DoNArTNeWs

light being (Diana), DoN Brewer, digital photograph.

light being (Carl Sagan), DoNBrewerMultimedia Photography @ The Radisson Warwick Hotel, The Coffee Bar.

light beings (May & Andy), DoN Brewer, digital photograph.

The Coffee Bar at The Radisson Warwick Hotel @ 17th & Locust Streets in Philly is spotlighting fourteen photographs from DoN’s series titled “light beings“, February 26th through July 30th, 2010.  Strictly landscape, the images of reflections on urban surfaces seem mysterious or manipulated, the photographs evoke thoughts of what we may become - beings of light traveling at unimaginable speeds in all directions of the universe at once.

DoN was contacted by Amy Potsic of the Center for Emerging Visual Artists inquiring if he could mount a one person show with only two weeks notice?  Duh?  Amy and Ann Koivunen selected 14 images out of twenty-two, Rob Stauffer helped DoN with framing, custom mats & non-glare glass, Shoshka, Aldy & Les helped install the show - art is hard work, man!  You have to know math!?!  The Coffee Bar space is fabu, good light, great Einstein coffee, yummy food and it’s a bar at night!  How cool is that?

Artist Reception: April 7, 2010, 5-7PM.

Photos by DoNBrewerMultimedia Photography.

Sibylie Pfaffenbichler, Sailor on Leave, oil.  The artist explained to DoN her inspiration came from the forties and the famous images of sailors returning home.  The painting is so exuberant, vibrant and distinctive it really makes you wonder why we don’t dance in the street when our soldiers make it home.  Pfaffenbichler is chair of The Philadelphia Sketch Club’s Annual Flower Show.

Paul Davis Jones, Enigma, acrylic.

Gail Morison-Hall, The Burning Bush, mixed media & Elise Arnold, Untitled One, acrylic.  With 199 works of art, Small World @ The Plastic Club would have been even bigger if more artists understood that presentation is half the battle, the exhibitions committee refused several pieces (DoN spotted a few suspect entries who passed muster).

Nick Brown, Orange Juice Cup & Mug, stone ware.  Brown brings unfired pottery to life study workshops at The Plastic Club and sketches directly onto the clay, often you can hear him scratching grooves into the design to prevent the glaze from spreading when applied.  The resultant objects are like ancient vessels found at an acheological dig - future meets ancient.

Lee Mamaluy, Popping Blooms, oil, Kathryn Russo, At Ease, mixed media and Jeanne Chesterton, Dots, oil.

Robert Stauffer’s photograph, Thorazine Can Kill The Human Spirit, with broken glass in a mirror lined shadow-box frame is like a history of modern art all mushed up like DuChamp meets Warhol meets Ansel Adams.  The broken glass reads like disaster, the desert scene feels like being stranded and the infinite reflections on all sides have secret hidden images to uncover.

 Alden Cole, Now n Then #3, Mother & Child, wax/clay, 2010 & 1964.

Bob Makoid, Avian Capers,markers.  Makoid told DoN this drawing is extra special to him because his kids surprised him by having the design made into a stained glass window.

Michele Jenkins, New Glasses, oil.  DoN LoVeS this painting!  Timeless, super-fun, nostalgic, funny, happy and executed with aplomb.

Anders Hansen, Earth Goddess, ink/watercolor, Lois Schlachter, Queen of the Night, acrylic and Joseph De Fay, The Cafe’, ink-jet print.

Lois Schlachter, Balloon Release, acrylic.  DoN appreciates Lois’ combination of real & unreal, abstract & illustrative, signs & significations - cool.

Alan Clawans, Small Shed, photograph, DoN Brewer, light being (Farrah Fawcett), photograph (it’s not DoNArTNeWs without some DoN news), Sylvia Schreiber, White Flower, acrylic, Susan Wierzbicki, Saim, acrylic and Elise Arnold, Cats, acrylic.  DoN is so pleased to have his entries placed so strategically in the beginning, #3, and the end, #196 - the magic of 3.

Photos by DoNBrewerMultimedia Photography.

The November issue of Philadelphia Magazine had an article called “Five Artists Who Will Make You Rich” by curator extraordinaire Eileen Tognini.  What a task?  DoN is familiar with four of the five artists the esteemed curator gleaned and couldn’t agree more but it made him wonder who he might choose if he could only pick five.

Karl Olsen with model/artist Arthur Ostroff @ the MCGOPA show last Fall.  Olsen is driven to achieve a level of technique, style, originality that is fiercely determined, tenacious yet warmly accessible - everyone loves impressionism but Olsen’s squishy brushwork has a darker undercurrent of emotion like a 21st Century Otto Dix, Olsen exposes the hurt, apprehension & fear of life during war-time preserving a moment of great change in our history.  Photo courtesy of Karl Olsen.

Brooke Hine was one of Tognini’s picks to make you rich.  DoN finds that just spending time with Brooke makes him feel richer; Hine is warm, empathic, vivacious, sharing, curious and extraordinarily creative - some of her ceramic sculpture incorporate cat whiskers, so poetic.  Her ancient/future ceramic concoctions ooze a dystopian narrative of archeological digs in our own future world or some inter-planetary find by an ancient space visitor.  Bones, spines, claws, spikes, hairs, curves and swirls all meld into interchangeable narratives - spooky yet fun.

Bob Jackson’s ball point pen figure studies on typing paper are like finding the perfect seashell on the beach or a crystal you want to keep while rock-hounding or that great antique find at a Paris flea market.  Jackson’s drawings are expressive and technically precise yet his use of lowly materials raises up ordinary paper to a higher plain because of the lines of ink Bob streams across the page with abandon, lyricism and grace.  Jackson is President of the Plastic Club where you can buy his drawings for around 20 bucks.

Karen McDonnell & Tony Cortosi collaborate on each of their hand-drawn, hand-cut stencil spray-paint paintings skewering modern icons, historic figures and art world figure-heads with equal levels or irony, respect, sarcasm, awe and cultural awareness from punk, pop & hip-hop to Shakespeare to Foxy Brown.  Their mash-ups are a comment on our time bringing a skate-punk anarchistic rock mentality to the gallery setting without giving up on street-cred integrity.

Eileen Tognini picked Rachel Constantine because she personifies the quintessential PAFA school of atmospheric realism presenting realistic, emotionally charged, technically accomplished paintings and deservedly so, Rachel’s work is absolute perfection.  But, DoN would include Paul DuSold in his time capsule of 21st Century art investment; DuSold’s paintings are ripe with vivid life brought into the realm of the sublime.  A simple wrapped loaf conveys a story deep with realness, a flower lives only for the moment before fading to obscurity, the portrait a glimpse into a model’s inner thoughts or the patron’s aspirations - Paul DuSold is a modern painter working with techniques passed down through the ages.

Alan J. Klawans, Rope and DoN Brewer, View from Finger Span Bridge @ Philadelphia Society of Photography exhibit and sale in Bonte’s Cafe, 9th & Walnut.  It’s really cool when the photographers descend on Bonte’s at 6:00 PM on a Friday night and switch out the photos in the ongoing exhibit, the vibe is so interesting since photographers come from all walks of life, photography is a very democratic art form.  But, the work that the Society shows is always above par, adventurous, experimental, thoughtful and professional.

DoN Brewer Photography

View from Finger Span Bridge

Ed Snyder, Lost at Sea.  Snyder’s Angels always offer hope, inspiration and introspection, the stone icons emote messages that will take eons to expire.

 Amy E. McCormick, Will the Hard Way and John Wernega, Adorned in Gold.

Eileen Eckstein, Coachem Castle Window and Mina Smith-Segal, Rollerbladers @ PSoP in Bonte’s 9th & Walnut.  Eileen is the Society President and Mina leads a drawing workshop @ The Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Morris Klein is the Vice President of The Photographic Society of Philadelphia managing the ongoing exhibit of member works in bi-monthly rotation as well as overseeing the one-person shows at Bonte’s on 17th Street.  Morris’ photographs are often dreamy and languid like an impressionist painting as in this view of the city from the Schuykill River.

Eileen Eckstein, Balloons, photograph, DoN Brewer, light being (Mama Cass), photograph, Laura Pritchard, Portrait, mixed media, Dorothy Roschen, Red, White and Green, relief tiles and Alan Klawans, Milan, archival pigment print @ The Plastic Club’s Red, White and Green exhibit.

DoN Brewer Photography

light being (Mama Cass) $150.00 light being (Kurt Cobain) $150.00

Michael Guinn, 12th Street Still Life, oil.

3rd Honorable Mention Lois Schlachter, My Brother’s Keeper, acrylic, Alden Cole, Good Vibrations, mixed media and Honorable Mention Morris Klein, Love Park, photograph.  Juror Rich Harrington has a great eye and excellent taste considering that the theme was ambiguous in that the three title colors had to be used but not exclusively; Harrington chose works who fully met the criteria such as Dorothy Roschen’s wall sculpture in blatant red, white and green squares for 2nd prize and Peter Petraglia’s trippy undersea fantasy in a subtle palette for First Prize to Lois Schlachter’s wildly imaginative abstraction with what seems like millions of colors.

Tracy Landman, Reflections on Stewart, oil, Patricia Wilson-Schmid, Catching the Light, and Lucy Roehm, Radish Trio, color pencil @ The Plastic Club’s Red White & Green exhibit.

The theme is Red, White & Green which one would think should conjure Holiday Cheer but @ The Plastic Club the art is edgy, sarcastic, goth, even scary like Hunter Thompson meets Charles Addams meets Salvador Dali.  Some of the work is literal and literate like Roehm’s Radish Trio and some is out and out transcendental like Jake Smith’s Merry Fish Mess.  Above: Anders Hansen, Shiva, ink, graphite & charcoal, First Prize Peter Petraglia, Tubulars, pen & ink, Marie Davis Samohod, Funerary Portrait, mixed media and Karen Frank, Totem and Taboo, Acrylic.

DoN is honored to be exhibited along with such wonderful artists as those in the Plastic Club, their shows are always challenging, pushing the envelop, breaking rules yet there’s no stress, the only expectation is making art.  And when the art is all hanging together it feels really good to be an artist rubbing shoulders with some of the best in town.  A cool thing about writing this blog is that when DoN took the photos he didn’t know that he was shooting the work of some of his best friends, the Plastic Club uses a number system for labeling, it’s kind of like doing your own blind jury-ing and then finding out you picked only your friends such as Lois, Pat, Mike, Alan, Alden, Eileen, Dorothy, Morris, Anders…

Jake Smith, Merry Fish Mess, acrylic and Theodore J. Amick, Untitled, oil.

Merry Fish Mess, everybody!

DoN Brewer with artist Arthur Ostroff @ DoNBrewerMultimedia, POST - X, 2009.

Artist, Mina Smith-Segal checking out DoN’s central command post.  Mina leads the studio workshops at the Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Artist, Clif Anderson visited DoN’s open studio with his lovely wife Henny.  Clif is a terrific musician and artist, his work will be on display at Bryn Mawr Rehab Center’s annual exhibit, Art Ability fearturing work by artists from around the world - opening 11/7/2009.

Neighbor Melody, DoN & artist/framer/teacher Rob Stauffer @ DonBrewerMultimedia POST-X 2009.

Photographer, Morris Klein @ DoN’s POST open house.  Klein is VP of The Photographic Society of Philadelphia.

Saturday afternoon, DoN hosted more than 25 visitors to his studio - art dogs KaTy & Doofie (the St. Bernard/Chihuahua mix)  guarded the gate and made sure all visitors are dog lovers.

DoN Brewer, self portrait, acrylic, collage, 1976.

Ben Cohen, pastel, 2008.

Kim Martin, oil, 2009.

Mike Guinn, pencil, 2009.

Karl Olsen, oil, 2009.

Paul DuSold, oil, 2007.

Alden Cole, oil on wood, 2008.

Michael Tantaros, pencil, 2009.

Participating in the annual Philadelphia Open Studio Tours means really putting yourself out there for all to see.  Being an artist model also puts one under a focussed gaze, the experience inspired DoN to ask some of his artist friends to contribute works created when DoN modeled at The Plastic Club and the Philadelphia Sketch Club.  Thank you to all the fine artists who provided their work, it feels so narcissistic but DoN LoVeS the attention!

DoN Brewer, self portrait, charcoal, chalk & conte on paper @ The Da Vinci Art Alliance.