Art in the District 2010: posting on Art Seek

Posted a little blurb about the Art In The District 2010 art fair on Art and Seek. Just hoping to get the word out a bit more.

I really feel like the local/Texas media coverage for this art fair and the Dallas Art Fair, which by the way ran full page adds in Art in America and Art News for the last two months, was severely lacking. After the grand opening events for the two new performance centers in the Dallas Arts District a few months ago, you would think having 56 nationally recognized galleries set up camp across the street from the DMA would cause some buzz with the Art District crowd...

Dallas Art Fair posting on Art & Seek

I just posted an article about the second annual Dallas Art Fair on Art and Seek, click here. I am heading down there tomorrow to hopefully load up my eyeballs on some hot relevant artwork. Then I'll pop over to the new Art In The District 2010 art fair. Perhaps if I am lucky I will OD on art.

More Local Privet Problems

Seems like as soon as I submitted my Privet Sculpture proposal to La Reunion privet started coming out of my ears.

Lots of people like Shreyas Krishnan and organizations like the Texas Master Naturalists are very passionate about privet. Shreyas sent in this link to an article in the Dallas Morning News about the problems of removing privet from the Great Trinity Forest, (video by Scott Miller) Texas Invasives.org is actually creating a map that tracks the spread of privet across Texas.

On site with Make Space: Installation

Drove out to meet up with Sarah Jane Semrad and some of the other artists that are part of the La Reunion TX Make Space: Installation. The La Re Volunteers have been working had this past year to clear out new trails and spaces. I wish I had known, I could have collected a lot of privet.

Anyway here is the list of artist in this years show:

Anne Albagli, Oliver Bradley/David Blood, Sandra Groomer, Nicole Cullum Horn, Scott Horn, Kevin Obergon, Brad Ford Smith.

Privet Gone Wild at La Reunion TX

I am one of the artists in the 2010 La Reunion TX Make Space: Installation. My project is to make an architectural sculpture using privet. Privet is a plant from Asia. As you can see in the photo, it is a very aggressive and is quickly overtaking the Dallas Metroplex. Just about any creek or flood zone you look into you will see privet growing, acres and acres of privet. In this project I will be testing the viability of using the privet as a green and renewable building material.

Proposal for La Reunion Tx, Making Space: Installation

Privet: A non-native gone wild

During the time that I have spent at the La Reunion property it has always struck me how much the non-native shrubbery called privet has taken over the landscape. This plant, originally from Asia is very aggressive and hardy. It is used widely in the DFW metroplex as a decorative bush around houses and commercial builds. Unfortunately a single privet bush will produce 1000s of berries each year. These berries are often washed into the city’s storm drains which empty into the local creeks and streams. The result is that most of the creek banks and flood zones in the DFW area are now overgrown with privet. Once a privet bush is established, simply cutting it down cannot kill it. The root ball is like a Hydra, it will send up several new braches for each one that is cut off, totally replacing the old growth within a few short months. Privet is pushing out the native plants that native animals, birds and insects feed upon. This is creating vast areas of monocultures that only support other aggressive plants like poison ivy and insects like mosquitoes

Privet: An experiment in repurposing

The branches of privet are very long and thin, but also surprisingly strong. In this way privet resembles plants like the ocotillo, cane and bamboo, all fast growing plants that are widely used as building materials. Based on these natural characteristics, a team of artists will “harvest” privet branches from the La Reunion property and use them to construct a sculpture. This sculpture will be of a design and scale that calls explores the architectural validity of using privet as a building material. Documentation and photos will be taken throughout the project. After 12 months the sculpture will be dismantled, at which time documentation will focus on the condition of the sculpture and the structural stability of the privet.

If this field test proves that privet can be used as stable building material, it could turn the urban privet plague into a valid source for sustainable and green building materials

Dallas Museum of Art Photo Meet-Up

Hooked up with the DMA Meet-up to take photos around the museum. The group was small this time around, but we had a great time talking about posting work on the DMA Flickr site, managing our Flickr accounts, and I found out about The Art of Photography Podcast.

Then we pulled out our cameras and hit the museum for about 20 minutes, finishing up back in the media lab for some fresh photo show and tell. So it was a pretty straight foreword event this time around, but in the past they worked with pinhole cameras and even played with blue screens. Both of which Nicole Leigh said they would probably do again in the future.

After Sketching: Evening #4: Draw, Drew, Drawn

For the last night of Sketching in the Galleries at the DMA the group was kind of small so we drew from artwork in the All the World's a Stage exhibit, focusing on a selection of small works on paper, most of which are not put up for displayed very often.

We discussed local galleries like Public Trust, Dunn and Brown, Mighty Fine Arts and art magazines such as Art On Paper, Juxtapoz, Hi Fructose that focus on drawings and works on paper. Also places that offer figure drawing sessions and other museums that have drawing from the collection programs such as the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Sundays @ 11:30). The Nasher and the Crow Collection say they have drawing programs but those are never reliably listed, so no body know when to attend. The Meadows and the Irving Art Center are rumored to have programs, but I see nothing listed.

We also talked about next weeks program, the first Thursday Night Multi Media program held in the Center for Creative Connections. There was a lot of interest in this program, although nobody had any hard info on what was happening there next week. So I looked it up this morning.

The artist hosting the month of October will be Mitch Rogers, who among other creative things, has been fabricating body parts, bloody nubs and meaty bits for TV and movies for about 20 years. I assume he will be giving instructions on mold making, life casting and spurting buckets of blood. Just in time for Halloween! It sounds like it will be a lot of fun.

Sketching in the Galleries @ the Dallas Museum of Art: Evening #4: The last

11th Century Durga, from the DMA collection.

Tonight is my last night to lead the Sketching in the Galleries program at the DMA, and it is the last night that the DMA will run this program. Starting next Thursday there will be a new multi media program that will bring in artists from a wide variety of disciplines such as fashion design, animation, and writers to use their unique talents and skills to interpret the collection. I think it will be a really neat way to learn about materials and meet other artists.

As for the last night of Sketching in the Galleries, I am not sure what we will be focusing on tonight because I am not sure how many people will show up. The fact that it is the last night could mean that there will either be a lot more people showing up or a lot fewer people showing up. So if it is a big group we will work in the Southern Asian galleries drawing from the sculptures, focusing on light, SHADOW, and mass. If it's just a few people, then we will draw from some of the smaller works in the All the World's a Stage exhibit.

After Sketching: Evening #3

This time for Sketching in the Gallery at the Dallas Museum of Art, we worked from a small retrospective of paintings, drawings, and lithographs from the Dallas Texas artist Edward g. Eisenlohr (1872 - 1961). The exhibition is situated so that most of the artwork is seen for the first time from across the gallery, about 60 feet away. We stopped at that distance to study the artwork, to focus on what we could see, to study the big shapes, the big blocks of color, light and shadow. We then stepped forwards about 25 feet to see what was now in focus. Then we walked up close to examine the details.

When viewing Edward's artwork in this manor it is very easy to observe the changes that distance has on your perception of a painting, and how subject matter can often overwhelm the experience of looking at art. I also used this process to demonstrate how to drawing the big shapes first, to lay out your composition, and work slowly up to the details.

The next meeting will be the last for me to lead and the very last meeting of the Sketching in the Galleries program. I think the DMA is making a mistake by canceling this program, but I don't run the museum, I just like to draw...

Sketching in the Galleries @ the Dallas Museum of Art: Evening #3

Tonight at the DMA we will be drawing from a great little exhibition of paintings, drawing and lithographs from the little known Dallas artist Edward g. Eisenlohr 1872 - 1961.

According to the history books, this Oak Cliff artist holds the record for producing more drawings and paintings of Dallas than any other artist, and is considered one of the pioneer landscape painters of Texas.

His artwork often reflects the artistic trends and styles of the times, a little impressionism, a little romanticism... But he is a fantastic draftsman, and it is clear that he really loved to draw.

Shown here is"The Water Hole Dallas" 1932, one of the many drawings that the Valley House Gallery has in their inventory.

After Sketching: Evening #2, The end of Sketching in the Galleries

Well the class started with Stacy and Tracy announcing to the drawing group that this will be the last month that the Dallas Museum of Art will host the Sketching in the Gallery program. After September 24th there will be no more drawing program.

This was a shock to all. And for those that have been involved in the program for years and years it is the end of something very important. Of course the DMA is stating that the program is not ending, it's being transformed into an artist lead multi media program to be held each Thursday in the Center for Creative Connections. This sounds nice, but the people that like to draw from the collection will more than likely not participate in a multi media class room setting. It is apples and oranges, oil and water, beer and ice cream.

The removal of the Sketching in the Galleries program will remove a very strong public display of people actually using the museum and it's collection as a tool to study art. When the public sees people sketching from the collection it causes them to slow down and take a second look at the art. It validates the life of the collection.

I do realize that the Sketching from the Collection program is not a big public atraction or a money maker for the DMA. But it is a consistent program where the group usually numbers around 10-22 people EVERY Thursday night. It is one of the only programs in Dallas where creative people can consistently meet and interact with local professional artists. I know I have used this program in the past to meet artists that I was otherwise be to shy to introduce myself to.

Lastly, unlike the programs held in the Center for Creative Connections, Sketching in the Galleries pretty much runs itself. On the first night of the month a member of the DMA staff introduces the artists who will lead the program for that month. After that, the artist runs the program totally by themselves for the rest of the month. Total amount of DMA staff time, about 10 minutes.

Well, I did go on and on about this, but I deleted it because this program has always been close to my heart, and I was just going into an emotional tyrant about it. I still have 2 more nights of drawing to go, so we'll make the best of it.

Please join us if you feel like a bit of sketching.

Sketching in the Galleries @ the Dallas Museum Of Art: Evening 2

Tonight is the 2nd in the 4 nights that I will be hosting the Sketching in the Gallery program. Last week was a lot of fun. A few people even stayed after class to show me their other drawings and to ask my advise about drawing. Now if that sort of thing is not a big artty ego boost you must be dead.

Tonight we will be drawing from a few of the Degas pastels that are in the current show All the World is a Stage. The photo above is not in the exhibit, but it is the same style and subject mater that we will be working from. The focus will be on how Degas warped space to create drama.

After the sketching class

There were 22 people in the group last night. Some were the core group that comes to most of the sessions, some had attended a few times, and some were first timers. There were a few that were new to Dallas and were looking for ways to connect with the Dallas art scene.

As stated in the previous blog, the drawing skill level of the group varied a lot. But everyone seemed to really enjoy the slow looking that copying a painting offers. This act revels how beautifully complex the composition of the paint was. One person commented that he had never noticed there was a wagon sitting on the hill, and that without the wagon the sense of perspective falls apart.

Sketching in the Galleries @ the Dallas Museum of Art

Tonight is my first night to lead the Sketching in the Galleries program at the DMA. I will be leading the drawing group for the next 4 proceeding Thursdays from 7-8:30. The group is usually around 10-25 people, with a wide range of drawing skills.

This will be my 4th time in 4 years to lead this group. I always love doing it because I love being around people that are excited about drawing.

Tonight we are going to be focusing on shadows. I have selected 4 paintings in the European gallery to work from. Alfred Sisely - The Lesson, Daumier - The Print Seller's (very semular to the one shown here), Pissarro - Apple Picking, and Villon - Society. All use large areas of shadow in a graphic and dramatic style.