Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Recent Exhibits: Plywood People

From fall '09 to spring '10 my plywood people have been going on road trips and having fun. Most recent is Modern Girls, Contemporary Tennessee Women in Art at the Custom House Museum in Clarkville. It is an invitational survey put together by Terry Jordan, curator. They just did an amazing job installing this exhibit. There is a ton of Adrienne Outlaw's work which added even more interactivity with viewers, but what is cool is that work that is interactive with viewers tends to be interactive with the work of all the other artists in the gallery.

URBhana 3

From Clarksville Online:

"Women’s History Month at the Customs House Museum is a special treat for the eyes. Opened on the second of March, Modern Girls is a show of contemporary works by Tennessee’s foremost female artists.
The exhibit includes known painters April Street, Edie Maney, Julia Martin, and Jennifer Utterback, woodturner Brenda Stein, installation artists Adrienne Outlaw and Sher Fick, award winning watercolorist Anne Bagby, multi-media artist Denise Stewart Sanabria, sculptor Irene Ritter and Annamaria Gundlach, and photographer Caroline Allison. Curator, Terri Jordan, says of the exhibit, “I wanted to focus this Women’s History Month on some of the talented women currently making their way in the art world, that have a connection to Tennessee."
~
I put in two new pieces that are part a Quantum Physics conceptual installation that is part of a group figurative exhibit this summer at the Ewing Gallery/UTK. , and an older piece, "Aaron".


Karley



panoramic gallery view

~
Nashville's 1st Saturday Gallery Crawl at the Arts Company. Most of the work was from the abandoned photo album series I had at the Tennessee Art Commission Galleries "Skeletons in Closets" back in July '08 with Laura Chenicek. Fun night, tons of people out on a nice, warm night.



~

Who are the Live Humans? If I cut out the color saturation, it is harder to tell. A two-person exhibit this winter with Atlanta painter Corey Barksdale at Creative Art Guild in Dalton, GA.


Corey's wife and daughter check out Daddy's paintings.


Pre-reception-only flat people.

~

Another big installation in a long corrider gallery at The Renaissance Center in Dickson, TN
Also showing in this cluster of three exhibits was Greg Schlanger and Jodi Hays.

~

Back in fall '09- winter '10, seven of my people went to The William King Museum in Abingdon, VA for their biennial survey of contemporary art in the Appalachian Highlands, "From These Hills". Mod Squad looks particularly interesting viewed through Travis Graves' "Action and Consequences". There was a ton of really cool emergent work in this exhibit.-video, installation, conceptual pieces using found objects, and bizarre and wonderful photography.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Latest Donuts


Bite. It's a big one- 42" x 48". I'm eager to finish this series (4 more to go) so I can buy more donuts to set up the next series.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Snake Box







This works-my husband's 1st reaction was that it was real. The graphite snake drawing is fused on mylar, then nailed on supports that project out of a dowel you can rotate with knobs on the side of the frame. I filled the box (Had to hand build it) with ink jet prints on vellum of leave scans, and real milk weed seeds. 3 views during rotation:



Sunday, November 8, 2009


The latest Donuts Behaving Badly painting: "Boston Creamed". Who knew donuts could express so much about the human condition?

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Elkmont Project: Ghost Town





Elkmont is decaying at an alarming rate, and the Park Service does not have the $6,000,000.00+ to initiate Alterative C, which is to preserve 19 cabins and remove the rest. Though they did release plans to entirely re-do the Cades Cove Road in March 2010 today, nothing has been announced regarding Elkmont. I have a fear that the earmarked cabins will be beyond saving once they do have the capital.

As an artist and photographer, my project is to record what is left of Elkmont. Through photographing primarily the interiors of the cabins, I intend to preserve the spirit of the lives that evolved within these summer homes. The floor plans, colors, and details inside these places radiate the joy and abandon that overtake people when removed from the responsibilities of their regular lives. The simple beauty has me obsessed and mesmorized by the cultural remains of a once vibrant community. I have well over 100 finished images, and hundreds more that are simple documentation.
The exhibit installation will involve having the work divided on the walls according to which of the three areas of the community they were taken in. Photos of the deterioration of the floors will be printed large and mounted directly on the gallery floor, where they will be interspersed with large, hanging photos of interiors.
Part 2 of my project, (after I get a worthy venue for the exhibit) is to sit down with former owners to scan scan family photos to offset my own, to get a solid sense of history. I already have a few vintage photos from public collections.

A few sample photos of my work:

One of the houses furthest up Society Hill

This is the Murphy Lodge from Millionaire's Row (next to Little River trail) below, which belonged to a friend's aunt.


The Parrot House on Millionaire's Row


I call this one "Scream".



Another shot from a house far up Society Hill.


The house my freind's family owned when she was a kid. They called it Oh-So-Cozy. Yes, that is a pink dress hanging in the window.

Inside a Daisy Town house.

An upstairs scene from Society Hill. You can never have too many colors of paint.


This was written on the living room floor, obviously by the owner, inside the Thomas House on Society Hill. "You Take My Home, My Wings Grow With Pain, Good Bye.

Friday, September 18, 2009


Binge and Purge: Donuts Behaving Badly #2. 22" x 56". Next up is Boston Creamed. I wonder if they'd like these for the Dunkin Donuts Corporate headquarters? Krispy Creme?

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

How many days should you go 'till you fire your server provider? They were hacked on a Fri., it is Wed. and my control panel and website are still down. And-how lousy are they to GET hacked? Did they not regularly hire a penetration tester to check their network security?