Revisions: Art from Recycled Materials Poster designed by curator Rebecca Godin
Revisions: Art from Recycled Materials
Community School of Music and Arts 330 East MLK/State Street Ithaca, NY 14850
September 2008 Opening Night Gallery Talk: Elements and Process with Greg Page
The purpose of the “Revisions: Art from Recycled Materials” project is to exhibit multiple viewpoints and the many art media possible with reused, recycled, reassembled, non-toxic, and natural materials. Revisions questions the endless waste of post industrial society while rejuvenating discarded objects and detrius, or using elements from nature.
Curator Rebecca Godin says, "Revisions aims to engage visitors visually, intellectually and as an ecological and sustainable arts community."
The show will explore recycled materials as art by thirty artists diverse in style and vision. The group includes: Gordon Bonnet, Mary Ann Bowman, Stan Bowman, Patricia Brown, Michael Boyd, Pamela Rozelle Drix, Sally Dutko, Rebecca Godin, Elisabeth Gross-Marks, Joyce Huntington and Gerry Stanek, Deborah Jones, Kumi Korf, Syau-Cheng Lai, Fernando Llosa, Mariann Loveland and Bill Carnie, Craig Mains, Carol Minton Morris, Greg Page, John Lyon Paul, Terry Plater, Steve Poleskie, Minna Resnick, Victoria Romanoff, Wendy Skinner, Daphne Sola’, Buzz Spector, Aafke Steenhuis, June Szabo, Stan and Zachary Taft.
Greg Page, Cornell art professor and graphic artist, will offer a Gallery Talk and show the materials and process behind his “Motifs From My Backyard” lithograph series. He uses natural elements, nearby plants, stones from a quarry by his house, and has worked with solar panels.
There will be an open art share Sunday, September 28, 3 - 4:30 PM at CSMA for anyone in the community who wants to show or share art made from recycled materials. For information call Rebecca Godin at 277-4155.
E-mail: rebeccagodin@mac.com
This project is made possible in part by grant support from the Community Arts Partnership and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Gordon Bonnet
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Kauai O'o
cut paper collage
16" x 20
ARTIST STATEMENT
I use cut paper to depict natural and imaginary scenes. My subjects range from figures from Japanese mythology to wildlife from around the world. Inspired by Japanese collage forms. I incorporate texture and pattern from catalogs, magazines, and other sundry junk mail into my art. Seen close-up, a flower from a seed catalog transforms into a South American bird or the sleeve of a fancy kimono when you step back. Each piece is signed in cut paper, and includes a count of how many slivers of paper were used to make the collage.
I teach high school biology, environmental sciences, and Latin at Trumansburg High School. My father was a Marine stationed in Japan after World War II, and sent home many pieces of Japanese artwork and music that inspired me to create my own style of cut-paper art.
ARTIST CONTACT
Phone: 607-387-5930
E-mail: info@cbgb-arts.com
Web site: www.cbgb-arts.com
Mary Ann Bowman
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Timely Art
glass, CDs, clock parts
ARTIST STATEMENT
I love the soft green tint of window glass and the idea of plates, bowls, a whole set with this subtle color. Only thing is, it was out of fashion when I wanted it so I made my own using a book that told me how to do it. Cut two identical pieces of window glass, put them one on top of the other on a thoroughly covered-in-kiln-wash kiln shelf in the kiln. Fire them very slowly until the temperature reaches 500 degrees and then very fast until the temperature reaches almost 1500 degrees. The book suggests opening the lid to check on progress every now and then. I didn't know you were allowed to do that! How cool (and hot) to see the orange glow and the glass softening. The most exciting part is seeing the two glass pieces fused into one with softened edges and a wonderful bubbly wavy pattern all over.
After making ten plates I wanted something new and clocks seemed a perfect choice. I've made dozens of clay clocks. How to set the hours and drill the hole were the most exciting discoveries. I also wanted to add bits of colored glass and learned that I either had to get colored glass specially formulated to expand and contract at the same rate as window glass during the fusing process or find a good glue. Glue is fine. I've also experimented with glass paint a lot, mostly on fused pieces of scrap glass. Many of these are transformed into collages with old paint rags, painting experiments or vegetable photos as background that I assemble on the scanner and print on watercolor paper. See the website for examples.
Thank goodness for the large supply of glass I retrieved from abandoned wood picture frames and a stack of windows somebody donated to the project.
ARTIST CONTACT
Address: 203 Pine Tree Road, Ithaca, NY 14850
Phone: 607-273-6375, 607-272-2613 (studio)
E-mail: maryannb@lightlink.com
Web site: www.maryannbowman.com
Stan Bowman
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Perspective clay tile 12 x 12
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art work over the last few years has primarily involved computer scanned and manipulated images, yet at the same time I have explored other media. Since I share my studio space with my wife who does ceramic sculpture it seemed only natural to also explore some of my art interests using clay as the media.
This piece in the show also came about at a time when both my wife and I were interested in making decorative tiles both in connection with larger wall tile projects and as individual pieces that would be displayed as single art objects. In “Perspective” I am playing around with creating an architectural sense of space that is a bit quirky and distorted. The goal was to get the viewer fascinated by the peculiar perspective and its translation onto a flat glazed clay square tile. It serves as my exploration of spatial ambiguities through the medium of clay as well as making a connection with the 10 years I spent as an architect back in the 1960s.
ARTIST CONTACT
Address: 203 Pine Tree Road, Ithaca, NY 14850
E-mail: sjb4@cornell.edu
Artist web site: www.stanbowman.com
Business web site: www.perfectartprints.com
Phone 277-4950 (studio)
Phone 279-1314 (cell)
Michael Boyd
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Jeu de Paume
collage and gouache
2008
15” x 11” (19” x 15” framed)
ARTIST STATEMENT
The materials in this series of collages are printed items I accumulate, especially when traveling, with drawn and painted additions. My attraction to printed matter reflects my lifelong love of typography and graphic design and, as reminders of places and events in my life, these collages have an diaristic as well as artistic aspect.
The form idea I am exploring in these pieces concerns visual structures in which a primary element locates itself in the format and expands its features into the surrounding space as secondary elements. All of the work’s compositional details are latent in the original printed items and the format.
ARTIST CONTACT
78 Greene Street
New York, NY 10012
212.226.5570
315 Pleasant Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
607.277.0256
E-mail: DMBoyd228@aol.com
www.michaelboydartist.com
Patricia Brown
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Grandmother Totem: Keeper of Sacred Waters
assemblage: dress form, old photograph, canned water, maps, acrylics
ARTIST STATEMENT
Assemblage: dress form, old photograph, old maps, old doilies, old jewelry, frog pendant, acrylics, and canned sacred water from Buttermilk Creek, Cayuga Lake, Fall Creek, Filmore Glen, Lyle Spring, Miller Creek, Salmon Creek, Taughannock Falls, Treman Creek, and a well at 1870 East Shore Drive, Ithaca.
For several years I have been working on a series of Grandmother Totems assembled from found photos, objects and remnants: bits and pieces that I have gathered over time. In thinking about the theme of Revisions and Recycling, I looked to memories of my grandmother who was both frugal and endlessly generous. She mended, sewed, gardened, canned vegetables, made jelly, shopped wisely (always able to spot a bargain) and made good use of everything. The gift of living though the Great Depression was the ability to waste not and to enjoy life with what she had.
I also began to think about shortages in our time – water seemed to me to be the most important subject to work with. Women had been connected to the symbol of water, the source of life, for centuries: Great Mother, source of nourishment. In this Grandmother Totem, I have collaged old maps of water sources and usage in America. On her chest are the Great Lakes; flowing down trough her torso is the Mississippi River. She surrounds herself with precious canned water – samples from the local rivers, wells, creeks and lakes. The sacred waters preserved for this piece are from Buttermilk Creek, Cayuga Lake, Fall Creek, Filmore Glen, Lyle Spring, Miller Creek, Salmon Creek, Taughannock Falls, Treman Creek, and a well at 1870 East Shore Drive, Ithaca. Mandalas in the form of blue and while doilies made by hand and most likely by women are placed upon the lid of each can to create a cascade around her to form her skirt. The frog sings the songs that bring rain to cleanse and replenish. The flower and seed beads represent new potential and growth. This Grandmother is ready for shortages that are to come. She has prepared enough for all.
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail; wildspiritartstudio@gmail.com
Pamela Rozelle Drix
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Littera Textura
artist book, pressure printed, collage
ARTIST STATEMENT
This artist's book is pressure printed on letterpress, and collage on Mohawk Superfine with Japanese kozo template made from Daniel Smith paper samples, mylar, and gesso, tape. It is Edition: 7, 1/7, printed at Wells College, Summer 2007.
Littera Textura is a playful alphabet book, combining capital letters and handwritten text overlaid on a subtle textural background. It is printed on one piece of paper, the book is cut and folded to create a simple accordian book, to be "read" sequentially from A to Z.
ARTIST CONTACT
The Ink Shop Printmaking Center & Olive Branch Press
330 E. State Street, Ithaca NY 14850
2nd floor of the CSMA Building
Tuesday to Friday 12 pm - 6 pm Saturday 12pm - 4 pm
Phone: (607) 277-3884
E-mail: artists@ink-shop.org
Sally Dutko
ARTWORK IN SHOW
The Artist Within
mixed media
20”h x 12”w x 9”d
ARTIST STATEMENT
“The Artist Within” is a figure symbolizing artistic experiment and play. Although I usually work in fabric, this time I chose to use other types of recycled materials.
The body is constructed from shredded newspaper. Sewn into the garment are used coffee filters, plastic vegetable bags, and fabric scraps. Embellishments include old paint tubes, pencils, a paintbrush, wire left over from an electrical project, a metal tin, and holiday trims.
ARTIST CONTACT
Phone: 607-257-3808
E-mail: sd14@cornell.edu
http://www.arttrail.com/artists/DUTKO.html
Rebecca Godin
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Green Car
vinyl, Tyvek, recycled papers
13" x 16.5"
on 28.5” x 28.5’ vintage Carrom game board
ARTIST STATEMENT
Rebecca Godin project coordinator, curator, partcipating artist
The pop archeology of vintage clothes, graphics, ads, cars, films and visuals from the 30s, 40s and 50s intrigues me. I like to combine them with 21st century art media. .
Tyvek is a synthetic made of flashspun high-density olefin fiber. It combines the physical characteristics of paper, film and fabric. It is particulate free, resistant to water, mildew, chemicals and aging, has a smooth printing surface, strength, color vibrancy, is pH 7 (neutral), non-toxic, chemically inert and contains no binders. It’s a substrate for many typical - and not so typical - printing applications. It’s recyclable, so is vinyl. All types of vinyl can be recycled and reprocessed into second-generation products. More than 99 percent of all manufactured vinyl ends up in a finished product and/or reused, due to widespread post-industrial recycling.
I saw this car parked out beyond Spencer, got the Carrom board from a thrift store and have been experimenting with different types of printing surfaces.
ARTIST CONTACT
Email: rebeccagodin@mac.com
Web site: rebeccagodin.com
Phone: 607-277-4155
Elisabeth Gross-Marks
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Long Divisions
mixed media
6' x 3’
ARTIST STATEMENT
These discarded or "found" objects" transform themselves into geometric shapes.
I ponder the square, the circle and the vertical line, imagining a child slipping through the hula hoop, jumping on springs.
Life, in all its action and reaction,rearranges itself in this composition.
ARTIST CONTACT
310 Sunnyview Lane
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-277-2419
E-mail: egmcolors@clarityconnect.com
Web site: www.brilliantcolorsegm.com
Joyce Huntington & Gerald Stanek
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Swept Away
mixed media
20" x 12 1/2"
Frame by Gerald Stanek
Painting by Joyce Huntington
ARTIST STATEMENT
This artwork, which is a collaborative effort between framer and artist, originated in the frame that now encloses it. When operating a custom framing studio there is always a plethora of scrap materials left over; bits and pieces of mouldings, leftover pieces of canvas,
even small flecks of gold leaf from the finishing. Ever frugal, we reuse and recycle everything we can. Small pieces of framing materials have been tranformed into decorative boxes as well as multi-angled frames. Inspired by the concept of producing a picture frame without relying on traditional angles, this inverted corner, slightly arched frame was created from leftover pieces of a furniture finished moulding. After computing the correct angles, the sides were cut and joined to create this unique frame. After sanding off the original finish, it was gessoed, painted with oil paints and finally covered in metal leaf. It was later toned to coordinate with the painting. The substrate was a piece of leftover gator board cut to fit the
frame. A scrap of canvas was mounted onto the board and then gessoed to make a suitable ground for the oil paint. The image was one of an ongoing series of paintings about the Light and its power to draw us in. A few small scraps of metal leaf made their way onto the canvas as well.
ARTIST CONTACT
Corners GAllery
903 Hanshaw Rd. Ithaca, NY 14850
Phone: 607-257-5756
E-mail: corners@twcny.rr.com
Web site: http://www.thecornersgallery.com
Deborah Jones
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Fire and Ice
pine wood with inlay, stones, stained glass, mirror, snake, deer teeth
22” diameter
ARTIST STATEMENT
The theme of this exhibition is a reminder to all of us to conserve through reuse and recycling. I was always bothered by the widespread wastefulness in U.S. society and tried to be less so. I am mindful of where commodities come from and at what expense to the environment. The wood in my carvings comes from local trees that had to be taken down because they were dead or diseased. Many objects in my carvings were picked up from the environment—bones, a butterfly wing, shells from the beach, glass from discard bins of Tony Serviente and Jim Furman and mirror from the garbage.
I’ve always appreciated the beauty of our Finger Lakes region and find, like many artists, it inspires work and nourishes my spirit. “Fire and Ice” is about Nature and a reflection of my spiritual relationship to Nature that extents beyond ordinary boundaries. I recognize the vulnerability of Nature and hope that our extravagant wastefulness doesn’t turn the earth and our spirits into wastelands.
ARTIST CONTACT
3166 Perry City Road
Trumansburg, NY 14886
Phone: (607) 387-9603
E-mail: artemisdj@hotmail.com
Kumi Korf
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Untold Fortune
collage with found materials
12" x 9"
ARTIST STATEMENT
When utilitarian everyday familiar matters are taken away from their original purpose or environment, they could start to have different meanings in their new designated space, as shapes and textures
.
Accommodating their still-lingering previous purpose could inspire artists and viewers-especially when frameworks and thoughts overlap.
Untold Fortune was one of the pieces that came from that frame of mind.
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail: kumi@exeisland.com
Gallery representation by Chandler Fine Art:
susan@chandlersf.com
Web site: www.kumikorf.com
Syau-Cheng Lai
ARTWORK IN SHOW:
Before Sunset
silk-applied paper, painted with acrylic, ink, pastel
13” x 36”
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am interested in colors, lines, and geometry based design. The balancing between details, space, boundary, and volume is what I have in mind working on each project. Before Sunset is my contemplation of a warm engagement.
I tore the silk and applied it to the paper, and then overpainted it with other media.
The other recycled material I have incorporated in my work in the past includes eggshell, corn husk, bamboo mat, wood chips, laundry lint, hemp ropes, plastic, fabric, card board, beads, threads, and plants parts. Transcending ordinary material into an ethereal impression is my aesthetic concern.
ARTIST CONTACT
Syau-Cheng Lai
205 Ridgedale Rd.
Ithaca, NY 14850
Phone: (607) 272-0733
Fernando Llosa
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Balancing Act
stone, metal, fossil and Indian silk in a lined cherry wood shadowbox
ARTIST STATEMENT
The Stone Poems
…And how exactly are these things made, people ask me? Close observation of everything is the key to the creation of these wall sculptures or stone poems, as I prefer to call them. Both, close observation of natural forms in frequent and long visits to the wild; and close observation of the nature and quality of current interpersonal and social interactions, as well as of the life/death cycle common to us all.
Long walks and bike rides through what little remains of the wild in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where I live, yield most of the elements you see in these pieces; others are generously provided by a few friends who share this concern about the destruction of the natural environment and the parallel degradation of our interior and social life.
Altogether, I'd like these pieces—as well as anything else I make, do, or say—to pose a question that cannot be conceptually, verbally, answered: —Is there a mode of human existence not based on the psychologically isolated, culturally conditioned and, therefore, also conflicted and suffering self?
If you are interested in how these pieces are made, here's the technical scoop: Elements are gathered without concern for or prior conception regarding their eventual assemblage. Once in the studio, and somewhere in my recording and affective mind, I play with them till they come together through rather mysterious affinities that I'd be foolish to attempt naming and categorizing. I really don't know what to do with the elements I gather, and so I let them tell me as I shuffle them around my worktable.
Once a final design has established itself, I cut to the appropriate dimensions and glue together three or four layers of acid-free mat board and foam core on which I then carefully rearrange all the pieces constituting the design. The next step is to draw the outline of the elements that will be embedded and carve the board along the outline with a straight edge knife, keeping in mind the space that will be needed to fold the specific type of fabric chosen for that piece around the edges of the cut so that the stones or other elements may latter find a snug inlaid fit. The depth of the cut made into the sandwiched boards determines the depth at which any particular component needs to be embedded. And if I want to have other components superimposed on those that will be inlaid at different depths, I glue onto them small pieces of fabric or foam core with the adequate thickness and then position them over the, by then, fabric-lined carved surface into which the other elements have already been embedded.
Raw silk and linen are the best fabric material I've found to work with. Why this? -Simply because they're better behaved than all others when it comes to lining them with paper. Yes, most of the fabrics used to cover these cut boards and to line the frames they go into, must receive a tissue paper skin; otherwise glue will go right through when folding it over the edges and ruin the surface. The glue I use for most purposes is PVA, Poly Vinyl Acetate. Occasionally, I use thicker bodied resin glue to bind very heavy stones.
Fernando Llosa – VI / 2008
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail: ferllosa@unboundart.com
Web site: www.unboundart.com
Mariann Loveland & Bill Carnie
ARTWORK IN SHOW
WIindow Triptych
mixed media, oil on canvas
ARTIST STATEMENT
The windows came to us via a circuitous route. A decade ago I was commissioned to create an outside mural consisting of three windows that followed definite guidelines given by the client. ( For example, the client wanted a hanging plant, a plant on the windowsill and all windows were to be open). Using bits and pieces of recycled building materials, Bill constructed the windows to match the size and shape of existing windows on the façade of a building that was part of a courtyard into which the mural would eventually be placed. Since the windows were to be hung high on a wall simulating a second story, the objects were painted as if the viewer is looking up at them from below. Upon completion the triptych was installed in the designated garden site for one summer and later removed for the winter months. When the next summer returned only one of the three windows was reinstalled. Several years later I had the opportunity to exhume the two remaining windows that were stored in a basement and recycle them back to the light of day.
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail: Mloveland002@twcny.rr.com
Web site: http://www.mariannloveland.com/
Craig Mains
ARTWORK IN SHOW
U-Assemble Burning Trailer
gum transfer, assemblage
8" x 6" x 5" (assembled) framed original
8.5 x 11.5" (trailer un-cut) framed original
also available: 2 sheet 17" x 11" (trailer and volcano u-assemble kit) facsimile
ARTIST STATEMENT
U-assemble Burning Trailer is a gum transfer print; recycled from a number of different trailer images, the windows, the awnings, the lawn, making one generic trailer. The parts were assembled into a vector graphic, color separated and printed on a laser printer, the inks replaced with intaglio ink and transferred to Rives BFK.
This is part of a series of prints that portray disasters, portent of disasters, or the misfortune of some thing through nature or human miscalculation. They are not intended to be about tragedy, rather about the objects which are found in unexpected places or in flux because of calamity.
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail: sunkenvespa@gmail.com
Web Gallery: flickr.com/trailerafire
Carol Minton-Morris
ARTWORK IN SHOW
The ExAltar
mixed media
ARTIST STATEMENT
I began making altars in 2003 to create spaces that would help me to learn more about how, and in what situations, people might be asked to reflect on-the-fly. My altars have been exhibited at Grassroots Festival and at the Community School of Music and Arts.
"The ExAltar" is intended to compel viewers to reflect, and then interact with a sacred three-dimensional space focused on personal events and issues. The materials themselves hold the affect of past use. As an artist I leverage the energy and patina of pre-owned materials for their aesthetic merit as well as for their inherent ability to help me tell a story by their ability to invoke a mood or a feeling related to their past.
In "The ExAltar," users are asked to "vote" on the state of their current relationship with their "ex." The main component in the altar is an old vanity table found at the Salvation Army and subsequently re-painted and added onto. Viewers "vote" for one of three options: red signifies "blood on the tracks," blue stands for "smooth sailing," and gold sybolizes "it's golden." As viewers look in the mirror of the vanity there is a significant moment to reflect on personal values and roles in a past relationship. The recycled vanity by its nature brings to mind the act of preparation for an event or a moment. Other materials in the ExAltar include found natural elements, recycled fabric and antique light fixtures. Together they provide a place to reflect on love, loss and the hope we all share that there is a place to begin again, starting now.
"Pack Up Your Sorrows," on the web site, is an exercise in getting rid of heartache. Viewers are asked to select a heart from among the many paper mache hearts floating outside of a 1950's-style suitcase attached by silken ribbons. The well-used purple travel container is decorated with runes and symbols painted on the outside and upholstered to the interior fabric, is designed to hold space for sorrows. Viewers may mindfully place the heart that best represents their particular sorrow in the suitcase that has been prepared to receive it. At the end of the show the artist will truly pack up your sorrows and take them away.
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail: clt6@cornell.edu
Greg Page
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Motif from My Back Yard Ligularia, Caladium and Lady's Mantle
lithograph
30X38
ARTIST STATEMENT
My present project is titled Motifs from My Back Yard and is part of an extension of the use of horticultural forms as motif. As an active gardener with interest in horticulture, I have several perennial gardens at my home from which I use plant specimens to produce impressions from their forms, translating them into prints. The prints are produced from drawings, photographs and actual impressions from plant specimens and printed as traditional lithographs. I also visit sites in the area and botanical gardens to research and find materials for the project.
Sometimes the plants are contained inside a shape. The outer shape is from actual forms from stones found in the stone quarry close to my home in Ithaca. Working directly with the plants is a true collaboration with these objects from nature and express my documentation of these horticultural forms found in my gardens and my surrounding area, as well as my personal interpretation of my findings presented as motif forms.
b
ARTIST CONTACT
Art Department Cornell University 303 Tjaden
Phone: (607) 255-6722
Fax :(607) 255-3462
E-mail: gp23@cornell.edu
John Lyon Paul
ARTWORK IN SHOW
River Prayerwheel
cherry, walnut, steel, pigment
48" high x 18" diameter
ARTIST STATEMENT
Prayer wheels originated in the far east centuries ago as a means to engage the prayers written on their surfaces. Turning one is like chanting. Large prayer-wheels, located in villages and temples, are for the community use. Smaller, hand-held ones, are for individuals.
My prayer wheels are meant as spiritual tools which activate our awareness of harmony. Instead of calligraphic prayers, it is the very forms of these wheels that center us and remind us of our place in the universe.
Both the concept and the materials of "River Prayerwheel" are "recycled". The "prayer-cylinder" is a stack of split wild cherry-wood pegged together with walnut and carved into a cylinder. The inlayed “endless” river I cut from a used, steel pipe. The hand-wheel was originally part of a farm cart.
"All sentient beings and all matter are part of the same river."
ARTIST CONTACT
John Lyon Paul
174 Sodom Road, Ithaca, NY 14850
PH: 607-277-2426
E-mail: johnlyonpaul@yahoo.com
Terry Plater
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Fruit
fresco (see below)
NFS
ARTIST STATEMENT
My recent interest in learning fresco relates to my fundamental passion for the craft of painting as well as the history and practice. It also grew directly from my interest to invest a series of paintings I am no working on – especially those based on archival family photos -- with the sense of reverence and nobility apparent in classic fresco paintings. The use of natural materials – clay tiles, sand, limestone, pure pigment -- is “of a piece” with this intention.
Fresco Process
The earliest known examples of frescoes date around 1500 BCE and are found on the island of Crete. Fresco technique consists of painting in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet, fresh, lime mortar or plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster, intonaco, is used. Due to the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required. The pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco, which itself becomes the medium holding the pigment. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries and reacts with the air.
ARTIST CONTACT
Phone: 607-256-7609
E-mail: Terryplater@yahoo.com
Web site: www.terryplater.com
Steve Poleskie
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Washington DC, 1978
colored pencil on photocopies
$ 6000
ARTIST STATEMENT
During the years from 1972 to 1989 I created four-dimensional performances in the sky. I called these events, in which I flew an aerobatic biplane trailing smoke through a series of maneuvers, sometimes accompanied by music and dancers on the ground, “Aerial Theater.” The smoke was made by injecting oil into the hot exhaust. One formula for “smoke oil” called for diluting recycled motor oil with diesel fuel.
In May of 1978, I did a performance in Washington DC, as part of an international art festival held at the Washington Armory. As these performances included what are called “aerobatic maneuvers” it was necessary to obtain a waiver from the FAA before I could do them. I flew over the Anacostia River, abeam RFK Stadium. The festival spectators were bussed from the armory to the parking lot of the stadium to watch as close as possible. The folks on the other side of the river just sat on their stoops, or rooftops, and looked up. The reason for me flying over the river was that it is illegal to perform aerobatic maneuvers over occupied buildings. If I should crash it would be only me that would be harmed.
The six drawings and the poster could be perhaps considered “recycled” materials, having been brought out and exhibited again after thirty years. The drawings had to be reframed and matted, as the original matt was covered with mildew and had to be replaced. The poster is one of thousands produced in that odd size to be slid into holders on DC busses and subways.
Stephen Poleskie, Ithaca, NY, 28 May 2008
ARTIST CONTACT
Steve Poleskie's Blog - Where Is Stephen Poleskie Now?
http://stephenpoleskie.com/blog.htm
Steve Poleskie's web site:
Minna Resnick
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Craft Disasters / Purple (shown above)
Craft Disasters / Blue
Craft Disasters / Green
Craft Disasters / Black
silkscreen on scrap-booking paper
12" x 12" $ 265
ARTIST STATEMENT
The Craft Disasters Series continues my examination of inter-generational expectations and realities through the use of illustrated early- and mid-twentieth century manuals on home management, décor, repair, health, education and etiquette. In this case, the recycling of calamitous illustrations from textbooks on safety from the late 1930s has been combined with commercially available contemporary scrap-booking papers. I am misusing, or reusing, the craft paper for its intended decorative purpose. This remixes the narrative to create new associations. The juxtaposition of these two unrelated materials encourages information displacement and disorientation.
The scrap-booking papers have been chosen for their color coordination, based on primary and secondary color charts: red, yellow, blue, orange, green, purple plus black. Shown here are four out of seven in the series: Craft Disasters/Blue, Craft Disasters/Green, Craft Disasters/Purple and Craft Disasters/Black.
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail: minna@minnaresnick.com
snail mail:
130 Lexington Drive
Ithaca, New York 14850
Phone: 607.257.7833
Web site: http://www.minnaresnick.com
Victoria Romanoff
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Oldest Scaffolding in Country is Placed on the National Register of Historic Sites
mixed media
$ 1500
ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist's Mission (impossible) Statement:
"Oldest Scaffolding in Country is Placed on the National Register of Historic Sites," is a sculpture built with an electrical wire spool, broken table legs, old furring strips, rulers and wire. The assumption is that whatever is being restored behind the scaffolding tower has been long forgotten.
I like to conjure up lost civilizations, improbable resorts, crumbling monuments, over-the-top architectural follies, opinionated statuary and other imaginary settings.
Along with that, I enjoy puncturing pomposity and do my best to lead the viewer astray with absurd but hopefully humorous titles.
My sculpture is always built from recycled elements: discarded wood, architectural remnants, cardboard tubes, old ropes, washboards and other flotsam and jetsam. The paper mosaics, as well, are reborn from scraps cut out of previous creations. My studio at the old No. 7 Fire Station gives me the luxury of uncensored collecting and storage.
Living and traveling in Italy has always inspired me. Here I find inanimate objects endowed with humanism, gardens laid out in sublime grace, and century-old surfaces which proudly bear their scars and multi-layered botanical invasions.
ARTIST CONTACT
V. Romanoff & Associates
1012 N. Tioga St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
Phone: 607-273-5796
Wendy Skinner
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Sewing Memories
found objects and collage
NFS
ARTIST STATEMENT
This collage is made up of old sewing items that have been donated to SewGreen, an Ithaca-based group that encourages sustainability in the use of fabric, fiber, and fashion. My goal in creating this piece is to show the beauty and variety of objects that were used in everyday needlecraft right here in our area. The objects bespeak the memory of mothers and grandmothers who sewed out of necessity, thrift, tradition, and for beauty and love.
ARTIST CONTACT
SewGreen : http://www.sew-green.org/
Daphne Sola'
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Crossing Borders
Daphe Sola’
pulp, artist-made paper, burlap,wood,, block of Arabic calligraphy, thread
Private collection
ARTIST STATEMENT
This piece is a reaction to the war in Iraq. I called it crossing Borders because crossing borders is where people bleed. I found the block of Arabic calligraphy in a flea market forty years ago. The blue threads are from a pair of my jeans. I used red pulp dye instead of printing ink to make the saturated red color.
ARTIST CONTACT
Sola Gallery
Sola Art Gallery features prints and paintings by local, national, and international artists. The Gallery specializes in Japanese woodblock prints and art by contemporary printmakers from all over the world.
Located on the 1st Floor, Dewitt Building, 215 North Cayuga Street
Hours: Mon to Fri 10:30 to 5:30pm; Sat 3 to 5:30pm
Phone: 607-272-6552
Web site: www.solagallery.com
E-mail: solagallery@yahoo.com
Buzz Spector
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Johns as Mondrian I
Johns as Mondrian II
collage on museum board
14” x !6”
$ 1500 each
14” x !6”
Jasper Johns: Gray, Altered Book
$ 3000
ARTIST STATEMENT
Since the early 1980s my art has incorporated found and/or recycled materials: old books, postcards, and assorted paper ephemera have appeared in my art, as well as recycled organic materials including cut flowers, butter, roofing tar, and loaves of bread. For the Revisions exhibit I have altered a copy of the publication accompanying a travelling survey of the art of Jasper Johns by systematically tearing out its pages. From those excised pages I have produced two collages that make reference to the influence of Piet Mondrian on the (younger) Johns's work. Mondrian not only informs our understanding of how Johns painted, but was himself a conceptual recycler of the territorial geometries of the Dutch landscape.
ARTIST CONTACT
Buzz Spector's web site
Aafke Swart Steenhuis
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Titanium Screw-Up
fiber, mixed media
NFS
ARTIST STATEMENT
I was diagnosed with Giant Cell Tumor in my right wrist in 2003. This tumor has been very inspirational to me; I have made more that 10 Giant Cell Quilts.
Several surgeries after the first surgery, another tumor had to be taken out and “hardware” added to support the Radius and Ulna. At one occasion the screws came loose and the plate and screws had to be replaced. Hence the name for this piece Titanium Screw-Up.
I drafted the plate that came out my wrist, enlarged it and started to make a sample. This quilt is what came out of it after various try-outs.
I used cotton fabrics out of my “stash” and added some silk and chiffon. The cheese-cloth like material is actually surgical gauze from the original wrappings after the surgery. After washing it, I painted it. Screws and washers were added for more texture. Check out the quilted screws in the border as well as the tilted quilted screws in the main part of the quilt.
ARTIST CONTACT
E-mail: aafrike@yahoo.com
June Szabo
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Islands Are Connected
Canandaigua to Canadice
butternut
NFS
ARTIST STATEMENT
When earth is surrounded by water it may present an opportunity or an obstacle. Individuality and isolation are assumed as water obscures an islands connection to the rest of the earth.
Standing alone, physically imposing a division from others gives the appearance of independence and separation. However, we cannot sever the ties of mind and spirit.
ARTIST CONTACT
Phone: 607-277-0605
E-mail: jbwszabo@aol.com
Stan & Zachary Taft
ARTWORK IN SHOW
Untitled
mixed media
$ 500
ARTIST STATEMENT
This work takes materials from disparate former uses (a panel cut from a workbench and a fragment from an antique gilt frame) and attempts to forge a new use that reflects on the memories of these materials. The processes we employ direct us to discover new memories, meanings and identities.
ARTIST CONTACT
W. Stanley Taft
Art Department, Cornell University
504 Tjaden Hall, Department of Art
Ithaca, NY 14850
Phone: (607) 255-9110
E-mailL: wst4@cornell.edu
Ithaca Henge
Stone Sculptures
Anonymous
photographs by Rebecca Godin
9 print collage on 4’ x 3’ board
$ 120
individual prints $ 20
Each Autumn in recent years increasing numbers of spontaneous, anonymous, beautiful stone sculptures have appeared in the many Ithaca gorges and streams.
Most spectacular, though heavily traveled, is the basin of Taughannock Falls. The expanse of the creek near the falls becomes the temporary home to altars, dolmens, henges, carins and stone creations of all kinds. I’ve taken hundreds of pictures of “Ithaca Henge” over the last two years (I and some others call it that - maybe there’s an official name which I don’t know). More Ithaca Henge pictures are at www.rebeccagodin.com
Archeology was one of my my first loves. I switched from digs in my teens and twenties to the pilgrimages of my adulthood. Recently, I trekked the cairns, dolmens and stone circles of Ireland and Scotland. I spent an August full moon in Stonehenge with English Heritage Society permission. Stone monuments, ancient and modern, bewitch me.
Rebecca Godin
E-mail: rebeccagodin@mac.com
Ithaca Henge site at rebeccagodin.com
Greg Page - Gallery Talk
Process and Elements
Gallery Night Opening
September 5, 2008
Greg Page, Cornell art professor and graphic artist, will offer a Gallery Talk and show the materials and process behind his “Motifs From My Backyard” lithograph series. He uses natural elements, nearby plants, stones from the quarry by his house, and has worked with solar panels.
