Open Studios @ The Golden Foundation Artist In Residence Barn, March 26 2015

The Sam & Adelle Golden Foundation for the Arts

237 Bell Road, New Berlin NY 13411

Click here to visit the Golden Foundation website to learn more about their residency program & how to apply.

Or click here for the Golden Foundation on Facebook to stay tuned on upcoming events, including the Made in Paint exhibit at the SAG Gallery featuring the 2014 residents. Opening reception Saturday April 11th 4:30pm - 6:30pm at the Golden Artist Colors Plant just up the road.

Chenango County, New York.

Felt great to get back to the barn again for the first group of residents for the 2015 batch. Had wanted to be among them but commitment to the Tech Garden and the ongoing Macartovin Building project space in Utica will make this year evaporate mighty quick. Next year a month in the hills should be a more reasonable prospect, would like to enjoy the opportunity without feeling compelled to scurry off for show maintenance.

And indeed, I arrived in a foul mood after a revelation about an upcoming engagement became clear during the drive down. Hadn't thought my way through it yet upon arrival and upon walking in was literally bombarded with a megaton yield blast of artwork that this industrious trio had churned out. I'd heard I was in for it this time as far as work to see but good golly ... Twelve steps in the door and I was feeling rotten about not having been painting enough on top of the item already on the mind, so my apologies to anyone there who saw me scowling away for the first half hour. Boy was I ticked off.

Then Bill appeared! with Smarties for everyone, and after that everything was OK. 

I owe you one, Bro.

First up, Martha Clippinger who may be from Dunham but we talked NYC for a few and after her residency she's off to prepare for a new show in Chelsea, if I recall correctly. Martha had recently spent time in Mexico studying rugs made in the traditional style of the region, which totally continues over into how she was weaving these pieces together. Most are High Flor acrylics on strips of plastic sheeting with gobs of manipulated gels which she would combine by peeling off & combining layers. There's an element of chance and ephemera to her work which I found quite refreshing!

Find out more about Martha's vast catalog of experimentations by visiting her website here.

Martha Clippinger

Martha Clippinger

Martha Clippinger

Martha Clippinger

Martha Clippinger

Martha Clippinger

Martha Clippinger, and I like this one!

LOL, first laugh of the day: I thought these were business cards, pocketed one on instinct before being told they were a game of chance. Which viewers had been nicking cards from all day thinking the same thing. They'll never add up now.

Matching hair, painting, glasses and scarf!

http://www.marthaclippinger.com/

Painter Tom Spleth with just a smattering of the museum full of work he generated upon coming in contact with the arsenal of materials available to the residency program artists. When on a roll I can usually either start or finish about three paintings a day. Tom was finishing three of them every hour if my headcount of the total amount of work on display is accurate, and presuming 8 hours every day was devoted to sleep or other necessary out of studio activities. He as also the first of the three I spoke with, confiding in him that I was in a rotten mood which improved immediately when told that his background is in ceramics -- Thought those forms reminded me of Miro jars.

Check out Tom's website by clicking here, this guy is one badass artist, and it takes one to know one I've been told.

Tom Spleth

Tom Spleth

Tom's incredible stash of brushes. That big green one in particular. I want it.

Tom Spleth

Tom's display in the coveted upstairs studio, and I left out the works in the stairwell, the works on the walls downstairs, the works in the foyer, the quarter-mile long string of them hanging from a Goodyear sized blimp moored to a flagpole behind the barn, likely more tucked away that he didn't feel compelled to show after running out of thumbtacks. Good gracious.

Tom Spleth

Tom Spleth

Tom Spleth, and I like this one.

Tom Spleth, and my favorite from the batch. Made me think of a frog for Jessalyn Haggenjos' lilly pond painting.

Hangin with Kojak!

http://www.spleth.com/

And finally Shea Humbrey whose work almost drove me from the barn in frustration. Did not know what to make of it at first. I'm trained to look at pictures, see how they are made, evaluate technique and  decode the imagery. When there isn't any I don't know what to do and sometimes forget that not all artists look to the residency program to paint pictures. Some are there to do their own evaluations of materials for implementation back in their native studio environments and sadly I'd not bothered to find out what Shea's ambition for his residency were. Took one look at the test pieces he had laid out and literally grumbled "Great, I'll just come back when he's finished with these" and stomped off. Clueless.

Do yourself a favor and visit Shea's website by clicking here to see what he will be doing with this research. The Carl Sagan on painters.

Shea Hembrey, and there you go. He was in search of the perfect black and white, and this would be the place to come looking. Told me he'd found the black, which combines three other acrylic compounds in addition to the bone and carbon blacks Golden produces. His uses some deep red and a light interference solution which did look quite different when viewing the samplings side by side. Hadn't found the white yet though, and I genuinely hope he does.

Shea Hembrey, and these were amongst the three "finished" works he had on display, didn't think to ask if they'd been done before or after his residency began. 

Shea Hembrey

Shea Hembrey, and not one picture amongst all of it. There's a reason.

Shea Hembrey

Shea Hembrey, and his perfect black is actually on the piece at far left to the back. I think. 

Shea Hembrey

Shea Hembrey, here working with colors & like the others that deep orange is a custom mix by Goldens for Shea based on days of painstaking experimentation with hue, shade, viscosity, light absorbance/reflectance ... I squirt the paint out of the tube onto a little plate and dip my brush in it. This guy is a chemist.

Shea's carefully compiled sample bins which track his progress in combining pigments to arrive at that absolutely perfect shade of black. I'm glad he found it!

The good old upstairs studio, where I did my project for Golden Artist Colors design team in December of 2012. They haven't been able to get rid of me since!  ;D~

Quick! What color is my hair?

http://sheahembrey.com/

Proper!

Click here for information on the Made in Paint exhibit featuring the 2014 Golden Foundation residents, opening Saturday April 11 at the big SAG Gallery at the Golden Artist Colors plant!

Earlville Opera House Art Center Presents "Cloud Physics" by Tony Thompson + "Changing Landscapes" Group Exhibit, March 21 2015

Spent Saturday tooling around Chenango and Madison County NY paying my first visit to the renowned Earlville Opera House's art center to see two shows with folks from my Utica posse -- A solo exhibit of strikingly new work by my homeboy Tony Thompson, and a group exhibit of female artists exploring landscape prospects which featured my Project-U group co-Char Jenna North. Here's some of what I saw.

Click here for the Earlville Opera House online including information on its gallery shows & theater bookings.

They had me at the giant chicken. Which are actually turkeys, but I have a thing about giant chicken paintings, see. They make me smile.

Left: Leigh Yardley

Right: Jenna North

Jenna North, who was scheduled to be in the Maldives this week pursuing her public arts project this work is related to. Long in the preparation and sadly derailed after a coup de tat deposed the democratically elected President, who had been a proponent of Jenna's undertaking. The State Department forbade her to go as the country was thrown into unrest just last Friday when "El Presidente" (as I call him) was sentenced to 13 years in prison for terrorism charges trumped up by the pro-Islamic military junta which overthrew the government. Great.

I asked her My dear, can't we find you a nice island in Canada to save? Or maybe Florida. You could go see Julie on the weekends and not need an armed bodyguard trained in crowd tactics. But no.

Click here for Jenna's web blog and website with information on her Underwater project.

Marion Wilson, and I wished I'd gotten a closer look as this was pretty impressive stuff.

Marion Wilson

Marion Wilson

Amy McKinnon, and that thing RULES!!!!

Aida Khalil

Aida Khalil

Lisa Iannello

Leigh Yardley visiting with Amy McKinnon in front of Leigh's marvelous multi-materials creation, which I sadly neglected to get a closer shot of, in addition to Lynette Stephenson's "Flood". Repeat visit coming up in April! Now let's go upstairs.

Tony Thompson's show was in the upstairs exhibition space, and this sight literally stopped me dead in my tracks as I had not understood upon glancing up at first entering that this was Tony's art. Or rather what it has become, as followers of the blog are hopefully familiar with his traditional junkyard maestro turned gallery artist approach. For one thing, I've never seen him use blue before, or at least no blue like that. 

He's also using brushes and scaling down (at least for what we saw in this gathering of work) the size of his paintings. The largest work in the show was the mural painting board he did at the Utica Music & Arts Fest in the fall, and if I read Tony's progression correctly the motif he chose to pursue with it led to a whole new visual language for him. It's cleaner, tighter, more sober, almost precious, and concerned with its material form in a way which stopped me dead in my tracks.

Tony Thompson, and we'll take a closer look at these below.

Tony Thompson, and without even trying to that is installation art of the first order, using the native architecture as part of the display rather than just covering it with stuff.

Tony Thompson, and the large work is his board from 2014 Utica Music & Arts Fest live mural mural painting performance at the Utica Memorial Autorium. Use the navigation menu at left for September to view coverage of the event!

Tony Thompson, and this was my favorite of his works during my first walk around. 

Tony Thompson, and that is about the "nicest" painting I have ever seen from him. Most revel in their scruffiness, now here's Tony being downright fussy about his results. I call it growth. 

Tony's setup with a video screen showing a smartfone made time lapse film of him painting the mural board at left during the UMAF event in September. Perfect, bring it to the Tech Garden I say. 

Tony Thompson

Tony Thompson, and subsequent to sorting these pix this is one of my favorites from the whole group. Peter Leone called it as one of the best, and he was right.

Tony Thompson

Reconsidering the stairwell installation.

Tony Thompson, and upon reflection that's the strongest work in the show just for the risks he was taking going beyond his usual methods. The clouds with solid blue verticals underneath also made me think of faucets being opened. Wash it all down the drain, homes.

Tony Thompson, and these three started looking pretty damn good back at home when sorting pix. I already know I want something from this show ...

One last look at these, which Tony later told me were individual works grouped together and meant to be sold as individuals. Good.

That. I want it.

Tony discussing his work in a very serious manner with sculptor Peter Leone, who is rarely serious at all.

Tony with artist Douglas Cummings, one of the mural painters from the 2013 Utica Music & Arts Fest, and a showing of all the mural boards from both years is under planning for this summer at the Macartovin Building space in downtown Utica. I think.

Who loves ya baby.

Ooo yes, with Tony's hot sister Tara. You bet. 

And Tara's addition to the things I learned yesterday -- the MonoPod, a smartfone selfie rod on a telescopic boom which can be used for panoramic selfshots. Gotta have one! This lady leads.

Had to have a look at the auditorium before departing.

Earlville Opera House, Earlville NY.

A look from the stage. Have heard rumor that Robert Fripp played here at some point, searching for confirmation. And now of course that I've set foot on it, I want more, including getting Catherine Wright up on here, and Jenna North, Kayla Cady, Allison Sarenski, all of the artist/performers I've had fortune to cross paths with. Someone passed off a business card and I'll be using it.

o:

One last look! Hate to be a jerk by calling stuff like this when nobody asked, but best out of them all. And I want it.

Some wish fulfillment earlier while visiting the Broad Street Gallery in Hamilton, where my paintings are now on display next to busy-box creations by my former SU art history instructor Jim Ridlon. And along with works by Lauren Bristol, Arlene Arbend, Tim See, Diane Menzies, Tony Thompson, Tim Rand, Maria Vallese, Christopher Cirillo, Karen Burns, Kara Rusch, Marc Larens, Jan Burke, Mark Pittarilli, Patrick Vedder, Ashley Stagner, that guy with the thing, and many others I can't recall the names of. I even hear Linda Bigness has been by, and there's an event on tap for Saturday April 11th. Same day as the Golden Foundation show at the plant gallery conveniently nearby. Larry Bakke would be loving this.

Whoa ...

http://www.trandart.com/