DoNArTNeWs

Lilliana Didovic, Boat House Row, mixed media with crystals @ The Perkins Center for the Arts presents Through My Window, a Da Vinci Art Alliance Event.  Lilliana is one of the artists who painted the Philly Phanatics which were waving to us from all over the city last summer - Lilliana Didovic & writer Ronnie Norpel’s piece sold at a charity auction for a bundle, Congratulations!

Lilliana’s painting with crystals representing the iconic lights outlining the architecture of the houses glitters in the huge, open gallery at the The Perkins Center for the Arts in Collingswood, NJ.  Didovic’s window on the world finds glamor and glitz among the darkness of the night and the intimidating rushing river; the crystals as LEDs is genius, both forms will send us light far longer than the old incandescent bulbs stretched across the boat houses.  DoN misses the old lights, though, with the hidden narrative of guys climbing high ladders and walking along rooftops to replace light bulbs but the new lights are totally groovy.

Through My Window @ Perkins Center for the Arts.  DoN is honored to have his drawing featured in the catalog for this exciting art venture, the adjunct to the more famous Moorestown art center, is riding the renaissance wave of artistic and cultured lifestyle that is washing down Haddon Avenue with plush restaurants and historic architecture.

Executive Director, Alan Willoughby told DoN that the town has been very supportive offering the building to be renovated into an art space with workshops, galleries and vitality.  As the center goes through it’s first round of renovation, Willoughby sees a positive potential for growth in a small town with a lot of character.  Watch for a review in this week’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Da Vinci Art Alliance board members Dave Foss & Alden Cole were interviewed about their perspective on this unique exhibition.

Perkins Center for the Arts, Collingswood, NJ.

Michael DiPrinzio, mixed media @ Perkins Center for the Arts, Through My Window, A Da Vinci Art Alliance traveling exhibition through November 11th, 2010 with a special event today called Creating the Poem- 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM.  Hurry up, get over there!

Photos by DoN.

Bobbie Adams. Annette Alessi, Roz Bloom, DoN Brewer, Pat Burns, Lois Allen Charles, Piety Choi, Rachel Christy, Rachel Citrino, Alden Cole, Francesca Costanzo, Lilliana Didovic, Gerard Di Falco, Judy Engle, Linda Dubin, Laura Guzzo, Louise Herring, Ona Kalstein, Maria J. Keane, Gary Koenitzer, Sandi Neiman, Marlon Majette, Lee Muslin, Liz Nicklus, Arthur Ostroff, Anna Pizzoli, Peter Seidel, Rex Sexton, Francine Strauss, Anna Vosburgh, Ted Warchal, Carol Wisker, Wendelyn Anderson, Karen McDonnell, Anthony Cortosi.

Noyes Museum of Art- Hammonton
5 S. Second St.
Hammonton, NJ 08037
(609)561-8006

The DaVinci Art Alliance: “7″ Deadly Sins

Exhibit Dates: October 1 - November 24, 2010
Opening Reception: October 1: 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Artist Lecture with Marlon Majette: October 6: 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.

Da Vinci Art Alliance is a non-profit artists’ organization located in South Philadelphia.  The organization was founded in 1931 to serve the needs of professional artists and artisans in the Delaware Valley.  Da Vinci Art Alliance currently has over 150 members and is supported through membership dues, gallery rentals, sales commissions, grants, and donations.  Da Vinci Art Alliance holds exhibitions of members’ and non-members’ artwork as well as special events, workshops, performances, poetry readings, and lectures.

DoN is thrilled about his museum debut with the Seven Deadly Sins exhibit in the Noyes Museum of Art, Hammonton, NJ for some wack-a-doodle time-tripping reasons; DoN has a history with Hammonton, showing in the Noyes is kind of cosmic.  DoN hung out with GadFly, an early radical blogger who stirred local political shit in a way that not many people have the balls to do today even in our social networked world.  GadFly posted blogs that ended up getting him interviewed by the FBI, radio talk show hosts and the town council, who he called nasty names which ultimately ended up being quoted in his obituary, a final insult to his political enemies.  Before the internet GadFly wrote letters to the editor in papers locally and nationally, ranting endlessly about corruption, when he discovered blogging there was no stopping his vitriolic sarcastic wit.  GadFly’s blog was the inspiration for DoNArTNeWs. 

GadFly is now known as Dead Larry, a former life guard, since drowning ironically in a gym pool a few years ago.  DoN adopted, his now geriatric, Lady Doofus, the St. Bernard/Chihuahua mix who lived on Dead Larry’s farm but is now an urbane canine retiree in Marion Anderson Historical Village; Lady Doofus may make a surprise appearance at the art gala in her former home town, along with KaTy the ArT DoG who also enjoyed romps in the Pine Barrens swamps.  GadFly would LoVe that DoN is presenting his art in Hammonton, New Jersey, his home state (DoN was named most artistic, Deptford High School, Class of ‘71), especially the 7 Deadly Sins part - gossip with DoN at the opening party, 10/01/10, to get the real dirt on Dead Larry aka GadFly.

Hammonton, NJ, once a vital town in South Jersey, is recovering from being hit by the Walmart Bomb, the downtown became a bit shabby but now is truly quaint like a Hopper painting, the Noyes Museum Gallery is a revitalizing force - art to the rescue!

Pat Wilson-Schmid works at being an artist full time, a tireless volunteer, and art advocate; the Philadelphia Sketch Club relies on Pat because she always makes the extra effort to keep the team on task.

Edna Santiago told DoN the painting is an uncle who moved to Philly to raise his family, she said he would be proud to know his visage is being shown in City Hall.  The acrylic on plastic painting is unique, confounding and bold, the narrative takes us to a time and place that is old Philadelphia yet very contemporary and urban, the passages of dark and light are deeply moving.  Chicken Louis, acrylic on plexiglass, Edna Santiago.

Piety Choi, Manna, mixed media on canvas.  The splashy painting paired with the intensely decorative tile work mixes time lines, metaphors and ideas on what is beautiful in contemporary culture.  Choi continues to surprise, inspire and challenge the Philly art-erati to step up their game, her works continuously win awards and draw people together to talk.

 P.J. Foster, Unexpected Journey, acrylic & egg shell @ The Philadelphia Sketch Club Member Exhibition @ Art in City Hall.

Art in City Hall featuring the Philadelphia Sketch Club’s 150 Anniversary members show is the oldest art club in America’s first show at the world famous City Hall and it’s 20 year old public art in City Hall program.  The shown is immense with hundreds of art works by many of Philly’s best artists.

Photos by DoN.

Hello my little DoNsters, the Haus of DoN, DoNBrewerMultimedia, is slowly rising from the muck of the economic melt-down of 2010 like a lotus with petals opening onto a new season of art and culture.  DoN is so grateful to the Center for Emerging Visual Artists and the Coffee Bar for the extended exhibition of his photo series titled “light beings” through the end of August, 2010. 

As reiki energy would have it, the Photographic Society of Philadelphia’s long running series of solo member exhibitions @ Bonte’s Café, 17^th & Sansom Streets is hosting DoN Brewer’s “Dark Matter” a collection of images gleaned from the on-going 16 x 20″ show @ the other PSoP venue @ 9^th & Walnut Streets and photographs from the “light beings” series.  The exhibition is being installed Thursday, September 9^th, 2010 @ 4:00 PM, it is so cool to continue to show DoN’s art in the heart of Center City.  Thank You so much to PSoP for their confidence end enthusiasm.

light being (Dennis), digital photograph, 2010, DoN Brewer @ Bonte’s Cafe, 17th & Samsom Sts.

From Downtown Center City to Bartram’s Garden in West Philly, Friday, September 10^th, 2010 @ 6:00 pm at the Bartram’s Garden Gallery, the Da Vinci Art Alliance is hosting, “What’s the Buzz?”, a DVAA Members Event based on bees; Bartram’s Garden is now cultivating bees and it’s the Honey Festival, too.  Mmmm.  DoN will be gallery-sitting Saturday, September 11^th, 2010, 10:00 AM - 2:00PM in the delightful art space in the oldest barn in Philly, stop in for a curated tour by artists participating in the weekend-long show.

Pemberton Street Garden, digital photograph, 2010, DoN Brewer @ Bartram’s Garden Gallery, September 10th - 12th, 2010.

Later that evening DoN will be at the opening of “Through My Window“, a Da Vinci Art Alliance event at The Perkins Art Center in Collingswood, NJ.  The group show’s only caveat was include an old window, each artist visualizing their own view of reality into a work of art - the show has been exhibited at Smile Gallery in Center City Philly and the Renaissance Riverfront Center for the Arts in Millville, NJ. 

DoN Brewer & “Vue de la 22 Rue Rambuteau“. colored pencil drawing.

Sunday, September 12^th, 2010 @ 2:00 PM DoN will join the party for the Absolutely Abstract 2010 juried exhibition at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, it is such an honor to have abstract landscape photograph from the “light beings” series included in the exclusive art collection for the third year in a row.  Read more about the exhibit @ DoNArTNeWs.

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light beings (Sid & Nancy), digital photograph, DoN Brewer @ The Philadephia Sketch Club’s Absolutely Abstract 2010.

DoN’s blog, DoNArTNeWs, continues to grow in popularity with a DoN’s eye view of the gallery scene in Philly.  Thank you to all the artists who share their work, their stories and their passions with DoN; creating a narrative of the warren of alleys in the Philly art world is fun and frustrating with so many exciting and inspiring events to participate in and attend. 

This Fall, DoN is included in the Art Ability art show at Bryn Mawr Rehab Center in Paoli, the huge exhibit of hundreds from artists from all over the world is a juried exhibition of art by works by people living with disabilities.  DoN is also helping to brand Vision for Equality, Inc , designing custom SEO code, resulting in the non-profit organization, which advocates for and monitors people with intellectual disabilities, a page one ranking in Google!  DoN is also writing blog posts for NUVISIONS for Disabled Artists and Diversified Art blog is featuring DoN’s “light being (Mary)” on their gallery page.  DoN also posts stories on PhillySideArts , QBN and is the Reporting Secretary for the Vitruvian Quarterly art newsletter for the Da Vinci Art Alliance.

light being (Walt), digital photograph, DoN Brewer @ Art Ability this fall.

For now, my lovely DoNsters - the Haus of DoN has withstood the attack of the latest distortion wave in the time space continuum, with super-friends at CFEVA, Da Vinci Art Alliance, The Plastic Club, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, PANMA and The Philadelphia Council for Community Advancement helping DoN survive the money bomb of the Great Recession.  With the LoVe and support DoN feels from comrades & cohorts, making art, communicating visions, telling stories and realizing dreams is now back in fine focus.

Thank you President Obama and Mayor Nutter, without your programs and plans for the people, the Haus of DoN would have collapsed like a house of cards; DoN has been dealt an exciting second hand and has big plans for the future in Philly.

LoVe

DoN

John Williams, Mountain Big Top, acrylic, ink, flashe on panel, Best in Show Absolutely Abstract 2010 @ The Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Click the thumb-nail below for a closer look.

The selection of ninety-eight art works by jurors David Foss and Michael Gallagher for The Philadelphia Sketch Club’s Absolutely Abstract 2010 exhibit is engaging, exciting and challenging.  The range of interpretations runs through almost any media you can think of - Kyle Margiotta’s, Ribbon, pencil drawing takes basic materials and elevates them to an alternate reality, Rik Viola’s painting is a triumph in context and Mina Smith-Segal suggests surrealism, impressionism, brutalism, naive primitive-ism…all modern and contemporary styles but stretching the envelop of the popular view of abstraction.

DoN Brewer, light beings (Sid & Nancy), digital photograph, archival ink-jet print, 2008.  This is the third consecutive year DoN Brewer’s photographs have been included in the Philadelphia Sketch Club’s annual Absolutely Abstract show, this year’s piece is named after the tragic punk lovers Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen who he once saw shopping in Fiorucci’s in NYC in the 70s.

Rodney Miller, Ring Droppings, digital print on canvas.  Fall under the spell of the fractal-like inter-twined rings in Miller’s ultra-trippy contemplation on color, shape and depth of field - go see the real thing at The Philadelphia Sketch Club on the Avenue of the Artists, Camac Street in Center City Philadelphia.

Photos by DoN.

David Foss‘ sculpture made of found materials is like a futuristic robot/humanoid perched in the center of the gallery, the 2012 theme resonates throughout the room with visions of rapture, hell-fire, nothingness and hopefulness.  Foss’s sculpture reminds DoN of a futuristic boy transformed by a post-apocalyptic storm into a cyborg forced to find his way through the scorched land with feelers and antennas extended in all directions, the central brain stem in the middle of the body instead of stupidly plopped up on top where any fool could knock it off.  David Foss is the director of the Da Vinci Art Alliance and will be having a major show at LGTripp Gallery in Old City in September.

Photos by DoNBrewerPhotography.

Rich Harrington, fine artist, illustration professor & Philadelphia Sketch Club board member is just one of the local art activists featured in Midsummer Invitational @ Off The Wall Gallery, 13th & Pine Streets.  Harrington’s paintings of rusting hulks of old cars and trucks are indefineable: part landscape, part still life and part portrait, the paintings are loaded with secret narratives and unanswered questions.  Harrington is a driving force@ PSC, always prepared to problem solve, take on projects and promote other artists - just ask his students, they love him.

Morris Klein is VP of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia and organizes ongoing art show at the Bonte Cafes in Center City, his style of photography is hyper-realistic with enhanced color and edges.  Getting photographers to participate in ongoing events is like herding cats, Morris is always even keeled and fair without being condescending - guys like Morris make such clubs like PSoP last hundreds of years.

Michelle Anne Clements @ Off the Wall in Dirty Franks - curator & gallerist Jody told DoN that Clements is donating a portion of the proceeds of her drawings of coral to Gulf relief.  The alien forms are wonderfully rendered drawings of different kinds of corals, the simple black and white drawings, beautifully presented, pay homage to the complexity of the simple and vital life form.

The Midsummer Invitational @ Off the Wall Gallery includes: Michelle Anne Clements, Rebecca Cross. Rich Harrington, Morris Klein, Kelly A. Kozma, Don McPartland, Karen Rodewald, Peter Smyth, Michael B. Tantaros & Lauren Westenhiser through October.

Susan Benarcik installed thousands of toothpicks on the walls of the CFEVA Gallery @ 15th & Locust Streets as part of Sculpting Nature, a three person show of CFEVA Career Development Program Fellows .  Benarcik’s wooden installation wraps around a corner paired with hanging tear-drop shaped sculptures made from white wire hangers, some of which were rusted from hanging in a private garden (hmm…do the initials E.T. come to mind?).

Susan Benarcik’s wire sculptures are light and airy yet angsty and filled with emotion casting shadows of doubt in the gallery’s alcove.

Susan Benarcik @ Sculpting Nature.

R. Noel Shaak’s pen, ink & marker drawings are goth & Goethe mash-ups each telling an entire movies worth of narrative like some steam-punk Gorey for 2010.

John Woodin talked about how his vineyard photos are actually Long Island and not some exotic European country.  The large scale photographs have a strange geometry, formal compositions drawn from informal resources like walking through a warm East Coast forest in summer.  DoN knew the photos were Woodin before he knew they were Woodin, that’s style.

The cohesive show is an amalgam of styles each somehow tuned into the concept of nature changed by the gaze of people, Benarcik’s sculptures energize the room, Shaak’s drawings whisper weird secrets and Woodin’s photos traverse space and time.

John Woodin @ Sculpting Nature in the Center for Emerging Visual Artists Gallery through 9/2/2010.

DoN Brewer

CFEVA Introduction 2012
Blick Art Materials

[disclosure]

Karl Olsen lights the subject of an impromptu critique of Yeoun Lee’s paintings during the monthly Salon des Plastiques @ The Plastic Club on the Avenue of the Artists.  Lee took up the challenge from a previous meeting to bring out a few paintings on the sweltering Summer evening to stand up to the observations of Anders Hanson, Bob Jackson, Mike Quinn, Alan Klawens - the guys behind the on-going series of exhibitions at one of Philly’s premier artist clubs.  DoN couldn’t help to harken back to the days when air conditioning was a dream yet to be realized.  Yeoun explained the cosmological influence on her current work with light being represented by a subtle rainbow of color.

Yeoun Lee @ The Plastic Club’s Salon.

The Casual Summer Show @ The Plastic Club showcases artist favorites.

Members of the Plastic Club are showing works not directed by a theme allowing for a salon like diversity of styles and medium; curators Alan Klawans and Bob Jackson filled the main galleries with a spectrum of light and color.

Marlise M. Tkaczuk, 3 Big Monkeys, silk screen in The Casual Show.  The Plastic Club has long represented printmaking with a great print room and print shows; Marlise’s confrontational funky monkeys are part clever and engaging, jumping off the wall.  Check the clubs website for info and links to events.

 I Was Here, DoN Brewer, digital photograph @ Da Vinci Art Alliance’s Apocalypse Soon: 2012.

With money bombs, pandemics, oil spills, World War III fresh in our consciousness and the 2nd Wave Depression looming, Apocalyse Soon: 2012 is prescient, nihilistic funk-a-rama drama.  Curator Dr Deb Miller and Juror & Awards Judge, Elin Danien, Consulting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology gleaned a strange harvest of occult dreamscapes, blob-a-zoid sculptures and paranoid visions of the end of the future.

“I know it’s the last day on earth
We’ll be together while the planet dies
I know it’s the last day on earth
We’ll never say goodbye”

Marilyn Manson - The Last Day on Earth

Curator’s Tour, Lecture, and Opening Awards Reception:  Sunday, August 8, 1pm-4 pm(doors open at 12:30)

Brujo de la Mancha, Mexican Identity in the XXIst Century
Debra Miller, PowerPoint lecture, Calendar Cycles of Creation and Destruction in Pre-Columbian Art
Debra Miller, Curator’s tour, Apocalypse Soon:  2012

Photo by DoN Brewer.