Breakthrough

 

'Our Nature", a Singer family show presented earlier this year in

Rundel Library, Rochester, New York 

January  thru  May 2024

We are proud and pleased to be a part of a creative family engaged in the visual arts community.

Just recently, in the New York Times, they ran an article about an exhibition happening at The Brooklyn Museum that features local artists who may not have gotten this form of exposure before.

Our niece, Akiko Yamamoto and her husband Phil Scherer are involved in the arts and they live along Eastern Parkway near the Brooklyn Museum.  Akiko has a painting/collage  in this new exhibition at The Brooklyn Museum, and her work was singled out by the writer and critic Max Lakin.  It must be nice to have favorable comments about the artwork published in  The Times!  This is a big show with over 200 pieces of artwork selected from over 4000 entries.

The Brooklyn Museum then sent out an e-mail with Akiko's work and a statement from her talking about how she arrived at making this artwork called:  "Shoji 4 - Bedford Avenue.  Here is her work and her artist statement:

Shoji 4 - Bedford Avenue#153

Akiko Yamamoto

2024

Collage, rice paper, magazine paper, origami paper, silver leaf, acrylic paint on wood

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DESCRIPTION

"My childhood home was built by my father in the traditional Japanese style, and it was filled with shoji doors. Because they are made of paper, they would often tear and need to be repaired, and I remember watching my mother do this work. She would boil rice flour to create a rice glue, and use it to bind fresh paper to the frames. I loved the clean white translucence of the refreshed screens. 

I wanted to commemorate this tradition in my Shoji series. I live and make art in Brooklyn, so my shoji screens incorporate the textures of the city. They are not minimal clean white, but rather show the complexity of textures, patterns and colors. I wanted to embrace the essence of Brooklyn’s bold attitude.

When I start a new work in this series I begin by building the shoji 'frame' on the canvas. As my mother did, I make my own rice glue and use it to bind layers of material. The layers accumulate like memory and experience, obscuring the ones below. Later, the layers are worn away again revealing them as a new moment to explore.

This one, Shoji 4 / Bedford Ave, is named for Brooklyn’s longest street, which passes through so many layers of culture along its length."

–Akiko Yamamoto

I applaud Akiko and hope to see her artwork when we visit Brooklyn in a few weeks!

First Hand

Lin Price spoke at Axom in the South Wedge, Rochester, New York

Saturday, November 16, 2024

Last Saturday night I heard a very inspiring talk given by Lin Price at Axom in the South Wedge.  Lin Price is a painter and I had seen some of her artwork in shows at Axom and also at Corners Gallery in Ithaca, New York.  Now on at Axom, there is a fine show of her paintings through mid-January 2025. Her show is called "Inside Out", and she had the opportunity to introduce an audience to her methods and themes that one would find in her artwork on the walls of the gallery.

"Willow Run", oil on board by Lin Price

Landscape is a major theme, and Lin Price treats it almost as a metaphor.  In fact, as I listened to her talk, it brought to mind a kind of poetry, a visual way of speaking about emotions and the passage of time in a physical setting that one can see.  These are the kinds of things that can happen when a painter is in a landscape and is trying to communicate what the landscape represents to her.  This is not a kind of photo-realism that some might expect.

"John Laurie's Field by Lin Price

The painting above with a field ( a corn crop ) is one that  Lin spoke about as a kind of memory of  a real place she visited as a youngster.  Other paintings have an inside-out quality that Lin describes in her artist statement, and she writes that she looks for a sense of intimacy in each invented space.  A set of paintings like the one featured on her invitation card give a viewer a feeling of looking out from an enclosed space which could be her home,  and off into a more realistic landscape.  This effect is achieved by taking studies made en plein air and attaching them to a larger surface, creating a painting around painting!

"Inside Out" paintings by Lin Price at Axom, Rochester, NY

Other paintings like "Willow Run" also have a story to tell.  I was thinking of the image and it brought to mind a quote from baseball player Yogi Berra who remarked when faced with a fork in the road: "Take It".

Yes, this painting has a fork in the road, but the story is much more telling...like why is there a sailing ship on the snowy horizon?  One of the tiny houses on the right side looks like it is on fire, and what is the story there?  Lin reveals the details in her conversation and it is unsettling to say the least!

Yes, it was a really quite a nice way to be introduced to an artist's inner voice, expressed through her imagery, so I can recommend that you go out and see these paintings for yourself!

 

Consider Arts & Culture

 

Autumn in New York, we visit The Memorial Art Gallery

This year has been a real merry-go-round, and I did not expect it to be so difficult to comprehend how this election season would end!

We went on a visit to The Memorial Art Gallery to see the new mural in the Hurlbut Gallery, by an artist I had not heard of - Avinash Kumar.  This South Asian has created a large scale painting that  engages a viewer like me, especially because the subject matter is something I have also explored in the past.  It is bold, has geometric elements, it has a flying bird and so much more!

Avinash Kumr mural called: "Illusionary Odyssey"

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It has now been a year since I moved my studio away from the Hungerford Building on East Main Street in Rochester -- out to my home in Fairport, New York - with fresh air and a terrific view!  As we enter the holiday season, I can think about what we just went through,  and I can imagine the past as prologue. I can also  wonder how younger artists ( for example my students who have graduated from R.I.T. ) will deal with their new reality.. everyone has to find and define their own path!

This year started out in a big way for me and my family, and how we move forward is anyone's guess.  I could share with you the way to communicate your ideas about the arts. and cultural situation here in our  region by taking a survey.  I read in the latest CITY Newspaper that there is a planning commission asking for feedback and asking our community for their help by going online to register their own ideas at:

rochesterartsplan.com

We need people to advocate for the arts!  In the visual arts - for example - who reviews some of the many shows that take place in our area?  This is one of the reasons why I write my blog...to at least call out to folks who read this note - there are people who deserve to be noticed, and they bring a richness to this region!

Making a plan is essential, and also knowing how  and when to lobby for funds to promote the arts is necessary, so we need people who can work with us creative types and negotiate the way forward!

Sculpture in my new town of Fairport, New York

by Carlos C. Perez

There are ways we can all move ahead as a community, and I can look forward to the exhibition in the fall of the members who contribute to The Rochester Contemporary show that is coming soon.  I just dropped off a framed print for the show that I call: "Re-Entry".

"Re-Entry", print by Alan Singer soon to be on exhibit at RoCo

Now before I head off to work in my studio, you might want to visit the site that Renee Rose has set up with her online magazine Explore Art.  I gave her an interview earlier this year and here is a link to see this  conversation:

https://youtu.be/BnAzJxcaogU?si=JsoTp2rRweW-3Nes