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Thanks to Zack Legend for making the video about ElegantFunk.

Twenty-four artists from Smaller Indiana joined for the first (and hopefully annual) Elegant Funk art show. You can read more about ElegantFunk in a previous post.

Below are the two paintings, I displayed at ElegantFunk, Affiliating and Adjoining.

After the show, some of the organizers discuss the event.

Thank you to all who came. It was an overwhelming success! No one officially tallied the number of visitors, but we agreed afterward that it was several hundred.

I will be showing a piece in VisualFringe 2008 at The Kuaba Gallery. The Kuaba Gallery is in the last strip of shops on Massachusetts Avenue going away from Downtown. The opening reception is August 1, 2008. Yes, that’s the same night as SmallerIndiana’s Elegant Funk, but Wug Laku’s gallery is just few blocks up the street. Voting for “viewers choice” will be conducted August 1st and 2nd. Patrons’ favorite artwork will be designated as one of the six new Be Indypendent stickers to be used throughout the campaign. I would appreciate your vote. If you are unable to make it on August 1st, my piece, Appearing, will be on display until August 30th.

Kuaba Gallery
876 Massachusetts Avenue
Indianapolis IN 46204

VisualFringe has partnered with the Arts Council of Indianapolis and the Cultural Development Commission to support the Be Indypendent movement. Be Indypendent encourages people to support what is unique to Indianapolis, including local art.

I will be showing two of my recent “moving joint of bone” paintings on August 1st at Elegant Funk. These pieces are the climax of my current series. I will be shifting soon to new subject matter. The group show featuring 20 to 30 artists from Central Indiana will be a part of IDADA’s monthly First Friday gallery hop. The event will be from 5 to 9 pm at wUG LAKU’S STUDIO & gARAGE, 1125 Brookside Ave. Suite C7 in the Circle Center Industrial Complex. It’s just east of the interstate from Massachusetts Avenue. Work showing will include a variety of two and three-dimensional work. The quality of the submissions greatly impressed me and the rest of the organizing committee. I am anxious to see them in person. Most pieces will be for sale. Food, wine, music and local businesses will also be on hand, too.

This show is unique in that the artists have come to together via a local online social network, SmallerIndiana.com. Read more from the Indianapolis Star, and view the online discussion and progress in the events section of SmallerIndiana.

I am so glad that I have been able to be part of the organizing committee. I’d like to thank Andy Ball (and Lorraine), Nancy Digman, Eric Deckers, John Essex, Pam Frazier, James Keuster, Kate Oberreich, Janice Smith and Wug Laku for their contributions to Elegant Funk. I look forward to working with you in the future.

If you plan to be there, please contact me or reply below so that I can keep an eye out for you.

ELEGANT FUNK
Friday, August 1st
5:00-9:00pm
wUG LAKU’S STUDIO & gARAGE
1125 Brookside Ave, Suite C7
Indianapolis, IN 46202

This event is sponsored by NUVO, IDADA, and VisionDirect.

UPDATE: Friday night was great! View my post with photos and a video from ElegantFunk for more.

So that you don’t have to check back here at the site, we’ve created a Google Group for Rachel Steely. Now you can subscribe to updates and events concerning Rachel’s art. You don’t have to have a Google ID in order to subscribe. Just type your current email address into the field under “My Email Newsletter” on the left sidebar, and you will receive a confirmation email message soon. Please confirm your subscription by clicking the link within it, and you’re good!

Remember you can also subscribe to this site’s RSS Feed with your news reader if you’d prefer to receive updates via RSS.

If you are into Facebook, we’re created a fan page for Rachel Steely also. It will list posts from this site also. Please support Rachel by becoming a fan.

Below are Photographs from the Wheeler Arts Community Spring Open House. Special thanks to Katie Burk for making the event happen.

Wheeler Arts Community :: Fountain Square, Indianapolis, IN :: May 3, 2008

As part of your upcoming First Friday ritual, be sure to stop by the Wheeler Arts Community. They are having their annual Spring Open House this May 2nd.

Not only will my work (and me) will be across the atrium from the entrance and to the left, but you will be able to browse and interact with over forty resident and guest artists, visit with the resident artists in their studios, listen to live music and take in good food and drink. Indianapolis International Film Festival will also feature a “best of” short film compilation in the community theatre. Admission is free. I’d like to thank the Wheeler Arts Community for allowing me to participate in their open house and I hope to see you there!

WHEN: 5:30-10:30pm, May 2, 2008

WHERE: The The Wheeler Arts Community is located at 1035 East Sanders Street, south of Fountain Square proper, behind Bud’s Groceries.

Natural substances, both great and small, reflect similarities that are noticeable upon reflection. The other night as I was studying the texture of the bone in front of me, I pondered upon how the cragginess of the bone was reminiscent of a rocky mountain in a landscape. How the mountain hid a molten center of power and how the bone encases a storehouse of life. The advantages of the bones come in their mobility and the manner in which they relate to each other. They are not static or mounted to the ground.

Sometimes one can find particular compound subjects which inter-relate not only intimately, but also freely and purposefully. One of these cases appears to be the dynamic and interlocking skeletal joints that we find at the core of our physical bodies. This example can perhaps be expanded through reference, in the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, to the story of ‘dry bones’ coming to life. Furthermore, one can exceed to the resurrection life that comes from death. Care to visual representation, along with ideas that connect to the work, may awaken this poetry while encouraging an active continuing referral to beyond what is explicit.

The word “articulation” denotes a joint of bones, a correlation or interconnection of ideas, or an act of utterance. This body of work “articulates articulations.” Using joint-like articulations to create titles, the names of the works are meant to prompt a contemplative connecting that starts between the verbal and the visual. These works were created, on both material and contemplative levels, in order to suggest particularity of relationships, life, and quintessential hope.

Here, drawings and paintings present moveable joints of human, skeletal, dry bones. Dramatically lit artificial skeletons are placed in settings that include drapery, glass, panel, and/or negative spaces of marks that react to the joint. The orientation of the paper for the drawings, which suggests portrait space, complements the orientation of the paintings, which prompts a more environmental, horizontal setting. Sometimes there is a piece of glass in the background that reflects the bone in a way that may parallel the ‘reflection’ of the bone in the viewer. When this happens, a type of trinity emerges as an intersection of the following ideas: general lifelessness (mere reflection on glass), possibility for actualization (given joint), and the realized life of the viewer. Sometimes the negative spaces seem interwoven into a reaction of the positive joint. Perhaps there is a struggle or energy reflecting life. Purposefully, in order to join the negative and positive space, the joints are often placed in non-central locations in the works. Then again, the background might be a tangible thing such as a panel or drapery that allows a shadow to fall against it. Consequently, a second trio of shadow, object, and reflection might appear.

Perhaps one can consider the implications of a treatment of craft that reflects the tenuous, life, texture, and color of a bone. The support is primed in order to be reminiscent of the texture and color of bone. Bone illusions are formed using additive (graphite/turpentine, or paint) and subtractive (eraser, or rag) work that is layered complexly, and created in a manner that flows from larger general forms toward more particular detail. The pace of gesture and calligraphic marks, that acquires strength as the joint forms illusionally, begins with a “gestural core.” This is commonly associated with responsive “life” drawing. A somewhat theatric setting, described through intentional lighting and diagonal directions of the cropped, enlarged joints of bones, is the stage in which fairly aggressive marks create an ironic sense of detail. A whole person approach to drawing, including an athletic response of the body and mark maker to the referent, results in marks that are particular, corrected, and layered. A combination of referent and the faith of the drawer-painter perhaps created and stirred life on the page. In fact, when these were created, the maker was in a shadow and cried out with every work for the life and renewal to continue forth from inner wells of hope and faith.

These depictions were created with the purpose of life rather than some cultural iconography which connects deadening cliche of bones to death. Oil color, applied in limited palates, may infer possible vitality in the referent through relation and juxtaposition of value, hue, and saturation. A narrative is formed as these joints, which are incomplete, come together and interact in a process of renewal. One bone selflessly gives way as the other advances. Their shapes are formed in order to fit and interact in a beautiful empathy. In the perfected joint there is a true freedom for the members. Due to this infinite uniqueness, a perfected communion between the members arises. This freedom is within the purpose, however, for which they, as support and connection points, have been made.

Titles here are meant to suggest a direction of thought without thought being “contained” ichnographically. The titles, works, and statement run free from containment and frames because there is life and great potential for further change and growth. The “articulating” and “articulations” continue.

View this series, Compose Not Decay: Articulating Articulations

Humans are bound by time. We are not able to truly revisit and experience the past. Nor can an individual view the past and present simultaneously. If one could see the remnants of the past fade as the present took place, how would this be composed? In response, I have created this imaginary experience with bone joints that are juxtaposed in order to capture action and unification.

This series investigates a world in which time overlaps, and bones are observed as either moving as a joint or assembling to create a single entity. It begins with bones that are moving as a unit and develops into an exploration of how the parts of a joint unite to create a whole. The first few pieces in this body experiment with light radiating from the bones. The titles of these earlier works reflect the movement as a whole. Later works use theatrical light to create a fluid stage upon which the bones can narrate. Their titles initiate contemplation on the selfless accommodation for each other as they unite to form a single joint. Supports for these paintings shift from canvases to rough wood panels with natural texture that parallels the organic bone surface.

These depictions were painted to portray life rather than following the cultural iconography that connects the deadening metaphor of bones to death. Oil color, applied in limited palettes, infers possible vitality in the referent through relation and juxtaposition of value, hue, and saturation. Joints of bones are of interest not only because they are at the physical core of our stability and mechanics but also particular compound subjects which inter-relate. This relation is not solely intimate but free and purposeful. A narrative is formed as these joints, which are incomplete, assemble and interact in a process of renewal. One bone selflessly gives way as the other advances. Their shapes are formed in order to fit and interact in a beautiful empathy. In the ideal joint, there is a true freedom for its members. The purpose of the joint is support and connection, and this freedom is bounded within that purpose. Due to this infinite uniqueness of action, a perfected communion arises between its members.

View the series, Action, Unification

I’d like to welcome you to my site, RachelSteely.com. The goals of this blog and portfolio set are to network and share ideas concerning my art. I plan to present what I am reading and thinking into the void of the Internet and hope a response will resound out.

If you are an artist or if you just began to enjoy the pleasures and insights of art and have a suggestion for a topic to discuss, feel free to comment below.