Sight/ Insight will be at the Stutz Art Space from November 6-25, 2009.  The show incorporates a variety of styles ranging from abstract slashes of paint, abstract quilted fabric, exaggerated recognizable forms, jewelry, and paintings and photographs that display clearly recognizable subjects.  The artwork is juxtaposed leading the viewer to flow back and forth between the styles creating a dialogue amongst this diverse set of visual ideas.  It is a conversation between eleven different artists, with different modes of visually communication, and different perspectives on the same subject.

The curator, Carol L Myers, chose artists whose work fit the theme of ‘inspired places’.  Carol herself has lately focused on drawings. She states that her “vocabulary is natural form, but inspired place happens between pencil and paper.”  She finds that drawing is a form of praying.  I was attracted to one of her quilted painting pieces entitled, Boardwalk.  The painting in the work gives the piece a sense of space and light.  On top of the painting, sewn rectangular shapes overlap and break up the space, while the process of sewing the material draws the fabric and adds slight texture.

Below I’ve chosen a few of the types of work represented at the show:

Photography: Ginny Taylor Rosner speaks through her abandoned building photos in South Stairwell.  The stairway leads upward from the bottom right side of the page.  Light is entering from the landing at the top of the stairs in the upper left corner.  The image beckons the viewer to enter, walk up the stairs and into the light.

Abstract: Kate Oberreich’s collage, Map of New York, (on right above) is about repetition.  There is a small section of a city map in the piece.  The map contains repeated rectangular city blocks.  There are repeated circles in the upper left part of the work.  Simple vines with repeated leaves flow around the map.  Even a few drips in the piece seem to repeat themselves in color and shape.

Surreal: Home, by Lydia Burris, is a collage that juxtaposes a home and a tree in a forest with the light shining through the trees paralleling the warm light shining out of the windows of the home.

Landscape: The gallery also holds a collection of landscapes that are produced with varying levels of abstraction.  These invite the viewer to walk into nature in a place of trees, water, and immense skies.  At least one of the landscapes is a piece of jewelry by artist Leigh Dunnington-Jones entitled Sunrise on Central Avenue.  Look at both the front and the back of this piece.

Other artists who are not previously mentioned:
Susan Brewer
Karen Land
Colleen Lauter
Susan Mauck
Jerry Points
Martha Vaught
Julia Zollman Wickes

Join the conversation about inspired places starting this coming First Friday November 6, 2009.

I was introduced to the work of Caroline Mecklin two years ago when I visited the Stutz Artist Open House for the first time.  I have not forgotten  her work, and was looking forward to seeing her studio again this year.  Her dynamic figures are rich with the life she sees in her live models.

Derek Powell has a studio tucked away at the end of the third floor.  His work mostly consists of soft, misty landscapes painted with limited palates.  There were also three black and white ink drawings that were reminiscent of Rouault without the color.  Their titles, The Last Supper I, II, and III also added to their connection with Rouault.

This past spring I have been drawing on Friday mornings with a group of other artists.  One of the artists is Vicky Shaffer White.  Vicky presented a slue of nice flower pieces from the past few years; however, I preferred her calm, elegant, clothed figures that she had placed outside her studio.

Mark Pack is one of the artists in residence this year at the Stutz.  I have seen his work before and due to my love of the natural world, am fascinated by the intricate designs in his carved acrylic paintings.

Three diverse artists share studio B240.  Kate Oberreich had a series of small paintings entitled “A Happy Home”.  I met Kate last summer when she was a part of Elegant Funk.  Her work is a collage of words and images that provoke thought.  She uses realistic images in an abstract manner.  Ginny Taylor Rosner photographs empty interiors giving insight into what contemporary man abandons and leaves behind.  Carol L. Myers is a print maker who is newly exploring watercolor as a way to express her visual ideas.  Themes of snail shells and trees run through her present work.

It was a great night at the Stutz and that is just a taste of what I saw.