Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Workshops at Asheville Bookworks



Asheville BookWorks is a community resource for print and book arts located in West Asheville on Haywood Road. Through classes, exhibits, lectures, and annual events like BookOpolis and the Edible Book Festival, BookWorks caters to those interested in handmade books, papermaking, printmaking, and letterpress.

Currently some impressive workshops in papermaking, printing techniques, and book binding are being offered at the BookWorks facilities.

An artist whose work I am fond of, Jessica C. White, (pictured above) will be teaching the following letterpress print workshops:

The Printed Book Workshop
August 11, 18, 25
September 1, 8, 15
The class will integrate text, image, and the book structure into one project while increasing participants’ familiarity and experience with letterpress printing.

Introduction to Letterpress Printing Workshop
August 27-29
This three-day class will explore the basics of letterpress printing and hand typesetting, including type composition, mixing ink, press set-up, and printing on the Vandercook Proof Press.

Check
www.ashevillebookworks.com for more information and a full listing of all workshops.

See more of White's work at
heroesandcriminalspress.com

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Splat! and Luna


Dancer/performance artist Claire Elizabeth Barratt and musician/composer Shane Perlowin recently joined forces for a live interactive performance at Pritchard Park. I missed it, but fortunately I was able to read the amusing and informative write-up by Jaye Bartell here: (Photos by Jonathan Welch)
http://www.mountainx.com/ae/2010/splat_at_pritchard_park/

Barratt will be performing again this Sunday, July 17 8-11pm at FLOOD Gallery in The Phil Mechanic Building. Here's what The Mountain Xpress has to say about it:

Part dance, part performance art, part installation, LUNA — the brainchild of dancer Claire Elizabeth Barratt, set to the music of electronic sound-scape artist Kimathi Moore — is a continuous three-hour performance. Can’t sit still that long? No problem — the audience can come and go as they please. Barratt will be costumed “in a white powder which glows under ultraviolet black-light. This creates an ethereal & haunting effect”; she describes her slow-motion technique as “motion sculpture.” Held at The Flood Gallery in the Phil Mechanic Building on Saturday, July 17. 8-11 p.m. $10/$7 students. floodgallery.org.
From Mountain Xpress Smart Bets
Your guide to what's happening in music, theater and the arts in Asheville and Western North Carolina 7/13/2010

Learn more about Claire Elizabeth Barratt at http://www.cillavee.com/

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Anna Jensen at PUSH Gallery

Red Mask

One Master in the House is Enough

When local painter Anna Jensen overheard a man in a restaurant tell his server, “There are no tomatoes in the corn salsa,” she thought about the game “Telephone,” and how pronunciations and meanings of words are altered over time. Thus the name for her current exhibit at PUSH Gallery was born: There Are No Potatoes in the Porn Salsa.

Paintings fill the walls of PUSH Gallery, and there’s a lot on display for the viewer to absorb. A variety of artistic styles, such as abstract, figurative, Pop and folk are woven into intriguing narratives involving naked and half-clad women, commercial products, masks, patterns, animals, and popular art reproductions. The disparity of Jensen’s painting — in combination with her gestural mark-making and suggestive subject matter — is exactly the sort of thing that will make viewers either love it or recoil from it. In either case, Jensen displays fearlessness.


Read the full Mountain Xpress article: Porn salsa: Anna Jensen delivers a provocative mash up of art and imagery

To see the painting by Austrain artist Maria Lassnig that appears in Jensen work pictured above,
click here.

For more of Jensen's work visit: annajensen.etsy.com

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Model Misbehavior at Satellite Gallery


This month at The Satellite Gallery an array of local artists have reinvented the ubiquitous wooden mannequin normally found in art stores and used as a base for artists in sculpture and drawings. What is most interesting about this exhibit are the differing approaches and interpretations of the form. Many of the 19 artists exhibiting work have completely restructured the doll, disguised it, or created new environments for it.

Curator/artist Marin Mitchell arrived at the concept of the show due to her love for artistic dolls. She says, "I think they are such an amazing way of blending multiple disciplines and techniques into one art piece." Using the wooden mannequin enabled her to "weave a cohesive thread through the show, without it having an actual theme as the base for everyone's designs."

Below is a small sample of dolls and some words by their makers. I definitely recommend that you go see the show for yourself, because there are so many other great dolls on display.

Anachronistic Tendencies
I constructed the base from wood and metal scraps, found objects, and cast resin. The figure is the original model reassembled and covered with air-dry clay.
From my previous experience with making dolls, I knew that whatever I made would somehow end up being a self-portrait. So I decided to just embrace that and actually approach the process with that intention. I'm a fairly old-fashioned person (or maybe I should say ancient-fashioned) in that I believe in honor, respect, loyalty, honesty, family (chosen or otherwise). Those values are often seemingly contradictory to the individualistic, achievement-oriented goals of Capitalist, Westernized culture. For me, "Anachronistic Tendencies" is about standing in my own truth, and making the ancient relevant to modern life.

-Marin Mitchell


Guilty Pleasures Portrait # 2
My piece is the second part of a series I'm working on of guilty pleasures. When Marin began talking about the idea for model misbehavior I was really excited about it, thinking that it was going to work well in this series. I am mainly 2D in my work so this piece was a real stretch for me, there were many, many failed attempts before I completed it. It is mostly constructed out of plywood, paper mache and paper clay.
-Hannah Dansie


Harold the Mouse Deer
Segment 16 is interested in the connections and similarities between humans and other mammals.
Harold is a shy creature who is always embarrassed by unwanted attention. He would often indulge in long, dramatic pauses every time he felt the urge.
-Segment 16 Art Collective


Mensch
I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the doll until after I had taken it apart. At that point I had a desk full of whittled bits of wood, springs, and the stand. I was over thinking it and nothing was jumping out at me. That was when I decided to use clay and hair. I fashioned a nose, a muscular deltoid, and so on. I made a braid out of horse hair to drape in his hand. I have been interested in attaching a scientific approach to the act of gathering so it seemed obvious to me that this mensch belonged in a jar. .

Most of my stuff is two-dimensional so this was a nice, and somewhat challenging, departure.
-Leila Amiri

Bird Clan Mother
I'm known for my dolls, and have been making dolls for a long time, but having a standard manequin was a whole new thing for me. I spent a lot of hours just wrapping fabric. I really enjoyed the process. The stitches are a tribute to the Appalachian women quilters who came before me.
- Cher Shaffer

Satellite Gallery is located at 55 Broadway Street in downtown Asheville

The show will be up until July 25th.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Paintings (and performance) by Kathryn Temple



Local oil painter, Kathryn Temple flexes her thespian muscles this month in the theatrical production of Ruth at NC Stage Company in downtown Asheville. Her performance deserves the highest accolades, and the play is captivating. Written by John Crutchfield, the play's artistry is what resonated with me most -- from it's minimal stage design and music, to it's original verse and choreography. You can read a more in-depth review of the play written by Allie Marshall for the Mountain Xpress here: http://www.mountainx.com/theatre/article/review_of_iruth_i_at_nc_stage

I'm not here to talk about the play so much as to call attention to the paintings created by Temple that hang in the lobby of the theater. Using a classical realist approach, her work is contemplative with nuanced subject matter and a restrained color palette. White blank sheets of paper hang by wooden laundry clips and blow in the wind in two of the paintings. In another, Temple employs trompe l'oeil to convey letters on paper hanging by thread in a box. The letters spell out a palindrome: "forever of forever of forever of."
The exhibit is concise and powerful. Visit NC Stage Company this month to see Temple's paintings in person.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Temple for an article published in Verve Magazine.
http://www.vervemag.com/july-2010/2010/6/28/ruth-or-consequences.html

See more of Temple's work at
kathryntemple.com