Lost in the Desert

Today marks the first anniversary of the theft of Rusty Scruby's art work.  Quin Mathews and his crew at QMFILMS has told the story beautifully and I've attached the video above.  Rusty also has the story in his own words on his website. Both of these tellings of the events of January 10, 2011, the day and the week starting with that day, were recorded as soon as we returned home from LA on January 25, 2011.

Rusty's next exhibition was scheduled for March 12, 2011 in Miami at PanAmerican ArtProjects. Rusty had originally planned a new body of work for PanAm, but after the theft he decided to recreate some of the artworks that had been stolen and had never been seen by anyone but me and a few people in the Angel View Thrift Mart. Janda Wetherington, director of PanAmerican ArtProjects, gave Rusty a third 'project' gallery space to tell a visual story of the theft.  This was a cathartic project for Rusty:

Quin Mathews' film was projected on one wall of the PanAm Project gallery

Rusty installed images and recovered but ruined art works on the oppisite walls.

The installation took several days to print all of the images that Rusty then took several days to pin up on the two walls.  He had recovered Thanksgiving but it had a hole punched in it by an unknown source rendering it unsellable. Rusty used this piece and recreated one of the possible scenarios he imagined as the cause of the hole by pushing a broken stretcher frame through the hole to present in the installation. On the adjacent wall, Rusty pinned up dual images, one on top of the other.  The base image is an interior shot of the thrift store.  The outer image is a picture of the Angel View Thrift Mart as seen from across the street.  Rusty employed an oscillating fan on a stand to create wind that caused the outer images to lift and reveal the base image underneath.  This action represented a variety of stream of conscious thoughts. The desert winds eroding objects in the harsh elements. The temporal nature of art once it is released from the studio. The hidden truths of the seemingly shady business conducted at the Angel View Thrift Mart as well as by the many local police and sherrif departments that Rusty had to deal with in Palm Desert, Indio, and Palm Springs.  It also represented Rusty's fears and feeling of loss of control over the situation and his stolen art.

Since the theft, people have repeatedly asked Rusty questions such as "how will this change or inform your work?".  It will take longer than this one year to fully realize an accurate answer to these questions.  Grief over the loss of a loved one or one's work and livelihood can take years to heal, and grief continues to manifest in both positive as well as negative ways. I will say, however, that the work that Rusty created for his December show at Cris Worley Fine Art was a fresh realization of his knitted/woven photographs.  He used circles instead of the hexagons, squares, and rhomboids employed in the works stolen and the works recreated and shown at PanAmerican ArtProjects.  Also, the work at CWFA was not mounted on stretcher frames, instead it hung loosely in the way that tapestries are hung. In addition, Rusty acquired some wool yarn just before Christmas and pulled out all of his knitting needles and began re-exploring various knitting techniques.  He is allowing this process to inform his thoughts and ideas toward realizing fresh concepts and techniques for future works of fine art.

For myself, the theft came on the heals of my losing my job and career of the previous thirty-three years.  This blog has been one of my responses to those losses.  This blog has also been a means for me to stay busy, maintain my pc skills, and expound beyond my technical wirting skills.  Plus it allows me to talk about one of my favorite subjects - contemporary visual art and the people that create it.

Today marks the end of our official mourning period.  Together we are moving forward.  And to end, I use one of my favorite Friedrich Nietzche quotes:
"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

PanAmerican ArtProjects at Art Miami 2011

Rusty Scruby's Tree Climbing and Oregon Coast pictured on the inside "L" wall, and William Cannings inflated metal sculptures on the back wall

It's my favorite time of the year!  Art Basel Miami Beach and all the satellite fairs, of course!  I believe there are 18 fairs this year between Miami Beach and Midtown Miami.  Sadly, I am not able to attend this year.  But I am enjoying seeing other people's pics of the fairs.  Paul Klein posted his pics from the big fair, ABMB, this morning on facebook - all blue chip works by world famous artists.

The pics in the this post were taken by PanAmerican ArtProjects of their booth in this years Art Miami fair. The pic above was sent to Rusty's cell phone on Tuesday of this week.  The next two pics were reposted from their facebook page.

Carolina Sardi on the outside wall of PanAmerican ArtProjects' booth

from left to right:

Carolina Sardi Nest Bench, Howard Sherman Guidelines for an Ah-Ah Moment , William Cannings Beachball, Ernesto Fernandez Zalacain Dead End

Texas Contemporary Art Fair - October 20-23, 2011

We drove down to Houston on Thursday, October 20 to attend the Texas Contemporary VIP Preview Party.  The fair was held at the George R. Brown Convention Center. This was my first visit to the center even though I had worked in downtown Houston several times over the years when I was with Texas Commerce Bank.

I suppose I could be like NPR's Michele Norris and recuse myself from covering this event since my partner, Rusty Scruby, had work in the fair. But hey, I'm not a journalist and this is my blog - so I can do whatever I want!  We did not attend the Houston Fine Art Fair held last month also in the GRB Convention Center even though Rusty did have work in that fair also with PanAmerican ArtProjects. Overall, the Texas Contemporary art fair seemed very local/regional to me.  There were no single Dallas commercial galleries represented, but there was one Austin gallery, two San Antonio galleries, eight Houston galleries, and a slew of regional non-profit spaces such as Ballroom Marfa, Artpace and Blue Star Contemporary Art Center both of San Antonio, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Glasstire, Rice University Art Gallery, CADD (the sole Dallas presence), PhotoFest, Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, Skydive, Project Row Houses, the Houston Center for Photography, Art League Houston, Blaffer Gallery and more.  It was fun to meet some of the local Houston visual arts professionals. However, based on the news that has posted since the close of the fair, it does not appear that sales were as great at the Texas Contemporary as they were at the Houston Fine Art Fair or sales were not the main focus of the Texas Contemporary.  I believe sales were in the hopes of the commercial galleries that participated, though.

most of the team from Turner Carroll Gallery with Rusty on the right standing in front of Hung Liu painting

Rusty's reconstructed photograph on the left, a large Rex Ray painting in the middle right, and an Eric Zener mixed media painting on the far right.

Deborah Oropallo, Head Nurse, pigment on canvas, 1/3 

Turner Carroll Gallery had one of the larger booths with outside walls on each end to hang additional works. 

Rice University Art Gallery invited Brooklyn based artist Steve Keene to make and sell hundreds of paintings throughout the duration of the fair. I did not find any information about this in the Rice U booth on Thursday or Friday, so I emailed them today and asked for a statement. Anna Foret of RUAG replied to my request within 20 minutes, thank you very much!  Keene had a month long painting marathon at Rice University in 1998. He has perfected his assembly-line performance based painting style since 1990. The pdf that Foret sent me states, "Keene's populist spirit allows any visitor to the fair to walk away with a painting for a mere $5.  As he says, 'I want buying my paintings to be like buying a CD: it's cheap, it's art and it changes your life, but the object has no status.  Musicians create something for the moment, something with no boundaries and the kind of expansiveness is what I want to come across in my work.' To date, Keene estimates he's sold over 250,000 paintings."

Interestingly, my good friend James Watral has a Keene painting that he bought on the internet a few years ago, so Rusty and I thought we recognized Keene's work when we saw it at the fair.

All of the paintings sold out on Thursday night.  Keene was back at the fair on Friday morning painting more panels.  We were told, however, that the panels would have to dry and would not be available to sell until Saturday.

Steve Keene, Planet of Apes II, paint on panel, 2011

We left Houston on Friday night, so we only purchased this one painting.

These Peter Soriano sculpture/drawings (aluminum, stainless steel cable, and spraypaint) at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. gallery from New York, NY made for one of the more interesting booths, in my opinion.

Jason Willaford, Out of Site - Out of Sight, chromed oil drums, courtesy of Boltax Gallery

A video was also shown in the Video Theater of Jason Willaford's based on his Out of Site - Out of Sight installation.  Boltax Gallery is from Shelter Island, New York, NY.  Jason lives in Dallas with his wife Ree and their daughter.  Ree owns Galleri Urbane which is under the same roof in Dallas as Cris Worley Fine Arts. I spoke to Ree at the fair, but I never did see Jason.

Cris Worley of Cris Worley Fine Arts and Danette DuFilho of Conduit Gallery represented the Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas at the fair on Thursday and Friday.  Other CADD members sat the booth on Saturday and Sunday.

Tracey Snelling, El Diablo Inn, mixed media, 44.5" x 107.5" x 51", 2010, courtesy Rena Bransten Gallery

me in the Rena Bransten Gallery booth with more Tracey Snelling sculptures and prints.

Rena Bransten Gallery of San Francisco, CA brought these wonderful Snelling sculptures. Snelling also shows with PanAmerican ArtProjects in Miami.  I met Tracey at Art Miami in 2007 as she set up her sculptures for PanAm's booth at that fair.

Vic Muniz, Pictures of Paper, White Brazilian Orchid, After Martin Johnson Heade,

digital C-print, edition of 10, 71" x 43.5", 2010

detail of White Brazilian Orchid, After Martin Johnson Heade

Rena Bransten Gallery also exhibited works by Vic Muniz that were amazing for their crisp sharp detail captured in the C-print.  These actually looked like collage.

Elaine Bradford, Tragus Januali (Pushmi Pullyu), taxidermy Aoudad sheep, crocheted yarn, mixed media, 62" x 48" x 60", 2009

I enjoyed this Bradford sculpture at Art Palace.

three Tom Orr prints (middle of wall)

Waterfall I, Waterfall II, and Waterfall III,

Etching, 2008, each are in editions of 20

at Manneken Press

Lalla Essaydi, Les Femmes du Maroc: Reclining Odalisque, 2008

three chromogenic prints mounted to aluminum and protected with Mactac luster laminate, 1/15

Yigal Ozeri, Untitled; Priscilla in the Park, oil on paper, 2010

These two were shown by Jenkins Johnson Gallery of San Francisco and New York.  I had seen a number of Lalla's works at the art fairs a few years back and then I saw a solo exhibition of her works at Anya Tish Gallery in Houston a couple of years ago.  The Ozeri painting was one of my favorites at the fair, though my pic is not the best representation.

Cal Lane, Untitled (Gas Can), plasma-cut steel, 18" x 14" each, 2008

Samuel Freeman gallery of Los Angeles, CA exhibited these works by Cal Lane.  I recognized Lane's work immediately having seen it earlier this year in Miami at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery. Lane does such intricate work with delicate rusted repurposed metal containers.

Tim Berg and Rebekah Myers, Here today, gone tomorrow, Blue Raspberry, fiberglass, wood, paint, 2011, edition of 20

Tim Berg and Rebekah Myers, All that Glitters, fiberglass, paint, ceramic, and faux gold leaf, 2011, edition of 6

Dean Project brought these cool and yummy sculptures to Houston for the fair.  They had exhibited these at the Dallas Art Fair earlier this year.  These sculptures are also in an exhibition at the Robert V Fullerton Art Museum at Cal State Univeristy San Bernardino.  The title of that exhibition is "Uberyummy" and my good friend John Oliver Lewis also has sculptures in the show.

 Lauren DiCiccio, One Dollar Bill, stitched thread

Lauren DiCiccio, National Geographic, stitched thread

I really responded to these DiCiccio works at Jack Fischer Gallery. DiCiccio spends hours creating these objects by hand to give us pause to consider how much longer will we have printed media, currency and other things such as handwriting that are being replaced with digital information.

Susie Rosmarin, Gray #2, acrylic on canvas, 2011

 Shawne Major, Punctum, plastic toys, mixed media, on fabric, 48" x 36", 2009

detail of Punctum

Rachel Hecker, Sorry We Closed, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 80", 2011

I think I liked everything Texas Gallery brought to the fair.  But I chose these three works to show.  Rosmarin amazes me with her OCD geometric paintings.  The yellow colors of Major's Punctum joyously screamed at me 'take me home'.  Luckily it had a red dot, so someone else must have heard it before me. Hecker's painting is a bold and obvious statement of current economic conditions.

Glasstire had a miniature horse as an added attraction at the VIP opening on Thursday night.  This was just Houston's second art fair, so they took the 'fair' concept a bit more literal than other art fairs might.  But they also served tequila drinks, gratis, at the VIP event, so it was a really fun booth!

On Friday morning the crowd was sparse.  I could see the bar installation that Bill Davenport created for the event.  Bill continued to paint 'liquor bottles' that were being sold for $35.

It was fun to meet friends I've only known on facebook as well as to see friends we've known for ages.  And it was great to see so much work by artists that we know.  As I like to say, it was the reality version of facebook!  I do hope, however, that sales were strong enough to bring the fair back next year. Oh yeah, and it would be nice if it could happen concurrently with the Houston Fine Art Fair or any other fair that might arrive on Houston's doorstep next year.

Federico Uribe Studio Visit

Uribe looking over his newest sculpture Jardin de Rosas

Seeing Uribe’s work in pics and videos from the Houston Fine Art Fair, I thought back to this past January when we visited his studio.

this pic has been reposted from a Glasstire facebook post

tsrapp1700 posted this on YouTube.  Uribe's work is pictured here, and more of his works are at 3:25 minutes through 3:51 minutes.

We were fortunate to have the opportunity for an impromptu studio visit with Federico Uribe.  His studio is in Miami next door to Carolina Sardi’s studio.  Janda Wetherington said that we must see his studio.  Sardi phoned Uribe and asked if she could bring us over.  Once inside, I realized that we had been seeing Uribe’s work at art fairs for a number of years.  Here are some pics of his work we captured in 2006 at Scope Art Fair Miami.

 left top: I'm Helping You (yellow), 2006, colored pencils, 48" x 14"

left bottom: I'm Helping You (green), 2006, colored pencils, 48" x 14"

 detail of I'm HelpingYou (yellow)

 Alone, 2006, colored pencils, 72" x 48"

Janda had been telling us about a solo installation that Uribe had created for one of the 2010 art fairs.  She said that it was a recreation of the rain forests of Uribe’s native Columbia that he had sculpted using books.

Cedar of Lebanon, 2010, books, 114" x 66" x 73"

 

Uribe utilizes found materials to create his sculptures. Some of the sculptures such as those seen at the Houston Fine Art Fair are abstract objects, while many of the sculptures we saw in his studio were more representational.  Uribe uses objects such as screws, garden tools, Puma shoes, shoe laces, pencils, and books to create these unique works of art.

 Gladiator, 2008, shoe laces and pins, 84" x 60"

Everybody Gets Screwed, 2001/2002, screws, metal mesh, nails, each 29" x 18" x 12"

 more than five sculptures in this section of his studio, plus his car, Carolina Sardi pictured with me in the yellow shirt far right

 Gladiator, 2010, books, 34" x 34" x 70"

 information not available

information not available

After the studio visit, I walked up the block from PanAmerican ArtProjects to visit NOW Contemporary Art gallery who represents Uribe’s work in Miami.  NOW Contemporary Art published a hardback catalog of Uribe’s work and I purchased it on the spot.  394 pages of glossy photos, essay, bio and descriptions of the work – it weighs 4.4 lbs, but we carried it home in our carry-on bag so that we could marvel at the sculptures as we flew home.