Melinda, barn owl, along with Wild Wings volunteer
November 1, 2018
It has been raining all day, but I am inside, at my job - teaching drawing for students at R.I.T. with a special visit from two volunteers from WILD WINGS, and three wonderful birds that are in their care. Each semester a visit from the natural world is in order, and these birds make terrific models to study and draw. Once students get to see and hear about these birds - rehabilitated by the volunteers at WILD WINGS, they have a whole new respect for our environment.
Main Street Arts, Clifton Springs, New York
This weekend we drove over to Main Street Arts in Clifton Springs to see an exhibition by another R.I.T. faculty member who has a show of her recent paintings. Lanna Pejovic is a prolific landscape painter and she presents"The View From Here". I wrote a little introduction for the new catalog that was produced for this special show - and I have to say that her paintings were really worth the drive to see them while they are still on view ( thru November 16, 2018 ).
Lanna Pejovic " Lily Fountain"
The gallery at Main Street Arts has never looked better, and the installation is very sensitive to the needs of these nearly abstract paintings. Lanna may have had the original inspiration for this from her visits to Linwood Gardens near Pavilion, New York, but she has taken her art to a new level.
"Meditations" by Lanna Pejovic at Main Street Arts
The first things to hit me were her textures and colors..There is a sense of an overarching structure in notations that continue from painting to painting. Some of her work verges on realism (more often in drawings) but the most satisfying works create a sensual experience - as in "Meditations". Rather than being made strictly en plein aire these paintings are mostly finished in the studio - and like the Monet show at the Memorial Art Gallery - the art has a touch of the wild, a tactile exuberance. Even though the catalog gives you an impression of her paintings, you really need to see them in person.
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Upstairs at Main Street Arts I found a fine set of dimensional works in porcelain by Jody Selin and a gouache that he calls: "Top of the Hill" ( that reminded me of Edward Hopper ) by another R.I.T. graduate - Chad Grohman.
Jody Selin
Chad Grohman "Top of the Hill"
This busy season takes us back to Rochester, in the Public Market where we went upstairs to The Yards Collective which has been doing things in their rugged space for seven years now. The curator for the new show is Shane Durgee and the exhibition is called - "Into The Out Of". He must have had fun selecting the work for the show by two other R.I.T. grads - Cecily Culver and Ashley Ludwig - because their works achieve a nice harmony in an art that is experimental and spare in many respects.
Cecily Culver has been teaching students recently at R.I.T. and I hope that they get a chance to see what their teacher has been making - her installations have a sense of humor - in part because they are minimal but also because they create a situation. You really can see this art through her eyes, looking down between some bricks where you can see a salamander ( all part of a witty sculpture she has created ) - as if there was a hole cut in the floor of the gallery.
Cecily Culver at The Yards
Cecily took the time to tell me that the neon bird in her sculpture was resurrected for this exhibition which made me think of artists like Bruce Nauman. Her sculpture is like a window with some irony -you don't know whether you are looking out or you are looking in!
Her exhibition partner in this show is Ashley Ludwig, who exhibits a whole wall of diamond shaped compositions that often are collages with a poetic saying, or something else that galvanizes your attention. So if you are in the area - visiting the public market, walk upstairs and enjoy the show!
Ashley Ludwig at The Yards Collective
in
The Public Market, Rochester, New York
Ashley Ludwig's collage works
at The Yards Collective
