Two shows

I wanted to highlight two shows that are in the Fondren area right now.  They have been up for the month of April and will be coming down soon.  Currently at the Cedars, which is a community center and part time gallery run by the Fondren Renaissance Foundation, is an exhibition that I am part of.  Exhibiting with me are two long time friends David West, and Ky Johnston.  David teaches drawing at Belhaven University, and Ky teaches pottery at Delta State University.  Also in the show is the collaborative glass work of Elizabeth Robinson and Kay Holloway (Spirit House Glass), and ceramic work by Courtney Peters who owns the Fondren interior design retail store Mosaic Interiors.  It is an incredibly diverse show with pottery, printmaking, drawing, painting, and glass work, but it all comes together nicely.  The spots of bright color contrasts well with the frequent black and white graphic pieces.  

Just down the street is a show at Fischer Galleries with photography by Gretchen Haien, and paintings by Vicksburg resident Martha Ferris.  Gretchen teaches photography at Belhaven University with David West, and this series of "Incidentals" showcases her ability to combine quiet, meditative, and minimalistic images with her vast technical knowledge.  Martha's series of European architecture inspired pieces are some of my favorite things I have seen in the area in the past couple of years.  She had a show of work from the same series last year at Fischer.  The flat shapes of color and play with perspective have a nice connection to her recent mosaic and tile work.  There is a particularly strong connection with the fountain mosaics she did at the Mississippi Museum of Art.  They are beautiful, playful, and very well executed which to me makes them very strong.  

 Pottery by Ky Johnston and painting by Jerrod Partridge (me)

 Mixed media piece by David West

 Main room at the Cedars

 Glass work by Spirit House Glass

 "Incidentals 041.10" by Gretchen Haien

 "Berlin" by Martha Ferris

 "Italy" by Martha Ferris

A boon for Brown's

In the past four years we have seen at least five art galleries close in the Jackson area.  It is a tough business,  both the selling and making, that is set aside for the exceptionally determined and thick skinned.  We have also seen the rise of some alternative and temporary exhibition spaces like those in the Mid-town area.  Bryant's, Nunnery's and Jackson Street Gallery were all well established galleries to close, and Lisette's barely opened before they moved out to Canton.  But this year saw the passing of the staple gallery in downtown Jackson, Gallery 119. 

Local photographer James Patterson opened Gallery 119 on South President St. in 1999 in the building that was formerly the MSU architecture school.  James had a gallery just around the corner in the Capitol Towers building called Suite 103 for several years prior to the move.  Marcy Nessel was working with James at Gallery 119 where they maintained a high standard in both what work they showed and how they presented the work.  Add to that the incredible atmosphere of the building with its high ceilings, north light, and hardwood floors, and it became a space that would arouse envy in the trendiest of New York galleries.  Sales wouldn't sustain it for long.  Watching the renaissance of the Fondren neighborhood, James moved Gallery 119 to North State St. in Fondren in 2003.  The downtown space was not used as a gallery again until 2005 when Marcy opened it back up as Highland's Fine Art Brokers.  In 2008, Marcy also felt the pull of Fondren and opened what is now one of the most respected galleries in the city, Fischer Galleries.  Highlands Fine Art Brokers, however, stayed open this time.  James Patterson closed Gallery 119 in Fondren deciding to dedicate himself full-time to his photography again, which allowed Highlands to change its name back to Gallery 119.  It was under the direction of Ellen Bordeaux when Marcy left, and then in 2010 Mike Nunnery closed his Meadowbrook Dr. gallery of repute and merged with Gallery 119 downtown.  Mike brought with him his frame shop in an attempt to make it through the severe downturn of the economy, but it wasn't enough.  Gallery 119 closed its doors in March of this year.  

This may sound like a snafu of gallery openings and closings, but it was really a beautiful baton passing by a few people that know the importance of art to a community and have a passion to help distribute it in our society.  News alert: they aren't doing it for the money.  

Gallery 119 may be closed, but the baton continues to be passed.  Mike Nunnery, following suit from his 119 predecessors, has moved back to Fondren and joined forces with what has to be one of the oldest art establishments in Jackson, Brown's Fine Art and Framing.  This is actually a return for Mike in more than one way.  Before he opened his own gallery on Meadowbrook he worked at Brown's for many years.  There is no question that he is now going to be a great asset in his new position.  

Hanging at Brown's until the 15th of this month is an exhibition of paintings by Jackson artist Chad Mars.  This is actually Chad's first solo show. Having experienced in the not so distant past the nervousness, confusion, and excitement of a first solo show I know that it is something that should be celebrated and encouraged.  Chad's work is worth a gander.  These non-objective paintings are all about texture, and Chad is enthusiastic about it.  His approach is completely intuitive and responsive to the medium.  He claims inspiration from the work of Gerhard Richter and Mark Rothko, but stresses that he wants the work to have a very natural organic feel.  

Chad expressed concern to me about people not understanding his work, and therefore it might not be easy to sell.  In response to that I will pull a quote from the book I am currently reading God in the Gallery by Daniel Siedell.  "... art is too often assumed to be merely verbal communication pursued by other (and inferior) means, that the artist is trying to send 'messages' that we as viewers must receive and understand linguistically.  This is distinctly not the case with art.  Art requires contemplation that focuses attention on the viewer developing a relationship with the work of art, not merely passively receiving a message." 

Until we can convince our fast paced society to slow down and contemplate, galleries will continue to close around us.  Let's hope not.  Here's some of Chad's work...

Cloudburst #3

Cloudburst #5 

 Cumulonimbus

 Pyrocumulonimbus

 The End

Art in the back yard part 2

This past summer I put almost everything on hold to focus on building myself a new studio.  This blog was put on what was supposed to be a three month break and it turned into a six month hiatus.  I'm not apologizing though, and won't bore you with excuses.  

What I am sorry about is how few art shows I have actually visited lately.  I have missed the opportunity to write about and share thoughts on some really nice shows like the Clarence Morgan show at the MSU School of Architecture and completely missed seeing shows that I wanted to check out like the Dan Piersol and Maureen Donnelly exhibition at Fischer Galleries.  I did make Richard Kelso's annual December show at Fischer, and you may still be able to catch some of it if you're lucky.  

Clarence Morgan

Dan Piersol

So I've decided that I will return to the passions of my children and their love of Andy Goldsworthy.  previous post  At some point early this past summer my 5 year old and soon to be 4 year old asked to watch the movie about "the guy who makes things".  Could any of us ask for a better title than that?  The dreams and inspiration after watching Rivers and Tides are evident in their eyes, and I am right there with them.  It never fails that after watching this documentary they are ready to create.  My son decided that we should make a stone arch like the ones Andy makes.  Problem number 1: we don't live in a rocky environment.  Problem number 2: that sounds like a lot of work, and I am going to have to do it all myself.  Problem number 1 was solved when I found some chunks of broken concrete.  Problem number 2 couldn't be solved.  So here we go...

The first arch...

 collapsed...

he was devastated...

the second arch...

collapsed...

as did the third and maybe the fourth, I can't remember now how many of them I made.  In the documentary Andy talks about getting to know the stone as you are working with it.  There is a lot of truth to that, and finally...

we (I) did it.

But the story doesn't end there.  In the documentary Andy says "the very thing that brings the work to life is what will cause its death".  In his case it is nature, and in my case it is a 5 year old boy with a soccer ball.  Apparently after two weeks our stone arch began to look more like a soccer goal than a piece of artwork.  He was heartbroken though, and there is probably a good lesson in there about how we become too comfortable and careless with things around us that we care for... be it art, religion, relationships, or whatever.  

In order to keep this blog post from being completely nostalgic I wanted to share some new thoughts on Andy's work.  There is an obvious connection between Andy's work and the environmental or land art in the United States from the late 60's and early 70's, but his aesthetic seems quite different from most Westerners.  During the same time period there was an art movement in Japan called the Mono-ha.  This movement was also environmental in nature, but the work has that certain something that Japanese work has.  A simple beauty and elegance that is indicative of the culture.  This overall Japanese aesthetic is apparently derived from traditional tea ceremonies and is called Wabi-Sabi.  In Leonard Koren's book Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers, he says that Wabi-Sabi is "a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.  It is a beauty of things modest and humble.  It is a beauty of things unconventional."  I think that Andy Goldsworthy may be Scottish, but he is really Japanese at heart. 

Addressing the undressed

I have spent a lot of time defending the use of nudes in art.  The school at which I received my undergraduate degree was strictly against it, and my parents were less than enthusiastic about the idea.  Still, I went off campus during those early years to learn how to draw.  Not just to learn how to draw a nude person, but to learn how to draw everything through the use of the nude.  Back at school I was scolded by the faculty.  

To begin my defense of the nude I would like to make a distinction between studying the nude as an educational experience, and using the nude in artwork.  As an educational aspect the nude is an appropriate source of study for anyone learning how to draw.  The intention of all work done in a classroom setting is for learning purposes.   John Ruskin says in his book Elements of Drawing that he would tell his students that they were not there to draw trees, but to learn to draw trees.  A few drawings or paintings may stand above the rest causing the artist to want to exhibit that work, but that is not for everyone.  While it's a good idea for anyone learning to draw to use the nude, it is not at all necessary for all artists to exhibit nude work.  The intention is different.  So I am primarily going to give reasons why studying the nude figure is helpful, and I'll leave use of nudes as an expressive subject  and the exhibiting of nude art to everyone's own personal taste.  With a completely opposite perspective, my undergraduate program was against the study of the nude, yet they adored the art of Renaissance masters.

1 - Difficulty: It is true that if you can learn to draw the human figure sensitively and accurately then you can draw anything.  The reason for this is our familiarity with the human form.  As humans, we develop visual symbols for things that we are familiar with.  Consider the common triangle symbol for trees or the gingerbread shaped house.  I still find myself using these symbols as well as stick figures when drawing with my children.  There is a comfort to it.  The thing that we are most familiar with in this world is our own bodies yet few have really observed the human body with a discerning eye.  If we can break the symbols of that with which we are most familiar then we can break the symbols for anything.  There is a quote by psychologist Rudolf Anheim taken from the book The Undressed Art by Peter Steinhart which says "The human body is a particularly complex pattern, not easily reduced to the simplicity of shape and motion.  The body transmits compelling expressions.  Also, it is overloaded with non-visual associations.  The human figure is the most difficult vehicle of artistic expression."  So in drawing the human form we are not only having to get past the hurdles of symbols for the exterior, but also are challenged to record the non-visual emotions of a human being.  

2 - Tradition:  Take a look through art history.  Our fascination with the human form is apparent in the statue called Venus of Willendorf which is estimated to be around 24,000 years old.  

3 - Beauty:  The human body is an absolutely beautiful creation in all of its complexity and diversity.  This is a beauty way beyond the idealized and hyper-sexualized beauty in mass media.  Take the time to draw another person and you will witness beauty that has nothing to do with accepted norms of attractiveness.  Creating a beautiful drawing or painting from this gift given to you by the model is the difficult part.  

In Steinhart's book he describes what someone would experience for the first time in a figure drawing class.  He says "...you'd forget that these people are naked and go on gazing, at first fascinated with the variety and immense range of difference in bodies and then struck with how expressive they are.  You would quickly feel a human connection, a kind of compassion with them.  You might also begin to feel that there is immense dignity, energy, even beauty in them.  And somewhere along the line you might realize that you are more or less abandoned to your gaze, that there is something fundamentally human in your curiosity."

As I said earlier, to study is one thing and to exhibit is something else.  There is an incredible group show called "Nude and Figurative Works" at Fischer Galleries in Fondren up through March.  If you are uncomfortable or offended by the human figure then it is probably not the show for you, but if not then I would highly encourage you to check it out.  Witness some fantastic work by artists who chose to be inspired by and not intimidated by our humanity.  Here is a sampling of the work...

Evalyn Gray

Nude 1

Jean Seymour

Reclining Figure

Martha Ferris

Afternoon Light

Nancy Dawes

Reclining Figure

Rod Moorhead

Furies

Sam Beibers

Afternoon Nap

Susan Russell

Aron - Leaning

Lea Barton's Southern Charm

There are at least two great shows currently up right now here in Jackson, if I do say so myself... because one of the two is mine.  I'll post about it later.  First I want to feature the exhibition of new work by the finely tuned collage artist Lea Barton at Fischer Galleries in Fondren.  Barton's work is unapologetically presented from the view of and about the southern woman.  In the hands of a lesser artist this narrow focus may keep certain groups of people at a distance or seem irrelevant, but Barton's witty and sincere approach is inviting.  Her pieces are challenging in the best sense.

With Barton's newest work, the Belle Boxes, I can't help but see a connection to the work of Kara Walker.  The delicate silhouettes of the southern belles are composed in shadow boxes as charming graphic pieces, but like Walker's work they seem to question the importance of the elegance.

This is an opportunity to see the work of a seasoned artist with a long exhibition list including a solo show at Denise Bibro gallery in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood.

21 Hours

Disarming

Walls of Jericho

Belle Box

Belle Box

Kelso at Fischer

I get excited when December rolls around every year.  It's not because of the cooler weather or because of the upcoming Christmas Holiday.  I had grown tired of the mass materialistic holiday until four years ago when my wife and I had our first child.  There is a renewed sense of magic seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child.  No, the reason I get excited when December comes around is that I know there will be a show of Richard Kelso's work hanging in Jackson that month.  It is an annual event to look forward to and it is hanging right now at Fischer Galleries in Fondren.  Kelso was mentioned in my last post about color theory and the influences of Henry Hensche.  

Richard Kelso is a landscape painter.  He has produced an incalculable number of landscape paintings through the years.  You might think that this would cause someone to become stagnate in his work, producing Bob Ross like symbols for trees that are comfortable and familiar, but I continue to be amazed at the experimentation and variety he shows.  And the work is simply gorgeous.  Anyone can appreciate the beauty of the scenes in his work,  but if you are a painter you will marvel at the way he uses paint.  Every stroke is deliberate, and every color of every stroke looks as though it were mixed uniquely for that one spot.  His colors are never chalky or muddy but rich from the vibrant sunlit treetops to the deepest shadows.  Kelso holds to a standard of quality that is both inspiring and daunting to me as a painter.  

There actually are two paintings in the show that are not landscapes.  Many times in his shows there will be a small selection of paintings of his studio or things in his studio.  I always love these pieces but not only because of their masterful execution.  If you ever visit Kelso's studio which is above Hal and Mal's you will recognize the light.  There is a single window that he paints by, and from what I've seen he never uses artificial light.  The cold indirect light that comes through the window casts soft warm shadows, and he absolutely nails the atmosphere that it creates.  

My one disappointment in the show is that there are no drawings.  Drawings are so sincere and personal feeling, and Kelso's Constable-esque pieces are like little treasures.  Maybe I've been a good boy this year and Santa will bring me one.  

Autumn Glory

Evening

Green House on Hwy. 22

November Mist

Pond at Mr. Palmer's

Spring

Studio Corner

Rob Cooper's glass work

Currently at Fischer Galleries in Fondren is work by three young Jackson artists, Rob Cooper, Josh Hailey, and Ginger Williams. Rob is doing some particularly intriguing work with glass. Most of the show is made up of wall mounted glass panels, but there are two traditional leaded glass pieces as well. For at least the past 13 years Rob has worked at Pearl River Glass Studios in Jackson which is having their annual exhibition at The Cedars in Fondren next week, I believe. During this time he has been able to develop some very sophisticated and skilled handling of this medium. He is incorporating fused glass, painted glass, and etched glass to create delicately layered images. The subjects run the gamut from mythology and ancient literature to superheroes, but the work really fits together well as sort of mystical narratives. There is an interesting influence from Japanese wood cuts present. In images such as The Dream of the Fisherman the visual connection is obvious. He uses the strong graphic outlines around flat shapes of color, not to mention the Japanese looking figure and architecture. But another interesting connection is the process of painting the glass. Like wood cuts, and unlike most painting it is a subtractive method. You lay on a flat tone of paint and use a brush to lift off the pigment in order to create the gradations and highlights. Then the glass is fired in a kiln to set it. This process can be done multiple times in multiple layers, and I can tell you from experience that it is not easy. Rob has a unique sensitivity to handling this medium that you won't find anywhere else around here. Here is a sampling of the work...

The Dream of the Fisherman

Tales of the Sea I

Tales of the Sea III

Sirens

Aquarian Totem

Flash Gordon and Wonder Woman

Jack Garner at Fischer

Hanging at Fischer Galleries now is a body of work by Jackson artist Jack Garner. This Rothko inspired show is Jack's first solo exhibition. While there is a definite visual connection to Rothko's "multiforms" they are certainly not pastiche, but introduce his own sense of design and color combination. Jack also stays away from Rothko's grandiose canvases to a size that is not only more manageable for the artist, but for the viewer as well. Here is a selection from the show.

Reflected Persuasion

Jung And Old

End Then Begin

Bank On It