Exhibit Road Trip/ The Bascom

American Art Today: Figures

The Bascom

Highlands, North Carolina

September 7 through January 5, 2014. Bunzl Gallery, The Bascom

~

Features two-dimensional and sculptural works of 50 artists from across the nation. The juror is Jonathan Stuhlman, Curator of American Art at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

The full online image list of work is here

___________________________________________

Road Trip

This was my third time having my work shown in various exhibits at The Bascom in Highlands, NC. The venue is a combination of both galleries and teaching facilities, with a concentration on ceramics. They also bring in solo exhibits from all over, and temporary environmental installations from artists for the grounds that surround the facility,including my favorite, Patrick Doughery . His massive stickworks construction would still be up if not for the tail end of a hurricane passing over and putting an early end to it I think last year.

The most direct route to get to Highlands from Knoxville, TN involves driving directly through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is good. What is bad is having to go through Pigeon Forge to get there. Every year, this is the weekend where they have a car event that causes gridlock of monumental proportions that involves people dragging in everything from classic cars to outright pieces of rusting crap, jeeps, and even golf carts. Exhibitors sit on lawn chairs on the side of the main drag by their parked vehicles, while everyone else cruises. Two years ago, I came straight back at night by mistake, and it took 3 hours to drive 12 miles. There are a couple attractions there that are worthy in town, such as the Titanic Museum, and Dollywood, but basically it is an amusingly (and embarrassing) trashy strip where the only food seems to be Pancakes. (We are grateful for the revenue and ironic photo ops, thank you very much). Cherokee is at the other end of the park, where there is the casino, a decent Native American living history museum, and where you can pay a local wearing full something-or-other feathered "Chief" regalia to do a native dance of indeterminate source. And you can buy moccasins. From there, you shoot through the incredible beauty of the old gem mining counties of NC, and up a winding road that goes about 2,000 feet up past endless waterfalls into the 4,000 ft.+ elevation of Highlands.

You can still buy moccasins here, but this type of shop is more the norm. The Nantahala National Forest that edges the west of town turns into endless golf courses, country clubs, and gallery/antique shopping going north all the way up to the awesome town of Brevard, where you once again you get close to entering the massive park systems at the Pisgah National Forest. Beware of the motorcyclists up there. They think the entire area is their private race track, and everyone else is in the way. Speed limits are suggestions, no passing areas are a joke. The cops hate them but you can't stop speeders on switchbacks. One almost bit it in the gravel after he passed me- his handlebars almost touching my car. I saw his buddies laughing at him through the rear view mirror. Jerks.

Well-back to Highlands. We like Bucks coffee shop. There is also a great place to eat breakfast down the street inside an old drug store with 20th century prices. There are some good outfitter shops-great sale prices on hiking boots and stuff. There is also a strange "Auction House" that is like micro Southeby's wanna be. Lottsa good restaurants. Big fancy vintage Inns. We stayed in a horribly overpriced hotel, but it was either that or sleep in the van.

At The Bascom, they have a trash bin by one of the ceramic studios with this stuff in it. Some of it looks too nice to be rejects.

Center painting, Alberto Carol of FL

The exhibit is primo. Realism to conceptual. Bronze sculptures with zipper heads. A spinal column made from translucent pig stomach linings below, to the right. I've got gallery images from a couple angles, and some favorites. The reception was terrific. Artists came in from as far away as CA.

My multi-figure drawing on plywood, "Social Situations #2" in center

On the back wall: Chris LaPorte's "Navarres of Woodside"

I was excited to see Michigan artist Chris LaPorte in the exhibit (above). His work is well known particularly through the Grand Rapids incredible ArtPrize event, where he won the big one in 2010-the biggest monetary art award in the world. In fact, I was told he submitted the piece that won that award, but the dimensions were monumental, and there were concerns about it fitting, so they took the smaller one even though they wanted the bigger one.

A Donald Robson diptych to the left. He is a professor at Kennesa State in Georgia. I really like his work. He does lots of strange people in odd uniforms doing things that aren't clear.

A Sharon Roadcap glass etching to the right. She runs an impressive glass studio in Virginia Beach where they produce work for public art installations with 2 of her children.

A Ronald Gonzalez from NY. I love this creature.

A Cara Sullivan from New Mexico. It kind of reminds me of my friend Alison Oakes work.

We ate dinner on the outside patio of a local restaurant, where even the Ace Hardware is classy.

 On the way back the next day, we had great food at Hobnobs in Brevard. I had fried green tomato caprese salad with smoked fresh mozzarella. Italian/Southern fusion locavore food at it's best served on the front porch of an old renovated house!

 

Museum Biennial Inclusion

My recent painting FD&C Red # 40 will be in From These Hills: Contemporary Art in the Southern Appalachian Highlands at the William King Museum  in Abingdon, VA

~

William King Museum continues to celebrate the diversity of regional artistic talent with its biennial exhibition, From These Hills: Contemporary Art in the Southern Appalachian Highlands, a major exhibition of new works by artists working in all media in Southwest Virginia, Northeast Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. The 2013 exhibition will open in The United Company Contemporary Regional Gallery of William King Museum, Abingdon, Virginia, on October 18, 2013, and will continue through February 16, 2014.
This exhibition will be guest-curated by Steven Matijcio, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

FD&C Red # 40     oil on canvas       4' x 6'

Inclusion in "American Art Today: Figures"

I'm really looking forward to this exhibit. Both the town of Highlands and The Bascom are really intensely cool-just getting up there through waterfall row is something else. In addition to regular local and national exhibits, The Bascom is a teaching venue, like Arrowmont. They host amazing outside sculptural installations, including a monumental Patrick Dougherty environmental stick installation that I hope is still standing. (Dougherty will be a visiting artist at ETSU this fall: http://www.etsu.edu/cas/arts/volunteer/news.aspx )

American Art Today: Figures

The Bascom

Highlands, North Carolina

September 7 through January 5, 2014. Bunzl Gallery, The Bascom
Opening Reception and Awards Presentation: Saturday, September 7. 5:00-7:00 pm
Juror Talk: 6:00 pm
This prestigious, juried exhibition features two-dimensional and sculptural works of approximately 50 artists from across the nation. The theme for the exhibition is “Figures.” This year’s juror is Jonathan Stuhlman, Curator of American Art at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Social Situations #2 Charcoal and pastel pencil on plywood: 76"H x 60"W x 24"D

Inclusion in Creative Quartely Journal/ Issue No. 30 + 31

I have a 2 page spread focusing on some of my Produce Portraits in the latest issue of Creative Quarterly Magazine . Pictured, clockwise from upper left: Inquisition Vanitas, Moon Pie Zinger, Double Zingers, Gastronomical Attraction, and Produce Butcher.

 

Upcoming Exhibits at University Galleries

I've got work in two university galleries this October:

Ossuary 

at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville UT Downtown Gallery, Knoxville TN
Dates: October 4 - 26, 2013
Reception: Friday, October 4, 5-9pm 

Ossuary is a project curated by Laurie Beth Clark of University of Wisconsin at Madison.

It's first showing was at  the Chazen Museum of Art..

Installation views can be seen here.

It's second iteration will include the work of selected Tennessee artists.

Landfill Consumption Legacy: 8.5” x 8.5” x 15” -  2013

Charcoal on paper, polymer clay “bones”, glass bottles,  plexiglass box, trash and detritus

~

The remains of human life are much more than a mere collection of bones, ash, or preserved body. It is rather an amassed collection of mostly buried remains of consumption over a lifetime that seems to grow steadily over time for each individual in the developed world. Despite attempts at recycling, the world of just a generation of two ago was much more adept at this skill, by simply using thrift as guide. My example of a rather physical manifestation of human extreme over-consumption might end up in small jars, but the history of their activity and behavior commands much more space.

~

Envisioned Landscapes

Envisioned Landscape: Group Exhibition
September 30 October 25, 2013, Tipton Gallery at ETSU
Reception: October 4, First Friday, 5 to 7 p.m.

A preliminary list of participating artists includes Diane Fox, Megan Levancy, Adrienne Little, Allison Luce, Theresa Markiw, Mary Bates Neubauer, Esther Randall, and Suzanne Stryk. 

One Epoch in the Life of a Lawn Goddess

Rotation at Gallery Asheville!

I've got a new inventory of work at Gallery Asheville as of delivery this Tues., June 4th. There are produce paintings and seven of my Altar series! Asheville's biggest art crawl of the year is this Friday, June 7th.

Altar-Nate at the Arts Company, Nashville TN

If we were to invent a contemporary secular mythology, what would it be? What are are passions, obsessions, and addictions. Where must we go, and where must we be in this 21st century culture? Are there traces of early Greek and Roman mythologies reflected, preserved, or transformed in the present day? Would Artemis be a fitness trainer? Who would we pick to appear in Nashville's Parthenon? Would we reach out to our recent past to find the beginnings of our present day definitions of beauty and human relationships?

~

There are no definitive answers, just ideas. My series of 21st Century Altars are featured at The Arts Company in Downtown Nashville through April 2013.

Artemis Redux  Charcoal on plywood, white and copper BB pellets, pen nib, hand built wooden altar  : 38”W 40”H   

Saint Sartorial Pleasure : Charcoal and pastel pencil on plywood, hand-built wood                alter, buttons, resin, gold leaf, crystals. 24”W x 47”H

The Steps of the Ryman    Charcoal and pastel pencil on plywood, gouache, resin, hand built wooden altar  28”H x 47”H x 4”D

Leaving the 19^th Century    It is graphite, cut Italian rag paper, paint, and hand built wooden altar   10”W x 16”H x 3”D

Turn of the 20th:Prosperous Direction   It is graphite, cut Italian rag paper, paint, and hand built wooden altar. 11"W x 25"H x 3"D

The Chidren of the Kudzu: graphite and color pencil on rag paper, mylar, plant fiber paper, and                             hand built box frame. 11" x 17" x 3".

The Three Graces of the lKudzu: graphite and color pencil on rag paper, mylar, plant fiber   paper, and hand built box frame. 11" x 17" x 3".

The Birth of the Cult of Blond: graphite, cut Italian rag paper, acrylic orbs, rhinestones, metal, ceramic, and hand built wooden altar 

Coming on the Rain:  graphite, cut Italian rag paper, acrylic orbs, rhinestones, metal, guitar pics, paint, and hand built wooden altar

Dionysus of the Plastic Cup: graphite, cut Italian rag paper, and hand built wooden altar 

Poseidon and Amphitrite of the River: graphite, cut Italian rag paper, vellum, rhinestones, metal, and hand built wooden altar

Saint Anne Says Not Now:  graphite, cut Italian rag paper, acrylic orbs, rhinestones, metal, ceramic, and hand built wooden altar

Saint Hubert and the Cult of Dog:  graphite, cut Italian rag paper, acrylic orbs, rhinestones, black sand, ceramic, and hand built wooden altar

Saint Vitus Retro: charcoal on plywood, silver leaf, mirror shards, hand built wooden altar frame

Salon Aphrodite 2:   graphite, cut Italian rag paper, crushed glass, acrylic orbs, rhinestones, metal, ceramic, paint, and hand built wooden altar

Salon Aphrodite 1:   graphite, cut Italian rag paper, acrylic orbs, rhinestones, metal, ceramic, paint, and hand built wooden altar

The Three Graces of the New World Parthenon:  Charcoal and pastel pencil on plywood, rhinestones, copper leaf, metal, paint, hand-built altar

Urban Confusion: graphite, cut Italian rag paper, acrylic orbs, seeds, ceramic, paint, and hand built wooden altar

The Cult of Caffeinet: graphite, cut Italian rag paper, Plexiglas, archival pigment prints, and hand built wooden altar

Collectors Night Opening

Conversation with Paul Polycarpou, editor of Nashville Arts Magazine