April 2008

Off the Wall : eight sculptors opens Friday, May 2, 2008, at Summit Artspace. There will be a Meet-the-Artists Opening Reception from 5 to 7 p.m. in the gallery. Curated by Don Parsisson, the exhibit features the work of Kate Budd, John Freiman, Kenn Hetzel, Robert Huff, James Leslie, G. A. Lewis, Carey McDougall and Jessica Schlachter-Townsend. Find out more at www.summitartspace.org.

Manufactured Landscapes

When the current calendar for the Akron Art Museum Film Series came out it was a surprise to see that two of the three titles were very familiar, having already been viewed here at home on the small screen. Edward Burtynsky: Manufactured Landscapes is scheduled for May; Helvetica will be shown in June.

Featured at the museum tomorrow evening, Manufactured Landscapes documents the work of Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky as he photographs and films industry and its effect on the land and the people of China and Bangladesh. The imagery, accompanied by very little commentary, presents an other-worldliness that is both hard to comprehend and strangely compelling. The sheer scale of everything: space, size, quantity, and numbers, brought on a sort of vertigo- and a lingering (sorry to say temporary) reluctance to engage in retail forays.

More on Helvetica later. . . it, too, deals with scale, from the beginnings of the sans serif typeface through its worldwide omnipresence.

For lively art, a fresh outlook and sheer enthusiasm it is hard to surpass the work of young artists. The following prints were produced by seventh and eighth graders at Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts as part of a project introduced in late March during my two-part visiting artist classroom workshop. I chose a Hilaire Belloc poem as inspiration:

The Early Morning

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, goodnight.
Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953) 

Students were urged to go beyond illustration in turning the words into imagery. Their success is evident in the varied interpretations!

          

       

             

Prints were completed under the direction of teachers, Julienne Hogarth and Susan Yingling. Both women are talented artists who daily share their creativity and passion for art with their students.

Correction: watching printing ink dry

Too good to be true? The first run with water soluble relief ink went well. The soap and water clean-up was a snap: no solvents, no fumes!! Ah, but there’s always a downside: could it be that these prints will never dry?

With one week left to view Artists of Rubber City: Celebrating Our First Thirty Years at Summit Artspace, today’s review by Dorothy Shinn, writing in the Akron Beacon Journal, should attract some last minute art aficionados. The “wide-ranging show” of “paintings, drawings, prints, encaustics, found art, electrostatics, collages, sculptures in a wide variety of materials from wood to bronze, and digital art” contains work to appeal to an equally wide range of viewers. Generously accompanied by images of the artwork, the article touches on the history of the group and its members. Always one to keep the locals on their toes, Dorothy usually writes reviews that generate a lot of conversation and this one is no exception. Read the full text and view artwork here.

Although he’s contented to perch on his little corner of the table, Hobbes isn’t too interested in helping. He’ll soon be off to find a softer surface for snoozing.

Really, it’s only seven little squares on the calendar, but when they disappear it seems like ’spring forward’ yet again. Last Monday, instead of losing an hour’s sleep for some extra evening daylight, a full week disappeared when the opening date for an upcoming exhibit moved up.

The new monotypes remain in the studio unframed (should have put the frame order in earlier) and the initial proofs of the first of the tree series prints did not dry (should have read the fine print about the very slow drying time). How appropriate that the exhibit is in a theater- it’s a given that the show must go on! So, just a few new pieces, along with some recent favorites, will keep company with paintings by Charlotte Hanten and Linda Hutchinson in the gallery of Weathervane Playhouse during the run of Enchanted April.

Suggestion: for dates and times, better check the Weathervane’s website!

      
February and March, two new monotypes Â