Philly Book Artist

University of the Arts MFA Book Arts/ Printmaking Thesis Exhibitions

2010-04-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Friday, April 23 at 5:00pm, come by the University of the Arts, Anderson Hall to see half the new batch of Philly Book Artists to hatch from Susan Viguers' tutelage. Pat Stump, Mandy Dunn, Sally Faulkner, Emily Pfahl and Katy Matich all give good shows. I glanced quickly yesterday, but some preview highlights include a wall of letterpress post its by Faulkner, playing with words and type (my favorite repeated phrase: Fly Me a River). Matich created 100 books full of life lessons. Always a good show, come on out!!!

CAA Review of MCBA Biennial

2010-01-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

I wrote an extended, more polished review of the MCBA Biennial for the College Art Association.
Read it here:
Book Art Biennial 2009: Mature Content—The Artist’s Book as Advocate
Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN
July 25, 2009

BYOTY Book Fair at Little Berlin

2009-10-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will be representing a dozen artists with 30 books under $50 at the BYOTY Book Fair at the Little Berlin Gallery. Brave the rain and stop by!
119 W. Montgomery St. Philadelphia, PA
Near the Berks stop on the El
For more info:
http://littleberlin.org/2009/10/b-y-o-t-y/

MCBA Biennial: John Risseeuw

2009-08-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

Although it was nearly a month ago, I thought I would write about my experience at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts' first ever Biennial. The event, which took place Saturday, July 25, 2009, was pretty great. I had the added advantage of being able to visit home and attend a book arts event at the same time (while a Philly book artist now, I am a Minneapolitan in my roots). The event was one day only, which I thought was nice. Our conference in June was several days, but it also included an enormous book fair. With three days I still don't believe one would be able to see enough of what we had brought to town. But the single day of artists, both national and local to Minneapolis, was very inspiring and thoughtful. The theme of the day was Mature Content: Artists' Books as Social Advocate. The day began with a presentation of work by John Risseeuw, a printmaker, papermaker, book artist, and social activist who teaches at Arizona State University. He visited Philadelphia a few years ago and inspired an entire body of work for me, so I was more than happy to see him speak again in Minneapolis.

Risseauw's talk was entitled "John Risseeuw: Making a Difference?" He built his presentation around the question of how we make any kind of change by working in our studios. To put it plainly, how can we provoke change in a medium that is collected on special collections shelves in libraries, effectively kept from the public eye? Fair question, and one I have heard before. As Risseuw put it, "If I were an activist, I would be out in the streets, but I'm not an activist when I print [the words] Total Fucking Idiots!" Agreed. You can write this out, set it in type and print 500 copies of it. But then what does it do?

Risseeuw pointed out that the channels through which fine art flows are fairly bourgeois. Activism can not have such a strong affect in museums, galleries and libraries. It will rarely cause the masses to take to the streets and overthrow policy. If this is your goal, then creating artists' books is hardly the way. They can serve as beautiful, expressive and tactile historical documents, but real time activism exists in real time media like the web, the radio, even the newspaper.

So do we give up? I hardly think so. An artist's book may not incite a coup, but it can create change. Risseeuw's Landmine Series is not unlike William Snyder's 800,000 project. Both pieces aim to bring awareness to their audience about a wrong in an attempt to create a right – in Risseuw's case, about landmines in Cambodia, in Snyder's case, about the genocide in Rwanda – by educating the viewer about the stories of the victims, and by raising money to be sent to the respective countries for aid and relief. Of course, not every socially conscious art piece can be turned into cash. Indeed, some artists must purge their frustration into art without a conscientious outcome. Are these pieces any less valuable? In terms of currency, yes, but in terms of concept, not necessarily.

Risseeuw pointed out that while not everyone could afford to buy one of his Landmine prints, the story of the project reached many more people than the work itself, and in that sense the idea itself was the activism. In certain instances, the story can touch people as much as holding the actual work. In fact, it is unlikely that you, as my reader, will hold one of Risseuw's prints in your hand, but you can click on a link in this article and read about his project on the Cabbage Head Press website. Does that make his work less activist because you are reading ABOUT it and not experiencing it firsthand? Not at all. And in that way, we can be activists while our books sit on special collections shelves.

At the end of his talk, Risseeuw incited a call to arms to all artists in the audience:
Document Something.
Collaborate on Something.
Advocate for Something.
Commit Yourself (Go Do It)
He closed by saying, "The time has arrived. I'll see you in the streets, and at the press."

Through his talk, Risseeuw touched on issues we touch on continually, issues of accessibility, of audience, display, issues that seem to keep book artists from being able to make a difference with their work. But in the end all hope is not lost. While we may not be able to get people into the streets, we affect change by simply doing what we do and pursuing questions we have, working with others through collaboration, shared studio spaces, as educators and at book fairs. Books are an undertaking that can not be approached completely alone, and in this way we must share our ideas as we are creating. Wherever a single copy of an edition may end up, the creation of that single book was a journey to be shared by more than one person.

Now that paints socially conscious book artists as quiet little protesters with small signs that don't yell too loud, but I won't refute that. If this is the way one chooses to protest, isn't it still important that we are protesting? Isn't it better to print "Total fucking idiots" than to keep our mouths shut? This is the way some of us find to protest, and it is better to do what we do best and make books than to sit and do nothing at all.

On one final, personal note, I have struggled with this issue my entire art career. In college I was surrounded with politically conscious and socially active individuals whom I admired greatly and who now work in public policy, defend civil rights, advocate for people's health and make the world a better place in ways that I can not even begin to conceive of. When surrounded by fantastic individuals like these, one can feel selfish and horrible for making a conscious decision to pursue a life as an artist. In the midst of making this personal decision years ago, I confessed my feelings of inadequacy to one such extraordinary individual. She responded in a letter that I still hold dear with the following:
"Something I've always valued is that people work for... rightness, in the world and in their lives, in a lot of ways. Some people do it overtly by being professional activists, and other people do it by... trying to find their place in the world... that is that the best way you can make the world a better place is to find your place in it, to discover the person you need to be and to do what makes you happy and to work with the passions you have."
I can't deny that hanging on to these words for 10 years has been self validating, but last month I found myself surrounded by a group of people in Minneapolis that have done just that, that have found their place behind a press, making art, collecting artists' books, and sharing work and ideas that they believe in. We may not start riots or overthrow governments, but we make books. And we do our damnedest to share them.

The Hybrid Book Extravaganza

2009-06-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, June 4-6, 2009, was The Hybrid Book: Intersection + Intermedia, a book arts event at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. As someone who helped put the thing together, I feel I should comment, and also state that the lack of blog communication on this site has greatly been due to conference planning. There are so many things one would want to write about and address after attending such an extensive grouping of talks, panels, exhibitions, and a fair with over 100 artists. I will make a general statement and perhaps, when all the little loose ends begin to be tied up, I will return with more in depth analysis of what I saw.

As an organizer, I felt we made a real effort to bring together, not the old and the new for I don't like what those words imply, but the established and the emerging. It feels inappropriate to say we wanted to breathe new life into the field, for the field itself is not dying. It isn't even getting tired. We as artists, librarians, curators, critics, and enthusiasts, are active and expanding, and this events goal was to show the broad range of work being made today, and to explore the intricate web that binds it all together (pun intended).

It is incredibly exciting for a new artist to walk up to a table and stand face to face with someone whose name you have read in critical writings, whose binding instructions you have followed to make your own books work. To hold his or her books in your hands, to talk about what you see and what he or she meant them to say, to share your own ideas and books with those that you admire is such a luxury, and one that this field is in full support of. This interpersonal experience between artists of all ages and stages of their career is what has created a group of people that jump at the opportunity to get together and speak enthusiastically of an art form they love. This is what makes book artists so unique, and this is what made The Hybrid Book such a success. Thank you to all who participated.

I hope to return soon, after weeding through the video tapes, the audio recordings, the budget, the empty bottles of water and my apartment full of papers, to share with you a few exciting projects I was able to experience:
800,000: Acknowledge. Remember. Renew. by William Snyder
God Bless This Circuitry, A Performance by Andrew Sallee and Tate Shaw
The incredible works and humble nature of artist Sun Young Kang.
Book Artists with a BackUp Plan by Katie Baldwin and Mary Tasillo

If I neglect to tell you about these things, harassment is welcome.
Thank you again, everyone.
--Amanda

The Borowsky Center presents...

2008-12-08T06:49:00.000-08:00

The University of the Arts is home to the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts, a big name for a modest operation. A single color Heidelberg KORS Offset Press runs a handful of theater posters and artist postcards each semester, as well as a visiting artist's project. 2008 saw Richard Minsky and Amos Kennedy printing uniquely different projects with the necessary physical and conceptual assistance of Master Printer Lori Spencer. Minsky printed Tyvek unmbrellas with a Robert Louis Stevenson essay in honor of Judith Hoffberg and her publication, Umbrella (ambitious in its form, the essay is completely unreadable as a parasol). Kennedy's prints are yet to be completed, as he played with the press, building up collaged backgrounds of red and blue, protesters and police, all taken from photographs of Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965 in Selma, Alabama. Upon his departure from the University, Kennedy's story was just unfolding on six variations of his print and he took them to back to his shop in Alabama to play, explore and complete them in his print shop.

While the visiting artists are always interesting, be it for their content or their outlandish print wishes (Gigantic solids? Easy, says Ms. Spencer. Handmade paper? Let's try it!), there are a small number of students every semester who use the press to create some of the cleanest, most finished and realized projects they have ever had the opportunity to make. Spencer teaches a class entitled Book Production, a course that takes students through the entire gamut of a book in only three months- from conception to a dozen dummies, followed by five press runs and a frantic binding period with a looming deadline: the Book Arts/Printmaking department's annual Book Party. Students produce editions in 100 plus copies and their biggest selling push comes at the party, when their work is still hot off the press.

THIS YEAR the Book Party is on Thursday, December 18, from 4:00-7:00 in Hamilton Hall, South Broad and Pine Streets in Philadelphia, PA. This year there are a record twenty students in the class, and in true form, Spencer has said yes to every project that came across the proofing table. With so many students from a variety of disciplines, you are guaranteed to find an appropriate gift for anyone this holiday season.

Greg Pizzoli and Ansley Joe have both created wonderfully illustrated children's books. Pizzoli's book, The Great Race, contains illustrations reminiscent of classic 1970s childrens' books but with a more modern color palette. Joe's book is guaranteed to entertain as interactive elements tell the story of two children digging their way through the backyard and into China.

Erin Sweeney has created another interactive work, a puppet theatre full of feisty broads with background stories and a decadent stage. Easily enticing to any young child who loves to play with dolls, Sweeney's stage characters appeal to an adult audience as well with their vaudevillian sense of style.

It may be important to note at this point that none of the books have been completed. There are still two days of printing to go, but I have had the privilege of seeing nearly every piece in its development, and I am continually impressed with the talent that comes from The University's Illustration department. Jeremy Goodfellow's illustrations remind me of Tim Burton movies, like the Beetlejuice cartoon with the soft, spooky fog of Sleepy Hollow. David Adams' accordion book, also cartoonish, is a whimisical, graffiti-inspired tour of Philadelphia, perfect for anyone who may be missing the City of Brotherly Love from afar. Millie Landis has fully utilized the possibilities of offset printing with a three-color work that gazes out over a watery scene, three characters in shades of orange and yellow jumping off the page and over the ocean. Book Arts students Susan Weinz, Bobby Rosenstock and Amanda Benton have all illustrated their own bookworks as well, walking the line I love so much in an artist's book- work that appeals to the child inside of us, but whose content is created for a grown-up audience, more often than not with a sense of humor.

Gordon Sexton and Crystal Shepherd come to the class from the Graphic Design department and bring wonderfully different styles to the book concept. While Shepherd's collection of boomboxes against graffiti backgrounds could be considered an homage to old school design of the 1980s, Sexton's exploration of designing a font reminds us that any good modern design comes with a disciplined understanding of the classics.

Other elaborately ambitious and exciting Borowsky books will be available by Alisa Fox, Andrew Huot, Robert Lewis, Michael Meulstee, Terry Peterson, Tova Rein and Victoria Sadicario. Many more books, prints, handmade paper and other goods will be available at the BOOK PARTY. At least one of these offset books should find their way onto your bookshelf this holiday season.

UArts Book Arts/Printmaking Department's Annual BOOK PARTY
Thursday, December 18, 2008
4:00-7:00 pm
Hamilton Hall
320 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102

Pyramid Atlantic 2008

2008-11-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

I just returned to Philly, and must point out two things:

1) There are a lot of new people making books, and
2) A chunk of them are from Philly.

We were an army of ladies across the back of the emerging artist section of the Fair, and I was told we were friendly, relaxed, and well-spoken on issues ranging from preferred ways for our books to be displayed to the content of our work. I give Susan Viguers a great amount of credit, as well as Patty Smith and Mary Phelan.

Also, the MFA students from the Alabama program are lovely, and they seem to want to come up for the Hybrid Book conference in June. It seems we have made some good ties with VSW and Chicago. It's time to get Alabama up here!

I swear, book reviews are coming soon.

Contemporary Artists' Books Conference in NYC: Books of Interest

2008-10-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Based on the three days of presentations, this is my Christmas Wishlist:

From Picture Box Inc., Publishers:
Gore, Black Dice
Elle-Homour, Julie Doucet
The Magnificent Excess of Snoop-Dogg, Katherine Bernhardt
For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosis (not released yet)

Any one of North Drive Press's Mobile Group Exhibitions (though 1,2 and 3 are sold out, 4 is still available and 5 is on its way)

From J&L Books:
The American War, Harrell Fletcher
The Company of Strangers, Gus Powell
Ok Ok Ok, Mike Slack

Published by Bookworks in London:
Err, David Shrigley
Meeting #13, Jonathan Monk
After the Freud Museum, Susan Hiller

From Susan Meisalas:
Carnival Strippers

From Joachim Schmid:
Big Fish
Flashing
On the Road
Self
Sites

From Rirkrit Tiravanija (find his work on Amazon and in the Guggenheim):
Supermarket
Soccer Half-Time Cookery Book
Nothing

From Joseph Grigely
Conversation Pieces
Blueberry Surprise

Likely found at Printed Matter, NY:
How to Disappear in America, Seth Price
Book, George Brecht
Statements, Lawrence Weiner
Choosing: Green Beans, John Baldessari

My new favorite testosterone-fueled publisher from LA, 2nd Cannon:
Black and White Reproductions of the Abstract Expressionists, Brian Kennon
Desertshore, Jan Tumlir and Brian Kennon
and if I get only one more book this year, God, let it be
The Cindy Shermans I'd Like to Fuck, Brian Kennon

If I get my hands on any of these, I will review them for this blog.

Contemporary Artists' Books Conference in NYC: Quotables

2008-10-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

More later on this amazing event, but I just wanted to share some of my favorite quotes from the panelists and speakers over the three day event:

Emily Larned from Booklyn advised any thrifty artist to invest two grand in a letterpress and some cases of type. They don't need to be upgraded every few years like your laptop, and you can take comfort in the fact that they don't become more obsolete than they already are.

Matvei Yankelevich from Ugly Duckling Press, an independent publisher of poetry:
We are publishing a lot of contemporary work, and no one likes that.
Poetry is not worth the paper it's printed on.

Elisabeth Long of Chicago preaches book arts gospel:
I stumbled into criticism as a way of being an artist.
Reading an artist's book is a whole brain experience.
It's expensive to get into this field.

Buzz Spector:
Writers write books, authors pose for dust jackets.

Dr. Cornelia Lauf breaks down the book artist/ artist who makes books debate:
Creativity is not medium-based. Gerhard Richter makes great artists' books because he makes great art.

Jason Fulford of J&L Books:
When deciding how to layout the book, Harold says the content should dictate the form, and you can save yourself a lot of energy by following that.

Luc Derycke of Imschoot:
There is something mental about books. In this idea, he explains that the book work acts as a traveling exhibition. When you look at the image, what is not there (the work) is suddenly there (in your mental space).

David Senior, Bibliographer for the MoMA:
I realize setting up a panel of non-profit art publishers, it's a redundant term.

Joachim Schmid:
There's not many decisions in my life. Most things just happen.
If you want a book by me, you'd better buy what I offer.
Books are the kind of thing, you should have a sandwich in one hand and a book in the other.

Sandra Kroupa, University of Washington Libraries:
It's not my job to collect pieces that I like or speak to my personal interest.
I'm puzzled by the fact that we struggle to say, this is an Artist's Book... I'm puzzled by this field's need to make this narrow definition.

Barbara Bader, on the same panel on criticism as Sandra Kroupa, on why she undertook a study of the field:
... after 30 years of discourse, one still can not find a definition of what an artist's book is.

Sara Reisman, curator:
There are these rituals attached to books that we don't even think of.

The Patty Melt

2008-10-15T07:52:00.000-07:00

Shameless Self- Promotion:
Check out my newest project (that will conclude itself in book form a month from now) at www.thepattymelt.blogspot.com

And also, another UArts MFA Book Arts/Printmaking show, opening October 31, 2008, at Broad and Pine Street, Philadelphia, PA. Check out what the next round of book artists are doing at "Are We There Yet?" A second year Works-In-Progress show.

Hybrid Book: Intersection + Intermedia

2008-09-29T13:07:00.000-07:00

I have neglected this blog for so long because I have been working on an awesome event, the Hybrid Book conference at The University of the Arts, June 4-6, 2009. For detailed information, and to register, visit our website at www.hybridbook.org.

Participants include Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof of artblog, Marshall Weber of Organik and Booklyn, Tate Shaw and Andrew Sallee of Preacher's Biscuit Books, Drew Cameron from Iraq Veterans Against War Warrior Writers project and Combat Paper, Kathy Walkup from Mills College, Barbara Dash from the Library of Congress, Betty Bright, Joan Lyons, Margot Lovejoy- so many fabulous, established artists and many fresh, exciting faces.

Register today!

Miss Viguers and Mr. Powel

2007-11-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

Philly's First Friday of November offered up some more satisfying artwork if one was adventurous enough to abandon Old City in favor of more institutional venues for art viewing than a hipster gallery with a keg.

The second year MFA Book Arts/Printmaking candidates at The University of the Arts opened their second Works-In-Progress show, "Miss Viguers' Home for Wayward Youth," Friday night in the Hamilton/Arronson galleries on Broad & Pine. As with many University gallery openings, the turn out was padded by some kind of trustee/ alumni/ development function unrelated to the opening itself. Nonetheless, the MFA candidates put together a diverse and rather professional looking show that drew folks into the gallery and demanded their attention.

Consisting of the work of nine different artists, the show was presented and hung in a practical and appealing fashion. No piece seemed to interfere or detract with any other, and while some pieces by the same artist were displayed on opposite sides of the space, most of the individuals progressing bodies of work could be grouped together and distinguished from the other eight.

While the show was heavy on letterpress and paper, there was some interesting and less "book"ish art. Sandra C. Davis hung a number of large pieces of silk from the ceiling, each containing an image from a book she is making about the drive to her family's summer home in New Jersey. Printed with Cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown non-silver processes, these pieces effectively showed the experimentation that goes into a final work of art.

In a similar vein, Phoebe Esmon's study for her thesis project entitled "This Will Kill That," an antiqued wooden box filled with strips of paper and beeswax, pushes our understanding of what a book can be in its structure and meaning. Far from a traditional codex, this piece and Davis's are informed by the narrative and exploration demanded by a book and desired by a book artist.

The group showed off their increasing talent in traditional letterpress. Devout fans of handset type (versus Polymer Plates), Regan Gradet and Bill Hanscom created brilliantly humorous and traditional broadsides that show modern viewers the merit of this classic technique. Hanscom creates fictitious stories full of fictitious characters and situations whose credibility is only reinforced by the conviction and care with which he sets and prints each word on his classic graphite colored broadsides. Gradet, on the other hand, created a fantastical pallet of rose, chocolate and chartreuse that would make any woman with good taste long for one of these prints in her kitchen or sitting room. Her color and font choices are so seductive one almost doesn't notice the nasty quote that yells off the page ("What's the matter little boy? Can't even grow a mustache yet? Why don't you get a broomstick and learn to fly!"), making the piece that much more effective.

The MFA Book Arts program churns out batch after batch of new artists to keep an eye out for, and that same evening a recent graduate of the program, Michelle Wilson, actively transformed her UArts experience into her first solo show. A mere 5 months after graduation, Wilson created the installation "Aftermath" at the Powel House Museum at 244 South Third Street. During her time in the MFA program, Wilson and her husband Robert Wuilfe moonlighted as caretakers of the historic Powel House, living in the staff quarters of the home that once belonged to the first Mayor of Philadelphia. Wilson spent two years wandering around the dining room and ballroom that was once used to entertain the most influential men and women of the American Revolution. In response to not only this experience, but the experience of a modern day American citizen at odds with the actions of this same government bred inside the walls of her home, Wilson created a quiet yet powerful piece that permeates the entirety of the house while simultaneously maintaining an almost invisible presence.

Given the myriad of activity that took place in that house in the late eighteenth century, Wilson acknowledges all the plans and ideas that never came to fruition and were kept from the public by filling the four main fireplaces with shredded and burnt books. They are as elegant and lovely as the light fixtures and the display China, perfectly integrating themselves visually into the interior of the home as if they have been there all along and Wilson has just pointed them out to us.

I had made my way through three of the four rooms before noticing the round burn holes in each and every curtain that hung heavily from the windows of the house. Centered at eye level, Wilson set the curtains on fire and extinguished them just in time to create a pristinely round and controlled opening. This very act of burning seemed to allude to the sense of revolution in America itself, a controlled outrage, a passion extinguished for the sake of keeping the curtains nice. The holes invited the viewer to look through, and as one gazes outside the windows of the historic home, they see visions of modern American Terrorism from around the globe.

Wilson's work has always seduced with subtlety and questioned the actions of governments and the trickle down responsibility of common citizens. This current body of work seamlessly integrates itself into the Powel House museum, perhaps because these secrets of our past, burned from history and forever lost, are seamlessly integrated into our everyday lives. Wilson effortlessly and quietly points out the skeletons in the closets of our nation's homes and asks the viewer if they would have been the kind to start the fires or extinguish the flames.

meatpaper

2007-10-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

Any artist has encountered the following situation: You have an idea. It intoxicates you and takes over, or it lifts you out of a stagnant funk. As you realize you are about to create something great, or as you stand in front of the object you've poured yourself into for the last significant chunk of time, someone casually asks, "Have you ever seen so-and-so? I think you'd really like them."

So you go. And you look. And you find that someone has already done what you just did. And the emotions that follow are complicated: You hate them, for stealing an idea you had (or were just about to have), especially because they've received press. And probably a grant. Jerks. But you love them for so fully understanding what it is you are trying to understand, for asking questions you are asking in a similar but different way, and you feel relief for having an ally.

I have found my ally, two women in San Francisco who I absolutely adore, but secretly am raging jealous of. Nonetheless I will endorse them. Sasha Wizansky and Amy Standen have started a publication entitled meatpaper (www.meatpaper.com). A magazine of art and ideas about meat, the editors write on their website, "Us, we’re ambidextrous here at Meatpaper — no agenda except to gnaw on the ideas, artistic excursions and bone-deep emotions the subject inspires. We invite you to dig in with us."

Well damn, ladies. That's what I was trying to do. I mean, I think it was. I realized it as I read your introductory letter in the first issue, but still, me too.....

Despite my mixed emotions (Why didn't I think of that? They HAVE to be my friends), it is quite an interesting magazine. Very similar to Cabinet in its mix of art and culture, its minimal layout, matte finish and quality printing, its poetry and history mixed in, the publication takes a step back and offers up examples of the idea of meat. There is no political agenda here. If anything, these women have tapped into a current cultural phenomena that relates to all food consumption and is most easily identified by meat and animal products. The question of what it means to eat meat-- physically, emotionally, historically, socially, environmentally-- has never really been asked before, especially in the United States where meat has symbolized prosperity since before the beginning. Our wealth of resources is now such that we can step back and ask ourselves these questions.

And so Wizansky and Standen have started with the artists, publishing a visually stunning magazine with images that seduce, disgust, and open up the floor for a thorough discussion of what meat means. If you ladies are searching the web, I want to be part of that discussion.

Second Friday in Philly

2007-09-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

The Philly art scene seems to thrive on First Friday. Upon moving here I was told that if I wanted to have anything to do with art then I must go to this event. I've lived here two years and have gone a handful of times, typically out of obligation, but I avoid it nearly every month. I applaud its existence but I've never appreciated its practice. I've rarely seen something new or exciting, and if there were new exciting things there, they've remained inaccessible amidst the sweaty scenesters and the kegs. I tend to save my art-viewing energy for shows that come without a scene, and I don't think I am the only philadelphian to veer in this "other" friday direction.

During this past September weekend I found a string of Second Friday openings that proved to be new and/or exciting. I loved one and hated one, but I never once rolled my eyes at amateur nude self portraits and the like. Instead I found myself excitedly considering and discussing art world fame, the digital revolution, and the beauty of a subtle image.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, tucked away inside a posh apartment building on Rittenhouse Square, makes a rather successful effort to showcase and promote neglected and talented local artists outside of the Old City gallery scene. They are currently showing Amy Stevens' body of work entitled "Confections." Stevens has taken up the hobby of baking, but being an art girl, she can't simply bake a cake a la Martha Stewart. Martha's aesthetic has become irresistible these days as the Do-It-Yourself movement has proven not only thrifty but terribly trendy as well. Stephens' cakes are decorated in a Martha color palette of cool chartreuse, deep navy blue, chocolaty brown, dark orange, light teal- colors that were once iconic in the interiors of American homes throughout the 20th century. Inspired by vintage fabric patterns, Stevens sculpts organically shaped and assymetrical cakes and digitally documents them. The resulting photos are framed in gaudy white frames that have been stripped of their kitsch value by a matte white paint job. (For images of Stevens' work, visit her website at http://www.amystevensart.com).

In her artist statement, Stevens states the project was born out of her response to turning 30. Though not explicitly stated, it is implied that this event forced some kind of domestic realization upon her. She cites Martha and DIY as forces that have infiltrated our visual culture, once again putting pressure upon women to perform within their homes with an ease of servitude unfamiliar to a younger generation of independently minded women. I will insert a disclaimer right here and say that I generally shy away from "Feminist" art, work that overtly asserts the feminine as concept A#1. And though there is no denying Stephens' work falls into this traditionally feminine and feminist-type category, she goes beyond the expected and familiar ways of examining the roles of women with this body of work.

The tension between "art" and "craft" is strong, and the desire by many female artists to incorporate crafts they grew up with into their modern and conceptual art practice is a struggle for many. While Stevens simplifies "Confections" into a response to defy getting older and being in the kitchen, the work is not simply an act of defiance against the preconcceived expectation of a woman becoming domesticated. Instead, it seems to fight, with every stacked cupcake, every deliberately piped line of frosting, every carefully considered color, the ways in which we domesticate ourselves as women, turning our hands and our crafts into decorative and predictable household projects. Stevens has achieved a very difficult objective. She has incorporated her artform into a traditional craft. But rather than the final product being a really neat and edgy version of something your Grandmom would make, she has managed to create a piece of art that is familiar and accessible because of its use of craft. Her final products are seductive and stylish without feeling cheesy or decorative. She has accomplished what so many of the knitters, cross-stitchers, embroiderers, quilters, bakers, seamstresses and chefs I know have wanted to accomplish. Stevens has embraced the feminine craft without compromising her independence.

Her digital documentation of the work is both necessary and seamless. Sure, she uploaded her images to a computer and printed them, maybe even exaggerated their saturation, but the use of the digital in her work is just another tool to the final product- exquisite documentation of the handmade. A few blocks from Stephens' show was the Starn Twins' latest exhibition at the Philadelphia Print Center. A much more well-known duo, the Starn Twins brought the excitement of their fame to the Print center. They also brought work that left everone I talked to feeling a little unimpressed and even upset. Philly's art scene, self-confident and interesting as it can be, will always have a bit of an inferiority complex due to the fact that it is not the NY art scene, but it is artists like the Starn twins that make us really angry about it. I had one fellow patron turn to me after examining a piece and simply ask, "So?"

The Starns brought a body of work entitled "Black Pulse," digitally manipulated and printed dried leaves whose veins were accentuated to allude to the human nervous system (For images, go to the Starn's website, www.starnstudio.com, then click on artwork>Absorpotion of Light>Black Pulse). Half the images were almost tactile, encaustic digital images pinned and scotch taped like specimens in shadow boxes, seductive in their texture. The other half were gigantic high-gloss digital prints covering the wall, seductive in their size and finish. Either of these endeavors would have been simply beautiful had they been executed with the same meticulous and seamless care that Stephens' had produced her digital prints. But the Starn Twins were almost sloppy about their manipulating and printing. The shape of the Photoshop eraser tool was only emphasized when printed at 30 feet by 40 feet. The problem was that these were not self-consciously digital pieces, and the sloppy execution took away from the "absorption of light," "nature/human body," "pure beauty" concepts that the work seemed to really be about. Certainly the work brought about a rousing discussion of itself inside and outside of the gallery, and no press is bad press I suppose, but as an artist in Philly, it left that bitter "wtf?" taste in my mouth. Yet somehow, that taste and that attitude seemed all that much more legitimate and interesting on the second Friday of September rather than if it had been over in Old City on the first.

Critique From Hell

2007-07-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

There is a very quiet girl in one of my classes. She has hardly spoken to us, her teachers, let alone spoken with other students in the class. Last week my co-teacher asked if I had noticed the drawing she was making. I had picked up on the fact that she was drawing one of the cheeriest, cartoon-like tombstones I had ever seen, but I had overlooked the detail of it reading "R.I.H.," rather than the traditional "R.I.P."

We held a group critique a few days later. Quiet little mouse girl gets up to present her piece, and with startling confidence, tells the class about her project.

"We were supposed to create an imaginary place, so this is my gravestone, because I want to be cremated, and this place will never exist. It says R.I.H., which means Rest In Hell, because that's where I will be going."

No one responded to this. How could you? My fellow teacher gently, and with few words, challenged the quiet young girls assumption about her fate. Despite the brazen declaration of her post-mortem punishment, I had to respect the girl's defense.

"I just think there will be more interesting people to hang out with down there."

Well played quiet girl.

Public Eavesdropping

2007-07-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

I've heard some wonderful bits on the street as of late. I always tell myself to remember what I heard so that when I get to the bar, I can dazzle everyone with my funny story, but I only ever remember a few.

One of my students turned to another in class and proclaimed, "It's, like, my GOAL in life to not get a hickey..."