The Seattle Weekly has an article this week on The Bemis Building, an artist filled live/work building near the Pioneer Square area of downtown Seattle. The main gist of the article discusses the lack of foot traffic they get during the First Thursday gallery walk, due in part because the hive activity spirals out around the Occidental Square blocks of Pioneer Square. Parking is a bitch downtown at best and I am pretty sure baseball/football games are not planned with art appreciators in mind. Last Thursday a Mariner’s game was just getting out as First Thursday was about to start, leaving the area a sea of stalled cars right around the time people were getting off work and coming to the galleries.

“Abstract painter Don Rissler, who shares a loft with his wife, photographer Kara J. Higgins, agrees that getting the Art Walk crowd to the Bemis has been an uphill battle. “We’ve basically done lots of ads in Art Access, which is your basic guide for most people doing First Thursday, but it’s not within easy walking distance of Pioneer Square,” he says, adding that parking availability in the area depends largely on whether or not there’s a Seahawks or Mariners game.”- Seattle Weekly.

One thing about Seattle is the bizarre scheduling of First Thursday in not-so-close pockets of the city. Art Radio Seattle discussed in theirJuly 31st broadcast the newly sanctioned Capitol Hill Arts Walk…occurring on the First Thursday of the month. A small personal confession about Capitol Hill is having been a driver for just over two years, my parallel parking skills stink, so I don’t go there a frequently as I could (The Frye with its glorious free parking lot an exception). Any one who has taken a bus around Seattle knows its not the speediest option (although with gas prices soaring…that Metrocard is looking real good again).
Ballard holds a Second Saturday Art Walk, which is good, but unfortunately the Nordic Heritage Museum participates in First Thursday. Such is life.

Belltown, where one my favorite galleries in town Roq La Rue is located, tends to hold openings on the Second Friday of the month and they stay open late. Mark Mothersbaugh opening there this Friday (9/9). I just squeaked under the wire and caught Charles Kraft there last Friday, which I have to go into more detail about later, being one of the best shows to pass through Seattle this year.

When I went down to Portland’s First Thursday last winter, I found they tend to run into the same situation, many of their galleries are similarly open on the same night. A solution though is a lot of their galleries stay open longer, some even like Gallery 500 I am under the impression are almost open all night (I didn’t stay long enough to fact check that one). When a van load of PDXers came up to Seattle this last spring to see Laura Fritz’s exhibit at SOIL, they were pretty dismayed after getting stuck in hell traffic and finding almost all the spaces closing at 8pm, a few minutes after their arrival.

For more on the topic, Seattlest is another site who is covering the exhibits around town.

Artdish runs editor’s picks of shows to see around town.

Mr. Vroom of Vroom Journal is always covering topical events- my best local art news comes through my headphones walking my dog now that Art Radio Seattle is in existence.

And Bre Pettis, who we spoke of last week and fellow art goer Daniel Mountshave been attending First Thursdays for years together- Bre always files a good tip off of shows to see the next day.

________________________________

Footnote to yesterdays post:
Marja-Leena has a great post on Marimekko from her site yesterday, and being originally from Finnland has some nice memories of the fabric.

The Seattle Weekly has an article this week on The Bemis Building, an artist filled live/work building near the Pioneer Square area of downtown Seattle. The main gist of the article discusses the lack of foot traffic they get during the First Thursday gallery walk, due in part because the hive activity spirals out around the Occidental Square blocks of Pioneer Square. Parking is a bitch downtown at best and I am pretty sure baseball/football games are not planned with art appreciators in mind. Last Thursday a Mariner’s game was just getting out as First Thursday was about to start, leaving the area a sea of stalled cars right around the time people were getting off work and coming to the galleries.

“Abstract painter Don Rissler, who shares a loft with his wife, photographer Kara J. Higgins, agrees that getting the Art Walk crowd to the Bemis has been an uphill battle. “We’ve basically done lots of ads in Art Access, which is your basic guide for most people doing First Thursday, but it’s not within easy walking distance of Pioneer Square,” he says, adding that parking availability in the area depends largely on whether or not there’s a Seahawks or Mariners game.”- Seattle Weekly.

One thing about Seattle is the bizarre scheduling of First Thursday in not-so-close pockets of the city. Art Radio Seattle discussed in theirJuly 31st broadcast the newly sanctioned Capitol Hill Arts Walk…occurring on the First Thursday of the month. A small personal confession about Capitol Hill is having been a driver for just over two years, my parallel parking skills stink, so I don’t go there a frequently as I could (The Frye with its glorious free parking lot an exception). Any one who has taken a bus around Seattle knows its not the speediest option (although with gas prices soaring…that Metrocard is looking real good again).
Ballard holds a Second Saturday Art Walk, which is good, but unfortunately the Nordic Heritage Museum participates in First Thursday. Such is life.

Belltown, where one my favorite galleries in town Roq La Rue is located, tends to hold openings on the Second Friday of the month and they stay open late. Mark Mothersbaugh opening there this Friday (9/9). I just squeaked under the wire and caught Charles Kraft there last Friday, which I have to go into more detail about later, being one of the best shows to pass through Seattle this year.

When I went down to Portland’s First Thursday last winter, I found they tend to run into the same situation, many of their galleries are similarly open on the same night. A solution though is a lot of their galleries stay open longer, some even like Gallery 500 I am under the impression are almost open all night (I didn’t stay long enough to fact check that one). When a van load of PDXers came up to Seattle this last spring to see Laura Fritz’s exhibit at SOIL, they were pretty dismayed after getting stuck in hell traffic and finding almost all the spaces closing at 8pm, a few minutes after their arrival.

For more on the topic, Seattlest is another site who is covering the exhibits around town.

Mr. Vroom of Vroom Journal is always covering topical events- my best local art news comes through my headphones walking my dog now that Art Radio Seattle is in existence.

And Bre Pettis, who we spoke of last week and fellow art goer Daniel Mountshave been attending First Thursdays for years together- Bre always files a good tip off of shows to see the next day.

________________________________

Footnote to yesterdays post:

Marja-Leena has a great post on Marimekko from her site yesterday, and being originally from Finnland has some nice memories of the fabric.

On Sunday I toodled over to Ballard, Seattle’s fine Scandinavian neighborhood to visit the Nordic Heritage Museum.

There was a great little Marimekko exhibit too, tucked away in the Finland room and put together by one of the Museology students from the University of Washington. The N.H.M. should be capitalizing on these funny little pieces of culture they have tucked away- I literally stumbled upon it and it was a treat.

There were many displays focusing on not only the five countries of Scandinavia, but also the history of Scandinavian immigration to Seattle (and thus Ballard), impacting our logging and fishing industries.

The main reason I went was to see the exhibit by Garth Amundson, in the contemporary gallery on the third floor. Amundson, as I mentioned last week, is a photographer who manipulates and crafts his own lens contraptions out of clear plastic. It was a bright sunny day when I was visiting and the installation looked very elegant in the light. Definitely worth checking out, and if you have lived in Seattle with out ever visiting this Scandinavian outpost in Ballard, you owe it to yourself!

Afterwards I met up with my sister at the trendy Cupcake Royale . Even a few years ago people were still joking that quiet Ballard was for the “newly weds and nearly deads”, but I don’t think that is the case now at all.

Note: Shift Gallery will be open on Fridays and Saturdays through September, 12-5 pm.

Last night’s opening was a blast and a lot of people came by, including our fellow blogger Bre Pettis who has a great First Thursday report up on his site this morning. Thanks to his write up I now know about a new gallery in the Pioneer Square area named the Catherine Person gallery. Upon closer inspection I realize I had seen (and written about) a beautiful show she had mounted last year in Belltown. This is where I saw and fell in love with the work of Teresa T. Schmidt, so I will have to go check it out in person. There is actually a lot of new little spaces popping up in and around the Tashiro-Kaplan Building, and despite the dreadful parking and post baseball game traffic last night, the area was a hive of gallery attending activity. Thanks again to everyone who stopped by.

A nice mention by Vroom Journal, in Steven Michael Vroom’s round up of First Thursday offerings.

Well, we’re getting down to the wire with the whole installing situation, insomnia going strong in the countdown to tomorrow evening’s opening at Shift. Stay tuned. There is actually a lot of stuff going on around town in the next few days, including the Bumbershoot Visual Arts gala tonight.

In the meantime, there is a new issue of N.W. Drizzle out and its editor Mark Anderson, was kind enough to let me file a report on my recent visit to the South.

As always, give Jeff Jahn’s critical I a read too to see what is going on with the folks down in Portland.
He has just curated a show opening tomorrow evening at Gallery 500in PDX (Inertia 2005) at Gallery 500, that features Seattle’s ownStephen Lyons among 12 other artists.

September is shaping up to be an exciting start to the busy fall season. Next Thursday (September 1st) , Garth Amundson opens his contemporary work in photography at the Nordic Heritage Museum.

Garth Amundson – Articulations
Nordic Heritage Museum
Exhibition Dates: September 1- October 1, 2005
Artist’s Talk: Tuesday, September 20th at 7:00 PM

Reception at the Nordic Heritage Museum September 1, 2005 at 6:00

Garth Amundson’s exhibition entitled “Articulations” opens at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard on the evening of September 1, 2005. Spanning an arc of the past 10 years, the work includes new pigment digital prints and several photo/mixed media installations.

“Like a turn-of-the-century photographic historian, [Amundson] continues to pursue his fascination with the sculptural relationship between image and object by creating hand-sewn plastic lenses in order to leave his own imprint on the work. Through cutting and sewing, he investigates the notion of adapting the ordinary lens into a variety of ribbed, long and bulbous shapes. The fabrication of these types of three-dimensional objects allows him to expand on the use of distortion as a tool of invention, while also questioning the idea of originality.”

-Amanda Norenberg, “Who Wears the Pants?”, Afterimage July/August 2005

“Running the gambit from state-of-the art to antiquated and obsolete, Garth Amundson constructs compelling photographic images through a process of collection, definition, and declaration. Over the past five years Amundson’s artistic production has evolved into a more personal based practice, in both process and content. While continuing to address larger social, cultural, and political concerns, the locus of the work has narrowed to a more personal realm as the artist investigates and defines his household and ancestry. Cameras are often used to capture what is ‘out there,’ but Amundson uses photography to explore what is inside and who he is.”

-Merry Scully, Independent Curator

Amundson, who is of Nordic descent and spent a residency working in a studio at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder in Trondheim, Norway, brings a fresh eye to the challenges of modern photography. If you’ve never ventured to Ballard to visit the Nordic Heritage Museum, September is the time to go.

This is hilarious and all too true: What Everyone Should Know About Blog Depression.

Dipping my little toe back into the blogosphere here to say in a week and some spare change the fall art season is upon us.
I’m getting ready to install a show this weekend at Shift Gallery, and for someone who normally curses the summer months, I’ve been thanking my lucky stars with the accelerated drying times the hot weather has been giving us. More soon!

[Distil] Bill new work by Carolyn Zick opens Thursday, September 1st, at Shift Gallery in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. More information can be had at the soon to be launched [Distil] Bill website found here.

The studio beckons with a September show on the horizon.
I will be back at the end of the summer.
Time for a digital vacation….

Giant Robot has a fantastic feature (including cover) of Margaret Kilgallen in their latest issue #37.

From the editor’s desk of GR:

It’s an honor to have Margaret Kilgallen’s work on the cover of this issue. She was a Giant Robot reader, and we met her a few times too. Once she and her husband came to see us speak to a tiny group of Asian-American students at Stanford. Then we saw them paint a mural in a Los Angeles parking lot. After hearing about an upcoming retrospective of Margaret’s work at REDCAT, we took a low-percentage shot and asked her longtime friend and REDCAT curator Eungie Joo if there was any chance that original material existed. Not one minute later, an email came back: Eungie had just found an unpublished interview from 1999 on her computer. And it turns out it was Margaret who turned Eungie on to GR!

Since Margaret passed away in 2001, the art world has changed a lot. Street, folk and “outsider” art have found their way into the spotlight, and Margaret is often grouped with today’s most respected artists. Of course we wanted to feature her in the magazine, but Eungie put it well when she said, “I am really uninterested in feeding myth without material.” We feel the same way, and hope that the article will provide insight into her personality, while, at the same time, placing her work into context.

We don’t intend to over dramatize Margaret’s life in any way. Our intention is to treat her works like everything else we cover. It’s stuff that we find inspiring.

Only one slight misfortune, and I don’t think they were trying to be cheeky- the cover of the GR misspells her last name as Killgallen. No matter, if you are a fan of Margaret it’s a must read issue.

Other Kilgallen web coverage as an ode to the current REDCATretrospective that is up through August 21st:

SF Gate Culture Blog

art.blogging.la

Sweet Bye and Bye Flckr photoset from sketchypad annex

(they have a Giant Robot scans too, help yourself!)

losanjealous

If I was in Portland tonight I would break a celebratory split of champagne against the building that holds the new gallery Chambers to wish them good luck. With the gallery and a great show opening tonight, if you are in the radius, stop by and wish Eva Lake and Wid Chambers the best.

Their opening exhibit is Cut and Paste, featuring new work by Eunice Parsons and Paul Fujita.

As PORT, Portland’s dynamic new sight reported, Eva ” is something of an art scene triple-threat as gallerist, artist and Artstar radio jockey“.

Probably the most remarkable thing about last night’s Sh!tstorm event, besides the fact that an overflowing amount of people tried to cram into the small Rendezvous Jewelbox theater, was that I knew almost no one in the room. Not that I am a social butterfly, but for someone who thinks they have been commenting about the Seattle art scene for the last two years (or something) it was a wake up call. An amazing range of people turned out, young, old, sober and not so sober. At one point I thought I might have been the only representative sitting there from the visual arts, forgetting that Seattle has an insanely dedicated theater crowd, but I imagine the actors just tend to be more vocal than most of us painters, etc.

Anyway, the good news is there certainly seem to be enough people this fine city here that I claim as my own that want to combat the ennui that the Seattle art scene gets tagged with constantly. There is another Sh!tstorm scheduled for October, we’ll see what that means. I imagine that some people who have been here for decades heard the same old axe being ground last night, but myself, being away and then still trying to figure things out since I came back a few years ago was surprised how different it all seems.

There is a website I found out about from attending, a guy was there last night from Seattleart.org. He was sound recording the event, but enough people seemed up in arms about being identified off the record that he has decided not to post it. Too bad, but then there was the argument that if people wanted to know what was going on they should have had their ass sitting there and then. I’m of the camp that thinks they should have gone ahead and hired a stenographer like evening moderator Matthew Richter said had been threatened.

 

Awhile back, in the artdish forums there was a nice thread on the state of Art Criticism and blogs (in response to a Seattle Weekly story). Now this week the two worlds collide when Nate Lippens (our critic from the Stranger) and Steven Michael Vroom (writer of Vroom Journal and host of Art Radio Seattle) go toe to toe on the state of the arts and criticism in Seattle- check it out.

And speaking of, as Nate pointed out in his column this week, this coming Tuesday (7/12/05) the Rendezvous is hosting SH!TSTORM, which promises to be:

A no-holds-barred quarterly debate on the state of the Seattle cultural landscape, such as it is. July’s bone: All arts organizations in Seattle must be allowed to die with dignity.

Okay Seattle, I will drink to that.

I can’t help feel the latest entry from Tyler at MAN on visiting the Spiral Jetty site is one of his most heart felt in a long time. Compelling enough to make you want to charter a plane to Utah.

Also interesting to read, on the other side of the wall, Todd Gibson’sreport back from the Whitney. Todd, who has also visited the Jetty site voices some disappointment with the items on display.

Of course you’ve probably already read both of those by this point in the morning.

___________________________________________

I screened the movie All The Vermeers of New York last night, and quickly during viewing realized it was a piece that was not only not aging well, but was disastrously bad to boot. This is a story that director Jon Jost tried to etch out parallels between the NYC greed of the early 90’s and the decadence of 17th century Dutch life. The entire piece hinges on two characters who meet up in the Vermeer room at the Met. I loved this movie in my youth, but my youth was before living in New York City and obviously before knowing what makes a good movie.

There are painfully long, long shots that make you want to jump through the screen and enter the editing room to cut the editors hands off. There is an entirely “where the fuck did this come from” monologue from the male protagonist that after two minutes it was realized was taking place on one of the observation decks of the World Trade Center (that I still find unbearable to think about). There are unintentional comical scenes that take place in a broker’s office (that additionally go on and on) that remind you in 1990 there were no cell phones, Windows 95 interface or even in a room full of people shouting the same urgency that would occur now. The young female character lives in a described shit hole apartment that was larger and far more beautiful than anything I ever existed in while living there. A weird memory piece of a Manhattan I never knew. The best part of the movie is a bizarrely isolated, completely unrelated scene to the rest of the movie that features Gracie Mansion in her gallery as herself having an argument with an artist who is trying to get an exorbitant advance off of her. Weird, funny and completely not worth watching again! Full apologies to all those with me last night.

Footnote: If greg.org has not added it to his rental que yet, you might rethink it. That being said, it could bring on a curious wave of nostalgia.

Footnote II: But of course one of the last things I did myself when visiting the Met a few weeks ago, after seeing the Max Ernst exhibit was to return to the Rembrandt and Vermeer rooms there. I was so insanely tired that day.

Christian Marclay is awesome! That is my one second intellectual review.

I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit Seattle Art Museum has up right now hosting a mid-career survey of Marclay’s wide ranging out put, spanning his sculptures , video collages and found object pieces. I had seen Marclay’s work at the previous Whitney Biennial and thought his exaggerated musical instrument sculptures werehilarious (and those are all in the exhibit ) but it was also good to find the meat of his inspiration which consists of noise, thrift store records and basically rock aspiration as a fetish.

Marclay in his video collages displays an amazing obsessive compulsive eye for editing film snippets together to create a seamless work, the subject matter always sound. The highlight of the exhibit for myself was viewing the endlessly repeated screening of Video Quartet. It is a simultaneous projection of 4 DVDs that becomes one mesmerizing arrangement, containing a multitude of images playing off each other. It is beautiful, involving, and held my attention for the endurance. That endorsement comes from someone who typically hates walking into those cordoned off black rooms to view some unknown [God knows what] in the dark with strangers bumping into you blindly.

The beauty of any career survey is the ability to see how someone has gnawed on ideas over time, and examined them over and over again. Hopefully you become as engaged as they have. In this case I very much enjoyed the world that Marclay immerses himself in and was pleased with SAM for mounting the exhibit.

That being said I am always on the hunt for painting. I went up to the fourth floor of the museum to view a show gathered from the permanent collection titled: International Abstraction: Making Painting Real . While there was nothing here earth shattering, it was a nice for my brain to sit in a roomful of painting for a bit.

There is this strange little and uncharacteristic Agnes Martin on display titled “Winter Yellow” , a small postcard size bi-morphic work in ochre-brown-and orange. A note on the wall says the Canadian had actually studied in Bellingham, Washington for awhile before moving to New York and had destroyed most of her work from that era.

The exhibit ends in a room devoted to Minimalism, which as much as I have tried to change my mind over the years, still absolutely dislike most of it. The vein of painting generated by Ellsworth Kellyalways gets a vile reaction from me, which is stupid, because: who cares. I do for instance really appreciate Robert Ryman, and have warmed up to Martin’s later work, which was also in the room. For the most part though I made a quick exit.

The museum was nicely quiet yesterday afternoon with the exception of a beastly loud German couple persistently debating every piece and my personal favorite, taking calls from a booming cell phone. I am convinced these sorts of people are actually undercover guards hired by museums, this experience being so prevalent at every one I visit!

 

Late-breaking news: Conner Brothers tonight at 911 Media Arts! !

This Sunday is an event supporting the best resource Seattle has that supports the arts- The Artist TRUST benefit auction.

Artist TRUST is a nonprofit that provides access to resources, holds grant writing workshops, lists job and exhibit opportunities, and most importantly hand out grants to individuals to keep the work making process lubricated. I’m impressed they are still going strong. Yours truly here is hoping to contribute to the cause.

Today I see another Seattle resource geared towards visual artists is having a changing of the guard, Victoria Josslin is stepping down from running artdish.

And lastly, before I make myself insane with all this talk of Regionalism, I have to pull a quote out of the very interesting articleThe Seattle Weekly ran this week about the victory of Slatemagazine:

“The magazine never integrated itself into the local intellectual culture. With the exception of publisher Krohn, who is a member of the Washington News Council, Slatesters haven’t mixed much with local journalists or political figures. In fact, says Shafer, who for a long time served as Kinsley’s deputy editor, “it was always the plan that Mike and I would move back. . . . There is something about working in Seattle that’s akin to floating in an archipelago out in the Pacific. You are several days behind the latest news and gossip coming over the mojo.” In 2000, Shafer returned to D.C. More surprising is that Kinsley became a Northwest convert and stayed. “

Ah shucks.

I have to give it to Slate for their encouragement of visual art coverage while, as it is rightly stated in a contrast/comparison drawn against to alleged rival Salon, there is no competition in that corner [search for recent visual arts articles on Salon turned up this news from 1999]. At any rate, enough blathering!

I can’t help myself, everyday I have to look to see what smart ass thing is sitting on Mat’s Live Journal, or as he names it The Life between Art & Lines . Mat is pretty funny in stand alone form, but it becomes gratifying to know he punches out Coagula every other month, the beautiful and most sardonic publication that must possibly come out of Los Angeles [about art anyway]. Yes, the Live Journal as a continuum possibly contains a little too much information, but who told me to look any way.
I find a book titled: 
Most Art Sucks: Five Years of Coagula hard to resist as well. 

Matthew Barney haters and student loan payer backers will like this nibble. You kind of can’t help but feel MG standing there, snickering behind your back.

Tonight is First Thursday, which is shorthand for the fact that art venues in Seattle are open free and late tonight. I was actually thinking of braving the crowds , but after reading this big thumbs down and feeling extra tired tonight ,I think I will save it. I do have to get down to that cda gallery though and the one caveat with them is they hold no weekend hours.

Hell, I’d take their money! Big tobacco takes mercy on the Seattle art scene and forks it over. Lucky Strike was the proud sponsor of the newly anointed Genius Awards as well, and really what comes around goes around. How many art school all nighters do you think were supplied by the youth potion of cigarettes and coffee?

Sometimes the world of blogging takes on the odd qualities of say A Wrinkle In Time or maybe a Twilight Zone episode, where you feel the world is very abbreviated. Hence the feeling I got from downloading Hinke’s site today and noticing a small crayon drawing floating under her 2.03 entry. 
Hinke is really great. She emailed me a couple of years ago and asked me why I was not making art. I can’t remember the context or how the source of topic arose or even better yet what response I gave, but now it is nice to say, never mind!

A big hello to MAN readers and a big thank you to Tyler for his gracious recommendation to visit us here.

Catching up on my reading last night I was leafing through the latest issue of Artweek and came across an article by Christopher Miles questioning the need of the larger California museums to skirt provincial typecasting by ignoring regional artists exhibits:

“…if these museums weren’t so concerned with avoiding the appearance of provincialism and asserting their internationalism, that they might be able to strike a better balance and give some truly great local artists the attention that they deserve. Instead, by insisting on devoting clearly the bulk of their energy and space to importing culture from elsewhere, the museums send the signal that in fact they are provincial and in need of imported culture. They also send the message that their local artists are not great artists but provincial artists not worth exporting or even fully appreciating locally. Luckily, in recent years, the marketplace and the smaller museums and exhibition venues have shown they know better.'”

There in lies the rub of living here on the West coast. It is double edge sword, because true there are many people making art out here so why is there the constant reference to looking over our shoulder to the East.
In the same token, I am really glad that occasionally without getting on an airplane I know I can look forward to seeing art that I’ve maybe read about in those other magazines. For instance I am very much looking forward to seeing Christian Marclay’s show that is opening this Thursday at Seattle Art Museum.

I guess balance is the key word. All of this nicely dovetails with yesterdays OGIC‘s discussion about living and working in Chicago versus New York which I very much appreciated, as that topic has been sitting on the forefront of my mind lately.

By the way Artweek is the only magazine that is dedicated to covering the West Coast art world. They are not filled with glossy pictures or ads either so you actually have to read the copy. When I lived on the other coast I truly thought they had gone out of business as I never once found a issue for sale in any newsstand or book store, so add that sad fact to the rest of the list. I am so glad they are still around bringing coverage to the full West Coast, exhibit listings and opportunity listings too.

 

I have had the book Francis Bacon- Anatomy of an Enigma sitting on my shelves for a long time, and finally the time is ripe to settle in. So far it is keeping my attention.

Here are my Cliff Notes if I need them. The painting technique link is interesting to boot.

 

When I had the opportunity to see his paintings in person I really appreciated them, actually really loved them. When I saw the movie about his life Love is the Devil, I absolutely detested it, thinking it was the biggest pretentious load of crap. I hope the book stays the course. At least it has actual reproductions of his work unlike the movie, which I think was mired in the problem of making a film about a painter with out the ability to show his work.

 

I saw a Carroll Dunham drawing show once in one of those tiny little mouse hole spaces on Broadway back when galleries were still prevalent in Soho[ pre Chelsea decamp, and no it wasn’t Metro Pictures].

At any rate the show was all drawings done in crayon. I was so taken by them I found myself walking the additional 5 blocks upon exiting the gallery space straight to Pearl Paint, and purchasing myself the Crayola set of 96 Brilliant colors [the smell of that collective bundle of wax is amazing].

Years later, I still have most of them in tact and today contemplated making a batch of drawings about color.
Crayons while alluring and vivid in the box are the most unforgiving medium once actually sitting on paper. At least that’s what was going on today. I had half a mind to go get the iron and melt them all into a big smear. I wish I could see those Dunham drawings again to see what he was up to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took some time today to visit the Museum of History and Industry to see the newly installed traveling Smithsonian exhibit. This would also be something of a nostalgia trip for me as well, not having been to MOHAI for maybe 26 or 27 years.
I was dumbfounded when I pulled up, I think it is always surprises me when places seem absolutely petrified in time (I’m thinking about 1969).

MOHAI is not a conventional art museum, more of a resting ground for a hodge podge of Seattle and Gold rush history. Much like the Smithsonian it’s self, it’s full of historical mementos, photos and reenactment exhibits with the focus being on Northwest history.

While the Smithsonian in DC has the Hope Diamond* and Archie Bunker’s easy chair, MOHAI has the Slo-Mo-Shun IV Hydroplane, Seattle children’s television star J.P. Patches patchwork coat and mementos from the 1962World’s Fair.
This is a great place to take kids, Yukon history buffs and those who prefer the lively sound of player piano music to the church-like hush of most museums.
The only unfortunate thing I will say is I left with a raging headache from the noise of the reenactment exhibits.

The Smithsonian’s Industrial Drawing show Doodles, Drafts and Designs contains some great drawings. For one reason or another I find them truly intriguing knowing I couldn’t remotely emulate the style myself if I tried.
Favorites included a drawing/doodle on a napkin of a to-be manufactured transistor (somebody’s lunchtime inspiration), W.W.II graphics encouraging an industrial machinist dress code for women workers and drawings from Henry Dreyfuss Associates, which was started by the king of American Industrial design, Henry Dreyfuss.
Due to space limitations I found the layout of the exhibit slightly confusing. Thinking it was over I would wander off to another room, only to turn a corner to run into more Industrial drawings and a few moments later I would do it again. Confusion aside, it was great to be in an unpretentious place where these drawings truly belong.

MOHAI really shines right now in their efforts to digitize their immense photographic collection for on-line use, a great resource!!

Also despite my selfish wish for them to remain petrified as they are I see, they are slated for a new location and shiny new building in 2007, to give them some obviously much needed room.

Doodles, Drafts and Designs is up until Sunday, April 11, 2004

*still can’t get over the memory of being surrounded by throngs of people armed with camcorders , elbowing each other out of the way to videotape the ever kinetic Hope Diamond the day I was there.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m feeling cynical today. In the daily rags,amongst other things, a content free article in the P.I. reviewing a survey show titled “Seattle Perspective“, which attempts to define a Northwest style. This story competes with a puppet show in the Theater/Fine Arts section.

I did get my hands on a great article that appeared in last week’s (1.23.04) Wall Street Journal titled “Art Appreciation”. Analyzing what really drives auction prices was both informative:
A reliable tip-off of an artist about to take off: when an auction house takes a work on an international tour.
and out right entertaining: Still any amount of hype can’t stop sea of change in tastes, which in the art market can happen in the span of a season or two. Few  artists were hotter during the 80’s than Julian Schnabel, a burly  innovator of ” big paintings” and Ross Bleckner, a fixture on the art  scene whose vertical stripe paintings sizzled. (Both were big enough  names to make the Encyclopedia Britannica). But as crockery  started popping off Mr. Schnabel’s cracked plate paintings and Mr.  Bleckner kept turning out fairly similiar-looking works, both artists  fizzled at auction….Vincent Fremont, Mr.Schnabel’s agent, both dismissed the declining auction prices, noting that prices remain strong privately. “Everyone loves to pick on Julian,” Mr. Freemont   says. [yeah, well did he ever listen to Schnabel’s music CD “Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud?‘]

The best part of the article was the accompanying grid breaking down the facts into bite size pieces. Listing “50 prominent artists” and their corresponding style as the parameters, anyone sick of academic art writing will appreciate the bare bones analyzation, case in point:
Damien Hirst- Pickling cattle; medical art
Mark Rothko- Floating bars of color
Edgar Degas – Ballerina fetish
Andy Warhol- Marilyn, soup
Jean Dubuffet- Blobs and squiggles
Pierre Bonnard- Poor man’s Monet (hey!)
Grandma Moses- Teaching herself to paint
Tom Wesselmann- Nudes with tan lines

You get the point, see for your self.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are a few (hopefully) good shows I am mapping out intention to see in the next week or two:

Museum of Natural History and Industry has Doodles, Drawing and Doodads: Industrial Drawings, a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution (highlighting 200 years of American design with authentic drawings and plans). Opening on Saturday, January 31. I know that exhibit title sounds shamelessly cute but I am relying on the good integrity of the Smithsonian to rise above and deliver something with some substance.

The Museum of Glass has a Sandy Skogland show already opened, which I would like to see and check out their facilities as well.

What I really need though, [what I am craving] is a good painting show. Maybe it’s time to check out the galleries, which will be playing the big exhibit switch over in one Thursday. The city’s strangely named c.d.a. gallery (Cultural Development Authority, I know, don’t ask) has a painting show coming up, and I imagine I could visit Seattle Art Museum one of these days, now that I’ve missed the too trend laden to be good Baja to Vancouver: The West Coast in Contemporary Art. I promised myself if I change my mind about Baja, it’s a good enough excuse to go to Canada this summer.

 

This is turning into more of a review log than I intend but it is nice to keep track of what I have been seeing. Here is the one I have been mulling on.
A week ago I went to the Frye Museum to view the Bo Bartlett show. I was both surprised and pleased with what I found.

Even though I grew up in the area I had never stepped foot in the Frye.

After my first 10 minutes in the building I was particularly mortified by that fact. It is a beautiful and stately facility. It has an impressive 19th century Munich School collection in its permanent holdings among other turn of the century offerings . The art is hung in ample, breathable viewing spaces which were surprisingly filled up with visitors that afternoon. The fact that remained most impressive though was knowing part of The Frye’s mission is keeping the museum free to every one, every single day it is open.

What’s not to like? The truth is 12 years ago or so I wouldn’t have appreciated much about this “Little Jewel on the Hill”. I had no interest as to any art form previous to the year 1945 and the effort would have been entirely wasted.
I am pleased to know you can outgrow your own personal tunnel vision.

I specifically made the trip this day to see the current travelling exhibit Bo Bartlett’s Heartland. I’d discovered Bo’s work at the P.P.O.W.  gallery in New York and had always found myself looking forward to another show of his there. I didn’t really think I would get a chance to see an exhibit of his now that I am back on the West coast*.

My love for Bartlett is funny. It was originally hard to put my finger on what engaged me so fully about his paintings. Everything in his work seems a recipe of contradiction to what usually draws me. The works appear at first glance saccharine and melodramatic, their subject matter painted in a heroic school of realism style that can try too hard. This was all further amplified by a seal of approval from Andrew Wyeth, who I have never cared for.

None of my pre conditioning matters though upon viewing. Stepping into a room with these paintings I am struck by the buoyant color, the power of his figures set against stark backgrounds and I am taken by the sheer size of the works. Hints of malice subtly appear in the story lines; little indications that file down the sweetness of the subject matter.

The old adage that good painting is just that, and where is the point of categorizing something if you like it apparently works for me in this case.

My favorite painting in the show is the vast (134″ x 204″) Hiroshima.
I am not entirely sure what personal significance the subject matter holds to the painter. It is the only foreign landscape in the exhibit, the third work completing a trilogy about war. It is a beautiful and solemn meditation on Japanese field workers allegedly moments before the bomb strikes.

Many of the paintings in the exhibit I had seen previously. An opportunity to view them collectively though cemented my appreciation for both this painter and my new found Jewel on the Hill.

*new paintings I will be missing at P.P.O.W. open 2/04.

 

 

 

 

 

I love the smell of turpentine. I really love the shiny goo of damar varnish and can’t wait for the fresh batch I made today to be nice, viscous and ready to use in some form either as a paint binder or a glaze soon.
One of my upcoming studio-keeping chores is figuring out a better ventilation system than what I’ve got going on now. Currently I’m huffing more toxins than Citizen Ruth and probably killing off those much needed brain cells. I keep telling myself how great it is it’s been years that I’ve been off the cigarettes, but lets get real, headache inducing fumes probably aren’t doing my lungs any favors either.

I read this great quote once from an L.A. painter, claiming the reason all West Coast artists put so much shine on their paintings is because they are only familiar with art as reproductions in art magazines.