August 31, 2013 Surprise exhibit

Yesterday, on the way home from picking up the gallery wall lettering for my show in November,  I stopped at the MOA, Museum of Outdoor Art indoor gallery to see a show of paintings by Virginia Maitland and photographs by Sally Stokhold.  Let’s talk about those first.

Mailtand’s work presented in the large lobby space just outside the gallery, shows the influence of abstract expressionism, particularly color field painting in its exuberant use of flowing color.  Colors stream across the canvases in veils of color that create a sensation of depth and mystery.  Close up, I enjoyed seeing textural variations in the application of the paint.  Top: Peekaboo Canyon; bottom: Through Dark Fires

Stokhold’s large photographs, shown in the smaller interior gallery, feature her own image sometimes depicting famous female artists and other times herself as women who were important to art movements such as Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.  As I understand the process, these are not collaged images but involve backdrop painting, creation of costumes and Stokhold’s photographing of herself in the completed set.  For example:  Gertrude and Alice, 27 Rue de Fleurus, Paris.

The big surprise was the exhibit in the main part of the gallery, a show called Weather Suspended.  Imagine walking into a space with hundreds of clear plastic pinwheels, whirling about by gusts of wind from a phalanx of black fans.

The show is part of a Design and Build program for college interns to expand ideas about art.  All along the walls were various floor to ceiling visual representations of various forms of weather.  You could first guess what each kind of weather was and then lift a small tab by the piece to view the label.  The panel on the left was hail.

Panel on right was hurricane.

This photo shows a walk-through experience of cloud.  I was the only one in the gallery at the time and as I moved through the thin strips of white paper there was a wonderful gentle rustling sound like whispers.

August 24, 2013 Side by Side Art Openings

Last evening- two art openings at side by side galleries in RiNo, Denver.  At the Ice Cube Gallery in the Dry Ice Factory were solo shows by Regina Benson’s Future Ruins,  and Ray Tomaso’s Forgotten Latitudes.  Regina’s walk-through installation featured monumental fabric structures whose innate surface textures ( waffle weave blankets, venetian blinds) accentuated and complemented the reddish-brown surface treatments she achieves through rusting. 

There was a nice play between really solid, massive looking pieces and very thin ephemeral fabric sheets that moved gracefully in air currents created when people walked by. 

She also exhibited several objects that she used to make her rust patterns.

Ray Tomaso’s large wall-displayed cast paper works  are related to vacant spaces on maps and are composed of several layers of paper and found objects cast together and then painted in many layers.  His work shows a great sensitivity to the interplay of surface texture and pigment.

Next door at aBuzz Gallery was a group show, One Thing After Another, showing works in fiber, collage, paint and wood.  As always, I appreciated the bright colors and lively compositions of gallery owner, Carol Ann Waugh’s work.  New to me was the collage work of Janice McDonald which meticulously combined cut paper and paint in harmonious and interesting ways.

August 16, 2013 Getting Ready: Behind the Scenes Part 2

I wanted to mount my work for the November show so that it could later be removed.  To start, I used a staple gun to attach the hook side of Velcro to the painted stretched canvas.  The stretcher bars that I used were custom made and thus had a flat rather than rounded edge making it easier to staple gun the Velcro.

Next, I sewed the felt side of the Velcro to grosgrain ribbon on the sewing machine using a wide zig-zag stitch.  I sewed the velcro about 1 mm. from the edge, leaving that much grosgrain along the edge so I could then sew the ribbon to the quilt without having to sew through the Velcro.  I then sewed the Velcro attached to the ribbon onto all four edges of the quilt using a whip stitch along the edge and secured the other side of the Velcro with a running stitch.

August 7, 2013 Getting Ready : Behind the Scenes- Part 1

For my solo show at aBuzz Gallery in mid-November, I’m getting ready to mount my work on stretched canvas.  The past three days, I’ve been painting the edges and a couple of inches in on the fronts so that I can mount the work edge to edge.  Now I’m waiting for Velcro and grosgrain ribbon to arrive for the next step.

August 6, 2013 Fiber Art in Golden, CO

Over the past weekend, I saw three fiber art shows in Golden, CO.  Threads of Change was a wonderful varied exhibit of all kinds of fiber art including exploratory embroidery, weaving, sculpture, installation and quilted forms, but no photography allowed. 

 The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum hosted a show from the Manhattan Quilt Guild.  I particularly liked  Chasms 5- City of Contrasts by Beth Carney for its movement and contrast of lights and darks.

 Ludmilla Uspenskaya’s Folder of My Metaphors contrasted bright squares of color against a heavily stitched background, notable for the sculptural effect created by stitch.