CWOS Alternative Space weekend

Artspace
City-Wide Open Studios
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
City-Wide Open Studios 2012
Through Oct. 21, 2012.
Weekend 3 Report: Sunday

Finally getting to wrap up my coverage of this year's "Crystal Anniversary" City-Wide Open Studios. (I missed the middle weekend, focusing on artists in Erector Square, because I was laid up with a cold.)

It was a trip to wander through the former New Haven Register building, getting a little lost in the maze of hallways and in the presence of the mammoth—and now silent—presses. There were too many artists for me to comment on more than a few who grabbed my attention. My silence on so many of them should not be construed as critical judgment.

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It was New Canaan artist Camille Eskell's first time participating in City-Wide Open Studios. Her sculptures of the female torso were attention-grabbers and I stopped to chat with her about her work. She said her work "is all about emotional states of being. It's been the core of my work for 20-something years."

"Tattooed Lady: Coming Up Roses" was especially striking, seeing as how the softly curved nude female form—emblazoned with a floral tattoo drape—was rent from collarbone to lower abdomen with a gaping wound studded with yellowing teeth.

Camille Eskell: "Tattooed Lady: Coming Up Roses"

It is powerful sculptural imagery, the beauty of the female form and the decorative roses—Eskell says she uses "a lot of florals and botanicals to represent irrepressible life"—juxtaposed with the torn opening lined with teeth. The sculpture was cast in aqua resin and fiberglas from her original wax sculpture. The "sub-subtext" of the work, according to Eskell, was her sister's struggle at the time with terminal cancer. Eskell said that her sister's battle with cancer wasn't consciously in her mind as she made the work. It was only afterward that she saw intimations of her sister's pain in the mutilated body.

Regarding the teeth, which Eskell told me symbolized a "gnawing anxiety," Eskell said they were leftover dentures given to her some ten years prior by a dentist she knew. Eskell says she hoards lots of outré materials: "You know when you're going to have to use something and just wait until the moment is right." She mixes media but usually tries to incorporate drawing, which she describes as her greatest strength.

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Graham D. Honaker II described his mixed media paintings as "Pop Art with a sentimental flourish." By the word "sentimental," Honaker means to convey affection rather than irony toward the imagery he incorporates into his works.

Honaker suspends collage, latex paint, artist-grade paint and found objects between layers of polymer emulsion epoxy. Each layer of epoxy, he told me, is equivalent to approximately 50 layers of varnish. Honaker uses old magazine imagery, consumer product ephemera and labels and his own hand-cut stencils of iconic faces past and present: 1960's model Twiggy, Black radical George Jackson, Che Guevara, Charles Manson, Al Sharpton and James Brown's mug shot, to name a few.

"My pieces were very textural. People wanted to touch them and I wanted to find a way to make the surface level so the textural surface would be denied to the viewer," Honaker told me. Was he trying to protect the surface?

"It was a little bit of both. I wanted it to be that forbidden fruit kind of thing. Your mind tells you that you can feel this object but when you go to touch it, it's smooth," Honaker explained.

Honaker says a process of evolution led him to thicker and thicker pieces as he got interested in exploring the perception of depth and the way he could play with the light and shadows he was creating in the layers. Honaker has been meshing the collage, abstract mark-making and stencil work for about four years but says it has just been during the past two years that he has added the use of epoxy as a key element in his compositions.

Graham D. Honaker II

"There's so many possibilities, so many objects I can collect and little pieces of ephemera that can be put into a painting," Honaker said. "It's blurring the edge of 3-D to 2-D and I'm really fascinated by that." Honaker's works evoke box assemblages while remaining paintings.

Honaker continues his experimentation. He told me has dabbled in installing lighting sources in his paintings. In one of the works he had on display at the Register building, Honaker implanted LED lights in the painting, which can be turned on by being plugged into a wall outlet. And there are "interactive elements" in some of the works, too. To demonstrate, Honaker took "Redwood Reliever" off the wall and tilted it so that the soy sauce in a little packet buried in the yellowed epoxy swirled around.

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Artist Rita Valley didn't take it personally when she was told that her location in the Register alternative space was in a cage of sorts. It was a perfect fit with her anarchic sense of humor. Valley's installation, "(Show Us the Way) Out of Our Darkness," played off the wire fencing.

The sculptural work employed about ¼-mile of electric fencing (not plugged in for this show although Valley said she might do that in the future), rope lighting, 200 feet of clothesline covered in clear tape, fluorescent light tubes, a plastic security mirror and the lights she uses in her studio to photograph art. And piled around the base of the work was snow drifts of salt (chosen over sugar because salt "has so many historic references").

Rita Valley: "(Show Us the Way) Out of Our Darkness"

Valley said "It became like a drawing." In particular, she noted, that she had artist Cy Twombly's line work in mind when stringing the electric fence wire around the steel armature built by her husband, sculptor Bob Keating.

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

Bridgeport Arts and Cultural Council "Paper or Plastic?" show opens Thursday evening

The BACC Gallery in the Historic Arcade Mall
1001-12 Main St., Bridgeport, (203) 552-4154
Paper or Plastic?
Mar. 3—Apr. 8, 2011.
Opening reception, Thurs. Mar. 3, 5—7 p.m.

Press release

When we purchase something it is usually inspired by some combination of need and desire. The ratio between the two shifts depending on our relationship to the object or service. When we buy toilet paper, the needle leans toward need, when we buy a dress the action might be primarily linked to desire. Purchasing a car might fall somewhere in between, perhaps balancing the practical needs of a family car with our yearning for a lifestyle promised in a car company’s ad campaigns.

The artists in Paper or Plastic?, curated for the Bridgeport Arts and Cultural Council by Terri C. Smith and Eileen Walsh, are in tune with the range of activities and motivations surrounding consumer culture. Their works appropriate, reference, and harness materials, branding strategies, symbols, and themes found in the market. Artists in the exhibition include: William Corprew (Web), Mark DeRosa, Diane DiMassa (Web), Jahmane, Richard Killeaney, Marcella Kovac, Philip Lique, Alan Neider, Rita Valley and Kevin Van Aelst (Web).

Everything from a historic figure to an ecosystem can be branded. With Jahmane’s "MLBK JR" and "Malcolm Exxon," images of historic figures (who are often appropriated to brand political causes, campaigns, etc.) are combined with the logos and slogans of Burger King and Exxon, reading “Malcolm Exxon” and “Martin Luther Burger King.” As a graphic designer, Marcella Kovac rebrands found artworks with stenciled letters. In the shoreline community of Connecticut, seaside paintings abound as a reaffirmation of that region’s environmental appeal. With Kovac’s piece, the word “Porn” is spray painted on a reproduced seascape painting. Through this juxtaposition the human desire to capture, possess and objectify beauty—whether the female figure or a picturesque landscape—is highlighted.

Sensitivity to the metaphorical and formal power of materials also weaves its way into Paper or Plastic?. In Rita Valley’s beaded credit cards, a seamstresses craft meets purchasing power – a durable plastic rectangle meant to be swiped, stored and swiped again becomes a fragile tapestry. With the title "Fur: Coat," artist Philip Lique cites a soft luxury item made from animals. Lique’s coat, however, is made out of the synthetic material of mass-produced insulation. It is not luxurious (in texture or look) or rare, creating a tension between naming and the formal qualities of the object itself. Richard Killeaney’s pillows are made of recycled men’s tweed suits. With these household comfort/design objects, public (work) and private (home) are joined through reattribution.

With Paper or Plastic? the signs and symbols of consumer culture are torqued, critiqued, appropriated, and recontextualized, providing new lenses through which to see the everyday activities of consumption. Of course, art is also a consumer product, as are art institutions and exhibitions, making it impossible to fully separate these artworks or this exhibition from the very systems it addresses.

There will be an opening reception for this show on Thurs., Mar. 3, from 5—7 p.m.