Saturday, November 27, 2010

New Events


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Travel Log, encaustic on board, 6 x 6 inches

I have the above encaustic painting included in the 2010 National Small Works Painting exhibition at The Main Street Gallery in Groton, NY from December 3, through January 2, 2011. I'm happy to say I'm actually going to be able to see this show because it's not far from where I spend Christmas with my family. This show didn't have a theme other than size so I find it ironic that this piece was chosen since it seems to resemble a map of the Finger Lake area in upstate New York where we wander every summer.

I've been working hard in the studio and will be open next Friday evening if you're in the area stop in. Here's more information about what's going on at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. There's a craft show happening from 5-11 pm so you can get some of your gift buying done while checking out contemporary art. I'll be selling lots of fun things in my studio, new bracelets, painting pendants, a few painted purses and small paintings. I hope to see you there.
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Free Flow, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

I spent all day making pies and cleaning. I'm tired but happy.

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This is a photo of a sunset I took in October in Ocean City, NJ. I will enjoy being with family tomorrow and missing a lot of family members that I won't be with. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Felise Luchansky

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This week I had the pleasure of interviewing my studio artist friend Felise Luchansky. I asked Felise what led her to become an artist. She said as a child she loved collage and ripped into her parents magazines as soon as they’d allow her to, cutting out images and pasting them into new arrangements for her own entertainment. She was always making things out of whatever materials she could find including leaves raked into floor plans in the yard. She went to college at Rutger’s University where while she was studying art history she discovered photography. She continued her education years later taking courses at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, specifically Leslie Mitchell’s classes Work on Paper dealing with printmaking, collage and other investigations having to do with paper.

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The Letter R


This led right into my second question of how she came to be working in her current materials? She starts by collecting imagery; most recently this has been scanned images of nature, sea glass and melted wax. These images are often altered digitally then printed and physically collaged to form new compositions. Her current body of work is dealing with Morse code a form of communication originally created in the early 1840’s and used for early radio communication before it was possible to transmit voice. She became interested in Morse code when she watched how her son was communicating in invented shorthand when he was text messaging. The images are in the format of rectangles and circles to correlate with the dots and dashes of Morse code literally spelling out her message across the gallery walls. She’s incorporated a sound track of drumbeats spelling out the words D-E-S-I-R-E and R-E-L-E-A-S-E in Morse code. She is using altered and collaged images of melted wax for its connotation to the phrase “burning with desire” and the luscious visual qualities as well. Her work is like an invented language that resonates on many levels.

Felise is the recipient of a Delaware Division of the Arts fellowship grant for emerging artist, visual art: Work on Paper and her show titled Context at the Delaware Division of the Arts Mezzanine Gallery runs November 5th through the 25th. The reception on Friday the 5th from Friday from 5-8:00 pm. She hopes that the viewer walks away with the understanding of the concept behind the work but she likes to leave room for one’s own take on it. She is working with a good knowledge of art history and the understanding of art’s role to comment on and decipher the current social trends and that she does in a language all her own.

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D-E-S-I-R-E


She cites her influences as photographers that use photography as a jumping off point such as Olivia Parker, Maggie Taylor and Leslie Dill. Other influences include Jasper Johns for his use of appropriation of images from popular culture and Felise has used things such as s and h green stamps and bingo chips in her work. Robert Rauchenberg has also influenced her with his use of silkscreen which allowed him to use his images over and over. Felise has collected images for years and with digital technology she can pull them into her work and manipulate them to suit her needs time and time again.

If you miss her show at the Mezzanine Gallery you can catch this body of work in December where she will be showing with Renee Benson at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in the Elisabeth Denison Hatch Gallery. If you're interested in seeing more of her work here's a link to her website.