Area shows....

In the flurry of holiday preparations you may, like I did, need to make the time to attend two art shows in the area. A theme of both exhibitions focuses on conceptualizing nature. The Millbrook School galleries have opened with work by Scot Wittman. This solo show explores cloning technology. Based in the New York / Philadelphia metro area, Wittman chairs a department at Rutgers Prep school in New Jersey and is president of ISAIA, (Independent School Art Instructors Association). Wittman’s map silhouette series blends the humorous, the charming, and the grotesque in aesthetically pleasing combinations of crisp glossy surface isolated on buff pristine sheets of paper. A small sampling of isolated images of state birds cut from city maps provides commentary on the nation’s varying cloning laws, with audio elements included. Viewers are invited to hear the birdcalls and fruitless phone calls from each location. The exhibition included varied installations such as a hanging sculpture, chocolate covered skeleton, large-scale photography, live video-feed, and Houdini memorabilia. According to the statement, Wittman visited stem cell institutes in the United States and Europe to collect stories and rare documentation. Available were business type cards with his Twitter name, where you can search or follow his tweets of breaking stem cell news… like the oldest living tree, and the immortality of Henrietta Lack. Really, a glut of information fuels the imagery and promises the viewer interest in trivial, significant and, because it is art: aesthetic merit. Whether Wittman is an advocate or a critic of cloning remains unclear. The presentation straddles art and science and is held in both the Warner Gallery and the MASC (Math and Science Center) Gallery. The galleries are open: 8AM - 4PM, Monday through Friday and 8AM - 1PM on Saturdays.

Another art show of interest is at the Eckert Gallery, across the border in Kent, CT. When I arrived the gallery was crowded with smiling viewers, and the streets seemed full of people on their way there. In the center of the space Gabrielle Vallarino of Millbrook displayed her assembled natural stone jewelry. Vallarino, creator of Circa Designs, goes south to collect her semi-precious stones and exotic pearls. She finds the unusual, such as white egg-shaped Turquoise and Picture Jasper with miniature landscape-like inclusions. She embraces the overlooked by collecting sticks and then casting them in bronze. These casts as well as cast stones are combined in unique and fairly musical strands, adding another meaning to her name for the jeweled series- Brass Fusion.

On the back wall hang exquisite botanical watercolors by Jessica Tcherpine, also of Millbrook. Her wreaths of flowers and delicate nest are beautifully rendered and composed. She is well published and has served as founding member of the American Society of Botanical artists and is a director of the Horticultural Society of New York. Her work is renowned on both sides of the Atlantic. She is a master. Tcherpine does not have a website and to see her work you have this great opportunity to go to the gallery.

The show will run through December 31, 2010. Eckert Fine Art–Connecticut is located in the Kent Town Center at 27 North Main Street in Kent, CT. The gallery is open Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from Noon – 5:00 p.m.

ARTEAST OPEN STUDIOS THIS WEEKEND

The 4^th annual ArtEast open studio tour starts this WEEKEND. Artists from Dover Plains, Amenia, Pine Plains and Millerton will open their creative spaces and the following weekend, the 23 and 24^th, studios to the south, from Wingdale to Holmes, will follow suit.

What’s especially thrilling for me about this year’s tour is the new studios included. And I mean NEW studios, like, “delivered this Monday” new. Dianne Englekee, photographer and cartoonist in Millerton, expects her studio, which was built at Bayhorse in Milan, to be arriving this week! Her husband, the sculptor and painter Mark Liebergall, had his studio arrive in two parts a few weeks ago. It took several Amish men to put it together. Both studios will sit apart and reflect the individual character of the artists. As Liebergall says, “ her studio is like a French atelier, and mine is more like a Manhatten loft”. Camillo Rojas and Virginia Lavado, also from Millerton, have designed and been building their combined studio for years. This open studio tour will essentially be a studio warming for them as well. Another new studio on the tour is Peter Cascone’s place in Amenia, which is full of decades of work in a plethora of vintage styles. He is known for his stories and I am sure a visit there will be fascinating. In addition, My Dog Miles Art Projects and Installations and the 14^th Colony show in Millerton will bring me a quick group snapshot of what is happening in the current local scene. The one artist from previous years on the tour is Sue Hennelly in Dover Plains. She is well known for her warm hospitality and the quality of her watercolors. Maps for the tour are available at www.arteastdutchess.org

I am not opening my studio this year... it's too much a part of my kitchen! But i will be out and about checking on what these artists are up to. Hope to see you there!

Tilly

Writing for the Millbrook Independent newspaper

Josh Atlas will make you smile at the Wassaic Project just down route 22 from Amenia.

Wandering through the old Luther’s Livestock barn in Wassaic this weekend I ran into a 27-year old artist from Teaneck New Jersey who now lives in Los Angeles and works with donuts as both his medium and his message. Sitting among pallets of acetate dipped stacks of donuts, Josh Atlas smiles a winning smile and notes that his 4 month residency with the Wassaic Project is an opportunity to experiment and study the techniques available behind preserving donuts and realizing his illustrated fantasies. In “Donut Day-Spa”, a figure “soaks” in a bathtub full of donuts replete with facemask of pink icing. Josh is interested in the donuts for the way they affect our eyes and our bodies, as symbol of desire and also for their formal element, their stackable shapes and high key colors.

The art is about appetite. Josh admits to an enormous sweet tooth and at least one chipmunk groupie in the studio. He says that, “comedy is the impulse behind my practice”. He cites the influence of comic books and cartoons behind his inclination to stretch the absurd. So came the impetus for Josh to create disco balls of donuts.

Josh attended Carnegie Mellon originally intending to study computer animation. The BFA program required interdisciplinary study and, as a result, his love of drawing and sculpture grew. His last major project was a long illustration turned graphic novel.

For the August Wassaic Project Summer Festival in the Maxon Mill, August 13-15, Josh plans a real icing splash on the wall. Visit www.joshatlas.com or the www.wassaicproject.org for more info.