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 Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Indie arts and crafts fair in Cincinnati!
 If you're in southwest Ohio this Saturday, you should drop by Crafty Supermarket, an indie craft show that I'm putting on at the Northside Tavern in Cincinnati! There will be 20+ vendors, local food and good music, plus I'll have copies of my just-released book, Crafty Superstar. The Enquirer wrote about the show yesterday, and I'll be appearing on the local Fox 19 morning news on Friday to talk about it. It's a great way to get an early start on your holiday shopping, and support your local artists while you're at it! Click here to learn more about the show.
By Grace Dobush | Shows and Events
11/18/2009 10:33:56 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00) 
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Monday, October 12, 2009
Art show asks you to Think Before You Pink
It's October and that time of year when an onslaught of pink ribbons pop up here, there, and everywhere, from candy bars to shiny new cars. Now a San Francisco gallery, ArtHaus, has teamed up with Breast Cancer Action (BCA), a national watchdog organization, to present a show that invites viewers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions.  Think Before You Pink (also the name of a BCA campaign) features 14 artists, including at least one breast cancer survivor, Torrie Groening. "I was fed up and saddened by the fact that I couldn't even buy my family groceries without being bombarded with reminders of cancer in the shape of pink ribbons," Groening says. Her photograph, This Elixir, It Won't Fix Her (right), features a volcano of consumer good erupting out of a tin can—teddy bears, lemon squeezers, and sunglasses. "When researching for this piece I only had to Google 'pink ribbon store' to discover this was a huge industry. Hundreds of online stores sell thousands of manufactured and pink ribbon objects—enough to fill many landfills." Groening says she is sick of pink and she's participating in the show, in part, because BCA holds companies accountable, including ones that manufacture carcinogenic products and then urge the public to buy its products to support cancer research. Among other things, BCA also encourages consumers to read the fine print—how much of the money really goes toward breast cancer? According to BCA, for example, Lean Cuisine once displayed pink ribbons on its boxes, but the purchase of the frozen delights did not result in any money going toward breast cancer research. Instead, the consumer was directed to a website to buy a pink Lean Cuisine lunch tote. Groening says everyone copes differently, but she prefers not to concentrate on cancer and keep a sense of humor and focus on her family and artwork. Think Before You Pink runs at ArtHaus through Oct. 31. —Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | News | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
10/12/2009 9:27:36 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, October 06, 2009 Monday, October 05, 2009
Simply divine in Denver
 Windows to the Divine, the intriguing title given to the biennial art show held this year at the Madden Museum of Art near Denver, is noteworthy for at least one reason. It’s hard to recall another show that brings together top artists and asks them to create works that interpret spirituality without confining their visual riffs to sacred or religious subjects. Thus, the show that opened Saturday night featured angels, virgins, ballerinas, Native American deities, peonies, yoga poses, quiet Rocky Mountain streams, San Francisco cable cars and western sunsets. The overtly religious paintings hung side-by-side with the secular ones like Lu Cong’s The Canary Bride (right, oil, 80x48), a stark minimalist portrait of a young woman with pearls. Granted an observer might argue that Cong’s bride looks a bit virginal. In September 2005, the editors of Southwest Art chose Cong as an emerging artist in our annual 21 Under 31 themed issue. On Saturday night, the editors at Southwest Art also awarded Cong an award of excellence—it was a tough call with more than 120 wonderful paintings on view. But there was the sense with this award we were bringing our 2005 discovery and introduction of Cong full cycle. Ben McPherson and Dan McCaw received Southwest Art’s two other awards of excellence. The show is on view through Oct. 23. —Bonnie Gangelhoff MORE RESOURCES FOR ARTISTS
Dispatches from the West | Shows and Events
10/5/2009 1:48:49 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Report: Fall Arts Festival in Jackson, WY
 At 9:29 a.m. last Saturday, Amy Poor, John Potter, and Julie Chapman were standing in front of their easels in the Jackson Hole, WY, town square, eagerly awaiting the signal to pick up their brushes and start painting. They were three of about 20 artists participating in the Quick Draw, in which they had an hour to create a painting. (If it were reality TV, this would be the quickfire challenge on Bravo's Top Chef.) "It's masochistic and tough," says William Smith, who practiced beforehand to shave minutes off his time. A few minutes later, a five-piece orchestra on hand for the event struck up the theme from Mission: Impossible. The Quick Draw is part of the annual Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival. The night before some of the artists were also ensconced at the nearby National Museum of Wildlife Art, where their works were on display at an annual miniature show. This year California watercolor painter Thomas Quinn received the Artist’s Choice award for his elegant piece depicting a quail foraging for prey. Meanwhile in the museum lobby, collectors dined on treats such as mashed potatoes in champagne glasses.  Shadow of the Sixth (oil, 60x120) by Tom GilleonGallery owners participated in the festival with show openings and receptions for the artists. Paintings at some venues like Trailside Galleries sported an array of red dots—good news for the art market. Another piece of good news out of Jackson Hole is the opening of Altamira Fine Art, an exciting new gallery just off the town square. The space has an uncluttered, contemporary feel and represents artists such as Tom Gilleon (above), the festival's featured artist. —Bonnie Gangelhoff
Learn more about Western art:
Dispatches from the West | Shows and Events
9/21/2009 1:28:41 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, September 04, 2009
Get Ahead in Your Career
Competition is stiff; gallery
directors are busy; artists are sometimes conflicted—finding a good gallery is
a difficult task. As part of our continuing series of online seminars, Kristin
Hoerth, editor-in-chief of Southwest Art, will guide you toward making good
choices and good impressions. Join her (and Jennifer Lepore and me) next week
on Tuesday, at 1:00 EST, for an online seminar, Guide to Professional Etiquette
for Artists: finding and landing a gallery.
In this seminar you’ll learn:
• How to choose the right galleries to approach
• What kinds of materials galleries like to receive
• The proper format for submitting your work
• Whether you should visit a gallery in person
• How and when to follow up with a gallery
Class size is limited,
because these online seminars are interactive, so sign up now for Guide to Professional Etiquette for Artists.
Advice | By Maureen Bloomfield | News | Shows and Events
9/4/2009 8:50:58 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, August 24, 2009
Five art exhibits you need to see this fall
 Fleeting Encounter by Lindsay Scott (oil, 27x44), whose work appears in the National Museum of Wildlife Art's Miniatures and More Show & Sale.Fall season out in the West always ushers in an array of impressive museum exhibitions. If you're thirsting for a really big show with great artists, here are some suggestions: - For wildlife art lovers, the annual Miniatures and More Show & Sale takes place Sept. 18 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY. The exhibit spotlights works by the genre's top painters and sculptors. This year Lindsay Scott, who creates compelling portraits of African creatures, is a featured artist.
- The Kolb Studio isn't exactly a museum, but it's not a gallery either. On Sept. 19, the studio, which sits on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and is operated by the nonprofit Grand Canyon Association, features works by 20 artists who are known for expressing the grandeur of this natural wonder.
- The university town of Stockton, CA, is home to The Haggin Museum, a treasure trove of works by 19th- and early-20th-century European and American painters. But from Oct. 2 to Jan. 10, the museum will host contemporary landscape painters: members of the prestigious Plein Air Painters of America. The exhibit will brim with fantastic paintings of our country's national parks.
- In the Denver area, the Madden Museum of Art displays Windows to the Divine, a show with well-known painters, such as Scott Fraser, Albert Handell and Quang Ho, and their interpretations of spiritual paths, though not necessarily including religious or sacred subjects. The ecumenical event runs Oct. 3-23.
- Southern California's Laguna Art Museum hosts the 11th annual Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational Oct. 11-18. Join the painters at the opening and on the beach for breakfast and a Quick Draw contest.
—Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Exhibits | Shows and Events
8/24/2009 12:34:26 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, August 10, 2009
Report from the Loveland Sculpture Shows
Loveland, CO, is a sleepy town north of Denver for most of the year. But during the second week in August, the place turns into a swelling sea of sculptors—some 400 artists from around the country swim into town bearing bronze, stone, ceramic and wood pieces. They range in subject matter from contemporary kinetic towers to tiny, funky frogs. One of the pleasures of my annual trek to Sculpture in the Park and the Loveland Sculpture Invitational Show & Sale is to discover the artists who have taken interesting new directions.  This year on our first stop of the day, we meet up with Josh Wiener, a young Colorado artist who is showing Once Again (right)—a step away from his earlier musical instruments forms. “I’m exploring the intersection of urban and natural environments,” Josh says. By placing a living tree on the top of a sculpted wood structure, his intent is to convey the cyclical nature of materials—everything becomes something else. Soon after our conversation with Josh, the familiar stone and bronze figures of another Colorado artist, Kendra Fleischman, pop into view. Drawing closer, we notice a new element in her work. In Looking Glass (above), a woman holds a mirror that streams video, including 1950s commercials for beauty parlors and fashion advice telling women how to dress. Very cool. Finally, the always lively Kevin Box from Santa Fe, known for his origami bronze crane sculptures, couldn’t wait to show us his latest work, titled Victoria's Dress—a flowing bronze breeze of a frock that a modern dancer might wear. Kevin reports proudly, "I sold two of them." —Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Shows and Events
8/10/2009 12:05:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, August 07, 2009
Portland art report, part 2
 There are a lot of cool people in Portland, but not many as cool as Kate Bingaman-Burt, who I wrote about once upon a time (in the picture at right, she's on the right, I'm on the left). She puts up daily drawings of her purchases at Obsessive Consumption, and through the end of August, you can see a big show of her work at Reading Frenzy in downtown Portland! I was stoked to see it while I was in town, and I also got to experience the Portland Zine Symposium, where Kate had a table, as did her graphic design students from Portland State University. Pictures follow... If you're a fan of independent publishing, art and comics, Reading Frenzy is a must-see destination in Portland.  Kate is showing years of drawings of her purchases, and has a bunch of zines and buttons for sale, as well as larger prints!  The scene at the Portland Zine Symposium! 
By Grace Dobush | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
8/7/2009 3:06:45 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Awesome art gallery project
 I got this little promo pack last week from a new venture in New York City. The 6x6 Gallery is opening in October with a gallery full of 6x6 works of art sent in from artists all over the world. And you can participate! Their little happy-meal-size submission package includes a canvas, promo cards and a box to mail your work in. It's $40 (or $20 if you're an NYC local). You set the price, it goes on view for a month at the gallery in the East Village, and you get 80 percent of the sale. The first deadline is September 15! I think I might try it myself.
By Grace Dobush | Projects | Shows and Events
8/4/2009 10:01:46 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Best of the 2009 Learning and Product Expo: Chicago
Note from Grace: This guest blog comes from my coworker Kelly. Enjoy! Linda Kemp teaches workshop attendees new applications for negative painting. The first of two Learning and Product Expos was held in Chicago this past weekend. Artists came from all over to take workshops with their favorite instructors, score some excellent deals on art supplies and check out new products. As an editor for North Light Books, it was exciting to see some of our authors in action and so many of our readers at the show. 
Artistsnetwork.com, a media sponsor of the show, had a booth with show attendees scooping up deals on books from North Light, issue compilations from The Artist’s Magazine and DVDs from ArtistsNetwork.TV. North Light authors Laurie Humble and Joyce Faulknor signed their books at the booth, too. You can see them giving one another's books the once over (right).
In addition to deals at manufacturer’s booths, the workshops drew a lot of interest from the crowds, especially the free demonstrations held in the shows pavilion stage. Patti Brady, author of Rethinking Acrylic, gave a free demonstration on the properties of acrylic paint (below), while Linda Kemp, author of Watercolor: Painting Outside the Lines, taught workshop attendees new applications for negative painting (up top). 
Patti Brady gives a free demonstration on the properties of acrylic paint. My favorite part of the show was the Next Top Artist competitions held on Friday and Saturday. Each competition began with five contestants who were given three colors and were asked to complete a painting on a given subject in eight minutes. From there, the judges eliminated two contestants. The remaining three contestants were given another color for use in their palette and a new subject to paint in five minutes.  The winner received a gift certificate from show sponsor Dick Blick, $100 in books from North Light, Holbein acrylic paints or Sennelier, as well as bragging rights for at least a year. Congratulations to Christy Groner (at right) who won first place in the acrylic competition on Friday for her portrait of Ed Brickle from Canson and to Judy Gray who one first place in the pastel competition on Saturday for her portrait of audience member Susan Henshaw.
Visit the Learning and Product Expo website to learn more about the show and to register for the Pasadena show in October.
—Kelly C. Messerly
News | Shows and Events
7/14/2009 2:32:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, June 26, 2009
Art News Roundup
I'm cleaning out the old e-mail inbox today, and I found a lot of interesting events happening now or soon! - Michigan Water Color Society 62nd Annual Exhibition travel show will be on display at the Rankin Center Fine Arts Gallery at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, MI, July 6-31.
- Also in Michigan, Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman will give a talk called "Comix 101" on July 15 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
- Admission is free for all of July and August at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio.
- This is the last weekend to see the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond before it goes offline. The museum is undergoing a major renovation before its grand reopening next May.
- The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons is seeking entries from veterans, surgeons and civilians for its art exhibition "Wounded in Action: An Art Exhibition of Orthopaedic Advancements." The deadline is October 15.
- Tougaloo Art Colony's annual events for educators, artists and students in Jackson, MS, kick off July 12.
- Bank of America's Museums on Us weekend is coming up July 4 and 5. Cardholders get free admission to more than 100 museums.
- Move over, Iron Chef—the Tacoma Art Museum is looking for an Iron Artist July 31. There are a few days left to sign up to compete.
- The annual "Form & Figure" show at Trailside Gallery in Jackson Hole, WY, is up July 1-31.
By Grace Dobush | Exhibits | News | Shows and Events
6/26/2009 1:27:15 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, June 25, 2009
Original Charley Harper paintings found!
 From News from the Harper Art Studio—they recently found a number of original paintings comissioned for the Ford Times and Lincoln Mercury Times magazines. In many instance no one knew that original paintings of some of these
were ever made! The discovery of these paintings came as a surprise
even to Charley's son Brett. "I felt like I was opening a buried
treasure chest that had been locked up for more than 35 years."
The new collection will be on view at Fabulous Frames and Art here in Cincinnati (10817 Montgomery Road, to be more specific) starting July 11 and running through August 8. I will so be there!
By Grace Dobush | News | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
6/25/2009 10:27:23 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, June 22, 2009
Last day to register for the webinar!
An
online workshop—also called a "webinar"—is a lot like a live workshop
or seminar, only it takes place over the Internet. That means you can "attend" the workshop from the comfort of home. All you need a computer
and a broadband Internet connection—no special computer skills required. (If you can't make the live session, you can purchase a recording of the webinar afterward!)
The Artist's Magazine is hosting a webinar tomorrow (Tuesday, June 23) at 1 p.m. Eastern time: " Entering Art Competitions: Enhance Your Chance of Success." Making intelligent choices about choosing which art shows and
competitions to enter will go a long way in ensuring successful
results. Maureen Bloomfield, editor of The Artist’s Magazine,
and Anne Hevener, editor of The Pastel Journal, will offer expert advice on
how to make the most of the art competitions you enter. In this seminar
you'll learn: - How to read the rules and abide by them
- What the choice of jurors can tell you about a show
- How to choose works to make a strong, quick impression
- How the jurying process works
- What makes jurors see red
- How to act at the opening or during an interview, once you get in a show or win a contest
Click here to learn more and register today!
Advice | By Grace Dobush | News | Shows and Events
6/22/2009 1:50:33 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, June 08, 2009
Fantastic Visions in Albuquerque
 Dreams That You Dream Really Do Come True by Joshua FrancoSanta Fe often grabs the spotlight in the national press as a major art center behind New York City and Los Angeles. And when collectors come to New Mexico, that's where they head to feather their nests back home. Friends of mine who live in Albuquerque always grouse that their fair city is unfairly overlooked by the visiting art crowds. Indeed, when it comes to a thriving art scene, the Duke City has plenty going on. (Though it could use a new nickname.) A few days ago, an intriguing show opened at Albuquerque's South Broadway Cultural Center. "Days of Future Past, Surrealistic Paintings + Installations" features works by Los Fantasticos, a group of artists who have come together to display their takes on imagination and reality. From haunting portraits to humorous narratives, their paintings offer up a world where magical realism meets pop surrealism. Flying dogs, cartoon characters and Day of the Dead skulls coalesce to create some highly original and fantastico visions. Organized by Santiago Perez, the band of visual brothers also includes Joshua Franco, Chris Perez and Brandon Maldonado. I think we'll be hearing a lot more about Los Fantasticos in the future. The show runs through July 27. —Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Shows and Events
6/8/2009 3:18:16 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Get your art published
Ever wonder how artists get into magazines like ours? We're revealing how the publishing industry works in our live, online seminar, Get Published: How the Industry Works & How You Can Make an Impression. You'll learn: - How publishers and editors discover artists
- What you can do to get noticed
- How to pitch an idea
- What editors expect
- How an article or book evolves
- How to work with book and magazine editors
Mark your calendars now for the live session at 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 27. Everyone
who registers for this event will receive, in addition to a download of
the seminar, submission guidelines for The Artist’s Magazine, North Light Books, The Pastel Journal and Watercolor Artist. An online workshop—also called a "webinar"—is a lot like a live workshop
or seminar, only it takes place over the Internet. That means you can
“attend” the workshop from the comfort of home. All you need a computer
and a broadband Internet connection—no special computer skills required. You
just log in at the special URL provided when you register, then listen
and follow along as the presenter shares helpful tips and advice on the
workshop topic. As you listen, you can pose questions for the presenter
to answer during the Q&A segment of the workshop. A "host" will
also be available to help if you encounter any technical issues.
Visit our Online Seminars page to learn more and reserve your spot!
Advice | By Grace Dobush | News | Shows and Events
5/13/2009 12:41:15 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, May 11, 2009
Easy Rider anniversary brings Hopper back to Taos
 Above: (from left to right) Ron Davis, Ron Cooper, Robert Dean Stockwell, Dennis Hopper and Larry Bell. Photo courtesy of William Davis. Below: a silver gelatin photo taken by Hopper on view in the exhibit (click to enlarge). The original Summer of Love took place in San Francisco 42 years ago. But Taos, NM, has cooked up its own version with actor and director Dennis Hopper. Hopper first rode into town in 1968 to direct the iconic counterculture film Easy Rider. He ended up staying 15 years. Now, 40 years after the release of the film, the town is paying homage to Hopper, who was just named honorary mayor of the historic art colony. On Saturday, an exhibit curated by Hopper opened at the Harwood Museum of Art. In the show, Hopper brings together works by a pantheon of his legendary artist friends, including Ron Davis, Ron Cooper, Robert Dean Stockwell and Larry Bell. Before Hopper moved to Taos, he was part of vibrant art movement in Los Angeles that centered around the Ferus Gallery—a magnet that drew up-and-coming L.A. artists such as Bell. Some of Hopper's photographs from the period also are on display at the Harwood and capture these artists brimming with youthful bravado and L.A. cool. "Hopper at the Harwood" is on view through Sept. 20. —Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
5/11/2009 9:07:11 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, May 04, 2009
Going for the Gold: California Art Club Awards
Above: Danielle at the Los Angeles Theatre Gala by Lindsay Goodwin. Below right: Seated Figure by Ignat Igantov.
I'm just back from the opening of the California Art Club Gold Medal Exhibition in Pasadena, CA. What a gathering of great artistic talent—and what a scary moment for this visitor from Boulder, CO. Right before the rooftop awards ceremony, Peter Adams, the president of the CAC, announced that the fire marshal wanted some people on my side of the roof to move to the other side pronto because the building was "shifting." I found this call to action unnerving and moved pretty fast. But the mostly California-based art crowd just calmly ambled over to the other side as if such requests were part of their routine.
Meanwhile, a few minutes later, Lindsay Goodwin and Ignat Ignatov, who have appeared in Southwest Art's annual "21 Under 31" themed-issue, received awards. As I perused their paintings that night I was struck by the similarities of their models' poses. Each painting featured a young woman slumped in a chair, one with clothes on and one without.
Tony Peters, yet another 21 under 31 alum, also took home an award for his intriguing self portrait. Among the other top award winners were Adams, Daniel Pinkham, Jove Wang, and Dennis Doheny. Southwest Art's award of excellence went to Huihan Liu.
By the way, paintings by two new emerging artists caught my attention—a moody portrait by Julio Reyes and some awesome thorny flowers by Candice Bohannon. Keep an eye on them. The CAC show is on view through May 17 at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.
—Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Shows and Events
5/4/2009 11:02:43 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Bill Cone show in SF
 Iceberg Outlet (pastel, 10x10.5) by Bill ConeBill Cone, the pastel artist behind Pixar movies such as Cars and A Bug's Life, sent us the beautiful painting above and this note: "I am about to have my first one man show in San Francisco of four years of work from painting in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The show is at the Studio Gallery in San Francisco, and runs April 15-May 10. I have also put together a catalog of work from the show, which will be available at the gallery, and through my blog."
We wrote about Bill in the March 2008 issue of The Artist's Magazine—it's worth digging through your stacks of old magazines to find! Learn more:
By Grace Dobush | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
4/21/2009 2:17:33 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, April 17, 2009
Loving papercuts
 Via Craftzine: Papercut artist Michael Velliquette creates intricate, zany tableaux of creatures that would surely scare me should I happen to find them under my bed. At right: a detail of Weepers and Floaters (cut card stock and glue on paper, 32x40).
And I heard that another awesome papercut artist, Béatrice Coron, is holding some workshops next month in New Jersey. (You likely saw her work in the April issue!) The workshops are crazy cheap; wish I lived nearby! Learn more:
By Grace Dobush | Shows and Events
4/17/2009 11:52:48 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, April 13, 2009
The Quang Ho Show
Blue Monday by Thomas William Jones. Below right, Yellow Tulips and Daffodils (oil, 30x24) by Laura Robb.If you live in the Denver area and paint or collect art, you've heard the name Quang Ho. The respected teacher and painter extraordinaire seems to be one of those people whom everyone knows or claims few degrees of separation from.  Well now Ho, the master artist (and everyone's BFF), has assembled a blockbuster show that features 50 of the top representational artists in America with styles ranging from traditional to highly expressive. Art America 2009 is on view April 24-26 at Westervelt-Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa, AL, a hidden gem of a museum with works by John Singer Sargent, Albert Bierstadt, and Winslow Homer. But Ho's hand-picked A-list spotlights living legends such as Burton Silverman, Kevin Macpherson, Laura Robb, Thomas William Jones, Richard Schmid, Clyde Aspevig, C.W. Mundy, Dan Gerhartz, and David Leffel. Tuscaloosa may not be the first city that springs to mind as an art destination, but Quang Ho hopes to bring some attention to the museum, which is home to the collection of Jack Warner, who has been quietly amassing what's considered one of the world's largest cache of historical American art. —Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
4/13/2009 10:32:43 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, April 10, 2009
Kevin Macpherson at Middletown Art Center
In recent years, many artist-poets (such as David Lehman) and painters (such as Duane Keiser) alike—have taken a stab at writing or painting every day and collecting the unpredictable and often stunning results in either a book or an exhibition. Several years ago The Artist's Magazine's contributing editor Kevin Macpherson resolved to paint the landscape outside his home in Taos, NM, every day for a year; the 368 paintings that followed have never been exhibited east of the Mississippi until now. From May 15 to June 15, the Middletown (Ohio) Arts Center will host "Reflections on a Pond," a show of Macpherson's expressive, painting-a-day landscapes. Adding to the excitement of the show will be a series of events that include a Children's Paint-Out (May 12) and a concert by the Middletown Symphony Orchestra (May 16). Kevin will give a lecture (May 16) and conduct a painting demonstration (May 17). Eric Camper of ArtistsNetwork.TV and I plan to go to
Middletown to see the show and to film an interview with Kevin next month, so stay
tuned. Kevin is the author of the best-selling Landscape Painting Inside & Out and Fill Your Paintings with Light and Color, both from North Light Books. To sign up for the lecture and/or demonstration, download a schedule here. Learn more:
By Maureen Bloomfield | Shows and Events
4/10/2009 10:01:33 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, March 30, 2009
Santa Fe happenings
 The Rail Runner Express makes it easy to speed between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
A lot is happening in this southwestern art mecca in the coming months. - For the first time, the renowned SOFA (Sculptural Objects & Functional Art) show comes to town June 11-14. The prestigious
 expo, also held in New York and Chicago, features wood, glass, ceramic, metal and fiber art. Eye-popping works by artists like Californian Latchezar Boyadjiev (whose Torso IV is at right) are on view. SOFA WEST is a real coup for the City Different.
- Under construction since 2006, the New Mexico History Museum is finally set to open May 24. Among the presentations are displays on the state's art communities.
- In a show opening May 22, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum features a selection of seldom-seen O'Keeffe works inspired by her travels outside the United States.
—Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Exhibits | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
3/30/2009 9:23:09 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Fiber art happenings
The Hyperbolic Coral Reef ProjectLots of tactile art projects coming across my desk lately. Here are some fiber art events in brief! - English Embroidery from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700: 'Twixt Art and Nature: Elegant artifacts. Through April 12. The Bard Graduate Center, New York, NY.
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Present Tense: Embroidery in Contemporary Art: A discussion "investigating the beautiful and satirical world of contemporary embroidery" and counterpoint to the Bard exhibition. Thursday, March 26. The American Craft Council, New York, NY.
- Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project: A handmade crocheted coral reef that has been on tour in Chicago, New York, and London. Opens April 11. Scottsdale Civic Center Library, Scottsdale, AZ.
- International Fiber Collective Tree Project: There's still time to contribute a leaf to add to the tree, part of a project on interdependence. Going on display in April. Huntsville, AL.
By Grace Dobush | Projects | Shows and Events
3/24/2009 11:03:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
International Scratchboard Show
 Rarely, perhaps never before now, does one have the opportunity to view in person the work of 25 international artists in a show exclusively featuring scratchboard works. Scratching the Surface is running now until March 26 at the Dean Johnson Gallery in Indianapolis, Indiana. Members of the WetCanvas scratchboard art forum helped bring the show together, with works submitted from the United States, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Australia. Worth a visit, I’d say, but if you just can’t make it to Indianapolis this month, check out the pics on the WetCanvas scratchboard forum.
By Holly Davis | Exhibits | News | Shows and Events
3/17/2009 10:28:21 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Is your art strong enough to compete?
Now that the Online Competition winners have been announced, things are gearing up for The Artist's Magazine's Annual Art Competition! The deadline for entries is May 1, and winners will appear in the December 2009 issue of The Artist's Magazine. (You can see the 2008 winners here.) The fabulous prizes include:
5 First Place Awards: $2,500 each
5 Second Place Awards: $1,250 each
5 Third Place Awards: $750 each
15 Honorable Mentions: $100 each
And the categories and judges are: Portraits/Figures Juror: Nelson Shanks Still Life/Floral Juror: Jane Jones Landscape/Interior Juror: Susan Shatter
Abstract/Experimental Juror: Jimmy Wright
Animal/Wildlife Juror: David N. Kitler
Click here for all the in-depth info about how to enter. If you watch any reality TV shows, you might feel as I do—that the word "competition" is used with much higher frequency and with a lot more animosity. But The Artist's Magazine's competitions are congenial altercations, and we highly encourage you to make friends! These folks are not allowed:
By Grace Dobush | Projects | Shows and Events | Videos
3/11/2009 9:56:55 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, March 09, 2009
Not your grandmother's still lifes
 Toothpicks poke apples. Goldfish crackers fly. Water glasses topple over. Three luscious still-life shows have opened in Colorado and California with presentations that turn the time-honored genre upside-down. The artists bring humor, irony and mysterious narratives to the table.  In The Object Project, 15 painters were asked to incorporate the same five items (a moth, ball of string, bone, mirror and glass of water) into their tableaux to explore different visual interpretations. There’s everything from the spare style of Scott Fraser (above, The Fraser Family) to the intricate compositions of Robert Jackson (at right, Food Fight). The show is on view at the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Englewood through May 23. Gallery 1261 in Denver presents an accompanying show of works by the same artists but without the object challenges. Beyond the Object Project runs through March 21. You might not think of Palm Springs, Calif., as much of an art destination, but on a recent visit I discovered that the Palm Springs Art Museum is a secret treasure in the desert. Through May 9 it features a must-see Wayne Thiebaud retrospective complete with his signature images of bakery goods—trays of pies, cakes and donuts that serve up a tasty slice of Americana. —Bonnie Gangelhoff
Dispatches from the West | Shows and Events
3/9/2009 9:18:33 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tom Bacher at the Weston Art Gallery
 Installation view of Luminous: Paintings by Tom BacherArtists are supposed to love light, but Tom Bacher actually works with crystals of phosphoresence that he mixes with acrylic gel medium and/or acrylic paints. The amalgam that results has a half life. The paints on the canvas absorb light during the day; as light fails, the colors change, and when darkness invades the studio or gallery, the pictures start glowing, popping off the wall. "I do paintings that actually incorporate an element of change," Bacher says. In an article ("Night Visions") in the June 2008 Artist's Magazine, he described his complicated process and recalled that his fascination with phosphorescence stems from the glow-in-the-dark toys, religious statues, and rosaries popular in the 1950s. The show, which represents an overview of the artist's work, portrays the city as fragments of radiance—joyful and gorgeous schemes of chaos. The pictures that stayed with me longest, however, seem like meditations on, rather than snapshots of, the city. The vantage in these pictures is often from the bank of a river (the Ohio or Hudson); the city appears over the edge, across the water, with the flickering, ghostly validity of a dream. Luminous: Paintings by Tom Bacher will be on view at the Weston Art Gallery until March 21st. To see more of Bacher's work, visit his Web site.
By Maureen Bloomfield | News | Shows and Events
2/24/2009 1:08:53 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Society of Illustrators exhibition
The final phase of the Society of Illustrators' annual exhibition, Illustrators 51, goes live March 4. The Advertising, Institutional and Uncomissioned Exhibit features the work of Marc Burckhardt, Jody Hewgill, Brad Holland and Frances Jetter, among others. You can see the show March 4 through 28 at the Museum of American Illustration, at 128 E. 63rd St. in New York City. The museum's open Tuesday-Saturday, and admission is free. If you can't make it to NYC for the show, you can catch some of the works on a US college tour through June 2010.
By Grace Dobush | Exhibits | Shows and Events
2/18/2009 3:20:17 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Miniature Art Society of Florida show
 If you're a snowbird (or a full-time Floridian), check out the Miniature Art Society of Florida's annual exhibit, which opens Jan. 18. About 850 works will be on view, plus the society's permanent collection of 100 more miniatures. The top awards went to: - Best of Show: Jane Mihalik, Taneytown, MD
- Judge's Second Joice: Judith E. Johnson, Riverview, FL
- Excellence in All Entries: Richard William Haynes, Fairfield, NJ
- Best Work by a Young Artist: Rebecca Latham, Hastings, MN
- Best Work by a First Time Entrant: David Drummond, Albuquerque, NM
- Best Traditional Portrait Miniature: Rachelle Siegrist, Townsend, TN
Miniatures are a fascinating breed. Portrait miniatures (such as the one pictured here, Self Portrait by Sarah Goodridge, watercolor on ivory, 4x3, 1830) were very common until the advent of photography. You can see the show at the Dunedin Fine Art Center, 1143 Michigan Blvd., Dunedin, FL 34698. It runs from Jan. 18 to Feb. 8 and is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays; and 1 to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $4 for kids 6 to 18. Click here for more info.
By Grace Dobush | Exhibits | Shows and Events
1/7/2009 10:12:52 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Free Seattle art show
 If you're in the Pacific Northwest, check this out! The Women Painters of Washington have partnered with the city of Seattle's Restore our Waters Initiative to create an art show focusing on the importance of healthy urban waterways. Thirty artists are showing their work in Waters Alive! and donating a protion of their commissions to ecology-focused nonprofits. Waters Alive! runs through Jan. 30 at the Columbia Center, 701 Fifth Ave., Seattle, WA 98104.
By Grace Dobush | Free Stuff | Shows and Events
11/18/2008 12:51:44 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Friday, November 07, 2008
Major Warhol show in Columbus
I hope to be able to visit this awesome show, but if I can't make it, the video tour above will just have to suffice. (Not sure if the Velvet Underground soundtrack is included in the admission fee.) Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms "sheds new light on the celebrated pop artist and focuses on the ideas
at the heart of his work: embracing consumer culture, exploring sexual
identity, challenging social conventions, and erasing distinctions
between high and low culture."
The exhibit runs through February 15, 2009, at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. Tickets cost $8 for adults, or $5 for visitors ages 13-17 or older than 65. Free to Wexner Center and Warhol Club members, college students with ID, visitors younger than 12, and free to all visitors every Thursday evening and first Sunday of each month.
By Grace Dobush | Notable Artists | Shows and Events | Videos
11/7/2008 2:48:23 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, October 30, 2008
Picasso, larger than life
 Who's that hanging out on Cooper Union's Foundation Building in New York's East Village? Why, it's a gigantic Picasso portrait of Stalin! The banner is part of a free exhibition by Norwegian artist Lene Berg, "Stalin by Picasso or Portrait of Woman with Moustache," which explores the personal, political, artistic and media implications of Picasso's simple drawing of Stalin. The portrait was commissioned for a French Communist newspaper, Les Lettres Francaises, to memorialize Stalin's death on the front page of the newspaper. Picasso's drawing was considered unflattering and led to his expulsion from the party. "Stalin by Picasso or Portrait of Woman with Moustache" runs through December 6. Photos above and below by Bryan Zimmerman. 
By Grace Dobush | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
10/30/2008 9:34:16 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, October 23, 2008
Maria Lassnig at the Contemporary Arts Center
A show that originated at the Serpentine Gallery in London has come to Cincinnati, under the direction of Raphaela Platow, the newest head of the Contemporary Art Center. Beautifully installed, it is Maria Lassnig’s first in the USA, though she had a 1977 retrospective in Paris and has been the star of several Venice Biennales. Born in Vienna in 1919 and descending from the German Expressionist tradition, Lassnig often paints herself in ways that are both aggressively painful (with a gun aimed at her head in one hand and a gun aimed at the viewer in the other) and wryly comic (the artist with a frying pan on her head). The pictures are bold, visceral, and unrelenting. Lassnig has said she paints the body from the inside. Often her wildly colorful figures are grotesque—monstrous infants without arms or with distorted heads and mutilated torsos. Her recurrent theme is the complexity of feeling. The most recent pictures are lusciously painted and strangely lyrical. I especially loved Madonna of the Pastries, which shows the nude artist in front of an array of painterly (vaguely reminiscent of Wayne Thiebaud's) cakes.
Lassnig is a filmmaker as well as a painter. The one that was playing while I was at the gallery, Couples, is a visually delightful sequence that is playful in tone. In a wonderful filmed interview that is part of the show, Lassnig, who looks terrific, by the way, answers questions with wit and joy.
This is the work of a true artist; it is the best show that the CAC has
launched since it moved to Zaha Hadid's building, and I look forward to
more challenging shows that Platow will bring to a newly lustrous CAC.
Note: Accompanying the Lassnig show is Carlos Amorales's Discarded Spider, a vibrant and interesting exhibition and a particularly apt pairing, since his spiders recall Louise Bourgeois's. (The brilliant sculptor Bourgeois is 98 years old.) The Lassnig show will be up until January 11, 2009; the Amorales show will come down on March 7, 2009.
Photos: Tony Walsh. Top: Installation view at the Contemporary Arts Center in the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art. Below: Madonna of the Pastries (2002, oil, 150x200cm) Courtesy of Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati and Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York. 
By Maureen Bloomfield | Shows and Events
10/23/2008 8:55:43 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, October 07, 2008
John Ashbery's Collages
The American poet and art critic John Ashbery has a show of collages, They Knew What They Wanted, at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Tibor de Nagy has had a long association with poets of the New York School; it has even published books of poems, for instance, Ashbery's Turandot and Other Poems and Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems, illustrated by Larry Rivers. Some of the collages date from Ashbery’s undergraduate days at Harvard; many are brand new. One set pays homage to his friend, the inventive and mercurial artist, Joe Brainard. The show’s title refers to a 1940 movie directed by Garson Kanin from a play by Sidney Howard. Depicting a love triangle, They Knew What They Wanted starred Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton. Also on view are Trevor Winkfield’s bright acrylic pictures that present lighthearted visual rhymes. Below: Acrobats (circa 1972), a collage by John Ashbery. Photo courtesy of Tibor de Nagy Gallery. Below: Chutes and Ladders (For Joe Brainard, 2008), a collage by John Ashbery. Photo courtesy of Tibor de Nagy Gallery.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Shows and Events
10/7/2008 8:56:41 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, September 22, 2008
For Kids and the Young at Heart
When I was a kid, I'd imagine becoming very small and being able to step right into the wonderful illustrated settings of some books. I think experiencing the exhibition Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic—hosted by the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut—must be the next best thing! What intriguing, magical worlds Wick creates.  Walter Wick working on a set for Can You See
What I See? Once Upon a Time  Walter Wick’s Puss in Boots from Can You See
What I See? Once Upon a Time (2006; pigmented inkjet photograph, 60x36)
Walter Wick is the inventive photographer for the I Spy and Can You See What I See? children's books—both best-selling series from Scholastic. The exhibition, organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art and running through January 29, 2009, includes more than 60 of Wick's photographs, enlarged to five or six feet wide. Viewers will also be able to enjoy examples of his intricate three-dimensional models, including some original sets from Wick's newest book, Can You See What I See? On a Scary Night, published in August of this year.
By Chris McHugh | Shows and Events
9/22/2008 4:46:03 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, September 11, 2008
Sharon Sprung: Solo Show
 Judging from the enthusiastic response we've had to our April cover artist, Sharon Sprung, those of you who live in the New York City area will want to be sure to catch her solo show at Gallery Henoch, starting today, Thursday, September 11.  Can't make the show? Then visit her website. Better yet, get some personal instruction from her video workshops, Understanding Values in Skin Tones with Sharon Sprung and Painting Facial Features with Sharon Sprung, produced for ArtistsNetwork.TV at top: Harlequin (oil on panel, 36x50) at right: Bowls (oil on panel, 34x36) Photos courtesy of Sharon Sprung
By Holly Davis | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
9/11/2008 5:25:14 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, August 21, 2008
The World's Children Create Art in Beijing
Robert Wyland, the official artist for the U.S. Olympics team, determined, thirty years ago, to paint 100 "whaling walls" that would depict the world's oceans and celebrate the diversity of life contained therein. He saved his 100th one for Beijing, whose unveiling coincided with the 2008 Olympic Games. Placed in the Beijing International Sculpture Park, the Great Green Wall of China spans almost two miles. What is particularly wonderful is the fact that it's the work not only of the artist himself but of a multitude of children from around the world. Appearing as principal speaker at the Tunza International Children's Conference on the Environment, he invited the children of the world to join him at this, the first Green Olympics, to paint the world's waters—an initiative he called "Hands Across the Ocean." "Water connects people all across the world—and every drop of water counts," says Wyland. Each panel of the mural is devoted to one of the 205 countries sending athletes to Beijing. Of his collaborators, Wyland says, "Only Picasso could paint like these kids; they are better artists than I am." See a beautiful film of the children at work alongside Wyland here:
By Maureen Bloomfield | Shows and Events | Videos
8/21/2008 1:38:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, August 11, 2008
Ron Monsma at Miller Gallery
Saturday the Miller Gallery hosted the fabulous painter Ron Monsma as part of its Up Close and Personal: summer artist demonstration series. Monsma, who works in oil as well as pastel, is well- known to readers of The Artist's Magazine and Pastel Journal; he set up his easel in front of the model's stand near a window at 11:00 am. When my older daughter Katherine and I dropped in around twelve, the portrait was already in splendid progress. Pastels of all types in clear boxes arrayed around him, Monsma gave a breathtaking demonstration of glazing, as he rendered the color of the model’s skin and hair more complex with the addition of acidic greens. Among the attentive onlookers were many local artists; snapping photos was the talented abstract artist and photographer, Shannon Godby.
Monsma is the head of the Drawing and Painting Department at Indiana University in South Bend. Among his most recent honors is winning the Jack Richeson Best of Show award in the 9th annual Pastel 100. To read Anne Hevener's insightful article and to see a slide show of Monsma's world-class work, click here. And you can still order a copy of the February issue here. 
Ron Monsma arranges his pastels at Miller Gallery. Photo by Shannon Godby.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
8/11/2008 9:17:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Hey, Elvis! Statue?
Another Elvis sighting, folks. This time in a 1800-year-old marble carving owned by Australian antiquities collector, Graham Geddes. The resemblance of this piece to the 1950's King of Rock is startling, and this October you have a chance to make it your own (for a pretty price) at a Bonhams auction. Or you could settle for taking a look here.
By Holly Davis | News | Shows and Events
7/22/2008 9:38:09 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Antonio López at Christie's
In our July/August issue we featured Antonio López García's transcendentally beautiful work ("Reality as Revelation" by Robert K. Carsten). At the most recent Christie's auction in London, Antonio López's Madrid desde Torres Blancas sold for $2,760,803—breaking previous records for this Spanish master. Madrid desde Torres Blancas is similar in tone and scope to View of Madrid from the Torres de Bomberos de Vallecas that appears in our article (see page 40 of the July-August issue). Antonio García typically spends a decade on a painting. His work is painfully beautiful, as it records shifts in perception, as well as deliquescence, both inevitable with the passage of time. Robert Hughes has called Antonio "the greatest realist artist alive," and painters everywhere revere him. At a recent opening for Daniel Greene's pictures in pastel and oil at Miller Gallery (Daniel E. Greene was our judge in our annual competition's Still Life category), I ran into Jonathan Queen, a fabulously playful painter, who told me he and the equally talented Emil Robinson (whose portraits appeared in the April 2007 TAM) were planning to make a pilgrimage to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to catch the rare retrospective of Antonio's work on view until July 27th. (As an analogue to that exhibition, the MFA is also showing El Greco to Velásquez: Art During the Reign of Philip III.)The July-August 2008 issue is still on sale on newsstands, but if you want it—or the April 2007 issue featuring Emil's work—delivered, go to www.fwmagazines.com/category/the-artists-magazine to place an order. 
By Maureen Bloomfield | News | Shows and Events
7/2/2008 10:43:51 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Want to be in the National Portrait Gallery?
Boy, if I created art rather than just writing about it, I would totally enter this: The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009. The triennial competition, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute, is accepting entries through the end of July. All mediums are accepted and the definition of "portrait" is pretty loose, though you should know there are size limits—paintings can't be larger than 7 feet by 7 feet 8 inches, and no work can weigh more than 150 pounds. All finalists' work will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery from Oct. 23, 2009, to Aug. 22, 2010, and the winner gets $25,000! Click here to learn more.
By Grace Dobush | News | Shows and Events
6/11/2008 5:12:03 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, June 09, 2008
Sometimes the art comes to you
I was working on my laptop Friday evening at Brutopia, a cafe here in Cincinnati, when the scene changed: out with the high schoolers hanging out, and in with the wine and cheese.
It turns out I'd stayed long enough to see the opening for graphic designer and artist Michael Roller's "Schematic" paintings. I really dug the edgy landscapes, which are created with spray paint on masonite.
Michael told me these landscapes sprung from a design he did for some martini glasses. He ended up going with another design for the glasses (which you can see on his website), but he wanted to try using the angular shapes in a 2D way. The paintings, both in simplicity and in color palette, evoke a little bit of Charley Harper to me.
 If you happen to be in the Cincinnati area, you can see the paintings in person until June 30 at Brutopia, 278 Ludlow Ave. in the Gaslight District. Photos courtesy of Michael Roller
By Grace Dobush | Shows and Events
6/9/2008 9:19:26 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, May 09, 2008
NAMTA 2008 in Reno
At the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and littered with casinos, chain restaurants, and strip malls, Reno may have seemed an unlikely place for a National Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA) convention, but exhibitors and retailers alike proclaimed the success of the 2008 show. More than 200 exhibitors set up shop in the vast Reno/Sparks Convention Center April 30 through May 2. In addition to the booths showing all of the vendors’ wares, the Art Café, sponsored by Golden Artist’s Color, exhibited a range of works; most notable, at least for me, were intriguing prints by Karin Schminke. Among the many festive moments at the NAMTA trade show were a high tea, a tradition at Col Art; an open bar at Texas Art Supply, and a champagne toast at Daler-Rowney, which will celebrate its 225th year in business by launching an international art competition later this year. Notebooks in hand, Jessica Canterbury, associate editor of The Pastel Journal and Watercolor Artist (read Jessica's own cool blog about our trip), and I roamed the aisles. It was a thrill, as always, to see artists at work: at Speedball, Franz Spohn was cutting and inking linoleum blocks; at Golden, Patti Brady showed how Golden’s Open acrylics stay wet for a longer period of time; at HK Holbein, painter Sean Dye and printmaker Pam Hudson demonstrated different uses for Holbein’s water-soluble oils. It was a delight, too, to come upon Wendy Hollender, at Faber-Castell, and look over her shoulder as she, reviving the English botanical tradition, used Faber-Castell colored pencils to draw tulips and lilies from life. At Logan Graphics, Eileen L. Hull was deftly cutting foamboard with an array of FoamWerks shaping and cutting tools, designed for artists, architects, framers, photographers, 3-D model makers, and crafters. A recurrent theme among manufacturers was the imperative to be eco-friendly, encapsulated in the saying, “Green is the new primary color.” At the retailers’ round table breakfast on Saturday morning, the talk was of ways companies could go green—in packaging, as well as in manufacturing products that do the environment and the artists who use them no harm. On the exhibition floor, two young artists created a dramatic mural with Plutonium G aerosol paints, which contain 70 percent pigment and 30 percent propellants and thus are considered “ozone-friendly.” Shawn Richeson of Jack Richeson & Company showed us a new line of easels made of lyptus wood imported from Brazil. In contrast to oak, lyptus, after being harvested, continues to grow. Indeed, the advantages of discovering renewable resources were manifest everywhere. Years ago Martin F. Weber introduced turpenoid natural and odorless turpentine; Strathmore Artist Papers, also a pioneer, introduced its first line of recycled artists papers in 1972. Strathmore’s newest paper, designed for use with charcoal, contains the tree-friendly fibers, cotton and hemp. In August, Fabriano will ship a beautiful white paper labeled “post-consumer product”—composed of recycled papers, manufactured using hydropower, and incorporating no animal sizing. Canson won the prize for the best (large company) display. Arttogo won a prize for the best new product: snazzy jewelry and ornament kits for kids. Among the other marvelous new products were Caran d’Ache’s lightfast colored pencils, Luminance 6901; Crea Arts' framed canvas that pops out of its frame; Da Vinci’s fluid acrylics; Golden’s digital gel medium that makes transferring images easy; Gamblin’s six colors of etching inks; Richeson’s eight-piece-problem-solving pastel sets; Staedtler’s latest modeling clay, Efaplast Microwave; RGM’s versatile palette knives; Derwent‘s tinted charcoal, Liquitex’s acrylic inks, and Chroma's Atelier Interactive acrylics. At the Color Wheel booth, Jessica and I paged through an advance copy of Dan Barges’s Color is Everything, a guide to color in theory and in application, with a question and answer format enhanced by analyses of master painters’ palettes. The day before the trade show opened, our own Tim Langlitz presented a lecture and demonstration entitled “The Nuts and Bolts of Online Marketing” to a packed house. Characteristically lucid and straightforward, Tim outlined concrete ways manufacturers can go about producing newsletters and launching sweepstakes. He also described how to find and use systems that measure and monitor online success. Sharing his Web expertise, Tim exemplified the collegial spirit and generosity that are everywhere apparent in the industry, but perhaps, most apparent at NAMTA convocations. Advertising director Jim McIntosh summed it up: “Great energy, great people, great new products—a fantastic industry.”  From our hotel's entrance the Sierra Nevada Mountains
were visible. Photo by Jessica Canterbury. Daler-Rowney, celebrating 225 years in business, hosted a
champage reception on the convention floor.
Photo by Jessica Canterbury.
 Jessica and I escaped to the Nevada Museum of Art,
which was showing Frank Lloyd Wright's interior designs.
Here I am at the entrance of the museum. At the Nevada Museum of Art, Jessica stands in front of a
signature Deborah Butterfield piece that had weathered beautifully. In front of Grand Sierra Hotel, Kristin Roark, display advertising representative, Jim McIntosh, advertising
director, Maureen, and Cherie Ilg Haas, advertising sales coordinator,
in our about-to-embark-on-an-all-day-plane-trip-home clothes.
Photo by Jessica Canterbury.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Shows and Events
5/9/2008 2:11:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Rising Sun, Indiana
Last Friday, my younger daughter Margaret and I drove to Rising Sun, Indiana, in order to make the opening of the 2008 Second Annual Juried Exhibition at the Pendleton Art Center. Vera Curnow, the director, had planned a lovely evening: live music, a lavish spread, etc, and, of course, the show. Since I was the juror, it seems self-serving to praise the works, which were beautifully installed (by Vera, who is herself a fine artist), but they were objectively impressive: high in quality and diverse in media and style. It was lovely for me to meet the artists; here are some pictures of the festive evening.
Below: Maureen with Jackie Braden (Best of Show) in front of Jackie's painting.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Exhibits | Shows and Events
4/9/2008 1:39:17 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008
On Poets and Painters
"April is the cruelest month," and perhaps not incidentally, National Poetry Month. You can find the entire text of T.S. Eliot's Waste Land (whose opening lines describe April as "breeding/ lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/memory and desire...") at the marvelous site of the Academy of American Poets. Edna St. Vincent Millay's " Spring," actually addresses April: "To what purpose, April, do you appear again?" And, of course, it was in April that Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims, in a far more convivial spirit, convened for their pilgrimauge. Poets and painters are natural allies. I recently saw a beautiful show at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery of paintings by Jane Freilicher, who was a friend of the poets of the New York School (of the four most prominent—Frank O'Hara, James Schyler, Kenneth Koch, and John Ashbery, sadly only Ashbery is still alive). Freilicher often made appearances in Frank O'Hara's poems, as did other painters like Larry Rivers and Mike Goldberg. A lovely and jovial poem on the painter's and poet's art is " Why I am not a Painter." An art critic and curator as well as a poet, Frank O'Hara (1922-66) worked at the front desk of the Museum of Modern Art and famously wrote poems while walking around the city during his lunch hour. His tragic death in a freak accident on Fire Island has inspired several elegaic pictures. Jasper Johns has an homage to O'Hara currently on view ( Jasper Johns:Gray) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. To read more about Frank O'Hara and the New York School of Poets, take a look at David Lehman's Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (Anchor Books, 1999). Sign up to receive a poem a day during April in your inbox at www.poets.org./poemADay.php.
Still Life Before a Window (below, 2007. oil on linen, 32x40) by Jane Freilicher. Photo courtesy of Tibor de Nagy Gallery. . 
By Maureen Bloomfield | Notable Artists | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
4/2/2008 11:06:18 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, March 17, 2008
Poussin's Intense Classicism
Landscape with Calm by Nicholas Poussin. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"A Provencal Poussin—that would fit me like a glove … like Poussin, I would like to put reason in the grass and tears in the sky"—so wrote Paul Cezanne.
Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until May 11 is revelatory in the way that's rare. In the first room, the fervid eroticism of the early (influenced by the painter's sojourns in Venice and Rome) works seems almost comic, but as the exhibition proceeds, the pictures grow in serenity and in ambition. By the final room, in front of works that attested to the artist's struggle with failing vision, it was easy to be close to tears; indeed, there were clusters of viewers who lingered, retracing their steps, as if reluctant to leave Poussin's luminous presence.
As a painter, Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665) was incredibly literary; almost every picture refers to or is informed by a text, often by Virgil or Ovid. Nothing was offhand; the artist expected his pictures to be scrutinized with the ardor one devotes to a poem, but these poems were odes, less romantic outburst than systematic meditation. Of the forty paintings on view, quite a number were painted en plein air, an accomplishment that's amazing, given the pictures' complexity. As befits a classical vision, Poussin’s Arcadia is orderly; planes unfold in sequence; the sky is its own terrain of air. The stillness is a characteristic of the vantage point; from far away, catastrophe looks controllable because small. This stately and deeply affecting exhibition puts to rest the notion that classicism is cold. In picture after picture, the trees and figures are equally expressive; often the posture of a figure will find an analogue in the disposition of a tree. Just as often, Arcadia is a backdrop to despair; in the midst of tranquilly the imposition of violent death is another element, not dramatized. Poussin’s landscapes are thus the setting for momentous events; nature is a stage.
Many of the paintings were commissioned, so they were designed to fit over a doorway or to illustrate a moral, for instance, Et Ego in Arcadia (I, Death, am here, even in Arcadia), where shepherds come upon an ancient tomb and read the inscription that informs Poussin's oeuvre. Because death is here, life can be interpreted; like a text or a picture, it can be read. The possibility of meaning is thus a consolation, as is beauty. As Poussin himself observed and vowed: "It is said that the swan sings more sweetly when death approaches; I will try to imitate him and work better than ever."
Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions was organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao.
Above right: Arcadian Shepherds or Et in Arcadia Ego by Nicholas Poussin. Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
3/17/2008 9:05:36 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, March 14, 2008
Artists go for the gold
If you're going to be near Western Pennsylvania next month, it'll be worth making a detour to check out the third annual Art Olympic Theatre on April 5 in Pittsburgh.
Picture something along the lines of performance art meets Iron Chef. Over two hours, three teams compete to build the best sculpture out of materials provided at the event, plus one suitcase of stuff they've selected to bring with them. The shebang is masterminded by Tom Sarver, of the Tom Museum, who's got a reputation for wacky puppeteering. The event takes place at the Union Project, which is an awesome community center/cafe/art space.
The details: Art Olympic Theatre III, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 5. Union Project (801 N. Negley Ave., Pittsburgh, www.unionproject.org). $10. If you go, tell Pittsburgh I said Hi!
Check out a video of last year's event here:
By Grace Dobush | Shows and Events | Videos
3/14/2008 10:56:30 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, March 03, 2008
William Steig, from The New Yorker to Shrek
 William Steig's illustration for Shrek, 1990 (Collection of William Steig Estate)
The exhibition " From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig" at New York City's Jewish Museum on Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, presents the work of artist, author, illustrator and cartoonist William Steig (1907-2003) who started drawing for The New Yorker as a young man and who, at the age of 61, embarked on a second career as the author/illustrator of gloriously odd children’s books. My daughters’ and my favorites are Brave Irene (Windmill Simon, 1986) and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (Windmill Simon, 1970), which won the Caldecott Medal as "the most distinguished American picture book for children" of that year. Sylvester is the story of a donkey who finds a magical pebble and, in a moment of panic, makes an ill-considered wish. After a desolate winter as a stone in a field, Sylvester, returning to sentient life, is reunited with his loving parents. Brave Irene is the stalwart daughter of a seamstress; Irene braves harsh winter winds to deliver the dress her ill mother has sewn for a duchess, just in time for the ball. The pivotal point, especially resonant for girls and mothers of girls, is the moment Irene defies nature by shouting she will not fail because it is her mother’s work. (Steig’s own mother was a seamstress.) Steig had an imagination that was abundant and sly. His stories are never, not even for a moment, saccharine. The feelings are as intense as the images are sophisticated: not a common conjunction. The exhibition is beautifully installed, with two rhapsodically decorated reading rooms, glass cases showing adulatory letters from legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn, philanthropist and collector Nelson Rockefeller and others, along with a movie in which Steig talks about his childhood in the Bronx and its abrupt end, when, in reaction to the Great Depression, his father informed him that supporting the family was "all up to you." Accordingly, Steig started drawing cartoons, which he could sell for as little as $5 or as much, at The New Yorker, as $25. It’s fascinating to see the progress of his work—from rough caricatures of scruffy street kids to lyrical drawings of elegant, gently satirized swells. I'm perhaps too fond of picture books and New Yorker covers, and William Steig was one of my favorites, but this exhibition, especially the filmed interview with Steig, affected me very much. Steig was a fabulous artist/author and a gentle, also prescient, man, as evidenced by this segment from the speech he gave at the Caldecott ceremony in 1970: "I am well aware not only of the importance of children—whom we naturally cherish and who also embody our hopes for the future—but also of the importance of what we provide for them in the way of art; and I realize that we are competing with a lot of other cultural influences, some of which beguile them in false directions." Steig's work beguiles children and adults in the very best direction; it proclaims the authority and freedom of the imagination, the importance of family, the imperative of kindness: an estimable legacy that this beautiful exhibition honors and extends. The exhibition at the Jewish Museum closes on March 16. There are panel discussions, book chats and other related events; to find the schedules, visit www.thejewishmuseum.org.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
3/3/2008 10:01:34 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, February 28, 2008
Jacob Lawrence, American Master
I caught a retrospective of Jacob Lawrence's brilliant work at DC Moore Gallery at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Lawrence (1917-2000) was a little late for the Harlem Renaissance but was nonetheless influenced by it; he shared with Romare Bearden a commitment to casting light on the African American experience. Lawrence's pictures tell stories; the characters are usually expressive, elongated and bunched together in postures indicative of their isolation. Whether working with gouache only or with elements of collage, Lawrence portrays figures as distinct shapes; he tended toward primary colors and energetic diagonals. His composition are sometimes hectic, always highly charged. He often depicts children as mute witnesses; in one picture, a white woman draped in a mink coat is illumined as she walks out a door; inside the room she left, a naked baby is splayed, face down on a bed in a posture that embodies his family's desolation. It was wonderful to see works dating from the Migration series, which chronicled the cycle of African-Americans' journey from the rural south to the industrial north, but I was most taken by the Hiroshima sequence from 1982, designed for a limited edition of John Hersey's book. It was one of Lawrence's convictions that human experience transcends race; accordingly, the figures in the Hiroshima series are not identified as Japanese. Using skeletal figures stained with blood, Lawrence presented vignettes that speak to the horror of August 6, 1945 and, given the context of our times, argue against the atrocity of any and all wars. Above: Jacob Lawrence, Hiroshima Series: Boy with Kite (1983, tempera and gouache on paper, 23x18). Courtesy DC Moore Gallery.The DC Moore Gallery is the exclusive representative of the Jacob Lawrence estate. A catalogue with essays by David Driskell and Patricia Hills is for sale. For more information, call Sandra Paci at 212-247-2111,
By Maureen Bloomfield | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
2/28/2008 9:50:26 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Diebenkorn in New Mexico
(Note from Grace: Maureen, the editor of The Artist's Magazine, spent last weekend in NYC and has oodles of art experiences to write about. Keep watching this week for more stories from her!)Image at right: Untitled/Albuquerque (1952, oil on canvas, 69x60); The Buck Collection, Laguna Beach, California
Last Thursday I was in Manhattan and had a chance to catch “Diebenkorn in New Mexico” at the Grey Gallery at New York University (January 25 through April 5). Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) was an artist identified with the California landscape as revealed and transformed in his Ocean Park series (1967-1978). Although characterized as an Abstract Expressionist, he worked with the figure (some of his ink drawings of nudes were on display at the Art Show organized by the Art Dealers Association of America at the Armory, February 21 to 25), and felt an intense connection to the landscape, perhaps because he’d worked as a cartographer while serving in the Marines. “Diebenkorn in New Mexico” presents 50 paintings and works on paper that chronicle two years in the artist’s life, 1950-52, when he enrolled (through the GI bill) at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. To pursue a graduate degree, he gave up a position teaching painting at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. The pictures from New Mexico are all interesting and many are gorgeous. The watercolor and gouache studies are especially lush and affecting; the drawings in Sumi ink show a young artist becoming fluent in a lyrical but bold calligraphic line. While the palette of the Ocean Park series is glacial—blue, green, white—the New Mexico pictures evince a less subtle range of colors, as Diebenkorn reacted to the desert terrain. Both the New Mexico and Ocean Park paintings are informed by aerial views; in the case of the New Mexico paintings, these gestures are often brash and sometimes inchoate. Fifteen years later these expressionist marks would be resolved in the transcendently formal Ocean Park where space is divided in what seem to be infinitely rational but rhapsodic progressions. The Grey Gallery show originated at the Harwood Museum of Art at the University of New Mexico. Accompanying this show is a beautiful catalogue with essays by Gerald Nordland, Mark Lavatelli, Charles Strong and Charles Muir Lovell.
 The Green Huntsman (1952, oil on canvas, 43x70); private collection Richard Diebenkorn and a mural painted for Joan Evans in the Old Town
district of Albuquerque, 1950-52 (paint on plaster wall, approximately
60x120). This mural no longer exists, as it has been painted over.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
2/26/2008 4:18:20 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Galleries I'd love to see
Three good reasons to travel to New York in the next month:
• Honey Space: As The New York Times describes it, "Approximately 800 square feet, ground floor, no windows, no heat, no drain pipe under the sink (slop bucket required), constant traffic noise, fine coating of black gunk on everything." A no-frills free-for-all.
Ongoing.
148 11th Ave. (Chelsea)
• Be Kind Rewind: Director Michel Gondry's teamed up with Deitch Projects to recreate the video store from his latest movie in a gallery.
Through March 22.
18 Wooster St. (Soho)
• Chris Ware: "Drawings for New York Periodicals" at Adam Baumgold Gallery displays the master cartoonist's recent illustrations for The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Through March 15.
74 E. 79th St. (Upper East Side)
By Grace Dobush | Exhibits | Shows and Events
2/19/2008 1:22:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Monday, January 28, 2008
Milford Zornes celebrates centennial
The renowned California painter, whom we wrote about in our January issue, turned 100 over the weekend and had a birthday bash at the Pasadena Art Museum. These photos from Tom Fong came our way:
 
Milford Zornes and Henry Fukuhara
Some creative birthday cakes
Zornes at work
The finished product
By Grace Dobush | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
1/28/2008 4:58:31 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Craft show report!
Hey, y'all, I'm back and really excited to tell you about my five-day weekend. I drove out to Pittsburgh to hawk my wares at the Handmade Arcade, an indie craft fair.
Not familiar with the "indie" qualifier? Let's just say these people don't sell doilies and tissue box holders. Thousands of people showed up at Construction Junction in Pittsburgh's Point Breeze neighborhood to buy things like wallets, screenprinted posters, buttons and magnets, and letterpressed goodies.
(Indie craft is seriously huge right now. A documentary about the DIY movement is being made, Etsy's bringing crafts to the common man, and indie craft shows are popping up in pretty much every big city.)
I spent about two months binding books and printing cards to sell this weekend, and I ended up having my best weekend of sales ever. And although it was great to nearly sell out of everything, it was even more rewarding to be able to talk to the people who were buying my stuff. You don't get that kind of interaction when you buy a notebook from Target, you know?
You can prowl around Flickr to see other people's photos from this weekend's show. Below is a video I shot from my table—I realize now I should have been panning much slower, but I think you can still get a feel for how huge this place was and how many people showed up. I can't wait until next year!
Photo at the top shows the table of my friends at Miss Chief Productions; photo on the right shows my own table, before I sold out of everything.
By Grace Dobush | Shows and Events | Videos
11/14/2007 10:05:44 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Monday, October 22, 2007
Photos reveal Mona Lisa "secrets"
A series of very high-res photos of the Mona Lisa reveal 25 "secrets" such as its original colors, the reason for the positioning of her hand, and a trace of an eyebrow, a Parisian engineer says.
Among other things, he uncovered a bigger smile that might have been an abandoned draft of the portrait. Pascal Cotte spent 3,000 hours analyzing his photos, which included infrared and ultraviolet information "usually apparent only to insects," according to InsideBayArea.com.
The photos are on display in a larger exhibit about Da Vinci until Dec. 31 at Metreon in San Francisco.
P.S.—Thanks to the faithful readers who sent in links about this story today!
By Grace Dobush | News | Shows and Events
10/22/2007 1:55:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, September 21, 2007
Statues By Ray
While working on the Exhibitions column for Jan/Feb 2008 issue, I came across artist Lisa Anne Auerbach's work. She's participating in the Words Fail Me exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, on view through Jan. 20. Check out her website for some of her interesting projects, including Small Businesses, a series of photos of tiny, free-standing buildings she discovered after switching her mode of transport from car to bicycle.
Here's one, Statues By Ray:
By Lisa Wurster | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
9/21/2007 2:41:07 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, September 10, 2007
Second Sunday
 Yesterday I went downtown to pay a visit to KraftHaus Art Gallery, where some of my friends are featured in a show. I noticed half of the street was blocked off, and "had" to park my car illegally as spaces were few and far between. Walking up Main Street, I passed booths and encountered artists and musicians. At the gallery, I found my friend artist C.T. King who informed me the festivities were for "Second Sunday," an event similar to Final Friday, which brings people to Cincinnati's Main Street to gallery-hop.
 It was partly my mission in visiting KraftHaus to see an assemblage that C.T. (left) had created, which featured parts from an alarm clock (below) that periodically goes off.  When the show was first hung, the alarm went off unexpectedly, prompting gallery workers to call him frantically pleading, "How the %#?! do you turn this thing off!!" Anyhow, I love his work and feel lucky to have one of his collages hanging in my living room. Whenever someone visits, they remark desirously of it.  Once I perused the paintings, photos, collages, crafts (some fun stuff, below)—including new works by Ryan Little (left) who was featured in our March 2007 "Under 40" article, I ventured downstairs into the basement. Friends C.T. Ryan, and Ali Calis were hard at work in the un-airconditioned space,  preparing an installation for their next show. The space was a no-man's land of boards, brushes, buckets, spray paint and a lone, dusty chandelier. The installation, I was told, will provide opportunity for gallery visitors to have their picture taken with some kind of humorous backdrop. I can't wait to see it! After taking pictures of the sweating and unsuspecting three, I went back upstairs and met a gallery worker named Jen, who was preparing food for visitors and who graciously posed for photos(at left and below), including one  by the gallery's front window.  When I left, a group of drummers in the street made the walk back to my car (which I was glad to see had no parking ticket) fun and rhythmic. 
By Lisa Wurster | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
9/10/2007 10:56:45 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, September 06, 2007
Beth Campbell's many futures
 Not knowing what to do with myself over the long Labor Day weekend, I made a trip to Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center for the first time on Monday.
An exhibit called "Open House: Cincinnati Collects" (running through October 14) takes up about two floors of the downtown museum at the moment. The CAC, which doesn't have a permanent collection, brought in pieces by more than 200 artists from more than 50 collectors.
A lot of contemporary art is hit-or-miss with me—I have an easier time understanding and appreciating traditional arts and crafts. But one piece—simply graphite on paper—had my undivided attention for close to a half hour.
My Future Based on Present Circumstances 4/01/04 by Beth Campbell is part of a series where she—as the title suggests—maps out the ways her life could go from one little decision she must make. I stood there tracing each branch up to read every possible outcome. (Yes, I was a fan of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as a kid.)
In the 4/01/04 drawing, entrusted with the keys to a friend's apartment, Campbell might only pick up the mail and go, or she might start hanging out there regularly. Or she might get too comfortable and throw a party. And that might make the neighbors mad, or it might make her friend unknowingly the life of the building.
Campbell's quasi-calligraphy is beautiful to look at, and I can't help but feel the exercise could be adapted as a brainstorming too for people with a creative block. I think I'm going to try it later and see what my many futures might hold.
Image courtesy of the Contemporary Arts Center | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
9/6/2007 3:44:26 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Cover survey...and a magical journal
For those of you who receive our e-newsletter, you're familiar with the cover survey that just went out, and thus the choices between what I'm calling "the smoking cover" and "the drag queen cover." Anyhow, the email comments which resulted from the survey were more numerous than anyone could have expected—try over 1,000! Clearly, people are opinionated. And we wouldn't have it any other way!
I took a break from opening emails to speak with Carol Wax whose work will appear in the November issue. Wax is a pro at mezzotint and is about to set off on a three-day drive to teach a class in Michigan. She mentioned being a little anxious about the journey, but having her "magical journal" to keep her company. The journal is used to record moments and experiences that hold or convey some feeling of magic. I thought it was such a brilliant idea, I was inspired to start my own. Now, I just have to wait for the magic to begin. In the meantime, here's a preview of Carol's art for the November feature "Ars Ex Machina": 
By Lisa Wurster | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
8/15/2007 2:20:52 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
All-Media Paint-Off
Once again, the Paint-Off has generated some great paintings! The voting is now underway for the "Lands Unpainted" prompt. Take a look at our finalists here. Choose your favorite of the four and follow the directions to cast your vote.
Also, a reminder that a new painting prompt has begun, this time a challenge to paint from a photograph. Visit the ArtistsNetwork.com message board, log in and check out the All-Media Paint-Off forum.
Good luck to the finalists!
By Lisa Wurster | Shows and Events
8/8/2007 9:47:55 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Saul Steinberg
On Sunday a friend and I stopped in at the Cincinnati Art Museum for the exhibit, Saul Steinberg: Illuminations. For those who are unfamiliar with the name, you may recall Steinberg's charactersitic line on the cover of numerous New Yorker magazines.
Steinberg may be best known for his humorous cover A View of the World From 9th Avenue. All told, the Romanian-born artist did 85 covers and 642 drawings for the publication. On view in the show were 60 years worth of drawings, paintings, collages and even sculptures. One drawing ran 33 feet (although, for some reason, not fully shown under glass).
One thing I found so refreshing about the exhibit was that one could see the pencil lines in many of the drawings, gouaches and watercolors. Some of the drawings didn't completely make their way to the cover—they were edited. In one drawing that played on the use of acronyms (Steinberg considered himself a writer who happened to paint), the letters "LSD" ended up on the cutting room floor.
Anyhow, it's nice to see, not really the mistakes an artist makes, but the progress. To know that even the hand of a genius wanders.
Lisa
By Lisa Wurster | Notable Artists | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
7/31/2007 3:33:32 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Art of Meditation
In a unique (and relaxing) conjunction with its current Asian-inspired exhibition, Stefano Arienti: The Asian Shore (on view through Oct. 14), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is holding in-gallery meditation workshops Aug. 7, Sept. 4 and Oct. 2.
Participants will sit on rugs dyed by the Italian artist and will be surrounded by zen-like black-and-white drawings of Isabella Gardner's former Chinese Room. Boston spa Exhale will have wellness experts and licensed acupuncturists on site to conduct the guided meditation and "vibrational therapy" which uses a tuning fork to produce a "unique physiological response."
The Gardner Museum is home to world-class art by Rembrandt, Degas, Michelangelo and Raphael. After the meditations, guests are welcome to peruse the three floors of outstanding art. The sessions are free with standard admission, but reservations are needed. To learn more, click here.
I don't know about you, but I'm already starting to feel mellow.
Lisa
By Lisa Wurster | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
7/25/2007 4:30:09 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, June 28, 2007
El Anatsui in St. Louis, Too!
Today, while I was hurrying to a meeting, I caught sight of one of El Anatsui's signature tapestries; the photo was on the back page of the St. Louis Art Museum's newsletter, by chance on top of the heap in our inbox. Fading Cloth (2005, mixed media, 126x255) now on view in Sculpture Hall at the St. Louis Art Museum, looks like a tapestry woven in gold and raffia but is composed of discarded tops from liquor bottles. El Anatsui, whom I wrote about yesterday, creates gorgeously intricate wall hangings that comment on the history of West Africa while alluding to the traditions of Western art. The St. Louis Art Museum, as I remember it, has several striking pieces by Dale Chihuly and two versions of Matisse's Oceanie, le ciel (Ocean, Sky). Also on view now (until September 16) is an exhibit entitled Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style, 1800-1815, which features over 240 decorative objects—furniture, jewelry, textiles, sculpture, etc.—created during Napoleon's reign, plus two stately portraits that apotheosize the ruler: Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Napoleon Visiting the Battleflield of Eylau by Antoine-Jean Gros. And St. Louis also has Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch on the banks of the Mississippi River that evokes Huck Finn and Jim's meandering journey. For all these reasons, St. Louis may be well worth a summer trip!
Maureen | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
6/28/2007 2:05:47 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007
El Anatsui in Venice and Los Angeles
In this week's Art Talk (aired on KCRW 89.9 FM in Los Angeles and also delivered as an e-mail newsletter) Edward Goldman examines the resplendent work of African artist El Anatsui, who flattens cast-off screw tops and sews them together with copper wire to fashion metallic tapestries that resemble luminous waves and command entire walls. To take a look at El Anatsui's work that drew rave reviews at the Venice Biennale visit his Web site at http://www.elanatsui.comand don't miss Edward Goldman's always engaging commentary at http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/atAnd on the domestic front, the little bird Phoenix is still alive.
Maureen | Notable Artists | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
6/27/2007 12:45:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, June 18, 2007
PBS Show on Art Airs Tonight
A TV show that will take a look at eight masterpieces and enact the stories behind their genesis, Simon Schama's Power of Art starts tonight on PBS stations. Power of Art opens with Vincent van Gogh's last painting, Wheat Fields with Crows, which Schama says "begins modern art." Schama's style is brash, anecdotal, and charged. He exults in the connections between art and history, culture and politics. Schama is the author of many books, most notably, perhaps, An
Embarrassment of Riches, which analyzes the implications of the rise of the Dutch bourgeousie, and
Rembrandt's Eyes, which examines Rembrandt's life and ouevre in light of his foil, Rubens. According to Alessandra Stanley's article in today's New York Times, tonight's episode will end with Schama's describing how Picasso's Guernica--a version of the painting rendered in tapestry––figured in Colin Powell's 2003 testimony to the United Nations on the eve of America's declaration of war against Iraq. Tonight we're celebrating my older daughter's birthday, but I'll try to tape the show. If you catch it, let me know what you think! --Maureen Bloomfield To see a preview of Power of Art, click on http:///www.pbs.org/previews/simonschama-powerofart/
By Maureen Bloomfield | News | Shows and Events
6/18/2007 11:31:24 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Afghanistan Shortchanged?
A planned exhibit of ancient gold objects from Afghanistan is stirring controversy, because the National Geographic Society negotiated a deal that experts say shortchanged the government of Afghanistan. “It’s a travesty,” says Lynne Munson, the former chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, who is quoted in an article in today’s New York Times. The arrangement calls for Afghanistan to receive $1 million plus 40 per cent of expected revenue, once expenses have been deducted. Munson argues that 40 percent would be “40 percent of absolutely nothing” because transport, insurance, and installation costs would be so high. When the National Geographic Society four years ago negotiated a similar deal with Egypt for the Treasures of Tutankhamen, the Egyptian government was assured $10 million for every city the show toured, as well as 50 percent of the gross revenue. Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Met and no stranger to blockbuster shows, said Afghanistan should have held out for more cash. Ana Rosa Rodriguez, executive director of the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage, feels that the National Geographic Society is taking advantage of a country that has endured decades of devastation, suffering, and upheaval. These ancient artifacts, many of Bactrian gold, were salvaged from a bank vault beneath a former royal palace in Kabul in 2004. Curators of the Kabul Museum shielded the artifacts, at great personal risk, from the Taliban and from earlier insurgents, later insurrections, and the American occupation. On display now at the Musee Guimet in Paris, the exhibit will open at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and then travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Asian Museum in San Francisco, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The artifacts are part of the treasure of Tilya Tepe, the Hill of Gold, near the Oxus River in northern Afghanistan. To read more about the excavation of these ancient objects, go to http://www.news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1117_041117_afghan_treasure.html. To see images from the show in Paris, go to http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6215002.stm.--Maureen Bloomfield
By Maureen Bloomfield | News | Shows and Events
6/6/2007 1:51:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, May 31, 2007
Anselm Kiefer in Paris
I've always been deeply affected by Anselm Kiefer's vast, overwrought paintings that meditate on modern (and mythic) German history; thus I was pleased to see Alan Riding's article on Kiefer's newest installation in today's New York Times. Born in Germany during World War II, Kiefer now lives in Paris; "Falling Stars" opens today in the recently restored Grand Palais. With this and subsequent exhibitions, the French government hopes to incite greater interest in contemporary art. Alan Riding notes how Kiefer looks to literature for reference and for imagery: "...Mr. Kiefer fills the space with the visual and intellectual force of his art, much of it inspired by literature, notably the poetry of the Romanian Paul Celan and the Austrian Ingeborg Bachmann, the Bible and cabalistic writings. Mr. Kiefer himself has often noted that in his youth he wavered between becoming a writer and a painter." The installation is made up of "houses" that encompass paintings in oil and sculptures composed variously of terra cotta, concrete, pieces of cloth, palm fronds, and sheets of lead. Kiefer says of "Falling Stars: "What interests me is the transformation, not the monument. I don't construct ruins, but I feel ruins are moments when things show themselves. A ruin is not a catastrophe. It is the moment when things can start again." To see and read more about Kiefer's work, visit http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kiefer/ or http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=234--Maureen Bloomfield | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
5/31/2007 10:00:50 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Writers with Pizzazz
Edward Goldman is an wryly irreverent, highly informed, wide-ranging critic and arts consultant; he has a lively weekly radio show called Art Talk that airs on KCRW, an FM station in Los Angeles. His commentary is always engaging. His latest essay, on Don Flavin and Richard Tuttle, is called "The Amazing Art of Nothing." To read it or to hear the podcast, go to http://www.arttalk.kcrw.org. Another critic I enjoy reading is Peter Schjeldahl, who reviews the Edward Hopper retrospective on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston ( www.mfa.org/hopper) in the current New Yorker ( http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/05/21/07052/craw-artworld-schjeldahl. )(In our July-August issue, Sheila Hollihan-Elliot takes a look at the many drawings that led to Hopper's signature Office at Night.)Other writers I look forward to reading: the radiant Stephen Holden, of The New York Times, who covers all the arts and is always rewarding; the iconoclastic Herbert Muschamp, also of The Times, who writes about architecture and culture and is sometimes disgruntled but always dazzling: brilliant, erudite, and funny; what more can you ask for? Who are some of your favorite writers on the arts?--Maureen Bloomfield
By Maureen Bloomfield | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
5/23/2007 8:56:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
Art Guitar on Sale
Hoping to beat out the the most expensive guitar ever sold (Eric Clapton's Stratocaster, which went for $959,500), modern artist Mark Ryden's handpainted Dean ML electric guitar is being auctioned off on eBay. Ryden's work is a combination of cute/disturbing with paintings of big-eyed children in dream-like scenarios. The money rasied from the auction will go to Little Kids Rock, a non-profit organization that provides low-income children with free instruments and music lessons. The auction and a benefit concert are part of the exhibit called Six String Masterpieces. Today is the final day of the auction, but you can see the handpainted guitar unstrung and strung, below.
You can also see more of Ryden's fantastical art at www.markryden.com. --Lisa
 
By Lisa Wurster | Notable Artists | Shows and Events
5/17/2007 9:41:18 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, May 14, 2007
Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions
It's sometimes difficult to appreciate a work of art until you see the actual work that goes into it. The exhibit Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions—on view at the San Jose Museum of Art through July 8—illustrates the creative possibilities of drawing with "common" tools like a blue Papermate pen. The museum has posted a video preview of the artist's ballpoint pen handiwork on YouTube. The fascinating video is accompanied by Martin Brenick's lovely and frenetic musical composition. --Lisa | Notable Artists | Shows and Events | Videos
5/14/2007 10:25:21 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Dreaming of Prague
I fell in love with Prague the first time I saw a photograph of the looming statues in the mists enveloping Charles Bridge. My brother Kevin, whose business requires that he travel all around the world, has often told me how beautiful Prague is. Thus, when Nan Sinton, who is the mastermind behind the ever-popular Horticulture Magazine tours, suggested Prague as the destination for The Artist’s Magazine’s first-ever art tour, I was thrilled. Prague has everything: Gothic cathedrals, Baroque palaces, stately gardens perfect to sketch and paint in, an Old Town and a New Town, and— not incidentally—fabulous public and private collections of art ranging from Etruscan to Renaissance, Mannerism to Modernism, Art Nouveau, and Expressionism.
Prague was home to Kafka, Schiele, and Smetana; Mozart conducted the first performance of Don Giovanni there (and we’ve got tickets for a performance in the same opera house, where Milos Forman actually filmed Amadeus). I can’t wait to go! Up until now my favorite cities have been Paris, New York, Florence, Venice, London, and Nice; I have a feeling I’ll have to revise the list come October.
Please consider joining Nan Sinton and me on our 9-day tour (October 3-11 2007) of Prague; we’d love to have your company! To learn more about the tour, call toll-free 800/422-2550 or e-mail arttours@fwpubs.com. And please tell me your favorite places in Prague or any other traveler’s tips by writing a comment below.
—Maureen By Maureen Bloomfield | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
5/14/2007 9:23:14 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Poetry and the Visual Arts
 Last night I went to a wonderful poetry reading at the Elliston Poetry Room at the University of Cincinnati. David St. John, a Pulitzer-prize winning poet and this year’s Elliston Poet in Residence, read to a packed house. David’s poems are lyrical but cerebral with elegant and devious shifts in tone. Next week he’ll give a lecture on Larry Levis, a poet of great gifts who died of a heart attack when he was forty-nine. One of David's books, Prism: White Light (Sausalito, CA: Arctos Press), was a collaboration with photographer Lance Patigian. Responding to Lance's photos, David wrote poems about individual colors; the poem he read last night was an intricate meditation on saffron .I love going to the Elliston Room, not only because of its fabulous collection of modern and contemporary poetry, but also because of its gorgeous collection of paintings by Cincinnati artists. Too few institutions support regional artists! James Cummins, curator of the Elliston Collection, is to be commended for filling the room’s walls with the best works of some of the best artists living in Cincinnati. (It's just a shame that there are more deserving artists than space.) The Artist’s Magazine featured one of those artists, Cole Carothers, in the November 2007 issue. Cole is having an opening this Friday that I can’t wait to go to. Cole and David Miretsky, equally interesting as an artist, are showing new work at the Phyllis Weston-Annie Bolling Gallery. (Above left is Cole's Cat's Away (pencil, acrylic, wax, and oil, 67x84) that's part of the Elliston Collection.)
George Elliston was a Cincinnati journalist at a time when few women braved the misogyny of the newsroom. She lived like a miser and wrote poems by candelight. By the time of her death, she had amassed quite a lot of money; she gave it all to the university specifically for the advancement and study of poetry. Maureen | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
5/9/2007 11:06:54 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, May 04, 2007
Edward Hopper and Mark Rothko
At the Art Institute, when I came upon the place where Edward Hopper's Nighthawks usually resides, I saw instead a small photo and a sign announcing Nighthawks was travelling to Boston, where it would be part of a comprehensive show of Hopper's work at the Museum of Fine Arts from 6 May to 19 August. Holland Cotter today in the New York Times takes issue with the show's being billed as a retrospective, since it lacks many drawings, some signature works, and any examples of Hopper's work as an illustrator. Indeed, it's odd that the show has neither title nor theme and is simply called Edward Hopper. We at The Artist's Magazine have been thinking a lot about Hopper, since his Second Story Sunlight will be on the cover of our July-August issue. Managing Editor Chris McHugh deftly negotiated with the Whitney Museum of American Art to secure permission; curators were justifiably worried that we'd jeopardize the picture's integrity with cover lines, but when Senior Art Director Daniel Pessell submitted his elegant, austere design to the Whitney for approval, the curators said Yes.
In a fascinating article upcoming in the July-August issue (on sale on newsstands June 12th) Sheila Hollihan Elliot breaks down Hopper's creative process by focussing on three signature works. Hopper transmuted what he saw, playing with elements of composition until he'd discovered the precise ratio of radiance and shadow. Today, in the Times, too, I saw Sotheby's announcement that one of Mark Rothko's most gorgeous works (fields of rose, yellow, red with bands of black and also of white) was for sale. Rothko's soul was tortured; whenever I see a photo of him, I wince, but even in front of his most painful, darkest works, I feel a quiet elation.
Maureen | Random Thoughts | Shows and Events
5/4/2007 1:59:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, April 27, 2007
Visit to the Art Institute of Chicago
Of course, I wanted to catch the Cézanne to Picasso show at the Art
Institute, so I made a dash on Friday. It was a treat to climb the main
staircase to find excited middle-school children on a treasure hunt
through the Modern galleries. “I found it,” one exclaimed. “A woman
with two faces and a green dress on; it must be Picasso!” The special
exhibit, Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the
Avant-Garde, celebrates the influence of the Parisian dealer and
collector who gave Picasso his first show and was a friend to Auguste
Renoir, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Henri Matisse, Mary Cassatt,
Andre Derain, Maurice Denis and a host of other avant-garde artists.
The story of the way Vollard acquired his collection shows how
important it is to have a pocketbook at the right place and time.
Vollard bought paintings Theo van Gogh had on hand when his brother
Vincent died; he also seized the opportunity when Paul Gauguin,
embarking on his second trip to Tahiti, left the Breton scenes in the
studios of friends. The later, haunting masterpiece Where Do We Come
From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, on loan from the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston, commanded a wall. Many of the rooms were dark,
because Vollard prized works on paper; one small room displayed three
breathtaking, late pastels by Edgar Degas; also memorable were works in
charcoal by Odilon Redon. It was lovely, too, to see portfolios of
stunning prints by two of my favorite artists, Vuilllard and Bonnard.
And since Vollard commissioned his friends to try their hands at
ceramics and illustrated books, there were gorgeous examples of vases
and livres d’artiste, as well. The exhibition has many
pictures (photographs and paintings) of Vollard himself, as well as a
short film that shows a genial Vollard asking an eagle-eyed Renoir,
whose hands by then were crippled from rheumatoid arthritis, to sign a
painting. To read more about this wonderful show, which originated at
the Met and next travels to Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The next day Lisa and I
walked to the Art Institute School’s sale of students’ works.
Interesting prints and lovely handmade books were on sale for 30 to 40
dollars; there were fabrics and textiles, as well as plaster buddhas
and unusual jewelry (I bought a necklace for my older daughter and a
woodblock print for my younger one). Across the street, the snaking
line waiting for entrance to the Art Institute seemed not to move at
all. Maureen 
By Maureen Bloomfield | Shows and Events
4/27/2007 1:27:00 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Report from NAMTA at Navy Pier
What fun to walk around a vast convention hall filled to the brim with striking displays of art supplies! How frustrating that nothing is for sale! The Artist’s Magazine and North Light Books had booths across the aisle from one another. Our booths were fairly simple, but it can take days for a crew to lay carpet and set up the elaborate manufacturers’ displays. Jack Richeson’s area showed classic easels and other signature art supplies, along with a newly acquired line of student and professional grade acrylics. The display for Golden Artists Colours encompassed a whole wall of the immense hall; to encounter the myriad variations on molding pastes, gel mediums, flow enhancers, etc., lined up in uniform rows, was an impressive (and somewhat intimidating!) experience. Also notable were the displays of Col Art, particularly tubes of Winsor & Newton’s newly released historical pigment, smalt, in honor of Winsor & Newton’s 175th anniversary. Cobalt blue balloons and absinthe green modernist chairs, as well as a daily high tea, enhanced the air of festivity. Indeed, quite a few companies had celebrations: Golden commemorated the 10th anniversary of its Working Artists Program with martinis; Masterpiece Canvas honored the artists whose paintings had won awards in its first-ever contest with a champagne reception on Thursday. Many manufacturers had something newly packaged or newly formulated to show off. Singular among them was Bernadette Ward, who has created an entirely new product called PanPastel. Packaged like a compact of face powder, PanPastel is pressed pigment, which gives, according to Ward, “artists uncomfortable with using their hands an opportunity to use a tool as an applicator for pastel.” Applicators, sponges, knives, and shapers in clear plastic bags accompany the product. Ward will sell the pan pastels in sets as well as individually. The 60 colors are beautiful, lightfast, and packaged in a way that makes them irresistible. --Maureen | Shows and Events
4/27/2007 1:23:43 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Show Time
 Editor-in-chief Maureen Bloomfield and I drove to Chicago to attend the NAMTA trade show. We made good time, only having trouble in finding our exit, which became a matter of confusion and then faith. Luckily, the hotel was close enough to the convention that we decided we could walk to it the next day.
 The Hyatt we stayed at is the largest in North America and check-in was a little like arriving at an airport. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my ninth floor view allowed me to look down on the Chicago River and out across to the NBC building, Chicago University and the gothic Tribune building. The hotel room also featured an enormous flat screen TV with cable (!), a luxury which I don’t have at home.
 After a night of relaxing (and watching The X-Files movie), I made off for the trade show in the early overcast morning. Walking along Navy Pier, I watched as the sea gulls flew past making their welcoming calls. The ferris wheel hadn’t yet started and kids had not yet descended upon the pier, so it was just me, the gulls and some boatmen readying their vessels. I made my way to the exhibition room, got my nametag and found our booth, which was manned by the ever-sunny Cherie Haas.
 After finding Maureen and some of my other coworkers, we began stalking the exhibition floor to find what was new and cool in the world of art manufacturing.
I also paid a visit to Patti Brady who I’d just interviewed for an upcoming feature and wanted to show her the design. It was easy to pick out Patti with her flame-red hair and dark-framed glasses. Later on, that booth would offer a “happy hour” in which I would get a complimentary Cosmopolitan, which warmed me up quite a bit to meeting new people.
As time allowed, I took breaks and rested my well-worn feet outside, savoring glances at Lake Michigan as its gently rippling waves glittered in the April sun.
Lisa | Shows and Events
4/24/2007 1:28:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
News from the National Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA)
 At this immense art materials fair, manufacturers large and small are presenting new products, reformulated and/or improved product lines, new instructional videos and lots more. Artists Betsy Dillard Stroud and Patti Brady are just two of the many artists who will be demonstrating how to work with gel mediums, molding paste, and new or unfamiliar products. The Artist’s Magazine will be filming videos and interviewing art manufacturers and artists on the floor of the NAMTA show at Navy Pier.
Check back with us to learn about the goings-on at Navy Pier—and the latest in the world of art!
 At the NAMTA Convention in Chicago, from left to right: Mike Amman, Steve Koenig (back row) and Jamie Markle from North Light Books; Maureen Bloomfield, Cherie Haas (back row) and Kelly Kleiner from The Artist’s Magazine. Also in attendance (but not pictured) is associate editor Lisa Wurster.
By Maureen Bloomfield | Shows and Events
4/18/2007 1:33:30 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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