Christine @drink & draw

I know I am late in posting this. The session last week was really stupendous. As always, Christine was a wonderful model. Thanks to everybody that came out! We had a pretty full house, but some folks left before I could get images of their work. Below is a slideshow of some of the drawings done at the session. I usually ask drawers to have the piece they liked best ready to shoot. Funny how it almost always is from the longer poses.



drink & draw is moving to once a month! We will be meeting on the last Tuesday of each month. Sessions will start at 6:30pm. Next session is April 27, our model will be Paul.

Drink and Draw…
is an open studio live model drawing session that meets last Tuesdays on the second floor of brillobox, located at 4104 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, Pa. This session is relaxed, surprising, and inspiring. amazing models dressed in various themes, old timey music, great company, and decor. All mediums, except oils, welcome.

Drink & Draw
Upstairs | 6:30 - 9:30PM | $10
MySpace
brillobox
get on our mailing list. email us at brilloboxdrinkanddraw@yahoo.com
4104 penn ave
412.621.4900

No Longer Disturbing: Beneath The Paper Thin Surface At Unsmoke Systems

Saturday Night, I was able to get to Unsmoke Systems in Braddock and was treated to an amazing show which I didn't document visually. Zoe McCloskey, is an artist from, I think NY who done art projects in Belize, Argentina, Mexico and El Salvador and now moved to Pittsburgh. She and her brother started a residency program for writers called Cyberpunkapocalypse in Lawrenceville. She shares the gallery with a classmate from Cooper Union named Firelei Baez.

Firelei's work was mysterious, sometimes funny, and visually stunning. She's obviously got talent, imagination and skills to burn but these works go far beyond just visual display. Lush, ornate and often over the top, combinations of sensual, and biological images prevail many of which trace to Afro Caribbean folklore. But as she states, her purpose seems to always blur definitions and identities.

"My artwork consists of paintings, drawings, and prints that regard my physical self, my personal history, and Caribbean folklore. Afro-Caribbean folklore allows for malleability in the creation of the self, but I find my status as an Afro-Latina in the United States static and limiting in comparison. In response, I try to disrupt the current system of social categorization through the creation of characters that refuse definition. My artworks depict characters of indeterminate race, signified by their facial features, colorless skin, and hairstyles representative of ethnic hair. These men and women are interacting with predatory birds and finches: eating them, being plucked by them, admiring them, fighting them, scared of them, and unaware of them. In Caribbean folklore any part of the body represents the soul, especially hair. It is necessary to protect ones soul by making sure that any hair that is shed does not wind up in the hands of others. If a bird picks up ones hair and incorporates it into it’s nest, then the person’s soul is placed in limbo. I use this symbolically loaded scenario, among others, to metaphorically illustrate the multiplicities and hypocrisies that make up the current discussion about race and class within popular culture. "

Zoe's work which was mostly hung at the gallery's center had much less visual force. A lot of it seemed to involve large blowups of personal poetry/writing and several letters and notes written to her. A lot of the poems, in english or spanish were pretty strong and that gave it a slowly resonating power as the words linked to their arrangements on the page and interaction with her imagery. I felt I should have looked closer.

Luckily, the Post Gazette posted this video on the show.

Sixteen Birds & Inflatable Architectural Body @ Wood Street (to April 4)

immediate impressions :
- kinetic sculpture
- robotics
- zen mechanics
- alienation
- pseudo-industrial & regulatory translation of natural processes
- computer - aided (mac minis in the cieling)
- white on white on white with silver accents, pseudo-surgical tubing, touches of lubricating gel
- oh! where's my patience. so i can really experience this.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Gallery 3

Inflatable Architectural Body

Gallery white-out, white covers the windows. White box with mechanical apparatus hanging from the ceiling at center. The puffs and grinds of this sculpture having an internal dialogue in front of the viewer. Hangs like -- fruit? squid? vines? many organic analogies for a clearly inorganic object.

Movement triggered by inflation and deflation of the white tubes tugging on the closed system. Hisses, noises, clicks whirs and breathing.

The gallery attendant lets me in on a secret: the argument its having with itself is tearing the thing apart.

I have a self-other clinical relationship with it. Then I ask if it is permissible to lie down under the thing and, in fact, do so. Only now am I vulnerable to it. Intellect knows its not going to hit me. Instinct tells me this is dangerous. I have a heightened awareness response. I think of some of the self-destructive delusions I have watched people bog themselves down with (including myself).

I have been reading a tibetan buddhist tract about the discursive mind, our ability to get into closed loops of thought, immediately before viewing this piece. Of course I project that notion onto this work. I find that idea fits in a satisfying way. I decide I understand this work.

Gallery 4

Sixteen Birds

The windows are uncovered.

Sixteen flying Vs. A flock. Oh the birds of appetite. White sculpture, white walls. They are flaccid, wings dangling down. My presences figures into, triggers inflation. Up. Cascade from front to back. They fly out the window.

Did the artists make the mechanical birds because they could. Don't we all make art because we can. Well its less destructive than any other way of existing, even in its uselessness. And it is beautiful.

Fourth floor of Wood Street. Birds fly past the windows. This is such a clean image, there are so many resonances in art history - Van Gogh's fields with black crows scudding across the sky, Saint-Exupery's Little Prince flying, his flock of wild birds carrying him. Intuitive, clean, immediately get it, sit, rest, watch the birds breathe, their wings inflate and deflate in some musical sequence scored to a rhythm I don't know.

Wood St. Galleries

SketchCrawl

So, I think this is a pretty nifty idea. From the SketchCrawl site --

The next step was making the SketchCrawl a World Wide event: having people from different corners of the world join in a day of sketching and journaling and then, thanks to the Internet, having everyone share the results on an online forum.

The events happen in a (casual) quarterly schedule. The next one, SketchCrawl 22, is scheduled for April 22.

I wish I could do something about coordinating one of these events here in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, I work on Saturdays at my day job and Saturdays off is not really an option. I hope someone around here takes this up; the event is up to 90 participating cities around the world. Who knew there were so many folks interested in drawing?

Lit News: Novelist Michael Kimball Visits Pittsburgh This Week

I'm really excited that novelist Michael Kimball is coming from Baltimore to read TWICE in Pittsburgh this week. I could tell you that I loved his heartbreaking and tragicomic new book, Dear Everybody, in which we get to read the thank you notes and apologies a suicided young weatherman left behind, but why take my word for it when you could take the LA Times', Time Out New York's, The Believer's, New Pages', or Just Listen Book Reviews'. Dear Everybody has been getting non-stop rave reviews for several months, and you shouldn't miss this opportunity to see Kimball read from it.

For a taste of the readings, check out this beautiful video for the book, an excerpt in the author's voice that plays like a visual short story: Dear Everybody, the Book Trailer

Kimball is also the author of the ongoing blog and forthcoming book, "Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a Postcard)".

Michael Kimball reads on:
Monday, March 16th @ 7:30 pm
University of Pittsburgh English Department
Cathedral of Learning
5th floor, room 501

and

Wednesday, March 18th @ 8:00 pm
TNY Presents at ModernFormations Gallery
4919 Penn Avenue
$5 or free with pot luck item
with Kelly Ramsey, Andy Mulkerin, & Colin Baxter

St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church

In July of 2007, a couple Pittsburgh Arts - Digging Pitt contributors made a trek across the river to Millvale to view the Vanko murals at St Nicholas.



The author did document his field trip. The reason this has come up again is because the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has put up an extraordinary documentation of St Nicholas Church. Periodically, Steve Mellon sets up a 360 degree camera and shoots a location of interest in Pittsburgh. It's pretty amazing; you can navigate through the entire environment, zooming in at points of specific interest. Go see for yourself.

Angels in America at Pitt

This weekend marks the last two performances of Angels in America Part 1: Millennium Approaches. University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theater, directed by Holly Thuma, made the commitment to Angels. They've assembled a wholly original staging.

Ted Hoover's review in the City Paper covers the historic nature & inherent difficulties of staging Angels. All the necessary Kushner details. I'm more interested in this particular staging, how its compact format and strategic transitions allowed the group to create a series of striking images for the audience.

The stage inside Stephen Foster Memorial Theatre (Forbes Avenue at Bigelow) is pretty damn small. If this were an apartment, it would be "charming" or "cozy". Monochromatic beige stone masonry in three layers, shallow levels that create zones for small set-pieces. The walls flip to become urinals. Stagehands bring out simple beds, couches, chairs, easily flipping the audiences attention from one stage 'zone' to another. Simple misdirection allows characters to appear magically.

Lighting, from strong color 'looks' to image projections over the entirety of the stage allow the set and the actors upon it to become the screen upon which we the audience projected the play. Moments like Ethyl Rosenberg's appearance, the dance of the diseased Prior and his fleeing lover in a tux, the shifting snows of the antarctic, all created indelible images that could become painting.

All in one intimate space. Of course the angel makes her appearance, in the way we are expecting her to. But the series of spells cast by the environments, the capable acting, draw one in. I was surprised to burst into tears when she fell from the cieling in her harness.

This group has overcome the difficulty of audience familiarity which poses a particular challenge in Millennium. Still, take advantage of the last two nights. That way you'll be prepared for Perestroika when they stage it this spring.



city paper review

university of pittsburgh information

for tickets call 412-624-PLAY

Preservation Fair @Carnegie Museum

As if you didn't need a reason to visit the Carnegie Museum, here's another one! There will be a Preservation Fair at the Carnegie Museum this Saturday --

Over 30 individual conservators and vendors of conservation supplies and services will be on hand to address your conservation issues. Bring books, photographs, film, letters and other documents, paintings, textiles and family treasures for free conservation advice. No appraisals or valuations will be given.

The featured speakers will be Rick Prelinger, of the Prelinger Film Archive, speaking on the value of preserving film as a cultural artifact and Tom Clareson, of PALINET, with advice on preserving your family treasures in times of disaster. These talks will be held in the Museum’s Earth Theater, from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.

The fair has a broad appeal, with an emphasis on family treasures. But that covers a lot of ground, with exhibitors from local museums, galleries and universities. Here is a list of the exhibitors that will be on hand to discuss art conservation issues --

* Carnegie Museum of Art
Ellen Baxter (paintings)
Michael Belman (objects)
Carnegie Museum of Art, Conservation Dept.
* Christine Daulton (paintings)
* Concept Art Gallery (paintings, photographs, art on paper)
Charles Biddle
* Rikke Foulke (paintings)
* Rhonda Wozniak (fine and decorative art, ethnographic and archaeological materials)

In addition to art conservation, exhibitors will also be on hand to discuss film preservation, photography and furniture restoration. Check here for a full list of exhibitors. All in all it sounds like a really full day.

Preservation Fair
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh.
Saturday, February 28, 2009, 10 AM – 4 PM

Co-sponsored by Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh

Blossom Dearie; Godspeed

I have spoken about my admiration of Blossom Dearie in the past. An incomparable vocalist and pianist, Blossom Dearie's voice has accompanied me through many changes.

I first became acquainted with her in college and because of that exposure have found myself drawn to other indefinable performers. I never saw her perform; I wish now that I had. The NYT announced today that Blossom Dearie has died. --

A singer, pianist and songwriter with an independent spirit who zealously guarded her privacy, Ms. Dearie pursued a singular career that blurred the line between jazz and cabaret. An interpretive minimalist with caviar taste in songs and musicians, she was a genre unto herself. Rarely raising her sly, kittenish voice, Ms. Dearie confided song lyrics in a playful style below whose surface layers of insinuation lurked. Read the article

Godspeed, Blossom Dearie. You will be forever cherished.

Literary Pittsburgh--Get Your Readings Here

There's lots for the literary audience to love this month. The following are only SOME of what's out there in Steel City in the next few weeks:

The ever-popular Gist Street readings happen tonight in Uptown. Emily Mitchell (who teaches writing at nearby WVU) is the featured fiction reader, and Jeffrey McDaniel (who has published on Manic D Press and University of Pittsburgh Press) will read from his poetry. The Gist Street readings start at 8:00 but doors close when the place hits capacity--go early to ensure your seat! Door charge, $5.00, held at James Simon’s sculpture studio, 305 Gist Street. For more info and directions: giststreet.org

On the other side of town, at the lovely Kelly Strayhorn Theatre in East Liberty (5941 Penn Ave on Penn Circle), you can see spoken word and music with performers like Human Nature hosts, Yah Lioness and Gene Stovall, Human Nature house musician Hambone Jenkins, DJ Omar Abdul in the front lobby, and more. The event is called KST Live, costs $5.00 and starts at 7:00pm.



Tomorrow, Saturday February 7th, there's a great lineup at Most Wanted Fine Art Gallery at 5015 Penn Avenue. Calling themselves the Six Degree Reading, emerging poets Renée Alberts, Sophie Klahr, Holly Coleman, Michelle Stoner, Jerome Crooks, Nikki Allen, and Jason Kirin will read starting at 7:00pm, also for $5.00.

Mid-month, the New Yinzer's reading series, TNY Presents, features Gist Street host Sherrie Flick with fiction, Patti Emory with poetry, and indie rocker and dramatist, Julie Sokolow with fiction. February 18th at ModernFormations, 8:00pm, $5.00.

Pittsburgh's own poetry powerhouse, Autumn House Press will host two readings for their anthology, When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women edited by Andrea Hollander Budy. A book launch will be held at Chatham University on Tuesday, February 24 at 8:00 p.m. in the James Laughlin Music Hall (Welker Room). Featured readers will be Andrea Hollander Budy, Toi Derricotte, Sheryl St. Germain, and Judith Vollmer. Then on Friday, February 27 from noon to 2:00 p.m., there will be a "Reading & Conversation" for the book at the YWCA Greater Pittsburgh at 305 Wood Street, Downtown. There will be readings by Andrea Hollander Budy and two residential clients of the YWCA. Both Autumn House events are free.



Six Gallery Press is running a showcase reading of their authors later in the month, called The Big Dig. Saturday, February 28th at ModernFormations Gallery on Penn Avenue, join Renée Alberts, Jessica Fenlon, Dana Killmeyer, Jerome Crooks, Nikki Allen, Karen Lillis, Che Elias, Jonathan Loucks, Kristofer Collins, John Thomas Menesini, Scott McClanahan up from West Virginia (he was a show-stealer last time), Alexi Morrissey, Scott Silsbe, Bill Hughes, and the inimitable Ed Steck for a combination of poetry and fiction.

Also, Pittsburgh press, Words Like Kudzu, thanks all who emailed and called on behalf of their poet, Richard Leck. He was buried with dignity in a modest military ceremony at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island on January 23, 2009, and the New York City Mayor's Office paid for it. You can read the follow up Village Voice article here.

Speak up

The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council is interested in finding out what our city's artists need --

The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council would like you to tell us how to make the Pittsburgh region a better place for the artists who live and work here.

They are sincerely interested in hearing what you have to say. The survey is primarily interested in nuts and bolts issues about the business and physical making of art. It is not a reflective survey, though, so it is difficult to qualify an answer with something like "Yeah, I need a studio, I know there are some available but I can only afford to pay $150/month for rent and from what I've seen for that amount I may as well work in a parking lot." or "I could use health insurance, but my income only covers my living expenses and some professional expenses." Hmmm. Take the survey here.

"Did you feel guilty, crossing the picket line to get in?"

We were settling into the audience at the Benedum center when I saw E. a few rows down.

I went down to say hi. "Did you feel guilty, crossing the picket line to get in?" I asked her.

"A little," she said, "but this is art. What does art have to do with war?"

I smiled. We were here for Batsheva Dance Company, an Israeli dance troupe founded by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva De Rothschild in 1964. Ohad Naharin, the current artistic director, began working with Martha Graham in 1980, at her invitation, after he began his study with Batsheva in the late 1970's.

Israeli dance troupe is all that some people heard. Hence, "Would you dance on my grave?" on one protester's placard. They marched in a steady loop in front of the Benedum's big glass doors. There were cops on every corner of the block.

Inside we were met with a spare stage, grey walls with multiple exits and entrances cut into them. White floors. A steady soft glow from upstage lights. Back of house inner architecture revealed - who'd have thought the Benedum had so many silver ventilation ducts?

Lights up. Dancers dressed in clothes one could order from J. Crew's summer catalogue, polo-necked tees and capri length shorts. Dancing barefoot on white marley, lit from above with 200 lights that shifted very subtly, highlighting the dancers' precise technique.

Bellus opens with a large group of dancers standing, in silence, facing the audience. With no audible cues, they move as one, most of them leaving the stage to that moment's primary dancers as the music starts.

An evenly balanced group of men and women, with bodies many shapes and sizes. They would be an ordinary crowd anywhere (though none of them are overweight).

Late in Bellus I was struck by how gesture was passed from dancer to dancer. Each dancer danced alone, yet expressed the same stories with their bodies.

How like us, in our illusion of aloneness, moving through our heartbreaks, sorrows, and joys isolated, yet just like every person's necessary journies ... The gestures of contemporary life, translated to dance, made into art.

Hilarious, true, small gestures - the male dancer sniffs the female dancer's ass in their duet of seduction (or its lack). Humor popped up elsewhere as the troupe surprised us. It took a few times for the audience to get comfortable laughing. You can laugh at a contemporary dance performance?

Humus : the power of female gestures. Only the female dancers worked together for this piece. They danced as a single organ, a single gender muscle. Stereotypes of walks - the tiptoes of high heels, the swing of jutting hips. Sexual postures placed next to everyday gestures. The rejection presented by this group of women on their knees, hips to the audience, their knees crossing their legs behind them. They look back at the audience, cold. They hold pose, then shift, stand up, flock into movements as birds.

Humus perfectly coordinated against a Brian Eno soundtrack containing no punctual rhythm. The soundtrack was so soft it pulled all of one's sensory perception into one's eyes.

By the time we reached Secus I was totally rapt. I trusted this choreographer, these dancers, completely. When they came to the moments of nudity, gestures exposing gendered difference (or its lack), gestures exposing the rump ... it made perfect sense in this context.

Yes, I cried when the mano-a-mano duet played out. Such emotional intimacy shared forthrightly by two men on stage. Yes the audience was palpably uncomfortable with it. I want so badly for us to get over that.

This is art, what does art have to do with war? What do we expect two men to do in a dance with each other on stage?

A language developed by a person with Pittsburgh roots circled the globe. It returned to us tonight in an extraordinary performance ...

* * * * * * * * * *

Batsheva dance company at the Benedum center 5 February 2009

Three
by Ohad Naharin

70 minute program of three pieces : Bellus, Humus, and Secus. No intermission.

http://www.batsheva.org

Artists Review Artists Project @Thinking About Art

Back in December, I posted the review of my work on Thinking About Art's Artists Review Artists project. Well, the second part of JT Kirkland's project has been posted, where I review another artist's work.

It was interesting to work on. I received one anonymous image; title, size and medium were the only information that I had to go on. What was really interesting about the process was reviewing the work without any context. No information about the artist's body of work, or a context provided by a group show. Anyway, the artist I reviewed is Alexandra Silverthorne. The work above is from a series in progress.

This has been a really great project, not only to participate in but to read. If you haven't checked out the project, haul on over to Thinking About Art and check it out.

thank god february is a short month ...

The cranky "I'm stuck indoors with a giant gas bill" overwhelms my Superbowl afterglow. Its still too fricking dark outside. Still there's good stuff to be had ...

Documentary Salon met last night in the mini-Melwood theater at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Loosely organized by documentary filmmaker Will Zavala, a little social time with food precedes locally produced documentary film presented for post-show discussion.

Justin Crimone and Mark Staley showed a rough cut of a piece shot in Guatemala. Mark shot the footage while teaching in an educational program for underserved kids in this wild-west country. Since the program, and the film, is funded by Whole Foods, there was a lively discussion of everything from managing the content to concerns about 'slant'.

tENTATIVELY a Convenience was there; he told me a bit about his experimental orchestra, a "communal thought experiment", he recently performed? conducted? at the New Hazlett. He'll be screening the documentation of this event at the next meeting, which is March 3.

While in Filmmakers I got all the movie poster reminders I needed for films I'm looking forward to. Azure & Asmar, an amazing picture-book of an animated fairy tale (kid-friendly non-Disney/Pixar!), an old favorite, Easy Rider, and two servings of Oscar-nominated short films.

Oh, yeah, and Film Kitchen is next Tuesday at Melwood Screening Room in Oakland. Features a locally-made doc about squatters, among other things.

the blog for Documentary Salon
Filmmaker's february screening schedule
Film Kitchen's page

Jessica Fenlon

Second Elizabeth released

Full disclosure - Karen Lillis is one of Pittsburgh Arts - Digging Pitt contributors. We are ever so happy for her! The following is from Bill Driscoll's review --

Lillis, writing in the first person, tells the (perhaps at least semi-autobiographical) story of a young woman named Karen E. Lillis as she spends a summer working in a deli in small-town Charlottesville, Va., while reeling from the fallout from an unspecified personal trauma. Anxious, introverted and hard-pressed to communicate with others, including a gutsy co-worker named Beth, Karen longs to become the title character -- the more confident, more assertive person she used to be. "My meanings are trapped inside my body, I have a body which is a wall between the words I mean and the words I say," she says. From the City Paper - Read the article

The Second Elizabeth is available at Amazon.

>kaff::kaff::kaff<

Hello all of you lovely people!

Recently the Digging Pittsburgh Arts team had a flurry of emails about newly minted blogs. -Ah! the sweet ozone-tinted air of a new blog!-

Well, in the course of adding new blogs to our roll, I thought it might be time to take down bad links. If I inadvertently deleted your blog through some column a/column b process, please let me know.

Also, if you would like to recommend a blog that isn't in our blogroll, please feel free to leave a link in the comment trail.

Drink & Draw with Michael

We had a really nice session last Tuesday. I can't believe it's been nearly a week since our last session! It was really great, though. Our model was Mike Duray, of Synergy Bodyworks. He did these great action poses, using the walls and equipment to extend the length of some of the more challenging poses.

This particular session was a gesture intensive; all of the poses were under five minutes in duration. It was a pretty intense session because of that. The thing that's nice about a gesture intensive is that by the time you get to that five minute pose, you feel like you have all the time in the world.

Anyway, here are a few images of the sketches done that evening. Unfortunately, I was having some camera problems and there aren't as many images as there should be.



drink & draw is moving to once a month! We will be meeting on the last Tuesday of each month. Sessions will start at 6:30pm. Next session is February 24!

Drink and Draw…
is an open studio live model drawing session that meets last Tuesdays on the second floor of brillobox, located at 4104 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, Pa. This session is relaxed, surprising, and inspiring. amazing models dressed in various themes, old timey music, great company, and decor. All mediums, except oils, welcome.

Drink & Draw
Upstairs @ 6:30PM | $10
MySpace
brillobox
get on our mailing list. email us at brilloboxdrinkanddraw@yahoo.com
4104 penn ave
412.621.4900

Wearable art @Luke and Eloy

Last week, I took a trip up Butler Street to Luke and Eloy Gallery. The exhibit that is currently installed was well worth the trip. But the reasons for this galley to be on your must see list doesn't stop with this exhibit. The gallery houses an incredible selection of wearable art.

Michelle Pajak Reynolds

The above work by Michelle Pajak Reynolds is fom her Drawing series of wearable art. Each work is meant to be worn as an adornment; all of them can also be viewed as an artwork on either a platform as a a wall piece. The works are extraordinary as drawings.

Tod Pardon

The pins that Tod Padon have created are ensconced on small pedestals. The pins are masterfully created and ae more of art than the more pedestrian fare that is usual. The pins are generous in size and would hold a space well, either viewed as a sculpture or worn as an adornment.

Arthur Hash

There are several artists creating more whimsical works, like the above beard pins by Arthur Hash.

Emanuela Aureli

These delicate coils by Emanuela Aureli came as both rings and pins.

Brigitte Martin

The above pins are from Brigitte Martin's Prunella Pins series. Ms. Martin, coincidentally, is the owner of Luke and Eloy Gallery. There weren't a lot of examples of her work on display, but what there was were exceptional. Actually, I could have done with seeing a few more of her works; they were stunning. Ms. Martin studied under a master goldsmith in Germany and has been creating her own wearble art ever since. You can definitely see this long and lustrous expeience in her works. One of the pieces that she had on display was knit from fine silver wire. It was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, I did not get an image of it, so you will have to go to the gallery and see it yourself.

All of these beautiful works were appropriately displayed in this gallery. Nothing was crowded, the cases and walls were installed with a respect for the space that individual works need in order to be properly considered. Ms. Martin has an excellent eye for exceptional and well-finished work.Luke and Eloy is a great addition to the Pittsburgh gallery scene. Definitely stop in.

LUKE & ELOY GALLERY
5169 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15201
412.784.1919

Opening Hours:
Tue - Fri 11-2
Sat 11-5

Benedict Oddi @ Luke & Eloy

You know, I thought that I could get all of my thoughts about visiting Luke & Eloy into one post. I'm not even going to attempt it. It was a very rich experience. So, I think I'll start with Theater of the Mind, the exhibit currently in place at the gallery.

Puppeteer Dreams

The work is by artist Benedict Oddi. The works a really quite stunning. From the artists statement --

My theater-like arrangements of figures in landscape are placed in situations of anxiety and peril, intervened by trace elements of otherworldliness. During the course of these works I have examined human natures, social and institutional conventions. While my reflection was approached through escapism related to utopian and dystopian philosophy, I have tried not to align with one thought or the other, but choose to respond to both concerning the nature of free will.

Besides the really stunning paintings, Luke & Eloy's Brigitte Martin had the forethought to include drawings and constructs by Oddi in the exhibit. These supplemental works provide clear documentation of the Oddi's process in developing the works. Following is an arrangement of some of the constructs that the artist used in developing his paintings.

By itself, or even in combination as presented here, the constructs are only mildly interesting. It is only in the context of the paintings that these sketches begin to take on any significance.

While most of the panels are dark, Oddi's use of color is paramount. The panels glow with jewel-like colors, magnified by surfaces that appear to be wet. The works are small in scale, making them feel precious and even more jewel-like.

Not My Pony

There is a nice balance of formal aesthetics and contemporary images in the works, like the image above, Not My Pony. There is a touch of fantasy, a touch of computer games. Is anyone else a fan of flash games? I play them a lot, probably too much. If there is a pop reference in these works it is in these games, with their blend of reality and fantasy.

Caesar

Obviously, Oddi is referencing the later-day Surrealists, like Magritte and Dali in his works. The interposing of toys and figurines with constucted landscapes and the use of hyper-realism techniques are drawn from these particular surrealists. He has managed to bing his own contemporary viewpoint to the work, though. I was told by Ms. Martin that the following work is one of the artist's earlier works. I am including it because I felt that this piece was particularly beautiful.

The Horde

The exhibit runs though February 21. It seems like a long time, but it is easy to put things off during cold weather. Keep this one at the top of your must-see list. You won't be disappointed. Next up - Luke & Eloy's fine wearable art.

Theater of the Mind
Benedict Oddi
January 17 - February 21, 2009
LUKE & ELOY GALLERY
5169 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15201
412.784.1919

Opening Hours:
Tue - Fri 11-2
Sat 11-5

Is This How We Treat Our Poets? Is This How We Treat Our Vets?

Richard Leck (1933-2008)

Words Like Kudzu Press poet, Richard Leck died in New York on December 19, and the Pittsburgh-based small press has been working non-stop to try to get him buried. He was a vet, a poet, a storyteller, an artist, an actor, a Greenwich Village cafe habitue, and a sanguine soul, but he died with no next of kin; his body is still in the New York morgue; WLK has been appalled at the amount of red tape involved and at the callousness of Veterans Affairs.

The Village Voice ran a great story yesterday and it got some attention from the NYC Mayor's Office of Veterans Affairs. If all goes well, the city may pay for a proper military burial after all. But they are waiting to hear whether the VA cares to approve this burial, which may put the process back to square one.

Richard was drafted and served in the US Army during peacetime between Korea and Vietnam. He saw young men die in combat training at Fort Dix, and served at the first Nike anti-aircraft missile base in New York. He wanted and deserves a dignified military burial in a national cemetery. The VA has been a stone wall: "This person is out of luck," is what one VA official told Richard's friend, Ms. Winn, when asking for the VA's help.

Digging Pitt implores our Pennsylvania readers to write a short note to Senator Arlen Specter, who sits on the Veterans Affairs Committee in the senate. We implore our New York readers to write to the Mayor's Office for Veterans Affairs. The politicians need to know that the bad press is indeed getting out: The Veterans Administration lets its vets fall through the cracks in life and in death.

Links for both Pennsylvania and NYC and suggested message are as below:

Pennsylvanians: For Arlen Specter's contact form click here.

New York City voters: For the Mayor's Office for Veterans Affairs contact form, click here.

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A suggested message you can cut and paste is here:
[Issue: Veterans; or Subject: US Vet languishes in city morgue]


I read an article in this week's Village Voice online about recently
deceased US Army Veteran, Richard Leck. It's shameful to hear about
any of our vets enduring homelessness, and I hated to hear that Mr.
Leck may go to Potter's Field, or that his burial may be delayed any
further. Is this how we treat our vets? I hope you will see to it that
the VA gives him a proper burial.
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