Four new shows open Sunday at Silvermine Guild Art Center

Silvermine Guild Art Center
1037 Silvermine Rd., New Canaan, (203) 966-9700
Director's Choice: Larry Lewis
Nancy McTague-Stock: Fragments of the Aquatic
Roxanne Faber Savage: Bird(ish)
Joseph Saccio: Memory and Metamorphosis
Sept. 25—Nov. 4, 2011.
Opening Reception: Sun., Sept. 25, 2—4 p.m.

Press release

The fall season brings four new exhibits to the Silvermine Arts Center, located in New Canaan, CT. Opening on Sept. 25 these new exhibits provide a look at the work of an artist whose work comes to awareness posthumously, reflections on the coexistence of nature and industry, and expressions of myth and reality. All are welcome to the opening reception on Sun., Sept. 25 from 2—4 p.m. The exhibits will run through Nov. 4.

The Director’s Choice exhibit features works by reclusive artist Larry Lewis as seen in his collage books, which he began in the late 60’s and continued to produce until his death in 2004. His niece and heir to the artwork, Sharyn Prentiss Laughton, shared that Larry never finished any of his books, but rather worked randomly and haphazardly through each one, and showed them only to her. The totality of his work was only discovered after he died. A member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists for a brief period of time in the 1960’s, very little is known about him personally or artistically. His artistic progress is sketchy at best as he rarely dated his work and rarely exhibited. As a member of the Guild, he exhibited some of his gouache work, however, there is no record that indicates whether he ever exhibited his collage books at Silvermine. A reclusive and unassuming person, his books took on another life with brilliantly hand ink colored pages created from photocopies of collected Victorian images, movie stars from the 1920’s and 30’s, and newspaper ads for elixirs, potions, ways to get rid of wrinkles, address sagging waistlines, pinch back ears and body remedies. Each page and spread was composed as a painting unto itself.


Fragments of the Aquatic showcases works by Silvermine Guild Artist Nancy McTague-Stock, a resident of Wilton, CT. McTague-Stock is an artist who works in a variety of media. She shares her interest in creating imagery that offers a glimpse of unnoticed rhythms of the natural world, with deep-rooted connections in ecology, psychology and sociology through drawings, paintings, printmaking, new media and writing. In its many forms, water plays a vital role for all of us. Water offers us properties of sustenance, potential for destruction, meditative moments, athletic opportunities and artistic vision. Her preoccupation with natural water occurrences in daily life is evident in this series of work. “By focusing on fragments available to me in a singular moment, I invite the audience to share in a multi-sensorial exhibition. I hope they will engage, reflect and contemplate how water plays critical and numerous roles in their lives,” says McTague-Stock. “The works of art in this exhibition offer the viewer an opportunity to play with their own perception of reality.”


Visual artist and printmaker, Roxanne Faber Savage has had an on-going fascination and attraction to birds and utility wires, which has taken on a life of its own. Bird(ish) is an exhibition of prints based on highway vistas, bird imagery and daydreams culled from her daily drives on I95 and rural roads. This show is a unique documentation of images shot, drawn, copied, stretched, pressed and printed, depicting the co-existence of nature and industry in the modern landscape. Savage will present interpretive exhibition programming in the gallery on Wednesdays from 3—5 p.m. for the run of the show (9/28, 10/5, 12, 19, 26 and 11/2). Each Wednesday she will engage gallery goers to “print, talk, draw and bird watch.”



A resident of Fairfield, Savage, whose work is comprised of traditional etchings, silk aquatint monoprints and a transfer technique called paper lithography, says that a “stream of consciousness and a rich store of personal memories are the starting place for my prints and drawings. My interests in energy and freedom, in the widest sense, provide a central theme through which I channel my experiences. I value the emotive power of color, and layer my prints with saturated color and energy related imagery: strewn power lines, loopy crayon scribbles and scratchy surface textures. I make prints because I love the possibilities presented in the combinations of multiple printmaking techniques, and the physicality of using an etching press.”

Memory and Metamorphosis, an exhibit of sculptural works in a variety of sizes and materials by Joseph Saccio, expresses the artist’s personal feelings associated with myth and ritual, loss and rebirth. “I’m interested in the idea of great power joined to fragility and vulnerability, a very human, and indeed, mythic combination,” says Saccio. “This is reflected in the choice of weighty, large materials literally joined with, or in association with, fragile materials such as paper or fiber bindings especially noted at the physical connections among parts of my sculptures.” The dark somber pieces are expressive of loss and rebirth, and for the artist, associated with myth and ancient ritual, leading the viewer through the changing process, producing forms that are abstract but resemble a living organism.

Rescheduled "Quick & Painful" tattoo event this Saturday at Hope Gallery in New Haven

Hope Gallery
835 Woodward Ave., New Haven, (203) 467-1622
Quick and Painful
One night only: Sat., Sept. 24, 2011, 7—11 p.m.

Press release

Hope Gallery, one of the most prestigious tattoo art galleries, will feature the work of more than 15 important artists and designers with backgrounds in fine art, graffiti, and illustration in a unique exhibition. This event—which was originally scheduled for Sat., Aug. 27 but had to be postponed because of the arrival of Hurricane Irene—will be held this Saturday night, Sept. 24, from 7—11 p.m.

Quick & Painful will feature today’s most elite low-brow artists doing original Tattoo Flash. “Flash” is a set of tattoo designs classically printed or drawn on an 11″ x 14″ piece of paper or cardboard. Flash is either drawn by the individual tattooer for display and use in his own studio, or traded and sold among other tattooers. By the turn of the new century, most tattoo studios have become custom shops with the flash serving as more of a reference for ideas.

Among the artists and designers that will be presenting Flash Prints for the exhibition are Alex Pardee, Amanda Visell, Brandt Peters & Kathie Olivas, Camilla D’Errico, David Horvath, Devilrobots, Frank Kozik, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Joe Ledbetter, Junko Mizuno, Ron English, Sam Flores, TADO, Tara McPherson, and Tokidoki co-founder and Creative Director Simone Legno.

Quick & Painful was curated by Nichole East of Hope Gallery. East reached out to iconic artists from her Pop Art background. Each artist was given the confines of 11 x 14 inch platform to create their own unique set of tattoo flash.

“After years of working in the low-brow and pop art scene, I started to see how many fans were getting tattoos of my favorite artists. It seemed a natural urge to make sure it was done right,” said Nichole East.


The first event took place at Crewest Gallery in Los Angeles on Sept. 3. Subsequent Quick & Painful events will be held at Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago on Oct. 8; and during Art Basel in Miami, Dec. 1—4. World-renowned tattoo artists like Joe Capobianco, Eric Merrill, Julio Rodriguez, Jime Litwalk, Dan Smith, Patrick Cornolo, and Sean Adams, will be tattooing fans this Saturday with their favorite designs chosen right from the wall. The nights will also be filled with events, giveaways, and contests for fans of Tattoos and Pop Art.

All of the Flash Sets created for Quick & Painful will be available for purchase at each of the show dates and available online at The Hope Shop starting Oct. 9.

Hope Gallery is custom tattoo and art gallery located in New Haven, CT. Established in 2002 by artists Joe Capobianco, Eric Merrill, and Julio Rodriguez, Hope is home to the most experienced and awarded tattoo artists in the industry today. Along with resident artists Phil Young, Tim Harris, and Christian Perez; each have over 15 years tattooing experience.

Artist talk and brown bag luncheon with James Reed at Bridgeport Arts & Cultural Council on Wednesday

The BACC Gallery in the Historic Arcade Mall
1001-12 Main St., Bridgeport, (203) 552-4154
James Reed: (Mostly) Crows
Through Sept. 29, 2011.
Artist's Talk & Brown Bag Luncheon: Wed., Sept. 21, 12:30—1:30 p.m.

Press release

The works in the exhibit (Mostly) Crows were created during James Reed's residency at I-Park in December 2010. I-Park is a non-profit organization devoted to fostering excellence in the fields of music composition, the visual arts, and creative writing. It is located on a 450-acre nature park in East Haddam, CT.


Reed, who holds a Bachelor of Arts from University of Missouri and a Master of Arts from San Francisco State University and Tamarind Institute, is the owner and Master Printer at Milestone Graphics in Bridgeport, CT. As a master printer, he has worked at print shops throughout the United States, Mexico and France and has collaborated with over two hundred artists during a career that spans over forty years. Also an accomplished artist, Mr. Reed's personal work is included in the collections of IBM, General Electric, Tamarind Institute, Achenbach Print Foundation, New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. He has received a Ford Foundation Fellowship and a Rockefeller Research Grant.

The Bridgeport Arts and Cultural Council, a non-profit organization, was founded to advocate for cultural and arts organizations by promoting participation of the community in arts and cultural activities in Bridgeport. In addition, the BACC provides exhibition opportunities and promotion for area artists and artisans. Exhibitions and events at the BACC are sponsored by private and public funding partners. To become a member, to make a donation, or to learn more about the BACC call 203.522.4154 or email info@bridgeportarts.org

Artists' & Scientists' reception Thursday evening at Haskins Laboratories

Haskins Laboratories
300 George St. 9th Floor, New Haven, (203) 772-2788
Rules of Conversion: Artists Explore Encoded and Embedded Language
Sept. 22, 2011—Jan. 25, 2012.
Artists' and Scientists' reception: Thurs., Sept. 22, 5-7 p.m.

Press release

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven, in collaboration with Haskins Laboratories, presents Rules of Conversions: Artists Explore Encoded and Embedded Language at Haskins Laboratories, 300 George St., 9th floor, New Haven. This exhibition will be on display September 22 through January 25, 2012. Regular viewing hours are Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. An artists’ and scientists’ reception is scheduled for Thurs., Sept. 22, from 5—7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

Curated by Carol Padberg (Web) and Debbie Hesse (Web) with Curatorial Assistant Steven Olsen, Rules of Conversion explores encoded and embedded language. Increasingly, artists find methods to manipulate, find meaning in, and apply the structures of language as they conceptualize and create new work. In Rules of Conversion, each individual piece will provide context, with Haskins Laboratories providing a larger context for the collection as a whole. Where Haskins Laboratories studies the mechanisms that allow ideas and information to be shared, Rules of Conversion examines the myriad methods of delivery.

Some featured artists include Amaranth Borsuk (Web), Qian Lin, Karen Shaw (Web), Jeanne Criscola (Web), and Laurie Frick (Web, see image below). A full artist list will be available closer to the opening day of the exhibition.


Haskins Laboratories is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research on spoken and written language. Exchanging ideas, fostering collaborations, and forging partnerships across the sciences, it produces groundbreaking research that enhances our understanding of—and reveals ways to improve or remediate—speech perception and production, reading and reading disabilities, and human communication.

"Being Present" at Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery in New Haven; reception in October

Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery
70 Audubon St., 2nd floor, New Haven, (203) 772-2788
Being Present: Connecticut artists living with Alzheimer’s
Sept. 23—Nov. 10, 2011.
Artists' reception: Wed., Oct. 12, 3—5 p.m.

Press release

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven, in conjunction with the Alzheimer’s Resource Center of Connecticut, presents Being Present, an exhibition in the Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery, 70 Audubon St., 2nd floor. The exhibition will be on display during business hours from September 23 through November 10. A public reception is scheduled for Wed., Oct. 12, 2011 from 3—5 p.m.

Being Present is an exhibition of prints and paintings by Connecticut artists living with Alzheimer’s. Featured artists of the Alzheimer’s Resource Center of Connecticut have used their art and their creations to express themselves and manage their illness. These artists are creative and inspiring individuals. They all live with Alzheimer’s disease or another related dementia, but they are all able to express themselves through various artistic mediums. Some of these artists reside at the Alzheimer’s Resource Center, either in an assisted living community or one of four skilled nursing communities.

Being Present allows the artists to utilize and draw upon their unique talents in an artistic process and environment that helps find hope and courage. The freeing process of the process allows the artists to explore their inner strengths and triumphs.

The Alzheimer’s Resource Center is a nonprofit organization that provides a specialized source of research, information and health care. Since 1990, the Center has done pioneering work studying dementia and caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease. By sharing innovative approaches with family care providers, other organizations and professionals, the Center promotes a new standard of enlightened dementia care.

Fundraiser for artist Rita Valley this Friday at Artspace

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Rita Valley fundraiser
Fri., Sept. 23, 6—10 p.m.

Press release

Artist Rita Valley, a woman of tremendous talent (her Artspace artist page) and a person who is a real joy to be around, had a serious accident recently (see below). There will be a fundraiser to help defray some of her expenses this Friday at Artspace in New Haven. If you can't attend, please consider sending her a donation at: Rita Valley, 965 Jeremy Swamp Road, Southbury, CT 06488.

From Rita:

On June 11th of this year, I had a truly freak accident at home, in which a section of wire fence snapped back and punctured my left eye. I endured two surgeries to stabilize my eye and replace my left lens, but I require a corneal transplant in order to see clearly again. At present, I have approximately 15% vision in my left eye. For anyone, the idea of eye accidents or vision impairment is traumatic; for me as a visual artist, it is devastating. What has buoyed me along, (in addition to the emotional support of my partner Bob, my dog Jules and my wonderful friends and family!) has been the understanding that I will be able to get that corneal transplant and be able to move beyond these particularly awful and challenging few months.

At present, I am unable to do many things we all typically take for granted. To name a few, I have poor depth perception, cannot drive at night and I am having trouble reading. Ironically, my job is photographing antiques—not easy with one eye. Perhaps most trying of all is how difficult it has been to continue my studio practice. I cannot emphasize deeply enough how important this transplant is to me.

I know that I am more fortunate than some, in that my job provides health insurance. However, I am enrolled in an HSA (Health Savings Account) and have a high deductible. As luck would have it, I sustained my injury in June and my policy runs September to September. This means that I have to come up with my deductible again this fall. (And I will add that the insurance company changed my policy and raised the deductible). Therefore, it was suggested by several friends and family members that a fundraiser be organized to help defray my very necessary and rapidly mounting medical expenses.

Will you please help me out with a donation? Attend my party if you can, and enjoy performances by Forrest Harlow, The Chupacabras and Armando Erba. The event is at Artspace (which has generously donated the space for the evening… my everlasting thanks to Helen Kauder). It should be a great night and will surely cheer me along on my way to recovery! If you are unable to attend and would like to help out with a donation, please send to Rita Valley, 965 Jeremy Swamp Road, Southbury, CT 06488.

Event schedule:

Friday, September 23, 6—10 p.m.

7 p.m. • Forrest Harlow & his Band. CD: "Kennedy & Kings"

8:30 p.m. • Performance Art by ARMANDO Erba "A Priori Stories of the Third Sex, or Move On Over, Simone de Beauvoir."

9:15 PM • Jon Morse Band — The Chupacabras, with Weylin Jones, Carlos Carrion, & John Voog Wood.

JodiAnn Strmiska • Mistress of Ceremonies

Artist reception for Naumann show at New Haven Public Library Tuesday

New Haven Free Public Library Art Gallery
133 Elm St., New Haven
Holocaust Memorial: An Exhibition of Lead Sculptures by Dana Baldwin Naumann
Through Sept. 26, 2011.
Artist's reception: Tues., Sept. 20, 5—7 p.m.

Press release

Dedication: "To my friend, the late Sigmund Strochlitz (1916-2006), a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, who realized that the world was beginning to forget the Holocaust."
— Dana Naumann

Dana Baldwin Naumann creates fanciful and fabulous sculpture, mostly crafted from lead sheets coated with copper or zinc patinas. Naumann's hammered sculptures are studies in texture, soft and warm looking even as metal surfaces, and depict religious, mythic, and archetypal scenes. Until 1994, Naumann had a successful career as Vice-President of Sales and Marketing with the Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, but then determined to devote his life to his art, a decision he says he has never regretted.

Naumann's works are in the permanent collections of The Aetna in Los Angeles, CA, and in Hartford, CT, and Villanova University, Villanova, PA. He designed and contributed sculptures to the permanent collections of United States Special Olympics, and a piece created on the theme of the Holocaust was given to the Thomas Dodd Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. Other gifts of work were made to the East Shore Adult Day Care Center in Branford, CT, and to the Aids Project in New Haven, CT.

Art critic Steve Starger wrote about his work: "Naumann's finely wrought sculptures aren't depressing or oppressive. He draws on African and mythological references to create monolithic faces that are inspired by ritual masks and statuary, like monuments or totems left by a long-vanished civilization. These elongated faces appear aloof and ascetic, but are also strangely poignant, and each emanates a sense of mystery and longing."

The Dedication: Sigmund Strochlitz (1916 - Oct. 16, 2006) was born in Bedzin, Poland. He survived several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, where his parents and sisters were killed. In 1978, Elie Wiesel recommended him to become a member of President Jimmy Carter's Commission on the Holocaust, and he and Wiesel worked together to create the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. In 1981, he and his wife Rose endowed the Chair and Institute in Holocaust Studies at Haifa University in Israel. In 1986, Strochlitz was named the second recipient of the Elie Wiesel Remembrance Award, and he later was a member of the Board of Directors of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. In 2006, Mr. Wiesel attended his funeral in New London, CT.

Edgy photo show up through this Saturday

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
At The Edge of Things: Twenty-Four Photographers
Through Sept. 17, 2011.

At the Edge of Things is a rather open themed photographic show in the A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa. Through Kobasa's eyes, the show is organized around poetic interpretations of the concept of "edge"—formalistic, emotional, sociological, political. These edges are more rough than smooth.

In work like Marion Belanger's "Rift #41," the white boundaries of an astroturfed miniature golf hole carve out the domesticated edge of nature, holding at bay unruly grasses and dandelions.

Phyllis Crowley's ominous "Moonlight" is a seascape of black water in the foreground rippled with lunar reflections. Clusters of clouds cloak the moon. The edge of the world—or horizon line—is just barely visible in the nocturnal murk.


A much different kind of edge is suggested by Paul Bloom's "Francisco Franco's Prison, Barcelona, Spain." The knife's edge of oppression and human suffering haunts this grainy image of a claustrophobic brick corridor with chains hanging from the ceiling.


There's more—much more—by many of the area's most respected photographers: James Ayers, Christopher Beauchamp, Joy Bush, Paul Duda, Ashley Estep, Joan Fitzsimmons, Andrew Hogan, Aniko Horvath, Keith Johnson, Clare Kobasa, Linda Lindroth, Eric Litke, Meredith Miller, Roy Money, Hank Paper, Thomas Peterson, Mark Savoia, Jess Smith, Maria Tupper, Marjorie Wolfe and Stefan Znosko.

The show is up through this Saturday, Sept. 17.

Opening reception at Gallery 195 Tuesday evening

Gallery 195
195 Church St., 4th floor (First Niagara Bank), New Haven, (203) 772-2788
Sharon Butler & Geoffrey Detrani
Sept. 14—Dec. 9, 2011.
Opening reception: Tues., Sept. 13, 5-7 p.m.

Press release

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven presents an exhibition of works by Connecticut artists Sharon Butler and Geoffrey Detrani at Gallery 195 at First Niagara Bank, 195 Church St., 4th floor, New Haven. The exhibition will be on display during bank hours from September 14 through December 9, 2011. An artists’ reception is scheduled for Tues., Sept. 13, from 5—7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

The exhibit will feature work by Sharon Butler and Geoffrey Detrani. Butler uses a juxtaposition of brilliant color against stark backgrounds to evoke the linear state of natural life; many of her pieces are first inspired by the shape of everyday objects. Detrani depicts images of the natural world in explosive colors and “in a state of flux”, in an effort to capture the beauty of the world, but also its fleeting and entropic nature.

Sharon Butler is an artist and writer. Her grants and awards include a Connecticut Artist fellowship, Vermont Studio Center residency grant, and Connecticut State University research grants. Butler is an art professor for Eastern Connecticut State University and also maintains the award-winning art blog Two Coats of Paint, as well as contributing to numerous other publications. Her work has been included in galleries and exhibitions around the world.

Geoffrey Detrani is an artist, writer, and poet from Hamden, CT. Geoffrey’s work has been featured in numerous collections and galleries and has been the featured artist for such publications as The New England Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Artscope Magazine. Geoffrey has received multiple grants and awards such as the 2006 Chashama Visual Arts Studio Award and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation residency grant. He is a contributing writer for the New Haven Advocate and a teacher in New Haven, CT.

Jukkala show opening tonight at Giampietro Gallery

Giampietro Gallery — Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Clint Jukkala: Even If and Especially When
Sept. 9—Oct. 7, 2011.
Opening reception: Fri., Sept. 9, 5—8 p.m.

Press release

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present Clint Jukkala: Even If and Especially When, an exhibition of recent paintings opening September 9 and on view through October 7.

Clint Jukkala’s new paintings offer portals into sensory worlds of color, geometry, and remembered experience. Ostensibly abstract, they refer to the real world, suggesting interior spaces, windows, and landscape vistas. Through framing and reframing, the paintings unfold, creating pictures within pictures and spatial ambiguities.

Emerging from the tradition of geometric abstraction, Jukkala’s work plays with its conventions, making paintings that are at once reflective and irreverent. Rationality gives way to the realm of psychology, memory, and daily life. Structural forms are painted with a direct and wobbly hand. Hints of sky and water are squeezed between lines and rectangles, offering a possible escape from a reductive flatland.

While super-saturated color has long been the driving force in Jukkala’s work, his recent paintings introduce the element of highly textured surfaces. The play between flatness and illusion is heightened as paint alternates between thin, dyed grounds, and heavy impasto. The varied surfaces expand the sense of pictorial depth and the physicality of the paintings.

Suggesting both doubt and conviction, Even If and Especially When, evokes possibility and the yearning for future things to come. Taken from the album title of the psychedelic garage band, the Screaming Trees, Even if and Especially When, echoes the desires, contradictions and ambiguities inherent in Jukkala’s work.

Clint Jukkala (born 1971, Missoula, MT) received his BFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his MFA from Yale University. His work has been shown at Feature Inc., and Envoy Enterprises in New York, The deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia, PA, and Soil Gallery in Seattle. He lives and works in New Haven, CT.

Opening reception Saturday at Kehler Liddell For Jacobs and Dubicki show

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Emilia Dubicki & Blinn Jacobs
Through Oct. 9, 2011.
Opening reception: Sat., Sept. 10, 5—7 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present a two-person exhibition of new work by Emilia Dubicki and Blinn Jacobs.

Emilia Dubicki uses intuition and memory to determine composition, color movement and brushwork in her abstract paintings. While her imagery references water and landmass, she avoids true representation. For her second show at Kehler Liddell Gallery, Dubicki will present a series of paintings that investigate the idea of a collective memory.

Philosopher Maurice Halbwachs (Wikipedia entry)wrote extensively on collective memory in post WWI Europe, explaining it as “a current of continuous thought” governed by sociological qualities, irreducible to individual memories and physical existence. The Surrealists similarly took up these ideas. In this new series, Dubicki activates shared, subconscious landscapes, by expressing moods or feelings in visceral movements of paint that seek to resonate within her viewers.

Dubicki received a residency grant from the Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, N.M. in 2000 and 2003, as well as a Vermont Studio Center residency grant in 2004. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, California, Utah, Korea and Japan. She has been published in the New Haven Advocate, New Haven Register, New Haven Independent, Big Red and Shiny, Connecticut Art Scene, and NY ARTS Magazine. Last April she was interviewed on WNPR and this summer her paintings will appear on the USA network TV show “Royal Pains.” Dubicki currently lives and works in New Haven, CT.

Blinn Jacobs explores the ways that color, line, shape and surface may inform movement, balance and weight in her minimalist works. For her fourth show at Kehler Liddell Gallery, Jacobs will present new work from the "Counterpoise Series," new work from the "Tie Rod Ribbon Series," new drawings and a never before exhibited corner installation.

Early on in her career, Blinn Jacobs became interested in the Suprematist master, Kazimir Malevich. Malevich used the black square as a protagonist and generator of other forms that dipped and spiraled about his picture plane. Jacobsʼ works similarly lack the horizons and gravity systems of the black square, and take issue with the space that art occupies. Her corner installation specifically addresses the relationship between the site of the work and the sight of the viewer.

Jacobs studied at the Yale School of Art as a special student for four years and received her MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. Her work as been in numerous one-person shows, including the University of Wyoming Art Museum in Laramie, WY, Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA, Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT, and the Kunstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. She has received awards from the CT Commission on the Arts, the Slivermine Arts Center, and fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Oberpfalzer Kunstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. She was recently invited to exhibit in the 2011 Florence Biennale. Jacobs lives and works in Branford, CT.

"Greeting of the artists" at A-Space Gallery rescheduled for this Sunday

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
At The Edge of Things: Twenty-Four Photographers
Aug. 25—Sept. 17, 2011.
Greeting of the artists: Sun., Sept. 4, 2011, 6—8 p.m.

Press release

Because of Hurricane Irene, the "greeting of the artists" for At the Edge of Things originally scheduled for last Sunday, will take place this Sun., Sept. 4, from 6—8 p.m.

Arranged and installed by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, At the Edge of Things showcases meditations on various ways in which photographs can render boundaries both blurred and precise, real and imagined.

The featured photographers are James Ayers, Christopher Beauchamp, Marion Belanger, Paul Bloom, Joy Bush, Phyllis Crowley, Paul Duda, Ashley Estep, Joan Fitzsimmons, Andrew Hogan, Aniko Horvath, Keith Johnson, Clare Kobasa, Linda Lindroth, Eric Litke, Meredith Miller, Roy Money, Hank Paper, Thomas Peterson, Mark Savoia, Jess Smith, Maria Tupper, Marjorie Wolfe and Stefan Znosko.

An environment for creating art

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Marie Celeste
Through Sept. 16, 2011.

Thematically, the works in Marie Celeste, the current show at Artspace, are connected by their engagement with contemporary issues of ecology and the human footprint on the environment. Specifically, Marie Celeste references "colony collapse disorder"—the disappearance of worker bees from their colonies, a phenomenon that threatens key pillars of the food chain.

The works are drawn from a range of media and practices from the traditional (drawing, painting) to the current 21st century moment (installation, interactive art).

Of particular note in the latter category is Mayumi Nishida's (Web) "Introduction to Water." Employing LED lights, monofilament, water, ceramic pot, solar panel, galvanized tank and wooden dippers, "Introduction" invites the viewer to experience directly the human impact on a [constructed] natural world.


In the darkened space, visitors can grab one of the wooden dippers, fill up their cup with water from the steel tub and pour it into the squat ceramic vase situated on a platform in the middle of the tub. The action of pouring the water into the vase activates a series of circuits and sensors—powered by a solar collector in a nearby window—and cause tiny lights hanging overhead to blink in a random fashion.

"Introduction" is powerful on two inter-connected levels. First, it is a visual delight. There is a backyard simplicity to the almost altar-like presence of the water-filled tub with the floating wooden ladles and the earthenware vase on the platform in the middle. When the lights are activated, their pinpoint flashing evokes thoughts of summer fireflies, stars or crystalline drops of rain. The work is deepened on the conceptual level: Human intervention has consequences. In the case of this artificial natural system, human agency is salutary. But that's not always—perhaps isn't even often—the case. "Introduction" reminds us that we are a part of the system whether we consciously recognize it or not.

Nick Lamia's "Cities for our Kids' Kids' Kids' Kids' Kids' Kids'" also invites interaction. This work, which occupies a large corner of the main Artspace gallery, also has an ongoing video component. Lamia's work combines wall drawing, the display of two abstract geometrical paintings on canvas, a framework of parallel lines of yellow string and hundreds of colored wood blocks. Visitors are invited to rearrange the blocks; a camera will record the variations over time to be sequenced into a video when the show is over. In this work, the landscape is an object of both contemplation and interaction. It is a landscape that references the contemporary urban environment in its geometric forms, and the natural environment in its wealth of color. When I visit this afternoon it is an environment in which chaos and randomness are only intermittently broken up by the imposition of order by Lamia's contributions and those of the viewers.


In the same large gallery, there is a wise curatorial juxtaposition: Erika Blumenfeld's photographs of Antarctica with Shari Mendelson's sculptures made out of discarded and reused plastic, aluminum foil and acrylic polymer. The works share a bright transparent luminosity that contrasts with the rich colors of the surrounding works in the room.

Blumenfeld's photos revel in the abstract undulations of layered frozen forms in Antarctica—the play of sunlight and shadow on a glacial surface, the dimpling and striation of ice. But as cold as these images look, they don't look cold enough. The light on the surface of overlapping layers of ice, cracks and fissures, glimpses of almost Caribbean blue—all these things hint at climate stress on the region's delicate eco-system.

Mendelson's works recycle contemporary waste material and antique forms; in the gallery shared with Blumenfeld, there is a sculpture of a supine pig ("Reclining Animal") and a large vase flecked with shiny infusions of aluminum foil ("Silver Vessel"). Mendelson is playing with cross-referencing tropes here—the relics of antiquity being reincarnated in the trash of today. It's a cheeky conceit. After all, the objects she is referencing are what survived hundreds of years in ruins; sometimes they have literally been found in excavated garbage dumps. What cultural signifiers will we be leaving behind? I've got one word for you, Benjamin: Plastics.

Joseph Smolinski's (Web) drawings depict a world in which nature and technology are in conflict. In his stark, draftsman-like imagery, animals like snapping turtles, woodpeckers and blue whales appear to be trying to get us to hang up the phone by disconnecting the cell phone transmitters disguised as tree branches. This is high brow kitsch, streaked with queasy irony.


Stephen Bush's two paintings depict beekeepers in luridly colored environments. Dressed in their protective outfits, they look like members of a haz-mat spill cleanup team. Bush's vistas are pastoral but chemically charged, bringing to mind the line in Don DeLillo's novel White Noise that "ever since the airborne toxic event, the sunsets had become almost unbearably beautiful." Eva Struble's (Web) paintings find anarchic beauty in post-industrial rubble. "Cambridge Iron I" is a veritable cacophony of discarded appliances, metal cables and wires and other refuse.

Artist Alison Williams is also a committed gardener and that passion is reflected in her art practice. "Glasshouse #3" is a ragged, hand-built greenhouse or potting shed, assembled from discarded scrap lumber, door frames and windows. Visitors are invited to enter the structure, which has shelves laden with transparent vials of caramel, amber and burgundy colored fluids.


Williams' back-to-the-land inventiveness extends to The Lot near the corner of Chapel and Orange streets. Williams conceptualized and oversaw the public art installation "Homage to Guerrilla Gardening." (See Wikipedia for info on the "guerrilla gardening" concept.) This project recycles discarded and donated household materials into a quirky and life-affirming community garden that enriches this public space. Planters—some made from old sinks sunk into the ground—overflow with basil, mint, marigolds and ore. A couple of toilets are flush with dirt and find new use as planters. There are artsy benches built from discarded wood and ringed with planters salvaged from old oil drums.


"Homage to Guerrilla Gardening" is a perfect coda to a provocative show—an artistic intervention that the community that brings modern art into everyday life in a way that is thought-provoking, life-affirming and accessible. In fact, the presence of this art park and sculpture garden in downtown New Haven seems almost…natural.