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Amy Kollar Anderson

New Website Providing FREE E-Commerce Storefronts to Local Artists

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Times of crisis can act as a stimulus for the creative spirit. COVID-19 is no exception.

Art by Amy Kollar Anderson

Spending more time in his home office, Mile Two VP of Engineering and Code for Dayton co-Captain Dave Best really began to notice his bare walls. Our #DaytonStrong resilience has been demonstrated by our giving to the COVID-19 fund at The Dayton Foundation to our support for our essential workers, from healthcare to those working in grocery and drug stores to those delivering our mail and packages. Many Daytonians have made an extra effort to support our local restaurants by ordering carry-out or delivery, or purchasing growlers of locally-brewed craft beer. Musicians, on their own or through venues like The Old Yellow Cab, have set up virtual concerts where the audience can donate online.


TwinEbonyUrns by Katie Clark Gabbard



After staring at the walls, the obvious question was “What about our visual artists”? Aren’t they essential to helping bring beauty and meaning to our lives? How can the community help support them at a time when the studios, galleries, coffee shops and restaurants where they typically show their work are closed?

Drying by Eva Lewis

I have known Dave 5+ years. He reached out to me last Friday because on my connections in the art community and because The Collaboratory’s reputation for incubating projects from ideas to action. He  wanted to know if I thought it was feasible. I said hell yes and jumped right in. 

The idea behind Essential Artists Dayton is to offer a FREE (at least through May 30) platform for Dayton visual artists to set up an online storefront. And by FREE, we mean 100% of sales, less any processing charges, goes to the artists. In addition to putting this out to my artists friends and the major artist organization, I specifically reached out to artist Megan Fiely. We met when she came back to town, but really connect when she started raising Tornado Relief funds from the local community of artists. She have been helpful in the co-creation process, beta testing the storefront set-up and getting the word out.

Dayton Arcade by Matt Blair



All art purchased through Essential Artists Dayton will be available for pick-up at The Collaboratory, Monday – Friday from 10 AM to 4 PM or by appointment. The exchange will be made while practicing appropriate social distancing. The Collaboratory is located at 114 West First Street, Suite B, in Talbott Tower.

 
Currently eight storefronts are live and 10 sales have already been completed.
This guest post contributed by Peter Benkendorf, Founder & Catalyst of The Collaboratory

Vote for Best Hair & Makeup From The CLASH Fashion Show

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On Saturday, April 27th, from 6-9p, Masque hosted  the 8th Annual Spring/Summer Clash Fashion Show. This unique event pairs local clothing designers with models, hair and makeup stylists to create a magical evening for the fashionista in all of us! In addition to local designers, Oregon District shops, Clash and Feathers, showcased garments from their vintage selections to span the decades.  The show is produced each year by Mary Kathryn Burnside, owner of Clash Dayton (pictured below with her daughter Freya Moon).

Now it’s up to the public (that’s you) to  determine the best overall hair and makeup team by voting in our online poll. The winning team will win a cash prize supplied by Clash.  Please vote below (you can only vote once/day) and voting will end Sunday, May 5th at midnight. Be sure and share this with your friends as well, so they can see some of the talented and creative folks we have here in the Miami Valley!

Amy Kollar Anderson – Amy Kollar Anderson creates surreal narrative paintings inspired by natural forms, the decorative arts and her love of animals. She takes these paintings and transforms them into fabric designs which she sews into fanciful, wearable artworks.

Hair and Makeup Team: Alessandra Hamilton, Erin Livingston, Ashley Gregory, Lee VanArtsdalen

Andrea Benson of Ravenbombshell – Andrea Benson is a retro inspired clothing designer who makes custom and limited quantity designs. She has mastered the styles reminiscent to 1940s and 1950s fashions with modern twists. 

Hair and Makeup Team: Moxie Studio

Jacobee Rose Buchanan of Rose and Thorn – Jacobee Rose Buchanan is a former dancer, choreographer and costumer, who loves the theater and always brings a touch of drama to her work. Her designs are meant to tell a story, and blur the lines between costume and everyday wear. Each piece combines dark romance and delicate details with sharp edges, which is why she designs under the label “The Rose and Thorn.”

Hair and makeup team: Kami Raenelle Ross, Jayme, Audra Hayden, Jessica Gilbert

Grace Combs – Grace Combs is a CCAD student whose main focus is fashion design. This young designer romances the audience with a custom line for the Clash fashion show that emphasizes soft lines, feminine forms and flirty reveals.

Hair and Makeup Team: Drea Naschke, Joshua Vanity Lucas, Dallas Strong

[showcontestants id=15862 showform=0 view=grid]

Pecha Kucha Returns May 9th

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From handwriting to co-housing, the 35th volume of Pecha Kucha will be held on Wednesday, May 9th a the Dayton Metro Library  at 7:30pm.  Doors open for seating at 7pm.

This PK will be hosted by the library’s own Megan Cooper, who will introduce eight speakers who will bring stories, expertise, and personal history to life in PK style, which means 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each.

Between sets of speakers, enjoy a PK networking break with beer, wine and other refreshments. As always, PK is free to attend and donations are welcome.  Street parking surrounding the library will be free. The library’s underground parking garage will be closed.

From handwriting to co-housing you’ll learn and experience something new from each speaker:

Judd Plattenberg – Time Capsule in Lonaconing MD

Tim Kambitsch – Reimagining Works 
Ann Bain – The Vital Importance of Handwriting

Mike Huff – AIA Student Design Competition

Ann Kim – Tran-Siberian Railroad Journey

Amy Kollar Anderson and Kate Huser Santucci – The Art of Collaboration (or How to Not Freak Out When You Change Another Artist’s Work)

D Ralph Young – World War II in the Pacific

Chip Williamson – Archi-sociology: Co-housing

 

Poster art by Amy Kollar Anderson and Kate Huser Santucci. 

Stratum: New Work by Amy Kollar Anderson & Kate Huser Santucci

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The Dayton Visual Arts Center (DVAC) presents Stratum, an exhibition featuring new, collaborative works by Dayton artists Amy Kollar Anderson and Kate Huser Santucci. This show opens February 22nd, and runs through March 24th. An Opening Reception will be held on February 22nd from 6 to 8pm.
A Gallery Talk is scheduled for March 2nd from 6 to 8pm. All events are free and open to the public.

Stratum is a project about collaboration and communication. Anderson and Stantucci each began with 20 birch wood panels that they traded back and forth, layering materials and documenting the progress. Santucci worked with oil-based mediums, focusing on encaustic, pigment and bone to create lush, natural-toned imagery. Anderson used acrylic-based materials such as pouring medium, mica and glitter resulting in slick and other-worldly surfaces. During sessions, panels would be worked until the artists felt resolved.The artists will be installing the final panels, along with their corresponding materials “log”, throughout the entire gallery in a free-form map reminiscent of the cryptographic mathematical formula-covered chalkboards by Nobel Laureate in Economics, John Nash, as depicted in the 2001 American biographical drama film A Beautiful Mind.

“Part of this process involved letting go of ego, and becoming comfortable with altering, covering, or sometimes even removing the others’ work,” stated Anderson and Santucci in a joint artists statement. “It built deep connections between us as artists. As the artworks evolved and moved towards completion, we became more comfortable with the process, allowing ourselves to become immersed in the visual dialogue that was taking place.

“A new, original collaboration, Stratum is at once a stunning deconstruction of the detritus of the layers of our natural world and, as each panel is displayed with a record of its process, is a seldom seen peek into the creative process,” stated Eva Buttacavoli, DVAC Executive Director.

 

ABOUT AMY KOLLER ANDERSON
Amy Kollar Anderson creates surreal narrative paintings inspired by natural forms and decorative arts. Her work has been exhibited throughout the region and internationally and she recently was awarded three commissions for the Dayton Public Library. Amy received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and went on to receive a Master of Humanities, with a focus in Fine Arts, at Wright State University. She lives with her husband in Dayton and until recently, was the Gallery Coordinator for Rosewood Gallery, Kettering before she left that position to pursue her art career full-time. She refers to her painting style as “Nouveaudelia,” incorporating Psychedelic Art and Art Nouveau aesthetics.

ABOUT KATE HUSER SANTUCCI
Kate Huser Santucci was born in 1971, and lives and works in Dayton, Ohio. She graduated from Wright State University in 1994 with a BFA in visual art with a concentration in sculpture and participated in an encaustic painting workshop with Susan Mulder at the Krasl Art Center in Michigan.  She has taught classes at the Dayton Art Institute and Rosewood Arts Centre, as well as private lessons for children. Her work has most recently been shown at the Rosewood Arts Centre in Kettering and Lily’s Bistro in Dayton. Public work includes a mural in downtown Dayton on E. 3rd St., and a series of three pieces for the new Southeast Branch of the Dayton Metro Library, opening in September 2018.  Her works are part of private collections in Dayton, Cincinnati, and St. Joseph, Michigan. Kate started her career as a sculptor and is now working in encaustic and mixed media.  The work combines wax painting with three dimensional techniques, found objects, and drawings. They focus on our place in nature, and our interconnectedness to the world outside and within our physical selves.

ABOUT DVAC
The Dayton Visual Arts Center (DVAC) helps sustain the arts community by providing a place to show, market, and sell work and helps satisfy the needs and wants of art-lovers who have a place to see artists’ work and, often, meet the artists. At its core, DVAC advances art for the community and a community for artists.