Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Twist etc. Arcade #77 opening January 8th 2011
Artist Statement:
The Process of Product | 12 x 12
The content of this exhibition is more about recording the creative process than focusing on the typical "product" we are used to seeing in a gallery exhibition. Although, each artwork stands on it’s own as a finished work. Every artist involved was asked to generate ideas and/or make studies at the size of 12 x 12 inches based on their own creative desires. The result is an interesting look at what themes are born out of their subconscious. All of the individual ideas shown together create a kind of collective creativity, some having visual and/or intellectual connections with one another. Each 12 x 12 work is a moment along the way of developing one’s ideas. Working at this small scale encouraged experimentation and personal investigation.
Also deviating from the typical art exhibition is the way the viewer encounters and examines the artwork. Unlike the standard gallery format where works are spaced out in plain view, the grid invites people closer to see each work individually.
Bio:
Approximately 90 young artists from WKU were asked to take part in this exhibition. The over all majority are Art majors from Studio Art, Graphic Design or Art Education. The artistic backgrounds of those involved are extremely diverse, raging from no former artistic training to an abundance of pervious art and design classes. Professors Brent Dedas and Yvonne Petkus created and coordinated the project.
Friday, December 17, 2010
december
Sew:Repeat+ Merry Twistmas
..
..
Twist Art Gallery presents:
"Sew:Repeat" a series of quilts by Alexia Abegg in space #73
the show opens saturday december 4th and runs through January 29th.
we are closed the week of christmas and on new years day.
our gallery hours are thursdays and fridays
from 11-5 and saturdays from 11-3
The quilts in Sew:Repeat began as improvisational excercises. Each piece,
stemming from a singular and specific past memory or emotion, has evolved
forward to become a finished quilt. Every stitch marks not only the
originating idea but the passing of time taken to create the work. In this
sense, the pieces are tangible markers of a specific time and space, one
only the quilt and myself inhabited during the physical act of completing
each quilt. This space and the repetition of stitching connects me to the
generations of women before me, whom have left behind quilts that mark their
moment in time.
I invite you to stitch on the stretched quilt and participate in a centuries
old tradition, a quilting bee. The quilting frame used has been in my family
for over one hundred and twenty years. We will sit and stitch and bring that
history to the present.
Artists Statement and bio
Alexia Abegg, born in Folsom, California and raised in Nashville, Tennessee,
lives and works in Nashville. She has little formal training but grew up
learning to paint from her father, painter Jimmy Abegg, and to sew from her
mother, Michelle Abegg. She studied at O'More College of Design. Her first
love was watercolor and she continues to sketch and paint along with
quiltmaking. She teaches sewing classes in Nashville, bringing her love of
stitching to students. Her work has been shown with the Artist Collective
Nashville, D.I.G. and at Twist Gallery. This is her first solo show.
Alexia Abegg
Artist Statement
Through my work, I explore the tangible representation of passing time, the
act of quilting and the work left behind by generations of women before me.
As a woman, I am interested in gender roles and expectations in relation to
the medium of quilting; historically the work of women, work that is never
ending, with an intrinsic quality of necessity as the propulsion of
creation. I am reversing this tradition, with the creation of quilts not
with necessity at the core, but with self expression as the catalyst of
creation.
I began to work with fabric and stitches much like I had been doing with
watercolor and paper. Rather than following a pattern, like the quilters of
past generations in my family, I began to improvise and develop an
instinctual method. The lack of technical fluidity of the quilting medium
itself was a barrier. When painting, the brush was a physical extension of
my hand. I challenged myself to find the same fluidity with quilting and my
work has grown out of this improvisational method.
Each piece contains all of my energy and emotion expressed in the time used
to finish the work. Every stitch taken is a physical act, residing in a
specific space and time and is a concrete marking of that specific moment of
creation. These stitches in time will exist for as long as the work exists,
and because of it, they are an extension of my life and person. My work is
an extension of myself that has a history connecting me to thousands of
women that have taken needle to fabric. Their energy and moment in time is
marked by stitches in cloth, and surpasses their lifetime.
I am interested in the relationship between the existence of sewn goods and
both the person that made them and the consumer that uses them.
Not a person exists today that has no connection to sewing. Whether as the
consumer or creator, we are all participating in the existence of sewn
items. Most of these items are disposable, their life limited to the whim of
the consumer, their existence in space and time fleeting. Counter to this
process, I want to create pieces that carry the weight of time invested, and
because of that weight, are tied to the people around them in a way that is
lasting. I am creating visually identifiable markings within each quilt to
connect the viewer to the amount of time expended in the completion of the
work.
Through my quilts, I am attempting to create art that calls attention to
quilting as a medium not only as a decorative art, but as a form of fine
art.
I have included a photo of one of the quilts titled "tilt" 31"x 28" and my
photo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Merry Twistmas in space 77
opening on December 4th and just for December....
Crafts for holiday shopping... you know you want them.. and we aim to please
artists include:
Laura Baisden
Elizabeth Streight
Mandy Stoller
Sarah Shearer
************
Twist Art Gallery
www.twistartgallery.com
73 Arcade
Nashville, TN 37219
(888) 535-5286
Gallery Hours
Thursday and Friday 11 - 5
Saturday 11 - 3
Join us the first Saturday of every month
6 to 9 p.m. for the First Saturday Gallery Crawl
..
..
Twist Art Gallery presents:
"Sew:Repeat" a series of quilts by Alexia Abegg in space #73
the show opens saturday december 4th and runs through January 29th.
we are closed the week of christmas and on new years day.
our gallery hours are thursdays and fridays
from 11-5 and saturdays from 11-3
The quilts in Sew:Repeat began as improvisational excercises. Each piece,
stemming from a singular and specific past memory or emotion, has evolved
forward to become a finished quilt. Every stitch marks not only the
originating idea but the passing of time taken to create the work. In this
sense, the pieces are tangible markers of a specific time and space, one
only the quilt and myself inhabited during the physical act of completing
each quilt. This space and the repetition of stitching connects me to the
generations of women before me, whom have left behind quilts that mark their
moment in time.
I invite you to stitch on the stretched quilt and participate in a centuries
old tradition, a quilting bee. The quilting frame used has been in my family
for over one hundred and twenty years. We will sit and stitch and bring that
history to the present.
Artists Statement and bio
Alexia Abegg, born in Folsom, California and raised in Nashville, Tennessee,
lives and works in Nashville. She has little formal training but grew up
learning to paint from her father, painter Jimmy Abegg, and to sew from her
mother, Michelle Abegg. She studied at O'More College of Design. Her first
love was watercolor and she continues to sketch and paint along with
quiltmaking. She teaches sewing classes in Nashville, bringing her love of
stitching to students. Her work has been shown with the Artist Collective
Nashville, D.I.G. and at Twist Gallery. This is her first solo show.
Alexia Abegg
Artist Statement
Through my work, I explore the tangible representation of passing time, the
act of quilting and the work left behind by generations of women before me.
As a woman, I am interested in gender roles and expectations in relation to
the medium of quilting; historically the work of women, work that is never
ending, with an intrinsic quality of necessity as the propulsion of
creation. I am reversing this tradition, with the creation of quilts not
with necessity at the core, but with self expression as the catalyst of
creation.
I began to work with fabric and stitches much like I had been doing with
watercolor and paper. Rather than following a pattern, like the quilters of
past generations in my family, I began to improvise and develop an
instinctual method. The lack of technical fluidity of the quilting medium
itself was a barrier. When painting, the brush was a physical extension of
my hand. I challenged myself to find the same fluidity with quilting and my
work has grown out of this improvisational method.
Each piece contains all of my energy and emotion expressed in the time used
to finish the work. Every stitch taken is a physical act, residing in a
specific space and time and is a concrete marking of that specific moment of
creation. These stitches in time will exist for as long as the work exists,
and because of it, they are an extension of my life and person. My work is
an extension of myself that has a history connecting me to thousands of
women that have taken needle to fabric. Their energy and moment in time is
marked by stitches in cloth, and surpasses their lifetime.
I am interested in the relationship between the existence of sewn goods and
both the person that made them and the consumer that uses them.
Not a person exists today that has no connection to sewing. Whether as the
consumer or creator, we are all participating in the existence of sewn
items. Most of these items are disposable, their life limited to the whim of
the consumer, their existence in space and time fleeting. Counter to this
process, I want to create pieces that carry the weight of time invested, and
because of that weight, are tied to the people around them in a way that is
lasting. I am creating visually identifiable markings within each quilt to
connect the viewer to the amount of time expended in the completion of the
work.
Through my quilts, I am attempting to create art that calls attention to
quilting as a medium not only as a decorative art, but as a form of fine
art.
I have included a photo of one of the quilts titled "tilt" 31"x 28" and my
photo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Merry Twistmas in space 77
opening on December 4th and just for December....
Crafts for holiday shopping... you know you want them.. and we aim to please
artists include:
Laura Baisden
Elizabeth Streight
Mandy Stoller
Sarah Shearer
************
Twist Art Gallery
www.twistartgallery.com
73 Arcade
Nashville, TN 37219
(888) 535-5286
Gallery Hours
Thursday and Friday 11 - 5
Saturday 11 - 3
Join us the first Saturday of every month
6 to 9 p.m. for the First Saturday Gallery Crawl
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Downtown Presbyterian church DIG SHOW 2011 call for works
CALL FOR ART / $1,000 PURCHASE PRIZE / ART DUE THURSDAY. MARCH 3RD
2011 D.I.G. THROUGH ART SHOW – THEME: "COMPASSION FATIGUE"
THE DOWNTOWN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH – 154 5th AVE. SOUTH
“D.I.G.” means Dialogue: an Interaction for Growth.
Dear Artist,
The Downtown Presbyterian Church (DPC) of Nashville, Tennessee is pleased to announce this year’s winter/early spring art show, The D.I.G. Through Art Show. This year’s theme is Compassion Fatigue. DPC’s annual D.I.G. show, now in its 12th year, is meant to provide our community with a chance to come together and “D.I.G. through art.”
Artists are welcome to submit work in any medium. Entry requires a $15.00 per piece fee (two pieces maximum). Paintings and other 2-D work cannot exceed 6 x 10 feet. 2-D works must be dry, framed, and ready to hang with wire. Sculpture must be easily moveable. Installations must be approved for space reasons. Work must be delivered to the church on Thursday, March 3 at 3.00 p.m. Artists will be accepted into the show on a first-to-respond basis--please see attached entry information below (which can be also be emailed in). Works will be judged and a winner selected by a local jury comprised of seasoned art instructors, gallery curators, and/or clergy. DPC will be pleased to present the winning artist with a purchase prize check of $1,000.
There are no restrictions on the artwork except that the content be suitable to all ages, since it will be on display to the entire church body and the downtown community – young and old. DPC reserves the right to not show any work.
The grand opening reception and presentation of the purchase award will be on Saturday, March 5th beginning at 6:00 p.m. This event coincides with the regular first Saturday downtown community Art Crawl and the church’s monthly art show and live music activities.
The D.I.G. show began at DPC in 1998 as an extension of the church’s artists-in-residency program. Today, the church hosts nine artists who each have their own dedicated space in the building. These shows have explored different themes each year. Previous themes have included last year’s “Anti-depressant," as well as "Embodiment,” “Icons and Idols,”“Incarnation and Risk,” and “Human Sacrifice.”
Lent is the church season of 40 days (not including feast days) before Easter. This year, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, March 9th and continues through Holy Week, ending just before Easter Sunday, April 24th. The season is symbolic of both the 40 years of Israel’s wandering in the desert and the 40 days of Christ’s fasting and temptation in the wild. DPC feels this is an appropriate season to invite artists to join the church in wrestling with challenges and complexities of faith.
Alongside the themed art show, the church will again host a film series in DPC’s downstairs chapel on Thursday nights during the weeks of Lent. A light meal (held at 6.00 p.m.) will be provided weekly in DPC’s Fellowship Hall before each film (starting at 7.00 p.m.). After each film, guests are encouraged to stay for a short discussion, sharing impressions and ideas from the motion picture.
Important Facts:
· Limit: 2 pieces maximum per artist
· Entry Fee: $15.00 per piece per artist (checks payable, please, to: Downtown Presbyterian Church)
· This is a first come first serve show. Your entry fee reserves your space in the show. Please send the check in right away to reserve your space using the form below. Space in the show cannot be guaranteed without an artist supplying their entry fee (see following page).
Important Dates:
• Art Piece Creation Period: November 15, 2010 to March 1, 2011.
· Art Drop Off Date: Thursday, March 3 (3 PM to 5 PM)
· Grand Opening Reception: Saturday, March 5th from 6 PM to 9 PM with winner announced at 7.00 p.m.
· End of Show Date: Easter Sunday, April 24th (after worship activities)
· Retrieval of works: Monday, April 25th (between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.)
Yes! I would like to participate in the 2011 D.I.G. Through Art Show, “COMPASSION FATIGUE.”
Name
Phone #
Email
Address
Please print this page, complete information, and enclose a check for $15.00 made out to “The Downtown Presbyterian Church.” Please then send to:
The Downtown Presbyterian Church
(memo line, please: “2011 D.I.G. SHOW”)
154 5th Ave. North
Nashville, TN 37219
Should you need further information or assistance, contact Beth Gilmore via email at beth.gilmore@gmail.com
2011 D.I.G. THROUGH ART SHOW – THEME: "COMPASSION FATIGUE"
THE DOWNTOWN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH – 154 5th AVE. SOUTH
“D.I.G.” means Dialogue: an Interaction for Growth.
Dear Artist,
The Downtown Presbyterian Church (DPC) of Nashville, Tennessee is pleased to announce this year’s winter/early spring art show, The D.I.G. Through Art Show. This year’s theme is Compassion Fatigue. DPC’s annual D.I.G. show, now in its 12th year, is meant to provide our community with a chance to come together and “D.I.G. through art.”
Artists are welcome to submit work in any medium. Entry requires a $15.00 per piece fee (two pieces maximum). Paintings and other 2-D work cannot exceed 6 x 10 feet. 2-D works must be dry, framed, and ready to hang with wire. Sculpture must be easily moveable. Installations must be approved for space reasons. Work must be delivered to the church on Thursday, March 3 at 3.00 p.m. Artists will be accepted into the show on a first-to-respond basis--please see attached entry information below (which can be also be emailed in). Works will be judged and a winner selected by a local jury comprised of seasoned art instructors, gallery curators, and/or clergy. DPC will be pleased to present the winning artist with a purchase prize check of $1,000.
There are no restrictions on the artwork except that the content be suitable to all ages, since it will be on display to the entire church body and the downtown community – young and old. DPC reserves the right to not show any work.
The grand opening reception and presentation of the purchase award will be on Saturday, March 5th beginning at 6:00 p.m. This event coincides with the regular first Saturday downtown community Art Crawl and the church’s monthly art show and live music activities.
The D.I.G. show began at DPC in 1998 as an extension of the church’s artists-in-residency program. Today, the church hosts nine artists who each have their own dedicated space in the building. These shows have explored different themes each year. Previous themes have included last year’s “Anti-depressant," as well as "Embodiment,” “Icons and Idols,”“Incarnation and Risk,” and “Human Sacrifice.”
Lent is the church season of 40 days (not including feast days) before Easter. This year, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, March 9th and continues through Holy Week, ending just before Easter Sunday, April 24th. The season is symbolic of both the 40 years of Israel’s wandering in the desert and the 40 days of Christ’s fasting and temptation in the wild. DPC feels this is an appropriate season to invite artists to join the church in wrestling with challenges and complexities of faith.
Alongside the themed art show, the church will again host a film series in DPC’s downstairs chapel on Thursday nights during the weeks of Lent. A light meal (held at 6.00 p.m.) will be provided weekly in DPC’s Fellowship Hall before each film (starting at 7.00 p.m.). After each film, guests are encouraged to stay for a short discussion, sharing impressions and ideas from the motion picture.
Important Facts:
· Limit: 2 pieces maximum per artist
· Entry Fee: $15.00 per piece per artist (checks payable, please, to: Downtown Presbyterian Church)
· This is a first come first serve show. Your entry fee reserves your space in the show. Please send the check in right away to reserve your space using the form below. Space in the show cannot be guaranteed without an artist supplying their entry fee (see following page).
Important Dates:
• Art Piece Creation Period: November 15, 2010 to March 1, 2011.
· Art Drop Off Date: Thursday, March 3 (3 PM to 5 PM)
· Grand Opening Reception: Saturday, March 5th from 6 PM to 9 PM with winner announced at 7.00 p.m.
· End of Show Date: Easter Sunday, April 24th (after worship activities)
· Retrieval of works: Monday, April 25th (between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.)
Yes! I would like to participate in the 2011 D.I.G. Through Art Show, “COMPASSION FATIGUE.”
Name
Phone #
Address
Please print this page, complete information, and enclose a check for $15.00 made out to “The Downtown Presbyterian Church.” Please then send to:
The Downtown Presbyterian Church
(memo line, please: “2011 D.I.G. SHOW”)
154 5th Ave. North
Nashville, TN 37219
Should you need further information or assistance, contact Beth Gilmore via email at beth.gilmore@gmail.com
Thursday, November 4, 2010
november's First Saturday Gallery Crawl promises new exhibits galore
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT » ART November 04, 2010 Nashville Scene
November's First Saturday Gallery Crawl promises new exhibits galore
Crawl Space
by JOE NOLAN
Not only is there art at "The Crawl," there is an art to navigating it. This month, the downtown migration of art openings and exhibits features new faces, a local art celebrity and a whole handful of shows opening under one sometimes-overlooked roof. But armed with a game plan, you can negotiate the high points with the dangerous grace of an art-drunk drift racer.
You've come to the right place!
The big news at November's First Saturday Gallery Crawl is the debut of COOP, a new curatorial collective that will program half of the new Twist Etc. space at 75 Arcade in the coming year. The group's first effort is "Wraslin' With God," a performance piece by Reverend Ethan Acres of the Church of the Holy Fool. Acres' work evokes religious ecstasy from the absurd, borrowing tropes from that cuckoo corner of Christianity that includes drive-thru churches, JumboTron sermonizing and heavy metal for Jesus. Hey man, you had us at "ecstasy." Acres' performs promptly at 7:30 p.m.
COOP plans to present new and under-represented artists, and their non-commercial agenda is a nice fit with Twist's mostly art-for-art's-sake programming. Twist's new show of photographs by Shane Doling is a great example. Holiday Child is a series of narrative outdoor images that feature a hooded man dressed in a suit and tie. The hood casts Doling's subject as both a blinded captive of a kind and a masked killer of a sort. Doling has also worked with video, and the viewer can think of these images as stills from an unseen film about both the loss of innocence and the endurance of wonder. It's the kind of work that resonates with the interior landscape of an attuned viewer, even if it clashes with the couch.
On the other side of 5th Avenue, Tinney Contemporary opens a new show by New Orleans artist, Sidonie Villere. Villere's multimedia paintings are covered in unlikely textures, but it's her minimal, organic sculptures — often resembling stones or bones covered in gold leaf and steel spray paint — that we really want to get our hands on.
If you didn't see Whitney Wood Bailey's cave art-inspired, psychedelic paintings at Rymer Gallery in October, you have a second chance this month. Half of her show stays up while Rymer makes room for Sound Spectrum, the latest exhibit by Herb Williams. One of Nashville's most popular artists, Williams has had a busy year. His Plunderland exhibit in New York's Rare Gallery was a room-sized installation that signaled new heights for the artist's craft and concepts. Spectrum is a homecoming of sorts that finds Williams exploring the parallels between social networking and mixtape culture. This time around, his ubiquitous crayons are cast as compelling, colorful negative space.
The Arts Company opens with two new painting series that take their cues from a particular pop-cultural artifact. Denise Stewart-Sanabria paints hyperrealist canvases and, while we usually prefer more abstract work, the subject here makes her stuff look good enough to eat. Stewart-Sanabria's twin exhibits, Donuts Behaving Badly and Seven Deadly Sins, read like a food-porn double feature that aims to decide the Dunkin' Donuts vs. Krispy Kreme debate once and for all. The gallery will also feature Chris Beck's found-object work. The artist's Real Housewives of the 1950s is an exhibit of multimedia, metal wall-sculptures that nod to both folk art and mid-20th century Life Magazine photography.
Don't forget to stroll a few blocks up Broadway to the Tennessee Art League to check out their reception for no less than five new gallery shows. Our favorite is Kristina Lyle's exhibit of cut paper collage paintings opening in the TAL's Ethel Smith Gallery.
The fall will always be the best time of year for gallery crawling. The weather is perfect, the art is at its best and everyone tends to become a busier browser once Halloween has come and gone and we begin sliding down that slippery slope toward the hectic holiday season.
No pressure.
Happy crawling!
Email art@nashvillescene.com.
November's First Saturday Gallery Crawl promises new exhibits galore
Crawl Space
by JOE NOLAN
Not only is there art at "The Crawl," there is an art to navigating it. This month, the downtown migration of art openings and exhibits features new faces, a local art celebrity and a whole handful of shows opening under one sometimes-overlooked roof. But armed with a game plan, you can negotiate the high points with the dangerous grace of an art-drunk drift racer.
You've come to the right place!
The big news at November's First Saturday Gallery Crawl is the debut of COOP, a new curatorial collective that will program half of the new Twist Etc. space at 75 Arcade in the coming year. The group's first effort is "Wraslin' With God," a performance piece by Reverend Ethan Acres of the Church of the Holy Fool. Acres' work evokes religious ecstasy from the absurd, borrowing tropes from that cuckoo corner of Christianity that includes drive-thru churches, JumboTron sermonizing and heavy metal for Jesus. Hey man, you had us at "ecstasy." Acres' performs promptly at 7:30 p.m.
COOP plans to present new and under-represented artists, and their non-commercial agenda is a nice fit with Twist's mostly art-for-art's-sake programming. Twist's new show of photographs by Shane Doling is a great example. Holiday Child is a series of narrative outdoor images that feature a hooded man dressed in a suit and tie. The hood casts Doling's subject as both a blinded captive of a kind and a masked killer of a sort. Doling has also worked with video, and the viewer can think of these images as stills from an unseen film about both the loss of innocence and the endurance of wonder. It's the kind of work that resonates with the interior landscape of an attuned viewer, even if it clashes with the couch.
On the other side of 5th Avenue, Tinney Contemporary opens a new show by New Orleans artist, Sidonie Villere. Villere's multimedia paintings are covered in unlikely textures, but it's her minimal, organic sculptures — often resembling stones or bones covered in gold leaf and steel spray paint — that we really want to get our hands on.
If you didn't see Whitney Wood Bailey's cave art-inspired, psychedelic paintings at Rymer Gallery in October, you have a second chance this month. Half of her show stays up while Rymer makes room for Sound Spectrum, the latest exhibit by Herb Williams. One of Nashville's most popular artists, Williams has had a busy year. His Plunderland exhibit in New York's Rare Gallery was a room-sized installation that signaled new heights for the artist's craft and concepts. Spectrum is a homecoming of sorts that finds Williams exploring the parallels between social networking and mixtape culture. This time around, his ubiquitous crayons are cast as compelling, colorful negative space.
The Arts Company opens with two new painting series that take their cues from a particular pop-cultural artifact. Denise Stewart-Sanabria paints hyperrealist canvases and, while we usually prefer more abstract work, the subject here makes her stuff look good enough to eat. Stewart-Sanabria's twin exhibits, Donuts Behaving Badly and Seven Deadly Sins, read like a food-porn double feature that aims to decide the Dunkin' Donuts vs. Krispy Kreme debate once and for all. The gallery will also feature Chris Beck's found-object work. The artist's Real Housewives of the 1950s is an exhibit of multimedia, metal wall-sculptures that nod to both folk art and mid-20th century Life Magazine photography.
Don't forget to stroll a few blocks up Broadway to the Tennessee Art League to check out their reception for no less than five new gallery shows. Our favorite is Kristina Lyle's exhibit of cut paper collage paintings opening in the TAL's Ethel Smith Gallery.
The fall will always be the best time of year for gallery crawling. The weather is perfect, the art is at its best and everyone tends to become a busier browser once Halloween has come and gone and we begin sliding down that slippery slope toward the hectic holiday season.
No pressure.
Happy crawling!
Email art@nashvillescene.com.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
we love robots
From David and Sarah Dark's awesome blog
http://davidsarahdark.blogspot.com/2010/10/robot-lifeguard-electrocuted-everyone.html
The Robot LifeGuard Electrocuted Everyone.
This is my first foray into composing science fiction. Wait, that's not entirely true. In high school, I took the legend of Frosty the Snowman down a distinctly sci-fi path which I might choose to share more broadly some day soon. In the glorious meantime, I give you my shortest story: The Robot lifeguard electrocuted everyone. Feel free to commit it to memory and share it with others. You can place it alongside Hemingway's attempt at shortness which I reprint here without permission: "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." Mine, let the record show, is shorter (word-wise), and will also serve as the title of an upcoming work of fiction.
Friend, doppelgänger, and lead singer of Bulb, Todd Greene, was kind enough to give me the above illustration. Enjoy.
That is all.
UPDATE: The above illustration is available as a print (signed by the illustrator and the author), a t-shirt, AND (should the perceived need arise) a refrigerator magnet. For details, contact david dot dark at vanderbilt dot edu
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
COOP
COOP is an artist collective committed to expanding Nashville’s dialogue with contemporary art by presenting challenging artists/artworks which are new or under-represented in the community. COOP is committed to exhibiting art of diverse media and content, with a goal to provide an alternative venue for artists free from the constraints of the retail market. COOP strives to initiate a discourse between Nashville and art scenes across the country by inviting artists to show, develop projects and interact with the Nashville community.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
november 2010 check it out....
Twist Art Gallery presents:
Shane Doling "HOLIDAY CHILD" in space #73
and
Gieves Anderson " India - in the absence" in Space #77
opening November 6th from 6-9pm
as part of the first saturday art crawl
shows run through November 6-27th 2010
Twist Art Gallery welcomes The Coop collective to it space # 75 for one year.
The Coop collective will be presenting a performance by Reverend Ethan Acres titled “Wrastlin With God” November 6th during the first Saturday art crawl. The performance will take place at 7:30 pm, and will serve as the inaugural exhibition in their new gallery space at 75 Arcade.
The Coop collective is a group of artists running a new space for art within the twist etc. space #75 there will be approximately 12 shows over the next year put on and curated by the COOP collective in space 75.
COOP is an artist collective committed to expanding Nashville’s dialogue with contemporary art by presenting challenging artists/artworks which are new or under-represented in the community. COOP is committed to exhibiting art of diverse media and content, with a goal to provide an alternative venue for artists free from the constraints of the retail market. COOP strives to initiate a discourse between Nashville and art scenes across the country by inviting artists to show, develop projects and interact with the Nashville community.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=100765506652677&ref=ts
some of the artists involved are:
Ruth Zelanski
Mandy Rogers Horton
Brady Haston (Watkins)
Jennifer Leach
Kristi Hargrove
Ron Lambert (Watkins)
Rocky Horton (Lipscomb) (creator)
___________________________________________________________
Twist Art Gallery
www.twistartgallery.com
73 Arcade
Nashville, TN 37219
(888) 535-5286
Gallery Hours
Thursday and Friday 11 - 5
Saturday 11 - 3
Join us the first Saturday of every month
6 to 9 p.m. for the First Saturday Gallery Crawl
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Twist Art Gallery presents: Gieves Anderson November 2010 in space #77
Twist Art Gallery presents:
Gieves Anderson
India - In the Absence
November 6-27th in space #77
opening November 6th from 6-9pm
as part of the first saturday art crawl
Thursday, October 7, 2010
BEST GALLERY RESILIENCY: TWIST GALLERY
ashville Scene
October 07, 2010 NEWS » COVER STORY
Arts & Entertainment 2010: Writer's Picks
Best of Nashville 2010
BEST GALLERY RESILIENCY: TWIST GALLERY
We spill a lot of ink on Twist Gallery, but it's hard not to. This Art Crawl pioneer consistently finds a way to keep its doors open while hosting performance pieces and installation exhibits that most commercial concerns would never consider. Now that gallery co-founder Caroline Carlisle has left for mom-hood and other projects, this would have been the perfect time for curator Beth Gilmore to take a bow as well. Instead, she decided to add two more galleries to the mothership. Twist just celebrated its fourth birthday — here's to many more. JOE NOLAN
October 07, 2010 NEWS » COVER STORY
Arts & Entertainment 2010: Writer's Picks
Best of Nashville 2010
BEST GALLERY RESILIENCY: TWIST GALLERY
We spill a lot of ink on Twist Gallery, but it's hard not to. This Art Crawl pioneer consistently finds a way to keep its doors open while hosting performance pieces and installation exhibits that most commercial concerns would never consider. Now that gallery co-founder Caroline Carlisle has left for mom-hood and other projects, this would have been the perfect time for curator Beth Gilmore to take a bow as well. Instead, she decided to add two more galleries to the mothership. Twist just celebrated its fourth birthday — here's to many more. JOE NOLAN
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Twist Art Gallery presents: Shane Doling
Twist Art Gallery presents:
Shane Doling
HOLIDAY CHILD
November 6-27th in space #73
opening November 6th from 6-9pm
as part of the first saturday art crawl
artist statement
As a child sitting in a driveway , looking in the sky in the distance above some city lights, there is a connection.
You have never visited this place, but you have felt it on occasion. It’s also that place that you feel more during Christmas, but you feel it less as you get older. The adult appears confused, but still recalls this place.
He sees a plane that doesn’t seem to move, but just sits there flashing and for a moment, he doesn’t feel alone. He remembers his home that was just a feeling before.
He is aimless to a place he was before he could remember.
Tea and sand.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
nashville scene
Nashville Scene
September 30, 2010 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT » ART
A roundup of First Saturday Art Crawl highlights
Crawl Space
by JOE NOLAN
click to enlarge
Extraordinary Geometries at The Rymer Gallery
It's already time for October's First Saturday Gallery Crawl, which the dipping mercury will soon lead us to rename the First Saturday Brisk Walk, to be followed by the Downtown Art Sprint. As we head into the burnt-orange grip of autumn, the October Crawl seems poised to make a particularly strong showing.
Those old enough to remember the TV show Family Affair may recall an episode when Buffy, a stubborn elementary schooler, tried to give up her beloved doll, Mrs. Beasley, cold-turkey. It was a bit like Snoopy Come Home meets Panic in Needle Park.
In Goodbye, Mrs. Beasley, on display at Tinney Contemporary, Artist Carol Es relates Buffy's loss to her own difficult childhood. Es chronicles the traumas of her childhood — growing up in a dysfunctional family amid the sweatshops of Los Angeles — through a number of multimedia canvases, painted panels and works-on-paper. Es' work here is strongest when it replaces woe with whimsy and wonder.
We've always been zealots for the more-is-more philosophy, so it's heartening to see that Twist Gallery is once again operating two spaces. This month's lineup includes a guest curator, former TAG gallery owner Jerry Dale McFadden, who now lives in Chattanooga, where he's the director of the 4 Bridges Art Festival. For his turn at Twist, he's brought a couple of fellow 'Noogans with him.
Mark Bradley-Shoup and Ron Buffington are both instructors at UT-Chattanooga. Bradley-Shoup's spare, flat paintings are inspired by graphic design, and his strongest pieces capture a harsh light that suggests what Edward Hopper might have accomplished in the graphic-novel medium. Buffington wants to demystify painting, favoring "the tainted over the pure, the flawed over the perfect, the personal over the universal and the pathetic over the heroic." But while Buffington is busy killing the Buddha, his striking work seems more than a little enlightened. Printmaker Joseph Lupo will be showing in Twist's Arcade 73 space.
After an exciting exhibit of prints and drawings last month, The Arts Company will be opening a painting show on Saturday. Tony Breuer's canvases present figurative scenes obscured and abstracted by curtains of surreal hues. Many works feature wild mustangs galloping through technicolor waves of light, while fighter jets and at least one largemouth bass appear in others.
Extraordinary Geometries opens at Rymer Gallery. Whitney Wood Bailey's large, psychedelic abstract works on paper explore the point where the natural world and our own imaginations intersect. Bailey uses "tick" markings like those found in early cave paintings to create intricate textures from which colorful abstractions explode, resulting in a transcendent sensory experience.
Estel Gallery will be opening a new show by an old favorite. An Atmosphere for Living: New Narrative Paintings by Harry Underwood finds the titular artist displaying his latest canvases back on home turf, following recent exhibits in Paris (yes, the one in France) and London. Though he's been a formidable presence on the local scene for years, Underwood deserves a most-improved-painter award — his recent work demonstrates a restless progress that finds him paring down his pop-culture postcard paintings to poetic scenes that evoke pathos as much as pith.
We are writing this roundup of Saturday's events by the light of a harvest moon on the autumnal equinox. Welcome to fall!
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
September 30, 2010 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT » ART
A roundup of First Saturday Art Crawl highlights
Crawl Space
by JOE NOLAN
click to enlarge
Extraordinary Geometries at The Rymer Gallery
It's already time for October's First Saturday Gallery Crawl, which the dipping mercury will soon lead us to rename the First Saturday Brisk Walk, to be followed by the Downtown Art Sprint. As we head into the burnt-orange grip of autumn, the October Crawl seems poised to make a particularly strong showing.
Those old enough to remember the TV show Family Affair may recall an episode when Buffy, a stubborn elementary schooler, tried to give up her beloved doll, Mrs. Beasley, cold-turkey. It was a bit like Snoopy Come Home meets Panic in Needle Park.
In Goodbye, Mrs. Beasley, on display at Tinney Contemporary, Artist Carol Es relates Buffy's loss to her own difficult childhood. Es chronicles the traumas of her childhood — growing up in a dysfunctional family amid the sweatshops of Los Angeles — through a number of multimedia canvases, painted panels and works-on-paper. Es' work here is strongest when it replaces woe with whimsy and wonder.
We've always been zealots for the more-is-more philosophy, so it's heartening to see that Twist Gallery is once again operating two spaces. This month's lineup includes a guest curator, former TAG gallery owner Jerry Dale McFadden, who now lives in Chattanooga, where he's the director of the 4 Bridges Art Festival. For his turn at Twist, he's brought a couple of fellow 'Noogans with him.
Mark Bradley-Shoup and Ron Buffington are both instructors at UT-Chattanooga. Bradley-Shoup's spare, flat paintings are inspired by graphic design, and his strongest pieces capture a harsh light that suggests what Edward Hopper might have accomplished in the graphic-novel medium. Buffington wants to demystify painting, favoring "the tainted over the pure, the flawed over the perfect, the personal over the universal and the pathetic over the heroic." But while Buffington is busy killing the Buddha, his striking work seems more than a little enlightened. Printmaker Joseph Lupo will be showing in Twist's Arcade 73 space.
After an exciting exhibit of prints and drawings last month, The Arts Company will be opening a painting show on Saturday. Tony Breuer's canvases present figurative scenes obscured and abstracted by curtains of surreal hues. Many works feature wild mustangs galloping through technicolor waves of light, while fighter jets and at least one largemouth bass appear in others.
Extraordinary Geometries opens at Rymer Gallery. Whitney Wood Bailey's large, psychedelic abstract works on paper explore the point where the natural world and our own imaginations intersect. Bailey uses "tick" markings like those found in early cave paintings to create intricate textures from which colorful abstractions explode, resulting in a transcendent sensory experience.
Estel Gallery will be opening a new show by an old favorite. An Atmosphere for Living: New Narrative Paintings by Harry Underwood finds the titular artist displaying his latest canvases back on home turf, following recent exhibits in Paris (yes, the one in France) and London. Though he's been a formidable presence on the local scene for years, Underwood deserves a most-improved-painter award — his recent work demonstrates a restless progress that finds him paring down his pop-culture postcard paintings to poetic scenes that evoke pathos as much as pith.
We are writing this roundup of Saturday's events by the light of a harvest moon on the autumnal equinox. Welcome to fall!
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
soundcrawl 2.0
Did the inaugural event last year leave you wanting more? Have you heard about it, and wondered it is? Check out the "ABOUT" page from the official SoundCrawl website.
I'm looking forward to being serenaded this Saturday evening with avant garde goodness brought about by talented friend and artist, Aaron Hoke Doenges. You won't want to miss this!
ABOUT: SoundCrawl
Picture a Saturday night in Nashville when all the galleries are open. Beautiful people, drinks in hand, drift from one gallery to another to experience the best the city has to offer in visual art.
Now imagine that at various points along the way something new has been added, an opportunity to experience a new kind of art, art that you HEAR....sound art.
So in between the experience of the visual arts, artists and guests alike gather to listen to....a rhythmic beat of water drops....or a dizzying immersion of the sound of coins moving through space...synthetic audio wrapping around, tickling the ear drums of the city.
After a successful inaugural event last year, SoundCrawl:Nashville is returning this fall for a second sonic immersion of Music City. During the downtown ArtCrawl on October 2nd, from 6-9pm, Nashville will once again dive into the world of experimental audio with new sound art compositions from around the world. Compositions that immerse. Compositions that resonate. Compositions that explore.
about the ArtCrawl: (from www.artatthearcade.com):Every first Saturday of the month, the historic Arcade in downtown Nashville comes to life with over one thousand visitors. Multiple galleries open their doors to avid art lovers as well as anyone else that is just curious to see what the Gallery Crawl is all about. Art at the Arcade is a collective organization that hosts an assortment of contemporary artists from throughout the world to Nashville.
what is SoundArt: Between 1930 and 1965, composer Edgard Varèse gave a series of lectures that have since been collected and titled “The Liberation of Sound.” In these lectures, Varese was trying to understand – and explain – his own approach to sonic expression. He, along with Pierre Schaeffer and others, began to explore the organization of sonic materials – sounds from the ambient world, evolving electronic technology, and the traditional instruments used for centuries– in any and every combination into cohesive works of audio art on phonograph (and then tape, and now computer).
The only definition that seemed to fit his music was simply: “organized sound.”
This definition has been given several labels through the years: musique concrète (in the French, Varèse and Schaeffer’s native tongue), electroacoustic music, sound collage, sound music, sound art, etc., etc. Some of these labels focus on very specific types of audio used. Some do not. Each one, however, is all encompassing of sound. Any sound. That has been organized in some way.
It’s a pretty broad definition.
The cultural and mechanical forces that influenced Varèse and Schaeffer have only become more powerful in the intervening years. With the advent of the computer and audio software, the production possibilities of sound organization – something that this town knows a bit about - seem endless. This power has brought with it technological ubiquity – computers are everywhere – and with ubiquity has come the commonplace, and with the commonplace comes the ability to focus not only on the medium (the technology used) but also on the expression (the art of the sounds used). And has changed the art of sound as we know it.
So what is sound art?
Sound \'saund\: the sensation perceived by the sense of hearing
Art \'ärt\: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects
Sound Art \'saund ' ärt\: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in producing aesthetic sensations perceived by the sense of hearing.
Sound. Collage. Expression. Audio. Organization. Consciousness. Creativity. Music. Art.
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You like this.
I'm looking forward to being serenaded this Saturday evening with avant garde goodness brought about by talented friend and artist, Aaron Hoke Doenges. You won't want to miss this!
ABOUT: SoundCrawl
Picture a Saturday night in Nashville when all the galleries are open. Beautiful people, drinks in hand, drift from one gallery to another to experience the best the city has to offer in visual art.
Now imagine that at various points along the way something new has been added, an opportunity to experience a new kind of art, art that you HEAR....sound art.
So in between the experience of the visual arts, artists and guests alike gather to listen to....a rhythmic beat of water drops....or a dizzying immersion of the sound of coins moving through space...synthetic audio wrapping around, tickling the ear drums of the city.
After a successful inaugural event last year, SoundCrawl:Nashville is returning this fall for a second sonic immersion of Music City. During the downtown ArtCrawl on October 2nd, from 6-9pm, Nashville will once again dive into the world of experimental audio with new sound art compositions from around the world. Compositions that immerse. Compositions that resonate. Compositions that explore.
about the ArtCrawl: (from www.artatthearcade.com):Every first Saturday of the month, the historic Arcade in downtown Nashville comes to life with over one thousand visitors. Multiple galleries open their doors to avid art lovers as well as anyone else that is just curious to see what the Gallery Crawl is all about. Art at the Arcade is a collective organization that hosts an assortment of contemporary artists from throughout the world to Nashville.
what is SoundArt: Between 1930 and 1965, composer Edgard Varèse gave a series of lectures that have since been collected and titled “The Liberation of Sound.” In these lectures, Varese was trying to understand – and explain – his own approach to sonic expression. He, along with Pierre Schaeffer and others, began to explore the organization of sonic materials – sounds from the ambient world, evolving electronic technology, and the traditional instruments used for centuries– in any and every combination into cohesive works of audio art on phonograph (and then tape, and now computer).
The only definition that seemed to fit his music was simply: “organized sound.”
This definition has been given several labels through the years: musique concrète (in the French, Varèse and Schaeffer’s native tongue), electroacoustic music, sound collage, sound music, sound art, etc., etc. Some of these labels focus on very specific types of audio used. Some do not. Each one, however, is all encompassing of sound. Any sound. That has been organized in some way.
It’s a pretty broad definition.
The cultural and mechanical forces that influenced Varèse and Schaeffer have only become more powerful in the intervening years. With the advent of the computer and audio software, the production possibilities of sound organization – something that this town knows a bit about - seem endless. This power has brought with it technological ubiquity – computers are everywhere – and with ubiquity has come the commonplace, and with the commonplace comes the ability to focus not only on the medium (the technology used) but also on the expression (the art of the sounds used). And has changed the art of sound as we know it.
So what is sound art?
Sound \'saund\: the sensation perceived by the sense of hearing
Art \'ärt\: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects
Sound Art \'saund ' ärt\: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in producing aesthetic sensations perceived by the sense of hearing.
Sound. Collage. Expression. Audio. Organization. Consciousness. Creativity. Music. Art.
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You like this.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Mark Bradley-Shoup & Ron Buffington, Oct. 2 – 30, Twist etc.
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Mark Bradley-Shoup & Ron Buffington, Oct. 2 – 30, Twist Art Gallery
Arcade spaces #75 & 77
It’s been a little over two years since former TAG gallery owner and
independent curator Jerry Dale McFadden has had anything to do with
the Nashville art scene. Despite honorable attempts at bringing
national and international contemporary artists to a Nashville
audience, McFadden found himself unable to weather the economic
downturn and ended up closing his commercial gallery after 8 years.
He has spent the past two years working in the arts non-profit world
as one of several directors at the Association for Visual Arts, a
unique organization that has helped transition the small but mighty
town of Chattanooga into an arts destination.
Jerry Dale returns to the scene of the crime by guest curating a small
exhibit for October’s schedule at Twist Art Gallery in downtown
Nashville’s historic Arcade. With Fall primarily seen as the start of
the art season, it seemed a good time to introduce Nashville to some
of the art rumblings going on down south in his new hometown of
Chattanooga.
Opening October 2nd along with the monthly “Downtown Art Crawl” which
he helped to establish several years ago, McFadden brings together the
artwork of two young contemporary painters, Mark Bradley-Shoup and Ron
Buffington. Both artists are instructors at the University of
Tennessee at Chattanooga and have shown extensively around the
country.
McFadden has this to say of the work...
“Though both artists work in different styles of painting, I wanted to
see Mark and Ron’s work exhibited together in hopes that the viewer
might notice an unplanned dialogue between these two friends.
Bradley-Shoup’s semi-photorealistic paintings are reduced to flat and
muted colors that highlight the angular edges of everyday life, while
Buffington’s own angles and color shapes of abstraction hint at
similar sources. There’s a friendly painter camaraderie going on,
though neither artist work together, at least not in that capacity.
Fans of each other’s work, one can see how these two artists settle in
easily when the subject of theory and inspiration come up.
This will be a beautiful show and I look forward to seeing old friends
and familiar faces at the reception!”
Both Chattanooga artists will be in attendance for this small and
intimate showing at Twist. The show remains on exhibit the month of
October, through the 30th.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twist Art Gallery
www.twistartgallery.com
73 Arcade
Nashville, TN 37219
(888) 535-5286
Gallery Hours
Thursday and Friday 11 - 5
Saturday 11 - 3
Join us the first Saturday of every month
6 to 9 p.m. for the First Saturday Gallery Crawl
Joseph Lupo at Twist Art Gallery #73 october 2010
Twist Art Gallery presents: Joseph Lupo for October 2010 in space 73.
Joseph Lupo was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1977. From there he grew
up in Schaumburg, a Northwest Suburb of Chicago.
In 1999 Joseph received his BFA from Bradley University, a small
university located in Peoria, Illinois. His undergraduate training
was mainly in Intalgio and Relief. While at Bradley, Joseph was
taught by accomplished printmaker Oscar Gillespie. Bradley offered
professional printing experience through the Cradle Oak Press.
Through the press, Joseph was able to work on prints by artists
Warrington Colescott, Richard Hull, and Katsunori Haminishi.
After graduating from Bradley University, Joseph entered graduate
studies at The University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. At Georgia,
Joseph was taught by printmakers Carmon Colangelo, Melissa Harshman,
Joe Sanders, Rick Johnson, and Tom Hammond. UGA also gave Joseph the
opportunity to widen his range of techniques, and learned lithography,
silkscreen, and photo transfer techniques. He was also able to be an
assistant printer for artists Ralph Steadman and Sue Coe. During this
time, his work was shown not only in Athens but also at Saltworks
Gallery, Youngblood Gallery, and The Contemporary Art Center in
Atlanta.
Joseph earned his MFA in 2002, then moved to back to Chicago. While
in Chicago Joseph taught classes at Robert Morris College and Moraine
Valley Community College. He also showed work at Gallery 312, Anchor
Graphics, and The Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago.
Joseph Lupo joined the faculty at West Virginia University in 2004.
His work in the classroom focuses on intaglio, lithography, relief,
silkscreen, and digital printmaking for both graduate and
undergraduate students. Since joining the faculty, he has been the
Printmaking Department Coordinator and the Visiting Artist
Coordinator. He has been working with graduate students and
Pittsburgh based press Artist Image Resource to offer internships to
WVU students.
Joseph’s work has been a part of over 50 different juried and curated
shows in Illinois, Texas, Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, Washington,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Michigan, Arkansas, Louisiana, New York, Colorado, Ohio, and Arizona.
With solo/two-person shows in Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Lupo was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1977. From there he grew
up in Schaumburg, a Northwest Suburb of Chicago.
In 1999 Joseph received his BFA from Bradley University, a small
university located in Peoria, Illinois. His undergraduate training
was mainly in Intalgio and Relief. While at Bradley, Joseph was
taught by accomplished printmaker Oscar Gillespie. Bradley offered
professional printing experience through the Cradle Oak Press.
Through the press, Joseph was able to work on prints by artists
Warrington Colescott, Richard Hull, and Katsunori Haminishi.
After graduating from Bradley University, Joseph entered graduate
studies at The University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. At Georgia,
Joseph was taught by printmakers Carmon Colangelo, Melissa Harshman,
Joe Sanders, Rick Johnson, and Tom Hammond. UGA also gave Joseph the
opportunity to widen his range of techniques, and learned lithography,
silkscreen, and photo transfer techniques. He was also able to be an
assistant printer for artists Ralph Steadman and Sue Coe. During this
time, his work was shown not only in Athens but also at Saltworks
Gallery, Youngblood Gallery, and The Contemporary Art Center in
Atlanta.
Joseph earned his MFA in 2002, then moved to back to Chicago. While
in Chicago Joseph taught classes at Robert Morris College and Moraine
Valley Community College. He also showed work at Gallery 312, Anchor
Graphics, and The Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago.
Joseph Lupo joined the faculty at West Virginia University in 2004.
His work in the classroom focuses on intaglio, lithography, relief,
silkscreen, and digital printmaking for both graduate and
undergraduate students. Since joining the faculty, he has been the
Printmaking Department Coordinator and the Visiting Artist
Coordinator. He has been working with graduate students and
Pittsburgh based press Artist Image Resource to offer internships to
WVU students.
Joseph’s work has been a part of over 50 different juried and curated
shows in Illinois, Texas, Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, Washington,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Michigan, Arkansas, Louisiana, New York, Colorado, Ohio, and Arizona.
With solo/two-person shows in Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Links to Twist Art Gallery , especially while we are working on the website
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nashville-TN/Twist-Art-Gallery/16990362830
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nashville-TN/Twist-Art-Gallery/16990362830?ref=ts
http://twitter.com/twistart
http://twistartgallery.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/twistartgallery
http://www.myspace.com/goose.girl
http://www.facebook.com/goose.girl9
http://talesfromthelittlepinkhouse.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nashville-TN/Twist-Art-Gallery/16990362830?ref=ts
http://twitter.com/twistart
http://twistartgallery.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/twistartgallery
http://www.myspace.com/goose.girl
http://www.facebook.com/goose.girl9
http://talesfromthelittlepinkhouse.blogspot.com/
Thursday, August 19, 2010
nashville scene review...Mitch O'Connell at Twist Art Gallery
Nashville Scene
August 19, 2010 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT » ART
Mitch O’Connell’s hilariously kitschy, tongue-in-cheek art sticks a pitchfork in the concepts of good, evil and everything in between
The Devil Made Him Do It
by LAURA HUTSON
Practice Makes Perfect
Through Aug. 28 at Twist Art Gallery
At Twist Art Gallery's First Saturday Art Crawl reception on Aug. 7, four tattoo artists, outfitted in Mexican luchador masks, tattooed a woman in the middle of the gallery space. Artist Mitch O'Connell, armed with a blue Sharpie, drew ships and anchors onto the forearms of several art-savvy Nashvillians. It's this alliance between fine art and lowbrow culture that makes O'Connell a fitting choice for Twist's fourth anniversary show.
Twist is known for being inclusive, working from within the Nashville art community to build a haven for creativity. Artists like working with Twist owner Beth Gilmore because she doesn't put limits on them, and she respects the sometimes unusual process it takes to create a good show. "We want to go down that rabbit hole," she says.
The First Saturday Art Crawl has raised awareness of the caliber and scope of contemporary art here in Nashville, and its success is due in large part to Gilmore's emphasis on accessibility. Four years after downtown gallery owners began hosting simultaneous openings on the first Saturday of every month, Twist is the only Arcade gallery from the original roster still in operation. O'Connell's lighthearted and sardonic exhibit Practice Makes Perfect, on view through Aug. 28, is perfectly suited for the gallery's playfully anticlimactic celebration.
O'Connell creates art that makes fun of itself, wavering somewhere between sentiment and cynicism. His four "light" paintings appropriate images that are at once over-the-top and banal. Semitransparent photographs of idyllic waterfalls and streams are backed by motorized light boxes that, with the flip of a switch, provide faux flowing water and chirping bird sounds. O'Connell took the kitsch appeal that already existed in these flea market finds and magnified it by painting pink poodles on fire, rotary telephones and excessively cute dolls throwing dice down the falls.
This amalgamation of contradictory images roots O'Connell's work firmly in the tradition of pop surrealism and lowbrow art. His slick 1950s aesthetic is a perfect backdrop for surrealist imagery, partly because it was during this time that psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on dreams and the subconscious, was coming into vogue, but also due to the deeply repressed nature of mainstream American culture during the Baby Boom. Everything O'Connell borrows from this time period, from little girls praying at their beds to prepackaged salami, looks sickly sweet in a way that just doesn't exist in contemporary culture. Today the public is much more savvy — our advertisements are always winking back at us, but '50s consumer culture was never in on the joke.
These paintings are all about being Cool with a capital C. They're more attitude than commentary, more style than depth. Far from being a shortcoming, this Cool is the direct descendant of Dadaist social commentary and Warholian detachment. O'Connell is fully aware of this connection, and in "The Melting Man" even pays homage to one of the first pop artists, Richard Hamilton, with a nod to his Tootsie Pop-holding body builder.
But just try to find the art-history reference/reverence in "Jesus Sez, Satan Sez," a pair of toilet seats that O'Connell has painted into a joke about the eternal struggle between good and evil. On one, Jesus, with a raised stigmata-marked hand, asks that the user "leave the seat down." On the other, Satan winks and impishly implores the user to "leave the seat up." This gag is exemplary of the benign immorality that permeates O'Connell's work — he uses sinister imagery sarcastically, not to spook, but to subvert. All the evil is in quotation marks: In "Comb It Pretty," the devil is a man with a clueless expression wearing makeup; in "The Real Me," he's a kid from a Sears and Roebuck catalog modeling a Halloween costume. With "Satan Sez," O'Connell pokes fun at the idea of evil — leaving the toilet seat up will more likely result in a pissed-off wife than hellfire and damnation. You can almost hear the evil cackle coming from underneath the seat.
Filled with skulls, demons and scary clowns, O'Connell's art is undeniably funny. But his own ironic distancing from his subject matter is the real punch line. His paintings spill over with naked women — from flirty pinups to R. Crumb-like hyper-sexualized beasts — yet he's a well-mannered gentleman and proud father, not a lecherous playboy. Although he is celebrated among tattoo artists and aficionados, he remains ink-free. Though he's the center of attention at a crowded art gallery made up like a tattoo parlor, and though dozens of people proudly display their hand-drawn Mitch O'Connell tattoos on trips to adjoining galleries, O'Connell remains an underdog, influential but untouched, and above all, Cool.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
August 19, 2010 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT » ART
Mitch O’Connell’s hilariously kitschy, tongue-in-cheek art sticks a pitchfork in the concepts of good, evil and everything in between
The Devil Made Him Do It
by LAURA HUTSON
Practice Makes Perfect
Through Aug. 28 at Twist Art Gallery
At Twist Art Gallery's First Saturday Art Crawl reception on Aug. 7, four tattoo artists, outfitted in Mexican luchador masks, tattooed a woman in the middle of the gallery space. Artist Mitch O'Connell, armed with a blue Sharpie, drew ships and anchors onto the forearms of several art-savvy Nashvillians. It's this alliance between fine art and lowbrow culture that makes O'Connell a fitting choice for Twist's fourth anniversary show.
Twist is known for being inclusive, working from within the Nashville art community to build a haven for creativity. Artists like working with Twist owner Beth Gilmore because she doesn't put limits on them, and she respects the sometimes unusual process it takes to create a good show. "We want to go down that rabbit hole," she says.
The First Saturday Art Crawl has raised awareness of the caliber and scope of contemporary art here in Nashville, and its success is due in large part to Gilmore's emphasis on accessibility. Four years after downtown gallery owners began hosting simultaneous openings on the first Saturday of every month, Twist is the only Arcade gallery from the original roster still in operation. O'Connell's lighthearted and sardonic exhibit Practice Makes Perfect, on view through Aug. 28, is perfectly suited for the gallery's playfully anticlimactic celebration.
O'Connell creates art that makes fun of itself, wavering somewhere between sentiment and cynicism. His four "light" paintings appropriate images that are at once over-the-top and banal. Semitransparent photographs of idyllic waterfalls and streams are backed by motorized light boxes that, with the flip of a switch, provide faux flowing water and chirping bird sounds. O'Connell took the kitsch appeal that already existed in these flea market finds and magnified it by painting pink poodles on fire, rotary telephones and excessively cute dolls throwing dice down the falls.
This amalgamation of contradictory images roots O'Connell's work firmly in the tradition of pop surrealism and lowbrow art. His slick 1950s aesthetic is a perfect backdrop for surrealist imagery, partly because it was during this time that psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on dreams and the subconscious, was coming into vogue, but also due to the deeply repressed nature of mainstream American culture during the Baby Boom. Everything O'Connell borrows from this time period, from little girls praying at their beds to prepackaged salami, looks sickly sweet in a way that just doesn't exist in contemporary culture. Today the public is much more savvy — our advertisements are always winking back at us, but '50s consumer culture was never in on the joke.
These paintings are all about being Cool with a capital C. They're more attitude than commentary, more style than depth. Far from being a shortcoming, this Cool is the direct descendant of Dadaist social commentary and Warholian detachment. O'Connell is fully aware of this connection, and in "The Melting Man" even pays homage to one of the first pop artists, Richard Hamilton, with a nod to his Tootsie Pop-holding body builder.
But just try to find the art-history reference/reverence in "Jesus Sez, Satan Sez," a pair of toilet seats that O'Connell has painted into a joke about the eternal struggle between good and evil. On one, Jesus, with a raised stigmata-marked hand, asks that the user "leave the seat down." On the other, Satan winks and impishly implores the user to "leave the seat up." This gag is exemplary of the benign immorality that permeates O'Connell's work — he uses sinister imagery sarcastically, not to spook, but to subvert. All the evil is in quotation marks: In "Comb It Pretty," the devil is a man with a clueless expression wearing makeup; in "The Real Me," he's a kid from a Sears and Roebuck catalog modeling a Halloween costume. With "Satan Sez," O'Connell pokes fun at the idea of evil — leaving the toilet seat up will more likely result in a pissed-off wife than hellfire and damnation. You can almost hear the evil cackle coming from underneath the seat.
Filled with skulls, demons and scary clowns, O'Connell's art is undeniably funny. But his own ironic distancing from his subject matter is the real punch line. His paintings spill over with naked women — from flirty pinups to R. Crumb-like hyper-sexualized beasts — yet he's a well-mannered gentleman and proud father, not a lecherous playboy. Although he is celebrated among tattoo artists and aficionados, he remains ink-free. Though he's the center of attention at a crowded art gallery made up like a tattoo parlor, and though dozens of people proudly display their hand-drawn Mitch O'Connell tattoos on trips to adjoining galleries, O'Connell remains an underdog, influential but untouched, and above all, Cool.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
vote for the Twist Art Gallery of Best gallery in the Nashville Scene
http://ww2.nashvillescene.com/promotions/bestof/2 it's that time of year again... vote for Twist for Best Gallery.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
DPC KIDS ART SHOW 2010 ...its just down the street from the Arcade
Press Release:
Downtown Presbyterian Children’s Summer Arts Program
If popular caricature is at all correct and church is the place where young people are
taken to learn to hate and fear their own bodies, Downtown Presbyterian Church is going
against the grain. Led by children’s education director, Sarah Dark and with the help of
area artists J. Todd Greene, Richard Feaster, David Carlson, Mandy Rogers-Horton, and
DPC’s own Beth Gilmore, Jake Larson, and Aaron Doenges, the children of the church
are working to transform the downstairs chapel into an installation of the human body.
The show’s title? Consuming Catastrophe: The Comedy of the Heart; A Play in Ate
Parts.
Guided by the conviction that a child’s relationship with God is healthily
underway long before adults start arming them with readymade answers, Dark
customarily begins their Sunday morning classes together with a story, followed by
questions. Take Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, for instance. “The smallest of all
seeds becomes a tree so great that many birds can make their home in it,” Dark explains.”
I asked the children, ‘How is the kingdom of heaven like a mustard seed?’” What did they
come up with?
It is growing.
It is a home for us.
It is something small that is becoming great.
“I wondered aloud how the seed knew what to grow into.”
It is very powerful.
It is what it was made for.
“I asked where the children find this kind of power.”
In the trees around us.
In the seasons changing.
In our bodies.
It was the phrase, “In our bodies” that connected Todd Greene’s vision of a
human body machine with this year’s Summer Art’s Program director Dave Carlson’s
hope for a kinetic installation. Dark explains: “After spending a few weeks on what
art might be for and how specific artists create art that is interactive and moving, it
was time to put all of our ideas together.” Reporting back to the children, she had an
announcement: “Kids, we’re going to turn the chapel into a human body that you can
walk through. Oh, and you are the mustard seeds.”
It’s Dark’s hope that the children’s creation will serve as a visual aid, for young
and old alike, in better discerning God’s redeeming work not as something that happens
in spite of our bodies but within and among them and for better imagining the breadth
and outlandish scope of God’s love. She envisions the installation as “an interactive
space that will take us deeper into the poetry of this weirdly elusive but ever-expanding
kingdom...Participants will cross the threshold of the mouth and enter a bioactive
landscape, journeying through the esophagus of darkness, beneath the soul of the
stomach, into the forest of intestines, accompanied by the music of the heart, exiting
into the quiet of a blossoming tree so inclusive that life lives forever in it.” Ideally, this
culminating event of DPC’s summer arts program will somehow, in Dark’s phrase, “put
skin and bones on the mystery of the kingdom of God.”
The show opens on September 4th in DPC’s chapel at 6:00. Food and drink will be
available as a part of the Artluck’s 1st Saturday Art Crawl.
Downtown Presbyterian Children’s Summer Arts Program
If popular caricature is at all correct and church is the place where young people are
taken to learn to hate and fear their own bodies, Downtown Presbyterian Church is going
against the grain. Led by children’s education director, Sarah Dark and with the help of
area artists J. Todd Greene, Richard Feaster, David Carlson, Mandy Rogers-Horton, and
DPC’s own Beth Gilmore, Jake Larson, and Aaron Doenges, the children of the church
are working to transform the downstairs chapel into an installation of the human body.
The show’s title? Consuming Catastrophe: The Comedy of the Heart; A Play in Ate
Parts.
Guided by the conviction that a child’s relationship with God is healthily
underway long before adults start arming them with readymade answers, Dark
customarily begins their Sunday morning classes together with a story, followed by
questions. Take Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, for instance. “The smallest of all
seeds becomes a tree so great that many birds can make their home in it,” Dark explains.”
I asked the children, ‘How is the kingdom of heaven like a mustard seed?’” What did they
come up with?
It is growing.
It is a home for us.
It is something small that is becoming great.
“I wondered aloud how the seed knew what to grow into.”
It is very powerful.
It is what it was made for.
“I asked where the children find this kind of power.”
In the trees around us.
In the seasons changing.
In our bodies.
It was the phrase, “In our bodies” that connected Todd Greene’s vision of a
human body machine with this year’s Summer Art’s Program director Dave Carlson’s
hope for a kinetic installation. Dark explains: “After spending a few weeks on what
art might be for and how specific artists create art that is interactive and moving, it
was time to put all of our ideas together.” Reporting back to the children, she had an
announcement: “Kids, we’re going to turn the chapel into a human body that you can
walk through. Oh, and you are the mustard seeds.”
It’s Dark’s hope that the children’s creation will serve as a visual aid, for young
and old alike, in better discerning God’s redeeming work not as something that happens
in spite of our bodies but within and among them and for better imagining the breadth
and outlandish scope of God’s love. She envisions the installation as “an interactive
space that will take us deeper into the poetry of this weirdly elusive but ever-expanding
kingdom...Participants will cross the threshold of the mouth and enter a bioactive
landscape, journeying through the esophagus of darkness, beneath the soul of the
stomach, into the forest of intestines, accompanied by the music of the heart, exiting
into the quiet of a blossoming tree so inclusive that life lives forever in it.” Ideally, this
culminating event of DPC’s summer arts program will somehow, in Dark’s phrase, “put
skin and bones on the mystery of the kingdom of God.”
The show opens on September 4th in DPC’s chapel at 6:00. Food and drink will be
available as a part of the Artluck’s 1st Saturday Art Crawl.
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