Chickadee / Stan Fellows / 9″ x 12″

Stan can paint anything, and his facile handling of watercolors lends to the birds that he often depicts a life-like immediacy that has won those pieces an enthusiastic following. In an artist’s talk that we’ll be hosting on Thursday, March 4, Stan will discuss his work and paint right there while we’re talking!

In the “It’s a small world” category: Marvin Bolotsky, a New Yorker and former photographer for the United Nations, provides to me an exquisite array of etchings by Eastern European artists. A connoisseur of intaglio prints, Marvin got into a conversation with an artist at a print show, who was showing some beautifully developed etchings of birds and trees. He encouraged Ladislav Hanka to “get in touch with Priscilla Steele in Marion, IA.” At that point in their exchange, Ladislav responded that he had been raised in said Marion, IA, after his parents emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the 1950’s. Adding that he “has fond childhood memories of his Iowa upbringing”, Ladislav described how his parents found work in Cedar Rapids’ Czech community.

Nesting White Throated Sparrow / Ladislav Hanka / Intaglio Etching

We exchanged e-mails in which images and exclamations about curious coincidences overshadowing our artistic experience flew back and forth. And, this past week, a generous selection of Hanka’s etchings arrived. His delicately drawn, but bold compositions combine evidence of the action of the acid on a metal plate in tandem with sensitively observed subjects from nature. I thank Marvin for dropping this former Iowan back into his hometown, and hope that you’ll stop by to see Ladislav’s marvelous intaglio work.

In the wake of the momentous floods of 2008, I found myself without a framer. The Art Cellar, which had so capably put up with the specificity of my idiosyncratic framing needs for over twenty years, had been, along with the rest of downtown Cedar Rapids, inundated by 8 feet of the teeming waters of the Cedar River. During that surreal time, Galen Lacey and his ebullient spirits came to my archival, preservation rescue.

Though Galen was a relative newcomer to the Mount Vernon community, his unfailingly gregarious manner had quickly insinuated him into the broad circle of varied cultural and social activities that distinguish that delightful Iowa town. His framing studio drew artists and customers alike, seeking the witty conversation that accompanied his impeccable professional services. And, over the course of a short summer, I came to depend on his discerning eye and good taste.

On the morning of October 3, 2008, Galen suffered a devastating heart attack. From that moment, the community of Mount Vernon rallied to this favorite son’s aid. An e-mail network coordinated by the indefatigable Katrina Garner, updated all of Galen’s friends of his condition. Galen’s sister, Julianne Gregory and her husband, Sid, essentially put their own busy lives on hold, to attend to Galen’s crisis and recovery. Artists, neighbors- all friends- performed innumerable large and small tasks as Galen survived the attack that destroyed his heart and the subsequent transplant that miraculously restored him to the prospect of a rich life to be taken up once again.

It was a bitter disappointment then, when Galen’s recovery became clouded by incessant complications and repeated hospitalizations. Throughout it all, Galen’s community- the people of Mount Vernon, Julianne and Sid, and many artists in farther-flung environs (I count myself among them) never wavered in their support. During a chat when he could first have visitors, Galen spoke of the blessing of his survival, if only to realize how genuinely people cared for him. The profundity of this realization and the prospect of eventual vitality sustained Galen for a year and a half.

This past Saturday evening, Galen succumbed to the exhausting conditions of a body that could not heal. It’s a cruel loss for all who felt him to be a kindred spirit. For all of these people, however, the true comfort is in the fact that Galen, after a lifetime of moving around, and many self-described, unsatisfying jobs, had found a home and work that he loved. I’m going to miss him.

There are few things more vivid in memories of my childhood than that giddy rush of fear and exhilaration elicited by speeding down a snow-packed slope on a sled. So, it was a joy of remembrance that flooded my heart as the happy whoops of whole families rose above the snow in the early morning quiet of the Iowa winter. Visions of my father’s robust strides through drifts of snow as my brothers and I trudged with him to a preferred sledding site over fifty years ago came readily to mind. We would stay out sledding until dark or until our feet were just too cold to continue.

These memories were further stirred by the small gems of pastel drawings that Sharon Burns Knutson delivered to me just a couple of days ago. Musing that she loved them for the brilliance of the blue of the skies, Sharon pulled out one small drawing of snow-laden trees and countryside after another, and covetously, I looked to see which I would claim for my own before I would hang them in the gallery.

They’re just little pieces. You might miss them if you’re focused on just finishing your Christmas shopping list. So remember, part of this season, surely, must be about seeing the small items that evoke the magical power of memory in each of us.

“And I heard him exclaim ‘ere he drove out of sight, ‘Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!’ “

My grandmother, Gertrude Gill

My grandmother discovered just how important working outside the home was when my grandfather retired from a successful career in construction engineering. He established a studio in the front bedroom of their Philadelphia duplex and painted with a devotion that filled all the homes of our family (Think cousins, siblings, far-flung aunts and uncles) with the landscapes he loved of the towns of Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Quite decidedly, my grandmother felt that his unaccustomed in-house presence had to be met with action, and at the age of 68 she took a job as a sales clerk at the Lord and Taylor department store on “City Line” in the city. For the next 15 years, she was the doyenne of the “Handkerchief and Scarf” department. Though I remember the quote, I also remember thinking as a ten-year-old that her belief that “You can tell a lady by her handkerchief.” was a remnant of etiquette unique to her generation. Be that as it may, she presided over that sales counter with an unrivaled authority and unparalleled enthusiasm. Settling herself into the car on a Christmas Eve when my brother and I picked her up from her duties to take her to our family’s house in New Jersey, she described her pleasure in ministering to and selling the colorful stacks of finely woven scarves and handkerchieves.

Standing in the predawn darkness of the gallery on a December morning, I can’t help recalling her. There’s much to do with the proliferation of new inventory from potters, glass-blowers and jewelers, but the work is genuinely gratifying. Unpacking boxes, showing and selling fine pieces to people who share my admiration for the quality of the work is a mainstay in the excitement of the Yuletide season.

Bowls by Marck Nystrom

Right now, I must finish the display of some wonderfully substantial stoneware by Boone artist Marck Nystrom. Pen Andrishok from West Branch, Iowa has provided the gallery with a succession of marvelously crafted pins, cuffs and earrings. Janet Johnson has dropped off a beautiful new stack of scarves and Wisconsin glass blowers, Thomas and Rebecca Maras, have filled the entwined willow branches of our gallery tree with their ornaments.

Scarves by Janet Johnson

Hope you’ll visit soon!

At the turn of the millennium, Iowa City artist, Aaron Sinift, traveled to India. His work was forever changed by that experience. No longer an Iowa City artist, the focus of this New Yorker’s work is an ingenious local/global project. Citing Mahatma Ghandi’s fundamental belief in the necessity of self-sufficiency for each individual, Sinift is using the homespun, Indian cotton cloth, “khadi”, to print an artist book in a fund-raising effort for Doctors Without Borders. The book is a collaborative work including the imagery of world famous artists, among them, Cedar Rapids’ own, Jane Gilmor, and Yoko Ono. Please take a moment to view Aaron’s “fiveyearplan” and do what you can to help. You can also learn more about Sinift’s plan here at the gallery.

In my last post, I alluded to “civilized and convenient” hours for the holidays. We’re open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 - 6, Thursdays from 10 - 9, Saturdays 10-10 (except 12/12 and 12/19 when we’ll be open 10-5), and Sundays from 1 - 4. As always, we love gift wrapping your choices from the gallery, and we’re happy to make all arrangements for any necessary shipping! Come see us!

Craig’s Aunt Iva went to her grave without divulging where she found the bittersweet that she decorated her home with every fall. I love bittersweet as well. An invasive, parasitic, and noxious vine which is strangling trees in the Northeast, bittersweet is somewhat rare around here. And, in large measure, its odious qualities are forgiven for the prosaic beauty of its compact, orange fruits that, like pumpkins, are the very essence of fall.

My dog and I lately found ourselves standing in a briar-patch, under a dead tree, both of us covered with burrs, looking up at branches laden with vines of bittersweet. I was wondering how fool-hardy it would be to attempt the 15 foot climb to harvest said vines. Deciding that it would indeed be silly- even for me, I contented myself with some waist-high rose hips whose thorns drove me to profanity as I snipped their twigs into a bag.

Buddy and I made our eventual way out of the briar patch. We both looked quite worse for wear. Along with the burrs that covered us, I was bleeding and bruised. As we rounded a bend in the foot-path, we were confronted by a huge, decaying tree trunk, bathed in the sun’s light and draped in the most abundant growth of bittersweet that I had ever seen.

The bounty of this hapless walk has been wound around a potted pine which I promised my fellow merchants I would decorate. It’s one of many that were donated for ornamenting our uptown square during the 2009 holiday season. That retailing imperatives dictate such readiness for Christmas customers at increasingly earlier dates is irksome, but I’ve found a little bittersweet can delightfully preserve fall’s dominion- at least till Thanksgiving.

We are planning some incredibly civilized and convenient holiday hours. More about that soon!

The thing about Larry Welo being consistently winning is that when I prepare to write about him, the same adjectives spring right to mind. With work that is informed by a dry, self-effacing humor and a dash of romanticism that plays out as poignancy, Larry Welo is one of the stars gleaming brightly among the artists represented by the gallery.

A good friend, Larry will be joining us at 6:30 on Thursday evening, November 5th, for “Talk in the M.U.D.” The Wisconsin artist will be printing some of his plates. This is a great opportunity, because everybody has heard of “etching” but few actually know about the process. If you’d like to learn the differences between an original etching and a reproduction (giclee), and you’d like to have fun while doing the same, I hope that you’ll join us!

Pit-fired stoneware vessels, Dean Dunkel

Trying to wrestle the mythic, transformative “power of art” to the ground in casual conversational terms is the humble goal of this on-going series. This Thursday night, October 22nd, ceramic artist Dean Dunkel will be the featured speaker. The organic forms of the Cedar Rapids artist’s stoneware vessels have been developed over the period of fifteen years of studio work, and are recognizable for their irregular, fluid profiles.

While inviting people to attend this event at the gallery, I found myself using the simplest of terms” “Why should I care?”, “Why do you care?”. I was reminded of the importance of these same questions when Craig and I recently traveled to New York and Boston. We had the chance to visit two great museums, The Metropolitan in NYC and Boston’s Museum of Fine Art. Always, when I visit museums I am awed by seeing the “stars”- those images that are reproduced in every basic text about art. There’s nothing like being in the presence of the real thing. This time, however, I was struck by my attention being drawn to pieces that were not the celebrities. Importantly, in Boston, I marveled at the power of a self-portrait by the American painter Ellen Day Hale.

Self Portrait, Ellen Day Hale

I didn’t know anything about Hale except the dates of her life which were printed on the label that identified her painting: 1855 - 1940. She was a contemporary of the fabulously famous John Singer Sargent.

Lady Agnew, John Singer Sargent

I found her likeness as a 30 year-old woman so filled with a command of her medium and the spirit of her subject: herself. Not to diminish the painterly elegance of Sargent, but the direct gaze of Hale’s face was so much more compelling than what I was seeing in Sargent. I wrote down Hale’s name as a reminder to learn more about her.

As it happens, Hale had a rich life. She was from a noted Boston family, the Beecher Hales. Her father was a well-known orator and pastor. Her great-aunt was the writer, Harriet Beecher-Stowe. She and her seven younger brothers were all encouraged by their mother to draw, and she helped promote the artistic career of her brother Philip. That her own career was valued is evident inasmuch as she studied with the prominent American artists, William Morris Hunt and William Rimmer. Indeed, her emergence as an artist occurred at the same time when a critic proclaimed, “There is nothing that men do that is not done by women now in Boston.” (!) Hale would go on to attend the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and then on to study in Paris.

Gabrielle de Veaux Clements by Ellen Day Hale

In 1883, she met her life-long companion, the Philadelphia artist, Gabrielle de Vaux Clements, and learned from her how to make etchings. They taught. She wrote. She painted. They had vacation homes where artists regularly visited in a circle of easy friendship. Though she moved to Washington D.C. to be her father’s hostess when he was appointed to be the chaplain for the U.S. Senate in 1904, she would continue to “summer” with Gabrielle in Massachusetts. Eventually, they also wintered in Charleston. The outward balance and the breadth of Hale’s artistic activity intrigues me. After viewing images of other works, I found that I enjoyed an etching for its richness, but the paintings that I saw were disappointing when matched with forthright strength of her self-portrait. It’s as if the self-portrait was a single moment of aesthetic clarity in a life-time of forgettable work! That’s an incredibly harsh conclusion. I wish that I could go hear her speak.

Come see Dean. The opportunities to speak with artists about their work are rare treats indeed!

I first met Carlos Ferguson in the summer between his junior and senior year at Grinnell College. He was venturing into the fabled printmaking program at the U. of IA, where I was a graduate student. My hours at that point in my life were ungodly. I got up at 4:30 to journey from Cedar Rapids to the print studio, and work in the pre-dawn quiet.

Leaving the print studio one afternoon, Carlos declared to me that he was going to do a reduction wood-cut of a self-portrait that he had drawn. Carlos had already proven that he was good for his word, but I have to admit to unabashed amazement the next morning when I walked up to the corridor that (then) housed the work areas of aspiring printmakers. I was greeted by the glorious sight of a clothesline-like arrangement of a succession of wood-cuts of Carlos effigies. The draughtsmanship that informed the image was so strong, and the printing was masterful. That was in the summer of 1989.

Carlos’s modified Airstream

Carlos has continued to be an artist whose activity has been a source of wonder and inspiration, so when he told me that he had wearied of the isolation that the artist’s life had imposed on him, I was interested in how he would resolve this issue. He started working in collaboration with friends, first adapting old Airstream trailers by cutting the middle from them and fusing the front and back into magical, beautifully finished “pods”. These, he uses as mobile, community-animation studios. He travels (often with his friends) in these pods in what is dubbed the “tiny circus”. This summer, I watched the tiny circus working on animations with folks visiting the Des Moines Art Festival. In the evening the animations were projected from the pods onto a nearby screen.

A constellation from Tiny Circus

If you’re having difficulty envisioning just how all this works, you’re in for a treat. tiny circus will be featured during the gallery tour on Oct. 2 by the Marion Arts Festival. Look for the Airstream trailer in front of the gallery! The festival has tiny circus on board for festival day in the spring of 2010, so this is a sneak peek at this most innovative approach to art. Come see the tiny circus Friday, October 2. The fun starts at 5, and never seems to end around here.

The Faraway Look, Looking Glass, and Lane / All intaglio etchings / Larry Welo

Preparing a birthday package for Maggie this past week, I recalled Matt’s words, and thought that it’s a wonderful thing that futures are bright, and our children are finding theirs in places that we love to visit. It was the awareness that the world continues to hold people most dear to us in the face of the sometime- loneliness of new places that I wanted my package to carry to Maggie. I chose an etching by Wisconsin artist, Larry Welo. The printmaker’s deft use of metaphor couches a poetic power in familiar views of the landscape- “The Faraway Look” shows a single, farmhouse hugging the horizon of a composition that broods in a palette of blues. A path leads into the sun-dappled depths of “Looking Glass”. In his newest piece, “Lane”, space beckons the viewer to pause and venture down a woodland path. Welo finds, in each of these, significance in the commonplace. Wrapping up “East of the Sun” for my gift, I felt that the bird’s eye view of the ordered patterns of farmland with a distant, glowing horizon was perfect for my Iowa girl in Brooklyn, New York.

East of the Sun / Intaglio etching / Larry Welo

These are among the images that Larry delivered recently. At that time, we spoke about his discovery of a new Japanese paper that prints the subtlest traces of ink on an etched plate. Larry will be the featured artist on November 5 in our “Talk in the M.U.D.” series.

Talk in the M.U.D. (Talks with artists in the Marion Uptown District) begins this Thursday at 6:30 with sumi-e painter, Karen Kurka Jensen.