Michele Zalopany at Esso

This is a show( with a nice review here ) in NY, that just ended by an artist originally from Detroit. I came across the show through James Wagner's post and while I did not see the show and have never been to Detroit ; I was very moved by this work. The artist is tapping into such a rich river of memory and identity, that gives the images a lot of power. These images are loaded.

From the gallery press release:

Her paintings' photographic realism use a fictitious model, closer to an excuse to raise a question rather than make a statement, although many of the places, people and things are, or were, real. In 1943 it is believed that a confrontation on the Belle Isle Bridge was the spark to the ensuing riots. Zalopany's beautiful rendering of the empty Belle Isle Bridge paradoxically describes the scene of social malaise and the inability to mitigate Detroit's enormous racial chasm.
Zalopany's larger-than-life "Line Up" comprised of three panels at a total of 7'4" x 13 ft is a meditation on profiling in 1943. The six subjects, three males and three females, are posed in a police line up, dressed as though they were going to church, stare ambivalently into the camera, hence, at the viewer, asking the question 'why?' The viewer is in front of a contradiction, a painting that is not just a painting leaves open every interpretation. The painter obviously wasn't sitting in front of six subjects in a police line up. Maybe she painted using models in vintage clothes, in order to balance the unpleasantness of the real image she pushed herself to compose another antithetical one. The presence or absence maybe doesn't means much, what matters is her ability to make each of her paintings a serious questions. Technically, each picture is born pastel stroke by pastel stroke - applied with great skill and experience as well as the necessity that brings the artist to create new forms for her language and to organize the invented forms in relationships, into image-making.

Postcards From The Edge

You have about a month to contribute a piece to one of the best benefit events out there-- The Deadline is November 10th. Artist's get hit up a lot, but this is truely a wonderfully designed event for one of the best causes out there.

Postcards From the Edge is a show and sale of original, postcard-sized works on paper by established and emerging artists. Famous in the art world as the most exciting and affordable way to build a collection of work by internationally renowned artists as well as young and emerging artists, all works are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. The works are signed on the back and exhibited so the artists' signatures cannot be seen. While buyers have a list of participating artists, they don't know who created which piece until purchased. A collector might end up with a work by a famous artist or someone they don't know yet. Either way, they walk away with a great piece of art while supporting the important work of Visual AIDS.

Artists
If you would like to participate in the Postcards From the Edge benefit click here for details and submission forms. Deadline for donated works is Friday, November 10, 2006.
Collectors
If you would like to be on our mailing list, please send your address to info@visualAIDS.org or Visual AIDS, 526 West 26th Street #510, New York, NY 10001.

This Year, as usual an awsome NY gallery is the hosting the event.

Visitor from Detroit

Seems like we had a visitor from Detroit, a few weeks ago and she left behind a nice little post on the current Mattress Factory show. A ways back she also did a nice post on one of our downtown gallery crawls. Judging by her great blog, Detroit seems to have a scrappy scene run by some folks who won't say die. Her post of course, mentions Pittsburgh's not so slight resemblence to San Francisco; which a lot of people here don't seem to see.

Small Press Hotspot

Here's a great little piece on the thriving small press and underground literary scene in Pittsburgh. The writer, Karen Lillis; though a recent transplant has gotten her finger on a lot of stuff.

Calling the Pittsburgh literary landscape “the most underrated art scene in town,” Paper Street Press poetry editor, Arlan Hess, described this year’s book fair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs in Austin, Texas: “There were 450 tables of small presses from all over; we were in about the eighth row. By the time people got to us, they were all exclaiming, ‘we had no idea Pittsburgh had so much going on!’ There was at least one press from Pittsburgh in every row.”

Interview With An Art Teacher: Introduction

An incident a few weeks ago in Texas helped to remind me that I now live in the "fly over country" that people on the coast's look down on. To a degree, this is just a comfortable stereo type, but like a lot of those things, there is often a grain of truth beneath it all. My gallery has the work of a number of artist's who work as suburban school teachers or professors in small colleges. Merge has an interview with one that reveals a lot of the issues they face as artist's and educators at work in flyover land.

Interview with an Art Teacher. By Merge Divide

Living in Pittsburgh, and trying to continue doing artwork can be a tricky proposition. On one hand, you have the advantage of a very low cost of living. Conceivably you can work part time in the service industry, or do another kind of piecework, and be able to meet some basic costs... while continuing to do the work that sustains you. That can work for awhile, but as you get older and start to make more commitments, you may be drawn to a lifestyle that requires more in the way of financial reources. So what do you do when you need health insurance and a retirement account? For many, the idea of teaching art becomes an attractive proposition. Today I decided to talk to a friend who has successfully explored that option, and present that conversation in interview form. For reasons that may or may not become evident, we have decided to protect his identity. He will be assuming the initials "cv" for this purpose.


MD: You gotta bear wiith me here, c, this is as new to me as it is to you. Why don't we start out with the artwork you do... what medium do you work in, and how was your involvement in the arts developed?

CV: I'll begin with how I got started painting, which was with my mom at a young age. She did the whole art school thing in the late 60's and failed at making any attempt in the money department post graduation, so became a stay at home mom until I was about 10 when she began selling real estate. She inspired in me to work in watercolor which is one of my prefered method of color applications. I told you about my mom because when I began drawing skulls and was into the whole skateboard culture of my early teens she decided to "squash every artistic bone in my body" (she told me this in a heart to heart shortly after I graduated from college). Well as with most efforts to dissuade a persons thinking in using negative influences it failed miserably for her and I was a sort of terror to her during my adolescence, getting tattooed at 16 and still drawing lots of dark angry stuff.
Sorry for the tirade there, I suppose its a bit of a sore spot still.... anyhow I like working with portraits of people not necessarily idealized as the "a-typical artists model" , homeless people, homo-erotic, beer can cowboys, modern religious mystics, etc..

MD: So you went ahead anyway and got a formal arts education?

CV:Actually, I got a degree in Environmental studies/Eco-psychology due to meeting influental people on a student exchange in N. California, namely Judi Bari who was one of the main anti-old growth logging organizers of the 21st century. But thats a whole other bag. After I was working mostly with troubled teens in alternative to jail programs and group homes for about 5 years after college I decided to go back to school for art education. I origally went to I.U.P for art education, but fucking hated Indiana, hence student exchange in N. cali and change of directions. I did a post bachelorate program at Carlow College here in Pittsburgh to get certified in Art Ed.

MD: That's a fairly radical transition- from eco-politics to arts education. Did you reach some defining moment when you realized you'd try to be an arts teacher? What specifically inspired that decision?

CV: Dana, my friend and partner in a wilderness trip for at risk teens and I did a project where we took Eric Drooker images that had to do with environmental and social degredation and presented them to the kids and had them talk about what they meant and how they made them feel. It was actually pretty amazing the responses and life experiences these mostly city kids had with these images and also with scenes from their own lives. I guess I always sort of had idealistic visions of my perfect job and it had to do with art and teaching and kids. Am I now living this as an arts educator in public schools.... ? Absolutely not. Beauracracy is slippery little worm that likes to weasel its way into nice ripe fruit.

MD: Is that a simile or a metaphor? I like it. So let's get into the nitty gritty then. It's obviously not what you thought it would be. Can you narrow whatever your dissatisfaction is into a few points?

CV: Metaphor. Due to the basic assumption that school is meant to be broken down into conveinent little compartments (subjects) and organized systmatically (40 minute periods) it is a challenge to say the least to incorporate a deeper meaningful experience while shuffling the student body as a whole down the conveyor belt of assimilation. Basically, its really hard to gain any sort of balance while seeing 600+ children a week. I teach elementary art so alot of my time is eaten up preparing examples and assisting students who are having trouble, re-introducing the lessons, and re-teaching steps involved in the making of whatever project it is we're working on. Now I teach in two schools, one has 5 minutes of prep time between specials (art/gym/music) the other has 0, thats right zero. Once one class is over, the next class is waiting lined up in the hall and shuffles in without a chance for me to breath. This creates a very hectic situation and I'm currently trying to "slow things down" , but the nature of the child is that they are sponges and work very fast/ pick up new ideas and so I also am trying not to stifle this beginners knowledge enthusiasm. On top of this the leadership of some administrators is lacking thereof. Meaning that they don't like their job or their life or both and basically are not such a supportive rung in the heirarchical ladder of leadership. Also, public education is becoming more and more of a hoop to jump through with teachers needing to be more educated (which I support as long as theres tuition reimbursement from the schools) and national standarized testing which soon art too will have to participate in if they have their way (which I do not support).

MD: Hold on there... do you really anticipate nation or statewide standards for arts education? I kinda think that they won't be able to find the funds to even develop them. But if they did... what would be the process? Who would be writing those standards, and how would they be assessed? The very subjectivity in the nature of art would seem to prohibit it, don't you think?

CV: Not really, I think its too open ended as a subject, but I've heard that to authenticate the art education experience they would be justified to incorporate art related vocabulary and history as part of the test for "art". Now standarized tests are primarily coming out of Princeton where they supposedly have hand picked "top" educators from diverse backgrounds, but in reality these tests are classist in therir scope from the terminology and wording of the very questions that they build these tests upon. It is proven that students score exeptionally higher after taking test prep classes which in most situations clue the students in on the thinking put in the the questions at hand and the answers they are looking for. Many of the questions are worded in a way that multiple answers could be right, but one is extra right. Or terminology that students from the suburbs or countryside might understand, but city dwelling ones would get thrown for a loop just in the vocabulary used within the context of the question. Its all about trickery and learning "their" way of thinking, which is a bunch of classist bullshit. And yes, MD, the subjectivity of art is lost when you try to pin it down in a bunch of historical facts and personalized ideas. History is written by the ones who win the wars, whether it be in the arts realm or weaponry. What would a history book look like if Native Americans had a say in our "heroes of the past" or look at the times of Van Gogh, he wasn't "realized" until long after his death.

MD: That is horrifying. It completely contradicts the purposes of art. The idea works counter to the history of the development of art. And there is a tie-in too, with the accepted structure and paradigms that seem to be pushed in MFA programs... that's bad enough, but now it's gonna be integrated into arts education for children? Talk about stifling possibility.

CV: And Bingo was his name-o... From my perspective as an art educator dealing with young children it is my sole responsibilty to make that 40 minutes some of the most exciting moments they will experience in the school setting. I'm constantly preoccupied with working out how to inspire atounding creativity and personal decision making/critical thinking within my classes. I want them to follow directions, but also I encourage twists to my lesson plans and their own influx of ideas into whatever we are doing. Thats fine that you followed directions, but how is it YOURS. I want all the projects to look different and I constantly tell them that if adults could recapture the magic of childhood they would, but we rarely can and therefore there is a reason kid art looks like kid art and when adults try to capture that whether its Basquiat or our own Kellstadt their is something magical within it. Something we automatically gravitate towards and want to try to interpret.
I am lucky in the fact that for the most part administrators leave me alone because kids like my classes and we produce good looking art.

MD: Being involved in education, but not arts education... I have always had this idealized vision of the arts teaching position. Those guys always seem to be chillin' in their own private neverland. At least in the high school, art is an elective course. The kids in that room chose to be there. And so they seem much more in their own element. And the art teacher is there with, like, Joy Division quietly streaming through their computer speakers. And they get to come to school in casual wear. Ya know, administrators don't have a freakin' clue what "art is". Generally (I would assume), they'd be keeping their paws off of your instruction. Of course that is what makes the whole "standards debacle" so problematic. The idea that we've come so far in that dirtection is scary. Anyway... I have another question I'm curious about. How does having the position you have in a particular community affect the decisions you make in displaying your personal art? What kind of considerations predominate?

CV: Well... Alot of sexually oriented or graphically dark artwork I've been straying away from not because I don't want to make it, but because I don't want to be associated with it in this small community. For the most part I make whatever I want and am not too concerned with having shows and so forth, so some may say i'm not much of a "real" artist. I don't really feel like I need to make art for any other reason than that I want to frickin' make something, whatever that may be. As an adult (shudder) I feel as though I have to watch my back and not get fired for something avoidable, ie. I wear long sleeves to cover my tats and don't really clue anyone in at work when I may show artwork or have something else going on. I'd like to keep my professional and personal life seperate, but in Pittsburgh is hard. I'm running into kids I teach more and more, but I suppose the kids I may run into at such functions would have pretty cool parents, and maybe not...

MD: Well... not to end the interview on an ominous note, but I read recently about an art teacher who was fired because she posed top-less for a fine art photographer. Of course the administration said she was let go "for performance reasons". Yeah, yeah... you and I know that's not the case. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to do this with me, and maybe we'll continue this conversations some other time.

CV: A real pleasure my friend. Thanks.

Carolyn Wenning - Hatfield

Sorry for being late in Posting this photo project from last Month.

On August 19, our good friend Carolyn Wenning spent the day catching the flavor of Hatfield Street. The result is Hatfield, a documentation project.

October Unblurred

First Fridays on Penn Avenue are starting to be an energising art event. New venues have opened since last year and some businesses are offering their space to artists for display. One of the dual use businesses is Carolyn Wenning's (c)space. The building is her studio, so during the month the space used for presentation during Unblurred reverts to a workspace. Light and open, it is ideal for both purposes.

(c)space

(c)space had a strong show: DIAGRAMS, MOCK-UPS AND MAPPINGS. I have been trying something different with my camera: shooting the labels for the pieces to record the name of the artist and the title of the work. Unfortunately, things did not work out for the image on top; all I can make out is Nicholas and Untitled Series for the title. The series were figures drawn on graph paper and framed with distressed metal. At bottom was a mixed medium piece by Adam Walsh.

Modern Formations

Modern Formations had Introspections: The Artwork of Taya Hanauer. Modern Formations is a smallish space, with two rooms connected by a narrow hallway. I don't often think about the space that a show is in unless it has some bearing on the work. In this case, it is pertinent. The two rooms and the hall were hung with work. The front room had about a dozen framed drawings. The work was intuitive, but figure-based. Along the top of the wall leading into the hall were roughly drawn, illustrative figures, reminiscent of some comic book art. The figures were repeated in the hall but as digital prints and drawings on wood. The back room of the gallery is painted a dark eggplant. Here, the comic book character came out and really played in several mediums. Large-scale stencils, drawings on paper and wood and some evocative digital images. I had hoped to find more of the artist's work online, but she doesn't seem to have a website.

Imagebox

Imagebox is another venue that doubles as a full time business and presenter. This month, the work on exhibit was Charles Smith III's Autumn Abstract. The colors were rich and vibrant, much like the palette he prefers in the works presented on his website. It could be that this exhibit is a new direction for Mr. Smith since they are a radical departure from the figurative work for which he is known. The above image is one of the smallest in the exhibit and seemed to me to be the most interesting.

Garfield Artworks

The mob scene at Garfield Artworks was overwhelming. Tons of people dropped in for the show. Or maybe they were all there at the same time as me!

Garfield Artworks presented the work of five artists in the City of Monsters. The works were as crowded on the walls as the patrons were on the floor. Not a lot of breathing room for such active work.comic art seemed to be a theme here as well as at Modern Formations. There was an illustrative quality to the work. Pictured at top is one of Ben Kehoe's paintings. At bottom, one of Joe Bruce's works on paper. Bruce's work, though still informed by the aesthetics of comic book artistry, seemed to reach beyond the rather limited visual appeal to something that was of greater complexity.

Most Wanted Fine Art

Most Wanted Fine Art is not quite ready to open its doors, so they had a sidewalk show featuring Jason Sauer, Gene Fenton and quite a few others. Walking up Penn Avenue from Garfielsd Artworks, I was pleased to see art set up on the sidewalk. And even more pleased to run itno Gene, that maker of dinosaurs.

From MWFA's mission statement...

Most Wanted Fine Art is dedicated to being a growing forum for the advancement of underground fine art and music in Pittsburgh. In conjunction with J&J Sauer Trailer Sales, Most Wanted makes its art mobile and publicly available by displaying it at various local sites in a utility trailer (also for sale via J&J Sauer). Most Wanted operates on a loose philosophy of artistic socialism; while each artist promotes his own work, it is for the goal of the group's success as well as the individual's. By booking shows for our artists and musicians, Most Wanted is serious about helping each member of our team achieve success while simultaneously enriching the local (and eventually national) art and music scenes by giving below-the-radar artists a platform and a voice.

I have to say that if you only have a limited time to get into Pittsburgh to view art, first Friday's Unblurred event in the Penn Avenue corridor is worth working your schedule around. It is the only time when some of the veneues are open to the public or are open at the same time. Really, it was difficult to get to everything, there are a lot of gaps in what I got to see on Friday. I never made it to 5151 or the Pittsburgh Galss Center, which from what I hear had good shows, too.

This was a far cry from the disappointment at the Downtown Gallery Crawl the week before. Penn Avenue really is reflecting the diversity of the Pittsburgh visual arts scene. If you want to find out more about the district, check out the PAAI site. I'll be going every month. How about you?

Downtown Gallery Crawl - part 3

There's a really fine show at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery

IN OUR HOUSE
Curated by Marica Jackson

Dates: September 8, 2006 - October 21, 2006
Opening Reception: September 8, 5:30-7:30pm

IN OUR HOUSE promises to uphold the high standard set by Women of Visions’ summer exhibition at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Migrations of the African Diaspora. While Migrations focused on the nature of the journey, this exhibition will delve into aspects of the African American experience that reflect “settling in” to establish a distinctive presence.

I stopped by during my gallery walkabout and snapped a couple pictures of my favorite pieces. Pictured above left is Emory Biko's MOM (More dependable than Maytag) and above right is
Monique Luck's Fabulous Friday Hair. I need to take better pictures. You really lose any sense of how special Monique's work is in this image. Follow the link for much better images.

Tramp Art

In an earlier post, I outlined the difference between a "hobo" and a "tramp". Hoboes traveled around the country to find transient work, while tramps considered hoboes "suckers" for working at all. Tramps had their own hierarchy, with the "profesh" at the top (a professional tramp, who was known for his fastidousness of appearance), and the more typical "fakir" (who had repairman or trade skills to employ when needed). Tramps did whatever they could to survive. They engaged in thievery and begging, and more rarely in robbery and murder. Sometimes they resorted to hobo status in order to build a "stake" to live off of for a short time.

This is not to say that tramps never gave anything back to the society in which they lived (or more properly- lived outside of). In the "jungles" (campsites) where they lived, they often used a technique called "chip carving" to craft a variety of objects including doll furniture, picture frames, jewelry boxes, and even full-sized chests of drawers. Chip-carving entailed using knives to make triangular-shaped cuts to form intriguing and intricate designs. Tramps used cigar boxes and packing crates to produce these items, and traded them for food, lodging and other necessities on the road. The finished pieces are known today under the classification "tramp art".

This folk art had its heyday between the 1870's and 1940's. Ironically, it only drew notice in the realm of culture during the 1950's when its period of production had largely passed. Nowadays, in the postmodern era of cultural consumerism, tramp art has become a highly collectible commodity. Of course, there are galleries devoted to this traditional folk-style Americana. What confounds collectors of such work is that most of it was left unsigned and undated. Good luck doing an internet search for the names of "famous tramp artists"- it's very difficult to find specific names. Bill Carmichael (information on this author provided at bottom of post) mentions Big Boy Billy, Frisco Fred (who gets a mention here), and Lanky Larry.

When most talk about "tramp art" today, they are likely referring specifically to the chip-carved pieces linked to above. But indeed there is a whole range of craft that is associated with both tramps AND hoboes (furthering the confusion of classification). Check out this confusingly- titled link. Evidently some make a distinction between hobo art and tramp art, saying that the latter is more utilitarian in nature, while the former used whittling to create objects that were more whimsical.

(By the way, I particularly like this vintage religious tramp art.)


** I became aware of this fascinating type of artisans' craft when I came across a chapter devoted to its collectors in a (1971) book by Bill Carmichael called "Incredible Collectors, Weird Antiques and Odd Hobbies". Carmichael seemed to be well ahead of the curve in recognizing the validity and future colllectibility of tramp art. But it's inclusion in this book of "strange collections" is illustrative of just how under-the-radar the artform was until recently.

October Resident at the Society for Cultural Exchange

Here's a little about the October Artist in Residence at The Society For Cultural Exchange, both the images and the statement is from thier Website.

"Salvage/Salvation* is an installation and performance project that explores the metaphysics of re-use and the philosophical, emotional and material implications of discard. The project is made for spaces that are between uses or slated for demolition, and appropriate outdoor sites. A group of visual and performing artists create independent but overlapping environments and performances grouped loosely around a central theme. The site itself, the surrounding community and any discarded materials found on-site inspire the exact character of the event. Through its methodology and the striking nature of the final environments, Salvage/Salvation seeks to bring ideas of scavenging and transformation to center stage and create a dialogue with the public about sustainable relationships to our physical environment, advocating ingenuity and unity. Salvage/Salvation uses installation and performance as a laboratory for both artists and audience. It is a primarily urban project that began in New York City. A group of artistic collaborators and outside consultants seek out unused spaces, and create installations and performances that are appropriate to the space and its surrounding locale, taking into account the local neighborhood, the city itself, and local industries. Each group begins with the same hypothesis, but the conclusions (the pieces) are determined through the research process and the specific parameters of the circumstances at hand. The groups works together to create a unified esthetic through the juxtaposition of independent voices.Since 2002, Salvage/Salvation has had four very different iterations; in a gallery reclaimed from a garage in Queens, NYC, (HOME) in a storefront slated for demolition in Times Square, NYC (Living Salvation) and twice at the Queens Botanical Garden (NEST and HIVE). The themes varied with each space—some examples: In Living Salvation the artists contemplated the questions: What is our relationship to our own past, and how do we discard or transform trauma and sorrow in our selves as well as in our physical environment? In NEST, the artists took the gathering practices of birds as their inspiration, and used only materials found on-site at the Botanical Garden to create a series of temporary homes.For Salvage/Salvation Part 5, tentatively titled Pittsburgh Home, I will seek out a residence (house, apartment building, etc.) that is currently not in use, preferably abandoned for several years. Abandoned or unused structures give the sense of architecture finally relaxing into dust and dirt and complex edges, and contain all the ghosts of history in their rooms, clamoring for our attention. What is normally left behind and ignored will be used to create a new reality, as each room in the house is re-built, the palpable past contained in the structure becoming a stage set for an unknown narrative. "

Stay tuned for more on this

brillo burlesque

Thanks to Renee Ruth Ickes at brillobox for coming up with this really cool idea for us Pittsburgh artists. If you want to get updates about future sessions, email us and we'll put you on the email list.

Brillo Burlesque draws inspiration from the vaudeville queens and their outrageous costumes for this unique artist opportunity. Brillo Burlesque will offer two models, clothed in feathers and satin and lace; a study in sensuous textures.

The models will be costumed and some props will be available for the sessions. One model will be dedicated to a single pose while the other will concentrate on a variety of poses. The sessions are uninstructed, drop-in sessions. The brillobox artists must bring their own materials. Water-based and dry mediums are welcome. (Sorry, no photography or oil-based mediums)

burlesquebrillo@yahoo.com
www.myspace.com/brilloboxevents

Saturday, October 14: 5-8PM
brillobox
4104 Penn Ave.
Pittsburgh PA 15224
(412) 621-4900
Two models!
Cost: $15

The world's going to hell

Just look at this outrage.

Black Sheep Puppet Festival

This is just a heads up that we are in the Black Sheep Puppet Season, thanks to people like Tom Sarver. This is one of the last approved events before the Stillers high holidays and seems to becoming better each year. Events will be going on throughout the month.

This month, The Brew House in the South Side will be hosting the Black Sheep Puppet Festival for the eighth year. The festival “is an international showcase of contemporary innovations in puppetry as an art form and performance medium,“ according to its website, www.blacksheeppuppet.com.
Once again, puppeteers and artists from all over the U.S. and Canada will return for a month-long festival promoting puppetry in its modern form. While the resources are paltry and the puppets are not extremely high-tech, sincere passion for puppetry has been clearly displayed at the past seven festivals. Many of the artists return year after year with new projects and creations to show off.
Pittsburgh native Tom Sarver, this year’s curator and the one who has been integral to the festival since its inception, is currently opening a museum called the Tom Museum in conjunction with the Mattress Factory. As part of this festival, he will be conducting a make-your-own-puppet day at the Mattress Factory, during which workshops will be held for introductory puppet-making.
The festival started in 1999. A group of artists that worked in The Brew House at the time wanted to bring something new and different to The Brew House — something that displays the cutting edge, experimental forms of puppet,” Sarver said. “I was in school in Philadelphia studying painting, had just started doing puppet shows, and happened to run into the people doing the festival. Getting involved in the puppet festival helped me get more into it and keep up with it as an art form. It was really inspiring for me.”

Downtown Gallery Crawl - part 2

Peter Kope and Michele de la Reza from Attack Theater brought Game Night to the Wood Street Gallery for the gallery crawl. This is a popoular program for Unblurred, first Fridays on Penn Avenue. During Unblurred, though, the company members also perform the Seven Minute Dance Series. It's a great way to get to know the company's works and get a sneak preview of upcoming works. They'll be performing October 6 for Unblurred. And yes, there will be games.


The Sprout Fund began sponsoring murals in the various Pittsburgh neighborhoods in 2003, with thirty murals completed to date. It's a great opportunity for young artists to get their feet wet in the public art arena. While I was downtown for the gallery crawl, I swung by and snapped a picture of the second mural for the area. Brian Holderman was hanging out with some friends across from the mural. Now, I don't understand why the dedication ceremony didn't take place during the gallery crawl, but there you go. The dedication ceremony is taking place Friday, September 29th, 6:00pm at 7th & Liberty Avenue.

I think that this fall's gallery crawl was disappointing. Merge Divide wrote eloquently about it in Serendipity. There were a lot of performance-oriented programs for an event that is supposed to showcase visual arts. The video exhibit at Space was unviewable because of the band. While the band seemed to be pretty good, I found that the music echoed so much from the walls that I couldn't make out the lyrics.
Wood Street Gallery had dance events instead of visual arts. Even the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery got into the act with a drum performance. (I'll post about the exhibit later)

What happened? Did everybody just ignore the calendar? Are they so concerned with bringing in masses of people that they've resorted to bread-and-circuses to make a greater number impact?

Merge on the Downtown Gallery Crawl

Merge had some thoughts about last Friday's gallery crawl. I myself feel in general agreement, but the truth is that I missed too many shows to have a complete opinion. I found myself very enthrawled by two interesting works at Future Tennant; one by file artist Josh Tonies.

Here's Merge on his blog. Please return to my blog though cause i sent you over there and it is just low down and impolite to leave me all alone.

Lawrenceville Artists' Studio Tour

The Second Annual Lawrenceville Artists' Studio Tour

Join this free, self-guided tour of 22 Lawrenceville artists’ studios on Saturday, October 7 and Sunday, October 8 from Noon to 5 p.m. Participating artists are independent local artists who work in a range of different media, including sculpture, painting, candlemaking, weaving, metalsmithing, photography, soapmaking, t-shirt and handbag design, custom furniture making, stained glass, and textile and jewelry design.

Maps will be available at Lawrenceville coffee shops the days of this event

Featuring the work of:
Mary Coleman, Weaving, 187 43rd St.
Ron Donoughe, Painting, 208 Main St.
Jones Furniture Designs, Custom Furniture, 5136 Butler St.
Prism Stained Glass, Stained Glass, 5234 Butler St.
Digging Pitt Gallery, Art Gallery, 4417-4419 Butler St.
Everyone An Artist, Outsider Art, 4128 Butler St.
Trinity Gallery, B&W Photography, 4747 Hatfield St.
Alexandra Etschmaier, Sculpture, 218 39th St.
Allison S. Hoge, Painting, 5314 Butler St.
Picturesque Photography & Gifts, Photography, 4300 Butler St.
Good Chemistry, T-Shirt & Handbag Design, 4728 Plummer St.
Margaret Meinzer, Painting/Metalsmith, 179 431/2 St.
Allison Meredith, Painting/Sculpture, 5136 Butler St.
Jay Design Soaps & Gifts, Soapmaking, 4603 Butler St.
Of This Earth, Candlemaking, 4021 Butler St.
Christopher O'connell, Painting, 5136 Butler St.
Gerald's Forge, Artistic Metalwork, 5160 Butler St.
Corey LeChat, Photography, 4401 Butler St., 3fl
Mark Mentzer, Prints, Drawing, Painting, 5229 Butler St.
Kate Morrison & Teresa Lin, Textile & Jewelry Design 5304 Butler St.
Fe Gallery, Non-Profit Contemporary Art Space, 4102 Butler St.
Blackbird Artist Studios, Various Artists, 3583 Butler St.

Downtown Gallery Crawl

I met a friend for the Pittsburgh Downtown Gallery Crawl on Friday night. This is a quarterly event sponsored by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. The night's events are listed on their website. The first place the we stopped was at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture Gallery to see Women of Vision's Celebration of Visual Traditions exhibit. The space is broken into a series of alcoves and small rooms. Perfect for a group show like this. It gives each work space without it having to compete with each other. The image above is Bullock's Mother and Child; Journey Series . This one of several fine collages that were presented at the exhibits on Friday. The figure in this piece is about life-sized, which really contributes to its impact. Really, you have to go and see the piece to get a better idea of the intricate collage. At the same show in the lower level was a series of boxes created by Martina Johnson Allen. The piece, titled Sacred Space, is made up of nine small boxes (below left). There is an interesting, lively feel to the work. Color seems to burst out along with the bits and pieces. I think that for me, the best piece in the exhibit was RL Washington's Just Having Church. My friend and I spent some time looking at this piece and coming up with several narratives to reflect the characters. There is quite a bit more, so sty-tuned. I'll be uploading pictures and info about the other shows and happenings later.

Adam Grossi: The Suburban Excavation Project

Digging Pitt Gallery encourages you to take a peek at Adam Grossi's exhibit at GRACE. Adam is included in our flat files and, along with Josh Tonies, produced a fabulous showcase of collaborative works.

Adam Grossi: The Suburban Excavation Project
September 28 — October 29, 2006
Greater Reston Arts Center Gallery
12001 Market Street, Suite 103
Reston, VA 20190

Adam Grossi begins his work at the intersection of utopian ideals and the American cultural mainstream. Drawing from architecture, advertisements, maps, and illustrations the artist uses paint, collage, and installation to chronicle his travels within the middle class suburbs. A Reston native, Grossi has a long history growing up in a planned community which he develops into imaginary narratives he calls, "welcome mats at the doors to stranger's homes." From the GRACE Website

"This is a solo show, nestled deep within the heart of my very own hometown -- a place that has often served as my primary source of image-making inspiration for about three years. Reston is one of the country’s first and foremost planned residential communities, making it kind of like the town in “The Truman Show,” except for the fact that no one is acting. It is a fascinating place; driven by utopian development ideals and intricate planning, and yet, also susceptible to the same mainstream cultural dilemmas that challenge the rest of the country’s suburban landscape. The paintings I am presenting here are products of my fascination with this tangled intersection of idealism and conventions. Roughly twenty images have made it into the show; additionally, the gallery staff has been generous enough to allow me to supplement my work with some painting and drawing directly on the walls… so I’ve created a temporary landscape of my own." Adam Grossi - Artist Statement

The New and Improved Digging Pitt Blog

People shocked at the low quality of the previous blog, will be pleased with recent developments. After a series of hostile takeover efforts and a violent management shake up-- a new and improved blog is emerging. A free floating team of contributors will be gradually emerging that will ad content on thier favorite subjects. I will still be responsible for keeping the fairly unballanced part of the blog intact.

Who is Joe Coleman?

The recent entry of the NY artist, Martin Wilner into my flat files has brought me back to a post merge did on one of Martin's, artist friends-- Joe Coleman. I will be seeing a new documentary on Joe with Merge next week. The rest of this post is by merge.

A couple of years ago I happened to stumble across a short-lived television series called
Disinformation. The show was a sort of post-modern news magazine, detailing outsider artists, conspiracy theorists and odd cultural phenomena. Despairingly, the creators of the show (who are also coincidentally the men behind a controversial publishing house) were not able to get it aired in the US. The four episodes that were made were shown on BBC television. One of those episodes contained a segment with an introduction to a Brooklyn-based artist named Joe Coleman.

Coleman made a lot of noise as a performance artist, when he became known for strapping explosives to his chest and detonating himself a mere few feet from shocked audiences. He had other strange proclivities too, including biting the heads off of live mice. Disinformation collected a few snippets of those early performances, along with Coleman's elaborately detailed, comicbook style paintings. The artist portrayed himself, his friends, loved ones, serial killers, Jesus, and his enemies, in post-apocalyptic settings reminiscent of Bosch and Brueghel. His process is so meticulous that he wears magnifying glasses and employs a single-hair brush to paint. The artist also has his own private museum, called the Odditorium, that he allowed the television crew to view. In this collection are human and animal oddities, the grisly remains of biblical saints, and a genuine pickled punk affectionately-named "Junior". The entire Disinformation segment was a mere tantalizing glimpse at this strange and dark figure.

Fortunately for me the Disinformation label has recently issued a DVD of Rest in Pieces: A Portrait of Joe Coleman. In this fine documentary by Robert-Adrian Pejo, we are privy to a substantive exploration of the man, his history and his work. We get to see him at work in his studio... blowing off steam with his companions in the Odditorium... at work and play with various friends and associates... and yes... performing his explosive act as Professor Mombooze-o. We also get a heaping helping of his homespun philosophy. Coleman believes we are living in a "Time of Death", in which perversion is natural. He also likens humanity to a cancer threatening the health of the earth.

Despite his dark tendencies, Coleman is exposed as a rational thinker, a romantic mate, and a generally nice guy. Interviews with friends, former girlfriends (including the lovely Dian Hansen), a sibling, and others demystify the artist, and give valuable insights into the man. It's not surprising when we learn just how obsessed Coleman is with Catholicism. I found quite a lot to like about him- we share a wide array of interests including carnivals, moral relativity, freaks, film noir, the occult, horror movies, true crime, and cults. He's a shamanic persona, who is not afraid to speak truth in the face of glaring hypocrisies. You could do a hell of a lot worse than tracking down this film.

Tom Sarver: The Tom Museum

Here are some thoughts from Merge on the Tom Museum ,

Last night I went to the preview of new installations at the Mattress Factory. I don't think
people in Pittsburgh realize just what a great resource this place is. It adds a hint of international credibility for Pittsburgh in the arts sphere. Whenever I do make it a point to go to the museum, I always wonder why I haven't been there in such a long time.

The inspiration for this particular visit was the opening of the "Tom Museum" (at 410 Samsonia Way), an installation centered around the life and work of local artist Tom Sarver. Artists can be a notably envious lot, and if it's appropriate to reward just one with such indulgence, then I am glad Tom was chosen. For those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting him, he's a very generous and accessible guy. I felt particularly welcome yesterday as Tom took the time, in the calm before the storm of his official unveiling, to give me a personal tour of his new living/working/installation space.

The exterior of the townhouse (which belongs to the Director of the Mattress Factory) has a colorful mural done in Tom's bright cartoon-like style. Walking through the front door, you enter a fantastic foyer with carved wooden stairs, like a monotone version of a Dr. Seuss environment. You step through another door, and are treated to a video feed from a piece in the basement. Down another short stairway, and through the reception room, you reach Tom's conceptualization and media documentation room. Out the backdoor, there is a courtyard that will be transformed over the next few months. His companions will be two interns from the museum, and the killer Rottweiller that lives in the yard behind his (don't worry, Tom has installed additional reinforcement to the back fence!). And visitors, of course. The intention is to encourage day-to-day interaction with the museum's patrons. He plans a series of special events throughout the life of the installation. One of Tom's annual projects is intensive partcipation in the Black Sheep Puppet Festival. This October, he is planning to move the festival's puppet-making workshop to the Tom Museum.

The second floor of the house consists of Tom's handmade puppet archives, and the one room he has alloted himself for personal living space. The third floor is yet another work in-progress (and you'll just have to visit in the future to see what he has planned- I know what it is, and believe me, it's gonna be worth the wait). Sarver has plenty of time to complete his vision- he will live and work out of his museum for the next eight months. After that, who knows? Tom talks of maybe wanting to take some varaition of the concept on the road, or continue his developing relationship with large-scale mural work.

The Tom Museum can be visited Wednesday through Sunday, between the hours of 11AM and 5PM. Contact the Mattress Factory for further details. This is a must-see.

*And if you want some additional "Tom", please make sure to stop in at the very first traveling exhibition from the "Tom Museum" at the Digging Pitt Too. The opening reception is this Thurday (the 14th), from 6-9PM, on the corner of 45th and Plummer Streets in Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh).

Digging Pitt Too Opening

Tom Sarver
David Gonzalez



Here are some images from My Digging Pitt Too opening on Sept 14th.

Digging Pitt Stuff

Digging Pitt Gallery wants to send a welcome out to Crystala Armagost, who is taking over the Digging Pitt Stuff blog! Go on over and say hello.

Crystala will be posting about all things craft, including the Handmade Arcade. With Crystala's help, Digging Pitt will be having monthly craft events at Digging Pitt Too, located on 45th and Plummer Streets in Pittsburgh. Stay tuned for further developments and check in with Crystala at Digging Pitt Stuff.

Thanks, Crystala. And welcome

Blogger trouble

Sorry, I have been jammed up and procrastinating and then when i have a little time, blogger acts up. I will be back with more updates, images from my openings and the Tom Sarver, David Gonzalez and Jean McClung Show.

Kate Temple / Pittsburgh Alumni Opening

Here are some shots from the Opening of my Pittsburgh Alumni Show on The 14th. Sorry for not posting this sooner. I will be improving on this post as I can. Let's just say the show looks good and the opening went great. It's also been fun to watch in the gallery as people see the work of people they know and to see who knew who and stuff.

Update. Here is a link to Kurt Shaw's Review of the show. As we all know, Kurt writes for the "right wing" paper in town, that i often strongly disagree with ( an understatement ) and often not. But Kurt is in truth one of the most reliable reviewers in Pittsburgh. I mean he bothers to show up and look at alot of stuff and that alone makes him OK.

The review is well done and actually has some nice pictures, if you see it in person. However, he had to review the show before Kate had installed her Solo, and had to sort of wing the review from looking at images and seeing some of the Kate's on hand. This is work to see in person.

I had a nice crowd at the opening but sold very little work, with my "big sale" coming in my satelite space with a whole buch of David Gonzales's flying out the door. Well they are still there, but let's say a lot of them are now hitched and spoken for.

I Live!!

Hi,

I just want to assure my vast audience that the previous post was not some kind of suicide note. I have just been too busy to post for the last week or so. Many things have happened and I will be trying to catch up a bit.

I would also like to anounce that Merge Divide corporation has nobly joined us as an occasional contributor to this blog. Merge Divide is a nice small and sincere corp with an interest in the arts in Pittsburgh and is not affiliated with the more sucessfull Divide and Conquer corp. I have in the past often linked to posts on thier blog. The main thing is that the people behind it seem to know how to use a spell check program and can think clearly. I will continue to post when I can, with the ultimate goal of creating a more comprehensive forum for dialog about the arts in Pittsburgh.

Web Art Project

I just have to put a little link into this project I found by an artist named Corey Arcangel. I don't imagine that there is that much really new done here, but the elegance of this is great.

Taking A Link Dump

I think that bloggers would call this post a link dump in that I am just dumping a few interesting posts that I have come across out there. All credit goes to thier authors. People who read this blog might know that I am attracted to open ended posts that lead to conversations and or fist fights.

On the economics of art and the artists life.

Heart As Arena on looks at NY after a trip to L.A.

Merge Divide on Pittsburgh after atrip to N.Y.

Christopher Jagers on the artist's life and again on the artist's life.

Art Powerlines on gentrification.

Painters NYC Watch artist's hurt each other

Tom Museum Opening Sept 9th & 10th

,

The North Side will be buzzing with a bunch of events in the next week, a lot of them are loosely connected to the Mattress Factory. Sept 9th has the members preview for the Tom Museum and for the Mattress Factory's new "Factory Installed" show.

The Tom Museum

"The Tom Museum is both an irreverent commentary on the museum experience, and a view into an artist's creative process. Tom blends everyday activities and pastimes, such as cooking, fishing and gardening, with the arts of puppetry, painting and sculpture to engage visitors on many levels. His projects within the museum are inspired by everyday observations and experiences, including the weather, current events, and people he meets through visits, phone and e-mail. Visitors passing through the museum may get to take part in a puppet show, appear on a talk show, enjoy breakfast with the artist or critique his tomato plants. Audience interaction and feedback are encouraged. "

See the City Paper preview. Here's a Tom quote from the article

“It’s almost a commentary,” Sarver says. “I’m trying to reinvent how a regular museum would do things. I’m kind of running this whole thing myself, trying to make it a really accessible thing to your everyday person on the North Side or Pittsburgh or wherever."

See the piece in Pittsburgh Dish.

Factory Installed

A new Factory Installed exhibition will feature five artists who have come to Pittsburgh from across the country and lived at the museum while they created four new installations. This Factory Installed, features Nick Cave, Dan Steinhilber, Deborah Aschheim and Jesse Bercowetz & Matt Bua will be on view through January 28, 2007. Jesse and Matt will be rushing in from thier Solo opening at Derek Eller on Sept 7th.

Here is some stuff of of the Derek Eller website that relates to that show, but from what I know of thier work it will likely apply here as well.

"Bercowetz and Bua pursue their narratives down every digression, diversion, false start and dead end that presents itself. The work can never be complete, because the stories never end: a bowling ball sits undisturbed on top of a rickety seven-foot-tall model of a World Trade Center tower made from cheap wooden shish kebob skewers; audio interviews with authors of books on the supernatural and the sub-rosa, spinning tales of ransacked apartments, Charles Manson and the Virgin Mary; a room memorializing missing children topped by an outsized milk carton, while a bookshelf beneath is stuffed with dozens of CD jewel boxes labeled with the names of countries invaded by the US military or infiltrated by the CIA.

Cities Of Asylum Sept: 9th

Also, on the north side that day will be the dedication of Pittsburgh's second "cities of asylum" house.

"City of Asylum/Pittsburgh provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of death, imprisonment, or persecution in their native countries.
We enable the writers to continue to write, while transitioning to a potentially permanent exile. The current writer hosted by us is the Chinese poet Huang Xiang, who was imprisoned and brutally tortured in his native China.
City of Asylum/Pittsburgh is a nonprofit that was started by local Pittsburghers. It is funded by concerned individuals and foundations and receives no government money for its writer-support programs."

Patricia Villalobos Echeverria at AIR - Sept 9th

Also, AIR will be opening it's new anex with a solo exhhibit by Patricia called Afujo. Aflux.
AIR rarely has much info on thier site, but here it is. This is all wthin walking distance of the Mattress Factory.

I apologize, for the thinness of some of the info. I got what I could online in the time I had. I am trying very hard. There is a strong sense that a lot of things here seem intended for some inside and in the know crowd.

First Friday On Penn Ave.

I have been very busy setting up for the new season so I am handing David the floor with his impressions of First Friday on Penn Ave. A number of new spaces opened and the crowds were pretty huge. I spent a lot of my time at Carolyn Wenning's new space and actually didn't even make it into a few spaces. David's brain has been taken over by a corporate entity known as Merge Divide.

One fact about things on Penn now is that they are growing past the stage in which they can easily be absorbed in one night. There was a somewhat cold frenzied atmosphere on the street with crowds moving rapidly up and down Penn to see shows in spaces that are rarely open at other times. More of these places now have websites and David has been good at putting in links.

Rachel Popowcer, Pittsburgh Alumni

Rachel Popowcer

Since moving to New Mexico from the east coast, my work has undergone many changes. My use of graphic symbols has lessened and the spaces in the paintings have deepened. In many ways, these paintings have represented a shift in my own artmaking process towards a more deliberate, structured and personal outcome. The more open and vast my spaces have become, the more solid are my intentions for the viewer. They reference landscape [or mindscape, as I like to call it....], as well as objects in nature. The colors shift as the light changes, appearing sometimes impenetrable, sometimes transparent. They offer an invitation to explore, to look, to think, and to inhabit the spaces in and between them. They are a visual record of my own thought development.

Many of my pieces function both as landscape and mindscape, referencing the tides and erosions of nature, as well as the steady pulse that drives us to work, to create, to desire and to change. Women artists, in particular, are challenged daily with multiple roles. It is important, as artists, to find the time to think and to create. My recent paintings have evolved out of a need for a thinking space. I want people to enter the work and yet have space enough to react to its presence. Ultimately, my main desire is to evoke thought. I don't mean to imply that my paintings function as backround noise, rather that the strong personalities of each painting serve to mimic our own varied thought processes.

My own thought process generally involves a lot of organization together with a good amount of intuition. This duality is constantly present in my work, creating an active tension (and sometimes an active harmony) across the surface of each painting. I have a need to create ordered surfaces through an imperfect and often time-consuming process. I apply the lines in my paintings by hand instead of through mechanical implements. I draw and tear my geometric shapes freehand, and I often spend hours woodburning on an individual painting.

I see my work as a sort of visual topography; a recording of internal and external experiences within a carefully constucted space.

It is in these carefully constructed spaces - between the active and the still, between constraint and freedom, and between logic and instinct - where I take my viewer to new landscapes by way of a personal adventure.

Jim Towns, Pittsburgh Alumni

Jim Towns

Jim Towns is a formally trained painter and illustrator, an alumnus of the Savannah College of Art & Design. After graduating he worked in Philadelphia and New York City for several years as an illustrator and set designer for theatre before immigrating back to his native Pittsburgh.

In Pittsburgh he re-dedicated himself to painting and mixed-media assemblage. His work has been exhibited all over the city including venues such as Blue Ruin, Box Heart, Gallery in the Square, Digging Pitt, and the Mattress Factory. He was also a co-manager and frequent exhibitor at Penn Gallery in Lawrenceville. His work is in private collections in the United States and England.

Under the aegis Mad Monkey Productions he wrote and co-directed three films between 2000 and 2006 with friend and collaborator Mike McKown: 2003's The Sleep of Reason, 2005's One Nail too Many, and the recently-completed Prometheus Triumphant, a Fugue in the Key of Flesh .

Since late 2005 Towns has lived in Los Angeles, CA. He has written five independently-produced screenplays (Abandoned, The Vicious Circle, Murder on the Red Sea, The Scroll, and the upcoming Scions of Atlantis) and also a one-act stage play entitled Two Fools at the Feet of a Hanged Man. He has provided storyboards and art direction for the independent films The Coming, La Muerte, and Killer Krabs.

He currently works at Fox Studios in Century City, and plans to return to Pittsburgh in spring of 2007 to film his sophomore directorial effort.

"I think on the surface it seems that my work is just a crazy hodgepodge of different disciplines, genres, and styles… but if you look at it across the board, I think you begin to see an overall pattern… similar themes recurring and evolving… one of those themes is definitely time and it's effects… the way people and things age and decay… scars and erosion. I think that all comes from my experiences in Pittsburgh as a child. The city has a powerful history that is still visibly etched on its contemporary face. The bones of the once-mighty steel mills still rise from the ground like the fossils of dinosaurs, now just the rusted skeletons of giants. That iron and earth and that the idea of that now-broken strength have definitely influenced my art, my writing, and my film work. Pittsburgh is definitely one of the reasons that I'm doing the art that I am today…"