3.25.2009

Art Salon Boston, March 28th & 29th - Jocelyn is showing her stuff!

This Saturday, TLGUTS is Closed!

This weekend I am going to be showing a couple of pieces at the Art Salon Boston Open Studio in Jamaica Plain. To be honest, I haven't been working on my own work in quite some time. The gallery is my creative work on many levels. However, I opted to enter into this event for the following reasons:

a.) To give myself a deadline to pull my studio together and continue with my own work. 

b.) Donna has exhibited at TLGUTS, so I thought it would be great to reverse roles! 

c.) I have been attending the salon whenever I can (averaging every couple of months), for a while now. Not only do I find the salons incredibly informative, but I also leave each gathering with an abundance of creative energy. I felt obligated - in a very good way - to be a part of the Open Studio to support continuity for this group. 

d.) I am grateful for the opportunity to share my stitch work.

Artists:
Jocelyn Almy-Testa, June August, Gloria Carrigg, Robin Chandler, Clara Angelina Diaz, Kathleen Fink, Chuck Lathrop, Jeannine Hunter Lazarro, Lynne Robbins

Saturday and Sunday, March 28th & 29th at Donna Dodson's studio, 93 Hill Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. 

The Art Salon Boston is an open group of artists in the greater Boston area that meets monthly to discuss all aspects of the visual arts, poetry, music, architecture, crafts, dance, performance, theater, creative writing, and share opportunities, announcements of upcoming shows and information on technical resources.

New Exhibit: Michiko Imai, silent movement, listen to the calligraphy

Our next exhibit, "silent movement, listen to the calligraphy", Japanese calligraphy by Michiko Imai, begins April 4th.

This exhibit is a unique opportunity for you to see and own the work of a Master Japanese calligrapher, right here on the North Shore. Michiko will be at the opening reception to speak to visitors and talk about her work and process, and I hope you take the opportunity to meet Michiko and make the most of the opportunity to learn more about this traditional art form.

Michiko holds the highest rank in Japanese calligraphy of Shihan. Her work has been displayed at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Nara City Museum of Art, and Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.

Michiko has also been a studio artist at TLGUTS during her stays in the United States for nearly the past two years. She also holds guild certification to teach calligraphy and teach others to teach calligraphy. Michiko will run classes in the gallery on Monday afternoons, and is currently accepting new students, and will work with students at any skill level level from new to novice to advanced.

I am very excited for Michiko's exhibit, and hope you all come out to meet her. The exhibit will run through the month of April.

Check back soon for more about Michiko's work and upcoming gallery events!

3.24.2009

Gallery Talk for Balance

While preparing for the gallery talk for the Balance Mother's Who Create exhibit, I decided to bake cookies. I decided to bake cookies because someone once said, "...I could have stayed home and baked cookies..." So, I decided to bake cookies while preparing for the gallery talk, just to be a brat, really. 

While mixing ingredients, I envisioned the exhibit in my head, and reviewed each piece of art work, reflected on my interpretation of each piece, recollected what the artist had written about their work and their process, and how to speak about each piece in context with the rest of the exhibit.

I moved around the room in my mind's eye while cracking eggs and measuring flour and rolling balls of dough in sugar until I got to Amy Morrison's work. Amy created three sculptural pieces that hung one over the other, presented on white wooden shelves. The first two were assemblages created with found objects and a small handmade accordion book. The third was a set of four pinch pots. When I pictures the pots in my head, I had a revelation.

Women created vessels, pinch pots, thousands of years ago. I pictured a scenario of women going to clay beds with their children and gathering clay, then sitting together, while the mother formed vessels and the children play, and learn through play to become vessel makers themselves.

I thought about my own experiences working with clay, making vessels, and the meditative nature of such work. And I asked myself, "How much of society as we know it was decided and shaped in the minds of these women while their hands created the vessels?" How many revelations over thousands of years have women had while creating, while their hands were busy and their bodies worked from muscle memory? Did they think of new ways to make warmer clothes while molding clay, new elements of language, new stories to tell their children, new tools? When was the wheel invented anyway?

When we create, regardless of our gender or familial status, we are stretching our current understanding of the world around us. When we have children, our understandings are turned upside down on what sometimes feel like a daily basis. This makes for interesting, reflective art work. When you have a large group of people experiencing similar experiences, and interpreting those experiences differently as we did in this exhibit, it creates an expansive visual dialog. 

While we may not be creating life sustaining water carriers or cooking pots when we are painting or sculpting, or taking photographs, etc., working beside our children, letting them play, helps them become a part of that dialog. 

No that the exhibit is over, I hope the dialog continues. And by the way, I was told the cookies were delicious.

3.14.2009

Upcoming exhibits for artists who have previously exhibited at TLGUTS:

Sand T: 
Bromfield Gallery: Stimulus Package -thru March 28
Brush Gallery: MASSACHUSETTS ARTIST 2009 - March 22 - June 14
Student Union Gallery, UMass Lowell: New Work - March 23 - April 3
BCEC, Boston, HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS- The Kent Street Project - Thru March 30
        Over 100 oringinal works of art cretaed by 65 local artists
reception: Thursday, March 26th, from 6:00 - 9:00pm.

For more information about Sand's exhibits, visit her blog.

Trinidad Martinez and Kevin Hudson:
The Refrigerator Door Gallery, Nahant - thru March

Becky Gibbs
Fountain Street Studios, 59 Fountain Street, Framingham, MA
Open Studios April 3-5

Xiawei Chen
MCLA Gallery, North Adams, MA
"Vivid Wonders of a Startled Imagination", March 26 - April 25,


If you have previously exhibited at TLGUTS and would like your exhibits posted, please contact me.



3.02.2009

Snow Day

I am in-between. I love snowed-in days, mid winter, with hot chocolate and children helping to shovel for the first time, but I am ready for spring. I'm ready for the mud to dry up and for walks outside to be less notable on my kitchen floor. I am ready for the crocuses and strawberries and daisies. I am ready for warmer air and screen doors and one less layer of blankets on my bed. 

I am ready for open car windows during rides up the coast and fresh salad from my garden. I am ready for sunshine and sun block, grass clippings and composting. I am ready for picnics in the park and longer walks that don't hurt my ears or the tip of my nose. I am ready for the monarchs and the robins, the squirrels and the turkeys. I am ready for afternoons on the pitch and sunset strolls on the beach. 

I am ready to cut my hair and move my furniture and reorganize my studio and buy new books that I may never read. I am ready for new shoes, a new bag, a new shade of lipstick and new curtains in my living room. I am ready to purge the kids' old clothes and my old journals and the Tupperware with no lids. I am ready to give away, throw away, and find a way to lessen the chaos in my basement. I am ready. 

I am ready for more than a casual reference or a passing glance. I am ready for more than a snippet or a quote or a "that's nice, dear." I want to be engulfed, enflamed, enriched and wholly engaged. I want to be encouraged. I want more. 

And so, I am in-between. I am in-between who I want to be and who I have been. But when the snow has melted and the hawks return, and the quince bush blossoms, surely then, I will be more. 
  

Opening Reception Photos - Balance