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Nancy Hubbard: Fiction and Science

March 20th, 2013

portrait for bonnie 2This is Nancy Hubbard. She is a resident artist at The Invisible Dog Art Center, where we recently met and struck up a conversation about our work and common interests. What impressed me about Nancy was her relative non-eccentricity. Soon after we met, I was able to have a studio visit with her. Perhaps due to the art history training that has framed her pursuit of art, I found the conversation to be well articulated and her process well placed. She cited sources for inspiration and she possesses experience that buttresses her thinking. Though Nancy is working with a few different techniques, there is a cohesion to her body of work that reflects a thoughtful approach, one that considers natural conclusions and how they inevitably can wrap back around on themselves. trans EXPAND POST

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Loving Rebecca Chamberlain + the “living” space

March 13th, 2013

Right before I started my first year in college for art history, someone told me that the best way to learn about an artist is to think of him / her as someone who you would fall in love with. Looking back, it is ironic and rather cliché that I first came cross Rebecca Chamberlain’s work by coincidence on a rainy day. I was wandering around the lower east side and just like other love stories, there must have been a series of unlikely circumstances which brought me to meet her (work). As an art history student, all my love was devoted to portraiture both in sculpture and paint. However architecture slide lectures were the most challenging to get through while staying awake. The gallery representative triggered the curious bug in me as I complimented the space, (which used to be a sausage factory.) It was after our interaction that I walked down the black spiraling metal staircase and officially met face-to-face with the Homatorium I exhibition. EXPAND POST

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Tomie Arai – Now at the Center for Book Arts

March 7th, 2013

photo 3 copyTomie Arai is an Asian American artist based in New York. The media focus of her art practice is screen-printing; a process which allows her to apply illustrations to a range of surfaces in a complex manner. Arai creates layered assemblage, murals, sculptural objects, and installation environments. She pushes beyond trends of design and production that are synonymous with screen-printing by excavating culturally-laden topics, visually archiving oral histories, and employing marginal themes (as opposed to the mainstream and pop-art foils.)

As she began to learn what it would take to become a dedicated artist, Arai, “gravitated toward workspace programs, and groups of artists.” She learned the craft of printmaking at at Robert Blackburn‘s workshop, working alongside a range of artists from all over the world. This format of working and learning within artist-directed spaces continued in her practice as she spent time at The Basement Workshop, (founded by Faye Chiang on Elizabeth street in New York.) She currently is exhibiting work at The Center for Book Arts. Developing her practice in this pedagogical manner allowed her to hone her skill in her own time – particularly at first, as a single mother. Her modes of working came out of the direct experience and inspiration from the people surrounding her. This also provided the opportunity for her to establish her own approach, in contrast to others, that was not stereotypical, or edition-centric. Rather then methodical she uses her screens in a much more extemporaneous form once she builds up a library of symbols around any given project. EXPAND POST

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Artist and Activist: Tracy Ann Essoglou, PhD

February 27th, 2013

I met Tracy Ann Essoglou at the Creative Time Summit last year which focused on “confronting inequity.” We connected after attending a seminar that was lead by Steve Lambert. Like magnets, Tracy and I, along with two representatives of Reel Grrls, were drawn together to exchange statistics and contact information.

Tracy had been a part of the Women’s Action Coalition (or WAC) in the nineties which is associated with the beginnings of Third Wave Feminism. You could place WAC alongside the Guerilla Girls (still active today) and ACT UP! as another activist organization that was using strategy and aesthetics to give a voice to politically charged issues of the time.
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Lesley Flanigan & THE PHYSICALITY OF SOUND

February 20th, 2013

5449437674_8418769b16_bImage courtesy of the artist.

Lesley Flanigan was born and raised in Florida. “I did not grow up in a family of artists. My mother was somewhat whimsical person and she loved books… she very much encouraged my imagination and creativity, such as building these elaborate structures out of wooden blocks (would sometimes take days!), but my leaning towards music and visual art, that was something I kind of pioneered on my own.” Pioneer is a good word for her, as Ms. Flanigan has forged her own way in the experimental electronic music scene in her practice of ‘sound sculpting’. EXPAND POST

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Morgan O’Hara

February 13th, 2013

2013-2_MorganO'HaraTo observe Morgan O’Hara at work in her Midtown Manhattan studio is to witness power, something like a tornado with dancingly fluid limbs, poignant speech, and intense blue eyes that smile as they inquire under a neat crop of jagged, burgundy hair. As a seasoned, internationally acclaimed “live transmission” artist – faithfully hardworking since her undergraduate years of the early 60s’ in California, when she first met and became irrevocably influenced by the life and work of John Cage – she epitomizes the phrase “a force to be reckoned with”. Contrary to common associations with the phrase, however, she imbues it with grace.

Recently, while sauntering through Seattle’s Pike Place Market with Morgan, I noted the quiet intensity with which she absorbed the place. We stood in front of a French bakery window for several minutes, watching a young man methodically fold strands of dough between his floured fingers. The baker, at first amusedly self-conscious of his movements upon noticing her observations, eventually met her eyes, smiled, and the silent exchange as we watched his meticulous motions in weaving the pastry took on a ceremonious quality. EXPAND POST

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Elizabeth “Dancing” Reed

January 20th, 2013

I’ve been acquainted with Elizabeth Reed for a few years, but the nature of our busy minds and lives has kept us from spending significant or sustained time together. After a few recent emails about a community project, she eventually sent me a link to her own catch-all online art portfolio. I had known her more as a social activist, writer, philosopher, counselor, and someone interested in spirituality; but when I clicked on her “Moving” project page, dedicated to what she calls “Public Dancing,” I knew that I had to hear more about this specific creative practice, (among her many other artistic pursuits that I was previously unaware of). We set the date to meet.

Says Reed of the practice, “Dance in public space is my rebellious affirmation of living.  It is a physical socratic method asking: ‘How else, and how better, can we go about this living (together) bit?’  Could we pause to feel throughout our bodies? What great good magic is here!?” EXPAND POST

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Young Artist Profile: Sarah Cram

October 6th, 2012

I met Sarah Cram at a conference for female leaders in the visual arts. Acting as the intern she kept a low profile as she scurried around setting up the event space. After shooting the breeze with another Art Admin regarding our different, but parallell visions and work, she suggested I sit Sarah down for a chat. Further explaining that Ms. Cram was making work specifically addressing feminist issues, I took the bait. As it turned out, there were plenty of layers to be unveiled in this young artist, as I have happily discovered with just about all of the recommendations I have received lately.

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Artist Interview w/ Amanda Hamilton

October 2nd, 2012

 detail from Sun Valley, by Amanda Hamilton

Recently I’ve been hearing some talk about the fall-out rate of female artists after giving birth. While I do not doubt that it happens, my own observation has been of a different demographic. Let us consider a more substantial statistic of women falling off the studio-practice bandwagon in the immediate exodus of those who, upon receiving their degree, do not find the wherewithal to stick to their craft. EXPAND POST

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First Ever! Choreographer Profile: Elizabeth Dishman

February 6th, 2012

bk: Elizabeth,
First off – from where do you hail?

Elizabeth Dishman: I was born in Denver and took for granted my romance with the front range mountains until I moved to Atlanta for college.  Then to Ohio for grad school, back to Atlanta for a handful of years and on to Brooklyn in 2005, where west began to mean crazy tall buildings instead of purple mountain majesties.

 

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