Reflections on February

William Betts, Pines, Sun Valley, 2011

at Holly Johnson Gallery

(reflection of David Schulze and me far right two figures)

Wow, I didn't have one post throughout the month of February, but my blog still had an average of 37 pageviews per day.  There were 74 pageviews yesterday, February 29, alone.  So thank you for your continued readership.

It's not that I didn't have anything to write about, quite the contrary.  I attended over 20 art events from the last few days of January through the end of February. However, I also had more job interviews and follow up electronic forms to fill out during the month of February than I had through the whole year of 2011.  Also, February 16 marked the 20th anniversary of my first partner's, Dennis, passing.  I had been planning a single blog post as a tribute to his memory, but that along with my preparations for job interviews and follow ups caused me a bit of writer's block.  So I present here some reflections of February so that I can free my mind and spirit to move onward and refocus on posting meaningful art related topics.

Amazing isn't enough to describe some of the art events I attended or participated in during the month, while it is also a gross overstatement for a few.  One of the more truly amazing exhibits that we did view one last time before it closed on February 12th was the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the DMA. This exhibit is now traveling to San Francisco where it will open at the de Young Fine Arts Museum on March 24.  I urge all of my west coast readers to see this fabulous exhibit.

the table set in Rusty's studio

Cris Worley cooking in our kitchen

On January 28, Rusty and I opened his studio/our home for an event hosted by CADD, the Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas. Billed as a "Mystery Dinner", CADD hosted the event to raise funds for their scholarship and educational programs.  There were six different venues around the city in artists' studios, collectors' homes and gallery owners' homes.  Participants purchased tickets and then found out the day before where they were to show up for cocktails and dinner.  After dinner, all of the guests and hosts were to drive to the McKinney Avenue Contemporary for dessert and dancing and to share stories from each of their respective dinner adventures. It was great fun and I look forward to the next Mystery Dinner so that I may attend as a guest. (Though I admit it was a fantastic incentive to clean the studio/home!) Here is a link to the article Lucia Simek wrote on Glasstire about the event and her experience in our studio.

left to right, Ben Terry, White Denim, graphite, acrylic and latex, on wood panel, 2011

Val Curry, bloom, mixed media, 2012

detail of bloom and Ro2 Art UPTOWN in the background

I enjoyed my intern job at Ro2 Art during February while I also continued to search for a full time job that will pay a salary and provide health benefits. I've gained retail experience, as well as making a few sales, which I hope will help me find a job in retail banking after over 30 years of treasury services and securities services banking operations.  But more than just the retail experience, I've written press releases, assisted in exhibition installations and deinstalls, and throughout February I've assisted the gallery owners as they curated and installed a ceramics exhibition out of a private collection.  I have pieces by five of the eleven functional ceramic artists whose works were curated into the exhibition, and one of those is pictured front and center in my table setting photo above. This has all been very valuable hands-on experience that provides me further knowledge of the inner workings of the business of art, and I am very grateful to Jordan Roth and Susan Roth Romans for affording me this opportunity.

Ro2 Art

Mother-and-son partners Susan Roth Romans and Jordan Roth operate Ro2 Art, a full-service gallery and consultancy with spaces in the Uptown and Downtown areas of Dallas, working with a diverse group of contemporary artists, most with ties to the North Texas Region.  At present, Ro2 focuses on the exhibition and sale of work in all visual media, through a fine art gallery space in the West Village of Uptown Dallas, in addition to a progressive, intimate gallery in the historic Kirby Building in Downtown Dallas, and now introducing a new space just steps away named Ro2 Art Downtown COLLECTION at 1408 Elm St. at Akard. Ro2 Art is a member of the Dallas Art Dealers Association, The Uptown Association, and was named “Best Art Gallery” by The Dallas Observer.

David Schulze, Valentine's Day Card, 2012, acrylic on paper

I hope to write about a few of the 20 something art openings and artist talks I attended in the next few days and weeks. For now, I will wrap up with my homage to Dennis and his way of introducing me to art.

Dennis Acrea, lidded vessel, clay coil pot with celadon glaze, 1977

(lidded vessels in background by Amy Halko, Sally Campbell, James Watral)

Dennis and I became best friends when my family moved to Sachse, TX when I was in the sixth grade.  We were best friends through high school, and then we moved in together on July 20, 1978, a month before my family relocated to the Houston area.  We lived together for fourteen years starting off as "roommates" and after buying three homes together we realized we were actually life partners.  We enjoyed going to the symphony, ballet, theater, and musical theater.  But Dennis loved the visual arts as well, though try as he might, he was never able to entice me to join him.  I just didn't "get it" when it came to visual art.

 Dennis Acrea, Seagull, oil on canvas, 1975 - 1977(?)

This is the only decent photo I have that includes the painting Dennis did while in high school.  It now lives at his nephew's house somewhere in east Texas.  If I ever acquire a better photo I will edit it into this post. We stripped decades of paint off of that spool bed and stained the wood, and we covered the wall behind the painting with fabric because we were quite handy and artsy-craftsy back in those days.  Dennis was a commercial printer by trade.  He ran a Ryobi 4 color offset printer working for a commercial envelope and stationary company.  In his spare time, he was able to use the equipment in the shop to create his own prints.  Sadly, I do not have any of his prints because I did not see the intrinsic value in them at the time.  

Dennis also had a love for photography and spent many hours taking photos around the city.  He took the photo above of himself at Old City Park, now known as Dallas Heritage Village, which is just a couple of blocks away from where I live now.  Rusty and I walked over there last week so that Rusty could take pictures for an auction project he is working on for the benefit of the park.

Dennis napping on the loveseat with our cat, Chita, in 1986

R.C. Gorman print with rendering date of 1977

Dennis worked the night shift four days a week for many years.  When he did switch to the day shift, he worked half-days on Fridays.  This gave him the freedom to go to art gallery openings on Friday afternoons and evenings. While he did have a good job that would have afforded him the ability to buy real art, Dennis was quite frugal and chose to purchase prints instead.  I remember that he bought the Gorman print at Adams-Middleton Gallery which is now long gone from Dallas, even the building it was in was torn down and is now a parking lot.  I also remember that the framing for each of the Gorman and the Nagel prints shown above was much more expensive than the prints combined.  My lessons learned these twenty-five years later are: A) buy real art, B) buy art and prints that you really love, not necessarily for investment reason, and C) stay away from trendy 'what's hot now' art.  Both of these framed prints now live behind a sofa in my brother Ray's apartment as he prefers blank white walls lit by the glow of his computer screen.

a lovely view of the Neiman Marcus store at NorthPark Center through the trees from Dennis' grave site  

Someday I think I'll have "& faithful partner" added to the headstone.  My anticipated grave is to my left (the viewers right) in the picture above.  I'm not sure yet if I will use it, or decide to sell it, and choose a cremation instead with a garden burial at my church.  I had told Dennis that I never planned to visit his grave, it just seemed too morbid when I was 31, but I have done so at least once a year since that time, and I pass by all the time on my way to NorthPark Center.  Dennis told me a few days before he lost consciousness that I would find someone great and be happy again. And I have. Thanks Rusty Scruby!  I know that Dennis is looking down and loving Rusty's art and my almost total immersion in an artful way of life.

Now I just need a good job to come along so that I can afford to buy art again!!

Pray

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."

Rusty Scruby: "Memory Bytes" at Cris Worley Fine Arts

Self Portrait, photo reconstruction, 2011

^{Photography has allowed the average person to capture moments of their lives to hold as souvenirs or markers of important events. Some photos are intended to simply document a moment in time or the image of a loved one or even ones self. The understood application of capturing these images is to enable one to reconnect with that memory at a later date in time. The photographs are stored in albums, scrapbooks or digital files for future reference. This common practice of image capture, filing, and later recovery sets up the dynamic for Rusty Scruby's latest exhibition "Memory Bytes" at Cris Worley Fine Arts.}

^{Scruby delves into his family photo album once again to create new works that challenge the viewer to consider the loss and recovery of visual information. Prevalent thought claims that traditional photographs accurately depict reality. However, photographers such as Susan Sontag argue that a photograph fails to capture enough information about its subject to fully represent reality. Scruby takes Sontag's thought a step further as he utilizes processes which subtract visual details from the original photos.}

 Dad - River, photo reconstruction, 2011

Learning to Fish, photo reconstruction, 2011

^{Scruby does not attempt to present straight forward photographs. Rather, his images take a backseat to the mathematical and musical concepts he is portraying with each work. He chooses images that have a universal commonality, such as family members out for a day at the river and photos from school yearbooks. In doing so, he opens discussion regarding at what point is an image recognizable, to a degree, without being a literal representation.}

Dock Instalation detail

^{In "Memory Bytes" Scruby plays with the full range of scale that he has created to dissect these ideas. In "Dock Installation" Scruby utilizes specific selected sections of an in-focus photograph of a boat dock on the island of Kwajalein. The viewer can see the recognizable elements of the original photo - the horizon line, boats, the silhouettes of two people, and clouds - while the majority of the clouds and sparkling waves have been lost only to be recovered by the viewers subconscious.}

Diver, photo reconstruction, 2011

^{Scruby works the other end of the spectrum in "Diver". The original photo has been reduced to pixels approximating the average color for each facet that he then painstakingly handcuts and subsequently reassembles using his own simulated knitting process. The colors of the mid twentieth century objects reverberate in the hexs and circles that dominate the surface of the piece.}

 Mom, photo reconstruction, 2011

Dad, photo reconstruction, 2011

^{The same process rings true in pieces such as "Dad" and "Mom" even though the colors used in these works is only a range of sepia tones.} 

 Red Blouse with White Flowers, photo reconstruction, 2011

Lisa, photo reconstruction, 2011

^{Again, the viewer confronting "Red Blouse with White Flowers" or "Lisa" is left to their own devices to recover enough visual information to discern the image, which in turn sets up multiple paths of information recovery in the viewer's mind. The viewer may begin to believe that the original image was pulled from their own family album.}

Touch, photo reconstruction, 2011

"Memory Bytes" is on view at Cris Worley Fine Arts throught December 21.



Harry Geffert: Tribute at Cris Worley Fine Arts Oct 15 - Nov 12

Along the Hill, cast bronze 2010

A solo exhibition of cast bronze works by Harry Geffert is up at Cris Worley Fine Arts through this coming Saturday. These are exquisitely produced casts of Texas plant life.  Some of the sculptures have been enhanced with powder coating to represent the colors nature originally provided.

Spring, cast bronze and powder coat, 2011

Spring detail

The gallery's statement for this show says that

"This exhibition entitled, Tribute, will feature recent wall-mounted bronze castings of Texas’s

plant life conceived by the artist’s own imagination as abstract landscapes - forests, meadows and meanders. Always inspired by the natural world, and surrounded by many acres of untouched land, Geffert has now removed all traces of man that once inhabited his work. In his own words, “Right now I’m very conscious of nature and the Earth and everything, but I’ve been that way even from the very early things— forest and land and man… Now the people have kind of disappeared from my work, but the images of the Earth and nature are still there, coming up stronger, and the people are going back; maybe the people are less important to me now than the Earth is.”"

Forest, cast bronze, 2011

I find it interesting that McMurtrey Gallery in Houston and Cris Worley Fine Arts in Dallas are both showing cast bronze works that feature native Texas plantlife.  The difference is that Beverly Penn's work at McMurtrey is created by a woman and the feel of the sculptures is fluid and lyrical while Harry Geffert's work at Cris Worely Fine Arts is created by a man and the feel of the sculptures is upright and linear.  Each interprets Texas landscapes according to their own sensibilities.

Morning Breeze, cast bronze and powder coating, 2011 

Morning Breeze detail

It is interesting that the statement says that Geffert has "removed all traces of man" from his work.  Geffert used to run a foundry and was a master caster for other artists such as Joseph Havel, Frances Bagley, Vernon Fisher and many others including my friend James Watral.  Geffert closed his foundry twelve years ago to focus on his work alone.  I believe what he means in his statement is that he no longer casts man made objects such as Havel's sculptures of sheets of cloth or Watral's thrown clay 'Elements'.  Rather, Geffert is casting former living objects that were created by nature and arranged in sculpture form to represent landscapes created by nature.

Scape, cast bronze and powder coat, 2011

Geffert's sculptures are masculine compared to Penn's feminine curvy forms.  But Geffert's still maintain a quiet peaceful look at nature that reminds me of sitting at my parent's house enjoying a hot cup of tea while gazing out the window at the surrounding forest.

Desert Flower, cast bronze and powder coat, 2011

Desert Flower detail





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.