Category Archives: Prints

Art prints by Philadeelphia area artists

Amy, Amy, Amy, DoN Brewer @ The Plastic Club

Hello my Little DoNsters, DoN is always surprised and amazed when he is invited to participate in an art event, the excitement and preparation is engrossing and involving attempting to produce objects worthy of being called art. The Plastic Club always strikes a creative chord for DoN, with the upcoming Member’s Choice show for August creating an opportunity to show new work in a welcoming, inclusive group show of like-minded artists. DoN submitted two new pieces, Iris of the Storm, a shot of the remnants of the tragic Mid-West tornadoes passing over Philadelphia that gave us green sunlight and scarey scudding clouds and Amy, Amy Amy, an abstract landscape photograph of a dim light glowing against a stuccoed wall layered with attempts to cover up graffiti tags. DoN listened to Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black back to back on his iPod for months, the music incorporating all his favorite genres mashed together into fabulous pop, her passing a sad reminder to live for today.

Heliotrope, DoN Brewer @ Hopkins House Gallery.

DoN received an awesome invitation to exhibit at the prestigious Hopkins House Gallery on the beautiful Cooper River in Camden NJ. DoN got the message from director Bruce Garrity through a Facebook instant message, he will be showing Abstract Landscape Photographs in an upstairs room in the historic space. One of DoN‘s first art shows (many moons ago) was at Hopkins House; to be able to curate his own space in a gallery is DoN‘s dream come true. The show opens Saturday, August 13th, DoN will post reception info soon.

The same day DoN received the Hopkins House confirmation he received this email, “Dear artist, If you are receiving this email, congratulations you have had one, or more, pieces of artwork accepted into Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospitals 2011 Art Ability exhibition. The decisions were extremely difficult this year as the show has grown immensely from year to year. We had more than 300 artists send over 1,330 submissions! We have narrowed that down to the best of the best, and only accepted approx. 350 submissions from nearly 200 artists.

A formal acceptance package (noting which pieces were chosen) will arriving at your home via the U.S Post Office in the next week. The package will include all required forms, dates, information that you will need in preparation for the exhibit opening Nov. 5^th. Thank you for sharing your work with us and for participating in our exhibit. Your participation makes this exhibit the largest of its kind in the nation.

Sincerely,

Heather

—————————————————-

Heather Zoumas-Lubeski

Director, Community Outreach & Special Events

Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital – Main Line Health

414 Paoli Pike

Malvern, PA 19355

(484) 596-5607 NEW

Zoumas-LubeskiH@mlhs.org

www.brynmawrrehab.org/artability

www.brynmawrrehab.org/cnb“

Cool, huh? Although, this year’s acceptance into the final cut of the prestigious international art event is bitter sweet since best friend Arnie Segal has recently transmogrified into a light being. Arnie’s magical sculptures and his endearing personality will be sorely missed at this year’s party. Arnie Segal introduced DoN into the world of art opportunities for disabled people including the fabulous Art Ability show, Very Special Artists @ Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and ArtFirst @ Princeton University Medical Center. DoN urges you to support the tremendous effort the team at Bryn Mawr Rehab puts into this expansive exhibit of art created by people facing personal challenges finding happiness, solace and a voice through the making of art.

light being (Lorraine & Charles), DoN Brewer @ Art Ability this Fall, 2011. This image is an update to my original post, DoN received the info today and this is the image the jury choose; DoN is very happy from an artistic standpoint and emotionally because Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Charles loved DoN unconditionally (8/11/11).

Art by DoN.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center

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The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Every corner of the mammoth Icebox Gallery in the Crane Arts Center is activated with visual signs, symbols and sensory stimuli. Last January curator Amie Potsic sent a call for ideas to the Fellows of The Center for Emerging Visual Artists for the huge art space in Fishtown. Site specific works were encouraged, developed and confirmed by April and last week all the pieces fell into place and Construct, an invigorating, unique, studied look at contemporary art and how assemblage, construction and collage is integral to the new way of seeing. The photo above looks so Rauschenberg but it’s mash-up of two large installations, one a trippy multiple collage by Jennifer Williams applied directly on the walls and a large assemblage by Don Edler that sprawls across the concrete floor like a drift of entrancing debris.

Don Edler @ The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Mami Kato in coming to the end of a long relationship with the special Japanese grass she uses to create the sinuous sculptures which take years to make to a new direction using resin for the bio-morphic sculpture in the foreground. Her work looks so beautiful in the Gray Area, tying up the space in a confounding knot of dense yet floaty tubules.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Laureen Griffin plays with styles, textures, composition and sexual role models – huh? DoN overheard a comment, “What’s that girl doing in the chair?” The girl is dressed quite masculine, like a business woman, reading a paper, a strong contemporary image of a black woman set against the grain of an antebellum manor. Intensely conflicting narratives zipped through DoN‘s neural network from stories embedded in the fabric, visual cues in the styling and strangely involving decor. Gorgeous!

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Kimberly Witham was concerned for a moment that the photographs that are so huge in her studio would seem dwarfed by the scale of Icebox, but arrayed salon style, the still life photographs using dead animals, wallpaper and found objects read perfectly well. The beautifully rendered still life photographs are so bitter sweet, we get to look at beautiful creatures living on after death in a work of art, an exquisite corpse of a different kind. Witham’s photographs drew a crowd of people who stood and stared a long time; the mixture of repulsion and fascination, ugly and beautiful, cheery and morbid strums a tender nerve. And the concept that raw steak is not just the color of cabbage roses but can be sexually Dali-nian is genius.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Alison Stigora, Whirlwind, charred wood, site specific installation. Like a charcoal drawing in space, Whirlwind is a feat of imagination swirling up like a tornado; Stigora and a friend hand-charred the wood, pulling logs from the fire and dousing them with water to preserve the scarred luminous iridescence of the wood for the construction. Alison wants all DoNsters to know she is not a pyromaniac, having a healthy fear of fire and does not play with matches. The imposing sculpture continues Stigora’s investigation into the fractal like forms of the natural world, especially trees and all that art owes to them.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Alison Stigora, Whirlwind, detail.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Lewis Colburn was seated atop a 15 foot wooden tower where he typed War and Peace by Tolstoy during a performance at the opening reception; Colburn typed out part of the book relating to a theory about history and calculus, a repetitive process which spilled a long stream of paper into a puddle on the floor. The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Lewis Colburn @ The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Maggie Mills has five paintings included in the exhibit, each artwork representing a bit of the anxiety she feels about the political and ecological environment her young daughter is growing up in. Mills’ paintings incorporate compressed narratives, coupled with coming of age incidents and rituals. In each of the paintings, young people are involved in a manner of play that involves constructions like kites but in a dream state haunted by angst, danger and fear for the future.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Swim Team, oil on panel, Maggie Mills @ The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Panoramic shot of the Icebox Gallery, The Center for Emerging Visual Artists – Construct @ Crane Arts Center.

Artists exhibiting are: Noah Addis, Arden Bendler Browning, Lewis Colburn, Don Edler, Laureen Griffin, Jordan Griska, Ana B. Hernandez, Mami Kato, Allison Kaufman, Daniel Kornrumpf, Maggie Mills, Tim Portlock, Alison Stigora, Jennifer Williams, Kimberly Witham, and Bohyun Yoon.

Construct is on view through June 29th, a short run for such a big show but exhilarating in it’s scope, direction and audacity.

Photos by DoN.

Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne

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Lois Schlachter, @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011

Steve Iwanczuk @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011. That’s Steve reflected in the drawing on the right.

Lois & Steve have collaborated as the co-chairs of the Philadelphia Sketch Club’s Exhibition Committee for years, lately Lois is focused on her own art career, continuing to volunteer but now making new art, showing in galleries and entering competitions. Schlachter has had the unique experience of viewing virtually thousands of artworks submitted to the venerable art club’s competitions and exhibitions and now is creating her own memorable art, fractured planes, vibrant color, dreamy narratives like a mix of Charles Dumuth and Takashi Murakami. Steve Iwanczuk teaches graphic design but his drawings are surreal and photographs technically exact, in this show he shows three sides of his persona, each piece strange and deep.

Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011.

Mina Smith-Segal Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011.

Deborah Ann S. Horsting @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011.

Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne – Gift Shop! Many of the artists brought prints, cards and posters to sell, Art Space‘s lay-out is multi-purpose and really fun to wander through. Art Space is a major component in the art vibe of Lansdowne, many of the locals came out to the show, the support of the neighbors is so important if art is the force communities use to stay vibrant and relevant.

Dorothy Roschen @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011.

Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011.

John Schmeichen @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011.

Karen McDonnell & Anthony Cortosi @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne. Karen & Anthony are collaborative by nature, often taking on responsibilities others don’t want to do ensuring art events can jump off. The duo work together on their art, drawing and cutting stencils, spray-painting and decorating their canvasses until layers of memes, myths and memories are mashed-up like a DJ Shadow mix.

Rich Harrington @ Philadelphia Sketch Club Volunteer Art Exhibit @ Art Space, Lansdowne, 2011.

Volunteering is a good way to make friends, learn new things, experience different ideas and stretch social skills; sometimes it feels really good, sometimes it’s hard work but in the end people working towards a common goal, solving problems, creating opportunities, being selfless and inclusive is an art form unto itself. Thank you so much to the Philadelphia Sketch Club and Art Space, DoN LoVeS seeing his work flanking Lois Schlachter and Steve Iwanczuk‘s art, to be included in their company is an honor. Not all the volunteers are represented in this blog post many other artists are in the expansive show, take the drive out to Lansdowne to see the show, support the volunteers and the view of the city on the drive back is spectacular, a fine reward.

Photos by DoN.