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The Affordable Art Fair was CRAZY!

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 13,2008

My spawn, Nora

Wednesday was a day and a half to remember. We packed up the old Subaru with a summer's worth of stuff, drove to NYC, linked up with the spawn (that would be Nora), went to the Affordable Art Fair preview reception until 9 pm, had a terrific dinner at Thai Market on W. 107th St, left the city at about 11 a.m. and drove all night to the Cape, arriving at 5 am. Just writing that sentence makes me tired. But, back to the Art Fair. When we got there at about 7 pm, there was a line all the way down the block of folks waiting to buy tickets. Since we already had tickets, we were allowed to go to the front of the line and squeeze in - and I do mean squeeze. I can't imagine that the promoters anticipated this kind of crowd. The aisles were just thick with 30-somethings in trendy clothes. See for yourself.

Nevin Himself and Laura

Elizabeth and a customer-to-be

There were 70 galleries represented, about 25% from overseas, 25% from NY and the rest from around the country. The eponymous Nevin Kelly booth looked terrific. A couple of oilbars from my "Fortune Cookies" series were hung, as were two of Sondra Arkin's large new encaustics and work from other gallery artists, including Mary Chiaromonte and Thom Flynn.

Sondra

Our Significant Others being supportive

Some of my favorite work included, from Vietnam, complex prints combining text and cartoonish figuration (although there was perhaps a bit much of the cartoonish work in the fair for my taste) and, from England, embellished prints of urban scenes, dense underlayers of frightened crowds surrounded by lots of white space into which they are seem to be exploding. Also from London, thin layers of porcelain wrapped in circles like pastry layers. I found that in a crowd that thick, with visual hyper-stimulation everywhere you look, I gravitated toward relatively clean and simple work. When we fled at about 8:45, it was still packed. Let us pray that they all buy lots of art!

Last Chance to See John Adams at Artomatic

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 14, 2008

John Adams making art

Artomatic 2008 becomes a memory after this weekend, so find John Adams' piece on the 12th floor while you have the chance. Created on-site, the work demonstrates John's characteristic meditative quality. It quietly envelopes the viewer willing to look for more than a few seconds in a space that could be sky or ocean, or another galaxy. He often uses charcoal, graphite and Magic Eraser (one of my favorite art tools)

My Last Visit to Artomatic 2008

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 8,2008

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Lisa Schumaier's crows

Sondra and I managed a final visit to Artomatic before I blow this town. I will confess that I was a teench stoned, (hey, I'm not running for Supreme Court Justice) which may explain why my tolerance level was diminished, or maybe I tried to take in too much at one go but it all started to blend together in a slightly overcooked stew after a couple of floors. I did, however, find some good stuff, which will herein be described. Lisa Schumaier's collection of crows was appropriately spooky and a touch threatening; I loved it. The same for Shamus Ian Fatzinger's paintings. (Did he have the "Shamus" in the last Artomatic or is that new?) They show a dark, horror-movie underworld - as in the Hades kind of underworld - where people seem to be decomposing and screaming for help. It's the kind of subject matter that art students love, but Fatzinger rises triumphantly above the cliche.

S.A. Fatzinger

Kim Reyes

Another overworked subject matter is the body image thing: I hate my body, you hate my body, the media hates all our bodies, let's mutilate my body, yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, having said that, Kim Reyes has some lovely work touching on the general theme but gently and subtly. Her boxes combine a female image with artifacts that speak of archaic "woman's work" and they just look beautiful. Sheila Crider shows "Constance Stitching", a fiber piece that is a tribute to her mother. Made of such elements as cotton thread, magnet wire, tarpaper, recycled papers and wood, her mother stitched the piece to help Sheila prepare for a show just after herself being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Sheila Crider's Constance' Stitching

Holly Burns' napkins

A couple of other things caught my eye. First, Holly Burns' drawings on napkins. While it was too late in the evening for me to muster the concentration required to puzzle out any narrative that may (probably does) connect the series of drawings, the charm and finesse with which they are executed was enough to pull me over in admiration (and it's all about me, isnt it?). Second, and last, were the series of tornado paintings. Come to think of it, foreboding seems to be the emotional theme of this visit to Artomatic. Hmmm. I couldn't find the tornado artist's name. Maybe someone will tell me.

Ginger Haydon's Chameleons

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 8, 2008

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Maria

Ginger Haydon is an old friend and mentor of mine and a wonderfully inventive and whimsical artist. She has taught at MICA and the Art League School and is currently teaching at NOVA. Ginger has an eleven year old daughter, Olivia, and they make art together a lot. I think "Chameleons", her latest series of silkscreens embellished in oils, reflects the mutual influences of mother and child. With just slight tweaks on the basic silkscreen image, the creatures assume a variety of expressions and moods, from childish to full-on lascivious.

Camp Rehoboth donation

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 6, 2008

I donated this piece to the annual fundraising gala and auction last week for Camp Rehoboth, a great cause in Rehoboth, Del that has been patronized for years by my two friends, Sondra Arkin and Mary Beth Ramsey. It was in the live auction, pretty much guaranteeing that I couldn't go to the event, since it is agonizing beyond words to watch your own stuff being auctioned. But it did well, so that's good for them (and me.)

Salon D'Estrogene

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 4, 2008

Invisible Children

These are some of the members of the salon assembled by my friend, the artists Kathy Keler. I(f anyone can think of a name less pretentious than "salon", I would love to hear it.) Anyway, we include poets, playwrights, a novelist, a musician and several visual artists. We meet one Tuesday a month, eat a fine dinner, catch up on each other's work and some of us usually present a project, often one in progress. Our aim is to engage each other in collaborative projects. Last night Elizabeth read a scene from the play she is working on. She managed to transform herself into an African freedom fighter - ah, the magic of theater! The other picture, Invisible Children, is a drawing I did a few months back inspired by a chapter from Sarah's novel. It (the novel) is in the hands of an agent in London - stay tuned. Perhaps this will be the cover?

Something New

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 2, 2008

My head is already on Cape Cod and my body is not far behind - we will pack up the car next Wednesday, June 11, and go to New York for the preview reception for the Affordable Art Fair. It's at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 135 West 18th Street from the 12th through the 15th. Then we'll leave straight from there to Truro. We used to make this trip from DC to the Cape leaving in the middle of the night all the time (so as to avoid traffic in NY) but in the past few years we have taken it a lot easier, so it will be intereting ro see if the bods are still capable. There are always motels, although they are against Mr. Weiss's religion. Anyway, I think this is probably the last piece I'll manage to finish in my studio here. It's an encaustic, 24" square and incorporates a sheet of rice paper that's been melted into the wax and gives it an interesting texture and a matte finish.

Some Good Drawing at Artomatic

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

May 25, 2008

Rita Elsner, Beautiful Thing, part 2

This year there seems to be a fair amount of interesting drawing at Artomatic, much of which is woven into a narrative either explicit or suggested. I love Rita Elsner's graphite drawings of a dirigible floating ominously over a city and her other drawings involving birds, x-rays, parachuting figures (that's all in one piece). I don't claim to have found the key to the iconography, but it makes some wierd visual sense. Maybe Rita will tell me.

Carucci (?)

I also like Matthew Carucci's cityscapes with buildings in the process of either construction or demolition. And there's more, but I sometimes can't tell whose work it is because, as in past Artomatics, some folks don't leave anything identifying themselves. What's up, folks? Are you being coy? Are you hiding a secret life from your colleagues at Homeland Security?

Mudomatic: Clay at Artomatic

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

May 24, 2008

Yeonhee Ji

Leila Holtsman

For sheer craftsmanship, professionalism and artistic quality, there is little at Artomatic to challenge the group of ceramic sculptors presenting "Coincide" on the 10th floor. Organized by Novie Trump and Laurel Lukasewski of Flux Studio in Mt. Ranier (hip hip hooray for old Mt. R.), it features work by 17 of our area's most accompished ceramic artists. I work in a complex that houses the studios of a number of these ferociously talented sculptors, so I was happy to discover several artists whose work I had not previously seen. These include Yeonhee Ji, whose metal and ceramic installation is like an otherworldly prayer altar and Leila Holtsman, whose constellation of white biomorphic forms scattered over a rusted backdrop combines the industrial and biological in a new and beguiling way.

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