New Year, New Artists at Groveland Gallery

The work is shipped (and according to FedEx, rolling through Utah at the moment) and on the way to Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis, which opens New Year, New Artists on the 20th. A good way to start off 2012!



What: New Year, New Artists
Where: Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
When: January 20 - February 25, 2012
Ambiance: a warmly-lit show nestled under oxidized copper shingles on fairytale eaves

Good Press

For those of you who love a perfect-bound art magazine and off-the-press eye-candy, Uppercase is always fun to find in the mailbox. The current issue (#11) also has one page dedicated to my practice (so if you decide to subscribe, please start with #11!). Also, the cover for this particular quarter is awesome:

Open publication - Free publishing - More craft

And another fun new find: Printeresting, the content-rich printmaking blog toured Kala Art Institute (where I work) in mid-November. If you look in several of the photos from the workshop, you will see five square prints hanging upside down in the rafters. Those are stage one (one woodcut complete) of the print that eventually became this:



It was a fun little surprise to see that they'd eeked their way onto the web in infancy.

What: good press
Where: in your mailbox and on the web
When: November/December 2011
Ambiance: good reads - one analog, one digital - and fraternal feelings for the ink-fingered printmaking community at large

Featured Artist: Leslie Lewis Sigler

Artist and fellow Austinite-turned-Californian, Leslie Lewis Sigler has recently put together a solo show at the Faulkner Gallery West titled, "Objects of My Reflection." In their review, the Santa Barbara News-Press wrote:

In this show, Sigler brings a meditative, realistic still life aesthetic, a painterly eye and attention to objects both mundane and ceremonial. Shiny sterling silver vessels and heirlooms hang happily alongside lovingly fastidious paintings of a desk fan, an espresso pot and a vintage telephone, looking gracefully iconic in this setting.

Some of the more "precious" objects and heirlooms are presented in triptychs and other multiple panel contexts, giving works like "Revival" and "Family of Heirlooms" the character of personality-endowed object worship and transformation into art. From the evidence here, Sigler has a real gift, as a painter and thinker about how painting functions.

I couldn't agree more. One of my favorite of her most recent paintings, Hand-Me-Downs (below), is a rare example of an image that captures the silent beauty of a still life, while at the same time allowing the viewer to understand an open-ended narrative that gives the painting staying-power. These are works with which you can live; they subtly maintain your interest, remaining beautiful because they always have something new to say.



Another of my favorite pieces, Scalloped Creamer, was recently part of Atkinson Gallery's Small Images show. Again, Leslie is able to take a still life and make it something more. It is beautiful, but it is also a cold, hard object yearning for warmth and life that it can only reflect.



I'm looking forward to following this series as it continues to grow, quietly telling a library of stories with a vocabulary of polished surfaces and discreet compositions.

What: Objects of My Reflection and other works by Leslie Lewis Sigler
Where: several Santa Barbara galleries and her site
When: ongoing
Ambiance: still lifes that move the imagination

Still Need a Costume? Want a Print?

With Halloween around the corner, perhaps you have a costume party or a neighborhood candy trawl in your future. Still in need of a costume? Want a limited edition print of yourself? If so, please consider donning a crown of flowers, maybe a parrot or some swarthy eyebrows - your choice - and send me a snapshot at ellenheck at gmail dot com. In an effort to finish the "Forty Fridas" project, I still need at least 20 more volunteers dressed as Frida Kahlo who would be willing to be the subject of a limited edition of woodcut and drypoint prints (some of which could be shown at Wally Workman in June of 2012). I'd love to send you a print that was made from your reference image along with many thanks for participating in the project. (Which is, by the way, open to all genders and all ages.) Happy Halloween!


What it will be: The Forty Fridas Project
What from you: a snapshot, or screenshot, or phoneshot of yourself being Frida (taken from straight on, if possible, to limit foreshortening)
What for you: a print from the edition of yourself
Ambiance: everybody's wearing the Frida persona, but individuals still shine through

New Portfolio: Aging on Copper

Over the past year, I've been working on various uses of the multiple - exploring ways in which the repeatability of printmaking will allow for the depiction of collections, juxtaposition, movement, and the passage of time.

The recently finished experimental portfolio, "The Aging of Mark Twain on One Copper Plate" is a study of the icon, aging, and time. The youngest portrait of the writer is a drypoint and aquatint on copper. The subsequent portraits are each etched over the burnished earlier images - all on the same plate. As a result, a progressive ambient "history" accumulates, revealing visible shadows of the past that themselves fade with each impression.



While choosing an icon, like Mark Twain, fits within the greater plan for next summer's show at Wally Workman, I think if I were to try this concept again, it would be nice to choose someone not-famous, whose face not everyone can recognize. By simplifying the project in this way, the focus would fall more on the themes of time, change, and the life of an unknown subject, and less on the question of likeness, or our preformed ideas about the legacy of a historical hero.

What: The Aging of Mark Twain on One Copper Plate
Where: five etchings in sepia/black on Somerset in a gray/black portfolio
When: June - October 2011
Ambiance: a chronicle of bow-tie fashion trends between 1850 and 1910

The Paper Quilt Project and sculpture by Nancy Mintz

The Paper Quilt Project is showing concurrently at the Berkeley Art Center and Traywick Contemporary through December. I was drawn to the Traywick opening this Saturday both by the lure of work-on-paper and the hope of finding new takes on repeated shape, collage, and other quilty sensibilities. Admittedly, I left the show suspecting that the real power pieces must all be housed at the BAC, because most of the paper pieces at Traywick were pretty tame. The booklet, however, promises wonderful surprises, so I'll be sure to make it over to the other site.



For me, the hit of the current Traywick collection was new sculpture in the entryway by artist (and fellow Kala-ite) Nancy Mintz. Her walking houses, yearning ladders, and caged eggs continue the thought-provoking study of motherhood that she began at Traywick with her show last March.



Event: The Paper Quilt Project
Where: Berkeley Art Center and Traywick Contemporary
When: October 15 - December 4, 2011
Ambiance: (Traywick) a sleek multi-level, multi-nooked home/gallery inside a former Masonic Temple

Last Day of artMRKT San Francisco

Today is the last day of artMRKT San Francisco. If you have time to stop by and see Kala's booth this year, you won't be disappointed. Here's a great shot from Andrea of Dan and Gary installing the prints.

Event: artMRKT San Francisco
Venue: Concourse Exhibition Center
Dates: May 19-22, 2011
Ambiance: the SF version of Art Chicago (with more noticeable/comfortable carpet), great for an efficient inspiration overload