DoNArTNeWs

Barbara Keough, Three Out of Four Ain’t Bad, mixed media @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition.   The Plastic Club has 36 new members and a low attrition rate due to the warm, welcoming laid back vibe of one of the longest running art clubs in America.  The New Members show is exceptional in the wide variety of media from fiber arts to painting, drawing and photograph; you would think there would be a tipping point but the leadership of The Plastic Club is sensitive to the needs of artists and makes every effort to help them develop through leading workshops, critiques, Salons, and monthly exhibitions including the Downstairs Gallery (the subject of DoN’s next post on DoNArTNeWs).

Barbara Keough’s painting embodies the spirit of the new group joining the club, her painting is witty, fun, cheerful and beautiful - a small painting which lights up on it’s own especially in the newly refurbished Plastic Club Gallery.  And the number 42, of course, is the answer to the ultimate question posed in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  The Plastic Club uses a unique numbering system which requires visitors to refer to a printed guide but also allows seeing the work for itself without being influenced by the cult of personality or reputation of the artist.

Chick Kelly @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition.  Chick Kelly’s wonderfully ebullient and erudite character shines through his paintings combining contemplative color palette with stinging symbolism and strong story telling.

Maria Viataki, Dreams of Havertown, acrylic, Alexandra Pinero, Amaris Is Hazel, oil, & Burton Greenspan, Sun Lee, oil @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition.  Doesn’t this look fabulous?

S.F. Pfaffenbichler, Rock I & Rock II, oil @  Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition.

S.F. Pfaffenbichler @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition.

Bob Jackson & Alan Klawans un-scrolled Sylia Pfaffenbichler’s action drawing from the Plastic Club’s on-going series of workshops called the Moving Model, the model slowly changes poses over a period of twenty minutes forcing the artist to quickly see and commit the image to paper, the results are evident in Pfaffenbichler’s great, joyful paintings of jazzy dancers.

Michael B. Tantaros, What, graphite & Yeoun Lee, Over the Rainbow, mixed media - DoN loves seeing these works together, the fine drawing is of Bill Myers, fellow photographer and Yeoun Lee who are both in the group multi-media art show Diverse Perspectives @ Da Vinci Art Alliance, reception February 25th, 2011, 5 - 9:00 PM, featuring the work of eight Da Vinci Art Alliance member artists.  DoN will be presenting Search Engine Optimization for Artists , Saturday, March 5th @ 2:00 PM, as part of the Diverse Perspectives exhibition running throughout March in the historic gallery in South Philly.

Past president Michael Guinn and current president Bob Jackson address the new members who have joined the Plastic Club, their leadership has improved participation exponentially and upgrades to the historic building are continuous - the back yard parties are infamous, too.

Jane J. Wilkie, Blue Sky, acrylic, Reta Sweeney, Snow on Stewart Lake, oil, Cara Kendric, Song of the Dawn, mixed media and Denise Romano Bright, Wisteria in Bloom, hand colored photo @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition through February 25th, 2011.  Welcome to the New Members and thank you to The Plastic Club team for providing a venue for artists to grow and develop without feeling intimidated.

By the by, DoN has been updating the Album pages on the Plastic Club website, it’s a work in progress but the pictures will bring back many memories.

Michael B. Tantaros, Who, graphite @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition; DoN is particularly drawn (no pun intended) to Tantaros‘ descriptive drawing and atmospheric naturalism.  The Plastic Club is famous for it’s inspiring workshops where artists can work with a live model for 3 hours really cheaply, an important factor in creating great art.

Don McPartland, Secession man, Weather Report & Free Range, mixed media @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition.

Bill Myers, Dead Squirrel on My Bed, photograph & Robert Heiler, Winter’s Evening, watercolor @ Plastic Club New Members 2011 Art Exhibition.  Bill Myers surrealistic photographs will be on view at Da Vinci Art Alliance February 25th - March 26th, 2011.

Photos by DoN.

Kimberly Witham @ Introduction 2011 - Center for Emerging Visual Artists New Development Fellows @ Moore College of Art & Design Widener Memorial Foundation Gallery, Feb 2nd - 19th, 2011.

Kimberly Witham told DoN people presuppose she Photoshop’s her work but her mise-en-scène photographs are real still-life compositions, elements of which have a limited shelf life.  The pictures of pretty headless birds in cups and on plates dredge up memories of dead birds on the street and questions of why they fell from the sky.  About half of the photos included in this ground-breaking exposition are film, half digital, a seem-less transition between mediums made transparent by Witham’s virtuosity, she’s a professor of photography at Bucks County College, a school with a long tradition of excellence in photography education.  The road kill element is shocking and beautiful, a sweet, sad commentary on urban wild life.

Maggie Mills, Crops, oil on linen.  Maggie and DoN got into an animated discussion about”fracking“, another painting in the show is titled Frack, the practice of injecting noxious chemicals into the Earth’s crust to break it up and release “natural gas“.  This clean fuel puts unknown dangers into the families and communities who live where fracking takes place by releasing toxic chemicals into the water table, scary shit, Mills’ painting shows an adolescent crouching, head to knees, while visions of matrix-like drills descend from the sky.

Daniel Kornkrumpf uses fiber like colored pencils for his portraits of on-line social network profie pics he’s found over time - a long time since the densely embroidered portraits may take months to produce, unlike a drawing which may take an afternoon.  The isolated faces floating in large blank fields of fine linen examines the connection of the isolationism of social networks and the self-portraits that make you think, “Really?  That’s their best look?”  Instead of attracting attention, ridicule and mockery may result, by the way Plenty of Fish often advertises in the DoNArTNeWs sidebar, please, click through, Valentine’s Day is coming up.  Kornkrumpf will continue his unique fiber portraits but is pursuing drawing and painting for the upcoming show at the Ice Box in late spring.

Daniel Kornkrumpf

Mami Kato created these futuristic sculptures by unraveling rope she imports from her home, Akita Japan,creating domes of fiber reminiscent of the rice fields at home after harvest and clumps of stems line the horizon.  Kato surprised her audience by picking up the light weight, yet densely compact, domes, revealing the Trompe-l’œil. 

On the left is Alison Stigora, represented in this show with a magnificent drawing of a giant cosmic crystalline flower in mixed media including drawing, prints, chalk and wax but is also in an awesome show at LGTripp Gallery in Old City through February 26th. Next to her is Maggie Mills, behind Mami is a collage of digital prints by Jennifer Williams that is a totally steal-able idea - who knew, collage could be so cool.

Lewis Colburn, The Pursuits of a Gentleman, mixed media installation with ten photographs and steamer trunk.  This assemblage was a fave of Spike Howard, Philly’s finest wind farm engineer, for it’s sense of time travel, irony and elegance.  DoN loves how CFEVA treats photographers as true artists who belong at the table with painters and sculptors.

Arden Bendler Browning @ Introduction 11

A Fishtown native who’s studio is in the Crane Arts Center, Browning obviously takes full advantage of the large work space to create massive paintings, this color field of speeding urban images, like you see out of the corner of your eye as you zoom down the Expressway, is abstract expressionist yet a kind of contemporary cubism with obtuse angles and cracked spacial warps.  DoN easily sees Arden Bendler Browning taking the opportunity of the fellowship that CFEVA offers and running with it, her work is complex yet accessible, perfect for contemporary collectors.

DoN inquired of new fellow Don Edler as to how he came to win the CFEVA fellowship and he generously explained how he meticulously researches grants and awards, looks at winners of previous competitions, discovers which other awards or grants they’ve received and applies for them, too. By making applying for grants part of his business plan, Edler makes it almost sound easy and is proof that persistence, patience, targeted yet broad research into funding, exhibition and publicity works like a charm.

Congratulations to the new fellows!

Ona Kalstein @ Structure and Gesture @ Da Vinci Art Alliance.

Paintings by Jane Liang, photo by John Benigno @ Structure and Gesture a Da Vinci Art Alliance event.

Sandi Nieman Lovitz @ Structure and Gesture, a Da Vinci Art Alliance event. Lovitz won 3rd prize for her painting on plexi with vivid color, bold brushwork and scratching away of paint, the result is very seductive and beautiful, eclipsing the other paintings in the room as far as brightness and movement goes.

Structure and Gesture @ Da Vinci Art Alliance - W. Lukens, E. Lukens & S. Myers, the tableau of earth tones contrasts with the brighter color creating a subtle ebb & flow of emotion, narrative and excitement through the gallery.

Bud Boehringer @ Structure and Gesture, a Da Vinci Art Alliance event.  Boehringer’s painting was a jury favorite and is now attracting attention as a prime example of contemporary Philadelphia expressionist painting with a cool vibe, accessible abstraction and joyful abandon.

Lilliana Didovic, Sandi Neiman Lovitz, Pat Wilson-Schmid…there are more than 20 Philadelphia artists included in this exuberant show celebrating art making of all kinds.  The Da Vinci Art Alliance continues to offer cohesive, thematic shows which challenge the artist and the viewer to see, think and communicate more.

Carol Wisker, Marilyn, mixed media @ Structure and Gesture a Da Vinci Art Alliance event.  Carol Wisker turns ordinary wire screen mesh into a luxuriously lustrous confection, earning her second prize in the juried competition.

Lois Schlachter @ Structure and Gesture, a Da Vinci Art Alliance event.  Lois is super-charging her art career after a long run as exhibitions co-chair at The Philadelphia Sketch Club with surrealistically changed landscapes reminiscent of Charles Dumuth over-lapping super-flat planes of color, defining spacial concepts.  Check out her web-site for all the events Lois is participating in; even though she won an honorable mention for the above print, DoN found her large painting in the Da Vinci show to be much more enthralling.  Visit this art gallery gem in South Philly, with the collection of outstanding work by a diverse group of artists, to see what DoN means.

Structure and Gesture @ Da Vinci Art Alliance - check out this line-up of paintings, drawing and print by a cluster of influential Philly artists - Lois Schlachter, Roz Bloom and Alden Cole. 

The Structure and Gesture exhibition features the artwork of:

J. Benigno, R. Bloom, S. Bloom, B. Boehringer, A. Cole, L. Didovic, J. Engle, D. Foss, O. Kalstein, C. Kelly, Y. Lee, J. Liang, M. Loippo, W. Lukens, E. Lukens, L. Mills, S. Myers, S. Neiman-Lovitz, L. Schlacheter, A. Strosser, P. Wilson-Schmid, C. Wisker.

Deanna McLaughlin & Jack Larimore @ Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall, Philadelphia.

Juror, Jack Larimore told DoN he’s a furniture maker first, it’s sculptural yet it’s furniture.  Larimore liked seeing work by Philly region artists he had not seen before especially with an open ended concept like Dysfunctional Furniture - become part of the furniture, the piece above doubles as a font.  Even things we perceive as being dysfunctional may have a function we are unaware of, a great metaphor for life.

Artist Deanna McLaughlin carried a matching mini shopping cart hand-bag to match her lounge chair made from a re-cycled shopping card and thrift store leather belts, the social implications of weaving our own furniture and learning from the homeless is palpable.

Holly E. Smith, Deceased Vole Coffee Table, wood, chair parts @ Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall.  Smith told DoN the sculpture started with the tail and gradually became an assemblage of objects, eventually an homage to dead voles.  Artist Ted Warchal commented on how the legs of the sculpture are appropriately sized, larger in the rear, smaller in the front.

Hannah Fink @ Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall, Philadelphia.

Michelle Post @ Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall.  Post uses salt & pepper shakers, some quite collectible, like sequins on her altar-like tissue box, a bizarre bedazzling of function, craft and stream of consciousness.

Lauren Frazer, Beauty is Only a Promise of Happiness, fabric, stuffing, plywood, synthetic human hair.  “Furniture plays an important role creating theatrical context for my sculptures”.  Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall.

Herbert Simon, Chair Forward, welded steel, found objects. Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall

Kay Healy, Stuffed, screen-printed fabric.  Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall.

Burnell Yow! The Puzzling Love Life of the Superhero, mixed media.  Yow!s mirror reflects the puzzle of what we see in the mirror and the quest to get all the pieces of life fit together, even if it’s just because they touch without matching.  Dysfunctional Furniture @ Art in City Hall.

Juror Albert LeCoff said Dysfunctional Furniture re-emphasizes what a strong region Philadelphia is for sculpture with an innovative use of material, one of the real surprises was Kay Healy’s fabric sculptures and the use of materials.

Art in City Hall is a great civic program with a new art space in Philadelphia City Hall of the 1st Floor; coordinator of Art in City Hall, Tu Huynh is featured on the web site for The National Arts Program.  Thank you Tu for bringing art to the forefront of the civic consciousness in Philly and national attention to our artists.

Dysfunctional Furniture
December 16 - February 25.
Juried by Jack Larimore and Albert LeCoff and featuring artists: Gretchen Altabef, Carlos Avendano, Michael J. Brolly, Charna Eisner, Hannah Fink, Laura Frazure, Kay Healy, Lydia Hunn, Tara Inman-Bellofatto, Jack Larimore, Henry Loustau, Deanna McLaughlin, Ife Nii Owoo, Michelle Post, Matthew Alden Price, Leo Razzi, Maria Schneider, Adam Shuman, Herbert Simon, William Skrobut, Holly Smith, Chris Todd, Michael Wiley and Burnell Yow!
Art Gallery at City Hall, Room 116 and
1st and 2nd Floor display cases.

Brooke Hine, Shadow, resin, zip-ties, acrylic @ The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, 15th & Locust Streets, Philadelphia.

The Imagined show is over now, the Center for Emerging Visual Artists is on holiday break, it’s Christmas Eve, 2010,  and DoN is grateful and thankful for the excellent art memories the good people at CFEVA generate throughout the year.  If it wasn’t for the team at CFEVA, a huge gap between artists and the public would be difficult to straddle; CFEVA manages Philadelphia Open Studio Tours as well as educational seminars, fellowships, art exhibition opportunities and more.  Art girlfriend, Brooke Hine Facebook-ed DoN, last week, reminding him to stop in the gallery before her art show came down the next day; the CFEVA team was having a meeting in their underground lair, so DoN had total private access to the uber-cool, sleek, modern space arrayed with master-works by true art stars.  The Imagined is laser-focused on craft, narrative and virtuosity with drawings, sculpture and mixed media; the art resonates with each other, feeding the sense of being lost under-ground, away from it all, alone with mysterious thoughts and things.

Brooke Hine, Philly Blossom Series, wood, acrylic, resin, porcelain @ The Imagined, CFEVA Gallery.

Brooke Hine.

These are a Few of My Favorite Things, porcelain, slip, glaze, stain, cat whiskers @ The Center for Emerging Visual Artists - The Imagined: Gregory Brellochs, Danielle Bursk, Brooke Hine.

Brooke Hine’s work is paradoxical: hard & soft, internal & external, beautiful & ugly, light & dark, whimsical & creepy, preternaturally intelligent & child-like naivete, technical virtuosity & inquisitive exploration and she’s an artist that is one tough, sexy, street-smart, chick with a thick skin and soft heart.  DoN LoVeS Brooke Hine!  No cats were harmed in the production of this blog post.

Danielle Bursk @ The Center for Emerging Visual Artists - The Imagined.

Is this cool or what?  Danielle’s drawings are like no-one else’s, instantly recognizable as a Bursk, yet each heroic drawing holds it’s own mystery and unfathomable conception of consumption of time and energy.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists - The Imagined: Gregory Brellochs, Danielle Bursk, Brooke Hine.

Gregory Brellochs, Ganglions, 48″ x 48″, graphite on paper.

Gregory Brellochs, Sensafe, graphite on paper, 52″ x 217″ x 70″.

You know how sometime you see art and can’t imagine it in your home?  Brelloch’s immersive drawing is so magical, the feeling of primitive forests from dark tales of earlier times matched with the subtle surrealism is quite seductive, like everyone should have an art chamber to meditate in.

DoN looks forward to the New Year and the continued success and optimism for the future of art in the Philadelphia region The Center for Emerging Visual Artists provides to artists, collectors, enthusiasts, educators, businesses and government.  The services CFEVA offers to the community are essential, consider supporting their efforts by attending shows, spending money on art and making donations, they deserve it.

Toni Nash, Leaning Tower of Brass @ Dumpster Divers Art Gallery on South Street.

Toni Nash, Hand of Time @ Dumpster Divers on South Street.

Toni Nash explained to DoN that her found object construction expresses the concept that people always look to their hands to acknowledge the passage of time.   Nash uses hand imagery in her work, “…because what can you do without hands?  A baby see it’s own hand, I see stuff and it talks to me, then I interpret what it says.”

Toni Nash, Last Sunset of the Millenium @ Dumpster Divers on South Street.

Nash was intrigued with the last sunset of the 20th century but not the first sunrise, she became involved in an art project involving Legg Eggs and transforming the Titanic ship to look like a rocket and forgot to watch the sun come up on the new millennium.  It’s fun chatting with Toni in the eclectic gallery on South Street with the collection of art made from recycled materials surrounding us and hipsters wandering in off the street to check out the unusual art, Nash hosted a long running talk show in the Philly region and has zillions of stories to tell about meeting stars.  The gallery is decorated for the holidays with some wack-a-zoid toy assemblages which are enthralling kids on South Street, stop in and meet the artist, she’s really cool.

Deja Vu - 6th Annual Juried Competition @ Off the Wall Gallery in Dirty Frank’s.   DoN is honored to be represented in this show, the requirements were stringent and the jury big league. the opening party is Thursday, December 2th, 2010, 7 - 9:00 PM.

DoN Brewer, I Was Here, digital photograph, inkjet print @ Deja Vu - 6th Annual Juried Competition @ Off the Wall Gallery.

Carla Lombardi, Gavaciolli, high fire stoneware, Shinoglaze, @ Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery on 22nd Street.  Decameron is presented in conjunction with the world premier of Karen Saillant’s new opera of the same name presented by the International Opera Theater and inspired by Il Decamerone by Giovanni Boccaccio.  The stories of the ten people who escaped the Black Plague to a country estate is operatic in scope with so much source material from the tens of tens of stories told while the world collapsed around them that the tales of love, lust, morality and sin still ring true and wise in the modern age.  The artists reached deep to connect the dots of our common deep past with our futuristic present through drawing, painting, sculpture, collage and photography.

Ona Kalstein, Lisbetta Weeps, 4th day, 5th tale,  ink & colored pencil on vellum.

Rosalind Bloom, Danse Macabre - The Black Death, watercolor, acrylic, collage.

Ted Warchal, Tale 5 - 2, Gastanza Sails to Tunis, assemblage,  Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery.

Ted Warchal @ Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery.  Tale 6-1o - The Relic of Archangel Gabriel reminds us of a time when zealots professed to own bits of Saints which could be viewed at a price, Warchal’s magical assemblage holds a golden feather and a bone.

Rachel Citrino @ Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery.  Citrino created a 100 block grid of images relating to Italy and the hundred tales of the Decameron, printed on canvas, the digital collage pops with hits of color amidst the stark black and white memories of a distant world.

Rosalind Bloom, The Embrace..., oil & mixed media collage and DoN Brewer, Heliotrope, digital photograph, digital print.  Roz’s painting refers to the boils caused by the Black Plague called Caviciolli like some pasta, but when you got a boil you’re dead in 3 days. DoN’s Heliotrope does not refer to the color but the magic stone offering the power of invisibility.

Alden Cole’s painting depicts the rise of humanism and the lesson of living in the moment filled with love.

Sadly, this is the last Da Vinci Art Alliance show at Smile Gallery, Ken Tutjamnong’s restaurant has become so popular that he needs the room for diners he has been turning away and he can show his own outstanding artwork as he does in the dining room at street level.  Admittedly the art drew people to the restaurant and the gallery offered DVAA space outside the club’s gallery to do theme show’s like Decameron.

Photos by DoN.

Collage walls by Dan Welch @ OCDan on Fitzwater Street.  The handy-dandy POST guide says,”surreal, alchemical, flux.“  Yup!  The first stop on a beautiful Saturday was a third floor walk-up to OCDan’s trippy studio he shares with Emily Smith, their art resonates on different vibes but the space has room for both.

Emily Smith, watercolors.  Smith says she does a lot of self-portraits because no one will pose for her. she likes to mix beauty and the grotesque because people are monsters yet beautiful. “I like it when people hate my work, take away what you want.”

Mosaic mural near South Street - we tried to get into the Magic Garden but it was crowded, this little diversion helped satisfy the urge.

Nancy @ Nangellini on South Street makes Dream-Catchers from hand pulled, hand died yarn; the shop carries artisanal yarns made from exotic threads from near and far.  Although not part of the POST tour, Nangellini is a welcome stop on South Street to take in a heady mix of art and fashion.

Studios @ The Purl, 1138 South 9th Street - jewelry, clever scarves, photography created by a five artist collective in that strip along the Italian Market waiting to become cool, on the other side of Washington Ave.

Studios @ The Purl is a good example of how many smaller galleries and collectives participated in this years art crawl, in this tough economy we have to band together to keep the dream alive.  Philly has a rich heritage of art and culture requiring support if we are to survive as a hub of the regional creative economy.  Studios @ The Purl includes Jurgita Centuke, Zivile Pupinyte & SoulPurl 77 Design.

DoN is working on a separate story about 1241 Carpenter Street and his Sunday tour of Kensington area studios and galleries.

Photos by DoN.

Nicole Eiland @ Smile Gallery.  Nicole told DoN she likes the smell of burning paper and she is inspired by the wonder of nature.  Eiland uses a lot of book forms symbolizing human symbiosis destroying and creating.

Ted Warchal, Rotterdam at Low Tide, collage.

Ted Warchal, Mig Alley, collage @ Smile Gallery, Embodiment of Desire through 11/8/2010.

Ted Warchal, All Through the Censures, She Wears Her Cool Like Perfume, collage, acrylic, wood panel.

Ted Warchal explained to DoN that late Winter, early Spring he started to work small, a diversion from his found object sculptures he is so well known for.  He began creating meticulously tiny collages that look like little paintings, clustered together the pieces are subtle but on closer inspection each collage is a deep, secretive introspection on life, love and desire.

Photos by DoN.