On the third Friday of each month, Third Degree Glass Factory treats the public to an evening of music and art in midtown. Owners Jim McKelvey and Doug Auer have upscaled an old factory into a showplace for contemporary glass artwork. The main focus is on hot glass. Glass blowing demonstrations are given throughout the evening. Molten blobs of glowing glass are casually moved about the work area. It scares me. I can't look but it is fascinating if you do. My interest last Friday was to see the kiln formed work of Lisa Becker.
Her studio,
Art Glass Array, is in the Crossroads Art
Center in St. Charles. She offers classes on warm glass. I took one last month and really enjoyed it which surprised me because I am not that crazy about glass art. A bit too flashy for me. Her friendly smile and kind lies (telling us how good we were doing) did not mask the genuine nature of her interest. She started in glass doing art glass for architecture. From the honest creativity expressed in her work, I don't think she has been corrupted by the meddling influences of advanced coursework. I may be wrong here.
The titles of these pieces, The Bride, (white) The Groom, reminds us her thoughts are with the concept of family. Understandable, for as my buddies at the mill would say, "She's got a bun in the oven".
To use something as abstract as glass and come across with a solid concept is a pretty good trick. The lace of a veil, the flow for the train and moment of joy. The Groom, dark and stately with strong line. Together in a similar form of unison. The work is displayed precariously on pedestals about the room.
On one side a bluegrass band plays. The music for these evens has always been distinctive. Well worth ones attention. The Third Degree Factory also has classes for warm glass. They offer lamp working lessons and even allow guests to take a short class on it during the evening.
This involves beadmaking with glass over small blow torches. Scary stuff too but not quite so bad. They have been having these open studio events almost since opening. Back then there were just a few people milling around. It has become more and more popular and the place is always packed.
"Wall Waves" James McKelvey
Science continues to report the latest news from the universe: A black hole emits a note 52 octaves below middle c, a star travels 162,000 miles a second. Every day we are tormented with new and incomprehensible details. I have a personal theory which I rely on to deal with the cognitive dissidence from such information. It is an extension of the flat earth society and I call it the "Null Point Universe". It states that if something is unbelievable, then, don't believe it.
I was reminded of this when I met Nick Hutchings at the Lewis Center. He told me his art is inspired by the science of quantum physics and he spent just a minute explaining. I tried to understand but found myself falling back to the safety of the null point. I am attracted to his work on a more basic level. "Nick Hutchings' current work is exploring the connections between the eternal and temporal utilizing the abstract analogies of the tent as a meeting place between them." I like abstract art but feel it richer when there is something identifiable within it. Nick presented a study of nine small paintings, a series, oil on paper, each quite lovely. The subject matter was a tent and each progression in the series abstracted the last. Nick found the midpoint of the series to be most interesting. I agreed. To finish, several larger works were done using this midpoint as a basis.
"Kelda Martensen is a print and book artist whose works on paper address cultural memory and natural wonder through use of architecture, landscape and domestic space." Interestingly enough, her work is inspired by the unknown. "True experience and unexplainable events are my starting off point." She has gained substance through travel and poured it into her work. "Escape from Cape Town" 58 x 145 inches, is a paired set of prints. Collagraph, digital print, monotype, woodblock, collage, graphite drawing. The strong graphic composition is nuanced by subtle use of color. There is one section of collage with particular interest. It is a photoimage of a row of buildings. Somewhat faded, the coloring of each building is a different, soft pastel. Alone, it is
very different from the rest but yet fits in so well.
This open studios event for the graduate program is one of the best in town. Some of the artist here will set root and effect the direction of art in Saint Louis for generations to come. I saw a nice painting by Anne Lindberg leaving with new owners and there was many affordable prints for sale. Not to be missed.
The Art Pottery tradition was started around the turn of the last century and focused on graceful decorative ceramic ware.
Tim Eberhardt has embraced this tradition in a quest to rediscover this lost art form. Although it is usually thought of as a decorative vase, Art Pottery includes other objects of ornamentation such as architectural and decorative tiles.
Likewise, the main body of Tim's work is focused on the vase and decorative jar but has included ceramic tile. He has currently placed his distinctive collection of ceramic tile work on display at Meramec Community College in the cases by the ceramic department. These tiles provide a good idea of the vast body of his work in that they offer a similar style. The subject matter is drawn from nature, often flowers but also scenic fields and other landscapes. The different slant to glazes provides insight to the broad scope of his approach. From a satin glow with muted tones to a higher gloss and brighter colors, his work goes beyond the traditional method. He adds a personal element of creative style by infusing the work with a painterly touch.
Here, he has drawn a self-portrait on a tile with his pots on a shelf in the background. With all of the different elements tied into this piece, the thing which I find most interesting is the expression of his eyes. What the hell is he thinking here? Also on show is a collection of architectural art tiles from an earlier period.
We should take the weekend as it comes. With a rough idea of what's going on, I like to start a plan in the morning and see how much I can squeeze into the day. Last weekend it was Art East and opportunity to visit some open studios.
I selected three and threw our bikes on the van for good measure. There are a number of nice trails through rural Illinois in that area.
My first stop was at
Lane's End Pottery, the studio of Charity Davis-Woodard. Actually, there are two studios there. Her husband, Bob, is a metal worker. They sit back in the woods and their front yard is more like a woodland garden accented with sculptures of iron and clay. I have been admiring Charity's work for some time and
wrote about it earlier in this blog. Combining creative design with the organic beauty from a wood fired process elevates her craft to art. My wife, Colleen, and I selected this piece to commemorate thirty one years of martial bliss.
Since we were in
Edwardsville, we stopped by to see old friends, Collette and Sam, at
Springers Creek Winery, a most eclectic space.
Running short on time, I decided to skip the planned stop at
Snail Scott's and head to Susan
Bostwick's. However, I got lost and came upon Snail Scott's anyway. Got lucky. Her studio is in a large
pole barn in farm country. Plenty of room to spread out and she needs it.
Snail Scott is an incredibly gifted sculptor with an amazing conceptual visual imagination. Using elements of human form in conjunction with mechanical artifacts, her work offers meaning, depth, grace and beauty. Man and machine, all rolled up into one neatly refined piece. Of course, having an artistic concept still requires masterful craftsmanship to bring it to fruition. This is where the "incredibly gifted" part comes in. Her hand is as good as her mind. Most of the work is base on very life like human forms. It is from this realistic starting point that the surrealistic effect takes hold. Using a variety of materials, clay, metal, paint, cloth she is able to fabricate just about any idea. She can make clay look like metal if it suits her purpose. When I look at a piece of art, i like to figure out what it is and how it is done but with her work you don't really know what you are looking at. Some of the work is cast bronze. Most is ceramic. Some is instillation. Some paintings. She also teaches. Got to love that name,
Snale Scott.
We skipped the third stop to allow time for our bike ride. We chose Heritage Trail in Glen Carbon. The map gave the trail head as Miners Park. In Miners Park, I was excited to find a marble plaque stating my Great Grandfather
Viessman had once held that property. It was a place where I picked tomatoes as a boy.
Jaime Gartelos, Robert Treece, On the move
I see, by the number of events last week, the new season is upon us. Of the many great opportunities, I chose to go to the openings of two artists that have tweaked my interest for some time. It is curious that one of them has just moved to Chicago and the other, from.
I met
Jaime Gartelos at last years open studios tour. That meeting was brief and long ago. I
didn't even remember what he looked like. I did remember his art. I kept his card. When the tour came around again, I thought I would look him up. He wasn't on the tour this year. However, I emailed him and found he was to have an opening at
Mad Art Gallery. Good, I could see a collection of his work in a Gallery setting. The thing which attracted me to his work at that open studio tour a year ago was his use of graceful dark line, drawing with a brush, intermixed within the painting. He uses this technique less at the current show but it is still there with great interest. I mentioned it and he was happy to tell me how it is done with a round and thin, dark oil paint. He also offered advice to others wishing to learn how to create art: "Just paint".
The idea being that creativity is something which is self taught.
Ellie Balk is also in this show with some of her work done in collaboration with Jamie. To make things even more interesting, Ellie created a
video based on one of the pieces, "Collaborative Painting 1". Using a computer projection screen, it showed the develoment of two different works by displaying various stages of the paintings in progress.
It was interesting to see how his paintings are created. Using brushes, he lays the foundation adding sections, first one here, then another in counter balance. Moving on to knifes, he adds thicker layers of color. Sometimes, something gets removed, something else added. Textural lines are scratched in. One of his goals is to make the work full and complicated while still keeping it in harmony. Much of the work was done in St. Louis with the last being finished in his new location in Chicago. Wishing him the best of luck in the Windy City.
I noticed Robert Treece from the posting of a link to
his web site in the art section of Craiglist. The self photo is different, he has on a gas mask, and his artist's statement has a line in it that is completely crack me up funny. A graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, he has an admirable dedication to the creation of visual art. The overall style of his large works are based on the Italian Renaissance period. That is pretty much where the similarities end. The details are more like abstract textures. They are build in layers, sometimes adding a collage of altered digital images taken from an earlier painting. He spends a good bit of time on each piece, developing them as he goes along. Add and subtract, change and change again, enveloping himself and his work in the creative process.
There is another side to his work. He uses photo-realism as a sort of an extreme counter balance to the other work. Perhaps it is to keep himself grounded. When working for extended periods in the outer reaches of your mind, it helps to have a way home. Robert has recently moved from Chicago, citing the cost and confusion of living in the "big city". He may not stay, but we got him for now and he is a great addition to Saint Louis and very much welcome.
While we are on Chicago - Saint Louis, there is a show, "306"
with work by eight Chicago artists and work by eight St louis artists. It opens Friday, Sept. 12 and Hoffman LaChance Gallery 3100 Sutton in Maplewood.
Open Studio Tour
I like the annual open studio tour. It gives me a chance to poke around an artists' studio, see their naked work and ask enveloping questions without feeling I am being intrusive or infringing upon their time.
I also have a specific interest because I need a studio and am trying to figure out how to get one.
With this in mind, I started by visiting the one I most covet.
Located in on Olive in the east of U-City, it is recently developed and owned by Sheldon Johnson.
Sheldon paints, primarily abstract but also some landscapes, building with layers and textures, experimenting with different paints.
He has been renting space and shopping for his studio for three years.
It must have been crowded because his new studio of 3000 sq ft has all of the walls covered with his work.
He rents some of the space to other artists.
Sheldon did caution that the U-City inspectors were picky. That’s a mixed blessing in that it can be a real pain but can also keep an area nice.
Sheldon’s art is available at the
Gateway Gallery.
Next, we headed to the Hill. Had lunch, of course, and went to the gallery of Gary Mitchell. Gary does hammered aluminum sculptures of a scale maybe 2x. They are fairly large, mostly of women’s torsos. He had five of them on display in an empty first floor apartment. During the tour, we were joined by young painter, a twinkling Iranian from Kentucky who found Gary’s work of special interest. Gary explained a bit about the process in his basement studio. He starts with a model made of oil based clay. I found it interesting this clay doesn’t dry. It can be reworked and refined. From the model, he lays out a grid work and builds a full size armature from plywood. Not solid, but more like cubed up. From there, he shapes the aluminum by hammering it on an anvil and rivets it together. Since it is large, his work is often displayed outdoors in sculpture parks.
Stopped by Evil Prints. It’s second floor front office was nice with many young printmakers working throughout. Walls covered with interesting prints. Kitchen, lounge chairs. Cool and comfortable. A feeling of community. The back was more industrial. Good light but hot in July. Still, lots of room, clean and neat. It was nice to meet printmaker, Thomas Huck and watch him carve on the plate for his next print. It is large ( maybe 2’x6’?) It took two weeks to draw and will take several months to cut.
The Luminary Center for the Arts has interesting possibilities. It is a community based group located in a former convent. The studio spaces are made from the former sleeping quarters. A bit small but the interesting part is that many artists could work together. I believe they offer open studio sessions for the general public several days a week. Even some talk of music. There are also community rooms, including the former chapel, which are quite lovely. This is a new project, not quite going yet but great potential.
The final stop was the most engaging, the studio of painter, Laura Beard. Friendly and knowledgeable, she was generous in sharing information. She spoke of other studios to visit, other painters to observe and of her recent and I think successful show at Perimeter Gallery in Chicago. She also has access to reasonably priced and locally made high quality stretchers.
Her studio is a residential storefront with very large arched windows. Inside, they were covered with a frosted white diffusion panel providing abundant soft light. It is one large room with partial petitions for hanging each separate work. This is relevant as she works fairly large. This is all interesting but it was the art it that made this stop important. Laura paints large “non representational” work. I think I shall just describe it as “indescribably beautiful” and leave it at that. Locally, she is represented by Bruno David Gallery and will be showing in the next group show.
Finally, I had a chance to visit Mark Pappas’ studio last week. It wasn’t on the tour but it is one of the coolest studios in town. It is a converted Carnage library, brick and carved stone. Into the corner of the building are carved the words “Art” and “Music”. Mark is also a musician. It has two levels allowing the main floor for painting and the lower auditorium for music. We gathered there last week to paint. As I mentioned, I am looking for studio space if you know of any. More on what I need at my website: http://www.photoimage.com
Common Concerns
This show offers a curious twist in that both painters, David
Ottinger and Barry Sullivan, started their journey many years ago as fellow students under instruction of Wilbur
Neiwald at the Kansas City Art Institute. "The overriding philosophy of that studio was the education of the eye through direct painting from observed visual reality." While there are distinct differences in the work of the two, there is also an underlying commonality which calls to mind the importance education plays in ones work. Add to this, that David has spent his career as an
instructor at
McKendree University. Some of the guests at the opening where associates from academia. Our system of art education, if not the backbone, is the foundation of artistic creation at the local level.
David's (on the left) work offers a natural approach to realism. Using passages of color, he creates a bold statement while staying true his subject matter. Sometimes working large, the effect is consuming. The subjects include still life. A trombone done in oil and another done in watercolor. The portraits include those of his wife, Mary Beth, and also his son. Painting loved ones has an added dimension of concern. David spoke of a painting of his wife that he was working on earlier in the day. Upon hearing her come home, he felt compelled to quickly wipe away the days work because it fell short.
Barry (right) works
primarily on portraits and covers a wide variety of subject matter. Men and women at work capturing a slice of time and of community. Images likely taken from photographs of people at work. Strong and rich, they treat common elements in an artistic
manner. He also uses family to model and goes outside the realm of realism to paint poetic
narratives. In these, he intentionally leaves the shadow of ambiguity that the viewer may provide their own
interpretation.
Common Concerns, curated by Tim
Liddy, is showing at
RAC from April 4 - May 11
th
On the third Friday of each month, Third Degree Glass Factory treats the public to an evening of music and art in midtown. Owners Jim McKelvey and Doug Auer have upscaled an old factory into a showplace for contemporary glass artwork. The main focus is on hot glass. Glass blowing demonstrations are given throughout the evening. Molten blobs of glowing glass are casually moved about the work area. It scares me. I can't look but it is fascinating if you do. My interest last Friday was to see the kiln formed work of Lisa Becker.
Center in St. Charles. She offers classes on warm glass. I took one last month and really enjoyed it which surprised me because I am not that crazy about glass art. A bit too flashy for me. Her friendly smile and kind lies (telling us how good we were doing) did not mask the genuine nature of her interest. She started in glass doing art glass for architecture. From the honest creativity expressed in her work, I don't think she has been corrupted by the meddling influences of advanced coursework. I may be wrong here.
The titles of these pieces, The Bride, (white) The Groom, reminds us her thoughts are with the concept of family. Understandable, for as my buddies at the mill would say, "She's got a bun in the oven".
To use something as abstract as glass and come across with a solid concept is a pretty good trick. The lace of a veil, the flow for the train and moment of joy. The Groom, dark and stately with strong line. Together in a similar form of unison. The work is displayed precariously on pedestals about the room. 
This involves beadmaking with glass over small blow torches. Scary stuff too but not quite so bad. They have been having these open studio events almost since opening. Back then there were just a few people milling around. It has become more and more popular and the place is always packed. 
