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Growing the Arts - a Surreal Dream Scape 2013 Wrap up!
Posted on | Sunday, May 5, 2013 | No Comments
The community thrives when there are creative outlets that can foster an appreciation and understanding of the arts. We want to be a cultural hub in Montgomery County.
This year our Gala's theme was "Growing the Arts - a Surreal Dream Scape!" In the first half of the event which took place at the gallery, an artist dressed as Bob Dylan greeted Gala goers on the sidewalk! Inside the gallery, musicians strolled, we were graced with a spontaneous sing along of "Que Sera Sera, artists dressed as the famous paintings (the Two Fridas, and Girl with the Pearl Earring) posed for photos with guests, there was a poetry read and the song "Sunday" was sung about the famous painting "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte". We also enjoyed sweet treats from Bon Appetit!
From the gallery we proceeded to the Country Club to enjoy a buffet dinner of candy cane beet salad, grilled baby romaine, mexican grouper, chicken kiev tartlets, portabella mushrooms with asparagus, fabergé egg potatoes and yummy cupcakes! The homemade chocolate turtles at each place setting were such a nice ending to the meal. Abstract music played while the silent auction waited on bidders. We enjoyed the wearable art items worn by select artists which included the handmade hearts worn by the two Fridas! Our silent auction was a hit and the large surreal flower blooms centerpieces went home with the highest bidders as well!
The night was a treat and we thank all for the support. Let us know if you enjoyed the night and also how we can improve.
Zach Medler - Featured Artist
Posted on | Tuesday, April 2, 2013 | 1 Comment
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| Photo by: Jonathan Streetman/Journal Review |
Exhibit located in the special exhibit room in Athens Arts
Beginning April 3rd at 10am, Zach Medler will be begin creating on site! One piece will be an interactive mural created on a large paneled screen. This piece "in progress" will evolve throughout the six week period that Zach's show will be at Athens Arts.
The second creation will be a multi-dimensional installation mural created in the featured artist room titled "art from where you live".
Please drop by in the next few days to see Zach create! There will be many opportunities to witness these evolving creations. Hope to see you there!
Take a look at Zach's blog to see photos and details of the installation as well as the interactive mural.
zachmedler.blogspot.com
Artist’s Statement:
“consider the hand that will hold the handle”
i like to combine traditional and non-traditional media in alternative ways to create a cohesive aesthetic that seeks to break away from the one-dimensional manifesto art of postmodernism. my objective in making art is simply to translate an experience to an audience in a relatable way. sometimes that means i interact with them through their morning cup of joe. sometimes it means i pull them into a sunset of ink and paper or paint on wood. other times they are encouraged to participate in interactive installations or by walking around wearing one of my t-shirts. i try to constantly remind myself to consider the hand that will hold the handle in all things that i make.
i began simply making pots trying to develop ideas of form and function. i switched gears in graduate school, as many of us do, and stepped into the arena of installation. post-grad school and trying to eek out a living forced me back into functional work. out of boredom, i began incorporating imagery and storytelling. block printing and relief-print ceramics evolved from prints on ceramic sculptures to pottery. the idea of repeatable imagery made me consider using stencils in my paintings. the stencils then showed up on tshirts. everything plays off of everything else plays off the color palate of the midwest.
Front Page of Journal Review - Diana May
Posted on | Friday, February 22, 2013 | No Comments
"RESOLUTIONS" - Diana Couk May
Posted on | Monday, February 11, 2013 | No Comments
"RESOLUTIONS"
Diana Couk May
Opening reception, February 22, 6-8pm
Diana Couk May started working with clay when in high school at Jefferson High School in Lafayette. She then moved to Michigan and pursued her work with clay at Oakland Community College near Detroit. A minor in business and accounting eventually became her profession while in the back of her mind she knew that eventually she would find clay again. Twenty years later, with the help and support of her husband and children, she launched Muddog Pottery, creating functional and sculptural art, using clay.
website: www.muddogclay.com
The Adventures of Hergé
Posted on | Saturday, January 26, 2013 | 1 Comment
The Adventures of Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi
May 22, 1907-March 3, 1983
One of my favorite types of movies when I was a kid were the swashbuckling adventures, particularly Indiana Jones. To be honest, I still have a soft spot for these stories, and this is why I gravitated to a television series that was on the air when I was little--The Adventures of Tintin. The various adventures of this reporter and his faithful dog, Snowy, enthralled me. As I grew older, I started getting interested in comics because it was an entire story literally drawn out in pictures. By the time I was ten, I could name various comic artists like Charles Schulz and Winsor McCay. One Saturday, my mom came back from her morning traversing the different yard sales with a book of games for me. I flipped through the slender, paperback volume, and recognized the drawings right away. The characters were from The Adventures of Tintin. Then I saw the name of the creator, Herge. I became fascinated for years.
Hergé was the pseudonym of the artist Georges Prosper Remi who was born in Brussels, Belgium, in May of 1907. While growing up, Remi lived an average lifestyle. He said: “My childhood was extremely ordinary. It happened in a very average place, with average events and average thoughts. For me, the poet's "green paradise" was rather gray... My childhood, my adolescence, Boy Scouting, military service – all of it was gray. Neither a sad boyhood nor a happy one – rather a lackluster one.” Remi found his revival in drawing and drawing a particular character. The character didn’t have a name, but he was a sort of Boy Scout who would thumb his nose at his German captors (from 1914-’18 Germany occupied Belgium). Years afterwards, Remi still had this mere idea. When he started working for a paper entitled Le XXe Siécle (The Twentieth Century) he developed a comic strip about a brave Boy Scout named Totor. And, after serving in the military, Remi worked at another paper called Le Petit Vingtiéme. Here Remi concocted his most famous character,
a journalist named Tintin.
a journalist named Tintin.
Tintin made his debut in the comic entitled Tintin in the Land of the Soviets under the new name Hergé, which was Remi’s initials (GR) backwards (RG). This comic started Remi’s rocketing career as a master storyteller with a unique drawing style. Remi took Tintin to the far corners of the globe, the bottom of the sea, and even the Moon a good 16 years before Neil Armstrong. Remi’s style evokes that of Charles Schulz and George McManus in its simple, yet lifelike manner. Like Norman Rockwell, he used himself as a model in order to better understand human anatomy. Remi as Hergé inspired other storytellers and artists because of his drawing style and sense of adventure--including myself.
I still have that game book as well as a small shelf
dedicated to my Tintin books.
I still have that game book as well as a small shelf
dedicated to my Tintin books.
Needless to say, Hergé is part of the pantheon of great comic artists such as Charles Schulz, George McManus, Chester Gould, and Winsor McCay who seem to defy their own genre.
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| ---illustrations by Andrew Taylor of Andrew Taylor Andy Taylor is a young, local artist - an inspiration! Please come back for more posts from Andy. |
Featured Artist: Matthew Steele
Posted on | Sunday, January 6, 2013 | No Comments
Featured Artist: Matthew Steele
"Invisible Complexity"
Opening reception January 11, 6-8pm
Artist Statement:
My interests lie in methods of connection, with all of their complexities. I am heavily motivated by infrastructure. There is a certain poetry to the lenghts we go to, to feel connected. I am interested in how our internal technologies are often reflected in the physical technologies that we produce.
There is a desire in a highway.
There is resilience in a dam.
There is triumph in a bridge.
These icons are steeped in intense labor. I see them as manifestations of our grand intention; to transcend the greatest obstacles we know. It is my intent to personify or portray technologies of the self through depictions of these utilitarian endeavors.
"blue light special"
Posted on | Friday, November 9, 2012 | 1 Comment
November 24 - December 29
the "blue light special" exhibit showing in the special exhibit room at Athens Arts Gallery.
Just in time for the holidays - this show is unique in that all art is priced $100 and below and each piece contains the color blue. Just a small smidge or entirely in blue!
We also have new art and new artists throughout the gallery as well! Make the gallery one of your holiday stops! You will not be disappointed!