Category Archives: Art Monday

August 3, 2009 · 7:17 pm

ARTmonday: PAAM Members Auction

Every year the Provincetown Art Association and Museum holds a silent auction of member works created on 12×12 boards. The work is exhibited for about six weeks, during which time the bidding is on. The bids start at $125 and increase by $25 increments. This means you can get some good deals on local artwork. Well known artists’ works go for quite a bit, but I was once the lone bidder on a piece I really love. The artists agree to donate 50% of the purchase price to PAAM, though many donate 100% of the proceeds.

We put in our initial bids over the weekend. We are especially interested in the middle piece in the bottom row. My mother-in-law painted it, based on a photo I took last summer of my sons and their cousin on the beach. So if you’re in Ptown, stop by and bid, but not on that one! Here is a sampling; sorry the photos aren’t great.

PAAM Members’ 12 x 12 Silent Auction
July 24, 8 PM to September 12, 4PM

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Filed under . REGULAR FEATURES, Art, Art Monday

Tagged as PAAM, PAAM auction, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown artists, Provincetown galleries

July 13, 2009 · 1:10 am

ARTmonday: Lucy Mitchell and Phil Lichtenhan

You might remember that I went to the Vineyard a couple of weeks ago for a story for Cape Cod & Islands Home. The owner of the house has some great pieces by local artists, including Lucy Mitchell. I love the way she elevates simple rocks in “White Stone Collection,” a boxed assemblage of white beach stones arranged against dictionary pages. I found a few of her other pieces online, and followed up with her dealer, Mary Etherington at Etherington Fine Art in Vineyard Haven, who says, “Lucy takes the natural world and arranges it.” Mitchell is now represented by Nye Gallery in Oak Bluffs, where her show opened this past Saturday; her first in a few years. I wasn’t able to find any images, but here are the older works.

“White Stone Collection”

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“Light Egg Collection”

– – – –

“Woodland Egg Collection”

– – – “Arrangement”

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“Unclassified Objects”

– – –

While I was browsing through other Vineyard gallery sites, I came across these sculptures by Phil Lichtenhan, who is represented by the Shaw Cramer Gallery in Vineyard Haven. They complement Lucy Mitchell’s work, so I included them here too.

“Nest #2”
Found metal + handmade clay eggs

– – – “Nest #4”

Found metal + handmade clay eggs

– – – “Nest”
found metal + clay

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Filed under . REGULAR FEATURES, Art, Art Monday

Tagged as Etherington Fine Art, Lucy Mitchell, Martha's Vineyard art galleries, Mary Etherington, Nye Gallery, Phil Lichtenhan, Shaw Cramer Gallery, White Stone Collection

July 6, 2009 · 1:11 am

ARTmonday: Damien Hoar De Galvan

If you live in Boston and you have even a faint interest in décor, you know (and love) Jill Goldberg’s South End shop, Hudson. I recently learned that her husband (they’re newlyweds) is an artist. His name is Damien Hoar De Galvan, and he currently has a solo show at Farm, the gallery in Wellfleet that I blogged about a few days ago. (It’s actually why I stopped by there in the first place.) I really like his work. The quirky little sketches look great framed, and the plywood pieces are interesting and appealing.

One day, year ago, when traversing the Tobin Bridge, Damin spotted a multitude of shiny, new VW Bugs, fresh off the ships. This show partly gre out of his pondering if there could be demand for that many new vehicles. Other ideas that influence his work also touch on the theme of abundance, but in a less concrete way – the information that floats through the web – Google, Facebook, YouTube, the list goes on.

ARTmonday: Connie Johnson

I’ve been on the Cape a week now, but other than a beach jaunt with the boys on Saturday, I’ve pretty much done nothing but work (and vacuum; not that that’s any fun). So while I wish I could show you the artistic highlights going on ’round these really artsy parts, no such luck. Instead, I’ve dug into my personal collection and came up with Connie Johnson, who does fun and fashiony collages. I discovered her at the “Small Works” show at the Copley Society of Art in December 2005. I checked out her blog, and though she hasn’t updated it since last September, I was able to learn a bit about her work and grab some other examples.

First, here’s the piece I purchased at CoSo, which pre-dates the pieces shown here. I keep it propped up on my bedroom bookshelf with my chicklit : )

“Wearable #13”

Johnson is self-taught, and makes many variations of whatever theme she’s focusing on. In 2003 she started doing monoprints with a vague idea of making skirts, which evolved into making collage figures with paper bag heads that she placed on the monoprints. Johnon works with found household papers such as sugar and flour bags, candy and pasta wrappers, torn scraps of wrapping paper, onion bags, and other trash, to create the outfits, complete with accessories. The backgrounds of many of these ladies are the short stories she wrote about them, which are posted in full on her blog.

Lady #3 “There Is No Prince Charming”

Lady #6 “Bride”

Lady #13

Lady #14 “All Dressed Up and No Place To Go

Lady #38

“All Dressed Up and No Place To Go”

This next set is from the group Johnson labels “The Ladies Part 2.” No paper bags over the heads of these dames, so some of them don’t have any faces. Many of them have much denser written backgrounds than the first group.

“Blending In”

“The Pearls”

“After He Left #2”

In early 2007 (I think), Johnson created interesting collages using roses made out tar paper, along with pieces found on walk, like garlic stems, birch bark and hickory seed pods.

“Icons 2”

The most recent work posted on the blog is a dress she found at a local clothing swap, that hung in her studio for a bit, before she transformed for a piece to submit for a show last fall at the Concord Art Association. As you can see, she’s incorporated tar paper rosesas well as mini artworks which she strung together as a necklace.

“Wedding Dress”

I wonder what she’s been up to lately. . .

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Filed under . REGULAR FEATURES, Art, Art Monday

Tagged as Boston art gallery, Connie Johnson, Copley Society of Art, fashion art, paper bag ladies

June 15, 2009 · 10:04 am

ARTmonday: Debbie Krim’s Fusion Foto Blocs

Last year I finally made it to SoWa First Fridays at 450 Harrison in Boston. I went with a friend to see the work of of her friend, Fernando DeOliveira (more on him another Monday), but of course visited lots of studios. We wound up spending a bunch of time at Debbie Krim’s, playing around with her Fusion Foto Blocs.

Krim photographs elements in nature, often very close up, like flowers, rocks, water, as well as some architectural features, food, and other objects, in black and white and brilliant color. She mounts the prints on 4-inch square blocks (some sort of white laminate/MDF). The images are fun to mix and match, to create larger works of art. The studio is set up as a customer-friendly work room, with blank white walls that you can hang the blocks on in groupings to your liking. I think were were there for over an hour playing curator.

And the prices are very reasonable (about $25/each last year). I purchased a black and white peony that I have on my bedroom bookshelf, black and white eggs that are perched on a shelf in my kitchen, and three ocean vistas, which are lined up on a ledge one next to the other, at my house on the Cape. There is a pre-drilled hole in the back so you can easily hang them on a nail, but I like that they can stand up on their own.

Here are some examples of her work: