There’s one more very exciting show on the calendar for me this year:
Signs, Sirens, and Specters
December 1, 2010- January 16, 2011
Opening reception: December 4th, 2010, 7-9 pm
The Fire House Gallery
605 Mulberry Street
Louisville, GA 30434
The first reason this is an exciting show is the Fire House Gallery itself. A non-profit gallery in historic downtown Louisville (once Georgia’s capital) Fire House presents art from the South and rural America. As an artist who draws strongly on the rural south of my childhood for my inspiration, and as someone who has always had a fascination with fire, this venue is almost too good to be true. You can learn more about the gallery’s mission by visiting their web page at www.galleryafire.com.
"Icarus" by Jesse Amar, bronze, 38" tall
I’m also excited about the two other artists who will be sharing this show with me, and who I am happy to call friends:
Jesse Amar is a sculptor who lives and teaches in rural Greenville, PA. An avid hunter and life-long fisherman, Jesse has an active engagement with what it means to be an artist in the country. His sculpture has always had a romantic bent, and this exhibit has already got us talking about the sublime in art. He will be exhibiting some of his figurative work in bronze along with the cast glass pieces he’s been making recently. Jesse Amar’s website
"Hob Nob Shank Effect" by Jeff Schwartz, 24"x24"
Jeff Schwartz, the third artist in this exhibit, lives further south than Louisville, currently hailing from Sarasota, Florida. Jeff and I met in another very rural place, at the Vermont Studio Center in January, 1993. That was definitely not the south! Brrr. Along with teaching at Ringling College, Jeff has been exploring a vernacular that is both southern and very American with his recent of paintings of a drive-in restaurant in Sarasota. I’m especially excited to see how these paintings, with their connotations of the American road and a past that directly preceded the lives of these three artists, will play into the ideas about the sublime that might not be as obvious at first. See more of Jeff’s work at his website
If you’re close enough to Louisville to check out the exhibit before January 16th, that’s great! Even better, come to the reception on December 4th. All three artists will be present, and Fire House has a reputation for beautiful events– it’s going to be fun!
Raised without a television in rural Virginia, Brooklyn artist Randall Stoltzfus makes richly textured paintings that slowly unfurl into deeply receding landscapes. His work has been shown in New York, Virginia, Washington DC, and in Italy, where he was an artist in residence at an active insane asylum.
Put the Fire in the Fire House
I’ve been trying really hard to figure out a way to get two of the paintings here in the studio all the way to Louisville, GA for the rapidly approaching show at the Fire House Gallery. It’s a no-brainer that the fire paintings should be in this show in a converted firehouse. But the two paintings in question are pretty big, and it’s a long way from Brooklyn to Georgia. The gallery is a not-for-profit, and well, I’m an artist. Funds are scarce.
Enter Kickstarter.com. This is exciting!
Here’s how it works. I’ve got 11 days to raise the $2,268 it will take to rent a larger truck and drive to Georgia. With Kickstarter, it’s all or nothing. Raise the full amount and the project gets funded, fall short by just a dollar, and nothing. Zip. Nada.
So I need your help! The Kickstarter website makes it really easy to spread the word electronically, so if you can do nothing else, just visit the project page, check out the video and then send an email or post to Facebook or Twitter. It really makes a difference!
Better still, Kickstarter makes it easy for me to offer a really cool list of incentives for you. Even a one dollar pledge gets you a personalized invite. If you are one of the folks who have expressed interest in a reproduction of one of the paintings, your opportunity is here: $50 gets a nice color print, and you can choose the painting. There’s more, take a look at the project.
And thanks!
(A special huge thank you to Steve McFarland, who made the video happen. Thank you, Steve!)
Here are the two big paintings that will go to Georgia if the project is successful:
"Second State" oil on linen, 72"x84"
"The Garden Gate," oil on canvas, 96"x120"