textile

Half a Century of Art in Kentucky

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Through the Eye

Threading the eye of any needle is often tedious.  Likewise, “stitching” colorful characters within a written story is even more daunting than building a layered tapestry’s  surface texture and color.  Stick men and straight lines are the running jokes about drawing. And there are moments when looking at the details within a tapestry so intensely worked by the human hand comes the thought  of  that inevitable and unnecessary question of an artist: “How long did it take you to do that?” Here’s to the common ‘man’. The fabric collages, embroidery and stitchery of the late Alma Lesch, Kentucky textile pioneer 1917-1999, upon first glance transport the eye beyond this ridiculous question concerning time. The eternity found within each threaded universe of textures and blending of unexpected materials she gathered and assembled within each idea is another interpretation of the Einsteinium formula. Time slows to a point where the viewer warps toward a prior American era. In the example floating beneath this page for example, “Sallie” appears as if she arrived dressed for dinner on the Titanic or as familiar as fictitious yet linked to Downton Abbey a century ‘fastforwarded’ by British television drama. The fabric portraits, as she called these clothing re-constructions, received names of actual people in her social network and local community of colorful Kentucky characters from life. Lesch’s breakthrough piece from the early 1960s called “Uncle Bob Shows His Medals” began, through assemblage, the use of real objects stitched onto the fabric’s surface on many portraits into the 1990s. From classic Grant Wood, “Southern Gothic” sprang forth in several interpretations, now an Appalachian farm couple, to a local Woman’s Club chairlady dressed for business and  Robert’s Rules of Order in hand. In a time when Robert Rauschenberg literally placed an American pieced quilt into his “paintings” now referred to as ‘assemblage’. Lesch’s work from a half- century ago captured the local culture and aesthetic as does Gamez De Francisco Carlos today in his powerfully conceived figurative “portraits” capturing the soul of  Louisville. A portrait of a city equally as innovative a leap of conceptual thinking as the portrait of a dot on a map, Alma’s home of fifty years, called Shepherdsville, Kentucky, USA.

Gallery

Textile Designing for the Homemaker SCREEN PRINTING LEARNSHOPS at Small Town Gallery inc. Brooks KY

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Have you ever thought of designing a surface repeat pattern for fabrics you would use in your home? Consider the chance to select a design motif for the fabrics used in your life (sheets, pillowcases, crib quilts, curtains, upholstery, tablecloths, a scarf…) by examining your home, selecting a shape to relate to your interior…wallpaper, pillows, carpet, furniture details…and selecting yardage appropriate for the project.

Remember, this is a DESIGN totally unique to your home, a one-of-a-kind original fabric created by YOU for YOUR home.

Avoiding the temptation to copy commercial LOGOs and Trade Marked designs, since you are not selling the final yardage, similar designs may be adapted to please you love of the THEME or MOTIF you wish to use. For example, your child LOVES Disney movies and wants more snow white in her bedroom…consider the colors used in the movie and the symbols used throughout the film. Maybe a simple STAR will match the wallpaper you already have on the walls? Sports and Colleges may have simple shapes to relate to the licensed memorabilia around the home… what sport is being represented in your Design Motif plan?

Regardless, the PRINTING LEARNSHOP will begin with the design session planning your needs, Bring tear sheets and drawings to the first session in order to plan, draw and produce the stencils used in the final project.  Colors (two) will be selected and with my help INKS to be used, in this permanent commercial quality color fast product, will be provided until final session heat setting the INK.

Safe, non-toxic inks will be used to create your repeat pattern based on the custom designs you have researched for your ORIGINAL design project. Cleanup with soap and water, bring your own latex gloves if you require, makes this process user friendly.

The two day LEARNSHOPS will run through late spring and mid summer in Brooks at <Small Town Gallery, inc> with the second session allowing the PRINTING to be completed. You may wish to launder the new bed linens, yardage and fabrics before the printing.

Watch calendar for classes at Small Town Gallery inc for Spring into Summer Learnshops.

 

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retrospectfully speaking: FORTY years of art exploration in Kentucky

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ImagePatrick Dougherty, known across the planet for his site-specific sculpture commissions, pictured last April 2012 building Snake Hollow at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest with local volunteer, Bullitt County basket sculptor, Dennis Shaffner.

SHAFFNER Exhibition, at Small Town Gallery  through August 2012, Brooks, KY

artist statement: DENNIS SHAFFNER, summer 2012

Our mighty Ohio River flows from my native state of Pennsylvania. Running southwest from Pittsburgh, it wanders far beyond the eastern Appalachians along the Delaware where I began painting and drawing. I was born in Wyeth country and survived the pressure that entailed.  Both states are rather wide commonwealths, Kentucky and Pennsylvania share a pastoral beauty in landscapes like a two-hundred-thirty-six year reality show…but not on cable TV. Painting these watercolors, on location, north of  Washington’s Crossing State Park along the winding Rt. 611 and Easton-to-Philadelphia Canal, where the Lehigh spills into the narrow ravine of the Delaware River at Easton, are locations for some of my earliest watercolors.  This collection on exhibit are survivors from the post-art school bonfires that honed down my early works.

Bernheim Forest, named so when I discovered its natural beauty in the early 1970s has become the redesigned landscape called Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Bullitt and Nelson County Kentucky nestled in Clermont which benefits from the watershed for world class Jim Beam Bourbon, which is distilled just across the road from one entrance in the forest.  My oil and acrylics, more abstract from the watercolors, are impressions of the former Kingfisher Pond which once hid like a secret garden behind the two standing old barn silos and original visitor center. The wooden bridge, now removed, once made this “mini-Monet” waterlily and goldfish pond my own Giverny every weekend or occasional weekday afternoon sanctuary of quiet observation. Working drawings and video imagery of the pond inspired the paintings now hanging in Brooks at Small Town Gallery.

Decades later and now well into this new century Bernheim planned the commisioned work of Patrick Dougherty which he named Snake Hollow upon completion last April. My time volunteering during the eighteen day construction period of this work in harvested willow allowed my experience as a basket sculptor to see another completely different scale of weaving and “architecture” as I see my birdnest inspired forms I call BIRDnest forms.  Many basket forms can be seen at Small Town Gallery through August along with the paintings and fiber pieces on exhibit.

CKAG 2012 All Member Show

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Central Kentucky Art Guild of Elizabethtown, KY is pleased to announce the 2012 All Member Show to be exhibited in Brooks, KY at Small Town Gallery Inc. Located at 4313 Coral Ridge Road and organized by Betty Whitt, who is a member of CKAG, is president of Small Town Gallery Inc.
Featuring the work of twenty-one artists from our region CKAG is comprised of accomplished painters and mixed-media artists from across the Bluegrass State.

An opening reception is scheduled for May 18, 2012 from 5- 7 pm with an awards presentation at 6 pm.