OFFBEAT ICONIC features three artists who portray quintessential
Rhode Island subjects in unexpected ways. Subject matters include our
state’s landmarks, manufacturing history and maritime heritage. Views
presented, however, are of the overlooked, bygone or rarely accessible
aspects of these subjects. The viewer is invited to stray off the beaten
path through the unique vision of these three artists.
So if you are taking a flight, and not running frantically for your plane, take a little detour to the lobby area at the base of the stairs to the Post Road pedestrian overpass. The show runs from January 13 through April 30, 2015.
If you'd like to preview the catalog of The Shoemaker Series: St. Hugh's Bones, and/or purchase a copy, you can see it HERE
Slowly but surely I'm finishing work I started in Alaska. This one was done just out of sight of our tent on Harbor Island. While I was working on it one of the Rangers came over to tell me that the rushing sound that I subconsciously attributed to waves was actually a whale spouting. So we ran over the bumpy mossy terrain to the shore, and waited, and waited, and waited and then — I saw my first whale! Or the spout anyway, but I did get a glimpse of tail so I guess that counts!
2015 is looking to be an interesting year, I have two shows of my Alaska work in the fall, and in January I'm going to be exhibiting my Shoemaker paintings at the state airport. So that's "good interesting".
I'm also going to be UNEMPLOYED, come February, for the first time in my life, including college. A victim of the ailing newspaper business. That's just "interesting-interesting". We will see what happens with that. I am looking for work, but there's a good possibility I won't find it, right away at least. Perhaps I can live off my painting? I know, always joking....but if I can meet my studio expenses I can still keep painting.
A break would be kind of wonderful, but no paycheck will be a shocker. Fate (and various HR departments) will decide! Until then, to the studio!
That bridge I was going to cross if I was accepted for a residency at Denali? Well, I probably won't be crossing it this year. I heard the decision much sooner than I expected (which thankfully cuts short the suspense) but unfortunately I was not a finalist. I did, however, make 2nd runner up. The bronze medal, sort of. Which is actually quite flattering considering how few are chosen. And I was very appreciative of the personal note and nice words on my work. So, since I don't imagine two people will be crazy enough to turn down the residency, I will try again next year, with more Alaska paintings. And of course, I have the Grand Canyon residency to look forward to, which isn't too shabby!
Which is probably it for the exhibits for awhile, but I'm glad to have gotten some studio time in recently, especially as it is still warm enough to work without preheating my studio for two hours. The insulation is going up little by little though, and I hope to make workable this winter, as I need to paint like a maniac for about a year for two planned exhibits in the fall of 2013.
I'm also going to heat up the griddle for experimentation in encaustic. I've long been interested in learning the archaic hot wax technique so finally broke down and took a class at RISD. My first piece was, how shall I say it, a total mess, failure—a piece so ugly that passing bees made a wide berth around it and denied any part in supplying the beeswax for the monstrosity. So I have high hopes for the medium. Especially as I am thinking of using it in a multimedia painting with my disappointing piece from a previous glass casting class. I rise to the challenge!
And even more inspiring, with my slick little yellow kayak, just purchased used 2 weeks ago, I can go anywhere and do anything! As long as I have at least 6 inches of water, and no small craft warning. I can even go back to kayaking the fiords of Alaska, if the next application I send out for another Voices of the Wilderness residency is accepted. Just try keeping me out of Alaska!
Done, finally. I think the machines are over, at least for awhile. Back to the natural world. Which is really a big machine when you think of it.
I'm going soon to be part of a team that documents that machine when I join the Bioblitz on Block Island in a couple of weeks. More on that later, in fact, I may even blog from the island. Or I may just hunker down with a glass of wine in my tent after a day in the fields of BI with my paintbox. Good times.
I've been reviewed! The writer, Martina Windels, visited my studio about a month and a half ago and we spent a long time talking. She looked at both of the shows I had up at the time at RWU and the Bert Gallery. I would have rather she reviewd the Bert show, since that contained my latest work, but understand why she chose the longer show at RWU. Art New England only publishes every two months, so most shows are already down by the time they're reviewed. But the RWU will be up until June, so there's plenty of time to see if you agree with her assesment.
I'm generally happy with the critique, even the "They fail, however..." part. I know the large Badlands triptych was more of a transitional piece, and if I failed to convey the desolation, it could be because I found the Badlands not desolate, but incredibly rich in color and texture. See what you think...
Criticism is easier to take if it is well thought out and informed. I know Martina spent a long time looking at my work, my website and asking questions. I'd rather get a bit of negative feedback in a review with substance than a flattering reprint of my press release. And I have no complaints about the ending!
So, thank you Martina, for a "fair and balanced" review.
(Art New England doesn't link all of its reviews from its website, so I took the liberty of *sigh* retyping the whole thing here)
Art New England APRIL/MAY 2010
KATHY HODGE: PAINTINGS 1993-2009
Roger Williams University Law School Gallery - Bristol, RI - www.bristolartmuseum.org - Through June 2010
In this fifteen-year restrospective, the Bristol Art Museum assembles just a small sampling of this prolific painter's work.
Here one sees how Kathy Hodge intently examines a subject for a long period of time. This exhibit includes work from several series: Train, Russia, and National Park. While working on the latter, she was in an artist residency at the Badlands National Park. She captured this landscape by breaking down and patterning earth tones. They fail, however, to convey the desolate nature she tries to depict. Hodge's patchy and detailed application of small color fields work much better when she paints the hard surfaces of buildings, as in Wait. In this lively and semi-abstracted scene, half a train emerges from an old metal building. The objects in the paintings — trains, bits of building, school buses, row houses, chimneys, and power lines — are all rendered at odd and often conflicting perspectives, which make the scene both mesmerizing and perplexing.
The most compelling paintings in the exhibit are taken from the Shoemaker Series, recently exhibited at the Bert Gallery in Providence.
Intrigued by old cast-iron machinery that she discovered in a local custom shoemaker's shop, Hodge took photographs of the unusual objects. The photographs became the source of inspiration as she started with quick, unfussy, and lively watercolor sketches that captured the equipment's character. Then, using charcoal, she created more studied and realistic portraits of the machine. Workings simultaneously on several pieces and in different media, Hodge would create a third iteration of the object — a loosely composed illustration in acrylic paint, overlaid with pastels for additional color and highlights. The grand finale would be a large painting, always executed in oil, with nuanced color application and a more refined composition.
In the oil paintings, Hodge would often combine elements from different objects, splicing them at obscure angles. The more abstracted the image, the more compelling the painting, shifting the focus from content to color, shape and composition, areas in which Hodge shows her strength and confidence.
Here's another memento from the shoemaker's shop, a 1945 manual of the Goodyear Welt Sewing Machine.
I love the elegant engraving of the machine, a nice contrast to my own interpretation.
• • •
The weather is getting warm enough to wander outside on my lunch breaks, and last week I stumbled on a couple of good exhibits on College Hill. Both have a good representation of paint on canvas, rather shocking in this day and age.
The first, "Extreme Scale", is at the Providence Art Club. Among the large pieces is Sue McNally's "Paradise at Night"which I first bowled me over when I saw it at the Newport Art Museum last June. On the other end of the scale one of my favorites is a beautiful sculptural rendering of a tree trunk in frosted glass and wood by Kat Ely.
Just a few blocks away, The List Gallery at Brown has their Student Exhibtion. Despite the obligatory pile of stuff in the corner and annoying flat-screen TV spewing static, it also has some pretty nice paintings.
The shows will be up for about another week and a half, so if you're in the neighborhood, they're worth a look.
The shoemaker is closing down shop. It wasn't lack of business that closed him down, it was lack of time to spend in the shop, as he had to work around his full time job with a large shoe manufacturer. I know how hard that is, although I'm not ready to give up my second job as a painter yet. But boy, it would be nice to have weekends off.
I'm glad I caught the shop when I did and was able to complete my series of paintings of it. He is too and jokes that the shop has been immortalized by my paintings. I don't know about immortalized, but in a way it seems like a signal that I'm probably finished using shoe machine imagery, or will be when I finish one last large painting.
So he contacted me to let me know he asked if I wanted any mementos of the shop. I didn't hesitate to visit before the beautiful machines, already sold, are loaded on to a truck and shipped west.
As we talked he demonstrated how some of the machines worked, something I hadn't seen to this point. It was crazy to see them actually move, almost like Pygmalion seeing his statue come to life. They clicked along with a oily clatter, spinning of wheels and pumping of levers. It kind of blew my mind. I would have loved to take one of them home, but they weigh half a ton and are probably better off continuing their mission of making shoes. I ended up taking some simple tools, and these beautiful shoe lasts, circa 1969.
...but not by much, so you'll have to hurry if you'd like to catch my show at the Bert Gallery. The last day will be this Saturday, Feb. 13. I'm sorry to see it come down—it's been a great few weeks and I can't think of a better person to work with than Cathy Bert. I wish she had a bigger space to display her contemporary artists, but she does more with her beautiful little gallery than most do with huge white boxes. If you stop in, wish her a happy 25th anniversary, it's quite a feat to survive that long as a gallery here in Providence!
It's funny, when I exhibited some of this work over a year ago the silence from the press was deafening. This time around, the show was mentioned in 2 reviews - Providence Phoenix and The Providence Journal, and had a full-page write up in The Warwick Beacon. It was also mentioned as an editor's pick in a several publications and will be reviewed in the April/May edition of Art New England. Working in the newspaper business I have come to realize that the merit of a show is only one factor in whether it gets press. Others factors are:
• The writer's schedule
• The news hole
• Whether you have a "hook" or local connection
• What else is exhibiting while yours is up
• Whether they've been sent good imagery
• Whether the reviewer takes your venue seriously
• Other miscellaneous factors
I'm just glad the planets aligned for this show. Thanks so much to all who came, purchased or wrote about my work, it is much appreciated!
I was happy today to open The Providence Journal and find my show got a positive mention in the weekly art review. Although I work for the paper, that by no means guarantees a review. In fact, I think it works against me most times. It's hard to maintain that bohemian artist mystique when you're seen every day trudging up the stairs to your cubicle.
It was even more fun to get a phone call from my mom, who lives in Warwick, that the show got a full page color write up in the Warwick Beacon. It's nice to make the folks proud once in a while. And just think, all the neighbors will see it!
I get a kick out of it too, since The Beacon was my first job after I graduated the Swain School of Design. It wasn't my first newspaper job, which was typing in stories for the RISD Press, but it was where I learned the trade of newspaper design and production. A lot has changed in that field, but it still provides me a paycheck, and now supports my painting habit.
And unusual for art reviews in this area — the reviews were published before the show is over. Yea!
It was great seeing all who showed up for my opening of the Shoemaker Series at the Bert Gallery. Thanks for coming and for all the nice comments, I'm just sorry I couldn't manage to talk to everyone I saw come through the door. It's very strange to be the center of attention and way out of my comfort zone, but I do appreciate it, and all the hard work Cathy Bert and her staff did to make it happen.
I have to admit I am enjoying having a nice quiet week though— last week was busy with not only preparing for the Bert Gallery opening, but also in hanging paintings at Roger Williams University School of Law Library in Bristol. I was given the walls of nice big lounge space on the second floor of the library that's open to the public and was glad have help from Lydia from RWU and Suzanne from the Bristol Art Museum as well as two very accommodating men from RWUs building staff, who did the heavy lifting and hung the work expertly. Even before the work was fully unpacked I started overhearing feedback from the many law students and staff who walk through and didn't know the "artist" was overhearing. I couldn't help but contrast it to the sterile, silent atmosphere of most galleries.
Anyway, this show will be up for 6 months, until June, so if you're in the East Bay vicinity, stop in. Unlike many gallery spaces, they have nice comfy chairs and couches!
A little video and a link for more info on my Shoemaker show which is up now at the Bert Gallery. (Opening reception - This Saturday 2-3! Did I mention they'll have hot chocolate?)
Well, 2010 (just realized that number is fun to type, a good portent), is starting out very unusually busy on the exhibition front. Yesterday I packed the truck full of paintings and delivered them to the Bert Gallery before I had to report to my job. This is the first time breaking in the new truck for exactly what I bought it for, a painting transportation vehicle. It did well and by the end of next week, when I deliver even more paintings to another exhibit I just finalized, it should settle in to saddle.
The Bert show opens on January 13, with a reception on January 16 (2-3). I'll be showing 12 paintings from the Shoemaker series, and I have to say they look pretty good on Bert's freshly painted raw sienna walls.
Another show, which came up suddenly and out of the blue, is at Roger Williams University Law School Library in Bristol, RI. I'll be showing a variety of work from the last 10 years in the second floor atrium lounge. More details to come.
Then in March, I'll be installing my church paintings as part of the Providence Art Windows project. My window is on Fulton street, just to the left of City Hall, and right next to the wonderful Big Nazo Puppet windows. You can see my space above the black pickup (currently exhibiting work by Amy DiPlacido).
As a result, most of my paintings will be out of studio storage for awhile. I'm looking forward to seeing the empty racks... even if it's only temporary.
I spent my New Year's Eve sitting in front of the fire drinking a little champagne and reading over my last year of blogging. My memory is notoriously bad, so being able to review the year this way makes me glad to have posted over the last 12 months, even if no one was to read it. But I've also made some good connections along the way, which makes me happy that some people have read it, so if you're reading my blog now...thank you and Happy New Year!
I have to say, for all the dissing of 2009 I've heard, it was not a bad year for me, and for that I'm grateful. Even though I often fantasize about ditching the day job, I survived two rounds of layoffs and I know, intellectually, it's a good thing. Unemployment would not mean more time in the studio, it would mean more time on interviews. If I was lucky enough to find another job, would probably mean longer hours for less pay. So I guess I'm glad I kept my job.
More importantly though, those I care about are doing ok. Although I would wish better health for some, we are all still here, still supporting ourselves and still getting along.
The most disappointing thing this year has been in my work. After three or four years of intense work on my last series, I haven't produced much substantial since my show at the end of 2008. I have been thinking a lot, but haven't found the same kind of focus as I had with my Shoemaker Series yet. I do have some ideas floating around, and found a special dune-ish inspiration last summer, so paintings will follow...
So where did all the time go? Let's see...
In January I went to classes at the Museum of Natural History in Roger William's Park called "Drawing from the Collection" and learned to love taxidermy. I focused on owls, and it gave me some ideas about incorporating these little spirits into my work. It was also very cheering (if freezing) to hop on an overnight bus to attend the inauguration in Washington. It was a great experience to feel so hopeful about the shift in direction our country chose, and although everything is far from wonderful, I still feel hopeful to have someone leading this country who can think in more than one dimension. I had washed my hands of the judgment of the American Public, so had to promptly unwash them.
My friend Mary Grady was the one who got me out into January's cold on those adventures. Her's usually take place up in the sky, so check out her site if you like all things aviation.
In February I said goodbye to my 1989 Toyota pickup. You would think swapping it for a new 2009 version would be exciting but I still feel a pang when I think about it and wonder if I did the right thing. The new truck is much smoother, but bigger and not nearly as friendly. But I gave my old truck to my college-age niece, so I get to take it for a spin once in a while. I have to admit I'm amazed at how stiff, pokey and noisy it rides now that I'm used to the other. But it served me well for 20 years and delivered a lot of paintings.
In March I found out that one of the national park artist residencies I had applied for had accepted me. In fact, I was to be the first AIR at Great Dunes National Park. A few weeks later, I got a phone call which told me that my name was chosen in a lottery to stay in dune shack on Cape Cod.
Quite a coincidence, and it was nice to be able to anticipate hiking barefoot through the dunes to get me through the blustery chill of March.
As excited as I was about planning my next residency, I still owed Mesa Verde a painting from my 2008 residency there. I finished it in June, just over the year deadline. Those at the park were very patient and resisted showing up at my studio door with their flat rimmed ranger hats and crisp khaki uniforms to seize what I owed them. I'm glad they like it when it finally arrived.
In August, after a little angst about whether I could get the time off work, and keeping a nervous eye on Hurricane Bill which was charging up the coast, I was dropped off at the dune shack Thalassa and spent an idyllic week there, hiking over the dunes and along the shore, watching the huge waves kicked up by the hurricane, drawing, swimming and entertaining a few guests.
I hardly had time to shake the sand out of my shoes before heading out to Colorado and Great Sand Dunes National Park in September. The dunes were much higher there, but worth the climbing. I'm still working on posting my journal, but the first two installments can be found here.
The rest of the fall was spent in getting my application out for Denali National Park (rejected!) and happily sorting through some exhibition opportunities which have come my way. I drop off the paintings for the first one, at Bert Gallery in Providence, tomorrow and will have more details soon.
It will be nice to move some of my paintings out of the cold studio and into nice warm gallery space. And it will be nice to move me into the cold studio to make more...
Well, the English Christmas Cake is baked and eaten, the family has come and gone, presents opened, toasts given, and the yule log is ashes. It was nice hosting our two large family groups Christmas eve and day, but it was a lot of work, and I'm looking forward to getting back on track with planning my Bert exhibit. Invites will be printed soon, so if you like one by post office, or by email, just send me your address and I'll add you to my list.
I can't decide what kind of rejection I like the best; an email message or the kind that comes back in the S.A.S.E dutifully included in the application.
I suspect the email version will become the new standard, as everything moves online. I do like how much easier it is on the application side, but after waiting forever to get a response, it's somehow more satisfying to open an envelope, see the nice thick paper with the rejector's letterhead, throw it aside, then retrieve it to add to the file of rejection letters. So what do I do now — print my rejection emails to add to my file?
That would be silly. I think I will.
Anyway, I've been thinking about this because I got two email rejections in two days. The first was...sniff...the Denali artist residency (I don't really cry on my emails—it's not good for the keyboard). In previous postal rejections I've had little notes slipped inside telling me how close I came, and to try again. This email began with "Thank you for applying..." Always a very bad sign. Then came the standard Don't-Feel-Too-Bad tag line... "We had many strong applications from all over the U.S. and abroad, making this year’s selection especially difficult." So after thinking I was ALMOST heading north for the last few application cycles, I'm now feeling Denali is further away than ever.
The second rejection was from a local group show, no big deal really, but it's a place I always feel a bit surprised to be rejected from.
But I still have my show at Bert coming up next month, and yesterday I was contacted out of the blue about another exhibit opportunity. More on both of those later...
I was hoping to have my next installment of my Great Dunes journal by the next time I posted, and it's close, but not done yet. Sorry to keep you in suspense (as you say—oh, there's more?) But, if they're not literary masterpieces, it's still good for me to labor over them. I did write down my impressions every day while out there, but in trying to make something of it, and going over it again and again, it really helps me sort out the experience and remember my residencies more richly.
I got an email this week from the latest residency I've applied for — Denali National Park— but was afraid to click on it, being at work and all, and not wanting to switch my mood from stupefaction to disappointment. But it was just a notification that I'll hear in the next few weeks, so there's still hope!
Meanwhile I've been working on a video for my upcoming show at the Bert Gallery in January. They've been filming interviews with the artists to go along with their recent shows, and the thought of having to go on about my work in front of a camera made me immediately volunteer to work with my husband (a filmmaker) to come up with a little video that hopefully will be more interesting than my talking head. So we returned to the shoemaker's shop and took some shots, and will film in my studio, and perhaps I can edit it together in something approaching a coherent piece.
Some of the pressure is off for now though. I found out I misunderstood about the Providence Art Window gig, the letter asked if I COULD install by December, it didn't say I would be SCHEDULED to install in December. So it's still on, but sometime in the future...and out of my head for now, where it's safer.
I am in a holiday show at Imago gallery in Warren though. I submitted these 3 little paintings of the Badlands National Park, so stop by their lovely new gallery if you get a chance. My pieces are recession priced...such a bargain! Warren was hopping last weekend when I went, too. Granted it was the lighting festival, but it really is getting to be a very arty scene there, and it will look so festive with the colored (not snooty white) lights strung across Main St.
I'm continuing to update my website, here's a link to the bigger and better sideshow of the drawings and work on paper I did in preparation for the oil paintings of the Shoemaker series, coming soon to the Bert Gallery!
