Merry Quarantine Christmas!

 

The Giving Season, 2007 David FeBland

The Christ, the Last Supper, and the missing afikoman

A few years ago, before governors in many states made it a Covidian crime, I was invited to a Seder meal by a friend who is also quite a well-known Philadelphia area artist and an even better known curator.

Somehow the conversation turned to Christ’s Last Supper, which of course was a Seder meal, and she observed how most paintings depicting The Christ’s last meal showed regular bread instead of the unleavened bread required by Jewish tradition to celebrate the Passover. This is very interesting to the pedantic part of me, already troubled by the fact that nearly every depiction of The Christ that was presented to me in art school depicted mostly Northern European-looking Christs, rather than the Semitic Middle East Israelite that He was.

And now I wonder, are there any contemporary depictions (or any depiction) of the last supper which depict this last Seder for Christ in a more historically correct perspective?

I am sure that there exist versions of the unknown supper created by pedantic, history-aware artists of all sorts.

Religious art has pretty much been pushed aside by the postmodernists, in what can best be described as a self-mutilation of intelligent subject matter. It would be interesting to see a new contemporary view of religious art, and allow us to discover how today’s artists would interpret our diverse religious backgrounds.

Is that a great idea for an up-and-coming curator or gallery to take on or what? But I want to see The Christ as a Semite and I want to see the middle of the matzoth on the Seder plate broken in two with the larger piece hidden, to be used later as the afikoman.

GASP at Artists in Middleburg

 

Earlier today I stopped at the Artists in Middleburg art gallery in Middleburg, Virginia (which is one of the nicest and cutest little towns less than an hour's drive from the DMV.

The Artists in Middleburg (AiM) is "a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Based out of a small art gallery in Middleburg, AiM hosts themed exhibitions each month for local artists as well as offers art classes, from Plein Air experiences to sculpting instruction."

On exhibition was GASP (GREAT ART SMALL PRICES), which features artwork under $500 and which runs through January 10, 2021.  This is a terrific show, loaded with exceptional art and clearly worth the short drive to Middleburg between now and Christmas if you're looking for that most super special of gifts: original art!

The show was juried - not sure who the juror was, but as readers of my writing know by now, I love to not only tell you who the prizewinners were, but also who I'd would have given the prizes to... this is always a healthy exercise (in my opinion anyway), as it is a great example of a Campellification of that well-established art saying: "art is eyes of the beholder... in this case "it depends who the juror is."

By now I have juried hundreds of art shows at all levels of the art cabal food scale, and I am always honored to be a juror, no matter for what of for whom.  I am also an opinionated juror, but that opinion always comes from a good place.

Best of Show was awarded by the juror of GASP to Greek Man, a stone, Smalti, 14k gold, and Swarovksi crystals mixed media piece (14.25 x 13 x .5 and selling for $475) by artist Charlene Sloan.

First place went to Winter's Day End, a lovely oil landscape painting by Laura Hopkins.

The second place award went to Hanging on the Vine, Mixed Media (20 x 25, $500) by Maribe Chandler-Gardiner, and third place to a spectacular sunset oil painting by Sharon Clinton titled (of course) Sunset (oil, 12x19 and $375).

Congratulations to all the prizewinners - well deserved!

Now... for my personal choices.  

First and foremost, I really, really liked all the paintings in the show by that same Sharon Clinton, including that prizewinning Sunset, and also After the Storm, a highly demanding and superbly executed small (8x10 inches) oil - I would have chosen either of those two as Best in Show.

That's Sunset to the right - showcasing the power of color when executed by a talented painter.

The paint application shows an exuberance of that certainty in applying and mixing paint that only comes after a thousand mistakes - each one a learning episode in the glorious path to dominance over the medium.

Another prizewinner for me would have been Jill Garity - her End of Summer (Oil, 16 x 12 for $485) was exceptionally well painted and clearly she has mastered also the palette knife . Garity writes that most of her paintings are "a combination of places that are both real and imagined.They are begun with rough shapes and a pattern of light and dark and are then developed with layers of opaque paint and glazes. Underlayers peeking through providing interest and visual texture. Use of the palette knife in places also provides a randomness that provokes creativity and often takes me on a path I had not planned."  Another winner would have been Contemplating Jackson Falls (Oil, 8 x 6 for $285).

Besides Clinton and Garity, an artist named Anne Reid also caught my eye.  Reid is what my art school professors would have described as a "painter's painter." Her brushwork is forceful and skilled, and it is the application of paint that makes her work stand out.  I quite liked Afternoon Drive (Mixed Media, 5 x 7 for $175) and The Farmer (Mixed Media, 9 x 12 for $450).

That's The Farmer to the right - note the way that Reid has decided to define the road just trod by the tractor.  Notice that colors, and shapes, and texture define the road, in an abstract way that once inside the entire composition becomes a highly realistic road! And yet, if you put a roughly square frame around that foreground road, you have quite an intelligent abstract work!

What else did I like?

I liked Margaret Cassidy's photos, Peggy Weed's Chicks (which was the rest of the Campello family's top pick!), Karen Merkin's Purple Onion, and a few others.

Some constructive criticism: I want several of the artists in this show - including some of my prizewinners - to read this article from over a decade ago: How to Sign Your Artwork.

This is a jewel of a small, intimate show in a memorable small town full of cool little shops and top of the line restaurants - the fried oysters at King Street Oyster Bar are really good, and the Thai food at Thaiverse Restaurant was among the best Thai food that our family has ever had.

Opportunity for Photographers

 The Shining a Light International Photography Contest is organized by the Muhammad Ali Center. 

The topic of this year's contest is “Water”. 

The Muhammad Ali Center requests submitted photographs pertinent to the above described topic. Images should relate to women's work, lives, sanitation, and hygiene involving water. 

Photographs from this contest will be used to produce a documentary-style exhibition of 30-45 photographs, which will be exhibited at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky beginning Saturday, March 6, 2021.

For more details, please see the section "contest theme" here.

No Entry Fee. 

Details here.

Academy graduate

As I noted earlier, when I was in the Navy I did dozens of illustrations and cartoons for many newspapers (such as The Stars & Stripes), and sketches of my shipmates and other US Navy sailors in ports in the US and European ports. Most of these drawings, cartoons, and paintings were given away to my shipmates over the years, but I also kept many of them - this one has been in storage for over 40 years and was recently found! Some of you asked for more... so here is another one!

This one is from a series of cartoons that I did for a base newspaper where the main character was a sentient money changing machine.

Opportunity for Photographers

The Shining a Light International Photography Contest is organized by the Muhammad Ali Center. 

The topic of this year's contest is “Water”. 

The Muhammad Ali Center requests submitted photographs pertinent to the above described topic. Images should relate to women's work, lives, sanitation, and hygiene involving water. 

Photographs from this contest will be used to produce a documentary-style exhibition of 30-45 photographs, which will be exhibited at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky beginning Saturday, March 6, 2021.

For more details, please see the section "contest theme" here.

No Entry Fee. 

Details here.

Adrian and Mila

Adrian and Mila
2020 by F. Lennox Campello