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Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club

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Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Catharine Mulligan, Untitled, acrylic with chalk and gouache on paper

A Drawing Show of Artists in Philadelphia Selected by Alex Kanevsky and Bill Scott at The Philadelphia Sketch Club is an inspiring collection of drawings which stretches the imagination and boundaries of what one thinks of as drawings. From traditional pencil and charcoal drawings to abstract mixed media like gouache, acrylic and house paint, the show is a carefully curated exhibit displaying the state of the art of drawing as considered by two of Philadelphia’s finest artists. Instead of a salon style exhibit with art packed from floor to ceiling, the show gives each piece of artwork room to breath and the viewer the opportunity to examine the work without others elbowing for attention. The historic gallery/studio looks like a room in a museum.

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Mary Page-Evans, Merci de K, charcoal, pastel and gouache on paper

DoNArTNeWs asked Alex Kanevsky about the process of assembling the collection for this extraordinary exhibition of diverse drawings. DoN said, “I know you know a lot of people.” Alex replied, “Well, Bill knows a lot more people than I do. The process was simple. We went to a coffee house, we sat down and tried to write a list of all the people who we know and liked. We figured since this is an educational show and did it because we wanted to see these people’s work in one place. We just invited everybody whose drawings spoke to us.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Richard Taransky, Bella Figura, charcoal and white pastel

Kanevsky continued, “And after that list, which initially was fairly limited, it kept on growing because every couple days after that meeting, I would call or Bill would call and say, ‘How about that person?’. And that’s pretty much how it happened.” DoN asked, “Did you do studio visits?” Alex said, “We did some studio visits. You know, this started with a presentation here about a year ago at The Sketch Club and we saw that it would be fun to do this show and we approached the president with the idea. But when it actually came down to organizing things I was away. I was away the whole summer, so I didn’t get to do many studio visits. I knew what people did and whoever I didn’t know Bill sent me the images over the internet. We did make some choices from the images because we knew what the work looked like in general.”

“These are people whose work we know and like. So it didn’t come out of the blue.” DoN asked about how Alex felt about the end result, he said, “I was so impressed. We were worried that it might look spotty or not very cohesive but once we hung it we were both really impressed with the level of the drawings. Some of the drawings here I just absolutely love them. There were some really good surprises, for example, Michael Rossman’s drawings, but I never met him. And I wanted to have those drawings herein the show because I had admired them for about ten years. Then there’s other drawings I like but I didn’t know what they would give us but never the less they are beautiful.”

We talked bout the influence of the internet and how images are flattened out because of screen resolution but Alex Kanevsky expressed his pleasure at the works when they arrived. He said, “There are some good surprises this way. Some of the work I didn’t know at all because they were one’s that Bill liked, but we kept each other in the loop. If I suggested something then I would send him images. It was a really interesting process. Every single drawing is something we are happy to have here.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Bill Scott, Copy of the Cherry Tree, drypoint on paper

DoNArTNeWs talked with co-curator Bill Scott about the collaboration, “I think Alex approached me once up here about doing a show. And then we mentioned it to Bill Patterson and he said, ‘Sure.’ Then we met because he was about to do the Woodmere show, long before, but the one conscious decision was not to overlap, to give a chance to the people that were not in the juried show. We tried to, well it might be a bit of a rub, but we tried to not just have the same show again.”

DoN asked how Bill Scott decided? Was it the most memorable images? “We both picked people and asked them to send us pictures. About half of them got back to us but in the end each one of us picked ones we liked.” DoN asked, “So you each got to pick some? Was there cooperation?” Bill said, “Yeah, we did it all through e-mail when he was away. It was a lot of work.” How did selecting images from the internet work out? “I really like juried shows but for this each of us, if not both of us knew the artists work. So, I knew what I was looking at. I knew what they were and a lot of them I saw in person. I did a few studio visits, Amanda Bush, Mary Page-Evans. Alex knew Richard Taransky. Doris Staffel, I like her. And John Nazarewycz, I love his work, I knew them. Eileen Goodman, I knew already. So, you know, there’s no point to it, it’s just pictures. We wanted to hang a spacious show so that everything would look important.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Skimantas Pipas, Progress, mixed media on paper

Bill Scott said, “I’ve seen a lot of shows that are so over hung that you might get a migraine headache so that you don’t want to be there. You have to soothe everybody’s ego because they’re in the show, I want people to feel good for having come to see it. To feel inspired for having been here. I’d rather have a show where I feel like I’ve actually been somewhere rather than, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ I’d rather leave wanting to see more.”

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Eileen Goodman, Peaches on a Dress, charcoal on paper

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Laura Velez, Follow, graphite on mylar

Drawing Show at The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Michael Cierve, Mirror, graphite on paper

Saturday, October 20th is The Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s annual fundraising gala called Out of the Past…Into the Future. Featuring fine wines and culinary specialties, the event celebrates America’s oldest artist run arts club with special guest reknowned photographer Zoe Strauss. Dress is creative cocktail, black tie or costume. For tickets contact 214 545 9298.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

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Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery

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Painter, Robert Bohne has exhibited his oil paintings at Artists’ House Gallery in Old City, Philadelphia four times now. His collection of recent and quite exquisite plein air paintings is a subtle yet sublime interpretation of landscapes and still life subjects. Each of the paintings has an immediacy and atmospheric naturalism that identifies the artist’s painting style. The small scale oils are richly narrative with information design and skilled brushwork. The artist’s eye is apparent in each piece especially with technical virtuosity of color and depth of field, drawing the viewer deep into the landscape or experiencing the delightful wetness of an object with expert application of paint.

Robert Bohne described the group of paintings above to DoNArTNeWs, “On this wall are some plein air work, one piece, the middle piece, of the fountain was done in Majorca Spain. The original sketch was done in Majorca and I transferred the sketch into an oil painting. The one above that is strictly out of my head, it’s a fictitious cloud, The one on the bottom is one of the piers on the Delaware River.”

“I’m always looking for the light in a painting, a good focal point, and after I find that it’s almost like a leading actor in a movie or a play, that focal point. And then after that I look for the supporting actors, which are less significant pieces of the painting, but, they lead your eye to that focal point.”

DoN thought this lobster painting looked familiar? The artist explained, “This is not the same as the one at The Plastic Club, this is the second. Actually it’s the same lobster, it’s spent a couple of months in my freezer and it came back out again and re-emmeged in another painting.”

Like impressionist masters, Bohne knows to return to his subjects repeatedly to gain the sense of realism he desires with less and less detail but infinitely more important visual information.

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery, photo courtesy of the artist

“This is a painting that sat around for close to a year, I wasn’t quite sure what I didn’t like about it. And then after looking at the George Bellows show just recently, I realized that what this painting needed were a couple of areas of really dramatic contrast. And it was just a matter of putting a small dot of orange and a small dot of white for highlight. And, of course, increasing the shadow area to the left of that and it made the painting pop. And it made it work”

The sense of realism yet obvious impressionism almost makes the plate of shrimp look abstract. The oil painting displays Robert Bohne‘s mastery of the medium and certainly is desirable as a work of art, at once decorative yet with a sense of narrative liveness. Working oil on board, oil on paper or academy board, each painting delights the senses with the artist’s appreciation of artistic appropriateness and style. One aspect of Robert Bohne‘s paintings is that they look really finished, professional and accessible. The paintings are not overwhelmed by a fancy frame instead complemented by surround offering a lovely collaboration of image and frame.

“Debbie West is my framer, West End Frame Shop, she’s in Media PA. Debbie and I spend a lot of time trying to find the frames that won’t overwhelm a painting. It will just become part of the painting. Presentation is a very important aspect of showing work. Presentation and editing. What I mean by editing, there’s a certain painting on the far end which was twice the size it is now. After looking at it for quite a while, I realized that if I cropped this painting in half it would be a much more dynamic composition. And would work much better. And so, this is what I ended up with and I was very pleased with that. I’m sure I’m not the first artist to do that.”, said Robert Bohne.

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery, photo courtesy of the artist

DoN asked the artist how he knows when a painting is finished? “I don’t know. I try not to have too much of a finished look to my paintings. I want that spontaneity to remain when the piece is finished. One of the things I really dislike is photo-realism, so I want people to see the abstract qualities and some of the spontaneity in my work. I want more of my work to have a degree of life, I want it to breathe. A good example of this is the Marigolds, this is a painting that won Best Still Life in The Philadelphia Sketch Club Small Oils show last year. As you can see, it’s not a lot of detail, very quickly painted, very spontaneous, and yet you know what it is and actually has a quality of life to it.”

Robert Bohne at Artists’ House Gallery, 57 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA, through October 28th, 2012.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

except where noted.

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Made in China, Amie Potsic at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

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Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

Amie Potsic lived in San Francisco for many years and found when she moved back to Philadelphia that she had missed experiencing the changes of the seasons. As a world traveler, the photographer shoots pictures everyday and found the relationship of taking pictures at home, where she grew up, can feel fresh and new. For three years Amie took pictures everyday going through the seasons and began to see the Asian influences of her travels in the photographs of Philadelphia trees.

The exhibit, curated by Butch Cordora at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry, for the first time gathers images representing all four seasons in one show. The effect is sublime with groupings of images throughout the gallery communicating the beauty of the Philadelphia landscape and how trees can express an underlying narrative. One day the artist saw a protest in Rittenhouse Square that was against the Chinese government torturing people for practicing a religion called Falun Gong and brought the ideas and the esthetics together in a subtle combination of traditional beauty and clever protest.

Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

The collection of images has grown over time Amie Potsic says, “It’s interesting, this is the closure of the project where I now have the four images per season and each season deals with a particular issues.” Important social issues like reproductive rights, religious freedom, censorship and working conditions that we can discuss openly in America but are suppressed by the Chinese leadership. “I think it’s interesting, in the 1980s and 1990s there was a lot of political work, all the post-modernist work was really political and then that sort of fell out and it became that work was not about anything topical per se and I think that shift is coming back. A – there’s a lot of topics worth talking about and B – people are wanting more from their artwork and more of that critical discussion. Having something to say again.”

The Made in China images are beautiful and expertly crafted but they each have a little zinger added with Chinese text paired with the translation in English. First impressions look like a traditional Asian signature but when you look closer the words are political in nature offering a subliminal message about government trying to control the way people think and behave.

Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry

“I think there’s an expectation now that artwork be easy to understand. People feel that they think they should ‘get it’. That it should be understandable but that’s not always the function of artwork. There’s a lot of levels of ways you can interact with art on just a visual level, a purely conceptual level and every continuum in between. I think it’s a real stumbling block for people who require that they need to understand everything they’re looking at and not just have an experience. I used to have a class where I taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, I would take them to the San Francisco MOMA, there’s an Yves Klein painting that’s a blue color field painting, a cobalt blue painting, and I knew that when we would meet back at the cafe that there would be this one student who would say, ‘Why is that art? I can do that.’ It was like clockwork every time, but it was the perfect conversation to have because the idea was, ‘But, you didn’t. He thought to do that, he’s making you question what is art.’ And if it pisses you off, all the better.”

Made in China, Amie Potsic, photography at Ven and Vaida Art & Jewelry, 18 South 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, 215-592-4099

Read more about Amie Potsic, Made in China at SideArts.com by Contributing Writer, Cassandra Hoo, Made in Chine, a Thought Provoking Show by Amie Potsic

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

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Mae Downs & Co. Shoppe Grand Opening

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Mae Downs & Co. Shoppe Grand Opening, fine home decor, interior design, antiques and vintage.

Mae Downs & Co. has been operating out of the artist studio building 1241 Carpenter Street for years but now they have taken the leap to opening a lovely shop at 1118 Pine Street in Philadelphia. The studio shared by Brian Campbell, the dish and pottery collector/connoisseur and Kevin McLaughlin, the fabulously creative fabric artist was inviting and inspiring but hard to find in the maze of studios.

Now, with a simply gorgeous storefront window decorated with vintage pottery such as Clarise Cliff pots and Kevin McLaughlin‘s own aspirational handmade pillows, the duo have staked a claim for elegant home decor among the galleries, restaurants and antique stores along Pine Street.

Mae Downs & Co. Shoppe 1118 Pine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Quirky yet homey the collection of elegant china, fun vintage finds and handmade pillows and sachets creates an aura of fine living Philadelphians have longed for after existing too long with Swedish flat-packed furniture. The collection isn’t old fashioned at all with a mix of mid-century modern, art deco and 21st century craft proving good design is timeless and desirable.

Kevin McLaughlin‘s handmade strawberry shaped sachets are made with vintage fabrics and stuffed with luscious lavender. Each piece is unique and have even been sold at The Philadelphia Museum of Art gift shop. When DoN visited the workshop during a Philadelphia Open Studio Tour a few years back, Kevin chatted while not missing a stitch as he assembled each berry from fine flannels, linens, wools and re-cycled knits. The sachets are so popular that design maven Brini Maxwell even featured the fine sachets on her popular webpage and YouTube channel.

Each of these gorgeous pillows are handmade by Mae Downs & Co. Shoppe proprietor Kevin McLaughlin and are affordably priced in the low three figure range. Considering the time and effort lovingly put into each piece, these pillows will need to be re-stocked as Philadelphians discover the beauty of these fine American made products.

DoN had the opportunity to chat with shop co-proprietor Brian Campbell and asked about the challenges of opening a small business in these harsh financial times? “Well, the economy has certainly been a challenge. I started by collecting pottery and turned to china, and I started collecting obsessively. And then I found I had too much stuff so I started selling it on ebay and then opened the studio to keep it all and sell. I share the studio with Kevin McLaughlin of Mae Downs and Co., so we had his shop and my storage and we would have open houses but it wasn’t a retail space with little foot traffic.”

Brian Campbell explained, “We wanted a place where people could come and get to us easily. And we found it. ebay worked out when I first started doing it but after America tanked after 2007, sales started going down. The last year or two it’s been on the rise again, there’s definitely, um, people are paying more for things. So, that was kind of a clue that maybe it was time to start thinking of opening a shop. Whenever I go to a shop I ask them, ‘How’s business?’, because in the back of my mind I was always thinking about opening a shop.”

“As I started getting better reports from small shop owners, I thought, ‘OK, maybe it’s time?’, and this kind of fell into our lap. We saw it in the City Paper and we met with the realtor. I stopped in early on my way to work, I have a job at The Mural Arts Program, and we loved it so we applied and they loved what we do and felt really good about what we were doing. And that it would be a good fit for the street. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, we found the space in August, we took the lease beginning September 1st. All we really had to do was paint the floor and then move stuff in, we still have some work we want to do but we want it to be open so people can walk around and not feel like they’re in a museum.”

“I was trying to describe to someone what the feeling was like and the line came up, “Where Sister Parish meets Dorothy Draper“, said Brian Campbell before he was drawn back into the shop to answer questions about the eclectic merchandise by excited shoppers.

Written and Photographed by DoN Brewer

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