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Ode to the Divine Ms. P. and "Metropolis"

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 20, 2009

The Divine Ms. Phillippa

GeesoHead is here giving some big props to Phillippa Hughes. Now let’s first be honest and admit we’re all just a teench jealous of the Divine Ms. P; she does great things, she goes great places, she organizes art/rock and roll events in this stodgy old town, at the speed of light, she built the Pink Line Project into a presence that seems it’s always been here and, worst of all, she always looks fecking gorgeous. Having said all that, you gotta love Ms. P - she does it all with a sweet smile and a kind of touching air of surprise that she’s brought it off.

Anne Corbett and Sam Sweet

the very big ants

The event at the Meridian International Center last week was an extraordinary achievement, even for Herself. I have never been to this place before, but talk about stodgy establishment: it’s a ferociously manicured campus around an old mansion tucked behind high brick walls just off of 16th Street NW, or, as they are fond of saying, “”1.5 miles north of the White House.” The institution describes itself as a “not-for-profit public diplomacy institution” which, among other things, manages high-level exchanges for the State Department, hosts briefings for international leaders, and “facilitates public-private partnerships between corporations, governments, NGOs and private actors to extend global exchanges and collaboration.” Definitely no casual Fridays here. We knew for sure that we were not in the usual art venue when guys dressed like Secret Service agents sans earpieces smilingly shepherded us into a room to hear the Chinese cultural attaché speak.

They Group

Holly Bas climbing the wall!

It seems that the Meridian International Center had been hosting a big show of contemporary Chinese art called “Metropolis” for a couple of months and the new “Vice President for the Arts” wanted to try to get a demographic more representative of the local artfolk in for the closing party. So he went to Phillippa and she took it in hand, invited all her friends, hired a terrific musician, a DJ and Holly Bas, an amazing dancer. The turnout was great, the scene hopping and the Chinese diplomats kind of nonplussed, I thought.

Margaret Boozer and Claire Huschle

The theme of the art was the warp-speed of change in China and some of it was quite interesting, although the crush of artfolk prevented much prolonged interaction with the work. The huge steel ants on the front lawn by Chen Zhiguang were the consensus show-stopper. I loved Goa Lei’s digital prints, featuring nightmarish video game scenes of urban decay and incipient violence (but strangely beautiful, I promise) and two immense oils by the “They Group”, who apparently always paint essentially the same scene: these were a birdseye view inside a modern highrise apartment, with a huge window opening onto the hyper-urbanized scene of modern China and the young inhabitants seeming a bit unmoored.
I do have a bone to pick with the curators, though: the information available was almost completely about the mission of the Meridian Center and the Chinese government and almost nothing about the artists and their work. This was very frustrating and you need to fix it next time.

Dark Matter opening report

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 18, 2009

That's Tom Drymon and me

Betsy Stewart and Judy Jashinsky's lovely back

OK, now a few words about my own opening last night at Nevin Kelly. The work looked great – Nevin was up to the challenge of lighting these difficult reflective, uneven surfaces, although it was not easy and we both worked up a sweat - him working, me worrying. The rest of the gallery was stripped to its bones, so the paintings were allowed to suck up all the light with no interference. There was a great crowd, so thanx to all my peeps who celebrated with me and to my new peeps. The work will be up for a month, until Oct.17, and the gallery is open Wednesday-Saturday from 12 – 6 pm. So get thee hence, pardners.

Molly Ruppert laughing it up

George Koch

Richard Dana, Emily Liddle and Michael Sirvet in the back

Molly Ruppert, Ms. Sondra, Tom and more

Lots O' Art at 923 F St. NW

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 18, 2009

Michael Sirvet

viewing Jeff Huntington's work

While you weren’t looking, 923 F St NW became quite the little gallery building and last Friday night there were three openings of note. As you enter the building, one of Barbara Liotta’s sculptures of stones suspended by cord hugs the brick wall of the narrow hallway. Then up the stairs to, first, Reyes + Davis, showing work of its small, refined group of gallery artists. These include Johanna Mueller’s finely-wrought engravings and drawings and some eye-popping color photographs by Pepa Leon, as well as Jeff Huntington’s faux old-master paintings of his young relatives dressed in those highly confining, elaborate Renaissance outfits and looking not too thrilled about it. New to the Reyes + Davis roster is my friend the sculptor Michael Sirvet, a beneficiary of the Hamiltonian fellowship program. His gleaming pierced-metal work brings a fresh dimension to the gallery.

Judy Jashinsky

Judy's newest underwater painting

Now on to Judy Jashinsky (another friend and former inmate of the Late Lamented Millennium Art Center), whose paintings are always thoughtful, and both beautifully made and conceived. Judy had an open studio, showing her newest work based on underwater photography. For the past few years, Judy’s work has been water - obsessed, including most prominently the gorgeous series based the fisherwomen of Japan. Now she may have eliminated the figures and gone directly to the purity of the water.

Sheila Crider's

Finally, yet another friend, Sheila Crider, showing at CAOS on F, the gallery project of Michael Berman and Matthew Falls. Michael Berman, artist/arts advocate/art fair entrepreneur/consultant and all-around busy guy, is most of the reason that 923 F exists as an arts-related building. He negotiated for the space years ago as part of a development deal that involved the loss of a long-standing downtown studio building. So big thanks for that and for creating a venue to show local art, including Sheila’s. This show, called “re-construction”, consists of pieces woven from strips of paper that have been worked with graphite and then painted repeatedly. The process is time-consuming, slow and deliberate and the work was made as Sheila mourned the loss of her mother. It represents a new awakening; it is strong and solid work.

Trawick Prize finalists at Fraser Gallery

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 18, 2009

Cate being explanatory

I have been pounding my little boot leather to the nub visiting art venues non-stop since I got back to the swamp. (I can hear you all now: ”kvetch kvetch…”) and I am woefully behind, so let me catch up and tell you about some good stuff.
First, the Trawick Prize finalists at the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, Cate Fraser’s airy, expansive space in downtown Bethesda (I do wish they’d give you a sign on Wisconsin Ave, Cate). Bethesda businesswoman and art patron Carol Trawick endows this extremely generous annual juried competition, awarding $14,000 in prizes, including a $10,000 first prize, to local artists, the definition of which extends at least to Baltimore. This year’s finalists’ show was reviewed last week in the Post by Michael O’Sullivan and I find myself largely in agreement with him.

Molly Springfield's piece

Molly Springfield’s complex and thought-provoking wall drawing, which took second prize, is a treat. Beginning with the story of the inventor of photography, supposedly spurred to his invention by the desire to record his memories in more true fashion than his fairly primitive drawing skills could produce, and progressing to the stage where we now scan images in time increments too short for the human brain to distinguish, the drawings pose questions about the nature of observation and the diminishing of the element of human interaction in memory-creation. Plus the hand-drawn “Xerox” images provide one of those “aha” moments to be treasured.

Greg Minah's painting

I also loved Greg Minah’s paintings and was delighted to see such an old-fangled medium as paint on canvas – and abstract, no less - more than hold its own. Minah drips paint and turns the canvas – there’s nothing at all innovative about the process – but the results are gorgeous. The canvases vibrate with color and movement.

Alas, most of the rest left me underwhelmed. Leslie Shellow’s cut-out drawings are lovely but slight and kind of get lost. Perhaps a show with more of them would make an impact. The first-prize winner, Baltimore artist Rene Trevino, does a wall of small paintings on mylar about being gay, Mexican and misunderstood. The artwork is visually unremarkable and the theme has been done. Over and over in every possible permutation.

I'm BAAAAAACK - and looking at art.

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 15, 2009

Richard Dana's "Lit From Within"

Jenny Freestone's mask

Wow – the velocity of re-entry this year has been hypersonic. I wasn’t back in the swamp for more than a day before the whirlwind of the fall art scene sucked me into its vortex. It definitely feels like a fall “back to school” moment– a bazillion openings in the two weeks after Labor Day (my own at Nevin Kelly on Thursday among them, of course.)

Jeanne Garant's mask

Novie Trump's

First things first: “Courage Unmasked” on September 9, an exhibition and fundraiser for the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, featuring art made from the spooky metal mesh masks made from each individual head and neck cancer patient’s face in order to administer radiation treatments. Over 100 artists made pieces and many of them obviously spent a lot of time and thought on the projects, which may have had something to do with the fact that they were working with the auras of real people and the freight of responsibility that comes with that.

Sondra Arkin's

Susan Feller and Bridget Lambert smiling it up

Some that caught my eye were Novie Trump’s in-your-face depiction of courage and pain, Richard Dana’s visually vibrating “Lit from Within”, Jeanne Garrant’s ghostly encaustic, Jenny Freestone's delicate but solid feathery head and Sondra Arkin’s brave and defiant piece based on an African fetish.
The event was held at AU’s fab Katzen Center. Bravo to the Katzen for making this high-prestige venue available but I gotta say that the space allotted was inadequate to contain the crowd, the food and the art and combined with the lack of directions on how to bid, many in the crowd seemed mystified on how to bid on the work and most of the fine work went un-bought. Note to organizers: job one is selling the work and next time you need to think more about that.

"Dark Matter" - my new show at Nevin Kelly

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

September 4, 2009

"Lost Continent" - the invitation image

My new work, titled "Dark Matter" will be shown at the Nevin Kelly Gallery from September 17 - October 17. It's all made of tar, it's oddly luscious, and I think you'll like it. Come party with me at the gallery at the opening reception, Thursday, September 17, 6 - 9 pm. The official info follows, along with a snippet from the press release that the gallery put together.

Nevin's new space is right at the Columbia Heights metro. Be there!

"Dark Matter"
New Work in Tar by Ellyn Weiss
Opening Reception Thursday, September 17, 6-9 pm.
Nevin Kelly Gallery
1400 Irving Street, NW, #132
Washington, DC 20010
P: 202.232.3464
F: 202.232.3465
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Show runs from 9/17 - 10/17

"Weiss has discovered that tar is not the dull and uniformly black substance it first appears to be. It contains a range of subtle hues—rich browns, subtle grays and warm amber tones. She uses these colors to coax images from the tar. The images are not planned in advance, but reveal themselves as she works.They have an eerily organic quality to them, appearing to the artist like living things “swimming up from the primeval darkness.” They register with us at the most basic level of all, as if triggering a memory we carry in our DNA of the moment life began."

Weisses do the Tourist Thing

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

August 28, 2009

Weiss and Emo and a very steep dune.

For reasons that are too long and boring to bother with, we had to put 100 miles on Nora the Spawn's car quickly in order to qualify it for re-inspection, so Weiss and I decided to do the tourist thing and visit the various beauty spots in the National Seashore Park that occupies 2/3 of the land mass up here at the ragged end of the Cape. And beautiful they are, too.

Weiss and Emo at Highland Light

Cape Cod Light at Highland is the oldest lighthouse on Cape Cod, chartered by President Washington in 1797. As a result of the relentless push of the winter storms, the 10-acre plot of land designated by Washington has eroded to 4 acres and a couple of years ago the lighthouse was moved 500 yards back from its original spot to avoid slipping into the ocean.

Race Point solitude

Race Point is at the tip of the Cape where the Atlantic ocean and Cape Cod Bay meet. There are fields of dune grass, rolling dunes, and miles of space where one can, if one chooses, find solitude. Or you can go over to where the fisherman are camped in their humongous RVs drinking beer and waiting for the poor fishies to swim into their range.

Non-Toxic Yet Oddly Threatening

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

August 28, 2009

A couple of doses of the SARS virus

Tony curating my Swine Flu print

I just had the true privilege of working for a week at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown with Tony Kirk, a Master Printer who has done editions with artists like Helen Frankenthaler, Mary Frank and Donald Sultan. He used only non-toxic materials and worked with six experienced printers to teach his methods and to assist us in producing multiple plates and prints. In an ironic repudiation of the theme of environmental friendliness, I did a series of plates based on viruses (swine flu, SARS, etc.) that I can use all winter. No-one will ever believe the prints are mine, lacking as they do the ubiquitous ink thumbprints that are my signature.

Those Crazy 12 x 12's at PAAM

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

August 5, 2009

Now THAT'S an opening reception!

Nathalie Ferrier's piece

Every summer the Provincetown Art Association and Museum does a very successful fundraiser; artists are invited to bring in a piece measuring 12” x 12”, everything is hung mega salon-style in one of the big, airy rooms in the museum and a silent auction goes on for a month.

Phyllis Ewen's piece

my 12 x 12 - encaustic, monoprint, etc.

The opening reception is a colossal must-attend scrum of artists and art lovers. Everyone participates, from the amateurs to many of the big names in these parts. To bid, you buy a paddle for $10 and drop in periodically during the month to see how your bids are faring and decide whether to go higher. It gets really interesting and competitive in a passive-aggressive kind of way on the last day or two.

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