time a parent is pictured - in the park, by the pool, in the backyard - they are holding or are in close proximity to a beer. I don't know if this is Tracy's true story or if it is a fiction, but in either case, she has made a heartbreaking, deeply moving piece of work.

Artomatic: Part the First

May 23, 2008

Ara Laughlin's big fly

Over the past few days, I have visited the latest incarnation of Artomatic a couple of times and am ready to say some words, with more to come. Disclosure: I was one of the founders of Artomatic almost ten years ago when local developer Douglas Jemal loaned DC artists a shabby-ass building redolent with history called the Manhattan Laundry and allowed us to do with it as we wished for a few months. It was a wonderful creative free-for-all that began with just a couple of fundamental rules/principles:1) no juries, 2) all the work to prepare and run the show would be done by the artists.

nightmare fridge

A. Zealand's coffee filters

Exhibition space was allocated in the 100,000 square foot building in a kind of semi-organized gold rush, where groups of 50 artists at a time ran through the three oddly-connected buildings in 15 minute increments, staking claims by post-it on segments of floor and wall space. Then, over a period of less than a month, over 300 artists colonized the space and transformed a dingy, mostly unlit warren of rooms, hallways and basements into a vibrant and living tapestry of the creative impulse in virtually all of its forms and all of its shades of quality.

Chuck Baxter (I want this)

Mr. Robot

Artomatic 2008 is Number Six in the series and it must be said that the insanity/spontaneity of the original event has been tempered by the probably inevitable institutionalization of the enterprise; Artomatic is now a registered non-profit corporation with a Board (on which I served until 6 months ago), corporate sponsors, a bank balance, and a bunch of rules, most of which are no-doubt necessary but nonetheless to be regretted, at least by me. Us old originals can't help sniffing a bit at the upscale nature of the venue for 2008, a brand new office building with gorgeous views of the Capital and bathrooms that Donald Trump would be proud of. ("Shoes? You had shoes?!?"). Having done my old-timer's grumbling, then, let me assure you that the 2008 version may be cleaned up but it is still brimming with energy and surprises.

Juice Guy

Mary Frank's boxes

Sonra Arkin and her Checkpoint

Let's get this part out of the way: if you can't stand the dreck, stay out of the kitchen. As is inevitable with Artomatic, there is plenty of mediocre-at-best photography and lame painting and some stuff that is so dreadful it makes you wonder whether irony was the intention - and that makes you stop and think, which is a good thing. But, Blake Gopnik to the contrary notwithstanding, there is also a lot of stuff to love and a whole lot of stuff that puts a smile on your face and to my mind, that's what Artomatic is all about. I'm going to write separately about just a few individual artists among the many whose work interested me, but here I've just included some quintessentially Artomatic artwork.

Bob Weiss on Juice Guy's crazed exercise bike

Kevin Kepple at Addison Ripley

May 20, 2008

Kevin at work with contraption

so beautiful I weep

I raced from my open studio Saturday to Georgetown for Kevin Kepple's opening at Addison Ripley. Kevin is another alumnus of the Late-Lamented Millenium Art Center who has been making his truly unique and gorgeous work for some years (although, to be sure, he's still a young guy). Kevin works with ink, glue and varnish, which by some secret (and tres stinky, as I can personally attest) alchemy he transforms into work of such luminosity that it fairly vibrates. Kevin's newest work is much more colorful than in the past and he is using white backgrounds in some of the largest pieces in a way that lets the other colors sing even more clearly. The reception was jammed and a lot of the people looked like they were there to buy, so bravo and good luck to you, Kevin. it is well-earned.

Open Studios Report

May 20, 2008

Betsy's new one

Ellen Sinel's

My newest

have a blogging deficiency to address and it will be corrected now. May 17, Mt Ranier Day and Open Studios in the Gateway Arts District, was a success. The rain that has been inundating us for over a week stopped for the day, glory be, so the folks were out enjoying the sun and a goodly number dropped by to see what was happening at Sinel/Stewart/Weiss, a bit of which I illustrate here.

Margaret explaining

Ani Kasten's piece

Sean's piece

I was stuck in my studio most of the day, of course, but I did manage to rush around our little Otis Street/Wells Ave. complex and see what some of my co-residents are up to. First, the talented folks who occupy the warren of studios at Red Dirt (I think of as them the clay hobbits) As usual, the chief of the clan, Margaret Boozer, had new work that is fascinating and tactile: circular discs incised with totemic marks that are aggregated into wall-mounted assemblages. I was also drawn to Ani Kasten's work. It is quiet and light, suggestive of the husks of dead insect worlds. And I love Sean's collections of similar parts into wholes that achieve a presence well beyond the individual pieces.There are truly many more wonderful artists working at Red Dirt who I will write about in future.

Laurel at work

Laurel's work

And, of course, while on the subject of clay, I can't fail to mention my friend Laurel Lukaszewski. Her work is in great demand these days, so only a relatively small sampling was there to see, but Laurel is always worth a visit. N.B. - A whole bunch of the Mt. Ranier clay artists have put together a group show at Artomatic which I am told is the class of the event this year. I plan to get over to Artomatic later this week and will certainly come back with massive amount of art to share.

Martha Jackson-Jarvis's work

Finally, I was just delighted to see the newest work of Martha Jackson-Jarvis, whose studio I had not been to before, even though it is literally across the driveway from mine. Martha makes some big, impressive stuff - you may have seen her stunning installation at Van Ness, "Music of the Spheres". Her work, typically large forms completely covered with something like smooth river rocks or tile fragments, has a heft and presence combined with sheer surface beauty that is difficult to achieve.

Tim closes the deal

Michael hurrying around

And I'll end this entry where it all started, at the Washington Glass School, founded by Tim Tate, Erwin Timmer and Michael Janis, the pioneers of our little studio settlement. The place was overflowing as usual with fans, collectors and students. I must confess that my cell phone photography is not remotely up to the task of photographing the glass work, so I'll give you just one bad picture with my apologies.

Michael's work in front with the reflection, Tim's at back left

Tim's new work goes deeper and deeper into his psyche; each revelation yields work of more emotional depth and beauty, which may seem contradictory but somehow is not. Michael has mastered the technique he more or less invented of embedding drawings into glass and is now creating multi-layered pieces that mimic the non-linear movement of memory. Erwin's has gone green in a big way, working with recycled material and achieving purity of form and materials. Another glass artist I am entranced with is Allegra Marquardt, who creates child-like characters and stories in three-dimensional work that shows a clear connection to her printmaking background.

Our Open Studios Sat. May 17

That's the official invitation to the famous Mt Ranier Day open studios, including those of Sinel/Stewart/Weiss. A bunch of terrific artists will have our studios in Mt. Ranier open on Saturday May 17, Including in our little cluster alone the amazing Margaret Boozer and her acolytes at the Red Dirt Studio, the Titans of Glass: TimTate, Erwin Timmers, Michael Janis and their crew at the Washington Glass School, Laurel Lukasczewski of the twisted, wormy ceramic installations (really amazing, my inability to properly describe them notwithtanding), Novie Trump of the scary clay birds and other creatures, etc etc. Our studios are just two blocks from the DC line - just two blocks, you suburb-phobes! It's worth a visit.

Gretchen Feldman at Nevin Kelly

May 10, 2008

Gretchen Feldman

Nevin Himself

The day ended at my favorite gallery, Nevin Kelly - where else? The Nevster is showing Gretchen Feldman from Martha's Vineyard this month and the opening reception was boffo, with an overflow crowd of Feldmanistas from as far away as NYC and Richmond. Feldman's water media pieces fall into two categories; there is a group of biomorphic paintings in high-key colors and a group of pieces reminiscent of quilts - hence the theme of the show, "stitches in time." For me, the standouts are the powerfully graphic geometric pieces. They pack an aesthetic punch that is both very contemporary yet timeless in the way of Shaker simplicity.

Art Enables Rocks!

May 10, 2008

Stop #2 of the day was at Art Enables' spring show and open house . Art Enables is an amazing non-profit organization that provides space, tutelage, supplies, guidance, encouragement and representation to more than two dozen developmentally disabled artists, who turn out artwork of fascinating beauty and interest. Art Enables is another refugee from the late-lamented Millenium Art Center, and has found itself a light-filled a

The Lovely and Talented Joyce Muis-Lowery

Stephan and Jill

nd expansive new space at 400 New York Ave, NE.

In just 5 years, Art Enables, under the leadership of Joyce Muis-Lowery (and always aided by the multi-talented Stephan Bauschmid and others) has made itself an indispensable part of this community, exhibiting at venues including the World Bank, the Dunbarton Concert Series, the Arlington Arts Center, Artomatic, the Visionary Art Museum and many other galleries around the country. Over the years, I have collected several Art Enables artists (the only exception to my rule that I trade for art, rather than pay $) and picked up a new piece by Connie Reinwald today. I also loved the new work by Margie Smeller, who I had a chance to meet.

Teeny Tiny Art At the Corcoran

May 10, 2008

MaryBeth Ramsey plays docent

Another crazy day of art started in the early afternoon at the Corcoran Gallery 31, where we visited our postcard-sized donations to the Corcoran School of Art just a few hours before they were sold off for $100 apiece to donors who purchased tickets for this fundrasiing event. If you read this blog, you know of my ambivalent feelings about the Corc qua institution, but it does provide a living for those local artists who serve as its faculty and an education to students - both endeavors that I fully support. The donations, by local artists as well as students and faculty, were of quite high quality and cover a huge span of style and medium, particuarly considering the size constraints. In addition to painting, drawing, photography and encaustic (including mine), there were needlework, glass and resin pieces and some that defy characterization.

New Gallery Opens At Smith Farm

May 9, 2008

Temple of the Phoenix

Tai Hwa Goh and Novie Trump

Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit group that serves people affected by cancer and other serious illness. Among the many programs they sponsor is an art gallery that inaugurated a unique new space on U Street this weekend with a terrific show titled "Immersed in the Natural World." Curated by local standout Lillian Fitzgerald, who always finds artists of the highest quality for the spaces she curates at the National Institutues of Health and the US Botanical Gardens (among others), the exhibit showcases the work of three area artists whose work engages deeply with the natural world.

triptych by Tai Hwa Goh

Elizabeth Burger uses seedpods, roots, twigs and other natural material to build oversized yet delicate constructions. Tai Hwa Goh (who once shared a residency with me at the Greenbelt Center for the Arts) layers hand-waxed thin printed papers to build up paintings that seem like the remainders of fading memory. Novie Trump, who has quickly become one the most interesting ceramic artists around, uses her background as an archaeologist to make pieces that embody the iconic forms of reliquaries and ancient cermonial objects. In her installation "Temple of the Phoenix", pillars encircle a pile of bleached bones topped by a large lustrous egg. As the title suggests, the piece evokes the eternal quality of the birth/death cycle.

BTW: Novie Trump is among the artists whose studios will be open for Mt. Ranier Day next Saturday, May 17, from 12 - 5 pm. In fact, at 3708 Wells Ave, she is right next door to Sinel/Stewart/Weiss at 3706.

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