Jerry Kaba at The Crane Arts Center
DoN had the photos and the interview from a Second Thursday art crawl September 8th, 2011 at the Crane Center for the Arts in Fishtown. But, DoN could not find the artist’s name!?! By chance, Jerry KaBa’s business card surfaced and DoN can now share with you the scariest Halloween costume design - ever!
Video & Photos by DoNBrewerMultimedia
Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011, Tim McFarlane in Old City, Saturday, October 15th.
Tim McFarlane’s studio in the heart of Old City Philadelphia is the archetypical artists’ loft, a steep climb up three pea green flights of stairs to arrive gasping into a high ceilinged loft space overlooking Third Street right off of Market. The old industrial space is divided into three studios: Carol Royer’s figurative work greets you at the end of the epic climb, John Gatti has a spacious room in the middle and Tim McFarlane’s studio has windows overlooking the street. John was painting while lola, Spike & DoN luxuriated in Tim’s studio filled with his exuberant stylized abstract paintings arrayed from floor to ceiling, paint splattered everywhere, outlines of canvases layered over years of work, brushes and paints poking out of cubbies - just like you imagine an artists’ studio to be. Tim McFarlane has participated in the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours for many years, this year he was a cover model for the catalog, allowing the public to see the progress he’s accomplished in his art over the years. The light shining in from being near the river glows into the space activating the color fields vibrating in the paintings, DoN thought about how this is the way a true artist lives, in a bright airy studio right in the hub of the lively contemporary arts scene in Old City with the energy and time to think big.
Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011, Tim McFarlane
Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011, Tim McFarlane
The swirly cellular structures from Tim McFarlane’s memorable abstract paintings are still present and prominent in his new work but now layers of patterns from stencils are laid in then painted over and into, deep layers of color, shape and contrasts make his individual canvasses vibrate. A room full of Tim’s works in various stages of progress is really a privileged experience because his work is usually seen only in art galleries like Bridgette Mayer Gallery on Walnut Street. In fact, Tim McFarlane’s work will be included in the upcoming show, Karmic Abstraction, November 15th through December 31, 2011 - “The show’s title reflects gallerist Bridgette Mayer’s “interest in the idea of the karmic cycle of an artist’s history of painting and ideas.” The selected works, by sixteen nationally- and internationally-recognized artists reveals, “how, at a given moment in time, standing in front of a work of art, the viewer is faced with the multiple layers and concepts that create a painting as well as a lifetime of ideas, actions and history that make up the career and art history of a contemporary artist.” (Bridgette Mayer Gallery website).
John Gatti. DoN loves this picture of the artists’ studio, comparing and contrasting the shapes, tones and marks on panels against one another creates an energy field of color.
Photos by DoN.
The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA)
Career Development Program Fellowship – Apply Now
Deadline: November 1st
Open Call for Artists: Career Development Program Fellowship for Emerging Artists. For a select group of talented artists, our free Two-Year Fellowship includes: exhibitions and exposure opportunities around the region and beyond, a two-person exhibition in the second year of the fellowship, individual career counseling, professional development workshops, mentorship, community, volunteer opportunities, and alumni solo exhibitions and travel grants. This program serves artists residing within a 100 mile radius of Philadelphia. For the online application and further eligibility requirements, got to http://www.cfeva.org/cfeva_
Career Development Program Fellowship
Apply Now!
Deadline: November 1st
The Center for Emerging Visual Artists™ strives to provide the essential support services and programs emerging artists need to build sustainable careers. Our two-year Career Development Program offers a select group of highly talented artists:
Eligibility requirements include:
The application can be found online at http://cfeva.org/cfeva_
A M I E P O T S I C, Director, Career Development Program
The Center for Emerging Visual Artists
237 S. 18th Street
The Barclay, 3rd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
tel: 215.546.7775 x 12
fax: 215.5456.7802
amie@cfeva.org I www.cfeva.org
DoN is working on his application today - two goals and how CFEVA can help?
Jessica Hoffman: Forever and After @ 110 Church Street Gallery
Dear Mad, I Really Like Your Hair! Love Johnny, hair strands from Jessica Hoffman’s head in glassine envelopes.
Jessica Hoffman: Forever and After @ 110 Church Street Gallery
Slideshow, vials of shavings from photographic slides the artist found. Hoffman scraped off bits of each slide, saved the scrapings, then presents the slide show with the bits of image removed. Each vial is labeled with the trip, location and time period the slides were taken.
Jessica Hoffman: Forever and After @ 110 Church Street Gallery
Talent Show, split screen video footage projected on the wall.
DoN saw this show two weeks ago and has thought about it often as he scooted around town seeing art over the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011 festival, leaving little time to report. But Jessica Hoffman’s show is about memory and the passage of time. Forever and After incorporates three major narrative elements used in ways that look at the passage of time in abstract even obtuse angles. “Slideshow is an investigation of memory, using a collection of found slides from the 1960s and 1970s shot throughout Europe and the United States by the same person. Talent Show is a split screen video piece using footage shot at a school talent show on the left and my own version of the performances on the right. Dear Mad, I really like your hair today! Love, Johnny is an installation inspired by a box of hundreds of love letters found on the street. - HeavyBubble website” Each element of the installation recaptures moments in time that are personal, private, secret presenting them in Dada-ist style - should DoN believe that the love letters were found on the street? Did Jessica really sit and scrape off bits of image from hundreds of slides? The split screen throw back style to the Woodstock movie era of the video could have been shot over the Summer. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not, making found objects or finding found objects, then arraying them exquisite corpse style creates a strange narrative as the mind tries to grasp the connections. At 110 Church Street Gallery, Jessica Hoffman’s installation, Forever and After, combines sweet nostalgia, contemporary oblique strategies and pure, clean, simple presentation to take the viewer on a time trip back from the future.
Read more at Philly.SideArts
Photos by DoN.
Bluestone Fine Art Gallery: Amie Potsic, Danielle Bursk and Gregory Brellochs
DoN had not been to Old City in a long while for a First Friday art crawl, parking and traffic sucks, so, DoN took the bus. $2.00! with live entertainment included ; ), and a chance to watch the cityscape go by, delivering DoN to the intersection of Market & 3rd Streets right into the hubbub of street artists, musicians and even a puppeteer capitalizing on the monthly crowds of young couples and art lovers. A short stroll down Third to Vine Street is the new Bluestone Fine Art Gallery, just around the corner from the Painted Bride. The current show includes work by three artists - Amie Potsic’s photographs, Danielle Bursk’s ink on paper and Gregory Brellochs‘ charcoal and ink drawings. The artists are using different media but the theme of the wonders of nature run through the show like a stream of consciousness.
Bluestone Fine Art Gallery: Amie Potsic
Amie Potsic, Made in China: Yangtze River, archival pigment print
“My mission is to create a process, an action comes from that, whether it’s experiencing more art or it’s doing something political. That’s the hope, I mean, so, you see something like this, you see something in these images and you have a conversation about it, then you see images about that in the news, then you get an e-mail about signing a petition, and then you see a thing about going to a demonstration and you do something!” Amie Potsic’s scroll-like photographs of trees have a sense of being foreign, the Chinese calligraphy, done by a poet in Taiwan, and the perpendicular typography subtly leads the mind’s eye across the ocean to a distant land. But these trees are probably shot right here in Philly presenting the bewildering notion that maybe China owns these trees and therefore made them.
“Because it’s a cumulative effect of impressions and influences and with all that, nobody does anything. Part of the reason I do this work, some of it was done in Rittenhouse Square, the most chic section of Philly, and there was a very graphic demonstration by a Chinese group that follow the Falun Gong religion, which essentially is Buddhism. But you’re not allowed to practice organized religion in China in that way. So people were jailed and tortured physically and there was a demonstration in the middle of Rittenhouse Square with patients on gurneys being mock-tortured, it was shocking, I got the materials they were handing out and that made me reference my audience with the Dalai Lama and learning about what happened in Tibet and putting those two things together. At the same time I was photographing images of trees in this sort of long scroll format and realized they look like Chinese scroll prints, I saw the demonstration and had been thinking of these issues and all these things came together to form this project.” The metaphors, memes and memories exuding from Potsic’s photographs are like an epic poem which stirs the mind with beauty, mystery, wonder with trepidation for the future and forgotten lessons from the past.
Amie Potsic @ Bluestone Fine Art Gallery in Old City, Philadelphia.
Danielle Bursk, Avalon, ink on paper @ Bluestone Fine Art Gallery
Danielle Bursk, ink on paper @ Bluestone Fine Art Gallery
Danielle Bursk, ink on paper @ Bluestone Fine Art Gallery
DoN commented to Danielle Bursk that he noticed her drawings now include a defined horizon. “The horizon line is the most control you can exert as an artist and I just wanted to try something that was more of a landscape…but the work is also inspired by the ocean. I grew up in Florida, I spent a lot of time at the beach, I still go to the beach quite a bit, if you just sit and stare at the ocean there’s a lot that goes on. I don’t like it to be too representational, so if you approach it thinking that way you can see that it also looks like hills or a tidal wave, with all my work I like an open ended-ness where you can bring what you want to it and interpret it how you want. So, yes, there’s definitely a horizon line, it’s sort of a landscape but not quite.” DoN also noted that Bursk’s drawings could be considered still life like a close up of fabric or fur, “…even something under a microscope.” Danielle Bursk explained to DoN how she’s trying new things like working with a square image as opposed to rectilinear and smaller works using oblique strategies to force changes in her work with arbitrary constraints. Even though the horizon line is consistent across the smaller works in the show, each one is unique and separate from the others. “In fact, I took each one off the wall before I started the next one because I didn’t want to be influenced by it, I was excited when I looked back because some are really dark, some are a little lighter, some have bigger movements, so they all work very differently.”
Gregory Brellochs @ Bluestone Fine Art Gallery
Forest Floor, graphite on paper, Gregory Brellochs @ Bluestone Fine Art Gallery.
Gregory Brellochs is an art professor at Camden County College and is a father of two, “I came on there seven years ago now, they brought me in to teach sculpture and design…and it really gives me the opportunity to shape the program, work with the curriculum, and have direct contact with a lot of the students and we’ve turned it into a much stronger transfer program.” DoN asked where Brellochs finds time to create his heroically scaled drawings? “I just got done with these large curving drawings, you saw one at the CFEVA gallery, that was the fourth one that I’ve done and there’s one that I thought I had finished maybe a year ago and then I just had to go back in and basically quadrupled the detail. The minuteness of the branches and roots, that became the longest drawing that I’ve ever done, the most labor intensive went over four hundred hours of drawing. Um, but, it’s something I love to do. And once the kids are in bed, I make a pot of coffee and up to the studio I go to work until I’m too tired.”
DoN asked if the images came out of Gregory’s mind? “Yeah, I always work from my imagination and it’s really important to me that that’s how I arrive at that image because it’s not meant to be just a facsimile of Nature, a repetition of something that exists but something that really comes out of the mind’s eye. All as a process of drawing, so that sometimes I don’t start with a composition in mind but a general form language…working with tree root-like structures I kind of allow it to evolve and I find that I am much more in tune with the work when I approach it that way without preliminary sketches or some kind of fixed idea in mind, it allows me to breathe life into the work because it evolves organically.”
The Bluestone Gallery of Fine Art will be open this weekend, October 15th and 16th, as part of the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011, Gregory Brellochs will be hosting.
Photos by DoN
Super Nova, Photoshop collage, digital print, DoN Brewer, 2011
Decorating the Haus of DoN has been very gratifying, reinforcing the DoN brand with his abstract landscape photographs, including the “light being” series, original graphic prints and oil paintings, setting tableau’s and displays throughout the studio and is ready for visitors. DoN’s body of work has grown substantially, DoN’s first creative job was Display Manager for a department store retail chain in the 1970’s, tapping into those skills has been nostalgic and liberating, marketing DoN’s product line like he did in the garden department at J.M. Fields. Usually DoN’s major art works are packed and ready to show when opportunities arise and the Haus is decorated with the works of DuSold, DuPree, Stango and outsider artist Danny Gayder, the work of Masters influencing the path of DoN’s interests and goals. The DoN collection would not exist if not for the influences of artist friends and mentors as well as collectors, helping refine DoN’s eye and continue art production with confidence. After weeks of preparation DoN is looking forward optimistically for a delightful weekend of seeing old and new friends and sharing his art.
The Haus of DoN is dedicated to all the artists participating in Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011; DoN understands the aches and pains of finishing projects, solving problems and decision-making involved in making an art work space inviting to visitors. Thank you to the Center for Emerging Visual Artists for undertaking the task of organizing the citywide art event that is unique to Philadelphia. Thank you to all the readers of DoNArTNeWs and Philly.SideArts; DoN is grateful to all the artists who share their skills, talents and stories for the art enthusiasts not just in Philly but around the world who follow DoN’s incursions into the realms of the art world throughout the city. This weekend is also the opening of a month long exhibition by the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, the oldest photography society in America, at the Plastic Club with opening receptions each Sunday afternoon 2:00 - 5:00 PM; DoN has two favorite photographs included in the prestigious show of fine art photography.
A special shout-out to DoN’s nephew Bud Irwin serving in the Army in Afghanistan; knowing Buddy’s marching across arid desert mountains loaded with gear makes DoN stronger and braver to make new work, produce more videos, write more reviews, do more crunches at the gym and plan challenging new projects for the future. Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011 is an opportunity to be optimistic, to brush off the haters, ignore the art bullies, defy the critics, escape the economic reality and be free to be an artist living, working and producing art in America. The Haus of DoN, 2028 Pemberton Street, welcomes you.
LoVe
DoN
HD Video - watch in full screen mode - DoN
Video by DoNBrewerMultimedia
Downstairs Gallery @ The Plastic Club - Marion Loippo, Kim Martin, Karl Olsen & Jane J. Wilkie
Kim Martin, Painting #2, oil.
Karl Olsen , Quilt, oil , Downstairs Gallery @ The Plastic Club - Marion Loippo, Kim Martin, Karl Olsen & Jane J. Wilkie.
Marion Loippo, Swim in the Lake, silk & velvet, Downstairs Gallery @ The Plastic Club - Marion Loippo, Kim Martin, Karl Olsen & Jane J. Wilkie.
Jane J. Wilkie , Velvet Quilt, fabric & grapevines, Downstairs Gallery @ The Plastic Club - Marion Loippo, Kim Martin, Karl Olsen & Jane J. Wilkie
Marion Loippo, Downstairs Gallery @ The Plastic Club - Marion Loippo, Kim Martin, Karl Olsen & Jane J. Wilkie.
The Downstairs Gallery @ The Plastic Club exhibits members work chosen @ random from a sign up sheet, the synchronicity of the current show with Karl & Kim, Marion & JJ is fortuitous. Painting and fabric art meld with Karl Olsen’s expressionist paintings, Kim Martin’s strident drawings, Marion Loippo’s abstractions on silk and JJ Wilkie’s bold quilts as if a gallery curator selected the art for the show. Check out all the artist links in this blog post, they all have portfolio websites but Marion Loippo has a cool YouTube video!
Photos by DoN.
Kyle Margiotta . . . empirical, real, metaphysical @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Stewart Room Gallery.
Kyle Margiotta’s paintings draw you in with exquisite technique and metaphysical content; faces emerge from the mist, beautiful women wade through pools of red, metaphorical flowers like bleeding hearts creating an intensely personal experience. DoN has watched Kyle draw in the Philadelphia Sketch Club’s workshops, his depth of knowledge, skill with tools (his pencil lines are extremely fine) and focus is an inspiration to those who share the studio with him. Margiotta’s paintings are illustrative but decorative, even though the subject is deep, the style, color and presentation are desirable.
Kyle Margiotta . . . empirical, real, metaphysical @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Stewart Room Gallery.
Kyle Margiotta . . . empirical, real, metaphysical @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Stewart Room Gallery.
Steve Iwanczuk. . . empirical, real, metaphysical @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Stewart Room Gallery.
Steve Iwanczuk is the Exhibitions Chair at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, for his own show in the venerable Stewart Room (members are chosen to show @ random), he has selected a group of drawings and photographs that are sleek, shiny, mercurially metallic and sexy. The detail is intense, the pencil marks stream of conscience-like flow are surreal and fluid, each drawing a dream of it’s own but his photos are sensual contrasts of light and dark, shiny and smooth, real and unreal, Steve’s photography is recognizable as a style all his own.
Steve Iwanczuk. . . empirical, real, metaphysical @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Stewart Room Gallery.
Photos by DoN.
Bonnie MacAllister, Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club. Bonnie MacAllister’s tiny mixed media, Revery, is subtle yet slyly glamorous with gold dust illuminating the feminine figure, the piece softy glowing in it’s own light. Bonnie’s blog is very cool describing all the wonderful projects she’s working on; she’s a world traveler, grant winner and educator with a fine eye, thoughtful manner and socially conscious personality - a DoN must read! Coming soon - Bonnie MacAllister, The Dressing Room, Green Light Arts, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe @ The Plastic Club, 247 S. Camac Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Show runs Sept. 3*, 4, 7, 10, 11, 14, and 17, 7 p.m. *followed by artist reception
Here is the link to tickets:
http://bonnie-macallister.blogspot.com/2011/07/play-dressing-room_31.html
This is the link to the press release:http://bonnie-macallister.blogspot.com/2011/07/play-dressing-room.html
BONNIE MacALLISTER: Play: The Dressing Room
Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club. Patricia Wilson-Schmid, Celebration, acrylic, Laura Pritchard, The Donors, batik on silk, Karen Frank, Strongman and Ballerina, mixed media, Theodore Amick, Jibber Jabber, watercolor and Bob Jackson, Mrs. Wildfowl and Tea, junk and stuff.
Sy Hakim, Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club. Sy Hakim’s large landscape painting, Formations - Daylight, describes a beautiful yet challenging world, the small figure seems huddled against the power of the landscape, the outcroppings hang high above his head, a daunting climb but a great view from the top.
Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club: Lois Schlachter, Guarding the Kingdom, giclee and Sixty, giclee, DoN Brewer, Iris of the Storm and Amy, Amy, Amy, digital photographs, archival ink prints and Mervyn Klein, Karate, collage. Lois and DoN have been friends for years and Mervyn & DoN had a show together in the Downstairs Gallery earlier this year; the tones of this grouping are balanced and vibrant, there are tableau’s throughout the gallery where works speak to each other through color, technique and theme. DoN priced his work at $4.3 trillion and $3.2 trillion respectively hoping to save the economy but the guide says NFS, oh well.
Bill Myers @ The Plastic Club.
Bill Myers photography is confounding yet simple; his Photoshop collages fool the eye when the artist mashes his own photography with found images, morphing the pictures into something different yet familiar. Scary Scenario, photo collage, looks authentic with deep blacks and dark shadows but look closer and the foreground figure becomes impossible, the girl in the phone booth has two umbrellas, huh? - Bill Myers is good at that, that “huh?” moment.
Sy Hakim, The Cave-Night, oil, Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club.
An art patroness becomes part of the art in the Shiekman Studio upstairs at the Plastic Club, her Summer dress extending the scene magically onto her person. The art flanking Hakim’s painting is by Gail Zelikovsky, Rock Garden, painted silk and Rock Garden with Waterfall, painted silk.
Sy Hakim, The Cave-Night, oil, Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club.
Sibylle-Maria Pfaffenbichler @ The Plastic Club’s Member’s Choice Art Show. Sibylle-Maria Pfaffenbichler’s action paintings are not just fast in painting style like an abstract expressionist but the quickly painted figures are always moving, dancing, prancing - Ringa-Ringa-Reia, gouache & charcoal, is a joyful work of art.
Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club.
Ted Gutswa, Members’ Choice Art Show @ The Plastic Club. Ted Gutswa’s charcoal drawings, Spring Mist & Sweeping Dream, explains all about what it means to be a member of the Plastic Club, simple materials, uninhibited application and beautiful presentation, raising the combined whole to a level higher than it’s minimalist components. The Member’s Choice show at the Plastic Club represents each artist’s best work, the sum of it’s parts is elevated even more by the quality, style and variety of the work in proximity. Downstairs Gallery at the Plastic Club is a lovely space featuring Kim Martin. Karl Olsen, Marion Loippo and Jane Wilkie; DoN will post some images and comments soon.
Photos by DoN.
DoNArTNeWs
I’d Rather Be in the Studio! The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion is for artists of all kinds. Painters, sculptors, ceramist, jewelers, photographers, and others will benefit from the easy-to-follow self-promotion practices in this book.
Author and art-marketing consultant Alyson B. Stanfield, of ArtBizCoach.com, focuses on sharing the artwork directly with potential buyers through electronic and traditional communication outlets—in a manner that is comfortable, not artificial. Artists match Internet marketing strategies with sincere personal skills to take charge of their art careers.
The book includes online worksheets and downloads.
