Judy Sigunick

Recent Work

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:42:00 +0000

Work in situ: Sisters With Checkered Shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:31:00 +0000

At Jeff Slade and Ruth Diem's Manhattan apartment.

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:19:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:19:00 +0000

After Ceramics

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:16:00 +0000

My students at Dutchess Community College, in collaboration with Children's Media Project in Poughkeepsie, NY, created this short video in two hours of filming. Students had created the complex clay characters. Then, three CMP interns, with computers and cameras in tow, organized three groups of about 5 students each, and whallah.
Hope you enjoy!

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:57:00 +0000

Studio View Winter 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:04:00 +0000

studio view 2009 (click to enlarge)

JUDY'S OPEN STUDIO
Date: Saturday, Dec. 12th and Sunday, Dec. 13th.
11am to 5pm

123 SAM'S POINT ROAD
CRAGSMOOR. NY 12420

FOR DIRECTIONS or QUESTIONS PLEASE CALL: 845 210 4441 or (cell) 914 850 1951

(Cragsmoor (1.5 hrs north of GWB driving from NYC) is off of route 52 in Ulster County, between Pine Bush and Ellenville. Take the Cragsmoor road for one mile to the Post Office. Turn right and take the next first right onto Sam's Point Rd. Drive a short distance to firehouse on the right, then count 3 driveways on the left. Studio is attached to house on left.)

Girl With Red Skirt

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:18:00 +0000

Persephone has mounted her gentle elephant, on the trail to rescue pure hope, navigating away from naysayers. It all comes down to uncurling that toe.

SHE_or 10,000 Birds Die Each Year From Smashing Into Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:39:00 +0000

10,000 Birds Die Each Year From Smashing Into Windows.

I am the bird.
I fly into glass all the time.
I am wrong to think there is no glass, no barriers.
I close my eyes
And need to rest.

I only see free.
And worms.
Didn’t see it coming.
Am I a fool or is the glass no barrier at all but presentiment
Of my soul.

Oh, God it hurts to think I
Entered the wrong way.
And met the wrong fates.
Afraid to jump into your arms.
Afraid to spread my own.
Eyes clasping reality.
But my heart soars without sturdy caution.
I, too, fly. Am bird.
j. sigunick March, 2009

"She" was installed on the campus of SUNY Ulster, May 18th - an invitational: STEPPING OUTdoors2. Other artists include Martin Olstad, Woody Pirtle, Tim Rowan and Ed Smith. Opening reception is at the Stone Ridge Campus on September 11th, 2009.

ART MATTERS: Grace Knowlton

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:58:00 +0000

Why do you want to draw what you already know? The best you can get, that way, is accuracy, which is boring. Allow yourself to be surprised; risk learning something. If you get too good at this technique, switch to your left (or other) hand and/or put a paper bag over your head, and turn around 3 times before you start. (Excerpted from “How to Draw Wrong” by Grace Knowlton)

How do you dare to rethink what you already, positively, know? When you encounter piles of dirt on your morning pooch walk, why not just walk on by? It’s dirt. Well, if you are Grace Knowlton, there is no way you could contain the gasp while intrigued by the mound of earthy stuff most likely destined for a cement mixer towards construction of the foundation of a new (people) home. No matter that the destruction of trees will disturb a vital ecological system. (And the seed munching birds who will have difficulty adapting to other flavored seeds of the neighboring trees will slowly disappear) For now, never mind to that tragedy. Here, I only speak about Art.
Grace Knowlton came home from her walk that day and set about creating a body of work that lasted for years. Drawings, paintings, ceramic sculptures got created – all representing, from her unique mind’s eye perspective, dirt piles! Intrigued by unconstrained possibilities – the imagery of “mound–iness” which emerged from a practically reverential escapade of accomplishments in her studio – Grace set about ascribing all sorts of meaning to her one time encounter along a Hudson River path in Palisades, New York.
“I thought I’d seen God in that pile of dirt”, she told writer Anna Hammond. “ Either that or I lost my cotton-picking mind”. Even if she did lose her mind, she earned it back in a relentless pursuit of finding meaning (possibly enlightenment) in dirt mounds.

First there are the things we know and can see and touch and when it comes to construct this reality, it’s straight thinking or sequential. Then there is nature –“where things do not happen in sequences, but all together….transcends intellectual thinking…
Excerpted from “The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism” by Fritjof Capra.

Frankly, I think Grace did see something mystical in that dirt pile. It’s clear when you walk into her home and studio (one of several on her grounds), full of work on the walls, floors, shelves, stairs, even (or maybe especially) her guest bathroom. Inside/ outside merge, in a natural way, through large windows framing enormous to smaller spheres rigorously incorporated within rolling grassy fields.
Wait! What about the birds?
To experience Knowlton’s work is to enter a realm of simultaneity and infinite potential: such as, the unity of all opposites, the exceptions to traditional thinking and protocol, the binding of three dimensional surfaces with two dimensional concepts, and the memorable images of every place she has visited.
Metaphorically speaking, Grace gives us an eyeful of ideas regarding all manners of orderly and disorderly life and a bank of architectural constructs to consider– like photographs of wooden chairs for example.(exhibited 2007 in the Ellenville Regional Hospital) What is she talking about in her closed spherical forms (exhibited 2006 in the 10x10x10 Ellenville Storefront Exhibition) whose footprints are a mere tap on the ground? Or what of the humpy mounded shapes, chock full of weight, unashamedly sprawled on shelves? Are these visual reminders of our fragile birth, or suggestion of safe haven for birds, our babies, our memories and dreams, our anythings? Sometimes we make things out of wood because that is the way it’s done, because it’s beautiful and strong and plentiful, for the moment. Sometimes we refer to wood in art because it’s either endangered or connected to something broader than it’s mere singularity. I think all of Grace’s work does this. It is never just itself. It’s us and the birds and the fragile sounds of many voices saying different and important things. It’s the sky and the earth squeezing us together, like maybe inside one of those 4 ‘ spheres Storm King Art Center commissioned in the ‘70’s. And there is Grace, considering it all and continuously developing an artistic language telling us what she thinks.
Outside of her art, Grace’s daily life gets woven into her work and vice versa. (While traveling cross country with her daughter, she collected dirt and other detritus in plastic baggies) Inside of her studio, is a palpable regard for harmonious-ness and while putting precious decay together within a well tuned, vastly rehearsed, formalistic art practice, we, the audience, get to go our own interpretive way while fused to her intense collection of memory and abstraction.
Grace Knowlton lives and works in Snedens Landing, Palisades, NY. Besides teaching at the Art Students League, exhibiting widely, her works are in collections such as
Yale University Art Gallery, Storm King Art Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Omi, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Mobil Corporation and much more. Check out her website: www.graceknowltonart.com. It is well worth the trip to a solo exhibition of her sculpture, drawings and photography at the Lesley Heller Gallery 16 East 77th Street in Manhattan through February 9th. Call 212 410 6120 for gallery hours.

ART MATTERS: Tim Rowan

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:48:00 +0000

Rowan is a ceramic artist of distinction. His devotion to finding local clays and arduous firing techniques and the way he approaches life give a depth of integrity to his work not often found in ceramics today….(Ceramics: Art and Perception, Chris Staley)

I drive down a ridiculously long driveway in Stone Ridge, far from the world of galleries, dealers, art fairs and money exchanges to a place of trees, rocky fields, snowy paths and suspended time. Nothing fake or pretentious, so there are no surprises when Tim declares a personal disconnect from a theory-centric contemporary art world. His overriding desire to stay connected to his land, his own fertile imagination and creative processes is non-negotiable to anyone, but himself.
Altogether, his land in Stone Ridge resonates with a bee- like focused production: Randomly scattered about his studio and kiln area are boldly carved, heavy wood fired ceramic sculptures with surfaces reminiscent of mountains wanting to be scaled (if you are quite tiny and curious, like an insect). The pithiest of his abstract works resemble industrial tools and parts of excavation equipment that converts dirt into useable resources for architectural and cultural development.
Entering a cottage sized studio, warm, quiet and cozy, settling next to his well mannered cat, one sweeping glance of his work reminds me of a highly charged incubation chamber with works full of promise and much more to come. Plainly, his coaxing and carving from blocks of clay, with a unique archaeological appearance, implies remarkable devotion to his work , to the principles of regeneration , and ultimately, I suspect, to natural cycles and sustainable living on planet Earth. Mostly his clay is dug in New Jersey, chosen for it’s firing tolerance at mid range, unlike the low range earthenware of Hudson Valley clay. He collects and stacks local wood for firing his Japanese style anagama kiln one year prior to his “big deal” semi annual event.

What I love about Tim’s work is the non-persuasiveness of it – no annoying necessity to be smarter than nature, or me. It’s not trying to teach, cajole or trick. His imagination is powerful and the rich textures and relics imbedded from earth, ash and who knows what puts our own imaginative powers to task.
Process is essential to my work and begins with…clay…using clays from the local area locates me in a specific place……serves to keep me in tune with an earth centered and geological time. The forming process, working on multiples and repetitively is not unlike growth in nature.
( Tim Rowan)

But wait! What about a theme. Shouldn’t this work be about something –a (restrictive) narrative or an (unwelcome) intellectual game? Well, obviously I don’t think so. I mean, look at whale skin and see the history of the sea and the goings on of the giant squid evidenced by repetitive sucker marks – or an elephant’s cracked hide and see the rhythms of extreme weather conditions in the African savannahs– or antiquities frozen in limestone, the remarkable fingerprints and paintings on prehistoric cave walls. Look at Tim Rowans work. They could be relics or shed light on some revelatory events back in 21st century: our very local Vly – an especially beautiful place in the back woods of Stone Ridge. These sculptures bear witness to a seven day drama – a collaboration of artist, fire and ceramic ware and we get to remember, as if we were there.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents….I should say that those New England rocks on the sea coast, which Agassiz (1837 scientist) imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs….such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact with other whales….. (Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”)

On your way to Cohen’s Bakery, you will probably see Tim working at 10 Market Street on a new body of work, as our first resident artist at our new art center, and later this month he will demonstrate his process and present a slide show as an open studio event – free to the public. Look for an announcement.

Tim Rowan received a B.F.A. from SUNY New Paltz, in 1992, then studied with Bizen potter, Ryuichi Kakurezaki,in Japan, returning in 1994 to the U.S He earned his MFA at Penn State in 1999, and was an artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation. Currently, he exhibits widely across the country and is represented by 4 galleries. Upcoming exhibition of his work can be seen at SOFA Chicago, May 29th 2008. Visit his website at www.timrowan.com for work samples and updates of shows.

Judy Sigunick
Feb. 2, 2008

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ART MATTERS: Apexart Welcomes Dorothy Amenuke

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:30:00 +0000

What fascinates me most is the way people move brusquely, as though being chased by an unknown force. Probably they are really being chased; but by what? Work? Job? But they seem to be moving forward, probably towards Work or Job. so where stands the work or job to be chasing them? So does this situation leave individuals unconcerned about what goes on around them? (Artist Dorothy Amenuke, Apexart blog)

Apexart is not an ordinary gallery. First, it’s non profit. Second, artists from around the globe are invited to engage in a sort of “seek and you shall find” experience, generously supported by gallery owner, Steven Rand. International artists are selected through recommendation, arrive in a time lapsed sort of experiential tailspin where the stated hope is about stimulating public dialogue about contemporary art and “enriching the cultural landscape of New York City” (www.artingeneral.org). Through Apexart Director of Operations, Kerri Schlottman and assistant, Matt Hackett (Vassar Alumni) the program’s Oct. 07 artist found her way to Upstate New York.

What’s this about - discouraging the promotion of your work in NYC, I wondered, and “oh well” for Dorothy Amenuke that a residency explicitly supports neither work nor it’s promotion, yet brings you into the art hot spot of the world. Moreover how absurd to find on her resume something like:

Hopelessly isolated, out of sorts at JFK airport without direction or a guide. Leads to profound shift in (assumed) personal strength and cultural boundaries. 11/2007.

Collided, in Manhattan street, with a moveable rack of clothing in the garment district when ideas of floating textiles, women’s issues and contemporary manufacture practices sparked internal dialogue, informing next body of work. 11/2007.

Dorothy Amenuke is an accomplished artist from Ghana and until October 2007 had never been outside of her home country. She was selected as an Apexart International Resident; broadly, the intention being “to experience the activities and individuals who are both relatable and doing substantial work in an effort to inform their (her) work rather than promote it.” Hence forward she sets about to “inform” herself: Museums, NYC subways and restaurants, galleries and continual string of happenstances, and then - travel to the Midwest. Dorothy finds her way Upstate NY and into my Cragsmoor home searching for camaraderie of fellow artists, visits to studios, art’s organizations and galleries up the Hudson.

We had two days.
Off we went to meet artists, because, in New York City, where could you possibly find them? Firstly, we were led on a guided tour of Women’s Studio Workshop and their artist book production facilities and ceramics studios (including lunch). Next stop was stimulating conversation and tea with Jeff Shapiro, ceramic artist in Accord, a tour of his Japanese style anagama kiln, studio and work. We then traveled South on 209, ending up in the studio/ foundry of local Ellenville artist Matt Pozorski with a generous and frank discussion developed amongst the two artists, including low cost and efficient metal casting techniques, angels, women in art and more. A brief stroll through Ellenville and the upcoming MarketStreet Art Center, exchanges of visions for innovative teaching strategies, community life and the arts, and up to Cragsmoor we went.

Here is where we relax, meander through the Cragsmoor Bleakley house/ hotel, a.k.a. my family home, visits to our painting, sculpture and photo studios. Offering her encaustic wax for experimenting in Ghana, as many issues of Sculpture Magazine as manageable on a plane, she later gifted me the beaded necklace around her neck. Perfect.

The next morning and a speeding ticket later (Dorothy and Judy talking non-stop) we walked into Pollich-Tallix Foundry in Beacon, not simply a fabrication facility, but more resembles a laboratory with shelves and floor space crowded by artists’ work in varying stages of the casting and fabrication process – out of context, gallery-speaking - asking nothing uncomfortable or demanding of the viewer – a situation of pure inspiration for Dorothy. Before leaving, the foundry happened to do a small bronze pour. Perfect. No less perfect was breakfast at Homespun in Beacon, with it’s perfect coffee, delicious home made granola parfaits and ginger scones, where we met up with Jill Reynolds (Ellenvlle's 10x10x10 artist). In the evening, Second Saturday Beacon was full up of opportunities to meet other artists and gallery openings.

We talked endlessly.

Ghanaian artist, educator, and current Apexart resident Dorothy Akpene Amenuke will discuss her work and its cultural context with Judy Sigunick, artist and arts community organizer in the Hudson Valley. The discussion will explore the boundaries between art and life, women's art, and the distinct contemporary art communities of Ghana and New York. (www.apexart.org)

And the talk continued in Manhattan.

Time is an essential component in my work, she states. Because my process is laborious, my sculptures…embody the time taken to create them…and the act of making art painstakingly every day is important to my practice, stemming from my interest in devotion to everyday responsibilities. (D. Amenuke)

She boarded a plane the day after our gallery talk, back to her husband and two children, and her newly appointed faculty position (first woman in Ghana) where she will teach contemporary and fiber art. Next stop for Dorothy was Egypt, Dwayer’s International Workshop for Women that month. Continuing the relation between textiles, Ghanaian culture and women’s issues and it seems that hers’ is not merely a lifestyle of making art, teaching and raising a family, but of detangling complex ideas and social networking, as well.

ART MATTERS:Steve Rossi and the Power of Standing Still

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:44:00 +0000

Some think that if we stand still long enough, history will eventually revisit us, and , barely, will we need to revise anything. Well, maybe the conclusions and some of the codes change, for example, the military updating of it’s targets and capabilities, predictable “fashion” shifts, the nutritional benefits of coffee now geared towards cancer prevention with free radical additives. At times, scientific inquiry is not impressively reassuring when certain discoveries rock back and forth like a wooden horse.

Here they come again: world wars and religious conflicts , short skirts, the human figure as a popular image in art, the strength of family and community concepts, possibly cave dwelling and horse and buggy if oil prices rise beyond $4.00 per gallon. We validate time honored homeopathy, acupuncture and herbal treatments and consider their inclusion into medical benefits.

Time certainly doesn’t stand still, so, away we go, making new (better) money, new (better) forms of art, new (better) wild grown herbal remedies, new (you get the idea) hybrids of just about everything, new wars, new sciences, coffee with added antioxidants so that it looks like it’s honestly healthy and new devices to connect to email. (which is where you discover this health packed coffee formula) Even new ways to tell about the same old thing, but better.

So when I walked up the stairs on Main Street in Beacon, NY to the spacious artist loft of Steve Rossi and his partner, Sue Rossi, also an artist, it was deja vu over clothed mannequins in the corner of his studio – a family of three – standing still. Powerfully standing still. Hints of post war America: army style clothing sold in Target Stores, storefront mannequins right out of a 50’s TV screen- frozen American dreams, promising to always be there for us, just for the asking. Exhibited in other parts of his studio was a “carpet” style Islam mosaic pattern composed of Fruit Loops (yummy stuff forbidden in the artist’s household by a cautious and protective mom). Suspended from the ceiling was a piece titled 46 Degrees, consisting of a bunch of View-Master toys, through which the audience can see broadcast news and advertising images.

Where am I? Toy store? Peter’s Market cereal section? Dominican Republic sweat shop? Back in Vietnam? A childhood full of pretend war games or Chuck Norris films? Is this a fashion show or a portentous display, warning us that we best be hiding from – who? – ourselves? Is it a display of optimism: war struggles evolving into entertainment, fashion and economic gain? Rossi demonstrates a perplexing and provocative style, while creating a common childhood story through his grown up awareness. If only we could all go back and rethink everything we were taught- before we went to art school. Steve’s studio is a gently poignant reminder to think and re-think with your whole being. And not just that, but to step outside of your ego by incorporating photos of neighbors, fabricating for other artists, inviting other local artists to exhibit in your studio (gulp), teach workshops and to embrace multiple identities within the scope of your work. He does all this. It’s a rich experience of potential discovery.

Okay I’m getting a bit carried away, but Steve Rossi’s art shakes the ideas supporting an American “dream” of personal and political freedoms. He speaks in icons: camouflage, children’s war games, Andy Warhol and popular consumerism. His use of humor to talk about political covert subversive strategy on the part of political leaders, intends, I imagine to pry open a dialogue about how to stop killing each other. Or at least, bring attention to the fact that we still are.

Rossi’s work is neither utilitarian nor is it consumer oriented. It is thoughtful, somewhat labyrinthian in concept, and moderately obscure (unless you grew up in Pennsylvania in the mid to late 80’s etc.).

In support of his desire to be a resident artist in Ellenville , Steve has proposed a 5 day workshop project for the MarketStreet Art Center. His subject is a 1955 automobile hood ornament which “bears a striking resemblance to a fighter jet, creating connections between automobiles, oil consumption, consumerism and military mite.” He continues his proposal concept:

I'm interested in creating a mobile sculpture out of slip-cast
porcelain automobile hood ornaments… For me, using porcelain
to recreate this object speaks to the vulnerabilities many feel,
especially in this Hudson Valley area, where the manufacturing base
has collapsed and people still living in this area are wondering what
sort of economic systems will be coming in to replace the industry
base, if any.

Steve grew up in Pittsburgh, was a young, avid skateboarder, and discovered an art talent while designing T-shirts for his athletic team. Meanwhile his dad’s employment as a general contractor offered him a working knowledge of construction and materials. An excellent high school art program pointed him to the Corcoran School of Art where he studied painting., before he went on to Pratt and, finally SUNY New Paltz to earn an MFA.

“Dad didn’t quite understand the non-utilitarian aspect of art making” claimed Steve. But validation went hand in hand with his Masters of Fine Arts show and a solo at the
Carbon14 Gallery in Philadelphia a few years later. You will find him, these days, at the Pollich-Tallix Foundry in Newburgh where he is involved in the fabrication and assembly of castings for well known artists including Tom Otterness and Louise Bourgeois.

ART MATTERS: Carla Aumick C

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:46:00 +0000

Carla B. Aumick: 1988 - 2007

Growing up I learned to convert abstract ideas into pictures as a way to understand them. I visualized concepts such as peace or honesty with symbolic images…peace as a dove, an Indian peace pipe, or TV ….footage of the signing of a peace agreement. (Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures)

Temple Grandin, PhD, animal scientist, designer of one third of the livestock-handling facilities in the United States wrote a remarkable book in which she closes a gap between humans and animals, describing her ability to identify problems and come up with solutions by “Thinking in Pictures - the title of her book. In her wisdom as a knowledgeable scientist and autistic person, Grandin’s research towards humane practices for farm animals coupled with an ability to solve problems of cattle behavior parallels a similar approach artists take towards solving problems of complex thoughts and emotions, design and communication strategies. Describing herself as a “visual thinker” Grandin says, “I could only understand the world in that way ."

This is not a story about Temple Grandin, but about a young 19 year old adult, Carla Aumick. Although she was not autistic, Carla developed her own visual vocabulary exposing a long, detailed, sometimes dark thread of personal and social inquiry. Her drawings and paintings have been aptly recognized for their excellence by teachers, parents and friends. She was on a road to accomplishment amongst the world of artists, but more then that, like Temple Grandin, her imagery was informed by a unique vision while resolving ideas and problems into pictures. We all know this: Adolescence is an intriguing, albeit conflicted time of life – more in some and less in others. But whether or not we are children, whether or not we can associate with the root source of a painting, whether or not we support or even value art in it’s highest manner of expression, it’s hard to look away from heartfelt work influenced by its maker’s poignant search for life’s meanings. Like the art work of Carla Aumick.

To tell the truth she was just a little kid, tirelessly making images on paper, creating things as personal expression, exploring her relationships in the world without getting entirely tangled up in a “norm”. Such is the challenge for many art students. My guess is Carla was trying, the best way she had learned, to narrow the gap between worlds: cultural worlds, imaginary worlds, hers and parental worlds, individuality and the world of her schools and, cruelest of all, the rigid social world of all manners and expectations of conformity.

She was one of our hopefuls, weaving art work, culture and personal matters through a steady support (thanks to her parents) of private art tutoring. How was young Carla so strong to rock the boat of mediocrity? Carla was a student of art at our time of global, corporate driven mass production which (ridiculously) values and pays out handsomely for each of us (artists), if we actually become art stars and can manage to be “marketed” as “secure investments”. This is what is ‘hot’ in art: wars, cultural divides, endangerments of our planet and all species thereof, gender issues, economic debates, questions of beauty, and, the historically recurring debate of “what is art?”.

In Carla meets the World on Her Own Terms, an exhibition I would vote to produce in the future, why would these rules even matter? It was, and still is, a gift to me, an artist who didn’t spend enough time with Carla, to draw inspiration from her creative fortitude and self –invention.

And, speaking of gifts, my husband recently hands me a book titled “Early Christian Art” -a compilation of works produced in the first two centuries along with the conversion of Constantine the Great…paintings and sculptures “destined to inspire the artists of all lands of Europe and the Near East for nearly 2000 years to come:”. Many names of the artists of these paintings, sculptures and architectural reliefs are unknown or not recorded, but the works bear information typical of a social or religious group. They tell stories. Mostly about God. From the stories, we understand pieces of our history and better yet, we can make it up and be a human link to that history and walk back in time to “greet” our ancestors. As a contemporary “artist-in-the-making”, Carla Aumick”s student art works will some day offer us a “step back” to an important life of beauty and love, conflict and distress, visual maps of a Hudson Valley adolescent remaking a world that (typically, I suppose) never quite fits (unless, of course, you Make It Fit) She was triumphant in closely guarding personal viewpoints, clinging to her rights to think independently, and forming her visions, as a young adult, into paintings. (How young were those widely admired Cave Painters or Aboriginal artists luring a world of artists to come see?)
As a high school student, Carla Aumick’s work was honored through a selection process, by the Bertoni Gallery in Sugar Loaf, NY for inclusion in their 7th Annual Small Works Exhibition in 2006. Her work was also included in the book “The Day Our World Changed: Children’s art of 9/11, a production of NYU Child Study Center and the Museum of the City of New York, published by Harry Abrams.

Carla was killed in an automobile accident, Nov 1st, 2007 in Wallkill, NY, headed towards her nearby home in Pine Bush, NY.

ART MATTERS to Ellenville: Regina Monfort

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:54:00 +0000

Regina Monfort Reports: Some Kids Doing Well in 2007.
Monfort followed a group of Puerto Rican and Dominican teen-agers from the mid-1990s on, as they came of age in an environment of pervasive poverty, gang violence and broken families. The boys were consumed with being "tough" as a way of winning respect and manhood; the adolescent girls struggled to cope with the too-early transition to adult responsibilities of child-bearing and parenting (the Baltimore Sun, 2003)

Fast forward.
“Do you want to be in the picture?” Regina Monfort, photographer from Williamsburg Brooklyn, asked of 2 young men, Ricky and Tomar, hanging around the memorial mural she was about to photograph in Williamsburg in 1994 before the community went hyper-hip.
Back up.
“So this is the truth.” writes Michael Powell in the Washington Post this year, “About 8 nanoseconds ago Williamsburg was the national-magazine-certified coolest hood in America, with more vaguely employed white hipsters per square inch than anywhere on the continent. There are 22 clubs and 61 art galleries and enough pubs pouring fine Belgian beers to…”
Proceed forward.
So, Ricky and Tomar agreed to be in Regina’s photograph and when she returned to the neighborhood – a ten block radius - 2 weeks later with prints for them, it was the start of new relationships and a project lasting nine years. Doors opened, conversations born of well earned trust amongst artist and youngsters, and while Regina listened to her instincts she indeed ”found (her) voice as a documentary photographer.” A year later she produced a slide show, with the help of the kids, in the neighborhood handball court park. One hundred people showed up.
"Over time, as the young people of the area allowed me into their lives, I witnessed as much frustration as hope. I have been asked, "Why are you here? Nothing is beautiful here!” These photographs are my answer', says Regina.
An anthropologist, Neil Smith from CUNY is quoted in the above mentioned Washington Post article: “the wealthy are….pushing the poor to the fringes and it’s turbocharged…(while) Artists are disposable – developers just toss them out in hopes they’ll colonize the next ‘hot’ neighborhood."
The scope of narrative running through the documentary essay, “Beyond Grand Street” is broad, candid, layered and explores interactions within public and private spaces- minus the confusion of reactive dramas filtering the impact. It’s a brilliantly sensitive body of work. I can hardly comment on how she might afford her subjects the freedom to appear so natural with a large lens in their faces? Questions I might ask the kids in the photos: What’s it like to live on the fringes of acceptance in an alien culture? Unmistakably cool? How is that so important – more than life itself? Can I ever be as beautiful as my mom? Will my newborn be better armed for survival? What does unreachable feel like?
Who will these beautiful people looking for hope become? What is the point of an article loaded with questions without a hint of answers serving up things humanly possible? Social conundrums amidst a tragically imbalanced global economy darkens their expressions and the city backdrop doesn’t help. Ironically, ethnic social ties, community solidarity, acceptance of differences are both stellar forces in building strong neighborhoods and towns, but these elements are the first to go when it’s time to get serious, profitably speaking: Ethnic foods disappear, proud street culture is crowded by clubs, affordable housing is gone, low cost entertainment….hmm. it’s still low cost, but first you have to buy a $50+ meal. The flavor dries up. And, whallah, the coffee all tastes the same.
Gentrification of Williamsburg started at the waterfront, and spread eastward, affecting this neighborhood most recently. Condos were built, old tenements razed and the social landscape, documented by Regina, was gone. The entire 9 year project was about the “creation of relationships” explains Monfort. “They opened their lives and homes to me…the kids taught me endurance…had (me) listen to hip hop so I could understand where they are coming from….(they, now) call me ‘their photographer’.

Regina shoots in black and white, with her Nikon F3. “Beyond Grand Street” is currently on exhibit at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, originally sponsored by the Soros Open Society Institute in New York City (www.soros.org) and part of the Moving Walls exhibition series in 2001. Images can be seen online at www.pixelpress.org/. Regina Monfort is French born, studied at the Brussels School of Photography and Hunter College. Her photographs have been widely published and have been included in major collections such as the Library of Congress, which has purchased work and the Yale Art Gallery. In addition to extensive exhibition record and awards, she currently teaches at CUNY La Guardia Community College. Regina has been visiting the upstate New York Warwarsing area for the past 12 years, staying with her close friends Carroll and John Hazard and, lucky for us, contemplating relocating to the area. .

ART MATTERS to Ellenville: Jody Ake

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:25:00 +0000

I don’t think Jody Ake is afraid to remember his near brush with death in New Mexico when he was tossed out of a sunroof, 70’ into the air, fractured a whole mess of bones, including spinal in two places. As a 20 year old undergraduate student at the College of Santa Fe, an unsuspecting passenger majoring in Sculpture, his entire world up ended, (blink) just like that car on a fateful day in a very young man’s life.
What was Jody’s life like for the next 7 months in a body cast? I can’t imagine. seeing yourself as a new, altered person, his entire life changed at (gulp) breakneck speed. When it was time, he picked himself up, brushed off and returned to his studies as an art student.
Prior to the accident, Jody was staying in Boston where he saw a sculpture titled “The Greek Slave”, an 1850’s statue by the artist, Hiram Powers. It was about a woman being sold as a sexual slave and was to influence Ake’s decision to major in sculpture as an undergraduate student.

The Slave has been taken from one of the Greek Islands by the Turks, in the time of the Greek Revolution; the history of which is familiar to all. Her father and mother…., have been destroyed by her foes, and she alone preserved as a treasure too valuable to be thrown away. Sold in a Constantinople market, the sculpture represents a being superior to suffering, and raised above degradation, by inward purity and force of character. Thus the “The Greek Slave” is an emblem of the trial to which all humanity is subject, and may be regarded as a type of resignation, uncompromising virtue, or sublime patience.

Back to Jody’s broken back, which ended that potential career choice for lack of the physical strength necessary to carve or fabricate sculptural objects. Shifting focus in graduate school to photography, he chose not to entirely abandon dreams of “carving beautifully nude women”, like “ The Greek Slave”. At first, he “couldn’t find his voice” in an academic world full of art history, philosophy, the frustration of “not knowing what (he) was looking for”, a cathartic, near fatal accident, a fertile and underutilized mind during a long painful recovery. So, in search for something that wouldn’t bore him, Jody turned the camera towards himself in a quest that is ongoing to date and inclusive of other models. (But he did mention that before all is said and done, he pictures himself mightily carving away at his perfectly sculpted beauty of a woman.)
From edgy landscapes exploding with industrial buildings, racing tire tracks on a grandiose file of dirt, a parched and desolate field, utilizing special lighting and a mid 19th century photo process called wet plate collodion involving a large format camera, glass plates and hand mixed chemicals for each exposure, Jody has become iconic in the field of wet plate collodion ambrotypes. His gritty, somehow sparkling portraits of people appear to us viewers to be waiting for something (or other) to end. Still lifes paused, missing the caption or explanation, because why am I looking at a gorgeously poised wild root trapped inside a period glass and sterling bottle or a proud bulbous flower with dying leaves? About his fashion photos and burlesque images of women, philosophically imbedded with suggestions and questions about body image, with a strong sense of the subject looking outside of the photograph, but unclear about who she is looking at, gender-ly speaking.
The photos on Market Street are “dark…with baggage…not happy…and the historical process, wet plate collodion, is not a happy cheery one” according to Jody, which, he explains, emerged from the “industrial age and was used to document death and post mortem babies. It was the last visual record of people going off to war. The history of photography is imbedded in the dark history of America and the civil war….the bloodiest….” Witness the synergy in Jody’s work: The combination of self, history, craftsmanship, the witty interpretation and overlay of the (21st century) familiar and Dutch 17th century painting, American Civil War history and human rights, a rarified photographic process putting the artist in contact with a history in which we are (suggested in his images) yet still embroiled.
Underlying Jody’s work is a small voice that sorts itself out in his prints and gracefully expands into a bellow with reminders that we are mortal and life is brief. While regarding life/ death values, he presents a seemingly crumbling world with assortments of people and things - de-composing and re-composing– while they look back at us and maybe, just maybe, they know what we are thinking. Or do we?
Jody Ake’s work has been exhibited nationally, from east to west coast, and publications can be found on line as well as at his website: http://jodyake.com/ In 1998, he earned his Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Oregon. He currently lives in Brooklyn and works in lower Manhattan, teaches high school kids, was involved in a photo cooperative in Tribeca, and balances his work between his own studio work and commercial photography. His most recently published work is in the April 2007 issue of Ebony with a 10 page spread of his photographs. In Jan. 2007 he shot musician, John Legend at Pochran Studios for Uptown Magazine. Photographs are included in his website. His most recent exhibition was at NYU in New York City.

Profits and Passions

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:17:00 +0000

0820070014.php4.html

ART MATTERS to Ellenville: KARLOS CARCAMO

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:34:00 +0000

I am from a generation that was raised with the Internet….with a different kind of television and music…for example that depends very much on borrowing from different traditions, sampling pieces of other music and overlaying different rhythms and melodies and I think that is reflected in my…
(Jonathan Safran Foer in an interview on identitytheory.com in 2003, age 26)

Maybe you think Karlos Carcamo said this. Well he didn’t. But he might have.
What he does say is:
I use the constructed nature of hip-hop culture as a resource for the production of my work. Visually and conceptually, sampling, cutting, re-mixing and re-contextualizing work similar in method to the way a DJ produces music.
(Karlos Carcamo)

The story goes that when the writer, Jonathan Safran Foer was 18, he had no idea what he was going to do with his life until was given a green light to become a writer by his college professor, Joyce Carol Oates.

And anyway, Karlos says he had no idea he’d become an artist, until his high school teacher encouraged him to think about it. He moved to Florida, took a few courses in Miami, did pretty badly, saw a Pop Art show at the University Art Gallery, which included Robert Rauschenberg’s “combine paintings” , drove to Pearl Paint where he got a job, poured through books and magazines on his lunch break, looking for information and clues about the contemporary art scene, and there it happened, he claims: “fire was ignited” So, back to Queens he went, studied both painting and art history at the Art Students League, the School of Visual Arts, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Hunter College. ”Hip hop became my vocabulary”, Karlos explains. Trailing behind this focus is a whole mess of words, concepts, influential artists and teachers. Some he studied under, like Bruce Dorfman (assemblage painter) Robert Farris Thompson ( One of the world’s foremost authorities on African and Afro-Atlantic cultures at Yale) Glenn Ligon (African-American multiple media artist “exploring issues of race, sexuality, identity, representation and language.” Some just fell into place like everything hip-hop, cultural icons, literary and urban culture, Sugar Hill Gang, Michelangelo Pistoletto , Octovio Paz (Nobel winner from Mexico City, poet and essayist dedicated to arts and politics, 50 cents (U.S. born rapper Curtis James Jackson III from Queens check out www.50cent,com).

Moments prior to getting in my car destined to an “interview” with Karlos Carcamo, I finished Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and then drove to Karlos’s totally cozy, eccentrically shaped home in Wappingers Falls. I’m still a bit caught up in this book in which the main character, Oskar, a 9 year old is searching for just about everything: a dad killed in the WTC on 9/11, his personal identity, the meaning of rules, an antidote to the guilt he feels for not picking up the phone when dad called from a cell phone. Like every other artist I know, Oskar will do anything to get it right and find some answers – to protect his need to keep searching for whatever it is he keeps searching for: “It’s not safe when you’re mad at me” so he makes things up, and then you won’t be mad at him. As if the novel is still unraveling, I meet Karlos - an extremely bright, incredibly canny and gifted artist seeming to stitch urban life complexities into visual arrangements, bringing it all together. Looks like there could be a beginning and an end, but I think really good art doesn’t necessarily do that. What I mean is this: The beginning is way before Karlos’s time…and history tells us, there is no end…unless… The artist is grabbing at passages, the ones he lives with, the ones his mom and dad lived with both in El Salvador in their upper middle class life and then in Queens in their not so upper middle class lives. Karlos reinterprets, plucking ideas from urban streets and alleyways, from lives of laborers, from Latino culture and hard working class folks who want their children to become doctors or lawyers. Then the artist frames it, mounts it, binds it between two covers or maybe stages it. Gets it to his gallery. Or gift wraps it, presenting it to mom and dad or sister, for her birthday. That part doesn’t really matter.

Back to Karlos Carcamo’s work where he makes newspaper jackets and baseball caps (an art installation for a Latino Cultural Festival in Queens) to “remind (you of) the importance of the immigrant labor force in America,” Or take his rapper series and work titled Cut Out, loaded with references to Michelango Pistolleto and Arte Povera, on an image of a 50 cent poster, with the person’s face (identity he was born with) removed with only his possessions or jewelry (identity he purchased) remaining. And, anyway, what do these found objects in Carcamos’ work mean? Autobiographical? His newspaper. Our working people? Our Queens? Our people from Latin America? Our garment industry? I think I’ll take a better look at this cool looking shirt I’m wearing? How much an hour? What?? $6.00 per hour. 12 hour days? and (Oh, Lord) no health benefits?

But, no matter what, he is an artist, even when he is getting paid as an Art Handler, or co-directing the
Go North Gallery in Beacon, or connecting artists to himself and to each other through shows, or teaching at ABACA in lower Manhattan, an alternative public high school serving students throughout NYC, building “self-esteem through experiences of success in the arts.”, cleaning up alternative spaces for exhibition, or organizing ART EXCHANGE at School of Visual Arts, inviting artists “to come up with ideas for exhibition.”
Go to Maykr.blogspot.com/ where Karlos Carcamo posts a ton of stuff he’s involved with, including images of his work and many other regional artists, evidence of his significant role towards creating art and community opportunities in our Hudson River region, from Queens to Beacon.

ART MATTERS: Jo-Ann Brody in Peekskill

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 21:57:00 +0000

All my work is done as an emotional and instinctive response to the world around me. I cannot explain them intellectually; they grow from my hands and my heart.
Jo-Ann Brody

First, she gets your attention with a compelling gaggle of 5’-6’ tall cement figures, various pigments, slim, arms flailing, reaching, protecting - possibly dancing – although, they are hip-less, practically breast-less and each one pleads for partnership. Hey, what’s the idea, here? These are steel drivin’ women. Here you have clunky feet, formless hands, featureless faces, a couple of them sporting large, very large, hips resembling a tuning fork - not a shabby metaphor for female sensitivities.
It was not surprising to hear Brody claim herself an “ardent feminist” with “no agenda… hmm” She finished a series of figures, called them “Guardians” and then later titled them “Sentinels” sans caps. I suppose these days we might be dreaming about hiring a private sentinel for our kids at Halloween time, in public schools, at U.S. airports (like during the full body search required of my daughter before allowed to board a domestic plane) Okay, so it’s just our friendly airlines protecting us from Terrorists. Oh boy, is this protection thing ever confusing.
It’s obvious, after meeting the artist, that she has thought, endlessly, about war, poverty, immigrants and the realities of injustices. Her figures are naked and bald, salt of the earth mama people performing with abandonment to the act of whatever it is they are doing. Actually, go back - it is Jo-Ann Brody’s abandonment as well, claiming “I’m doing what makes sense to me… and…The women…are symbolic and iconic of today’s struggle to remain strong in the face of a darkening world and creative in the face of multiple losses and conflicting obligations.”
Jo-Ann’s immersion in her artwork (while mothering three adopted children, one each from Vietnam, Korea including a street child from Brazil.) is a beautiful thing to see. Nothing pedantic lurking in the gestures, textures, color, or materials of her work. No stories, really. She fashions women crowds, gathering for no apparent cause. These women seem honorably anonymous, realistically awkward, human, sensitive to prudishness and the gazing public. To object, on any level, to her work would puzzle me. She is the one objecting and after all of the clay gets put where she intends and the figures take shape, painted with earth and metal oxides, and fired in her kiln, what unfolds is a ‘rush’ of simple movement and color, amusingly countering (or balancing) today’s corporate women. That is, until the impact of more- than -one strikes it’s audience, and then the whole arrangement is transmuted into a parcel of humanity, evolved from ashes, sadness and tough memories. Take your pick: corporate or human or both. (I pick the latter)
Back to “objecting”. Brody hands me this article titled: “Office Artwork Brings Out the Critic in Employees” (NY Times, Jan 31, 2001) It seems a piece of Jo-Ann’s artwork was purchased by Pfizer Inc, the New York pharmaceutical giant and later censored it and traded for another. The first figure with it’s small head and huge hips (symbolizing feminine strength, according to Brody) threatened some of the female employees, “who felt it was demeaning”. The replacement piece was more about hands, and less about hips, and the Pfizer employees could rest, while they worked. (For an alternate perspective, I recommend a viewing of Rubens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His painting, The Garden of Love c. 1634-5 for example, is helpful towards getting a grip on the glorious stature of large women)
I’m confused. (again) The world of color coding artwork for homes and offices, avoiding political or social controversy, compromising and resorting to the needs of a buying public to keep it…what?…safe from….who?… So maybe we don’t want to invite alternative ideas to our customary ones, or truth is, “abstract art may be more likely to puzzle than offend amateur critics”.
The year before the NY Times article and controversy, Jo-Ann traveled to Kyoto, Japan as a resident artist in Nishijin, a district known for its textiles and weaving and where all of the kimonos were made. An exchange program between Kyoto and the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill was developed and they became sister cities in an undertaking of preservation and revitalization offering artists and artisans opportunities for travel and studio space in each others countries. As I left, Jo-Ann points to a large poster of her friend and Japanese ceramic artist, Keiko Ikoma, glazing a pot, oblivious to everything outside of her work, growing (magically) from her hands.

For more about Jo-Ann Brody’s work, visit her website at www.jo-annbrody .com. She is represented by Ceres Gallery on 27th Street in Manhattan, and Maxwell Fine Arts in Peekskill. NY. Her recent works are to be included in Collaborative Concepts Sculpture exhibition at Saunder’s Farm in Garrison, NY, 10x10x10 in Ellenville, as well as a traveling exhibition: Visible and Invisible Spaces, curated by Jennifer Heath, the editor of “The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore and Politics.” (University of California Press, 2007)

ART MATTERS to Ellenville:Deborah Masters at Storm King

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:41:00 +0000

The first mistake is to think of mankind as a thing in itself. It isn’t. It is a part of an intricate web of life. And we can’t think even of life as a thing in itself. It isn’t. It is part of the intricate structure of a planet bathed by energy from a sun. If we do nothing at all…..the ecology will die and man will die with it. Isaac Asimov, The Case Against Man.

Ever since I saw Deborah Masters and her work at Storm King, last week, I have been designing a personal rescue kit for the day when…. Starting with vitamins, carbon purifiers, pliers, tweezers and knives, sketchbook and a thousand pencils, my laptop complete with photo and word files and a good pair of running shoes, I wrap it all up with Chocolate, darkest chocolate. Oh, but how to survive without family and friends? And their rescue kits? maybe the computer (ugh) and the vitamins could….go. hmm. tweezers? what about tics? Homelessness. Is this possible? …(Darfur, tsunamis, Iraq, West Bank, New Orleans. Did they… know? ) Deborah narrates. She preaches a little, but overwhelmingly, her massive cast and colored concrete figures are proud stanchion like portraits of big people - carrying things. The history of Gypsies, Jews, Katrina victims. immigrants and other displaced persons in exodus, running from something…into….hellishness. NOT ONLY THAT. “We’ve learned nothing” she asserts and rhetoric flows in steady stream: “environmental racism”(not rebuilding flood walls, for example), toxic dumping and molds, abusiveness, the powers of women, devotion to gods and objects and religion, i.e., Masters laments “the vapidity of a society that lives without ideals and faith.”

Overwhelmed by big ideas, I humbly (at least my best attempt) toured Storm King Art Center on the trolley with Deborah, Liliana Malta, an artist friend who flew in from Rome for the opening reception, her friend, Cheryl Kaplan, an accomplished film producer, and a group of women from Orange County who do interesting things together once a month and wear red hats. At the end of the ride was a refreshing glimpse of one of Deborah’s pieces, Tamashi, sited at the hill’s precipice, a free spirited representation of a woman’s head, just waiting, like mountain laurel, for nothing, anticipating nothing bad, neither fleeing nor encamped. You cannot ignore her. You don’t even want to. She is our everyday lovely woman. She comes and she goes and she never ever blames us, for anything.

Back to (gulp) reality, and the three looming figures in the park, and the people and things needing honorable mention and all of the victims of political or social injustices. Accidents, too. Like the little boy who fell off a roof in Brooklyn, after which Deborah created (sculpted) a circle of friends for the ailing mom, cast concrete, oversized, formidably sympathetic, how women typically are with each other (the piece is showing in a multi cultural art center in Haverstraw, NY.) Back up. How does one land a show at Storm King, anyway? - the “highest honor for me” Master’s claims. She also suggests serendipity, like the art park director seeing her work at a time he was looking for an artist, but I’ll let that go, because we suspect it doesn’t really happen that way.
Anyway, more interesting is the throttling aspect of “nomadic people” on their way to rebuilding their lives. You can have Hope if you want it, you can sign on to doing things that will change our world, which seems unlikely that you actually might, unless you board the train, take a ride or walk your dog around the neighborhood ( like Deborah every morning for a couple of hours) and then ‘do stuff’ there, such as tagging your buddy (or eye contact, take your pick) in a game called “hope” as daily refuge from hopelessness. (When Y.M. Barnwell wrote the song, no mirrors in my Nana's house. is it possible to see the beauty… in everything…cause the beauty in everything was in her eyes. Could it be that … I never knew that my skin was too black…that my nose was too flat…my clothes didn't fit…things that I'd missed )

About the Stuff You Do: After the towers collapsed, Deborah distributed high quality paper masks to pedestrians, fire fighters, squad teams, etc. She also worked at the New Town Creek Sewage Treatment plant, between Queens and Brooklyn an environmentalist, “making sure they did things safely”. (and “got them to address toxicity by covering 200 tanks”) Her opinion is that “nobody cares about sculptors”. But, clearly, she wants to “rise to the top” - a way towards earning passage into continuous and uninterrupted work.

As readers may suspect, there is this revolution in the art world today, charged by progressive technology, popular and divided cultures, with a trajectory into who knows, possibly a black hole. Deborah’s large, complex figures, based on 30 second sketches, each requiring 5000 lbs of clay and typically two years of work, recall our history and it’s People, “picking up and moving on.” A personal and slightly sardonic interpretation of the “cast concrete family” is obvious, in the cumbersome, even humorous baggage strapped to the middle of (strong ) Mom , with merely a sheep around (hunter) Dad’s neck, and the (dreamy) Daughter’s fish and bird, like stuffed animals, to comfort her as she enters a new phase of her life. Deborah’s materials-infused art bales you out of black holes, blending cultures, probably informed by her life in Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico with travels to South America as a youngster.
Oh, yeah, what about Families and economic inequality, political injustice, wars and brutal immigration practices. Why resist politics in art despite differences and gallery requirements to turn profits, a familiar risk to Eeo Stubblefield who exhibited Who Cares? in Ellenville, NY last summer. Are we actually willing to forget?. Why didn’t we take our kids to the (free) Shadowland screening of Thomas Harris’s, Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela, a son’s tribute to unsung heroes? How about reading Louise Doughty’s “Fires In The Dark” one of Master’s favorites written about European Gypsies of Romany caught up in Hitler’s reign of terror? You can still experience the grip of Deborah Master’s Travellers and Big Head (Tomashi) exhibit this summer (www.stormking.org) tracing a unique vision and remembrances. Visit her website: (www.deborahmasters.com) and click on Walking New York, a painted relief mural measuring 8’ x 350’ in JFK’s terminal 4 at the Immigration Hall for which she won the Best Public art of 2001 award in NYC. Deborah Masters lives and works in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Since the mid 1970’s she has earned numerous awards, public and private commissions, and exhibits nationally and internationally.

ART MATTERS to Ellenville: Michael Asbill-Uncharted

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:11:00 +0000

Why would anyone want to spray bullets into an aluminum boat, upend railroad ties on the Wallkill rail trail, a.k.a map and locator for the Hudson, or bend a boat in half, transforming it into a likeness of the great white shark?
Smack in the middle of my notes, taken during an hour or so of hanging out with Michael Asbill at his recently purchased Ukranian Camp in Accord, NY, is an unfamiliar name: John Wesley Powell. Turns out he is a famous explorer who led a 1000 mile expedition through uncharted canyons, convinced: …that water, or the lack of it, would be a major and ongoing problem in America's westward expansion….(he) wanted to organize settlements around water and watersheds, which would force water users to conserve the scarce resource because overuse or pollution would hurt everyone in the watershed.
Now I wonder? Did Pete Seeger (songwriter, folk singer. political activist and founder of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in 1966 ) know about Powell, Wyoming, where the community practices cooperative water use so that farmers have control in watershed protection? One of Pete’s famous quips:
I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.
Michael’s work guides me, gently, to stories about Courage. It is a boat ride through America and ends up in our glorious Hudson River, the murky fish filled Kansas streams, coastal waters of Australia, South Africa, California etc as if we are seeing for the first time who and what America is. (Not to mention what it feels like to hold a real shark’s tooth.)
So back to spraying bullets in the boat. I suppose it could be an act of valor – shooting at the “bad”, or let’s try intense anger, or could it be extreme caring - putting ailing social practices to sleep, forever, to rebuild with a little more forethought? Michael Asbill grew up in Utah and Idaho. He learns technique on his own. (like John Wesley Powell, who studied botany, zoology and geology without the benefits of teachers.) Rather than organizing boat journeys (Powell) as a way to get to truth, or singing/ composing (Seeger) his way to justice, Michael’s approach is solid 21st century, leaning into digital and software, “playing around in Photoshop” purchasing artifacts on e-bay, collecting stuff (history), reluctantly ridding his property of lead paint crackle and other traces of strangely wonder-ful decadence. Having acquired skills and knowledge, Michael embarks on his own rescue mission, blending history, technical and design concepts into large scale artworks pleading for sustainable living and all matters of resource conservation (water comes up a lot in his work, for example a model of an aggregate of black trumpet mushrooms with mechanism to produce the sound of intermittent drips, rather than flow, of water…) but claims that the “driving force is making work I like – beautiful and mysterious…. (I want to) keep you (him and us) thinking.”
I’m risking diversion (and therefore losing you) to comment on the absurdity of calculating value in art, generally, through a story about an unknown Japanese artist, who’s fee for an ink painting (of a fish) seemed high to this collector and begs explanation. The artist opens the door of a closet when an outpouring of thousands of drawings, and years of work spill onto the floor. And then, I might add, like in Michael’s case, the generations of living, cultural histories, accumulated information, not only personal, but stories handed down through literature, family gatherings, coffee houses and such, ought to count for something, as well. Despite the amount of time, mysteriously inflated auction values, , there is something else, and it looms, beyond the bucolic fields in Accord, where public artwork and studio work finds its way (through commissions and purchases) into the landscape and homes of collectors. This is a value where boundaries don’t exist. It’s the work, taking you by the hand, rescuing you from your own (assumed) limitations and taking you to new discovery.
Like Kansas, for example. Just inside the door of Michael’s studio out in the fields of no where, is a large and exquisitely rendered charcoal drawing, entitled Big Crappie.(pronounced kray-pi and is prolific, overpopulated and can, but usually doesn’t, live to 15 years) He calls it “homage to my grandfather” – an eerily oversized, not so happy looking specimen apparently favored by his grandfather, who took up fishing after his retirement in Kansas. It seems this artist really doesn’t want to forget his grandfather, or this species of fish, or keeping our (beautiful) rivers flowing, or mid western history overall. Nor does he want us to forget. His art work challenges greed and wrong turns vis-avis environmental sustainability. I wonder if the archetypal hero (see Joseph Campbell Hero With A Thousand Faces) factors into his work: the grandfather, Powell, Seeger, and more - all forerunners to Michael’s own journey.. (One which is taking him on a more and more focused path in creating his work, and less teaching and developing remarkable art programs in Woodstock, NY)
For some artists, titles are important. Sitting on a centralized table in his studio is a sculpted model - a compelling arrangement of happy pink gums brandishing fossilized sharks teeth, designed as an “insert” in a plastic toy boat. bent at about a 40 degree angle. It is called Carcharoden Nostimos. Oh no, another research project for me. . Interestingly, Carcharoden Carcharias, main character in Jaws, the largest known predatory fish has replaceable teeth, meaning if they break off, well no big deal, because they grow back with new ones. And, they rotate on their own axis. And they are serrated. And, C.I.T.E.S. has them on the endangered species list. Expecting the second part of his title, Nostimos , to represent something exotic or at least natural, I learned that it is a web browser that speaks (not so naturally) and is animated. Just outside of Michael’s studio, is the full scale work in progress, the (actual) boat is bent and I get to see how he, seamlessly, is about to construct the inner mouth with dozens of teeth he will cast from fossilized ones purchased on E-bay.( I’m guessing Nostimos is his browser. )
This is what Michael has to say about both his studio/ gallery work and his public art works: At the end of the day, to maintain some equilibrium, I find it necessary to make both types…for me it is about solving problems, finding (creating) elegant ways to express oneself. You can see for yourself, this summer in various group exhibitions billed to include Asbill’s work: the Kingston Biennial, Clinton Historical Society, G.A.S,(acronym for Gallery and Studio) a new cutting edge contemporary multi media gallery and performance space in Poughkeepsie. Collaborative Concepts outdoor exhibition in Garrison and our own Ellenville 10x10x10 Storefront Exhibition. His permanent public artworks are at the Poughkeepsie Train Station, Windows on Poughkeepsie, composed of lenticular prints (an image that shows depth or motion that changes with the viewing angle) and in Gardiner along the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail, Rail Ties.
Michael Asbill received his MFA from Univ. of CA in San Diego, is a board member of “Walkway Over the Hudson”, the education curator for Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, teaches and curates and has received numerous grants and awards.

ART MATTERS: Michael Smith at the Jazzman Café.

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Mon, 28 May 2007 12:16:00 +0000

I’m going to be an art star, and come back to Ellenville to raise my kids…I am who I am because of Ellenville…I’ve .seen things in Ellenville other kids don’t see…the prison…Ellenville epitomizes the real world…. My Mom did a great job raising me. Michael Sheridan Smith

Mike Smith grew up in Ellenville. Without a father. Two years ago, his mom passed away after a lifetime (meaning Mike’s) of illness, being the “man” of the house, taking care of things most children don’t . In a brilliant ode to both parents, masterfully crafted and staged on the wall (sculpture), the floor (sculpture), amidst music, marionettes and video, he tells his version of what it was like being the only child of his parents. But that is only a part of this exceptional fine arts thesis show at SUNY New Paltz. The history of growing up in a small town, a family’s struggles, the culture of single parenting, a mother’s love for her son, countered by unmentionable forces whereby ‘child discovers mom passed out in living room’ (see below) a child’s abandonment issues - make for compelling stories. The narratives reckon we are all children and “strange memories” get replayed and revived within video clips that you want to see and hear, again and again: a life in the making - this 12 year old kid, dressed in “riot gear” with his pants tucked into his socks sweating to death in August while he mows the lawn because his sick mom can’t. It’s either humorously serious or seriously funny, I’m not sure which.
Then there is this other bit of legacy: if you should get trapped somewhere, like a skunk in a bottle, and can’t get out, don’t call the local police for help (Mike’s afterthought) who will, more likely than not, rectify the situation by shooting the skunk. (Clip #2 of I Feel Like Going Home) which presents us with a sort of appropriate metaphor in real time – a way to teach her son about (1) entrapment (2) helping imperiled creatures by calling animal control and, lastly, (3) humor, a useful lens in searching for ‘coping’ strategies.
But I really wanted to get to the point earlier: We are in the Jazzman café on campus and Mike scarfs down his first ever sandwich in days. He tells me, “my mom died two years ago”, and I said “am I going to cry through this” and he said, “you might.” With only my coffee to rescue me from the cascade of his painful recollections, summarily described: first one, then another and another, almost eclipsing the next…. I honestly wonder if there is a point to his work (and this essay), aside from his subject, which is him.(see paragraph #1 for short answer) The search for dad – the obviously useful therapeutic affects him dealing with his realities are…oh, crap…but, what about us? (when I flew into Chicago to see my mom in intensive care, my sister said to wait, we’ll see her in the morning but in the morning the doctor called and said to not hurry, she’s gone. So I couldn’t look at that clip where Mike’s mom was in the IC). I wonder if or when Mike will meet his dad? I wonder about loss and memory and making things – making them work – tragedy’s best companion, the dramatic effects of music and video clips. And speaking of music, it is my favorite. It paces the work, gives it rhythm and momentum. Along with the occasional tableau vivant in a slide show, I Feel Like going Home - silencing his puppet characters, as if they were us or maybe we just met….Mike recaptures, and we can hold that moment in our hands, as if it were ours.
So, back to is there a point? I think, yes, a combination of them. How about the way Sweet Honey in the Rock tells (sings) it: Life's longing for itself... the souls dwell(ing) in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. Then there is the visual syntax, with moving parts and props, realities and dreams, the dramatic wishing and hoping coming at us, undistracted, like text messaging or a cappella song.
Mike hadn’t slept or eaten for days, while completing and installing the current exhibition which includes Wake Up Mama, a replica of the façade and porch of his growing up days at 20 Church Street in Ellenville. Behind the miniaturized construction, is a supine figure on a “stage”, in pain with blood. In addition, on the gallery wall, is a silicone mask of Mike, I mean his dad, I mean Mike: Don’t I Look Like My Daddy, 2007, cast from Mike’s face donning a long mustache implanted with the artist’s real hair. “I can grow this mustache….myself…and create a relationship with someone, which I never had….” he comments. The head is anchored to a deer mount with an eery but self assured gaze. It seems this piece is about non-retrievable life, but then again, maybe it refers to accomplishment and valor. At the least, on a somber note, it’s morbidly decorative. Dear Papa, we see him (marionette) scripting, dad reading, a tale he tells, I suspect, because he wants things to change. Us, too?

Michael Smith’s Fine Arts Exhibition will travel to Ellenville for Art Ellenville 2007. Shortly after this publication, he will receive his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture and move to Brooklyn.

ART MATTERS to Ellenville:Views from Monica d. Church's Attic

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Fri, 04 May 2007 02:59:00 +0000

(Her)..prints (are)… digital manipulation(s) of scanned kodachrome slides from the 1950’s… etched onto photopolymer plates….in mysterious circular prints of fragments…..writes Dunia Molina, Director Galeria Nacional del Centro in Costa Rica.

Let’s start with the avian flu pandemic, which is a possibility they say. Wait. No. Let’s start with Taylor. the daughter of Monica - Better yet, let’s start with the concept, double entente (which happens to be the title of a past show at Vassar College) I’m having a confused moment as to which “topic” should be the worm at the end of my fishing pole.
Back up a bit:
First there is Monica, the artist, who offers up, in work and conversation, a splendid buffet of tasty socio-cultural ideas that are both disturbing and reassuring. For example, take the threat of an avian flu pandemic, a potential global situation which has become the fulcrum for a dialogue in Monica’s work about human loss of control (disturbing), how not touching each other in our accustomed ways (also disturbing) should the threat become as big as life. If we could just substitute elbows for hands, knees for lips, etc) or, maybe, wash our hands more often. (reassuring?)
(See exhibition photos at monicachurch.org.)
Then there is Monica, still the artist, but also the mom of her 6 year old daughter. Taylor. stealing herself from that full time job, only to shift a focus from formalism and abstract to personal and realism – remembering well the realities of motherhood: chauffeuring, doctoring, nursing, teaching, cooking, and how it is when things go right or wrong in your child’s day to day life. (and, in fact, yours as well, like sleep deprivation, focus problems, worry etc.)
Still there are pictures to be made, an artist’s fertile mind to be tended. “Hoola hoops, bubble wands, and potty chairs” floating from preoccupations with Taylor’s childhood experiences onto her “canvases” She recalls a time she began researching fertility and birth rituals while… pregnant. Seeing Pre-Islamic Kyrgyz and Uzbek suzanis (marriage bed quilts) feature circular motifs in vibrant reds, pinks, oranges, that represent the sun, moon, the heavens, flowers, or pomegranates -- all symbols of fertility --resonated deeply… So she moves from “Hey, Little Red Bird” a delightful and amusing oil painting, composed to the rhythm of her loving motherly heartbeat in 2003 to a deadly quieting installation “The Silent Spaces” in 2006 of wall mounted eggshells set inside wall scribed geometric parameters – recalling moose heads and other sorts of trophies of life never to be regained. Oh well.
And finally, there is the Monica who stands apart as a remarkably skilled craftsperson with provocative and timely visual commentary on stuff in our lives that Really Matters. She suggests prophesy through bird imagery, literature and media text, and eventually, during our conversation, quotes Shakespeare’s Macbeth “fair is foul, and foul is fair”, also the title of etchings which pair birds and humans.
Here is where I contacted Leigh Williams, Shakespeare scholar and Dutchess Community College Professor, to help me out. Puns and dark humor often pass me by, like witches in the night. And getting back to Macbeth, Leigh interprets “fair is foul “ etc. as an indication that the normal course of things is about to be upset, and adds that it also hints to the playgoer that you can't always tell by looking at a person if she or he will be "fair" or "foul". Does this mean…..is Monica debating free will ….a turn of events, no matter what? Or, can I still imagine - if only I had washed my hands?
Now, fast forward:
Monica Church sees a world that looks like we may not have any control, but begs the question through gorgeous prints of body part imagery, either zoomed in or hacked off, I’m not sure which. Then with a seductive palette of colors, you look and look, until it doesn’t really matter what you’re looking at any more. You’ve entered, like morning meditation, sitting, in the moment (Where’s history? Where’s prophesy?) and nothing else matters. (Until of course you pick up the New York Times, drink your coffee, drowning that morning freshness in news of poverty, slavery, hurricanes, large home improvement stores cropping up all over the place, de-improving habitats and our planet, in general with nasty building materials and large footprints, shenanigans of politics, college tuition escalates to $50,000 per year with corporate lenders, oh and homeland security which will sooner or later begin to ‘protect’ us from all Korean people.
Fly Away Little Bird , Monica’s upcoming one person show about to launch in Beacon, is a must- see and I’ll tell you why. (plus it’s free, if you can afford the gas) Addressing painful ideas about loss of (human) control and the frustrations of political and organizational manipulations of information etc. she is begging us -beautifully, intelligently, poignantly - to Look, Pause, React. Do Something. (See website: stepitup2007.org.) Don’t Wait… a unique voice amongst us – nothing holy or magical. It’s Taylor’s hoola hoops or robin’s eggs, or the artist’s ivory soap in her work, “Washing and Wishing” handing over iconic messages that help us to connect to our own species and heed the rightful warnings before things get really out of hand.
In a post visit email Monica writes, “My artwork is moving from universal themes to global issues – global health…ecology, chemicals in breast milk, literacy, the disappearance of the honeybees….I want the work to cause people to turn outward. Will someone read the next article about the potential avian flu pandemic after seeing my (work) because they found (it) confusing….amusing….? I hope so, she writes. I’m searching for a different type of connection with viewers…

Monica d. Church studied printmaking and painting, received her MFA from the University of Kentucky in 1993, a fellowship recipient at Woman’s Studio Workshop for a 6 week artist’s residency. Her work is exhibited throughout the country.
She lives and works in Poughkeepsie, NY with her husband, Robert Brigham, a diplomatic historian, Vassar College Professor, author of many books including, Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy, co-authored with Robert S McNamara and James G. Blight and, Is Iraq Another Vietnam? a more recent publication.
Monica is a 2006-07 recipient of a Dutchess County Arts Council Individual Artist's Grant in Digital Arts. Her exhibit in Beacon at Go North Gallery on Main Street opens Saturday, May 5th with an opening reception from 6-9pm.

ART MATTERS in Ellenville, NY

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:29:00 +0000

ART MATTERS IN ELLENVILLE: YOUR NEW VISUAL ARTS DIRECTOR ( clay model proposed for Ellen's on Parade in Ellenvile. NY. artist. J. Sigunick)

I am hopelessly ignorant of strategies of Urban Eonomic Development, or matters of Historical Cultural activities in places like– Maya, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Barcelona, Paris, Rome and just about everywhere else. Sculptures, drawings, temple ruins, hieroglyphic inscriptions and other sorts of archaeological finds tell Big Stories in support of just about everything we know about who did what, where and why or why not the populace thrived, survived or struggled. Stone, brick, ceramics and their depictions are full of narratives. Witness them as bits of folklore and, tragically, lost civilizations with fragments of information left for the intellectuals to extrapolate and reclaim.

The point is, the history of art and architecture tells us a lot, and, in turn, isn’t it possible that we might create our own narratives, beginning with the personal and cultural – you know, who we are – like, Judy Sigunick. a visual artist, born to Russian/Austrian second generation Jewish immigrants, raised in Chicago, attended University of Illinois, studied Political Science (Russian, no less) and Sociology, got married (twice) lost one child to a car accident, gave birth to three more babies, raised them with my husband, Phil, returned to school in my late 40’s (Art, this time at SUNY New Paltz), taught, lost a bunch of family over the last 5 years, including my dad, my mom, brother, and favorite uncle, ran a few marathons and some distance biking, developed an immense body of art work (making up for some lost time), thus wondering whether or not to move to Ellenville in one of those artist lofts so that my husband, Phil, and I have a place to eat.

Back to this personal narrative idea – it’s all in my work – my Russian-Austrian descendants, decades of both human political tragedies and scholarly accomplishments in my Jewish history, the triumphs of an African ancestry (all humans included) birthing and motherhood – its losses and its gains. Each sculpture I build and graphics I design is a small piece of who I am, where I’ve been and probably contains my ancestors, as well. Like an entitlement, these creations confirm a reality of my “stories”, which is my preference of how I reckon with life and teach myself, daily. In truth, I doubt there exists any real contribution of my art work, by itself, towards economic development in Ellenville.

But in context of a force of artists, a multi cultural community, and a critical mass of Ellenville ex-departees, re-entering our community, wanting to work, teach and exhibit, it’s a Bang, a Splash, a Signature of Confirmation that I am, and you are, a part of something remarkably exciting. (Just go over to Market Street, peek through the scummy windows and see our Art Center progress! Or sit inside the Lighthouse Deli and feel the bright energy of local schmoozers! etc. talking farmer’s markets, film editing, Mayan culture, fund raising for the Shadowland Theater, next in line for “Dennis in the Morning” WELV and beyond.)

Oh, and now (21st century) we have Technology. We have film. We have a freedom to re-structure, re-imagine and re-surrect. We have multi-media in our multi-culture, global community, having phone and internet conversations around the world for free, or as free as it gets considering taxes, sub-charges, utilities and other hush-hush expenditures we don’t even suspect until our accountant reminds us why we are broke.

Contemporary visual arts studies offer up film, video, multi media studies, integrating a fourth dimension to the two and three. Not to mention the collaborative studies, ceramics/ architecture, performance/ cultural studies/ video, and public art/ education/ brick making/ video/ sound engineering. And it doesn’t stop there. Is history obsolete or irrelevant? I doubt it, at least not according to our extraordinary neighbor, Nadia Shepard, 97 years old, reminding us that whatever buildings are demolished, industrial jobs eliminated, lost economic opportunities, we “still have our (indestructible) history.” Even if we’re stupid, we cannot ignore it.

Artists are, on a regular basis, partners to significant social, evolutionary- even, changes in our world. Peter Beard, for example, in his book The End Of The Game, provides us with an urgent anti- poaching of elephants message through his photography and journals, an artistic record of his life in Nairobi, Kenya. Sue Coe, a masterful, politically oriented artist, illustrating for popular publications including Time Magazine reaches a broad audience with her visual dialogues on animal rights and first hand knowledge of slaughter houses. Francisco de Goya’s anti war graphic prints, Ralph Steadman’s political cartoons which are reflections of a world in turmoil, urging non- violent activism in an unacceptable world in the process of “devouring” itself. Dorothea Lange, Kathe Kollwitz, Diego Rivera, all exploring, through visual means, the realities of their worlds, and ultimately effecting changes – some current and some much later.

So, back to stones, brick and ceramics: Antonio Gaudi, a Catalan architect, transformed Barcelona, beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century, animating it through his designs and sculptures including apartment blocks, schools, private homes, a park, and the unfinished Templo Expiatoria de la Sagrada Familia. Talk about urban decoration and community redevelopment! Spurred on by a commitment to his work designing architectural space, his outstanding contributions include a sort of crafts revival – from ceramics to stained glass to ironwork to furniture design employing quantities of artists, architects and artisans. That he did it all is astonishing, but my (other) point (see 2nd paragraph) is the impact that creativity had in Barcelona, first, and the intrigue this famous city holds for rest of the world, second. The art of Antonio Gaudi is not easily reducible to the scope of a book or a photograph” points up G. Collins, in an essay about this genius... It is spirit symbolized in stone.

Dear Ellenville,
I am your new Visual Arts Director. Thank you for that!
Judy Sigunick
845-647-8299 pjsigunick@yahoo.com

ART MATTERS: Kate Hodges and Breakfast at the Joyous Cafe

noreply@blogger.com (Judy Price Sigunick: Sculpture, Prints, Works on Paper) — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

“The varied positions of my body in the landscape create a shift in how I experience the world. In turning myself over to an enormous arc of wind, sky, and rock, I have a new way of seeing myself in the environment, and what initially seems odd and terrifying becomes overwhelmingly beautiful…. I become part of a larger whole, a place of grace.”

First of all, just to keep things truthful, I have never actually seen Kate Hodges work? (see last paragraph) Personally, I have seen only photographs, talked with Kate in a café on Broadway in Kingston, and that’s about it. Second of all, she is not actually from our Hudson Valley community, per se. She sometimes works here, as an artist’s assistant, returns to Vermont where she grew up, but calls Tucson, Arizona her home. Off to the dictionary I go. Community: aside from ‘a group of people living together in one place’, the Oxford expert writes, ‘a group of interdependent organisms of different species growing or living together in a specified habitat’- like, Earth, maybe. (see below)

When I first met Kate in a private mansion in the Roundout district of Kingston
she gave me an invitation to the 7th Biennial A.I.R. Gallery in Chelsea. On the front was a photograph of an amorphous figure floating against a backdrop of craggy mountains, wearing a white dress. “That’s me!” she explained. In a recent Molino Canyon series titled, Immersion, she takes ideas – flight, human partnerships, fear, freedom – all palpable things, and makes pictures of them after she has choreographed and designed for staging effects, spinning a personal metaphor, and then climbing inside rocky places or alongside the canyon walls. She wears a white, wedding-ish dress, stitched from synthetic Dacron. (“used to cover the wings of airplanes and represents flight, liberation and freedom.”) Instead of buttons, the spiky ends of the leaves of the desert agave plant are the finishing details. After many months of planning, off she sails, literally into the air - a sort of vision quest - where “art becomes (my) experience…watching a hawk flying over my head…..it’s primal…..bigger than ourselves..”

“What of the fear factor” I ask over coffee on Broadway, and her answer was not nearly as bold as the feats she performs, suspended by ropes from these huge canyons in Arizona, alone with her rope partner and a photographer. Shooing away the unnecessary on lookers, she goes about her work of inspecting things where probably only insects or reptilians have been and doing topsy turvy antics reminiscent of secret childhood play. At first she says there is no fear, just the sublime reality of shifting perspectives and feeling a part of “it”, i.e. the rattlesnakes, scorpions, mountain lions and such. But later on, she referred to some significant angst and a recognition that there are life threatening moments that clarify into “empowerment.” – or not, depending on your luck, I suppose. Oddly, it is not this tall bravery of hers that leaves your jaw agape, but the vulnerable querying soulful Kate, who’s art/ explorations are at home with all of it! And home is interdependent and relative to which precipice you’ve chosen at what moment, not to mention the gritty truth of who or what doesn’t add up to your own safety and which spiky things will protect you. (see above definition of community) She doesn’t “operate within the normal paradigm” and refers to the Tarot card hanged man reflecting a need to alter perspective in order to see clearly. About this dangling, upside down man, ‘coins fall from his pockets and as he gazes down on them – seeing them not as money but only as round bits of metal – everything suddenly changes ..as if he is hanging between the mundane world and the spirit world, able to see both…dazzling, yet crystal clear.’

Resilience and Resurrection, built in 2005 when Kate was a graduate student, as a tribute to a 2003 fire at Mt. Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains in Arizona, grabbed my interest. I consider it to be her raison d’etre, transforming confusion and darkness into hope. “I wanted to do something to remind people that even though we lose things, there’s this element of rebirth that comes out of that,” she told a reporter from the Arizona Daily Wildcat. For this work, Kate had two 30’ tall trees brought down from the disaster site and took the school year to carve designs into them and resurrect them with charcoal line drawings, “…in memory of the fire and help connect people in this community….”

The challenging thing for me about her work is a sort of anti-adaptation message – a suspicion that standing on two feet your whole life is, perhaps, a limitation. A bit of a character in her own novel, Kate fossilizes us in those dead trees, like the repetitious hand imprints in African caves paintings, connecting us to timeless, haunting images (is it blood or iron oxide they painted with?) Oh, and most of us will never actually see the remotely sited art of our ancestors.

Kate Hodges grew up in Vermont on an apple orchard that is presently operated by her brother and father. Her first “art school” was the land around the orchard and the barn where she often used found objects and made them into mixed media projects. Kate studied art at Colorado College and art history in Florence Italy and went on to receive her Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture in May, 2006. She worked in Curitiba Brazil at an orphanage teaching art and in Tegucigalpa Honduras at orphanages for disabled youth teaching sculpture. Last summer she received a commission from the Botanical Gardens in Sao Paolo Brazil to create a permanent tree sculpture. Check out Peter Miller’s award winning book, “Vermont Farm Women” which includes her work and experiences on the family farm as and artist and a farmer in 3 pages of interviews and photographs.