DoNArTNeWs

This Is My Home, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, Dance Macabre (Diptych), Jay Helfrich, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, Ghost of a Broken Home, Carl B. Johnson, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, True Romance, Liz Nicklus, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, Kater Street, Lilliana Didovic, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, Skippy, Liz Nicklus, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, Empty Nest, Yvonne Smith, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, Blue House and Barn, Susan Hanna Rau, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

This Is My Home, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville NJ

The Witt Gallery in the Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts created an art challenge and collaborative effort for artists to take a standard shape, an elongated pentagon of wood, and create their vision of home.

Millville celebrated the tenth anniversary of their monthly Third Friday art crawl, a community event that is a model for invigorating small town down-towns with art, culture and fun.  DoN is a born and raised South Jersey swamp-stomper, it feels real good to go back home and see art made by friends.

“I’m the type who’d be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn’t going to. I’m the type who’d like to sit home and watch every party that I’m invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.”
Andy Warhol

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN

Books by artists in This Is My Home at Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

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Ellie Brown, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Brenna K. Murphy, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Clarissa Shanahan Schirmer, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jim Houser, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jung Wah Ahn, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jordan Griska, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

LGTripp Gallery, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Donna Usher, LGTripp Gallery, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Rachel Zimmerman, the mastermind behind the artist representation website InLiquid, sent DoN a FaceBook message asking if he had received his V.I.P. invitation to the  InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012?  DoN double checked his inbox and passes to the pre-opening Silent Auction cocktail party for the biggest art event in town unopened.  Cool!  4:00 - 6:30pm, Friday February 10th - DoN had copped the ultimate art party early-bird special!

The ICE Box Gallery in the Crane Center for the Arts is massive but the hall was filled with art of all kinds, tables brimming with collectibles throughout the room, even extra walls to accommodate the array of art and DoN had it all to himself, sort of, for about thirty minutes.  Wandering through the collection DoN spotted familiar artists from across Philadelphia and lots of new faves.  A cocktail bar was in the middle of the room and a bartender made DoN a drink with gin, aloe vera juice and muddled basil, in the Gray Area (the large gallery next to the ICE Box) tables with fantastic treats like a thin crustini with a smear of sun dried tomato paste topped with a dollop of pate’.  Displayed around the room were silent auction bidding sheets for dozens of desirable services and a group of prints selected by jurors from submissions.  So, even if you didn’t win your bid you can still buy a collectible art print.

Soon DoN had a good buzz going from the gin, wandered back in the hall to absorb the sights and ran into artist Amie Potsic.  Walking and talking we were struck by the high quality of the art: a bold red and black painting by Da Vinci Art Alliance Executive Director David Foss, massive abstract expressionist paintings by one of Amie’s faves, Jung Wah Ahn, Brenna K. Murphy’s hair art, Ellie Brown’s bag photographs (she photographs people and the contents of the bag they carry) and so much more by many great Philadelphia artists.

Amie Potsic is an artist, photographer, maven, Director of Career Development at CFEVA, and has been an InLiquid member artist since it’s inception in 1999 - that’s pre-Google.  Amie told DoN the more web presence she has the better.  InLiquid is a non-profit organization providing hundreds of artists not just portfolio web pages but real world opportunities to show their artwork, their website is information rich with artist images, bio’s, statements, events and news.  Some of the donated art is still for sale on the InLiquid website.  Support the efforts of InLiquid artists and businesses who gave so generously from their own inventory to help the artist community hub in Fishtown grow and thrive.

More photographs on DoNArTNeWs FaceBook page.

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN Brewer

Daniel Gerwin, Orpheus’ Mistake, acrylic on found framed mirror, 28″ x 17.5″, 2011, Center for Emerging Visual Artists at the Galleries at Moore (photo from the West Collects website - vote for Daniel Gerwin)

DoN met Daniel Gerwin at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists Introduction 2012 new Fellows reception at the Galleries at Moore.  “Title Magazine is the title of a new on-line, visual arts magazine based in Philadelphia.  We launched in August.”  DoN asked what platform the magazine is based on?  Tumblr?  “It’s on WordPress, I’m not the technical guy, I’m into the editing and all that side of it, getting writers and whatever.  We have someone else who’s a very good graphic designer and she does everything.  All the WordPress work.  I can’t, I don’t know anything about it.”, he said laughing.  DoN added a link to Title Magazine in the DoNArTNeWs blogroll.

Daniel’s work employs tromp l’oeil in a new way, painting on wood and mirrors, DoN is reminded of the painting style of Gerhard Richter the way the paint is smeared yet presents a naturalistic expression, “When you look at it, it’s immediately clear that it’s paint.  The other piece that I have is a shaped painting.”  DoN was mesmerized by the optical illusion of the painting, it switches back and forth from wood parquet to abstract painting.  “The tromp l’oeil, I’m interested in, the whole idea of an illusion, that is subverting itself and actually calling your attention back to what’s real about it, it’s reality of the actual paint in front of you.  But I’m also interested in the whole idea of, like the first thing you said about parquet flooring, the domestic space and the way we inhabit our space.  And then I sort of have the thought that the way, as we live in a space over time, we actually come to haunt that space ourselves.  And then it haunts us back.”

“It’s that integration between us and the place that we live.  My studio is in my own home, I work in my home so that idea of a presence is interesting to me.  The other thing that is on my mind with these mirrors is there’s a tradition in the Jewish religion, which is how I was raised, when somebody in your family dies you cover the mirrors.  My mother died in 2009, so there’s something of that that is still part of my work and there’s that aspect that I’m thinking about and it also has to do with when you, because there’s bits or mirror that you look between, you do catch glimpses of yourself.  There is both the sense of self-voyeurism and a further extension of the mystery of representation, you’re there but you’re sort of not quite there.  But that there is a division brought by the paint between our world and the other side.  So that connects back to me through those traditions.”

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), in cooperation with Moore College of Art & Design, presents an exhibition by the new Career Development Program Fellows. A highly selective fellowship with only a 2% acceptance rate, these six artists represent some of the most promising talent among emerging artists in the region:  Leslie Friedman, Daniel Gerwin, Rebecca Gilbert, Kay Healy, Heechan Kim, and Johanna Inman.

Introduction 2012

February 1 – February 25, 2012

Widener Memorial Foundation Gallery

Johanna Inman

Leslie Friedman

Rebecca Gilbert

Kay Healy

Heechan Kim

Circumstantial Assembly / CFEVA at Moore 

Introduction 2011

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN

Students, get the best service, selection and price: shop at BLICK!
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Theodore J. Amick, The Plastic Club, Downstairs Gallery

Theodore J. Amick, The Plastic Club, Downstairs Gallery

Theodore J. Amick, The Plastic Club, Downstairs Gallery

DoN talked with Erica Amick, artist Ted Amick’s daughter about her Dad’s memorial art show in the Downstairs Gallery of the Plastic Club.  “The memorial show for my dad, Ted Amick, is full of his life’s work.  He was always creative.  He was always happy.  He always had a good story to tell you and loved to be around people.  And loved a good time.  So, he would enjoy the show in the gallery, filled with people drinking and laughing and talking.”  So, what’s your favorite piece?  “I don’t have a favorite, it’s all different parts of his life and you can see the progression of his scientific alien stage to a more impressionist stage to just happy picture stage.  He did a portrait of me and my sister and I think that’s one of our favorites.”

DoN mentioned Ted in a blog he wrote back in 2009, the Red, White and Green show and Ted instantly became a buddy with lots of compliments and questions about photography at every Plastic Club reception.  At the awards ceremony February 5th for the current exhibition, Urban Observations, past president Mike Guinn said it best, “He was my brother.”

Ted Amick’s on-line Guestbook

Plastic Club on Facebook

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Al Gury, Long Evening, oil, F.A.N. Gallery, Old City, Philadelphia. Al Gury: New Paintings, February First Friday.

Al Gury,  F.A.N. Gallery

Al Gury, Pennsylvania Hills II, oil,  F.A.N. Gallery

Al Gury, F.A.N. Gallery

DoN heard through the Art Educators of South Jersey that Al Gury was teaching a painting workshop for teachers and asked the master about the upcoming seminar.  “That is for educators in the South Jersey School systems and I will be there presenting a workshop on color, the history of color, how to use color, for educators.  That will hopefully help them not only with their work but they can use it in the classroom as well.”  Just South Jersey teachers?  “The advertising goes all over but the focus is lower half of NJ public school teachers.”

DoN gets starstruck around Al Gury, he’s a really cool guy, very approachable, but, the show at F.A.N. Gallery feels like an historical moment. The art show is a big collection of impressionist landscapes by a painting master.  DoN overheard collectors boasting to each other how many Al Gury’s they own and DoN could tell they were really, truly happy with themselves.  Another conversation eves-dropped on was students comparing the juicy brushwork and scratched away paint in the luminous canvasses, trying out the art terms and lingo PAFA is famous for teaching it’s students to speak.  DoN racked his brain for a salient question to ask the painter who teaches painting teachers how to teach - Tell me about the sky holes in the paintings?

“Well, I look at many different times of day because I like to travel around and look at the landscape at different times of day; mornings, daytime, early dawn, evening, afternoon to see the different kind of atmospheric stages and color changes.  And I particularly like the type of atmosphere where the silhouettes, the shapes and the colors all fit together, I enjoy that very much.”

F.A.N. Gallery

221 Arch Street
Philadelphia PA 19106

HOURS
Wednesday - Sunday (12pm - 6pm)

CONTACT US
phone: 215.922.5155
email: fangallery@verizon.net

More Al Gury at Side Arts Philadelphia Art Blog

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photos by DoN

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Missing a super short video clip on Anthony C and Karen M YouTube channel is sublime, a word DoN doesn’t get to use often.  Anthony C and Karen M take their work to the street and see beyond the visual chatter interjecting their own thoughtful tags to the narrative of public art in Philadelphia.  Read more about the artists at Side Arts Philadelphia art blog.

Video clip and photo courtesy of Anthony C and Karen M

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

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Yas Reven, collage giclee, Dan Eells, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

Untitled, Zach Whitehurst, ink on paper, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

Cube, Max Lefko-Everett, cast glass and found object, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

Lilliana Didovic, Something Red 1, Something Red 2, acrylic on canvas paintings, Sarah House, Mimic, porcelain, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

Wes Valdez, Blur, blown and mirrored glass, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

Raphael Fenton-Spaid, Ode to Bernini’s Rape of Proserpina #1, acrylic on mylar adhered to masonite, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

Raphael Fenton-Spaid, Ode to Bernini’s Rape of Proserpina, detail, acrylic on mylar adhered to masonite, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts

Third Friday in Millville NJ is ten years old, the art crawl has become a nexus of art and culture in South Jersey.  A model for other towns using art to revitalize the downtown, Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts is a multi-use art space with galleries, gift shop and artist studios creating a hub of artistic activity.  Liz Nicklus, the interim Director of RRCA, and a founding board member said to DoN, “I was very honord when the board asked me to come back and be the interim director here and it’s working out to be wonderful so far.” Emergence is the first show at RRCA since Nicklus has assumed leadership, she says, “I have a wonderful Assistant Director who curated most of the show in the main gallery, Brandon Smith, a glass artist from Wheaton Arts so he has assembled a lot of artists that he knows.  Of course, we have Lilliana Didovic from Philadelphia, as well.  On the other side we have the center’s member artists and I think it’s a very successful show.  The artists in the main gallery are from all over from as far as New York and Philadelphia, in the other gallery are artists from all over South Jersey, they’re our Center artists, some are from Millville, some are from farther away.  This gives them an opportunity to show what they’ve been working on.”

“Benefits to joining include, besides getting to show, you have opportunities to take classes, reduced rates on entries to other shows, a reduced commission, there are a lot of benefits to being a Center member.  It’s a good place for people to get their feet wet if they’re just starting out in the art world.  Folks say ‘How do I get a chance to show my stuff?’  Well, here’s a place to start, and Center membership is not as expensive as being an associate member and also you don’t have to be juried in.”

Liz says, “I’m a big fan of mixed media and I love to see what people do with found objects.  That’s my first love anyway.  Every piece in Emergence you can walk up to and become absorbed in whether it’s because of the process, or just the reflections, or the detail, it’s a very captivating show.”

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN Brewer

Kodak Digital Cameras

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Alden Cole, Down the Intervale No. 1, oil, Downstairs Gallery at The Plastic Club

Alden Cole, Down the Intervale No. 3, oil, Downstairs Gallery at The Plastic Club.

Downstairs Gallery at the Plastic Club features the work of Sylvia Fine, Phyllis Weldon, Irma Shapiro, Naomi N. Rubin and Alden Cole.  Artist, Alden Cole makes sure he dedicates time in his life to be surrounded by Nature.  Born and raised in New England, Cole makes several trips a year to the Northeast, lugging his paintbox and canvas’ on the train to visit his family farm or the homes of his friends, always returning with a reminder of the beauty and tranquility of the land he came from.

Photos by DoN

Kodak

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

ps Alden Cole designed this book.

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DoN Brewer is proud to announce the publication of his first book, Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic (Volume 1) available now on Amazon.  Paintings by Lilliana S. Didovic and a collection of blog posts by DoN Brewer on the Philadelphia art blog Philly Side Arts, a tech start-up web site for artists and DoNArTNeWs DoN Brewer Reviews the Philadelphia Art Scene art blog with an introduction by Professor Dexiang Qian, Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic (Volume 1) is more than an art book, it is an affirmation of love, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Her biography, written by Lilliana S. Didovic and DoN Brewer, based on interviews, e-mails and conversations, is an unimaginable and fascinating adventure of one artist’s journey toward creative self-actualization.

Red, 48″ x 60″. mixed media on canvas, page 17 of Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic (Volume 1)

Philadelphia Loves Lilliana!

Cover of Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic (Volume 1)

Blogging for DoNArTNeWs and Side Arts is one of those opportunities people talk about when they say, “Do what you love,”  DoN loves writing about Philadelphia art, artists, photographers, designers, sculptors and cultural leaders of all stripes.  Helping the creative community get publicity is self serving and generative simultaneously resulting in the opportunity to publish this book.  Thank you to the Philadelphia art community for accepting DoNArTNeWs and DoN Brewer on Side Arts as a reliable art review resource .  Thank you to Philly Side Arts for helping DoN think bigger.  Thank you to Lilliana S. Didovic for trusting me with Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic (Volume 1).

www.lillianadidovic.us

www.DoNBrewerMultimedia.com

sidearts.com

Read more about Her Philadelphia Tales at Side Arts Philadelphia art blog.

LoVe

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

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Sibylle-Maria Pfaffenbichler, Yes Indeed, acrylic & pastel, “The Annual Domenic DiStefano Memorial 2012 Juried Works on Paper Exhibition”, at The Philadelphia Sketch Club through 1/21/2012.

Richard Harrington, 1956 T-bird , gouache on paper at The Philadelphia Sketch Club  “The Annual Domenic DiStefano Memorial 2012 Juried Works on Paper Exhibition”.

Lisa Lawinski Buchler, Acacia Tress and Bleeding Hearts, mixed media, The Philadelphia Sketch Club Works on Paper 2012

Lisa Lawinski Buchler, Acacia Tress and Bleeding Hearts, The Philadelphia Sketch Club “The Annual Domenic DiStefano Memorial 2012 Juried Works on Paper Exhibition”

Judy Engle, Loft Life with Ginger Cat, mixed media collage with tape at Philadelphia Sketch Club “The Annual Domenic DiStefano Memorial 2012 Juried Works on Paper Exhibition”.

Judy Engle’s tape collage, Loft Life with Ginger Cat, has a depth and density that is confusingly 3D.  Judy told DoN that friend’s told her that tape would deteriorate but the artist has found just the opposite.  Ignoring the negative feedback, Judy Engle had both of her entries accepted into the exclusive exhibition and took home an Honarable Mention award.

Judy Engle, Philadelphia Sketch Club Works on Paper 2012.  The reflected light is from the large window over the Winner’s Wall, you may even notice the model ship on the sill and the skylight which makes the gallery/studio so appealing for making art.

Harry S. Camarda, In Thought, charcoal, The Philadelphia Sketch Club Works on Paper 2012

Harry S. Camarda, In Thought, charcoal, The Philadelphia Sketch Club Works on Paper 2012

The Philadelphia Sketch Club “The Annual Domenic DiStefano Memorial 2012 Juried Works on Paper Exhibition”, through January 21st, 2012, is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the variety of media, ideas and combinations of materials that constitutes art made on and with paper.  Excluding photography, the show displays exquisite works by many of Philadelphia finest artists; the first place winner Harry S. Camarda’s In Thought, a magnificent charcoal drawing that recalls the era of Thomas Eakins, a PSC founder, and reaffirms the mission of the Philadelphia Sketch Club - where artists grow.

Read about New Wave Art Fine Art Products on Side Arts blog.

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN
Kodak Digital Cameras

Blick Art Materials