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Long View's Grand Re-opening

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 23, 2009

With its cavernous, roughed-up, stripped to the bones look, the relocated Long View Gallery, which celebrated its grand re-opening last night, has achieved the closest thing to a NY vibe in this toddlin’ town. Attendees were advised to wear “cocktail attire”, which posed a distinct challenge to GessoHead, I’m not ashamed to tell you. Be assured, however, that there is plenty of fabulosity still around even in these dire economic times, since most folks looked pretty great.

Drew Ernst's piece

Anna U Davis's piece

Entrants were greeted at the door by a pair of highly watchable young people checking off names against the RSVP list (but looking the other way if you weren’t on the list). The champagne flowed, the crowd overflowed and the art, when it could be glimpsed through the crush, was accomplished and generally engaging. It was not a night to see the art, nor was that the intention, but a night to ogle the new space, dispense hugs and kisses and to sense that the ever-nascent 9th Street corridor may be about to arrive.

Scott Brooks's piece

Peter Davis

Sondra Arkin, Scott Brooks and Tom Drymon

Beth Baldwin

Drew Ernst

Joyce Zipperer and Rania Hassan at Neptune

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 23, 2009

Elyse Harrison, gallerymeister

Nevin Kelly at the Neptune opening!

Elyse Harrison and her architect husband have reclaimed the landmark wedge-shaped dust-encrusted Electrolux vacuum cleaner shop in Bethesda, source of several generations of “how does that place stay in business?” and “is there really anybody in there?” musings. They have utterly transformed the building, adding a couple of floors and a boatload of windows and, voila, a mint-green modern Miami oasis in downtown Bethesda.

what a crowd

Elyse has always shown local/regional work, God love her, and I am generally a fan of her taste in artists. Full disclosure, the opening last Friday night featured two friends, Joyce Zipperer and Rania Hassan. Having said that, the place was totally packed, so good on you, Elise, you obviously have lots of other fans. The combination of the two artists makes for a provocative dialogue on female roles and role-playing.

Joyce and my favorite shoe

Joyce works in metal and metal meshes, fashioning the types of women’s attire that have been fetishized by men eternally and that women have endured in pain or at least discomfort forever. She started with undergarments (I fondly remember the 17”-wasted metal corset) and then shoes, which make up the current show. Gorgeous, sexy, elaborate and very very painful.

Rania's big piece

Rania Hassan spans the worlds of fine art and craft; a couple of weeks ago she was one of the featured artists in Crafty Bastards, the fabulously successful DC-based show of independent Etsy-era crafters and this week she shows at Neptune. Her pieces combine knitting and painting, suggesting a zone of calm domestic reflection in the vortex of urban life.

My encaustic workshop at the Washington Glass School

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 21, 2009

Seems like I've been bouncing around like a cricket on a hot sidewalk the last couple of weeks. (How's that for down home talk? Somebody's home, anyway - sure as hell not mine. But I digress) I will tell all in due course, but let's start with the encaustic workshop I taught last weekend at the Washington Glass School.

This is the first time I'd taught at the Glass School, a truly fab resource we are sooo lucky to have in town, but it will surely not be the last. My students were fearless, which is quite unusual and totally wonderful and they threw themselves into painting with hot wax with reckless abandon. We went through pounds of the stuff with minimal injury and everyone made at least three pieces. Here we are during the post-workshop crit.

Janis, Marquart, Trump and Baker at McLean Project for the Arts

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 6, 2009

Novie goes organic

I have noted before that the McLean Project for the Arts (“MPA”) under Curator Nancy Sausser, has a history of presenting exciting shows and this one is no exception. Let me rant a bit first, though, before getting into that. The problem with MPA is finding it. It is located in what is generally described as the leafy, upscale suburb of McLean, which is just fine, but the turn-off from the main 6-lane commuter road where the traffic is whooshing along at alarming speeds, is not well marked, so I (and others) have spent too much time backtracking and doing U-turns in bad bad places and then even when you get onto the right road, there are a whole bunch of official-looking buildings that aren’t clearly marked. So how about some big old signs a couple of blocks before the turnoff so all of us from the other side of the river can find y’all without endangering our art-loving little selves? Please??

Novie Trump reliquary

But I did get there and I saw some good stuff: Novie Trump’s new ceramic work has her characteristic evocative patina of age and use, as if it has just been discovered after having been buried underground for a couple of hundred years. The reliquaries continue to hold power and mystery and I love the new organic work.

Allegra Marquart's twisted fairy tales

Michael Janis's Hanged Man

Inside the main gallery are Allegra Marquart, Michael Janis and Tom Baker, grouped together as “storytellers”, which they are. Of the three, glass artist and printmaker Marquart, is the most overtly telling stories, putting a macabre twist on some old-fashioned nursery stories, telling them from the viewpoint of the child. I distinctly remember as a kid being pretty disturbed by some of these tales, and Marquart has captured that feeling. The pieces are densely packed with images more often disquieting than innocent.

Tom Baker's enigmatic print

I am a big fan of Michael Janis’s complex, layered glass pieces, which have steadily grown more narrative and more deep. The work here is from his “Tarot Card” series. Using the traditional themes of the cards – the sun, the moon, the hanged man, the high priestess – Janis creates tableaux of modern life.

Finally, printmaker Tom Baker’s stories are more hinted at than revealed. He combines disparate images in enigmatic small prints that pull you inside their frames and leave you wondering how the pieces connect.

Elena Stamberg at home

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

October 5, 2009

house as artwork

Elena

I recently visited Elena Stamberg’s studio in Barnesville because I am curating her October solo show at Studio Gallery in Dupont Circle, and it was a treat. Her home and studio are in the Maryland countryside, out past where the townhouses and strip malls squat. The long driveway, unmarred by a house number, goes around a wide bend to reveal a collection of living and deceased automobiles, including some of the best of Detroit muscle cars, several old Cadillacs, a vintage pickup and much more scattered around several outbuildings. You then approach a building that looks kind of like a gingerbread house with several levels and winding staircases. I parked my car and looked uncertainly for a front door. Probably seeing my befuddlement, Elena came out after a few minutes and led me up some stairs and in.

one of Elena's stories in fabric

And what a place! The house, virtually handbuilt by Elena and her husband some 30 or so years ago from part of a large dairy barn, contains a lifetime of aged and lifeworn objects collected by the Stambergs (the cars are her husband’s project). The house is both a work of art and a repository for the makings of thousands of works of art.

Madonnaa in progress

Elena has up to now worked primarily in fabrics, fashioning highly complex "naive" narratives in combinations of stitchery, embroidery and quilting. In her current work, she takes it a considerable step further, combining work in fiber, rope and wire with figural elements. I will not say more about it because the work was not finished at the time of my visit and I want to leave it to Elena in the first instance to speak to her intent.
The show, titled “Madonnas Assembled” opens November 6 at Studio Gallery, 2108 R. ST NW, Washington.

Art Enables Annual Juried Show

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 30, 2009

Joyce Muis-Lowery, the founder and Director

Art Enables is a group of artists with mental disabilities who spend most of their weekdays in the studio/gallery at 411 New York Ave. NE, DC, creating artwork. They are aided by a talented corps of staff who help them make, frame, market, exhibit and sell their work. The central premise of Art Enables is pretty revolutionary. This is not art therapy, where clients come to make art and take it home; this is a vocational and entrepreneurial program for disabled artists who make some money and, perhaps more important, whose talents are validated in the marketplace.

Yvonne, a great heart

Every year they have a juried show, reaching out to disabled artists around the region. Last Saturday, the show opened with a reception and the art flew off the wall. Art Enables can be visited most days and work is always on display for sale.

D’Orio, Carr and Hill at DCAC: The Poetics of Material

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 30, 2009

Kate Carr's felt coils

DCAC runs a terrific program, originally funded by the Warhol Foundation, that creates mentorship relationships between experienced curators and fledglings of the species to produce one or two shows a year. I know of no other like this in our backyard. The latest fruits of this endeavor are currently in the DCAC Gallery through Oct. 11, and presents the curatorial judgment of Landria Shack as mentored by Laura Roulet. The show is called “The Poetics of Material” and that describes it well.

David D'Orio's "feeder"

The three artists shown, David D’Orio, Kate Carr and Lisa Hill, work in media ranging from the softest to the hardest, felt and muslin to waxed flax to glass and steel. The work is almost completely without added color, forcing the materials to stand on their own. They make a surprisingly strong statement: lyrically pierced waxed flax panels by Hill, a luscious felt coil by Carr and a row of steel and glass pieces by D'Orio that create tasty shadows on the wall. It is a spare and elegant show, which reflects well on the judgment of the curator without letting it overwhelm the art.

Dark Matter Artist's Talk and Closing Party

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 27,2009

Did you miss the opening?

The Nevin Kelly Gallery invites you to two events for my ongoing show: Dark Matter, new paintings in tar by Ellyn Weiss.

Artist’s Talk: Saturday, October 3, 2-3 pm.
Ellyn will discuss how (and why) these paintings were made and anything else of interest.

Closing Party, Saturday, October 17, 3 – 6 pm.
The final celebration.

Nevin Kelly Gallery
1400 Irving Street NW
#132
202.232.3464
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Skycam Photos

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

Sept. 22, 2009

Here are some photos of the Dark Matter opening taken from the Nevin Kelly skycam.

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