Whale and Star

I went to the Anderson Ranch in Colorado to participate in a workshop with Enrique Martinez Celaya last week. I wrote about him here a while ago. It was an intense experience to be talking about art for a whole week all day long... But I'm really happy to have done that. Check out their web site http://www.andersonranch.org. One of the things Celaya talked about is his publishing house - "Whale and Star" which publishes poetry, art monographs, critical writings on philosophy and art among others. Here's their web site: http://www.whaleandstar.com/ In the end of the year "Whale and Star" is going to be transformed into an institute of sorts that will be dedicated to the "renewal of art's ethical responsibilities". Located in the middle of the arts district in Miami It will continue to publish books as well as have a residency for artists, a library, public lectures, etc. Also, in the fall Celaya will present a lecture he's been working on for a while at the University of Nebraska on the theme of Artist as Prophet.

So that's the inside scoop! Check these places out if you get a chance.

Kendra Bulgrin

First off, my apologies for not being "on it" with the posts lately... we are in the process of moving and have had zero internet hooked up at home for awhile now, but its *supposed* to be happening this week...so artnicks should be back to its reguarly posting self soon!!!!

Now, about Kendra Bulgrin. Kendra is a painter currently working in Atchison, Kansas. Her newest work uses reoccurring images of a plastic green woman against warm, somewhat surreal lanscapes of giant household objects and exterior spaces, encountering the occasional wolf, deer, or cow. The narrative quality of the paintings is full of a kind of heavy intrigue.

Kendra's work is currently showing at Kaw Valley Arts & Humanities in Kansas City Kansas, as well as at the River Market Regional Exhibition in Kansas City MO.

Dana Carlson

Dana Carlson's work explores materials and markmaking and lots of in-your-face cheesyness- icons like kittens and horses, decorative pattern,puff paint, collage and applique. Though its not called out in her artist statment, there's an organic femininity to the work, in both the shapes and the icons and colors chosen. Dana embraces a sort of "anti-aesthetic", allowing an element of the unpolished as a reprieve from the slickness of modern graphics.

Anderson Ranch Art Center

The Anderson Ranch Art Center is a little cloud of bliss up in the Rocky Mountains where artists can go to learn, work, and be inspired by workshops, residencies, visiting artists, and various events. The workshops are offered at various experience levels, from children and teens to professional adults, and cover a variety of disciplines, from ceramics to installation. There are funding scholorships available, if you apply early enough...and also students or full time teachers can get into workshops with availablility for half off the tuition fee.

Paul Shortt, "Missed Connections"

Paul Shortt is a student at the Kansas City Art Institute, and just had a show opening at Project Space in Kansas City. This particular body of work from Paul, titled "Missed Connections", was inspired by ads taken out in Craigslist describing brief moments of connection where people encountered a stranger they would like to get to know better. Paul recreated the ads in the locations that they took place, and also created a film of the locations he went with voiceovers of the ads.

Paul Shortt's show, "missed connections" will be up for the month, coming down the third week of June. Next door at Paragraph gallery you can also catch "Happy Tree Friends part 2", which features several installation works themed around Trees.

ONLINE VIDEO ART LECTURES

Here's an link to the collection of video lectures at the School of VIsual Arts
at the Boston University. I watched the one with Dana Schutz and it was great.
It gives much insight into the person behind the art, which, in my opinion gives
insight into the art itself.

Lectures on Art at BU

Philip Slein Gallery

Catherine Howe
Fred Stonehouse

Philip Slein Gallery in St Louis features a lot of "edgy", contemporary figurative artists, as well as underground comic artists, sculptors, and abstract painters of national and regional backgrounds. The next opening, June 5 - July 18th, features Marc Handelman, Daniel Hesidence, Erik Oost, Emilio Perez, Halsey Rodman, Gordon Terry, Britton Tolliver, Jonathan VanDyke, and Oliver Warden, in a salute to abstract expressionism.

philip slein gallery
1319 washington avenue
saint louis, mo 63103
p: 314.621.4634
f: 314.621.3913

ART/WORK

I found the best book the other day..."ART/WORK". It is written by the power duo of Heather Darcy Bhandari (gallerist from Mixed Greens Gallery in New York) and Jonathan Melber (lawyer). It is an incredibly comprehensive, concise, clearly laid out guidebook to going about art professionally, containing an invaluable wealth of practical advice. It includes putting together CVs and grant proposals, shipping work, preparing paperwork for taxes, obtaining gallery representation, etc. Its designed simply, clearly, and is direct and to the point. If you are full of questions about "how to hack it in the art world" this book is full of answers. I think its the most helpful thing I've ever read in regards to fine art as a career.

Artists Opportunities

I haven't posted any in awhile, so I thought the time had come.....

DEADLINE: JUNE 1. :YEISER ART CENTER SEEKS PORTFOLIO SUBMISSIONS.
The Yeiser Art Center, a non-profit visual arts gallery, Paducah, KY is seeking proposals from artists in Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana for solo/group exhibitions in 2010 season. Send CV, statement, CD/slide sheet twenty images, SASE, and support materials to: Exhibition Committee, Yeiser Art Center, 200 Broadway, Paducah, KY 42001. Must include SASE for return of materials. Visit website: www.theyeiser.org. Contact: Teri Moore, yaccenter@paducah.com.

NO DEADLINE POSTED.. SPACELAB: (Cleveland, OH, Nonprofit)
An environment for emerging and student artists to present work that challenges aesthetics and interacts physically/socially with the public. Two SPACELab projects are exhibited for three weeks. Site-specific work encouraged. Small honorarium. SPACELab Committee, SPACES, 2220 Superior Viaduct, Cleveland, OH 44113

DEADLINE: JULY 31. SANTO FOUNDATION INDIVIDUAL ARTIST GRANTS
$2500.00 individual visual artists grants in any area of expression. The juror is Paul Ha, Director of the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis.
To apply, upload 10 jegs, and a current CV to callforentry.org. All national, international candidates are eligible as well as undergraduates, MA and MFA candidates, emerging artists and mid-career artists. Application fee of $25.00 is required for each applicationVideo/Performance artist may submit on CAFE with 10 pegs of still images but they will also need to mail a DVD (3 minutes max length) to The Santo Foundation, 5832 Macklind Ave, St. Louis, MO 63109. Please include a SASE for return of materials.

CALL FOR ARTISTS/CURATORS: PLAYHOUSE GALLERY
Playhouse gallery is a creative platform that is passionately dedicated to presenting the works of a diverse group of artists. The gallery's focus is to make art affordable and accessible to the experienced and evolving collector while providing a unique, welcoming, and encouraging space for guests to explore, and share in our love of art. We are looking for artists and curators from all levels of experience to submit artwork and exhibition proposals to fill its gallery space in 2009 and 2010. For more information please email playhouseinfo@optonline.net or call 845-548-5090

Ryan McGinnis @ Deitch Projects

Art star Ryan McGinnis has a show of new paintings, sclupture, and installation at Deitch Projects in Manhattan. Guests wishing to enter a world of intense layers of scrollwork, icons, and flat graphic imagery can stop in before April 18th, when the show comes down.

Sandra Scolnik

Sandra Scolnik's work always features self portraiture, often in multiples as if cloned. Her paintings are small in size, emphasizing a certain intimacy of subject matter, which seems to be deeply complicated, ongoing psycological drama. Her almost Bosch-like renderings employ great skill and detail, which lend interest to the themes present in her work, where her own image serves as every woman's image and societal role.

Phyllis Bramson

Phyllis Bramson's work is luxe and rich... somewhat nonsensical, and even hedonistic. She plays on ideas of fantasy and the fuzzy world of memory, her subjects living out narratives charged with mystery, desire, and distinct sense of unabashed indulgence in their smiling, flowery world. There is however always a sense of loss or damaged goods beneath every clown-like face. It leads the viewer lost in the intrigue of exactly what the hell is going on here.

Cecelia Phillips

Cecelia Phillips depicts strange vignettes of encounters between nature and man, like two alien cultures colliding. Her painting style is one I like to characterize as "juicy"- thick, meaty oil paint, with saturated (almost jarring) color that adds to the "unrealness" of her work.

Cecelia is a MFA candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, expecting to graduate this year from the painting program.

Joshua Allen Harris

This has apparently been totally blogged around. But I had never seen it until yesterday, and I just think its fan-freak-in-tastic. So I'm posting it again. Yay to New York Magazine for this interview.

SKETCHBOOK CALL FOR ENTRY!!!

HI all my artnick friends! I'm trying to get together a proposal for a show of artists books and sketchbooks. For those of you that obsessively keep and compile sketchbooks...I'd love, love, love to see them to consider for possible inclusion in the show. Please send low res jpegs to amathins@hotmail.com, along with your full name and contact info. Please be sure to put "SKETCHBOOKS" in the subject line, so I know its not junk mail!!!

The sketchbooks can be any size or shape or can even be artists books that are abstractly books at all. I will post books here on the blog as well.

Happy Sketchbooking!

Mouthful of Silence Exhibition

Ok, I'm first apologizing because its been awhile since either MIsha or I posted anything here... we've both been crazy busy. No excuse! I know! We will get back on it, I swear.

But here is the fruit of Misha's busy-ness at least....the opening of his thesis show, "Mouthful of Silence" is today. We've never posted his work on the blog ever...which is just crazy. So I'm sorry we have two kligman posts back to back here, since this blog is really supposed to be about people other than us...but I couldn't let his show go without a post!!!

Click here for an article about the show.

The opening reception is:
Sunday, March 29, 2 p.m.
Art and Design Gallery, 1467 Jayhawk Blvd., 3rd Floor,
Lawrence, Kansas

Journey Through Bookland @ Together Gallery

Journey Through Bookland opened at Together Gallery this past thursday. The show features work that has an emphasis on stroytelling, including work by Julianna Swaney, Nas Chompas, Amy Kligman, Seth Neefus, Ghraham Kahler and Aiden Koch. The show will be up until March 24th. At the website you can view and purchase work from the exhibition.

Together Gallery is at 2314 Alberta St in Portland, OR.
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday / 12-3 pm
Wed-Sat / 12-6 pm
Sunday / 12-5 pm
Or by appointment or chance

Heinrich & Cheryl Toh

Last night randomly at an art auction I met artists Heinrich and Cheryl Toh. Both are Kansas City artists right now, but as self-proclaimed "art gypsies", they've travelled and lived all around the country. Both artists do beautiful work that maintains a kind of strangely "floaty" quality...misty and ephemeral. Both employ pattern...Cheryl's encaustic and mixed media pieces speak abstractly about communication, and interactions. Henrich's prints and installations deal with fading cultural influence and traditions.

Nancy Baker Cahill

This series by LA artist Nancy Baker Cahill depicts sheep as beauty contestants, each assigned personalities and titles like "best smile", "first and second runners up", etc, to talk about the bizarre distortion of vulnerable girls into objects.

Lotte Geeven

These pieces are from a series by Lotte Geeven called "Backyard Vocabulary". The work explores nature's way of filling up the world with its own kind of "wallpaper"...sometimes geometric, sometimes mathematical, often dense and beautiful.

Lotte's website reveals a plethera of curious projects...often taking a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating photography, installation, drawing,etc. Much of the work explores the interaction of nature with the city, and vice versa, translating elements of both into poetic observations.