Archives for June 2009

Via

Tomorrow’s the last day to see Buddy Bunting’s High Living at Crawl Space, including his 32-foot pen and watercolor wash drawing of the Two Rivers Prison in Oregon. (Show here, his Web site here.)

Jen Graves, from a review titled, Making Art While Nervous: Buddy Bunting’s Plein Air Prisons:

Buddy Bunting stakes out prisons. He parks by the sides of their roads to sketch, photograph, and videotape them in a hurry, before he gets caught.

Nobody is supposed to look too closely at a prison. Bunting does it in part because prisons are what he knows. Growing up in a Maryland area where a prison moved in and provided plenty of jobs, Bunting’s regular friends were prison guards as well as prisoners. He knows the in and the out, so he stands at the border and makes art.

(Her review here, with images.)

Most of the drawings in the current show derive from the Southwest. Solid objects are dematerializing in the heat and so are ideas, such as justice and a workable economy.

(Click to enlarge.)

I’ve seen and greatly admired Bunting’s work over the years. This show is the show. I must have been in a coma to have forgotten to see it till its final weekend.

Considering how large a role prisons play in the U.S., they rarely make an appearance in art.

Bunting’s not the only artist in Seattle with a bead on them. Mike Simi was raised in a small Michigan town near near a large one. His dad, his uncle and his brother are prison guards. He happened to go to high school with nine of the 40 registered sex offenders in his area. No one in his family finds that fact remarkable.

Below, Simi’s from series of throw pillows titled, Sex Offenders From My Home Town, ongoing.

(Click to enlarge.)

Five years ago, when Platform Gallery opened in Pioneer Square, it had four owners. Today, Stephen Lyons sent out an email to say he’s the only one left. Blake Haygood has decided to pack it in to focus on his painting.

Last
time I checked, a couple of months earlier, Lyons said the gallery was
not in debt. In five years, it has managed to break even, although it
never turned a profit. That’s five years without salaries from the gallery, as the
owners do not take money out for themselves.

The good news is,
Lyons intends to continue. (If you are a collector who asks for
discounts, think about who you’re asking them from.)

The
gallery’s contributions to Seattle are profound. It has raised the
tone, raised the ambition and made a point of connecting the local with the
global.

The many exhibits I am eternally grateful to have seen include Kelly Mark’s Stupid Love; Jesse Burke’s Dark States; Jaq Chartier’s Blind Sight; Scott Fife’s I Am What I Am and True Grit; Patte Loper’s Let Our Beauty Ease Your Grief and A Peculiar Brightness of the Sky; Adam Satushek’s In Between Days and, of course, everything from Matt Sellars and  William Powhida.

I hope this doesn’t read like an obit. But Lyons is heading into the summer (always slow) with an at-best break even proposition in a terrible economy.

As for Haygood, contrary to the title of the painting below (I’m Not Really Sure It Matters from 2006), his work does and is well worth his renewed engagement.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Fred Muram is moving to Chicago. Soon. Let him Kiss The Ceiling in a crack house.  At least he’s not going to LA.

Maybe he saw Suzi Barrett‘s I Hate LA. It takes the sheen off art’s magic kingdom. (Stop dropping names, shadow.) Via Bad at Sports.

From her photographic series documenting businesses named Moby Dick. Via.

California, 2005 (end)

Newark, New Jersey, 2006

In a recent post titled, James L. Acord – the transformation of nuclear waste, I referred to his tattoo, which marked a big step forward for his effort to turn nuclear waste into sculpture.

In 1993, after endless negotiations with the Department of Energy, Acord became the only individual on the planet licensed to “own and possess” nuclear material. To mark his triumph, he had the license number tattooed on the back of his neck.

I didn’t have an image of that tattoo. Now, thanks to Arthur S. Aubry, who took the photo sent via Howard House, I do.

Via (front and back). Click images to enlarge.

Paul Margolis and his (then) girl friend Mandy Greer were lively presences in the Seattle art scene in the 1990s.

I remember them as exceptionally snappy dressers.

(Below, Fashion is Love, 2003)

Since marriage and the birth of their son, Hazel, now four, Greer is the only one whose profile remained high.

Margolis put his career on hold to concentrate on bringing home the bacon, raising Hazel and helping his wife with her various (always fascinating) projects.

Breathes there a feminist who isn’t charmed by this tale? I’m sold, with the reservation that a two-artist couple is most feminist when partners find a way for both to prosper, which is what’s happening now.

Margolis is back. (His blog here.) What he makes relates to his experiences as city bus driver, dad and husband.

1. Stand-up partner. Even on a diagonal (Stud), he can be counted on.

2. Dad. Below, he shows Hazel how to be a Vitruvious Man.

Do It Yourself. (Right Fingers) Teaching Hazel to work with his hands.

Nuturing. (Yarn Tree 5) Hazel sees that men can caretake.

3. As a bus driver, Margolis obeys all street signs (here and here) and has the back of meter maids.

I Dreamed I Was A Meter Maid is now on view in the lobby of the Bellevue Arts Museum. Margolis talks about his work tonight at the museum. (Sorry for late notice.)

Speaking of his lecture, BAM’s promo belongs on FAIL Blog:

Free First Friday Lecture Series: Paul Margolis:
Quilting and fiber artist Paul Margolis works with unique materials such as vinyl and lace. His piece I Imagined I was a Meter Maid is featured in Bellevue Arts Museum’s Forum. Join him for a lively talk about this creative and quirky work of art as well new ideas and past pieces.
6:30 – 7:30 pm
FREE for members/$5 non-members.

Hello BAM: Free First Friday? Even in Bellevue, $5 isn’t free.