Having a show with two family members was an incredibly gratifying experience. Opening night was really quite fun. In fact, I had charged my camcorder and brought my still camera and was ready to capture episodes for this blog.....,however, I was so engaged in talking with everyone who came to the show that I completely forgot to take a single picture, imagine that, after 100,000 photographs in my lifetime, that I actually forgot to take a picture! So, the photos shown here were taken before the show.
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Here are the three invitations. We couldn't decide which image to use so we made three different cards.
I took a few photos of all the images bubblewrapped and ready to be transported to the gallery:
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| Packed |
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| Loaded in the van |
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| WKNO Radio/TV Station |
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| Gallery Exterior |
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| Beautiful Empty Gallery Space |
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| Laying out the art work |
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| Ready to Hang |
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| Finally Hung |
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| Entire Scene |
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Artists' Statements for this show:
Judith Barrie currently lives and paints in Germantown, Tennessee. She has loved art, music, drama, dance, and photography from an early age, inspired by her parents who have shared their love of the fine arts with her through drawing and music lessons, and attending concerts, operas, and plays. She received a Master of Science in Educational Media from Radford University in Virginia using her own photographic images and silk-screen work and music to create installations and to illustrate children’s literature. She has studied art in southern Spain, the Umbrian region of Italy, as well as, in numerous local workshops, and most recently at the Memphis College of Art. Judith paints a variety of subjects in oils, pastels, watercolors, and colored pencil, often incorporating images from her own photography. As a member of both Artists’ Link and the Memphis Germantown Art League, Judith enjoys exhibiting her work in local art shows.
Shira Soskel :
In 2008 I graduated with a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My focus was in painting, drawing, and printmaking. For the past two years I have found myself painting, specifically in watercolors and experimenting in aqua-oils.
I gather inspiration from my environment, specifically what invokes happiness or positive thinking. I find myself interested in the form of my subjects, not solely as an overall matter but individually. There are certain movements, forms, in a subject and in the act of representing a subject that invoke calm or even ease. My goal is to provide either an environment one can immerse themselves into or simply elements that enhance one’s environment in a positive manner.
The methods I choose to create any particular piece are quite methodical. In fact, each technique is treated as a form of meditation, focusing on the medium and the nature of the image as it lies before me. While my goal is to provide a finished piece invoking a form of happiness, I do not want to allow the image to become contrived. So while in this artistic meditation I try to focus on where these forms are going and what the medium is allowing. As simplistic as an image may feel, I try not to let the simplicity over-take what the medium and I are forming.
Norman Soskel
Starting at the age of four with the encouragement of my photographer father, my interest in photography has evolved through three home-made conventional darkrooms into digital schemes. Application of the
same basic photographic techniques allows me to explore nature, the ultimate art form, and to take glimpses or slices from it, displaying them in various ways in an attempt to provide some insight into it. After all, what we (as artists) attempt to do is represent nature in some medium and to portray all the emotion and sensuality (in terms of the five senses) that is evoked by experiencing it. Along with this
experience often comes some intellectual commentary, implicit or explicit. Frequently my intent is to demonstrate that just about everything that is natural has beauty, and that everyday occurrences, being a part of nature, can exude those properties as well.
A number of recent works fall into two newly developed categories, glimpses and slices. Glimpses are views of the world as seen through a portal such as the camera or a window. Slices are pieces of the whole that may or may not be recognizable and may even represent a microcosm within something larger. Slices allow the viewer to imagine the rest and therefore may provide more freedom of interpretation.
Additional works encompass the media watercolor, collage, and serigraphy. Utilizing the medium of encaustics allows me to incorporate all of these media into the same piece of art for a very satisfying way to fully express myself.
This show involves a mixture, mélange, of works from my daughter, my wife and myself, brought together for the first time in one presentation. It represents the blending of, not only art forms, but also family ties and connections. The differences represent personalities and opinions and the similarities represent a melding of minds and souls. We hope this is as gratifying for the viewers as it is for us.
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A few of Judith's pieces:
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| Passaglio, watercolor |
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| Out on My Own, watercolor |
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| Ocean Breezes, watercolor |
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| Etherial, oil |
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| Overton, oil |
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| Exhale, water-soluble oil |
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| Release, water-soluble oil |
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| Natural Warriors, watercolor |
A Few of Norman's Pieces:
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| Converging Toward the Infinite, photograph |
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| My Pods, photograph |
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| Emerging Optimism, serigraph |
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| Posts with Blue and Rope, encaustic on photograph |
It took Judith and I 7 hours to put up the show, level the images, place spacers behind some of them and polish the encaustics. We took 3.5 hours to take down the show and place each piece back in their bubble wrap covers and another half hour to bring it all home and store it. Not too bad for 90 pieces. Now I'm getting ready for my next solo show in January. More about that later.
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