The Art of Returning to Work

Alex Schaefer, Chase Wilshire, acrylic on canvas, plein air, 28" x 22", 2011

seen at Charlie James Gallery at the 2012 Dallas Art Fair

My last post was on March 11, 2012, the day before I started my new job.  I've now had a couple of months to traverse the "new job" learning curve and to acclimate to the 3rd shift hours - 11:30p to 8:00a, Sunday through Thursday.  I am still finding my way through to manage to make it to art openings on Saturday nights or at least visit art galleries after they open at 11:00a on Tuesdays through Saturdays.  But yes, I have seen quite a few art shows, as well as taken many pictures, since I started the job - I just haven't been in a frame of mind to blog about it.  Hopefully, I will break the writer's block soon and find my voice again.  This is a start. 

 

While I was off work for a year and a half I spent a great deal of time on the pc and, of course, on the internet.  It was the way I was accustomed to working when I had a job.  It was also necessary to search for jobs, submit resumes, and network with former coworkers, friends, and potential new employers.  I also read a great deal of news, and the Occupy Wall Street movement caught my attention when they burst onto the scene. The stories about plein air painter, Alex Schaefer, especially interested me. He stands across the street from Chase retail branches in cities across the U.S. and paints them, but then he adds his own imagined image of fire as if the buildings are engulfed in flames. His paintings are in protest of the damage the "too big to fail" banks have ravaged on the U.S. economy since the recession began in 2008. He focuses on Chase Bank, and he has been arrested on several occasions as he stands and paints on the sidewalk.  Interestingly, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank has been back in the news since before last weekend due to a recent $2 billion derivatives trading loss. I applaud the OWS movement for exercising their constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble.  It has been a disappointment, though, to see that the movement is actually not well organized and most participants have no idea what they are actually protesting.

 

I don't miss the stress of the job I had at J.P. Morgan.  I can imagine that the team I once managed has been quite busy these past few months researching and readjusting the invoices directly and remotely associated with those ill faded derivatives trades.  My new job is with another major U.S. banking firm that is in competition with the retail business of Chase Bank. However, I now am able to exercise a bit more creativity in my daily job tasks as an individual contributor on the graveyard shift.  This is also a strict eight hour a day job. So I should have more time to pursue my interests in art and this blog. Though, unfortunately,  I won't have the income to pursue continued purchasing of art, at least in the short term future.  I am realigning my career and investment goals so that I am aiming to return to a higher paying job in the mid-range term.  After attending to several financial obligations, I did use a small percentage of recently liquidated investments to do my part to stimulate the local art economy:

Ryder Richards, Spread Pattern, 2010, gold leaf, graphite, gunpowder on paper, 10" x 7"

 Terry Hays, Yellow Box with Miro Head - Woman in Front of the Sun, 7.75" x 4.5" x 3.75", mixed media, 2012

I grew attached to both of each of these works by artists Ryder Richards and Terry Hays while I interned at Ro2 Art.  These will remind me of the moments of time that I did actually enjoy during my time of unemployment.  I am hoping to intern at Ro2 Art again in the near future.  They consistently have had exciting art events and they receive much well deserved local media press. Both of these artists are just as energetic as the gallery itself, and I am excited to have these small representations of each of their overall oeuvres.

 Helen Altman, Shell Wren, wire and beehive shells, 4" x 6" x 5.5", 2012

 Forrest Middelton, Lidded Vessel, high fire reduction, wheel thrown and altered,11" x 6.5" x 6.5"

The Dallas Art Fair and the Dallas Pottery Invitational both occurred the same weekend, April 13 -15.  Rusty and I have wanted one of Helen Altman's bird sculptures for many years.  I saw this one at the Tally Dunn Gallery at the fair and knew that this time I had to have it. They told me that Altman only makes these little bird sculptures when she obtains an object that she finds special and worthy to be saved in this manner. I had the opportunity to listen while Forrest Middelton explained his Volumetric Image Transfer process to a group of admiring women at the invitational. This is the first piece of Middelton's that I have acquired.  I fell in love with his work while helping Ro2 Art curate the Defined Form/Refind Function exhibition. I also added additional ceramic works by Amy Halko and Brenda Lichman to my growing collection of each of their works, and it was great to visit with each of them at the invitational. 

I may post my recollections of the Dallas Art Fair and the Dallas Pottery Invitational.  I am about to go out for the day and explore this years' Oak Cliff Visual Speed Bump Art Studio Tour. Also coming up very soon, Rusty has a solo show at McMurtrey Gallery in Houston on June 2, and a two person show at Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe on June 15.  So I will have these and many other artists and art events that I hope to blog about soon.

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.

Turner Carroll Gallery at the Hotel ZaZa Art House and Social Gallery

Turner Carroll Gallery at the Hotel ZaZa Art House and Social Gallery

At the beginning of 2011, Turner Carroll Gallery of Santa Fe NM announced that they would be opening a project space in Dallas in cooperation with Hotel ZaZa.  Stay ZaZa is the hotel's
 arts and events space where Turner Carroll is curating exhibits of nationally and internationally known artists.  We have visited the gallery in Santa Fe a number of times over the years, but we actually first met Michael Carroll and his wife Tanya Turner Carroll at the Miami art fairs.  It has been a pleasure to visit with them as they bring their outstanding programming to Dallas.

It is almost as if Turner Carroll Gallery at Hotel ZaZa has been staging their own version of Pacific Standard Time since they opened at the beginning of this year.  However, many of the the artists presented are currently living and working in the Bay Area rather than SoCal.  First up was Ashley Collins, an artist from Venice, CA.  Next, Turner Carroll brought us selected works by Hung Liu.  Hung Liu lives and works in the Bay Area, but her first job in the US after emigrating from China was at the University of Texas.  The Dallas Museum of Art was the first American museum to add her work to their permanent collection.  Their third exhibition featured Eric Zener, Conrad Kern and Gino Miles.  Eric Zenner also lives in the Bay Area.  His studio happens to be near Hung Liu's studio and they utilize the same shop to have resin applied to their canvases.

This brings us to the current exhibit West Coast Women.  Three women artists from San Francisco - Inez Storer, Jenny Honnert Abell, and Deborah Oropallo.

Inez Storer, The Ordinary Life of Natalia Ortiz, oil and collage on panel

The letters collaged in at the bottom of this painting were being discarded after Storer's neighbor, Natalia Ortiz, passed away and her apartment was being cleaned out.

Inez Storer, Land of the Free, oil and collage on panel

Storer is married to Andrew Romanoff, who is also represented by Turner Carroll Gallery.  Interestingly, Romanoff is the grandnephew of Russia's last reigning Emperor, Tsar Nicholas II.

Jenny Honnert Abell, Just Another Day, mixed media, sewing, collage and painting on panel

From Abell's statement we learn that her "...collage work began in 1995 when I could no longer fight off the oppressive urge I felt to make pictures out of the harvest of my years of scavenging."  Her surfaces are rich with textures of paper, cloth, fine mesh, stitched threads and paint.

Jenny Honnert Abell, Book Cover No. 59, mixed media

At 9 3/4" x 12", this small framed work is presented on a wall of other small Book Cover works.  Abell's birds with human heads began after a difficult time in her life.  She states that these provide an escape into a fictional world where she can observe life from a safe vantage point.

Deborah Oropallo, Gladiatrix, cotton Jacquard tapestry

Oropallo's gender-bending imagery combines classic male portraits with contemporary women's fashion shoots to address the two universal themes of sex and power.  She matches the eyes and layers the two images together, usually choosing figures that stand in similar poses.  Costumes, especially sexy fetish costumes, figure prominently in her work.

Deborah Oropallo, Colt, pigment print on aluminum

This exhibition will be up through October 17.  Currently, Turner Carroll Gallery at Hotel ZaZa is opened only on Friday and Saturday.  However, the Dallas gallery director, Lizzie Herbert, told me that they plan to start having hours of operation from Tuesday through Saturday soon.