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Visual Arts

Samurai, Ghosts and Lovers On Display at DAI

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The Dayton Art Institute (DAI) begins its 2020 Special Exhibition season with tales of heroism and humor, love and loss, and mystery and magic from 19th century Japan–Samurai, Ghosts and Lovers: Yoshitoshi’s Complete 100 Aspects of the Moon, opened this weekend  and is on view at the DAI through May 3.

This special exhibition, organized by the DAI, provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see all 100 works in Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’sepic series 100 Aspects of the Moon. One of the outstanding series in the history of Japanese woodblock prints, it represents the culmination of the artist’s career.

This series is a tour-de-force, combining diverse, striking designs with dramatic, historical and mythical stories from Japan’s past, including samurai warriors and court ladies. The prints depict Shakespearean emotion–valor and wit, stories of the heart, drama and enchantment–and they are all linked by the presence of the moon. Together they form a concentrated introduction to Japanese culture, including its history, aesthetics, music, literature, performing arts, religions, and festivals.

 

“There is something for everyone to love with this exhibition,” said Dr. Peter L. Doebler, the DAI’s Kettering Curator of Asian Art and curator for this exhibition. “Yoshitoshi’s 100 Aspects of the Moon shows the full range of the artist’s imagination—from scenes of military prowess and playful animals to quiet contemplation and natural beauty—along with the exquisite work of the engravers and printers he collaborated with. Each artwork has its own fascinating story, so repeat visits to absorb the entire scope of Yoshitoshi’s masterpiece are encouraged!”

 

“Samurai, Ghosts and Lovers is an exceptional opportunity provided by the DAI’s recent acquisition of a rare, complete album set of100 Aspects of the Moon,” said DAI Director & CEO Michael R. Roediger. “The DAI will be the only venue for this exhibition, so don’t miss the chance to see this entire series displayed together. It is a fitting way to wrap up the museum’s centennial celebrations and begin our next century!”

 

A selection of works from the DAI’s extensive Japanese collection, as well as loans of swords, helmets and rare Samurai suits, will further enhance the experience of these endlessly fascinating masterpieces of Japanese art.

 

A suite of related programs will encourage visitors to further connect with the artworks in meaningful ways, including screenings of classic Japanese films, a Japanese print demonstration, a talk about the strange and supernatural in Japanese literature, and a performance of traditional Japanese instruments. Scheduled programs include:

 

  • ARTventures: “Out of this World” Printmaking, February 22, 1–3 pm
  • Trivia Night, March 13, 5:30–8 pm
  • Film Series: The Ballad of Narayama (Kinoshita, 1958), March 14, 1 pm
  • Film Series: Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953), April 18, 1 pm
  • Demonstration: Traditional Japanese Woodblock Printmaking w/ Andrea Benedict-Starkey, March 22, 12:30–2:30 pm
  • Performance: Traditional Japanese Instruments, April 2, 6 pm
  • ARTventures: Japanese Ink Painting and Cherry Blossom Trees, April 11, 1–3 pm
  • Language of Art: One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Treasury of Classical Japanese Verse, April 25, Noon–1 pm
  • Talk: “The Supernatural in Japanese Literature and Kaidan, Tales of the Strange,” by Dr. Noriko Tsunoda Reider, Professor of Japanese, Miami University, April 30, 6 pm

 

Admission to Samurai, Ghosts and Lovers is included in the museum’s general admission: $15 adults; $10 seniors (60+), active military and groups (10 or more); $5 students (18+ w/ID) and youth (ages 7–17); free for children (ages 6 & younger). Admission is also free for museum members. Prices include admission to the Special Exhibition, all Focus Exhibitions and the museum’s collection galleries.

 

Guided tours of the special exhibition are available. For more information or to schedule a tour, contact Rique Hagen, at 937-223-4278, ext. 332 or schooltours@daytonart.org.

 

Artist’s Reception | Amy Kollar Anderson

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Join us for the gallery opening for local artist Amy Kollar Anderson!

The reception is free to attend and open to the public, hosted in the upstairs gallery, where Amy will be on site to discuss her work! Light hors d’oeuvres will be served; wine and cocktails will be 20% off for this event!

Amy Kollar Anderson creates surreal narrative paintings inspired by natural forms, decorative arts and her love of animals. Her work has been shown internationally and featured in the publication, Imagine the Imagination: New Visions of Surrealism. Anderson was awarded three of the ReImagining Works commissions for the Dayton Metro Library in 2014-17 and the Montgomery County Artist Fellowship Grant in 2007.

She received her B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Master of Humanities, with a focus in Fine Arts, from Wright State University.

Amy Kollar Anderson lives with her husband and their three cats in the birthplace of aviation, Dayton, Ohio. Until recently, she was the Gallery Coordinator for the Rosewood Gallery, but left that position to pursue her art career full-time.

Read more about Amy and her work here: http://www.kollaranderson.com/

Dayton Artists United: William Cunningham

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Photo by Alex Kamanandi

Artist United interview with William Cunningham, artist and curator of The Orphanage Gallery, 73 N. Dutoit St., Dayton Ohio 45402

DAU—So, Bill, are you from Dayton?

WC—I am. I lived other places, like Atlanta back in the early 90s and I travel a lot, so I get to see many different things.

DAU—What do you like about Dayton?

WC—I’m kind of funny about Dayton. I know a lot about Dayton and its history. I used to run Gallery 257 back in the late 80s, it was located where Press Coffeehouse is now.

But Dayton frustrates me. The Dayton art community frustrates me. There is so much potential there and it languishes as it has no supporting infrastructure for artist cultural production.

DAU—Talk to me about that. What do you mean by infrastructure?

WC—Mostly, I mean exhibition space. There is not enough open exhibition space for the artists we have, and we have a tremendous number of artists here in Dayton. As artists, we need places to see lots of various styles of art. We don’t get to go see each other’s work as it evolves over time,  unless you drop by another artist’s studio, which are usually not open. Most artists have to get a show for their work to be seen. It’s hard here to get shows.

There are few galleries that will show newer artist work or even established artist work for that matter. Let’s say an artist creates say 30-40 works, maybe 5 of those are actually show-able.  Art is a process, and not everything you turn out is your best work, work that as an artist you would be willing to show. Sometimes you have something to say and it doesn’t come across in the first 20 attempts. Or in 20 works the language for the work is not developed enough to be understandable for the viewer. But if you could get those five-good works into a group show for example, you could start to build up to something in the form of a conversation based on the viewer feedback of the work.

DAU—So, if someone came to you and said “Bill, we want to foster the arts in Dayton, and we need some guidance.”

WC—I’d tell them  1) Set up an exhibition space that is open for emerging artists. A pop-up sort of thing. Something that turns over rapidly, once a week or once every two weeks. Just a wall with two works on it would work to increase visibility of an artist work. By alternating the space so there is something new every week, say 50 weeks a year this way there is always new energy in the art space. 2)  Have a looser curatorial process, don’t try to control what hangs to much let other people sign-up to curate shows of other artist work. This really helps as one person should not be allowed dictate what is good or bad. 3)  Don’t control the artists. Don’t put your finger on them and tell them what kind of art they have to show. But do guide them in matters like pricing. Every gallery is different every art space is also different over time pricing patterns will develop which provides a range which art sells well at that venue.

DAU—I’m hearing that you don’t like to be told what to do.

WC—Hell No! Anybody will tell you that. I’ve been called a renegade. I’ve been called worse than that. I speak my mind. I’m not going to say I like something if I don’t and there are a lot of things I don’t like. Some of the things I don’t like are based on my experience. Like, I’ve got a bias against juried art shows. I hate all juried shows.

DAU—Why is that?

WC—Most of the juried shows collect submission fees and then they give out a prize that’s worth a fraction of the money they collect. The rest goes to paying for the show usually in a space that is already paid for. It’s a cash machine that exploits the artists. It’s really nothing more than a cash grab scam that preys on artist. And the jurors are laughable in most cases. They get someone that’s high profile, not high profile in the art world, but someone that people recognize, or a person in the government to walk around and give out a prize to the winner based on what? And then the emerging artists have to explain to that person about the value of their art and what it’s about. Then the show just becomes a personality contest.

Some time ago, I had a work in an abstract show. The juror comes in, he’s all pompous and talking about “post-modern abstraction’ in this way that showed he has no idea what he was talking about. He walked around and talked down to all the artists. Then, he awarded the prize to landscape painting. A landscape, a plen air landscape at that,  with a duck at a pond.  A landscape painting won in an abstract show! Turned out the person who won was related to the juror,  go figure.

Most jurors are friends of the curator—it’s a scam to make money as they oftentimes get paid as well. How does a young artist know which juried show is legit? At the galleries I run we will never do a  juried show.

DAU—No juried shows ever?

WC—Well, there is an exception. We were in ArtFest in Beavercreek last year. That was a juried show done right. The judges were people who knew what they were about. Michael Roediger; Director and CEO of Dayton Art Institute,  (3rd year as a judge), Lisa Seibert; with Dayton Local (4th year as a judge), and Amy Kollar Anderson; Internationally recognized artist, MCACD 2018 grant recipient. Samantha was one of the staff members for ArtFest. And, in my opinion,  this show was fair in its judging.

The booth I worked with won Best Interactive. We showed Front Street artists and had a second half that gave away spun art t-shirts. I ran the gallery side, which also had a little gallery that was interactive. All the works inside were free, provided by artists in the area. It was a good event.    

DAU—Samantha? You mean Samantha Mang?

WC—She’s part of ArtFest. She’s good people.

DAU—She’s co-curating the Artists United group show with you.  Thank you for that. I really liked what happened at the Artists United gathering where you offered The Orphanage for a group show.

WC— You wanted a show. I have an art space. I like what Artists United is doing. It’s like what The Orphanage does in some ways.  Artists United doesn’t charge a fee to be a member, right? The Orphanage has a zero-profit gallery model: $0 submission fees and $0 commission fees. Our mission is to provide a place for artist to show and sell work. Sales of  any work from an artist help support the artist. Our rules are simple: the artist must be present at the show’s opening. The artist, especially emerging artists, needs to mingle with other artists and art patrons. See there’s the network thing we have in common. Artists need to meet people in the public places away from the art studio. How else are they going to sell art? The gallery is supported by the art community attending the shows. We don’t handle any sales of artists’ work: the artists sell their work. But last year, at the galleries, artists sold over 600 works. We don’t take a cut all of that money, it all went into the pockets of the artists.

Let’s say you’re an artist, and you have your work in a group show, like the Artist United show that is coming up. You meet people, maybe you sell some art. If people like your work, they’ll  come to your studio. When you’ve built an audience, you can host an open studio event. People buy more art at events.  Group shows at The Orphanage broaden the exposure for everybody involved. This Artist United show already has 45 artist signed on and I expect a few more before it opens.

One of pieces from Pseudo Bibliography of Imaginary Friends a series of work from a couple of years ago where Bill Cunningham mixed two forms of bad art vintage snapshots and public domain clipart to create a new work.

Also, when you have your work in a group show, like the upcoming Artists United show on March 6, you see the work of other artists. You get to talk to each other about art. I love to talk to other artists about art. When artists talk about art, they don’t put a value on it, like “Hey, that could win a prize at a juried show with that work.” No, they talk about the work. The process. What brush did you use to get that effect? What inspired this thing? These sorts of things. Which helps artists expand what they are already doing. As they gain new information, their work becomes better, even if they do not use the ideas they learned about. The conversations, the exposure to other artists still had an influence on them. 

When artists participate in a group show they learn how a gallery operates. How to interact with the public. How to price their work. They watch what sells and what doesn’t. They look at how the show is put together—why did some works hang together? There are a lot of things that aren’t being taught. We have great art programs here. Sinclair has a strong art department, so does Wright State, so does the University of Dayton. The University of Dayton is the only one that teaches the business in some of its art classes.

The starving artist concept is a myth and based in propaganda. We need to stop selling it. Let’s stop charging $80,000 per year to teach kids how to copy some dead artists. We don’t need more academic art that says nothing. I want to look at art that says something. Art that says something I have never thought about before. Even if the work is reductive,  I am looking at art. Folk art, unschooled art, raw talent with things to say. These are the works that end up in museums. Original thoughts. Fun art. Art should be fun. It should be interesting. It should have something to say.

Art schools should teach how to mount a show, how to preserve work, how to pack and ship something like a painting. How to pay the bills as an artist. Every artist has a market. How do you find yours? This is what The Orphanage is exploring. It’s an entirely new gallery model.

DAU—How did you come to start The Orphanage?

WC–We had the space, in between the studios the hallway was just wasted space. We decided to treat those walls as pop-up art space in the beginning. The early shows at The Orphanage were all new local painters who had never shown work before. Those early group shows let more artists gain the art showing skills and gallery skills I mentioned earlier. These shows let them meet each other and broaden their networks. People coming to the gallery got to see some stuff they’d never seen before. We showed some of the Front St artists who hadn’t shown before. We introduced them to each other and the public. Since opening Front St. has energy. People are coming to see what’s new each month. There was a time when first Friday had only 20 people walking around now some of the shows have almost 1000 people. It’s growing all the time.   

Front St. used to be a factory, the space where The Orphanage is was the daycare center, so it seemed right, you know, to start showing new artists here. We do 12 shows a year, one a month. We’re open, technically open, not just unlocked, three days a month: First Friday, Saturday After First Friday  and Third Sunday. Last year we sold 600 works, and that doesn’t include the Christmas gift show.  Most of those 600 works sold during First Friday,  and the rest for the most  were Third Sunday. This year we have some big Saturday events in the works. I expect that day will pick up as well.

All in all,  I would say around 450 plus works sold during those 11 First Fridays last year. This year, since January and February are slower, I can say the number of works sold has doubled from last year. The Gallery is actually two galleries The Orphanage and Us and Them. Us and Them also contributed to those numbers and sold about 150 works last year. Us and Them only shows new artist work. But look at those numbers and tell me people are not buying art in Dayton. 

Photo by Alex Kamanandi

DAU—Those are impressive numbers. You’ve talked about The Orphanage, let’s talk about you for a bit. Tell me about your work.

WC–  Me? I do a little of everything. I’ve done sculpture, painting, writing. I’m well known in stage magic and mentalism. I’ve been an artist all my life, I have been doing art all my life. I didn’t study art in school. I studied history, philosophy, psychology, anthropology and archeology, but I couldn’t walk away from art.  I started buying and collecting art before I was 18. Art has always been there, in my life. Art makes me ask the question – why? Why spend your life thinking about whether you should do something or not? Art says, “why not?” So, do it.  Art is all about doing stuff, as an artist. Doing, not talking about it. 

DAU—Tell me some of your favorite artists.

WC–Peter Gallo, Mike Cockrill, Chris Martin, Thomas Nozkowski, Stanley Whitney. These are NY painters for the most part. I also like the work Sharon Butler, she writes a great blog called “Two Coats of Paint,” you should read that.

I like NY for art. The cost of living there is astronomical. That’s one thing about Dayton, you can live here. Of course, it effects your thinking. If your living in NY and  have to make 8-12 grand a month to pay for your studio and living expenses, you don’t mess around. You work in your studio; you network and talk to people in the industry. Art is a business, there’s no way to take the money out of it and still eat.

But art is more than a way to make money: it’s a cultural commentary, its documentation, its ideas in action. That’s why I love The Little Gallery, which is a micro gallery movement that is free to use by anyone who likes art.  The Little Gallery motto is make art, take art, leave art.  I built these galleries with two other artisans,  Greg Seitz and Cayman K. We’ve placed eight in the surrounding communities. These galleries are helping people by giving them an outlet for small works and getting people to collect art. All of the works at The Little Gallery are provided by artists for free.

DAU—Greg and Cayman K are artists here?

WC—Yeah, Greg Seitz is here in The Orphanage, Cayman K is across the way in The Front St complex. Anyway, the first Little Gallery is hanging outside The Orphanage on the building.

If you want art, it’s around and some of it can be found for free. A small work by a local artist you picked up at a Little Gallery is way better than going out and buying some formulaic painting that looks like something Picasso did, something that has been copied for 90 years. The work does not always need to be big to have importance and wall power. Some of the works I have seen in The Little Gallery have these traits.

DAU—But, just a bit of argument here. Sometimes people want something that is just pretty, and maybe matches their couch.

WC—No! If you start down that road, you’re done, and it will cost you more in the long run. Let’s say,  you have a gorgeous oriental rug, you don’t put a crap coffee table on it. You get a better table. Don’t just put something pretty on your wall to fill a space. Put Art on your wall.  Look at art, not pretty pictures. I am not saying art can’t be pretty. It can be pretty, but it shouldn’t be a pond and a duck pretty. It has to be authentic. It elevates you, having art around you makes you better, more thoughtful, more a part of the world. If you surround yourself with crap, all you’ll be able to see is crap. You won’t be able to see the difference. Treat yourself as something valuable, surround yourself with art.

85% of people think art is expensive. This way of thinking needs to be changed.  There is work you can buy, here at The Orphanage gallery, at every show, that is not expensive.  The sale of those works helps local, emerging artists. There is work you can take from The Little Gallery that is free and you’re welcome to take it just because you like it. People can have real art in their life. Speaking of which, Samantha Mang, who we spoke about earlier, just added a dozen of small salt paintings to the Little Gallery.  Those are available right now, for you to just take if you like them.

DAU—Bill, how can people find you?

WC—I’m on Facebook Bill Montana Artist and the William Cunningham Page and Instagram @bllmontana

DAU–William Cunningham, Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.  Thanks for the work you do for emerging artists and for hosting The Artists United group show, March 6 at The Orphanage. 

Visual Voices 2020 Dayton Skyscrapers

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Each year, Victoria Theatre Association partners with Shango: Center for the Study of African American Art and Culture, and Willis “Bing” Davis, exhibit curator and director of EbonNia Gallery, to display an exhibit of art by local African-American artists inside the Schuster Center.

This year’s exhibit, at the Schuster Center February 8-April 5, titled 2020 Dayton Skyscrapers features the work of African-American visual artists from the Miami Valley. These artists have researched prominent African-American’s (living or deceased) who have made a mark in their field and are role models for the community. This year’s exhibiting artists are: ABNER COPE, SHON CURTIS, DWAYNE DANIEL, CLIFFORD DARRETT, GREGG DEGROAT, HORACE DOZIER, LOIS FORTSON KIRK, AL HARDEN, MORRIS HOWARD, JAMES PATE, FRANCES TURNER, ANDREA WALKER-CUMMINGS, and YVETTE WALKER DALTON.

The 2020 exhibit reflects the broad and diverse career fields of African-Americans in the Dayton and Miami Valley region. They are: DAVE CHAPPELLE, NORRIS COLE, MATILDA DUNBAR, NOZIPO GLENN, JULIA B. RAGLAND GREEN, DORIAN HAREWOOD, JOHN LEGEND, EDYTHE LEWIS, JOHNNY DILLARD LYTLE, JEFFREY MIMS, SYLVIA JEANNE PATE, TY A. STONE, MARY LOU TUCKER, DR. JOHN THOMAS WEBB, and MICHAEL L. WRIGHT.

The exhibit will be at the Schuster Center until April 5, 2020; at DP&L Headquarters April 6-May 4, 2020; and at EbonNia Gallery May 5-June 26, 2020.

At the Schuster Center February 8-April 5, 2020
MONDAY-FRIDAY 9 am-6 pm
SATURDAY 12 pm-4 pm

The VISUAL VOICES exhibit is closed during private events. Please call 937-228-7591 to confirm hours.

If your group would like a tour of the exhibit while it’s at the Schuster Center, please email visualvoices@victoriatheatre.com or call 937-228-7591, ext. 3034.

Dayton Artists United: Ben Baugham

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Dayton Artists United Interviewed Artist Ben Baugham at Ghostlight Coffeehouse, where he currently has work on display.

DAU—I haven’t seen you since the Artist United event last July, catch me up. What have you been doing?

BB—A little of everything, drawing, teaching.

DAU—Where are you teaching?

BB—I’m teaching at Clark State University, a class that combines learning to draw with art history. We immerse ourselves in the work of an artist, like Michelangelo, for example. We look at his work, we read his journals about his work, and we work like that. It’s a very renaissance way of learning.

We also talk about art as a vehicle for communication, where there is a sender and a receiver. The artist is an active part of the communication, even when he is not present with the work. We talk about the communication in Michelangelo’s work. How he painted on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel while there were services being conducted in Latin below him. The people in the church may not have understood the service, but they looked up and saw Michelangelo’s work, it communicated with them as an interpretation of the service.

DAU—I want to take that class. That is a unique way of teaching drawing.

BB—I have strong opinions about art and art making in the workplace. About art in general. I think there are two kinds of art. Service art and product art. I think most artists make both, do both at different times in their careers. Service art is focused on the viewer. How does the viewer respond to the work? It ties the artists to the viewers response in a personal way. The artist finds identity in the response of the viewer. That can be a very dangerous thing, it causes us, artists, to take critiques of our art as a personal critique. I tell my students all the time, “You are so much more valuable than what you create.” There is a romantic idea that an artist is fed by a viewer’s response—if the viewer likes it, the artist is in some way validated. No, an artist is fed when a work sells. Which brings me to product art. Product art is the art which exists without the artist—the product speaks for itself. There is an old-fashioned phrase people use, they say, “The piece spoke to me.” The distinction between the voice of the artist and the voice of the product is useful to me. It allows me to get better. It’s a catalyst that forces me to improve and takes me out of the equation at the same time. I think of Michelangelo, on his back, painting for something greater than himself.

DAU—You have been interviewed before. In 2017 you were interviewed for your chalk drawings in the Oregon District. In those days you were an ink and chalk  artists.

BB—Still am. It’s a great medium, both immediate and ephemeral. You chalk something, you create something,  and it is beautiful, or expressive, and then it rains. It’s a good metaphor for art, for life. I chalked all over the Oregon District after the shootings last summer. I handed out chalk to everyone I met, and we all drew. It was very healing, to be together, just creating. Chalk is underappreciated.

 

DAU—You are doing your bit for chalk. I know you competed at the Yale Chalk Festival.

BB—Yeah, that was fun. I won first place in people’s choice and in general in 2019.

DAU—Congratulations! An award-winning artist! And you’re a musician too, from a family of musicians.

BB—I am from a family of musicians. I can make music, but in a low-key way. When you’re surrounded by music, by instruments, you just kind of do it. My family is very innovative, very good at making what we need. I think growing up in a family that improvises and creates is a very practical art education. You make what you need, and the making of it gives you joy. Soon the question becomes not “how do I get what I need?”  but “how do I find joy?”

DAU—And do you find joy in your work?

BB—In the creation of it. The showing of it can be a different thing. When you put your work up and people criticize it, and they critique it on all kinds of grounds. Sometimes, when people are looking at my work they will say “where did you study art.” That is not a response to the art, it’s a response to the artist. But the art should speak for itself. I tell my students all the time, “The art is not you.”

Artists create art for themselves, for all kinds of reasons.  After the shootings, I came straight to the Oregon District to create. Something bad happened. But people came, then more people came. They were overcoming their fear, they were making art everywhere. There was a near spiritual aspect to the creation, like a church service. We were determined to reclaim our space, to protect those businesses and lift up the fallen. You could feel the determination in the quiet industry of the artists.

DAU—That event has inspired a lot of artists responses. Some people have said they would rather not see art created from such an event—they want to move on and have no reminders.

BB—But that is an artist’s job. Our basic function is to realign society. We talk about work having impact. What is “impact?” It’s a collision, a disruption—its something that hits you hard. Strong artists want to hit hard enough to change the direction. Artists create art for themselves because it gives them joy, but that act of creation can show the world as it could be, as it should be, and that is how artists create for the world. The two are not mutually exclusive. Art changes the world.

DAU—I want to back up and touch on something you said before. You said people ask where you’ve gone to school. I think that is because you are young and seem so knowledgeable.

BB—Thank for that. I went to a small private school. A very intensive education. I have taken classes at Sinclair. They have a great design program there. I want to give a shout out to Professor Jeanine Kincheloe, who teaches design drawing, she’s amazing. And I am taking some business classes there. I want to design art seminars with other artists. I am working on a business plan and building a portfolio of artists that want to participate. We’ll build a stable of artists who can teach or do certain kinds of work and match them with clients, sort of a matchmaker service. And I want to engage more verbally in the art world. I want to give talks and engage more in the philosophy of art.

DAU—If your talks are based on the History of Art curriculum, I’ll sign up. 

BB—I look forward to it.

 

For more info on Ben Baugham/Boy Blue:

Instagram: boy_blue

Facebook:  Boy Blue

 

Dayton Artists United: Cydnie Deed-King

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Cydnie Deed-King is a visual artist, mother, teacher and gallery curator. She grabbed a coffee with Dayton Artists United to talk about art and being an artist.

 

DAU—How long have you been an artist?

 

CDK—My whole life. My entire family are artists. Both my parents and my sister Taylor are artists.

 

DAU: How is that? I mean, artists work to express an individual point of view. That seems like it would be harder in a family of artists.

 

CDK—I don’t know, it hasn’t seemed harder. In some ways its easier. We had an exhibition recently,  at Tend and Flourish, all of us together. That was really empowering, watching people react, placing our works together. They are really quite different. My sister does portraits. I do nature inspired scenes. Our works are unique but placed together they showed our bond.

 

DAU—In other artist interviews, the artists have expressed the difficulty in claiming the title artist, some say they feel like an imposter. Did growing up in a family artists make it easier to claim the title artist?

 

CDK—I have always felt like an artist, but I struggle with the business of art. I have sold work. That’s hard, it’s like giving away a baby, and I know what I am talking about, now that I am a mother. Each work is unique, an original. I won’t have that experience again, even if I paint the same subject. So, it’s hard to let them go, but I hug and kiss them goodbye and put on a happy face. They are going to a good home. Sometimes, people send me a picture of where they have put the work. I can see where it lives. Sometimes they write and tell me how much they love it, how people always admire it. That is nice. My work in someone’s house.

 

DAU—Have you sold a lot of work?

 

CDK—I have let go about 100 pieces. My husband reminds me that there are very famous, revered artists that never sold a work, or only one work in their lifetime. Being an artist has all these things attached to it. When you tell people, you are an artist you can see them thinking “You won’t be famous until you die.”

 

DAU That’s a scary thought.

 

CDK—For me its not about being famous. Its about living in art, about being inspired.

 

DAU—What inspires you?

 

CDK—Nature. Human connections to nature. No matter how much we try to separate ourselves from it, we’re connected. We’re meant to be one. In my imagination people are botanicals, and I show that in my work. Although, just lately I have been working more with digital images, blending nature and technology.

 

DAU—What artists do you admire?

 

CDK—Living artists? Local Artists?

 

DAU—Any—who do you admire and why?

 

CDK—I really admire Jes McMillan, the mosaic artist. She has helped me so much. She’s mentored me on how to put a show together. She’s given me opportunities and continues to invite me to participate. On January 11, the exhibition Women Strong Soul Session opens at Tend and Flourish., I have a work in that show.

 

DAU—This article doesn’t go online until after Jan 11th—how long will the works be on view?

 

CDK—Until the end of February. It’s a great exhibition. There are talented women in Dayton.

 

DAU—Other artists you admire?

 

CDK—Julie Mehretu. She’s a New York artist that does these larger than life drawings. She shares her process in the work, it’s amazing. And my sister, Taylor Deed. Her work is so bold. She uses herself as a model, her face appears in the works. I admire her versatility, the emotion she portrays on the faces. She’s powerful.

When it comes to dead artists, Leonardo DaVinci. He never stopped. He didn’t limit himself to one thing but followed his curiosity. I find him so interesting. He was a vegetarian, and ambidextrous. Someone recently interpreted his notebooks, they copied and flipped them—because he wrote backwards—and I love reading them they are so detailed and so random. On one page he wrote “learn to draw the muscles of the shoulder” and “make soup” right next to each other. He never stopped learning.

DAU—Let’s talk about Dayton.

 

CDK-I have only lived here about 5 years. I came from St. Louis. It’s interesting to move from a large city to a smaller one. Everything is so close. And I love the park system. The Metroparks are great. I haven’t visited them all, but I want to. Other things about Dayton….I love Young’s Dairy. And I love the art scene. There is a lot happening here.

 

DAU—Talk to me about the art scene.

 

CDK—The Contemporary showed me the art scene in Dayton. I started there as a volunteer, and now I am a curatorial assistant.

 

DAU—What does that involve?

 

CDK—A little bit of everything. I help marketing events, hanging works, I write up materials: I help everybody. I’ve learned so much working there. Eva has a great curatorial eye, so working with her I’ve learned how to look at art not just for its own sake, but also for how it fits a show idea or its marketability. There’s a lot to think about in that respect. If you want to sell your art, you have to have saleable art. How big is it? Huge works are hard to sell to an individual.

 

DAU—Let’s change direction a bit—if you could add anything to the Dayton art community—if price were no object—what would you add?

 

CDK—An amusement park for artists! A big workspace with all kinds of cool equipment. Something large. That would be fun!

 

What we need, though, really need is something to teach young artists about the business of art. There is more to being an artist than creating pictures. You have to be an entrepreneur. We need to be taught to mount our work. We need to learn how to respond to a call for artists—does my work fit the show?

 

The Contemporary did something like that—it was called the ArtSource Fellows program. It engaged about 25 artists in a business of art program. I enjoyed it and learned a ton. Eva talks about bringing it back, she wants to foster artists. Unlimited funds would help that!

And since we’re dreaming, we need a massive art store with good pricing. There is an art supplycoming, I read about it. Hue House. Its going to be near the Catfe. We need that.

 

DAU—What would you like people to know about art?

 

CDK—I live by this mantra: “Support living artists, the dead don’t need it.” We’re out here trying to make a living.

DAU—Time for another subject shift. If your life was made into a movie, who would you want to play you?

 

CDK—Lupita Nyong’o or Michonne from The Walking Dead, you know, Danai Gurira. Yeah, either one of those would be good.

 

DAU—Tell me one scene from your life that would have to be included in the movie.

 

CDK—Meeting my husband, Alex. We met on the 1st day of college at freshman move in. The RA made us play a getting-to-know-you game of musical roommates. He called out things like “back to back” or “head to head” and you had to stand with a different partner each time with those parts of you touching. Alex and I were paired for ‘head to butt.” We’ve been together for eleven years, married for five.

 

DAU—And what would our movie be called?

 

CDK—Oh, that’s hard. If my life were a movie, it’d be called “Art of Madness” because I feel that a lot of artists go crazy on some level, such as internalizing everything around them, questioning their abilities, their decision to become an artist—and some even go so far as to take their own lives unfortunately. However, even out of all that inner turmoil or “madness” if you will, something beautiful comes from it, and it’s something that will make someone else stop in their tracks to take a second look. All artists (the ones that I know anyway) have a method to their own kind of craziness and use it to fuel their art. I definitely went through several moments where I questioned everything about myself as artist and whether or not I did the right things at the right time. I felt like I was going crazy, but I worked through my mental roadblocks and created art that was better than ever!

 

DAU—I believe it. I’ve seen your work. Cydnie Deed-King, Thank you so much!

 

CDK—Thank you.

 

DAU-Cydnie Deed- King is showing at Tend and Flourish until the end of February and also atArt at the Trace https://www.centervilleohio.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/2304/

starting February 1.

She will be artists of the month for the City of Centerville in August.

Her website is www.artisticspyder.wix.com/cydnie-deed

Instagram: @cydnie_ld_king

Email artisticspyder@aol.com

 

To read about other Dayton United artists, click here.

DAI 2020 Special Exhibitions

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The Dayton Art Institue special exhibition season begins with Samurai, Ghosts and Lovers: Yoshitoshi’s Complete 100 Aspects of the Moon, on view February 22–May 3, 2020, and continues with New Beginnings: An American Story of Romantics and Modernists in the West, May 30–September 12, 2020 and Picasso to Hockney: Modern Art on Stage, October 17, 2020–January 17, 2021.

“We are excited with our lineup of exhibitions for the coming season,” states Dr. Jerry N. Smith, DAI Chief Curator. “We close our 2019-2020 Centennial celebration with the opening of an exhibition organized by the DAI around our recent acquisition of a rare, complete set of Yoshitoshi’s 100 Aspects of the Moon, one of the greatest achievements in Japanese woodblock printmaking. We follow this up with a look at the diverse and colorful art of the American Southwest, drawn from the Tia Collection, one of the most extensive private collections of art of the American West in the world. We close out the year with a look at what happened when major artists like Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, David Hockney and many others designed sets and costumes for the stage. In short, it will be a bold and colorful year of major, internationally recognized art offerings in 2020 at the DAI.” 

Samurai, Ghosts and Lovers: Yoshitoshi’s Complete 100 Aspects of the Moon

February 22–May 3

The Dayton Art Institute will be the exclusive venue for this exhibition, organized by the

DAI from a recent acquisition of a complete set of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s 100 Aspects of the Moon. The series is one of the outstanding achievements in the history of Japanese woodblock prints and is a tour-de-force, combining striking designs with dramatic stories from Japan’s past. The prints depict heroism and humor, love and loss, mystery and magic, with the linking motif of the presence of the moon. This exhibition will provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see all 100 prints on view together, and it is a fitting conclusion to the museum’s centennial celebrations.

New Beginnings: An American Story of Romantics and Modernists in the West

May 30–September 13

This major traveling exhibition is drawn from the internationally admired Tia Collection. New Beginnings: An American Story of Romantics and Modernists in the West offers the dynamic story of art of New Mexico in the early 20th century through bold colors and dramatic compositions. This exhibition features more than 110 works by 72 artists, including painting, sculptures, photographs and prints. It highlights the evolution of art in the Southwest, from the late Romantics and Classicists to the advent of early Modernism.

Picasso to Hockney: Modern Art on Stage

October 17, 2020–January 17, 2021

Picasso to Hockney: Modern Art on Stage is a traveling exhibition drawn from the McNay Art Museum’s renowned Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts. It features more than 120 objects of set and costume designs and offers fresh insights into artists and movements, from Cubism and Constructivism to Surrealism and Pop Art. This exhibition contains works by some of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Natalia Gontcharova, Joan Miró, Louise Nevelson, Robert Indiana, Jim Dine, David Hockney, and many others.

In addition to the slate of Special Exhibitions, the DAI will present a series of smaller Focus Exhibitions, highlighting a diverse range of art.

Focus Exhibitions planned for 2020 include The Roaring (and The Quiet) ‘20s, which draws from the DAI collection and looks at the dramatic decade of the 1920s. Bukang Y. Kim: Journey to the East is an immersive installation of recent scroll paintings by the Cincinnati-based Korean artist. Archiving Eden: Dornith Doherty Photographs features images by the internationally recognized photographer of seed banks and the global preservation efforts by agriculturalists who are working to assure stable food sources despite climate change and decreased agricultural diversity. Preserving the Pure Land: The Art of Japanese Painting Conservation, will feature the DAI’s recently conserved, 400-year-old painting Thirteen Buddhist Figures, which will be shown for the first time in more than 40 years. The Focus Exhibition season will close the year with The Art of Norman Rockwell (working title), a DAI exclusive exhibition with paintings and drawings by America’s most beloved artist and illustrator. Additional Focus Exhibitions will take a deep dive into the DAI’s extensive collection to feature highlights of photography and works on paper. Watch the DAI’s website and social media for dates and more information.

“2020 will be a busy year for exhibitions at the DAI. We look forward to complementing our lineup of Special Exhibitions with a variety of Focus Exhibitions, which provide our guests multiple offerings during any visit,” added Smith. “These are visually and intellectually stimulating installations that might look at a single artist, like Norman Rockwell, or a theme, like the conservation of centuries-old scroll paintings. There will be plenty to see and enjoy throughout the year.”

“Our curatorial team has put together an outstanding selection of diverse exhibitions to kick off our second century,” said DAI Director & CEO Michael R. Roediger. “It’s the perfect time to become a member and enjoy a full year’s worth of amazing art experiences at your Dayton Art Institute.”

The DAI’s centennial exhibition season is currently concluding with the Special Exhibition Maker & Muse: Women and Early 20th-Century Art Jewelry, on view through January 19, as well as the Focus Exhibitions William Preston Mayfield Photographs, on view through January 5, Mona Lisa Today, on view through January 12, and Art of Ernest Blumenschein, on view through February 23.

For more about exhibitions at the Dayton Art Institute, visit www.daytonartinstitute.org/exhibitions.

Membership to the DAI starts at just $40 and offers free admission to the museum’s collection galleries and all exhibitions, as well as discounts on many events and programs. For more information about membership, go to www.daytonartinstitute.org/membership or call 937-223-4ART (4278).

Dayton Artists United: Nick Arnold

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The Blue House Gallery and Studios began in 2014 when Nicholaus Arnold and Ashley Jonas teamed up with Blue House owner, Diana Cordero to create an arts center in Northwest Dayton. Diana’s love for the neighborhood inspired her to acquire and transform the large blue house located near the corner of Seibenthaler and Catalpa; which was a vacant property in the area. Nicholaus and Ashley had just relocated to the area after graduate school at Syracuse University and The University of Colorado Boulder where they each received their MFA’s respectively. These three worked together renovating and rebuilding many areas of the house; resulting in the creation of a livable residence and a viable creative space.

Today, The Blue House is a site of multiple artist studios, an exhibition space and soon to be artist residency. The Blue House regularly brings in artists and creators to collaborate and create in our space with the goal of betterment through the arts

 Dayton Artists United had the opportunity to chat with Nick about The Blue House, being an artist, and Dayton.

 

DAU-Talk to me about The Blue House, what’s your mission? 

 

NA–I guess I’d have to say our primary goal is to make difficult art easy to access. We like to show the concept and the process.

 

DAU–Difficult art? Say more about that..

 

NA–What makes a work art is not necessarily something that makes it easy to understand. The perception of art is that it’s a painting. A thing that hangs on the wall and you look at it. Art is more than that, its tactile, it breathes, its conceptual. For example, a recent Blue House exhibition “Worries Bash” featured virus-shaped talking pinatas that were filled with peoples worries. The artists taught computers how to worry, and people’s recorded worries played in a constant murmur until one of the pinatas was jostled or tapped, then a single worry would come into focus and then resubmerge. That is experiential art. You hear it. You see it. You think about it. Those virus shapes are imprinted on the viewer as tangible worry. Very different from a painting. 

 

Nicholaus Arnold

DAU–How do you find your exhibitions?

 

NA– We seek artists around the country to find things that aren’t happening here. Like a show by a performance artist and printmaking professor that was created from Trix cereal. Or the show in Minnesota that was a growing garden with Ikea furniture. We also collaborate and take referrals from other organizations, like The Neon Heater in Findlay.

 

DAU–You talk about bringing in work that isn’t happening here. Talk to me about the Dayton arts community. 

 

NA–Dayton is my hometown. I was born here, went to high school in Dayton Public Schools. Attended Sinclair and Wright State. I left to go to graduate school, met my partner and came back to Dayton, we thought temporarily. But we found a great community here. Everyone looks out for each other.  What’s interesting and challenging about working in a small tight knit community is keeping the work experimental. In the gallery and in my work I ask myself, “how do I avoid repetition.” 

 

DAU–I want to talk about your work, but I want to back up a second and talk about The Blue House a bit more. How far out are you planning and how many shows a year?

 

NA–We started out with 11 shows a year. Too many. We realized that some parts of the year are just harder to draw people in. January–too cold? Early January is not a good time for attendance. Summer is harder too. Looking at the flow of people, we reduced to six shows a year,  2 or 3 shows in the spring and 2-3 in the fall. We’ve got 2020 all planned out, except for some things in November. 

 

DAU–Does that include the residencies?

 

NA–We’ve got 2 artists scheduled for the next year. The residency is usually for a week, culminating in an exhibition, but we’re looking to have artists talks at local institutions too. The residency has changed over the years since we started. It’s an open call, and we look at who wants to come and what we’re planning. Aaron Foster the printmaking professor found us via the website. 

 

DAU-Let’s go back to you and your work. You are a photographer?

 

NA–I trained as a printmaker, sculptor and photographer. The Blue House has its own print studio, and I teach photography. Lately I have been exploring Dayton as an astronaut.

 

DAU–Can you say more about that?

 

NA– Initially, it started because my partner, Ashley, was away at a residency in Kansas. I was home alone, and started feeling isolated. I started thinking about isolation and how astronauts must have felt. I created a rocket and a spacesuit. I mounted an exhibition for a Third Sunday at Front St. My experience there moved me from thinking about isolation to disbelief and on to absurdist. At that exhibition, people came up to me and shook my hand and thanked me for my service. 

I feel bad,  I’ve been on this project a long time. I usually have an ending point in mind, but this started as the exploration of an idea, and it’s gone through phases and mediums. From isolation to seeing Dayton as an alien. Its absurdist now, but it isn’t over, I haven’t reached the ending point. 

 

DAU–Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.  

  

Dayton Artists United: Doug Fiely

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In 1964, Doug Fiely  was given a guitar which opened the door to both the visual and performing arts. That guitar served him well as he spent many weekends/evenings playing rock ‘n roll in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. For over 40 years, he raised chickens, goats, turkeys, and children while teaching at Stryker Local Schools. Upon retirement, he was asked to teach Printmaking, Painting, Drawing, Art History, Figure Drawing, Color and Design, Global Civilization and even the “History of Rock ‘n Roll”, retiring in 2013 as Professor Emeritus from Defiance College.

Dayton Artists United had the privilege of visiting with visual artist Doug Fiely in his new studio space in South Park Historic District.

DAU–Am I right in thinking you are not from the Dayton?

 

DF-That’s right. I grew up in Celina, OH, along the lake. The lake was my early inspiration.

 

DAU–Tell me about the first thing you remember creating. 

 

DF–It was a picture of the Beatles George Harrison. In 1963, when the Beatles came out, I was interested in depicting things. I was a kid that always looked at things closely, you know. I would count the rings on a turtle’s back, examine bird tracks, and when I caught and cleaned a fish, I always paid attention to their scales.

 

DAU–So, you always knew you wanted to be an artist?

 

DF–Oh no. I just drew a lot. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I applied to college in art because a neighbor in Celina said my drawings were good.  I got in to Bowling Green on probation–I had a bad class rank. There was a lot of competition for college then too because of people wanting to avoid the draft.  So, because of the probation, I went to summer school there as an art major. It was hard. I had no arts education in high school, and all the other students knew stuff about art and art history that I didn’t. I was insecure about that—I liked all my other classes more than art.

 

My family ran a daily newspaper in St. Mary’s OH. I went there a lot as a kid and watched the print machines. In the fall, I got into a printmaking class at Bowling Green. I walked into that class feeling dejected about how behind I was in my arts knowledge. I smelled the ink. I saw the plates. Something just clicked, it was familiar, you know. I did my first etching. I rubbed the ink into a woodcut of an owl. I entered my print work in a student show, juried by the professors, and won second place. Printmaking became the focus of my attention, it was my comfort zone.

DAU-So, when did you start to paint?

 

DF–I thought the painters in my classes were brilliant. Especially the women painters. They could really see color. I struggled. The one of my professors, Bob Mazur, told me to treat my canvas as a print block.

 

DAU-What did that meant to you?

 

DF–Well you engrave a print block. I treat my painting like engraving. I build up modeling paste on heavy canvas and scratch into it, then I stain it with paint. It’s a more spontaneous way of working for me. I think in lines, like a printmaker. I wish I were more bold with color, that I could channel emotion into the paint the way my daughter Megan does. The scratch and stain method opens doors for me. I can see the lines in everything I am doing, fat fish, skinny fish, blackbirds, vegetables. I shape the lines and then let the color in.

 

DAU-You think your art is not emotional? I see it as very personal.

 

DF–My art will show a personal reaction to a subject. Like my blackbird series. I was painting these birds. I’ve got several blackbird canvases, but in this one the birds are dead. I was painting that at the time Tom Petty died, and there was that shooting in Las Vegas. I was painting these birds, and at that time I saw a dead blackbird in the yard. The details were just there. The same way you notice the details of George Harrison’s beard or Bob Dylan’s eyes, I noticed the details of that dead bird, it’s stiffness, the rigid claws. I was upset by the drug overdose and the shooting, and these dead bird details came through in the work. You can see how sensitive the lines of the work are–here (points).

Doug in his studio. Photograph by Bill Franz

DAU-You have mentioned famous rock musicians several times this morning. Do you think their music has influenced your art. 

 

DF–They influenced me. All the musicians I like went to art school. Pete Townsend, John Lennon, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Bob Dylan–some people say his paintings are better than his songs–John Mellencamp, Joni Mitchell–she’s releasing a book of art with song lyrics–Patti Smith–who was with Robert Mapplethorpe. Artists and musicians. Because of them I took up the guitar. 

 

DAU- Do you still play?

 

DF–I do, I even thought I might get some gigs, but when I looked around the music scene in Dayton, I thought, “I am not good enough.” You know, Dayton is powerhouse of diversity in the arts. In the visual arts you’ll see everything from urban non-objective to hyper-realism. There are so many strong arts organizations: The Dayton Society of Artists, The Contemporary Dayton, Front Street, the Dutoit Gallery, The printmakers Co-op. And the music is just as supported. There is really good music here. The musicians are way better than me. 

 

DAU-That’s what you thought about yourself in art school too!

DF–Yeah, well, at the beginning. I got four B’s that first summer semester at BG. But after that first printmaking class, I found my way. I’ve continued to move forward. I’ve continued to win awards. I am confident about my art now. A lot of people look at my work and think Fiely is traditional, Fiely is folksy. I look at my paintings and see composition and line, balanced. My work is hanging in people’s homes and in galleries. I am doing what I always wanted to do. But, it’s a struggle. It’s work. It drains energy, like cutting down a tree, it’s physical.  Art is a long haul. I don’t think I have gotten to the point where I’m done. 

DAI presents Maker & Muse: Women and Early 20th-Century Art Jewelry

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The Dayton Art Institute’s next centennial special exhibition, Maker & Muse: Women and Early 20th-Century Art Jewelry, opens October 26 and will be on view through January 19, 2020. This stunning exhibition of more than 200 unique pieces of handcrafted art jewelry celebrates the role of women, both as inspiration and as designers/makers.

 

Featuring exquisite works by renowned artists such as Louis Comfort Tiffany, Charlotte Newman, and René Lalique,Maker & Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art Jewelry celebrates the impact of women and art jewelry across five regions: Great Britain, France, Austro-Germany, New York and Chicago. These regions saw the emergence of bold, experimental artists who pushed the boundaries of traditional jewelry design.

 

“These dazzling pieces of jewelry provide a glimpse of life at the turn-of-the-twentieth century and demonstrate how artwork can both be influenced by and inspire the world around it,” said Katherine Ryckman Siegwarth, the DAI’s in-house curator for the exhibition. “Guests will not only learn about metalworking and jewelry-making, but also about societal shifts and its effects on the lives of women, from the acceptance of working outside the home to the suffragist movement. This exhibition celebrates the DAI’s centennial, as well as the 100-annivesary of the 19th amendment, giving women in the United States the right to vote.”

 

Art jewelry developed as a reaction to the conformity of mass-produced goods throughout the Industrial Revolution. Each of the designers represented in Maker & Muse, though inspired by their own individual cultures and surroundings, shared similar aesthetic ideals: they all sought to produce innovative jewelry with semiprecious stones, enamelwork, and dramatic forms. Women influenced art jewelry both as muses to male designers, and for the first time, as designers in their own right. The works in this exhibition offer a mesmerizing glimpse into the social, political, and economic realms in which they were created.

 

Drawn from the Collection of Richard H. Driehaus, as well as from other prominent collections, Maker & Muse explores the fascinating symbiosis between art jewelry, design, and women in the early 20th century. Maker & Muse was organized by The Richard H. Driehaus Museum and is toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C. The Dayton Art Institute will also include works from its collection that complement the exhibition, including jewelry and designs by Daytonian Virginia Blakeney, who created designs for Louis Comfort Tiffany.

 

“Bringing these exquisite gems to the Gem City is the perfect way to close out our centennial celebrations here at the museum,” said DAI Director & CEO Michael R. Roediger. “The holiday season will truly sparkle and shine with this amazing collection of jewelry. You won’t want to miss the only Ohio stop for this exhibition!”

The tour’s curator, Elyse Zorn Karlin, is a jewelry historian and freelance curator. She is also the author of a number of books on jewelry, a well-known lecturer, and co-director of the Association for the Study of Jewelry & Related Arts. Zorn Karlin will give a talk about the exhibition at the DAI on Saturday, November 9, at 1 p.m. Her talk is free to DAI members and included in museum admission for non-members.

 

Other related events and programs include a jewelry-themed ARTventures family program on Saturday, October 26, Trivia Night at the DAI on Friday, November 1, and a Language of Art literature program on Saturday, November 16.

 

Go to daytonartinstitute.org/jewelry for more information about the exhibition and its related programs. Join the conversation on social media with the hashtags #JewelryDAI and #MakerAndMuse.

 

An exhibition catalogue, edited by Elyse Zorn Karlin with essays by Sharon S. Darling, Jeannine Falino, Elyse Zorn Karlin, Yvonne J. Markowitz and Emily Banis Stoehrer, and Janis Staggs, with photographs by John Faier, will be available for purchase at the DAI’s Museum Store.

 

Maker & Muse: Women and Early 20th-Century Art Jewelry is presented with support from BENEFACTOR SPONSORSLinda Black- Kurek Family Foundation and Key-Ads, Inc.; SUPPORTING SPONSORS Mrs. Jackie Lockwood, Perfection Group, and Winsupply, Inc.; with Additional Support from Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Jessup Wealth Management, Linda Lombard, and University of Dayton.

 

Admission to Maker & Muse: Women and Early 20th– Century Art Jewelry is $15 adults; $10 seniors (60+), active military and groups (10 or more); $5 students (18+ w/ID) and youth (ages 7–17); free for children (ages 6 & younger). Admission is also free for museum members. Prices include admission to the special exhibition, all focus exhibitions and the museum’s collection galleries.

 

Guided tours of the special exhibition are available for individuals, groups and schools. For more information or to schedule a tour, contact Rique Hagen, at 937-223-4278, ext. 332 or schooltours@daytonart.org.

 

The DAI’s centennial celebrations during the fall/winter of 2019 also include the focus exhibitions William Preston Mayfield Photographs, on view through January 5, 2020, Mona Lisa Today, on view through January 12, 2020, and In the Company of Friends: The Kettering and Patterson Legacy, as well as Art of Ernest Blumenschein, which will be on view November 16, 2019–February 23, 2020.

 

 

 

100 Iconic Watercolor Prints Now Available

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This image created by Maggie Reckers Art was shared across social media after the Oregon District shootings.  
Now this iconic watercolor is available in  a limited run of 100 signed prints that are on sale for $100 each. All proceeds are being donated to the Culture Works Oregon District Memorial Fund to help fund a public memorial for the victims of the attack.

You may purchase one of these prints by making a donation of $100 or more here: https://www.daytonfoundation.org/ccgift.html?fund=Culture_Works_Oregon_District_Memorial_Fund_8406. You will be directed to The Dayton Foundation’s website to complete the transaction.

Artist of the Week: Eva Lewis

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ARTIST OF THE WEEEK Eva Lewis in her home studio in Dayton’s Burkhardt neighborhood.

Eva currently has a solo exhibition at K12 Gallery and TEJAS titled Nuanced Perspectives. The show runs through October 17. There’s an artist reception Thursday, October 3 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Gallery Hours are M/W/TH/F 9:30am to 6:00pm.

“I was born in Oregon and grew up in Bellbrook” Eva told me. “Then I went to Wright State and got a degree in Fine Arts, with a concentration in painting and a minor in art history. When I graduated from Wright State, I shared studio space in the Front Street building with four other artists. But they’ve all moved in different direction so I moved out. I rented this house which has great space for a studio – plus a back yard.”

“Through K12, I’ve been teaching art for grades K through 8 at Ascension School. I also teach painting and drawing for grades 3 through high school at K12. I really like the teaching, but I think the next step for me is to be a student again. I’m applying for graduate art programs.”

Eva is one of the artists participating in the “Behind the Scenes” exhibition at K12 Gallery and TEJAS which runs from October 24 through November 14

Artist of the Week: BK Elias

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Bk Elias looking over a mural he just finished on The Victory Project building at 409 Troy Street in the Old North Dayton neighborhood

“I have been painting since I was 10 years old and taking classes at K12 Gallery and TEJAS” Bk told me. “Then I painted as a student at Stivers School for the Arts. After that I took lessons from several local professional artists like Scott Gibbs, Bing Davis and James Pate.”

“I helped Scott Gibbs paint murals with the HAALO kids. HAALO stands for Helping Adolescents Achieve Long-Term Objectives. It’s a program K12 has for kids involved in the court system. I really liked working with the kids on murals, and Jerri hired me to work at K12. I’ve done maybe 10 murals for K12. After this one is done I’m going to do some touch up on Amy Deal’s RiverScape mural. Then I think there are two more murals to do this year. In the winter I usually teach at K12, but this year there may be an indoor mural for me to do.”

Bk is one of the artists participating in the “Behind the Scenes” exhibition at K12 Gallery and TEJAS which runs from October 24 through November 14

Artist of the Week: Steve Wohleer

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Steve Wohler of Steve Wohler Fine Art in his home studio.

Steve is the featured artist this year at the Dayton Concours d’Elegance which will be held Sunday from 10:30 am to 4:00 pm at Carillon Historical Park. The large framed painting in the background of this photo is the official poster for this event.

“All of my paintings come from photos” Steve told me. “For the show’s poster we had a photo shoot at Carillon last May. One of the cars in the poster is from the Packard Museum.”

“I really love car art, and I’ve been exhibiting at Concours d’Elegance for years, but I also do other things. On my website you can see my landscapes and what I call townscapes. I work in oil on canvas, and make prints of most of my pieces.”

On First Friday, November 1, Steve will have paintings and prints on display at the gallery of Mikee Huber Artist (903 N. Keowee). Steve is also one of the artists participating in the “Behind the Scenes” exhibition at K12 Gallery and TEJAS which runs from October 24 through November 14

Rosewood Arts Centre Announces Ceramic Master Class

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The City of Kettering’s Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Arts’ Rosewood Arts Centre is pleased to welcome acclaimed ceramic artist Doug Peltzman for a two-day master class.

On September 28 and 29, Peltzman will lead a demonstration master class fit for both beginners and experienced makers who wish to expand their pottery vocabulary. The class will focus on designing and creating various types of pottery for daily use. The relationship between form and surface decoration will be explored through demonstration and discussion. Peltzman will share his methodologies on carving and inlaying slip into leather hard clay and bisque fired clay. The workshop fee is $100 per Kettering resident and $110 for nonresidents with an educational discount of $10 off to groups of three or more students. Students must be currently enrolled in school to receive this discount.

Registration may be done online at www.playkettering.org or by calling Rosewood at 937-296-0294. The class runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on both days. Participants receive a free drop-in pass for a return visit to the Rosewood ceramics studio and access to exclusive materials used during the master class.

Peltzman was born in New York City and raised on Long Island. He has been creating pottery since 2003. After earning an M.F.A. from Penn State in 2010, he established a pottery studio with his wife, Pam, in Shokan, New York. Peltzman is a founding member of Objective Clay and creator/organizer of the Hudson Valley Pottery Tour. His work has been featured in many national publications and can be found in homes and kitchens across the country.

 

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Erin Holscher Almazan

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Erin Holscher Almazan in one of her home work spaces.

“In the summer I take over the garage and do oil painting” she told me. “When the weather gets cooler I move to a basement space and do linocuts. I don’t want to fill the house with paint fumes. I do the actual printmaking from my linocuts at the University of Dayton, where I am an associate professor of Printmaking and Drawing.”

I looked at the paintings in the garage and said I hadn’t seen anything quite like them on Erin’s website (http://erinholscheralmazan.schmolio.com/).

“These are new this summer” she said. “For the last few years I have been focused on women’s relationships, the dynamics of groups of women. This year my friend Anna who is a fashion designer visited and brought these amazing floral hats. We took lots of photos of a group of women wearing her hats to use as the beginning point of these paintings. I took some of the smaller ones to a solo show I just had at the Western Colorado Center for the Arts in Grand Junction.”

“I have been painting some portraits of women with the hats, and some pairs of women. The one I’m working on today shows Anna with her head on my shoulder. I haven’t painted larger groups of women yet. I will probably do linocuts of those more complex images.”

Erin will be one of the artists participating in the “Behind the Scenes” exhibition at K12 Gallery and TEJAS which runs from October 24 through November 14. Maybe she’ll bring the piece she was painting when I visited her at work.