Multiple Exposures

Upstairs at the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria, that forbidden part of the Greater Washington area where DC area art critics seldom venture, two talented photographers share the walls of Multiple Exposures Gallery (nee Factory Photoworks) this month: Grace Taylor and Colleen Spencer Henderson (who needs to modernize her website!).

Colleen explores the landscape by turning her sharp photographer’s eyes towards the ever-changing beauties of the land. In “Three Trees” she pops a range of whites that will astound any student of the genre, and the stone fence, trees and clouds deliver a beautiful image to boot.

Grace Taylor has been amazing me for years now. She is not only an innovator who continues to push the artistic limits of the genre’s craft and vision, but also an old hand who doesn’t sit around too long resting on her laurels. In “Stone Portraits,” Taylor presents a show of images of stones that she has collected over the years. Each one has a distinct personality as Mother Nature, time and weather all combine to deliver beautiful landscapes, images and paintings within the canvas of a stone. Using Epson Ultra Chrome pigment inks, Taylor has scanned the images onto a rich black background that gives the stones a three dimensional aspect that is seldom seen in “straight” photography.

Give Taylor another notch in her string of really, really good shows and inventive ideas over the last decades.

Tree Killers

The really beautiful town where I live in Pennsylvania (most of the time when I am not in DC) is called Media. It also America's first (and probably only) "fair trade town."

Media's nickname is "Tree City, USA."

The street where I live is deeply wooded, and I have recently been told by wandering bird watchers that it is actually on the migratory path for many North American birds, who fly overhead and settle and rest among the trees.

And thus my near stupefaction when one of my neighbors down the street recently cut down 31 mature trees.

Yes thirtyfuckinone, huge-assed trees, with massive trunks and 40, 50 feet tall each.

All this in order to make a large garden in front of his house. The tree killers, my other irate neighbors tell me, are both retired professors, and "master gardeners."

As if being a "master gardener," and killing 31 beautiful trees is not enough paradoxical irony, they've now begun "decorating" their newly opened space with those awful chainsaw sculptures made from trees.

Sculptures of birds.

Bastards had the real thing nesting among the beautiful trees, and now they have huge, fake ones made of dead trees.

At the Writer's Center

Bethesda's Writer's Center is inaugurating a new program of exhibitions from time to time to display visual arts connected to literature or books.

Since this sort of genre is one of the driving forces in my own work, I am immediately interested and hope that some of you are interested as well!

This Friday, 21 September, at their venue in Bethesda (4508 Walsh Street), which is about four blocks south of the Bethesda Metro stop, just off Wisconsin Avenue, they're hosting longtime instructor Kate Blackwell and her sister Mary Beth Blackwell-Chapman.

The sisters will come together for a mixed media event on Friday, September 21, at 7:30 p.m. Kate will be sharing her newest work, a book of stories entitled "you won't remember this." Though Kate has been publishing her stories for years, this is her first book, published by Southern Methodist University Press.

Mary Beth Blackwell-Chapman is an accomplished painter and sculptor. Last winter, she created works that examine books in a whole new light. Just recently she's used her talents to bring literary classics, such as Gilgamesh, to life.

The event starts at 7.30 pm and is free and open to the public.

New at the Print Center

Philly's Print Center has announced the appointment of John Caperton as the new Curator of Prints and Photographs, Hester Stinnett as the new President of the Board of Governors and Jennifer Dempsey Fox as a new Board member of The Print Center.

Colors

The Luther W. Brady Art Gallery at George Washington University in DC is extending the exhibition dates of Generations of the Washington Color School Revisited. The extension is intended to overlap with the exhibition Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited, being held at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, September 20, 2007 - January 6, 2008. The Luther W. Brady Art Gallery features in its exhibition Morris Louis' Blue Column II, an acrylic on canvas from 1960.

"Drawing from its history of both exhibiting and collecting the works of artists such as Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Howard Mehring, Alma Thomas, and Willem de Looper, the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery will build on the 1984 exhibition Generations of the Washington Color School, held at the Dimock Gallery." New additions to the GW permanent Collection by de Looper and DC area artist Amy Lin will be shown along with a never before seen work by New York artist Rosette Bakish.

Through October 5, 2007.

SF Job in the Arts

They're looking for a new Director of Cultural Affairs in San Francisco, California at the San Francisco Arts Commission.

The Director of Cultural Affairs oversees and promotes cultural affairs on a citywide basis for art, music and related programs with support from a staff of 28. Responsibilities include oversight of a diverse portfolio of programs in eight key areas: Civic Art Collection, Community Arts and Education, Public Art Program, Civic Design Review, Cultural Equity Grants, Arts Commission Gallery, Street Artist Program and Summer in the City Concert Series.

Requirements: A Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university with major coursework in arts or closely related field and five (5) years of progressively responsible experience in the field of art administration; or an equivalent combination of training and experience. Preferred Education: 4 Year Degree

Competitive salary plus outstanding benefit package including retirement. Based on qualifying experience and salary history, there is the potential
for additional compensation. More details from Recruiting Firm - Ralph
Andersen & Associates. Contact Heather Renschler at (916) 630-4900 or apply via e-mail to apply@ralphandersen.com

All-Media Members Show at the Art League

Juried by Berthold Schmutzhart, Prof. Emeritus from the Corcoran, and someone who has juried Art League shows many times in the past, the current exhibition at the Art League delivers the usual strong group show almost guaranteed by the Art League’s two-thousand plus artists’ pool. These are his award winners.

“All of the works that I selected as award winners are very strong technically,” said the juror.

From his award winners I gravitated towards Christine Cardellino’s acrylic titled “Tower of Babel #9,” a very strong piece, and I also liked Isil Ozisik (who seems to win an award every month and deserves it) “The Harbor.” Over the years I’ve watched Ozisik win award after award at the Art League, but I have never actually seen the Art League feature this talented Turkish-born painter in a solo show.

A suggestion to the Art League: Give Isil Ozisik a solo show soon!

Photographer Fierce Sonia has been consistently pushing new buttons as she discovers new approaches and techniques to photographing her own image, in “Dis-Chord,” a photographic collage made from torn strips of her own work, she steps gingerly into new waters and delivers a really good photograph in the process.

I also like C. Wang’s “Nude Study,” an elegant charcoal drawing, that although executed flawlessly was vastly overpriced by a factor of 10, especially when compared to better, more established figurative artists who consistently deliver strong work, such as Jackie Saunders, whose ink drawing of Stephanie Regal delivers her usually austere but effective minimalist figure.

The exhibition goes through October 1, 2007.