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My Week at Camp FAWC

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

July 7, 2009

The printshop busy at work

Rebekah Tolley, the instructor, with students

I’ve just come up for air after an exhausting and productive week at the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) in Provincetown, at the very ragged tippy end of Cape Cod. I have lauded FAWC before, so will be brief: the week-long workshops in the visual arts and writing are intense, the staff – most artists themselves – are remarkably helpful and attentive, the faculty are top-flight, the other students generous and serious, and the overall experience immersive and often exhilarating. (Guess that wasn’t so brief.) But I am really fecking tired.

my output at weekly exhibit

another Weiss print

I learned photolithography and I’m still not sure why. The fundamental principle of lithography, of course, is based on the incompatibility of oil and water, which means that one has to use an oil-based ink to print, which means one has to use solvent, and my own printing studio up here is non-toxic and solvent-free, being that it’s about 10 feet from my bedroom. So I won’t be doing any photo-lithography in my own studio. But I might do it other places, so I guess that’s the answer to my question.

and another by moi

why stop now?

And it has some terrific features, prime among them being that you make the plate by exposing a computer printout or a photocopied image directly onto a thin aluminum sheet that’s been treated with a light-sensitive coating. So you can create imagery on the computer and make a plate out of it – no fuss, no muss.

Mark Planisek

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 24, 2009

Mark and his boxes in Virginia magazine

I want to pay tribute to Mark Planisek, a DC artist who died yesterday. Mark was hit by a car while on his way home from the opening of a show of work by his collective, Sparkplug, at the Arlington Arts Center. Mark was one of the 30 or so artists, including me, who had studio space in the late lamented Millennium Arts Center in DC, where I came to know and love him.

The late-lamented Millennium Art Center

At times like this, one tends to revert to cliché, but everyone lucky enough to know Mark knows how true this is: in addition to being talented and hard-working, he was a thoroughly decent, kind, generous, genuine and sweet sweet guy. He made everyone smile and a day was always better for his presence. He supported his friends, came to each of our openings and was a strong presence in our community. He loved working with Sparkplug and inspired many younger friends.

one of his political photo-collages

Mark was an artist with broad interests, but most of his work had photography at its base. In the past several years, he had much success with his photographic boxes. He started making these during our fight to stave off eviction from our studios at MAC, photographing our individual studios as well as most corners of the huge shambling old building, in and out, documenting the ecology of the artists’ colony at the Millennium Art Center at the edge of extinction. He gave me a box of my studio that hangs in my new studio and now I have two things to cry about whenever I look at it.

Herb and Dorothy

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 20, 2009

Provincetown has a film festival every year in mid-June, which was begun as a way to get people to the outer edge of the Cape at other than high season and has grown into something quite unique. In addition to the fare that can be found at other festivals, there is always a good selection of gender-bending films, some contribution from John Waters, as well as some art-related movies, tributes to the special character of this part of the world.

Herb, Dorothy, etc. after the movie in the Payomet tent

Last night we saw “Herb and Dorothy”, a documentary about the lives in art of Herb and Dorothy Vogel. The Vogels, who look to be in their 80’s and who attended the show and did Q and A afterward, spent their lives collecting art on the salaries of a librarian and a postal clerk. Childless and living in a tiny rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan, they haunted the studios of emerging NY artists and bought compulsively and presciently from those they loved, could still afford, and could fit into the apartment.

The Vogels in their apartment

The film contains interviews with some of the most prominent artists they collected, including Chuck Close, Pat Stier, Sol Lewitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Mangold, Richard Tuttle, Will Barnet, Lynda Benglis all of whom attest to the Vogel’s eye, their incredible energy – they saw everything everywhere – their persistence and their sheer love for the work. For most of these artists, the Vogels were among the first who appreciated and bought their work, even at miniscule prices by today’s standards, and they continued to give them special deals to allow them to buy after the work was otherwise well beyond their budget. They never sold a piece after acquiring it.

The Vogels' name has been inscribed at the top of the benefactor's column in the National Gallery

In 1991, the Vogels agreed to have the National Gallery inventory their collection with a view towards donating all of it. The art movers packaged every painting, drawing and sculpture crammed into the apartment, under the furniture and piled to the ceilings and filled five jumbo moving trucks with the booty, which added up to over 4700 separate pieces of art. The Vogels would accept only what is described as a “modest annuity” to provide them some measure of security as they aged. As the film shows, however, they’ve used it to buy more art, once again filling the apartment.

with part of their collection in Washington

The National Gallery determined that it would be able to assimilate only 1000 pieces, so the Vogels and the Gallery have designed a program called “50 Pieces for 50 States”, designating one museum in each of the states that will receive 50 pieces from the collection. The museums have been selected and the collection divided and the program will be officially kicked off very soon.

As you can imagine, the Vogels, who have received lots of media and art world attention over the years, are aften asked why they picked a particular piece or artist. They never say much more than that they love it, or that it speaks to them - this about a collection that includes a lot of minimal and conceptual work that is generally considered "difficult - and they utterly refuse to issue the usual art world verbalisms with which they are no doubt familiar. I found this their most endearing quality.

I'm on the Cape

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 14, 2009

Driver and navigator - I'm the one taking the pictures

Beautiful Truro

We are here in beautiful Truro, MA, after a heroic slog as follows: 1) leave DC in heavy ass rain; 2) stop for family party in Bucks County; 3) more and heavier rain; 4) stop in Poughkeepsie NY to pick up the spawn’s car (it's a long and sordid tale); 5) rain rain rain as we now drive two cars all the way to Cape Cod – and all in one day! My tush was numb and my right leg was throbbing.

Coast Guard Beach

But it was worth it. More to come.

Artomatic - The Rest of the Story

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 12, 2009

Art Enables' Charles Meissner

How shall I sum up Artomatic 2009? I have already used every synonym for overwhelming and huge, so we’ll take that as said. I stopped counting skulls at 22 (there is a special place in art hell for people that draw skulls. You are tied in a chair while Michael Bolton albums play forever.)

Chuck Baxter's masterpiece

But, oddly, there are far fewer guns and other ordinance than in previous years, hardly any reference to war and there are probably almost as many Obamas as skulls. Lots and lots of Obamas, presented in a decidedly non-ironic way and lots of references to the kids and the family inspiring your work and even photos of a delivery. I mean, that’s sweet, but enough already. Even with 1000 artists, two showing their kiddie lunchbox art seems a lot. Ms. S was getting violent.
On the whole, the thing did feel generally more upbeat and – dare I say it – optimistic.

Susan Finsen

Susan Chapin - nails and wax (I think)

Some art that I liked and/or that caused me to stop and think: Chuck Baxter’s lounge chairs made from plastic bags – Chuck, my man, you have outdone yourself!; Susan Chapin’s sculptures made of nails and her wonderful sales scheme – pick a piece, pick a price, mail me the money – so touchingly 1960’s; the Art Enables display of the work of its cadre of disabled artists, especially Charles Meissner’s precise rendering of a scene from his past, complete with narrative.

Edward Johnston

Edward Johnston’s sculptures are gorgeous and intriguing, but buddy, you need to tell me something about how these were made and what they’re made of. It makes me crazy.

Megan Maher

Marina Reiter

And some more: John Guernsey’s dense, churning drawings of an invented cosmos; the same for Ben Tolman, who always gets me looking closely; Susan Finsen’s colors; Megan Maher’s energetic bursts of squiggles, alive and wriggling; Marina Reiter’s new pods – they look brooding to me; Patrick Finley’s provocative drawing of a woman’s pelvis and what looks like a manufactured vagina; the graffiti walls. a project which began small at the Children’s Museum and has grown and grown.

Ben Tolman

Finally, I love the garden of recycled bottles, cans and other discards, made by Virginia school kids under the direction of Torpedo Factory artists – notice that my picture of it shows the ballpark all lit up and pulsating right outside. That’s the best part of this site.

Trash park and ballpark

John Guernsey

So, thaaaaaaat’s all, folks. Tomorrow bright and early I’m off to beautiful Truro, MA, from where I will report on art and life on the ragged end of Cape Cod.

A Woo-Woo Kind of Day

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 11. 2009

"Deep Connections" - monoprint, about 30" x 40" framed

"Willing Watchers", oilbar, 30" x 30"

Wow. I have had a real woo-woo experience. For a week, I have been worrying about how I’m going to have to move everything in my studio around like a big old three-dimensional puzzle in order to stash the pieces that are stacked around so that my friend Richard Dana can have some nice clean space to work this summer since I have bequeathed it to him while I’m in Truro. (leaving Saturday!). And then yesterday morning bright and early I got a call from Julia Morelli, formerly Gallery Director at Nevin Kelly and now an arts coordinator for Prince Georges’ County, asking me if they can show my work this summer at the Headquarters of the Maryland National Parks and Planning Commission and the Prince Georges’ County Parks and Recreation Dept. And I said yes and she and Phil Davis, Gallery Director of the Brentwood Arts Center, came to the studio that afternoon and picked out more than 20 pieces, packed them up and drove away with them. Storage problem solved! So if you’re in Upper Marlboro or Greenbelt, check it on out.

This is like one of those stories where you wish so so very very hard for something and the universe just gives it to you. I think I’ll write a book about that; maybe I’ll call it “The Woo-woo Factor”. I bet nobody’s every written anything like that before.

These are a couple of the pieces they took - an oilbar from the "Circular Reasoning" series and one of the big monoprints from the "Neurotransmitter" series.

Artomatic Part Deux

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 8, 2009

Only at Artomatic

I am daunted this year by the sheer muchness of Artomatic; I am engulfed, overrun, routed and swamped by it. Nine floors? 1000 artists? This is not an exhibition, it’s a municipality, it’s own ecosystem, a good sized corporation. But I am determined not to let my reader down, so made it through another few floors Sunday.

There’s a big dollop of bad photography as usual, but some very good stuff caught my eye: Mark Parascandola’s clever and very well-executed “DC Tags”, pictures of iconic Washington sites (like the Lincoln monument) with superimposed graffiti. I also really liked the photos from R. Teri Memolo’s “Corner Stores and Carry Outs” series, particularly the two little stores still standing but marooned in their deteriorating emptied-out neighborhoods. I haven’t seen her work before but will look for it now.

Jenny Walton

Erwin Timmers' What We Leave Behind

Other stuff definitely worth a look: Jenny Walton’s dense drawings, both inviting and a little scary, Erwin Timmers' new recycled glass pieces called “What We Leave Behind”, made of layers of objects discarded over time; Pat Goslee’s sexy, swirly paintings, Sheila Crider’s cut and woven canvas and her “Blackstraction” manifesto;

Pat Goslee

Sheila Crider

Ben Nicholson’s large overwrought, bravely-colored prints; Larissa Presniakov’s drawings that have a certain life and movement that make them feel original; Allegra Marquardt’s complex childlike narratives in glass.

Ben Nicholson - detail

Larissa Presniakov

Also, among the many wonderful glass artists from Sunderland, UK, Criss Chaney presents glass that has been made to look like it is partly iron. It’s a wonderful baffling effect.Closer to home, Baltimore glass artist Megan Van Wagoner presents what are essentially glass potatoes. Sounds kind of dumb but a fabulous look and an aesthetically appealing little joke. And Steven Jones "half chicken/ half man sculptures are effectively creepy, like little aborted cloning experiments.

Criss Chaney

Megan Van Wagoner

While good painters are pretty rare on the ground here, I was attracted to the layered embellished prints/paintings by Mei Mei Chang. They are not all fully realized, but they are quite interesting and made me want to see more. And Dana Ellyn has an irresistible wall designed to offend the religious, including the Pope wth a big old Pinnochio nose looking downright lascivious. I told her she'd better double her security detail.

Steven Jones

Mei Mei Chang

Finally, there is Veronica Szalus’s lovely fragile and delicate installation, made from chicken wire bricks dipped in what looks like thick white paint, built into a transparent curving wall. It looks like it’s the innards of a building that’s in the process of decaying back into nature, an effect which is heightened by the dry leaves and other bits of detritus scattered around and caught in the wall. Great stuff.

Dana Ellyn

Still another four floors to go. I will return Thursday, God willing and the fence don't come down.

Veronica Szalus

Hubcap guy - an Artomatic stalwart

John Adams at GRACE

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 3, 2009

The Divine Ms S. and I schlepped out to deepest VA to see John Adams’ show at the Greater Reston Art Center. Warning: digressive rant approaching.I understand and applaud the concept behind the “new urbanism” developments: build dense mixed-use urban-type environments in the suburbs, particularly near transit, to encourage people to get out of their cars and to avoid the evils of sprawl. I get it and it’s a thoroughly worthy, even necessary goal. The problem is that the actual bricks-and-mortar manifestation of the concept so often creeps me out. Like Reston Town Center and its Truman Show cousins in Rockville, Germantown and numerous other suburbs, they look like every building was designed in the same architectural office and popped up out of the ground on one day about five years ago - and that littering is a capital offense.

Each one of these towns has a Panera, a Whole Foods and an Arts Center, and in some cases, a very fine one. That’s a good thing, make no mistake. Because synthetic environment or not, real people live here, including real artists and people who want to see real art. Which brings me back, thank God, to John Adams.

John’s work is serene and, although these pieces are mostly small, the visual space they create is as expansive as the universe. If you went outside at night and stared at the sky for a very long time, you might get this effect. The pools of black, white and grays are draped over grids; in the most effective pieces, the grid is just barely visible as if you may have imagined it. Nice stuff.

Jantzen, Lelah and Logsdon at Mclean Project for the Arts

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

June 3, 2009

I’m sorry that it took me so long to motivate my ass over to the Mclean Project for the Arts because now you only have a couple of days left to see the current show: Franz Jantzen, Aliza Lelah and Roslyn Logsdon. And you definitely should go.

Jantzen, Coal Creek Library

the outside of the library

Jantzen produces large scale “digital assemblages”, visual/psychic maps that begin with a meticulous process of photographing every inch of the multiple surfaces of a subject such as “Coal Creek Library”, the one-room library in Vinland, Kansas, home of his wife’s family. He then digitally alters and reassembles the hundreds of images into a single print that is the product of thousands of aesthetic and technical decisions and yet is somehow complete and coherent despite the astonishing variety and perspective of the imagery.

detail of an eviction

Apparently unafraid of revealing his unique process, Jantzen has documented the step-by-step making of “Coal Creek Library”, which greatly enhanced my appreciation of the endeavor. Really, this shouldn’t be missed. My photo is a pretty pathetic facsimile.

ALiza Lelah's piece

another Lelah - I love this creepy speedo dude.

And a well-deserved nod to the curatorial judgment involved in this three-person show, which has joined three artists whose work shares a “take it apart, move it around, put it back together”, recycled kind of aesthetic. Aliza Lelah works with recycled fabrics and stitches them into evocative, expressive and often sardonic portraits and figures. I am amazed at how she gets such specifi human emotions on the pieced fabric faces.

Roslyn Logsdon makes elegant hooked rugs in subdued colors. They are lovely if perhaps a bit quiet to compete with the other work in the gallery this month.

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