Opening Night

I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. I was too busy flapping
my lips at people.

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Despite the snow and nose hair freezing temperatures of Friday night I managed to pack up  my entourage and check out the final product of the show I lent my 13 year old boy arms to help hang. We arrived early, about 6 and the mood was casual. At that time you could still pass through the narrow lobby to easily access either gallery. So we walked around gliding on the deep analog, long on release sine waves of the live music. Very Music for Airports. Sad I missed David Stempowski perform though. I am sure it was transformative. I saw an array of cool sound making devices in his arsenal.

There were lots of great friends already in attendance including Greg Ruffing who was in town and soon to open his own show at Arts Collinwood. He popped in before heading over there to represent his part in the group show over there.

I didn't get to take as many pictures as I had hoped. I bounced from conversation to conversation burning up most of the evening. Its funny now that I think back how much I liked all the art, the Vander Roe's, the Brandt, the Fuss snakes and the all the others. But being there that night was different than seeing them alone. On Friday all the photos hanging like ethereal backdrops to all the patrons thoughts and experiences. The work changes from when you view it singularly, alone and quiet, to when the crowds surround it. The energy of the work is activated by the crowd in such a different way. I see it differently in context with all the other people and their stories playing out. Especially the figurative pieces. They really become the manifestation of the humanity we all share. The people really are the final component in artwork.

We had a blast and as the night wore on, the crowd multiplied and multiplied to where the narrow foyer became a clogged drain, the bottle neck in the hour glass slowly seeping people from chamber to chamber. The boys were tired and I was claustrophobic. So I got some tacos from Touch and drove off shifting and eating all the way home.

Boys and that lamb!

Fred enduring yet another photo op

Pork tacos on the drive home

Transformer Station Install

2 weeks ago I had the privilege of helping out during the installation of the new Transformer Station. A while back I thought it would be a good idea professionally to get a glimpse at how both the gallery system/exhibition production and more established artists present and transport their work. THe show was hung in just over one week. I was present for 2 days. In those two days I learned an incredible amount of information about how to measure and hang work properly and how many different ways one can present their work.

carlo van de roer

Small people, big frame

I felt like my best frames were getting out shined by some of the crates that these behemoths were in. They were tight and so well crafted. I want a show of just the crating. The foam, the hardware the fine poplar or whatever they used. It's like Norm Abram had started a bespoke art crating business. I guess my janky bubble wrap cardboard sheath combo isn't going to cut it anymore.

I also learned the power of the cleat to solve world strife. The cleat, as I learned, is the easiest, strongest and safest way to hang any work. Mostly used on mega pieces like the 8 foot Matthew Brandt (double cleat yo) or the 600,000,000 pound steel framed Sugimoto (adamantium cleat). Just thinking about it sends a grinding pulse threw my lower back. But I learned the cleat is just as good for smaller works too.

Well. In honor of tonights/weekends opening regalia at the Transformer Station I thought I'd share my intimate art handler coming of age story. Fred was hardly Richard Vernon. I messed with no bull and got no horns. I had no nemesis except maybe the lamb and one very large crate who just barely fit down the stairs and into the storage room.

Hello My Name Is Art V2.0

Holy crap. After a few drunk dials, a random encounter while browsing my bookmarks and many sleepless nights longing for a digital interweb connection I have made amends for my infidelity with that siren Tumblr, Hello My Name is Art is back online. For now. Tumblr and Blogger have agreed to share and play nice recognizing that each have certain traits that the other does not. Together we could, in a blogging Big Love sort of way, coexist. Me and my sister blogs.
Not sure how this will play out or if the content will be nothing more than random incoherent murmuring with a slight chance of some whining. But we will push ahead and see what happens.
2013 is going to be a huge year so perhaps the content might end up being fairly interesting. My horizon is looking a tad cluttered at the moment. And I mean that in the best most exciting way.
I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Guten Morgen: the sun is rising.

Couple of Cool Things at Bonfoey

 Dang it, May 5th is Saturday and I am booked all weekend. Thus another chapter in the "shit my life is moving at the speed of light and I can't slow it down or find time for anything" book. I didn't and won't have a chance to see one of my favorite painters Charles Burchfield at Bonfoey. The show closes on Saturday and since I also missed the Robert Gober curated Whitney exhibited Heatwaves in the Swamp retrospective of his last year it would have been a rare opportunity to see his works again. He is an Ohio native and fantastic other worldly visionary painter that, like Forest Bess, Gober has a keen eye and passion for.
At least the Laurence Channing show opens there on May 11th. I really liked the Channing charcoals I saw at the Bonfoey booth at the NOADA fair. The gritty foggy images of presumably Cleveland but any rust belt city really, renders the streets, structures and people in a ghostly manner that eludes to memory, loss or disintegration. The loss of an identity maybe as a place tries to find new one. Maybe it never will and the images we see and make are slowly fading. A place past its expiration evaporating into history and memory. I will be interested in seeing what works are on display.

NOADA Art Fair Friday @ MOCA

I popped out to the NOADA art fair on Friday out of interest and curiosity. What would a fair  of the select group of disparate galleries look and feel like?  I tell you what it looks like man, fancy folks, nice cars, and an artistic buffet as rich and diverse as the Golden Corral's Sunday brunch. 

When you walked into MOCA the Ginn Gallery housed a preview of all the dealers in the event represented by one artist from each stable. This room alone was a nice mixture of what one would find in the back. A rich combination diverse in medium and subject. A cool sampler of Cleveland art: a diverse mix of local, national, old and new. 

Christie Birchfield @ William Busta

My most surprised award goes to 1point68. What a revelation! I was tale between my legs embarrassed that I had never been to the gallery. What the hell have I been thinking or doing? Their booth had exciting painting and photography by Roydon Watson, Jen Omaitz and Barry Underwood. Shaheen, as always, had a great mix top ticket artists as well as some revelations like William O'Brien. Bonfoey had  a super eclectic mix of old and new, painting and photography. A little something for everyone. The Lawrence Channing drawing was amazing, as well as a juicy little Eric Neff painting. Bill Busta was not to be missed with crazy cool drawings by Christie Birchfield one which was beautifully repulsive with paint, charcoal and straw or hair that I just know smelled like old barn, dried eucalyptus and dying. The other was an amazing not square gritty mirrored vaginal secret garden gateway black hole piece that found the frame contouring to the miss shaped and contorted paper. Tim Callaghan's painting always are a delight in how they have the finesse and sensibility of the best William Eggleston or Stephen Shore photographs. If I had 1800 bucks I would of taken one of those home for sure.

I really enjoyed myself and was totally uplifted at the sight of such support for the galleries and the artists in Cleveland. I hope this becomes a tradition and that more and younger galleries hop on board. It could be a very positive cornerstone to the art scene every year for artists and dealers.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Christie Birchfield @ Busta

Juicy Juicy Ansel Adams @ Wach Gallery

Callaghan @ Busta

Brent Kee Young @ Riley Absolutely amazing glass piece

Royden Watson @ 1point618. This little gem fooled me at the MOCA fundraiser last year. Fool me once...

goopy and delicious Jen Omaitz @ 1point618

Ethereal nicotine drawing by TR Erricson @ Shaheen

Craig Kucia @ Shaheen

Lawrence Channing @ Bonfoey

Great duo @ Bonfoey

Julie Weitz

Last month I went out and saw Christie Birchfield's work at William Busta. When I was leaving the main gallery of her works I glanced over into a smaller room off the east wall inside of which had some small works. From afar I couldn't quite make out what they were. When I got closer I was blown away by the gem like collages meticulously crafted out of what looked like various types of black paper and some monochromatic duo tone photographs. The works were like alien diamonds. As if the universe and time were represented in a gem stone these limited palette, multifaceted gem stones would be it. So minimal and restrained yet with an optical power that is achieved by the careful selection of surfaces and material. The works hummed and vibrated as the matte, gloss, variegated, lenticular surfaces competed for your ocular attention. At times the 2 dimensions would shift and you were convinced that what you were looking at was in 3D.


I suppose maybe the slices and snippets of flesh, the duo tone BW portions of the collage, could represent a disjointed and kind of violent nature of human position within the universe.  Personally with the optical pleasure these works give I like to read them as a soft element playing off the hard edges and severe facets of the gem like works. I enjoy the hard and soft. The play between the two feeds into the optical jockeying that happens in them.
I can't describe the coolness of these works. What else is great in an increasingly digital world were work can live  and move freely within the digital sphere, these works exist and are successful because of their unique analog optical play. They simply cannot be reproduced to the same effect. Notice my crude camera phone pictures that do these absolutely no justice.
See them in person when you can.

Here is Julies website too for further info. 

Back to Reality and NOADA

Don't want to end up like SpongeBob or Patrick

I admit the last 2 years have been a whirlwind for me with opportunities cascading off one another. I just closed my show at MOCA. Picked up the work last week from the peek of what I ever could of imagined from this body of work and now that the party is over, the guests have all gone home, I am faced with once again my own manic mind, neurotic tendencies, and the cold hard silence whispered with an icy breath by my old friend What Now. 

What now indeed What now. I wish What now had some answers instead of his silly smirk. I guess I get back to work. I am out of practice. I have been dabbling in and out of the studio when time allowed it. But it has been a while since I ground my nose to the stone. I have to get back to it and hard. It's these silent moments that are the hard fall back to work/reality from a series of great shows that makes it tough to be an artist sometimes. The wave comes crashing to the shore and low tide slips back into the ocean leaving you to dry out in the hot unrelenting sun. I have to keep moving though and fight on to not get buried in the sands of newcomers.

Anyways, time to get involved again. This Friday I think I am heading out to the NOADA art fair at MOCA. Lots of Cleveland dealers coming together in one place to showcase regional and national artists. I am super interested in this and hope that if it goes well, next year can bring some younger galleries to it like Proximity or Forum. I'd love to see a little of the old guard/established mixing with some of the cutting edge young stuff. The fair is Friday through Sunday.

Here's a LINK to more specifics.