Shapes and Colors of Summer in July ONLINE MONTHLY EXHIBITION AT PLASTIC CLUB
The Plastic Club’s building is closed, but the Club is resuming its regular schedule of monthly shows with an online exhibition devoted to the shapes and colors of Summer.
The Summer show opens Wednesday, July 1. The art can be viewed on the Plastic Club‘s website (www.plasticclub.org) then. There will also be one of the Club’s “Third Sunday” online Salons with discussion about the exhibit on Sunday, July 19, from 1 to 2 PM.
Entries can be realistic or abstract, based on reality or your imagination, or any combination of these approaches. Any medium is accepted. Physical artwork must be submitted in the form of a photograph or video. A reasonably clear cell phone photo or video should suffice. As always, original digital imagery, photography and video are also welcome.
Due to the building closure, we have devised a simple method to submit your photograph, image or video along with your contact information. For detailed instructions, see the “Call for Submissions” on the Exhibitions Tab of the Club’s website, www.plasticclub.org.
A lottery will select three entrants to win a prize: four free workshop sessions when the Club re-opens.
The Plastic Club, located on historic Camac Street, was founded in 1897 by a group of women artists to promote the arts to the public and support artists both in the Philadelphia community and beyond.
Everything Counts, Ana Vizcara Rankin at Kitchen Table Gallery
Ana Vizcara Rankin’s Viking Mill Studio, located in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, is filled with her mixed-media maps and new works that will be exhibited in her solo exhibition, “Everything Counts” at Kitchen Table Gallery beginning September 20, 2019. Ana is best known for her large-scale world maps inspired by migration patterns, colonization, and climate change. With Antarctica often oriented at the top and the Arctic Circle positioned at the bottom of the artwork, these maps challenge our notions of reality.
Ana points out, “It’s really very self-centered of us to think that we can perfectly and logically orient the entire solar system. There is no clear up or down in the universe.” We are now confronted with new information, a previously unseen, nonbinary conceptualization of our existing world view.
Elucidation of the unseen seems to link Ana’s early drawings and paintings to her new work. Blockchain Bootstrap, a large-scale, mixed-media, unframed canvas cascading from ceiling to floor in Ana’s studio, is one example that will be exhibited in “Everything Counts” at Kitchen Table Gallery. Blockchain Bootstrap, completed in 2019, measures 196 x 96 inches and was created with metal leaf, tar, acrylic, graphite, and charcoal. Large, map-like areas of grey tones ranging from white to black are linked through extensive layers of mark making. Drips, lines, splatters, paint strokes, carefully applied metal leaf, and blocks of drawing that resemble a binary language or program code become a materialization of the elusive nanoseconds or hashtags that link together successive commands and blocks of data. Such links are activated every time you boot up your laptop or digital device. Through careful observation of digital imagery and engagement with the process of drawing or painting, in Blockchain Bootstrap, Ana strives to better understand the split seconds that successively make up our virtual worlds.
Ana’s attempts to understand complex and split-second phenomena are materializations of occurrences and abstract theories typically hidden from our immediate sight. Her Dispersion Drawings, including Bubble Chamber 2 and Bubble Chamber 7, are small graphite and gesso drawings on reversed drafting film that are comprised of light dots, lines, and spirals on darker backgrounds. These delicate works, rendered in grey tones, map out subatomic activity ignited inside bubble chambers, an obsolete technology used to detect electrically charged particles. The chambers contain liquid heated to a level that allows bubbles to form, and their movements are mapped using a large-format film camera. In keeping with Ana’s interest in deconstructing binary theories, quantum mechanics opposes earlier models that describe subatomic structures solely as particles. The dispersion drawings serve as a map or materialization of the abstract theory.
The dispersion drawings extend to astronomical activity only detectable via high-powered telescopes. Crab Nebula is a 24 x 24 inch gesso and graphite drawing on reversed drafting film mounted on panel. Scattered white marks move forward and backward against a dark background or universe to unveil the ongoing process of a supernova exploding and dispersing into space. Once again, in her quest to better understand the world through the process of making, Ana draws our attention to that which occurs, but escapes our vision.
As our studio visit came to an end, I asked Ana if she has always been drawn to the unseen. Describing herself as a chatty child, she recounted one particularly talkative day at the age of four when her grandfather suggested, “Ana, why don’t you try to draw silence?” Ana stayed with that drawing for a long time, illustrating the silence her grandfather sought. She smiled and let me know, “My grandfather held on to the drawing and I was able to see it as an adult. I guess I’m still trying to draw silence.”
Ana’s mixed-media paintings and drawings will be on exhibit in “Everything Counts” at Kitchen Table GallerySeptember 20 to October 6th, 2019. You’re invited to the Opening Reception Friday, September 20, 2019, 6:00 to 9:00 pm.
Ana Vizcara Rankin is an Uruguayan American artist based in Philadelphia. She holds an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a BA in art history from Temple University. Her work has been exhibited internationally and throughout the United States, including at The Brandywine River Museum of Art and the Embassy of Uruguay in Washington DC. Ana is the recipient of numerous awards including the Judy McGregor Caldwell Purchase Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Essie Baron Memorial Award, Temple University, the Billikopf Award, Temple University, the Gundersheimer Merit Award, Temple University, and 1st Prize Sister Cities International, Stillwater, OK. Her work is held in international public, corporate, and private collections. You can learn more about Ana and her art at avrankin.com.
Thank you to Paula Cahill for the content of this post.
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The Plastic Club holds eleven artist workshops every week, in which the Club supplies a well-lighted studio space and models, if required.
These workshops are great incubators of artistic expression. Once a year, the Club has an exhibition of work done in these workshops — whether completed during the workshop or started in the workshop and completed at home.
The Annual Workshop Show, June 1st – June 27th, will open with a party on Saturday, June 1, from 7:00 – 9:00PM at The Plastic Club, 247 S. Camac St., Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-545-9324 info@plasticclub.org
Viewers of the exhibition will vote for their favorite works, and the top vote-getters will receive coupons for free workshops. (Workshops are inexpensive, but not free.)
Among the workshops are Clothed Portrait Model, Draped Figure, Life Model (Long pose), Clothed Model (Long pose), and Open Studio. (During the Open Studio, students work on their own projects and a still-life composition is available.) The full list of workshops is shown on the Club’s website, www.plasticclub.org/workshops.
The Annual Workshop Show can be viewed by the public during the opening party and at The Plastic Club‘s monthly Third Sunday Open Gallery, on June 16, from 1:00 to 4:00PM.
About The Plastic Club
The Plastic Club was founded in 1897 by a group of professional women artists At a time when already existing art clubs in the city were only open to men, the founders of the Plastic Club wanted a place for artists who were women to meet, exchange ideas, and exhibit their work. They wanted to bring experienced, professionals together with younger artists who were just beginning their careers.
Today, in a building purchased through member fundraising in 1909, the original mission of the now co-ed Plastic Club continues with 200+ members, ten open drawing sessions a week, and a year-round program of film, dance, music, poetry, salons discussion groups, community dinners, and other fun events.
The term “Plastic” refers to the “plastic” arts — malleable, changeable, and ever in-progress work. From the beginning the Club has been a home to artists of all media including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, printmaking, fiber arts, and more.
Thank you to Bob Moore for the content of this post.
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Art Ability at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital will be participating as a host gallery stop along the tour route for the annual Chester County Open Studio Tour! Guests are invited to view and purchase works by four local “pop-up studio” artists, as well as shop our Art Ability consignment collection. We will be featuring artists Linda Killingsworth, Emily McGuigan, Kathryn Noska and Meg Quinlisk. Collection tours are also available.
There are 143 artists and 63 studios participating on the tour this year. We have partnered with businesses and other supporters of the arts in the community to offer a variety of ways to see and collect art.
It is not an exclusive club and there are no membership fees or dues. Just come out and enjoy our one weekend of open studios.
Plan your day and get out early to ensure you have art on your walls by Monday!
April will be a time for story-telling at The Plastic Club, as the historic art club invites visual artists to show how they retell the world’s stories, whether drawn from holy books or comic books or the depths of their own imaginations.
The prospectus explains that works can be representational or abstract, based perhaps on literature or perhaps on popular genres or even current events. “It is your story to tell, using your special way of doing art.”
The prospectus quotes the poet Wallace Stevens for inspiration: “They said, ‘You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are.’ The man replied, ‘Things as they are are changed upon the blue guitar.'”
Stories to TellOpening Reception Sunday, April 7th, 2:00 and 5:00 PM, with juror’s awards and announcement at 3:30 PM. The work can also be viewed by appointment or at The Plastic Club‘s special Third Sunday Open Gallery on Sunday, April 21 from 1 to 4 PM.