Fayetteville Underground

Art for the Holidays

2011-11-25T10:38:00.001-08:00

Art for the Holidays
December’s First Thursday at the Fayetteville Underground

On First Thursday, December 1st, join the artists of the Fayetteville Underground to celebrate the opening of our third annual Art for the Holidays exhibition. Find affordable works of original art created by the Fayetteville Underground Studio artists, E Street artists, as well as many of the visiting artists that have shown at the Underground in the past. Giving the gift of original art has never been easier as all our art will be cash and carry throughout the month of December. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, 12 to 7 p.m. and Saturday 10 to 5 p.m. Additionally, there will be extended shopping hours on Friday, December 2, until 10 p.m., and on Sunday, December 4 from 11 a.m. to 5p.m.

In conjunction with First Thursday, from 5 to 8 p.m., a fundraiser for the Fayetteville Art Alliance will be hosted by local artists, Kathy Thompson and Cindy Arsaga at their studio, located at 3 E. Mountain Street. Community members are invited to stop by for food, drinks, and to share in the holiday spirit, as they raise funds for our new community art organization.

This will be the final exhibition at the current Fayetteville Underground location. The community is encouraged to stay involved with the organization, as the artists move to their new home and resurface as the Fayetteville Art Alliance in January 2012. To learn more about the new organization and how you can help please visit www.morphtheorg.com

First Thursday November: Trigos, Idlet, Hudson, Sims

2011-10-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday November 3rd from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

Luciano Trigo's paintings will be featured in the Revolver. In the Vault, Dana Idlet will present her latest work since her experience on Flores Island in the Azores. The work of Chad Sims will be on display in the Hive gallery. The E Street Gallery will feature functional stoneware by Gailen Hudson.

The Fayetteville Underground is currently transitioning, as the artists create their own non-profit community arts organization. The present location will be open, now through the end of the year, and both November and December’s First Thursdays will continue as planned. Visitors to November’s First Thursday will be asked to help the artists’ “Morph the Org,” by voting for the name of their new organization. Popcorn and drinks will be served.

Luciano Trigos

Progressive Hemofiction

Revolver Gallery

The eye stops in front of the Hemofiction painting. Observes shapes, colors, and structure, it self mesmerized. Desires to comprehend, looking back from a previous time, worn out. Attempts to enter lateral invented reality through a known door, but uses the incorrect key. Attentive eye, but conditioned. Curious eye. Was it going to speak proudly of its knowledge? What do I see? – asks the eye in continuous excitement. Hemofictive shapes that escape like smarmy fishes. Luciano Trigos's pictorial sense refuses to respond positively to custom. I am eye, should be able to see- the observer says with a certain rancorous air in his usual gaze.

The eye that claims or wishes to admire the unwanted requires tutelage. The disciple eye submits itself to surprising design and, does it look again? No, in reality it touches, it creates visual hands that reach out to caress the canvas and wooden frames. The eye, reeducated, gropes hemofictive forms. Colors and perspectives come to it in an open manner, vibrating. Wanting to retrocede, the eye wishes to perceive the pictorial dimension in an instant, but the painting's reality divides, it sets diversity of centers at the sight, it seems the painting does not desire to be a painting, and in contact with the touching eye it becomes restless, aggressive, as if it were being watched through a microscope. What I see transforms to pure beauty. The eye insists, inserts, accomplishes at last to detach an apparent totality, but discovers itself walking in an aesthetic surface right away, it is a wayfarer that steps, barefoot, in fragments of another reality attached to the first. Then, annoyed, decides to focus again.

Luciano Trigos does not recreate images, he produces Dynamic Abstract Chromatics. The artist sets off in observing, where personal creativity is the center. He sets the eye in first place and completes what could be spaces full of aesthetic cells that reproduce in unusual senses.

The eye roams with its own unrefined resources: shape, movement, color. The cosmos is by no means, the way Luciano Trigos paints it, it is worse- the artist's aesthetics tries to make up for God's faults or in some way, adhere to nature's constant birth giving. Luciano Trigos's paintings are product of lateral, germane vision. Plastic cells are born, they grow and reproduce inside original, abstract form and at the same time, follow a kind of autonomous development. These spurious Hemofictous beings are displayed towards objectivization, they wish to be touched, they desire to enter as fact to the three dimensional world and offer concrete possibilities to the receptor.

Dana Idlet

Gravity

Vault Gallery

This work comes from the growth and experiences I had on Flores island in the Azores. After coming across a photograph of a place I had never seen, I followed my intuition and spent the last six months in the middle of the Atlantic. I shared a tiny village with 200 other people between waterfall striped mountains and a rugged coastline shaped by lava flow, always aware of the sea and its shifting horizon. The people I spent my time with there are now my brothers and sisters.

There is a simplicity to the pieces I have produced, but they come from a very deep and honest place. The island's gentle pace, lack of material clutter and some indefinable quality of lightness gave birth to these images. On the island I had an overwhelming feeling of heaviness and being grounded. I had lived with my head in the clouds, floating around, fighting to touch down. In this otherworldly place rich with contradictions I found my gravity.

Gailen Hudson
Tea Time

The art of pottery has been the transformation of the raw clay into the vessel form serving the daily utilitarian needs of the people. It has always been a three dimensional surface of expression and decoration in the living space. The tea pot is the refinement of the vessel as a server of refreshment noted as a time of relaxation and reflection - a rest from the day's labors - either as a private moment or as a social gathering. The tea pot should be pleasing to observe, to hold in the hands, and to use. It is an enclosed space for containment, it creates a defined volume within the living space of the home, and it must have the attributes to efficiently serve its contents as desired. As I return to making functional pottery in stoneware, I am again searching the perimeters of design of the pleasing and functional vessel.

Chad Sims

Chad Sims graduated with a degree in Art from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he majored in Graphic Design. He also studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. His works have been displayed in various galleries including the Jules Gallery in Fayetteville, AR; DDP Gallery in Fayetteville, AR; Gallery 26 in Little Rock, AR; and have been shown publicly in conjunction with Art Amiss, a Fayetteville-based collective for emerging artists.

This collection of works ranges from earlier, more detailed, meticulous and deliberate watercolor and pencil pictures, to more recent work in red and white earthenware clay. Due in part to the nature of the medium, the clay tiles took on a more urgent and basic quality (the lines for example being drawn more gesturally, and the compositions made simpler). Clay provided an opportunity to explore and stylize more elemental forms and figures, which I hope might one day populate paintings like the earlier more elaborately composed ones. Working with glazes and underglazes, which can't as readily be mixed and blended with one another the way watercolors can, forced me to look at color in a new way; to compose in flat blocks of color and to rely less on blending and shading and modeling of forms.

Fayetteville Underground : 4 Art Galleries : Working Artist Studios
One East Center Street : Fayetteville, AR
Fayetteville Underground Gallery Hours: W-F 12-7pm and Saturday 10-5
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayttevilleunderground.blogspot.com
www.morphtheorg.com

www.morphtheorg.com

Help us Morph the Org

2011-10-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Fayetteville Underground is Morphing into Something New

Artists to Launch a New Nonprofit Community Arts Organization

The artists and the board of the Fayetteville Underground gathered last week in the Vault Gallery, for a meeting to discuss future plans of the organization. It was at this meeting that the board revealed they would be dissolving The Fayetteville Underground at the end of the year. They did not leave open the option for the artists to carry on with the current organization. After the meeting the artists stayed to discuss the news and plan for the future. A decision was made by the artists to create a new arts organization based on the current model.

Studio Artist and current Co-Artisic Director of the Fayetteville Underground, Megan Chapman, commented, “A lot of time and energy goes into creating something as special as The Fayetteville Underground. Every studio artist, every craft artist and every visiting artist that has shown at The Underground has made it what it is today. The artists know that we can take what we have learned through our experience here, and go forward to create something new that is even more impressive and exciting for all the artists involved, as well as for the community at large.”

The November and December First Thursdays at the Fayetteville Underground will continue as planned. The artists have launched a website to help transition to a new organization, and individuals can find the website at: morphtheorg.com. The artists are also asking that community members help them select a new name, by voting online or in person at the November First Thursday. Voting will end on November 7th, and the winning name will be released the following day. As the Fayetteville Underground takes a new shape, the artists ask that the community continue their support and direct any ideas, proposals or donations to the website at: morphtheorg.com.

Please remember! The Fayetteville Underground will remain open through December. Please join us for our November and December opening receptions on First Thursday of each month from 5-8pm.

Our regular gallery hours are W-F 12-5 and Saturday 10-5 and we will maintain our hours and our galleries until the end of the year. Thank you for your support and please help.

First Thursday: October

2011-10-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday October 6th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

The clay works of Kelley Hatfield Wilks will be featured in the Revolver. Sabine Schmidt will present her latest collection of photography in the Vault.The paintings of Becki Lamascus will be on display in the Hive along with Flannery Grace Horan's ornate, hand fabricated jewelry.The E Street Gallery will feature jewelry pieces and wall hangings created by Teresa Hall.

Metal Transitions

Teresa Hall

As an evolving mixed metal artist, I have finally found artistic satisfaction that combines my passion for painting landscapes and torching, bending, and soldering metals. The results are rich patinas that I use to create a rustic style of art to include jewelry as well as wall pieces. I have always been a fan of form and function with regards to art, and as a self-taught jewelry designer and trained painter, I now consider myself to be a mixed metal artist with a focus on the rustic and organic forms. My fascination began with an accidental walk around a junkyard some fifteen years ago where I discovered an array of metals and the intriguing patinas that were a result of weather, age, etc. I began experimenting with the manipulation of metals by hammering, torching and soldering forms to achieve desirable colors and shapes that I incorporated into large format wall hangings, as well as smaller investigations which continue to explore in the form of jewelry. I consider the art of jewelry design to be closely related to sculpture as my pieces involve building and balance to achieve a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing piece of jewelry that can be worn on a daily basis. In addition, there is a lot of satisfaction in transforming salvage into what I consider a rustic style of functional art.

It is my hope to transcend through the building process the spirit of nature as my art has always been inspired by the landscape. I live and work in Northwest Arkansas, but I spent quite a bit of time in Santa Fe, which still is the inspiration for many of my pieces because the copper patinas remind me of the peaceful, natural erosions found in the desert. Even though my pieces appear rough to the eye, they are very comfortable and smooth to wear. I am drawn mostly to bracelets because I believe they have an empowering feeling that I hope to share

Set My Watch Against the City Clock

Sabine Schmidt

The works in Set My Watch against the City Clock reflect the process of exploring the house as object and idea. A house provides shelter but also a sense of home. Houses appear in dreams and serve as metaphors for the human soul. Owning one is an important life goal; losing it can be catastrophic.

After photographing buildings in various states of use all over the United States and abroad for several years, Sabine Schmidt began to re-evaluate how humans create, destroy, and remember built space. As the most basic of such spaces, structures that “house” people share visual and functional elements.

Schmidt took those familiar features out of context by making miniature houses (mostly) from paper and placing them in different exterior and interior environments. They are out of scale and out of place, creating a tension between object and location that is meant to trigger thoughts on place and belonging. Viewers are invited to let the photos remind them of real or imagined places they know.

Life's Little Cakes

Kelley Hatfield Wilks

I had years of drafting in high school and have always appreciated the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Gaudi, and Bruce Goff. Although my primary medium is clay, I have always had a camera in my hands or within reach. I’ve used it to document all the wonderful textures in the architecture of life. Bringing my passions together I’ve titled this exhibit "Life's Little Cakes - Architectural Elements". I feel that it is the design elements that we choose to live with that are part of the wonderful sweetness in life, thus the cake. I have created Keystones, Tile Murals, Chandeliers and Sconces , Vessel Sinks and more all from porcelain, stoneware and glass along with photographic images of architectural interest from my travels around the world. I've chosen works with strong geometric presence and hopefully a sense of whimsy for this show. I hope they make you smile and want to live with a little more cake...

Animal Technology

Flannery Grace Horan & Becki Lamascus

Flannery:

When I was learning to talk, my mama asked me where I came from. I told her that I came from the moon. I said that as soon as I picked her to be my mama, I was in her belly, which I described as "hot, dark, and loud." Although I don't recall saying that, the image of me flying from the moon to earth has always stuck with me, and it started me thinking about time and space, and how to go beyond those things. Growing up as an only child I had plenty of time to get lost in my imagination, my photographic memory, and my dreams. I also had access to open space in the country around Quitman, Arkansas, where my grandparents had a farm. Since childhood, I have loved nature and animals, and venerated them. My family is not short on artistic ability, and somehow it filtered to me, but I never considered it as a career until 1996, when I spent a summer in Taos, New Mexico, with my uncle who is a master silversmith. Using only archaic tools and methods, he would hand make beautiful pieces of jewelry and sculpture. I was in love with the process and the result. I had found a spark that lit up my future. I became an artist. I started leaving behind me a trail of pieces that will last far beyond my own lifespan. I began dropping heirlooms whose stories will continue to evolve long after I have forgotten them. I began bending and manipulating not only metal and stones, but time and space as well. I love the idea that my work can survive millennia, that each piece has the potential to be a time machine. Since I hand fabricate every single bit of every single piece using only simple, old tools, I feel like I am in a grand relay handing the past to the future. For 15 years I have been speaking my official language, the language of my process. Soldering, grinding, sawing, filing, bending, those actions are not hindered by the limitations of words or inflections or geography. As the creator/vehicle, they speak to me on my terms, as the viewer/wearer they speak to you on your terms. I am so grateful for this timeless universal language, so happy with my animal technology.

Becki:

Evolutionary arms races and manipulation of one organism by another through many generations can cause physical and behavioral adaptations in all of the creatures involved. In Earth’s history, dinosaurs were once prevalent and mammals less diverse. When a series of cataclysmic events killed off almost all dinosaur species, mammals were able to spread widely after resources became available that had not been so before. Each ecosystem is made up of a network of relationships, but it is made up of small, self-interested components. The interactions are not necessarily harmonious.

In my paintings, I have created a world where the dinosaurs did not go extinct, but did experience some population depletion through catastrophe. The surviving mammals and dinosaurs evolved together over time, but the mammals had new opportunities to diversify because of the shifts in populations and diversity. The mammals evolved through natural selection to fill the niches vacated by the ecologically vulnerable dinosaurs. With increased intelligence, clever mammals developed technology and began to domesticate the dinosaurs. The relationship among the species gradually shifted over generations. An amiable dinosaur was bred and this led to an unintended consequence, the display of other behavioral traits that were linked to the genes for docility. Increased intelligence and communicative abilities resulted from the breeding for friendliness. Genes with complimentary “skills” prospered in the presence of each other. Traits within a population were favored if they happened to interact harmoniously with the other components that were frequent in the population. Mammals that adapted in cooperation with the dinosaurs’ changes had an advantage over the ones who resisted the change. Mammal adaptations developed that favored cooperation with the newly sentient dinosaurs. A more symbiotic relationship between the mammals and dinosaurs was the surprise result of the selective breeding and domestication. These paintings illustrate my anthropomorphic vision of such an ecological historical revisionism.

The concept of manifest destiny has influenced my painted world with an element of parallel historical allegory. The mammals use guns and technological advantages to dominate and oppress the dinosaurs. The original manifest destiny concept is infused with racial entitlement and religious domination. The way I am using the concept is through a comparison of technologically advantaged mammals’ having this sense of entitlement, like past European conquerors. In this metaphor, the dinosaurs represent native peoples of areas taken over by the expansionist mammals. The evolution of the species’ relations over time is representative of the historical shifts in global imperialist attitudes of cultural entitlement during the last few centuries.

In the clocks, I use my clever animals in a more humorous context. The clocks all have 12 letter phrases that begin the idea process. Once I decide what 12 letter phrases or words I will use on the clock face, I think of a visually funny interpretation for the accompanying painted image. I dis-assemble the clock, make a new cardboard face for it and paint in acrylics. Then, I print out the letters, cut them out with scissors, and glue them on. After that, I varnish the painted surface and re-assemble the clock. The concepts of time and numbers are almost antithetical to words and images. The juxtaposition of the ideas on a single surface, gives the clock a feeling not usually associated with time keeping. Any clock I make can also be assembled into a functional and great looking photo print version clock.

First Thursday September: Heaton, Sheets, Molina, Chapman

2011-08-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday September 1st from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

Linda Sheets' scratch board works will be shown in the Revolver gallery. This will be Linda's first solo exhibition at the Underground since joining us as a studio artist. Linda is a transplant from Texas, and her "Dog and Monkey" show is sure to be a hit. Megan Chapman will present her latest series of abstract paintings, "Sometimes I love you and other stories," in the Vault gallery. The colorful contemporary paintings of U.K. visiting artist, Steven Heaton will be featured in the Hive gallery while Martha Molina's raku pottery will be in the E Street.

Steven Heaton
The World Without Us

My work is inspired by nature and the interaction of the mechanical and the man made element upon the landscape. Within my paintings, texture and surface is explored by using a variety of materials from traditional oil, and acrylic paint to the heavily layered and corroded use of metal and wire.
My work presents an alternative view of this natural and chemical landscape as the lines of communication begin to blur, factories rust against an autumnal background & nature begins to creep into dominance where regular human use declines.
Time continues to pass in a world without us.

Linda Sheets
Dog And Monkey Show

I believe life is mostly just a series of activities and events. We spend a lot of our time pursuing some and avoiding others. The first main event, of course, is our birth; the last, our death. My goal is to squeeze as many pleasurable activities and fun events in between those two uncontrollable major events. Making monkeys, dogs and other art objects enables me to share just a bit of the absolute delight that I feel about this whole adventure of life. The secret is to not take myself or my art too seriously. There are many dark events and activities that I have experienced and even participated in, it's hard to avoid them. …knowing this, I prefer to chase the lightness, the joy, the bliss, however fleeting and elusive, for as long as I can.

Martha Molina
Feu d'artifice

Martha Molina grew up in Clay County in Northeast Arkansas influenced and encouraged to embrace her great grandmother's Native American culture. She actively practiced various crafts and loved the materials that were found in nature and from an early age she hand built animals and vessels from clay. Martha received her B.A. and M.ED. from Southeastern Louisiana University where she discovered the process for life masks and began making performance masks for costumes and storytelling as well as decorations such as three dimensional portraits through experimentation. Martha returned to Arkansas in 1993 and has been active in the arts community every since living and working in Fayetteville. She has worked as a multi-disciplined on the Arkansas Arts Council AIE Artist Roster and has conducted artist residencies throughout the state in theatre, mask-making, watercolor, and clay. She currently teaches art at St. Joseph School in Fayetteville.

Martha Molina's recent works are mostly nonfunctional pottery choosing alternative firing techniques which give the most unpredictable results. The process of Raku firing intrigues and excites Martha the most as she watches the translucent glow of the work as she pulls it from a 1900 degree kiln. The rapid reduction, cooling and trailing made by the flames creates a final product that cannot be reproduced.

"The process of alternative firing is like an amazing Christmas morning every time I open the kiln!"

Megan Chapman
Sometimes I love you and other stories

Megan Chapman's latest series of paintings, Sometimes I love you and other stories, will be shown at the Fayetteville Underground during the month of September in the Vault Gallery. These monochromatic works are fused with words typed on paper torn from old books and give the viewer the sense of reading pages out of a diary or letters to a distant lover. Very minimal in nature, the work explores the artist's love of the graphite line, as it cuts through the brilliantly white-painted canvas.

The series reflects on the kind of love that catches one unexpectedly, the kind we always knew was somewhere on the planet yet was for others. At the same time that this love seems special or unique, it is also ordinary and known. It is both new and old and never simple or easy, yet somehow it fills the gaps within, making the core of the person it touches stronger.

Sometimes I love you and other stories represents the absence of fear and the challenges to our beliefs about ourselves and the world outside upon finding another soul that we can sometimes love.

Megan Chapman was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She received her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Oregon. She has shown her work over the past fifteen years in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Washington State, Washington D.C., Philadelphia PA, and recently in Liverpool, England. Megan's work has appeared in various publications and is held in numerous private collections both nationally and internationally.

Fayetteville Underground : 4 Art Galleries : Working Artist Studios
One East Center Street : Fayetteville, AR
Fayetteville Underground Gallery Hours: W-F 12-7pm and Saturday 10-5

www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayttevilleunderground.blogspot.com

First Thurday August: Gardner, Pennebaker, Gosnell, Humphries

2011-07-31T06:06:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday August 4th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! Duane Gardner's latest works will be on display in the Vault. The glass works of Ed Pennebaker will be on display in the E Street Gallery. Jan Gosnell's paintings will be on display in the Hive. The Revolver will feature the work of visiting artist John Humphries.

Duane Gardner

Duane Gardner
The Day After Yesterday

This series of paintings continues to explore the idea of mark making as well as the process of editing. At the beginning of this year I decided to go in a new minimalist direction and pare down paintings. I felt that my work prior to this series was very heavy handed and I wanted to move away from that.

I have also begun to experiment with using text to express feelings or thoughts. I did not want the text to be immediately apparent so I have attempted to abstract the text. This has been a very interesting process for me because it has forced me to think about text as shape and how to manipulate it. To further obscure the text, I have drawn from my Mexican-American heritage and used Spanish translations of the words or ideas I wanted to convey.

Ed Pennebaker

Ed Pennebaker
Concatenations/Connections

We are all linked together. Nature and our relationship with natural resources has been a topic I relate to in my sculptures. Sometimes the simple movement of grasses and plants is mirrored in the fluidity of the glass. Other times, the concerns of what man is doing by poisoning nature and ultimately himself become the topic. I hope to let viewers interpret and imagine something that speaks to them about our surroundings and our link to nature.

Jan Gosnell

Jan Gosnell
The Fulla' Brush Man

Jan Gosnell will be exhibiting works representative of two modes of perception. One will be works in oil on canvas and the other, figure drawings on paper. The oil paintings are expressions of ideas created from interior resources and developed through the imagination. The figure drawings are rapidly rendered with Conte’ crayon or charcoal with great attention exterior resources.

John Humphries

John Humphries
Fragments of Landscape

John Humphries received a MARCH and BFA from the University of Texas, Arlington. A visual artist and designer focusing on translating one media form to another. Currently, Humphries is an Assistant Professor at and a faculty in the Armstrong Interactive Media Studies at Miami University, Oxford. His extensive history includes group and solo exhibitions such as Kleinert/James Arts Center: Woodstock, New York; Jay Henry Memorial Gallery: Arlington, Texas; Hochschule: Rosenheim, Germany; Foxfire Studio: Rabun Gap, Georgia; Cage Gallery: Oxford Ohio; Beinnale of the Americas: Denver, Colorado, among others.

For Humphries, cities and the representation of cities are rife with uncomfortable hybrids born of erosion, neglect, misconception, new stories, changes in zoning, codes, and program. The ability to quickly transform the essential nature of a context is not to design, create, or fabricate the ideal representation of a place. His reason for going to a place is to transform perception of a place and capture the essence of a moment, for the purpose of engaging, intellectually and emotionally the context.

In this exhibition, the watercolor drawings refer specifically to John Humphries current travels in Malta and focus on using the visual syntax of architecture; to describe urban landscape, shadows, and sun; specifically the moments where these meet.

Book binding workshop at the Fayetteville Underground

2011-07-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Instructor: Lesha Shaver

Cost: $75

When: Friday, July 22, 6-9:30 p.m. and Saturday, July 23, 9 a.m. -12:30 p.m.

Where: Fayetteville Underground

This is the uniquely beautiful Buttonhole binding using bookboard for the covers and spine instead of paper. This exposed spine sewing allows for lots of self expression, so we will each add our own interpretation to this lovely book. No previous experience necessary.

Contact: Phone: (479) 587-0238 or email: info@littlemountainbindery.com to sign up for this exciting class!

July: Fay, Maule, Florence Academy, Sewell

2011-07-03T00:52:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday July 7th from 5-8pm at Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

Jennifer Libby Fay's exhibition of abstract contemporary textile paintings will be on display in the Vault. The work of Portland visiting artist, Michele Maule will be on display in the Hive.Graduates of the Florence Academy of Art will be featured in the Revolver. The E Street Gallery will feature the carved free-form sculptural vessels of John Sewell.

Jennifer Libby Fay

Through a Narrow Place

Jennifer Libby Fay

A solo exhibition of abstract contemporary textile paintings that considers the miracle of hope and inspiration experienced after a time of transition.

When we find our way through a heartbreaking time of transition and stand in our own truth, the purity of our soul is revealed. We emerge from the Narrow Place feeling gratitude for the gift and beauty of life and the healing has begun. This body of work is about my journey Through a Narrow Place of transition and the hope and inspiration I have found in the process.

Michele Maule

Mise en Place
Michele Maule

Michele Maule is an artist living and working in Portland. She graduated from Portland State University in 2005 with a Bachelor of arts degree in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking with a focus on printmaking. Her work has been shown throughout the county including New York, California, Ohio, Arkansas, and Oregon.

I work in several different mediums including oil painting, collage, printmaking, and illustration. If you asked me which one I likes the most, I wouldn't be able to choose.

Most of my work is based on my personal life experiences and the relationships I have with the people around me. The things that inspire me are the things that fill my everyday life. The things that are often overlooked and otherwise passed up, or put aside. These are the things that I like to take into consideration. These are the things that matter most to myself.

I love finding those moments in life that leave you feeling speechless, and sometimes a little awkward. It's in those moments in life that I find I am most myself. Even at 30 I feel like I am trying to figure things out, and it's through my work that I am able to sort through it all.

Ellen Barkin

Contemporary Classicists: Graduates of The Florence Academy of Art

We are a group show comprised of six artists, from local, national, and international destinations. All are recent graduates of the Florence Academy of Art, a 3-year program that specializes in training representational oil painting and drawing techniques, located in Florence, Italy and Göteborg, Sweden. The selection of work on display demonstrates the technical skills and intensive training, alongside independent styles, concepts, and creativity. Also working at The Fayetteville Underground for the month of July as visiting artists, Maggie Ivy (Fayetteville, Arkansas), Kendric Tonn (Wooster, OH), and Ellen Barkin (Göteborg, Sweden).

John Sewell

Fem Forms

John Sewell

Working with single,often large pieces of wood, I carve free-form sculptural vessels, with designs focused on various expressions of feminine form. I carve the outside of a piece and then the inside, leaving a wall of uniform thickness. The interior is then charred, and the resulting charcoal sandblasted away, leaving a textured surface that darkens to black when lacquered. The exterior is finely sanded and then finished with multiple coats of clear lacquer, each sanded to a fine surface.

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As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5. Tell your friends and see you there! The exhibitions will remain up through July 30th.

The Fayetteville Underground Basement of One East Square Plaza East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square. Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Studio artist Linda Sheets goes National!

2011-06-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

We just had to share this fantastic news with you about Fayetteville Underground studio artist Linda Sheets!! Way to go Linda! The following post and image is re-posted by permission of the artist.

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Here is some amazing, exciting news I've been sitting on for a bit too long... Ampersand Art supply will be using some of my scratchboard designs on kits for the retail market. They were a big hit recently at the Namta (International Art Materials Trade Assoc.) show in Phoenix. I was blown away by the response of many of the art retailers and distributors. I loved watching the smiles on their faces as they walked into our booth and saw my designs. Oh Joy!

So, coming soon to a store near you, my monkeys, dogs, and still life kits; 6 total. I continue to believe that anyone (I mean it, anybody)can do this instantly gratifying, fun art! And I do my best to spread the word and convert folks with classes and workshops. These kits have a tool,5"x7" board, instructions and pattern. They are a great way to try out scratchboard, and they make good gifts at a reasonable price. One of my favorite things is watching folks play around with the boards...there are so many different ways to use this product. My style is folk art, some like to do highly detailed realistic drawings. There is room enough for all...

I am tickled beyond belief to be a part of this. Check out Ampersand Art website to see all of their products. If you go to their blog and read the post about back to school specials, I am in there, making monkeys! Yippie eye oh!

I've been quietly waiting to post this (it's so hard for me to be patient..,), it's official now and I can toot my horn all I want! Toot, toot, toot!! We've already gotten a big order from a major art/craft retailer and more to follow. I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT ALL THIS, CAN YOU TELL? And believe me, I am really, really grateful for this opportunity...I feel like a lucky gal!

To visit Linda's blog, the original post and to learn more about her work please click here.

June: Fitzgibbon, Flanagan, Killian, and Kaminsky

2011-05-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday June 2nd from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! The work of visiting artist, Sean Fitzgibbon, will be featured in the Revolver. William Mayes Flanagan's watercolor paintings will be on display in the Vault. Sharon Killian will present a variety of mediums in the Hive.The E Street Gallery will feature the work of Hank Kaminsky.

Altered Perceptions

Sean Fitzgibbon

As society becomes more globalized and technologically advanced, I find myself inundated with stimuli and imagery from many different sources. Through my work I attempt to display a beauty and order derived from multiple images as a way to reflect this. My work is often a combination of drawing, painting, and sometimes the incorporation of other media.

Edge of Night

William Mayes Flanagan

I’m interested in change: the signs of change, the moments that we see change happening around us, our perception of the almost imperceptible transition from light to dark and from shape to shadow. My work has always balanced on the edge of night, where the moon and the lone lamp glow. I have sought the hint of mystery, in the places and beings glimpsed in the world of twilight and shadow. In the past year, I’ve explored this world with new pallets and themes. Are these part of my own transition? We will see.

Nature's Challenge

Sharon Killian

I rely on a formalist approach to express how I see as an artist. Formal properties such as color, line, shape and value are emphasized to create this series of works that are my answer to nature’s ridiculous sunsets. I deliberately place on my two-dimensional plane, pieces of color and value, shapes created by one or more of these elements, and flat linear juxtapositions that in the end deliver to the viewer an opportunity for emotional response evocative of that which nature delivered to me through an outrageous spray of light at day’s end. This Nature’s Challenge series are dry pastel on Arches Cover paper.

I live on a hill east of Fayetteville, Arkansas overlooking the White River and the Ozark Mountains. It provides an expansive view of the western and northern skies and nature continually challenges me to create a response through my work with formalist parameters. This series of sunsets are my response to nature’s challenge.

Hank Kaminsky

“I come to this work with broad experience. Over my 52 year career, my work has appeared in many manifestations from tiny jewelry forms to major monumental sculptures. Here, in the E Street Gallery of the Fayetteville Underground, I have chosen to show my small work such as jewelry and small sculptures. The primary focus of my career has been the exploration of intersections, the way that energy, ideas, things and people come together and come forth with new forms. In my jewelry, I have many stories to tell to explain what is happening in my work. Each of those stories gives the audience a personal way into my art making process.”

May: First Thursday: Munro/Bremner, Depper, Arnold, Bohn

2011-05-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday May 5th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions. We are thrilled to present U.K. artists Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner in their first joint exhibition together in the Hive gallery. Come say hello to Stewart who has traveled a long way from Edinburgh, Scotland to share his and Craig's combined photographic works. Stewart will also be giving an art talk on Saturday May 7th from 11a.m-12p.m. about the process and inspiration behind the exhibition as well as answer your questions. It is always a rare treat to hear directly from the artist, so please be sure to attend. As always our art talks and exhibitions are always free and open to the public.

Also this month The Vault gallery features the dark and industrial, yet always fun works of Matthew Depper. Kevin Arnold's amazing paintings transform the Revolver gallery and the wood and stained glass works of Cheri Bohn will be featured in the E Street Gallery.

Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner

Iteration / Span
Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner

Photographers Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner have known each other for longer than either cares to admit. Coming to photography from different directions, they have met in a middle ground where their individual identities have become blurred. Their work not only reflects how they see the world but seeks to illustrate the physical distance that separates the two of them, as well as the contrasting natures of the cities in which they live (Munro lives in Birmingham, England and Bremner in Edinburgh, Scotland). This will be their first show together.

We are obsessed with photography, with cameras, with making images. We take photos every single day and we have done for many years. We photograph our friends, our families, our loves, our lives. We watch, we record, we think. Photography is both our rock and our burden. In our images, we try to find our place in the world and we seek to maintain a friendship whose beginning seems now shrouded in the mists of the past.

Matthew Depper

Your face here
Matthew Depper

The last thing I want to be is boring and predictable, even if it's an effective way to survive many situations.Often, I don't know what I'm saying until I see what I've created, then I might have to go back and say it again.If I'm going to be telling the same story over and over, maybe I should try wearing different costumes and changing my voice a little bit each time. Maybe I should try talking like Yoda, or Kermit the frog, or some other small green thing.

Kevin Arnold

Suite 5A
Kevin Arnold

My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me—and to give the mundane its beautiful due.
— John Updike

My paintings carry the weight of domestic disconnect through the unsentimental depiction of generic, mass-produced objects. The unnoticed, utilitarian things that facilitate our day-to-day existence — plain cardboard boxes, metal chairs, folding tables, vinyl office furniture — are presented a deadpan, almost Existential manner in order to question our sense of the familiar and the quality of the attention paid to our surroundings.

To say that we are inundated with an ever-growing amount of visual information is by now a cliché. However, in order to process so much information, we must develop routines to separate the consequential from the non-essential. These self-determined routines are particularly important as we transition from one space to the next and the visual “scan” becomes our tool to navigate through this constant flow of information. By painting the mundane to a certain level of realism, I try to disrupt the viewer’s habits of looking and challenge the almost mechanical process of the scan.

The things pictured in my most recent body of work are ubiquitous and are chosen because they have no intrinsic aesthetic value. These Mass-produced, workaday, seemingly “neutral” objects are designed to be used, folded up, put away, re-used until they wear out or fall apart. They stand, piled, stacked, tucked away in corners, and stored away in closets and stockrooms. Through repeated use, even these generic objects begin to develop a kind of “identity,” displaying subtle clues to specific places or particular methods of employ.

My approach has been to paint the objects at a 1:1 ratio from direct observation. The use of trompe l’oeil and the 1:1 ratio is a means of playing with the familiarity of scale and perspective while creating an intimate, almost surreal encounter for the viewer. In other words, the painting begins to function visually in the same way it functions physically. It begins to act like the thing it is.The installation of my work is a large component in rendering meaning from the images.

Cheri Bohn

Cheri Bohn

I combine tree roots and stained glass to create a unique type of art. Each piece is original as the roots set the pattern of design. My work creates a kind of fantasy world with roots morphing into dragons, butterflies, fish, and birds. I also create abstract pieces and mobiles. I graduated from the University of North Texas and moved to the Ozarks in 1999. I have also attended classes at the University of Arkansas. I have displayed in New York, Las Vegas, and Chicago. My work was also exhibited in Nevada at the burning man. I have also displayed in Denton, Texas and of course Fayetteville.

I want my work to portray a human balance with nature. A concept humanity needs. To help with the awareness that nature offers.

***************************
As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through May 28th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Fayetteville Underground: First Thursday April 7th!

2011-04-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday April 7th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! This month we are thrilled to be showing the work of three U.K. artists in the Hive Gallery. Steven Heaton, Rob Kedward and John Spurgeon will present their mixed media photography show entitled Theft By Finding. The paintings of visiting artist, Steven Wise will be on display in the Revolver in his show Always. Famed local favorite Don House will show his latest photographic works in his exhibition, 30 Days in the Life in the Vault Gallery. Ceramist Randy Brodnax will be showcased in the E-Street Gallery.

Steven Wise

Steven Wise

Always

Steven Wise currently lives and works in Rogers, Arkansas, where he teaches art in the Rogers Public School District and at the Northwest Arkansas Community College. His work has been nationally exhibited and collected. In his home state of Arkansas, his work has been exhibited in the most competitive exhibitions such as the Annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock (2010, 2004, 2003, 2000) and the Arkansas Arts Council's Annual Small Works on Paper Exhibition (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2004, 1999).

This exhibition at the Fayetteville Underground will showcase more than 20 small paintings on board, along with a selection of sculptures and one large painting. The collection of small paintings are a part of the A series. The A stands for “always” because the series is an ongoing project that the artist began in 2001. To date, Wise has accumulated 54 paintings for the A series. Most of these small works are painted in layers to create unique patterns and textures. The paintings in the series have been worked and reworked by the artist over long stretches of time from three months to three years.

Wise will also include a selection of new sculptures in this exhibition. These pieces were created in the last six months. This will be the first time Wise has shown a sculpture since 1994. Wise used plaster, papier mache, and wood. He then painted on the materials. Wise used the same technique of layering to paint the sculptures that he used in his A series. Wise has included one large painting, Exodus. Wise began this work after listening to the album “Exodus” by Bob Marley. Its scheme of light and dark colors is used to symbolize the conflict between good and evil. The picture also presents portions of the Book of Exodus such as the Nile River. The narrative elements in the painting mark a divergent path for this painter who primarily works with non-objective forms.

Wise has written that all of his works are a part of a larger body of work that he calls alpha/beta projects. Each letter of the alphabet represents a series of art works. Each piece in the series is labeled with that letter and a chronological number (A01, A02, A03). This plan is named “alpha/beta.” If he follows his plan, he will finish his “life/works/projects” at the age of 55.

John Spurgeon

John Spurgeon, Steven Heaton, Rob Edwards
Theft by Finding

Three artists from the United Kingdom come together for this month’s featured visiting artist exhibition in the Hive gallery. Artist John Spurgeon (a.k.a Shakesmyteeth) is drawn towards archaic language, obsolete media, de-classified documents and discarded items – the images used in this light box series are made using several photographs of Victorian typography, diagrams from WW2 radio handbooks and bleached photographic slides. Artist Steven Heaton’s photography work explores texture and surface and dreamlike places. The viewer gets a sense of the past; dark, theatrical and otherworldly. Rob Kedward's photographs are static captures of an intricate stage where lights, actors and elements have all been purposefully placed to either create or complement the environment. This is the groups first international exhibition.

Don House
30 days in a life

Long known for his black&white landscape, figure, and portrait photography, House has collected a series of new work titled 30 Days In The Life, which documents one month of his continuing study of the region, and in particular, the Buffalo River Wilderness Area, where he spends most of his working hours. The collection of seventeen large photographs includes trees, rocks, fences, moving water, leaves, ice and snow - all of the common elements of the Ozarks, but seen through the monochrome eyes of this old school practitioner.

Randy Brodnax

Randy Brodnax

Randy Brodnax, a lifelong potter and educator from Dallas, Texas, creates everything from functional dinnerware to large decorative vessels to clay sculpture. He has specialized in raku for many years, using natural imagery and drawing upon a wild fantasy world of creatures of the mind. He is a very inventive and intuitive technician.

***************************
As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through April 30th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Book Binding Workshop with Lesha Shaver!

2011-03-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

The Secret Belgian Binding

Instructor: Lesha Shaver

Cost: $70 (all materials included)

Date: Saturday, April 2, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. at Fayetteville Underground

Level: Beginners welcome

Book artist Hedi Kyle is credited with rediscovering this historic binding. It uses an exposed sewing to bind the text block to cover boards and a spine, with the spine held in place only by the thread that is sewn over and under it. In addition to it being a very lovely book to look at, it's considered a very sturdy binding. This is a great alternative to a traditional hard-bound book.

For more information or to register for this class visit the E Street Gallery at the Fayetteville Underground to sign up during our regular gallery hours W-F 12-7 and Saturday 10-5. Or talk to Lesha Shaver directly to reserve your space in the class. Call 479.587.0238 or email info@littlemountainbindery.com

Underground Studio Artists in the News!

2011-03-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Small Works on Paper Exhibition in Fayetteville March 3-29

Congratulations again to Fayetteville Underground Studio Artists, Sabine Schmidt, Duane Gardner and Don House for their acceptance in the Small Works on Paper Exhibition!

Small Works on Paper touring art exhibition is currently on display in Fayetteville through the end of March. Presented by the Arkansas Arts Council, the juried exhibition will be on display till March 29 at the University of Arkansas's Mullins Library on 365 N. McIlroy Avenue. The exhibition will temporarily close March 19-22 for spring break. Gallery hours vary; for details: http://libinfo.uark.edu/hours/ Admission is free.

Now in its 24th year, the annual Small Works on Paper exhibition showcases artwork no larger than 24 x 24 inches by Arkansas artists who are members of the Arkansas Artist Registry, an online art gallery coordinated by the Arts Council. The selected work is chosen by an out-of-state juror, who also selects pieces for purchase awards. Purchase award winners receive the cash amount equivalent to the value of their selected works. Funded by entry fees, the purchase award pieces become part of the exhibition’s permanent collection.

The art will be on display in 10 galleries throughout the state in a year-long touring show. The 2011 show features 39 works and was juried by Patter Hellstrom, a partner in Hellstrom+Zirnis LLC, a bicoastal artist/curator team based in San Francisco and New York. Hellstrom has served as a guest lecturer and panelist for numerous national organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts. She holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

There were 275 entries submitted; seven artists were selected to receive purchase awards totaling nearly $2,000: William R. Detmers of Pine Bluff, Jennifer Hackworth of Jonesboro, Temple Skelton Moore of Prairie Grove, John Harlan Norris of Jonesboro, Sabine Schmidt of Fayetteville, Mitchell Skinner of Tucker and Keri Young of Little Rock.

In other news, Don House also has two photographs accepted in the Spiva Arts Center's Photospiva exhibition. It is the oldest continuing international photography competition in the nation, and this year's juror is Dr. Anthony Bannon, director of the George Eastman House Museum of Photography in Rochester. The exhibition runs through the end of April. For more information visit : www.spivaarts.org.

Special Event March 12th : Artist Terry Shoffner

2011-03-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

Join us at the Fayetteville Underground as we present a special art talk and demonstration by artist Terry Shoffner. Saturday March 12th from 10-12.

The Fayetteville Underground is thrilled to host artist Terry Shoffner for an interactive art talk on Saturday March 12 from 10am-12pm. Come meet the artist, watch him work and explain his process. This event is in conjunction with his exhibition of The Wall Street Journal Portraits at the University of Arkansas.

Terry Shoffner: The Wall Street Journal Portraits

The Wall Street Journal Portraits, by Terry Shoffner will be on display at the University of Arkansas Fine Arts Center, March 7–25, 2011.

Over the past thirteen years, Terry Shoffner has painted more than two hundred and twenty portraits for the Wall Street Journal. They were commissioned to supplement articles in the publication. They include images of world leaders, educators, artists, entertainers, news makers, and everyday individuals who have done extraordinary things. This exhibition includes thirty paintings.

March First Thursday: Niehues, Speer, Randall, Studio Artists

2011-02-24T13:14:00.000-08:00

Join us First Thursday March 3rd from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! Leon Niehues will be featured in the E Street Gallery. Painter, Josh Speer, from Tulsa Oklahoma will be in the Hive and the paintings of Fayetteville Underground studio artist Doug Randall will be in the Revolver. The Fayetteville Underground studio artists will be featured in the front and back Vault.

We are very pleased to introduce the work of Linda Sheets, a new studio artist at the Underground during the month of March as well. She is a welcome addition and we can't wait for you all to get to know her and her work.

Leon Niehues

Leon Niehues
E Street Gallery

I have been making baskets as a full-time studio artist for thirty years. Working alone I complete each step in the process myself using traditional splintmaking techniques to prepare splint materials. Often I use natural dyes to darken the wood. I combine the techniques of knife and splitting work with new construction methods, innovative ideas and new materials. Lately I have been working on mixed media sculptural pieces, using diverse materials such as miniature brass and stainless screws, paint, and emery cloth for a textured skin. I work on many pieces at the same time, giving each piece the time it needs, building step by step, until the project is complete.

Josh Speer

Josh Speer
Hive Gallery

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he began art lessons with Ross Myers at his School of Fine Arts at the age of 9. Speer received his B.F.A. in painting from the University of Tulsa. Having cut his artistic chops on the youth poster contest grind, he has worked closely with Family and Children’s Services. Speer misses being teacher’s assistant in Youth Art Education programs at Philbrook Museum of Art. He creates commissioned work from portraits to non-objective abstractions, and is always excited to try something new.

Douglas Randall

Douglas Randall
Revolver Gallery

I was born in upstate New York in 1946. As a child, I first became aware of art, seeing other artists painting the vivid New York landscapes. I call my paintings, “Mindscapes”, because they come from my imagination, but are part of my life, here in the Ozarks. They are not real places, but a composite of place and experience, perhaps somewhere we would all like to be. My work can be somewhat abstract, impressionist or a more traditional style. Whatever the style, I love color and use it to create illusions and emotions. I have no formal training in art, but was introduced to it when my wife Suzy, gave me an oil paint set in 1974. I later enrolled in the Holden School of Art in Charlottesville, VA. Although, painting was a love of mine, it was put on the back burner, and building a family and home took priority. In 1993 I started to paint again I have sold and exhibited my art in many local galleries, including my own, The Rocky Creek Art Gallery. The pinnacle of my career was sharing a 2 person show at the Off Broadway Gallery in London England, with fellow artist Sherna Cockrill in 2003. I still continue to paint and express myself in my work. It gives me great satisfaction to create my feeling on canvas, and if someone else can also appreciate it, I am fulfilled.

This will be Doug's first featured exhibition since joining the studios at the Underground.

Fayetteville Underground Studio Artists
Vault Gallery

The studio artists will take over both the front and back vault during the month of March. You can expect a wide range of styles and mediums by all the current studio artists.

***************************
As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through April 2nd.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Feb. THIRD Thursday: Outlaw, Gentle, Peven, Turner

2011-01-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

February: Third Thursday: Outlaw, Gentle, Peven, Turner

* First Thursday postponed due to weather: join us the THIRD Thursday this month on February 17th from 5-8pm.

Join us this month on the Second Thursday, February 10th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! Lisa Jo Outlaw will be featured in the E Street Gallery. Drew Gentle will be featured in the Revolver. Jon Peven's work will be featured in the Vault and Henry Turner will be in the Hive.

Lisa Jo Outlaw

Lisa Jo Outlaw

Wood You Be Mine?
E Street Gallery

As an artist, I am interested in making connections. I enjoy playing with objects and words. By displacing the context of everyday items my work seeks to surprise and charm and amuse. And by bringing together distinct pieces into a sort of harmony, I assume the role of alchemist, seer, match-maker.

This series explores relationships, but unlike traditional Valentines, the messages expand beyond romantic love--to that of family, friends, community, and love of self. Erstwhile greetings of the season, absurd puns like, “I pine fir yew,” “You’re unbeleafable” and “Nice ash!” helped inspire the wood theme.

I combine discrete components to create a single piece, using whatever resources are at hand. Imagination is vital. Possibility is endless. Feels a little like fate, like reuniting ones lost or like finding your match--no matter the form. This is love.

Drew Gentle

Drew Gentle

Persona 2009—2011
Revolver Gallery

All my imagery, be it in drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, clay or wax springs from a desire to connect to the humanity in all of us; to reach through the feelings of isolation and aloneness and make contact with that which makes us human.

They are fleeting, always illusive images of the inner psychic make-up...of people turned inside out, with their internal mix on display, and not so much of what we physically look like on the outside.

For me, the challenge of finding the visual vocabulary to express this is my goal. To display the multiple emotions - good, bad or otherwise, with the full array of fears, foibles, joys, and vanities as well as self-deceits, passions, and strengths in an individual persona. Then, to be able to reproduce it in a non-judgmental but truly empathetic way, is what I'm striving to do.

Jon Peven

Jon Peven

Lewd
Vault Gallery

This exhibition is my expedition into the subconscious void, attempting to create humorous understanding by pulling at unpicked strings in the lucid under-mind. The familiar images are used to trigger personal symbols and memories one might have witnessed in the past through media by prodding at the absurd nature of the image and ideas themselves. These uncollected and scattered collage pieces of widely varied creation are an attempt to clearly articulate the racing world as my fantasy-warped mind sees and personally customizes it. The pieces were made in order to capture my most recently adapted cognitions and discoveries, thus leading to many sets of thought patterns and ideas expressed in small series installments, each with a different theme and style significant to the collective consciousness of the showing as a whole as well as my perception of reality.

Henry Turner

Ancestral Remnants
Hive Gallery

My present body of work includes a variety of subject matter and photographic genres ranging from pure landscapes to simple still life and staged images. The final images are composites of two or more images digitally combined. I also make use of old film cameras in producing a filtering effect in some of the images. Despite the range of subjects and genres, within the images I strive to invoke a sense of darkness and mystery, often seeking to convey a sense of sadness and longing, or a feeling for the passage of time.

***************************
As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through Feb 26th

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Underground artists, Gardner, House & Schmidt take small works on paper exhibition by storm!

2011-01-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

Massive congratulations to Fayetteville Underground studio artists: Duane Gardner, Don House, and Sabine Schmidt! They all had pieces accepted into the Small Works on Paper Exhibition! This means that Fayetteville Underground artists make up ten percent of the total of participating artists from all over Arkansas (32, with 39 works shown). In addition, Sabine Schmidt received one of seven purchase awards! More impressive evidence of the quality of work created at the Fayetteville Underground.

Duane, Don, and Sabine are going to Conway to attend the opening. Don and Sabine will give brief talks on their work, and the talks will be taped by AETN!

2011 Small Works on Paper Exhibition to Open in Conway

The 2011 Small Works on Paper art exhibition will kick off its statewide tour at Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN) in Conway. Presented by the Arkansas Arts Council, the exhibition will be on display from Jan. 6-27 in the AETN Atrium on 350 S. Donaghey St.

A public reception to kick off the tour is slated for 2-4 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 8, at the atrium. The reception is free and will include talks by the artists.

Hours for the exhibition are 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Admission is free.

Now in its 24th year, the annual Small Works on Paper exhibition showcases small-sized visual works (no larger than 24 x 24 inches) by Arkansas artists in a year-long traveling show to 10 galleries, often in rural areas or small towns. The juror, a professional from the arts community, selects the artwork and designates pieces for purchase awards.

The 2011 show features 39 works. Patter Hellstrom juried the exhibition. Hellstrom is a partner in Hellstrom+Zirni"Unfinished Business" by John Harlan Norriss LLC, a bicoastal artist/curator team based in San Francisco and New York specializing in collections acquisitions and managing public art projects in business and hospitality settings. Hellstrom has served as a guest lecturer and panelist for numerous national organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts. She holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and is a past mayoral appointee to the Minneapolis Art Commission.

"An intriguing selection of work was offered for the Small Works on Paper Exhibition." Hellstrom said. "From that group, 39 pieces were selected that range in media from drawing, photography, mixed media, to painting and printmaking. Stylistically the works are equally diverse, representing a range from realism to abstraction."

There were 275 entries submitted; seven artists were selected to receive purchase awards ranging from $200 to $1,000 each: William R. Detmers of Pine Bluff, Jennifer Hackworth of Jonesboro, Temple Skelton Moore of Prairie Grove, John Harlan Norris of Jonesboro, Sabine Schmidt of Fayetteville, Mitchell Skinner of Tucker and Keri Young of Little Rock. Purchase award winners receive the cash amount equivalent to the value of their selected works. Funded by entry fees, the purchase award pieces become part of the exhibition’s permanent collection.

Congratulations to the following artists whose work was selected to be part of the exhibition:

John Ahlen, Little Rock

Melissa Bacon, Little Rock

Ed Barham, Little Rock

Lynn Bell, Fort Smith

Sheila Cantrell, Batesville

Brian Cormack, North Little Rock

William R. Detmers, Pine Bluff

David Dodson, Little Rock

Janet Gade-Malone, Hot Springs

Duane Gardner, Fayetteville

Jennifer Hackworth, Jonesboro

Don House, Fayetteville

Tenille Hunter, Little Rock

Amanda Kelly Little, Jonesboro

Nina Louton, Hot Springs

David R. Mann, Little Rock

Dennis McCann, Maumelle

Leaf Moore, Searcy

Temple Skelton Moore, Prairie Grove

John Harlan Norris, Jonesboro

Marc E. Palmer, Mountain View

Rhee Reamy, Huntington

Holly Reding, Little Rock

Robert Reep, Little Rock

Sabine Schmidt, Fayetteville

Mitchell Wade Skinner, Tucker

Brady Taylor, Little Rock

Leslie Toler, Little Rock

Lynn Mittelstaedt Warren, Little Rock

John Watson, North Little Rock

Janet Cecil-Wilcox, Little Rock

Keri Young, Little Rock

The 2011 exhibition will travel to the following locations:

January 6-27, AETN Atrium, Conway
February 1-28, Alma Performing Arts Center, Alma
March 3-29, University of Arkansas – Mullins Library, Fayetteville
April 4-28, North Arkansas College, Harrison
May 3-27, The Ritz Gallery, Blytheville
June 2-29, Batesville Area Arts Council, Batesville
July 6-July 30, Guachoya Cultural Art Center, Lake Village
August 23-September 10, Harding University, Searcy
September 21-October 25, U of A Community College, Hope
November 8-26, Texarkana Regional Arts & Humanities Council, Texarkana

January 2011: Siegele & Haley, Campbell, Parker and Berman

2010-12-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

Join us First Thursday January 6th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground as we celebrate the new year and another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

Ceramic artists, Susy Siegele and Mike Haley will be featured in the E Street Gallery. Underground studio artist Adam Campbell will be featured in the Vault. Visiting installation artist Jan Parker from Chicago will be in the Hive and the works of the late Carl Berman are being presented by his widow Blanche Berman and curated by Hank Kaminksy in the Revolver. All exhibitions will be up through January 29th. Gallery hours are W-F 12-7 and Saturday 10-5pm.

Susy Siegele and Mike Haley

Susy Siegele and Mike Haley

Colored Porcelain

E Street Gallery

Ceramic artists, Susy Siegele and Mike Haley will be featured for the month of January in the E Street Gallery of the Fayetteville Underground. This husband-and-wife (or vise versa) team has been making high-fired, colored porcelain dinnerware since1976. Among other collections, their work was chosen to be included in The White House Craft Collection, which resides today at the Clinton Library in Little Rock.

“We met in a glaze chemistry class in college over a quarter of a century ago,and have been involved together in clay ever since. In the early years we made pretty traditional wheel-turned stoneware and porcelain. We never dreamed when we first experimented with coloring the clay that it would turn into our life's work. Our work is an ongoing inquiry into the very nature of our existence, using a common material in an uncommon way. We are constantly striving to create work that resonates with a connection to the natural world and to humanity's place in it.”

Adam Campbell

Adam Campbell

Vault Gallery

The End of Isolation

As an artist, my job is to see the world in a different way and to share this vision with others. For this exhibit, I am showing my portraiture. The way I see other people is determined by how I see myself. Keeping a journal and practicing meditation has enabled me to appreciate the subtle beauty of thoughts and expressions, which I convey in the portraits I paint.

Jan Parker

Jan Parker

Oppression, Suppression, Detachment, Growth

Hive Gallery

I am constantly responding to my environment. Through art making, my responses become self-expression, self-examination, activism, and communication. Since 2007 I have been creating installations working with the invasive plant kudzu as the primary medium in my art. Initially my response to kudzu came from the sculptural forms it created. Later, I became intrigued by its uncontrollable and uncontainable domination over anything in its path. This focus has evolved into an installation and study that has been documented since May 2009. In this work, I use outdoor kudzu growth with personal objects related to my family. Both the kudzu and objects are saturated with meaning. Together, given time in their environment, they conveyed a metaphorical narrative of family dysfunction, abuse, and growth.With photographic documentation, and the re-installation of the objects coupled with the skeletal form kudzu takes in the winter, my exhibition illustrates and exposes what underlies family dysfunction and the dichotomy of growth.I dedicate this study to my beloved Mother.

Carl Berman

Carl Berman: Presented by his widow Blanche Berman and curated by Hank Kaminsky

Revolver Gallery

Carl Berman spent 50 years tracking the lifeways of the “People of the High Plateau,” the ancient tribes who live along the rooftop of the world. With sketchbook and diary, canvas and paint, he created a living record of these remarkable inhabitants of the remote and desolate mountain regions of Asia and the Americas.

His son, Carl Jr. said: “What was the purpose of these journeys? Initially, I think my father’s fascination with the people of the world’s highland stemmed from his association with the design of fabrics and fibers. [However], his first visits to South America not only increased his knowledge of the local designs and artisans but also brought into sharp detail the rate at which these aboriginal cultures were being overtaken by the ‘civilized’ world. So, he began a one-man effort to immortalize, on canvas, the dress and customs of the people he encountered. I heard him say, on one occasion, that should he arrive in a village and see plastic buckets in use, he was too late.”

As you view this exhibit, keep in mind that it represents the life’s work of a man on a single-minded mission to understand and preserve traditions that were slowly fading into history.

Join us for this special event: January 15th.

Blanche Berman, widow of the painter Carl Berman will be at the Revolver Gallery at the Fayetteville Underground Saturday afternoon January 15th to talk to visitors about her husband's work. Carl Berman was a textile engineer and adventurer who made classical paintings of the people of the high plateau. His paintings look at life in the high Andes, the Himalayas and other places around the world with the kind of understanding that only comes to artists who work from drawings and life. He passed away in 1990

Mrs. Berman, 97 years of age has a great spirit and brings her husband's work to the attention of her newly adopted community.

*************
As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through January 29th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Art For the Holidays!

2010-11-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

First Thursday December 2nd 5-8pm - Art for the Holidays II

Join us first Thursday to celebrate the opening of Art for the Holidays II. This month we will feature fun, affordable works of original art created by our Fayetteville Underground Studio artists, E street Artists, as well many of the visiting artists that have shown at the Underground in 2009 and 2010. A variety of works will be shown including painting, mixed media, collage, and photography; to jewelry, ceramics and custom blown glass and sculpture. Come find your perfect gift.

The Revolver gallery will host many of the visiting artists that have shown in our 2009/2010 season. This is a great opportunity to come and see their work again and pick up that special affordable piece for your collection. You will find photography by Christian Demare, Thomas Krapausky, Institute du Loop, Thomas Petillo, Marianne Wilson, as well as the Estate of the late Steve Moore. There will be paintings by Christopher Baber, Matthew Lyman, and Jo Ann Kaminsky. We will have a selection of sculptures by Jesse Kaminsky and ceramics by Don Nibert and much much more! It is a great way for us to look back and revisit some of the wonderful artists we have had the pleasure of hosting at the Underground.

The Hive and Front Vault Gallery will be filled to the brim with small, affordable, original one of a kind pieces of art from our current studio artists such as Adam Campbell, Megan Chapman, Matthew Depper, Jennifer Libby Fay, William Mayes Flanagan, Duane Gardner, Jan Gosnell, Sam Gray, Don House, Dana Idlet, Jon Peven, Doug Randall, and Sabine Schmidt. This exhibition is a great way to start collecting these artist's work at affordable prices and of course perfect for gift giving. The back vault will have a new selection of paintings by our talented studio artists on display as well.

Underground studio artist Don House will continue his wonderful photography project and will be available to take your portraits in his studio during the First Thursday Festivities.

The E Street Gallery will also be freshly stocked by all our e street artists and we will be introducing two new artists to the E Street group, ceramists, Susy Siegle and Mike Haley!

This is a cash and carry show, meaning you can pay for it when you see it and take it home! Purchasing original art is easy at the Fayetteville Underground. Just contact anyone wearing a name badge, and we will be happy to facilitate your sale, our sales office is located within the E Street Gallery. Cash, Check, and Major credit cards are accepted.

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. It is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground from 5-8p.m. Fayetteville Underground Gallery Hours are W-F 12-7 and Saturday 10-5 These exhibitions will be remain up through the end of the month. The Underground will be closed for the holidays: December 25th through January 4th. We will re-open on Wednesday Jan 5th and look forward to kicking off the new year at First Thursday January 6th from 5-8pm with all new exhibitions!

ALSO PLEASE JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL MUSICAL EVENT IN DECEMBER:

Join us on Sunday December 5th at 4pm for a concert of free improvisation featuring Tatsuya Nakatani, percussion, and Gerald Sloan, trombone.

Tatsuya Nakatani is a contemporary percussionist, originally from Osaka, Japan. He performs creative music around the world. He has created a totally unique sound which defies category or genre. He utilizes the drum set, bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls and metal objects. To learn more about Tatsuya Nakatani please visit his website.

Gerald Sloan joined the UA music faculty in 1970, where he is currently Professor of Music. He has taught low brass, jazz studies, and music history (including Jazz History, Latin American Music, and 20th Century Music). He has also directed the Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble, The Trombone Ensemble, and various jazz ensembles.

November: Chapman, Idlet, Gardner, Bohn

2010-10-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

Join us First Thursday November 4th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

Megan Chapman will debut all new paintings created in 2010 in her latest exhibition Falling into Sound in the Hive Gallery. Duane Gardner will present his latest works the the Revolver gallery in his exhibition entitled Looking for the Broadcaster. These will be the premier exhibitions for Megan Chapman and Duane Gardner in the Underground galleries, since having their studios within. Dana Idlet will be presenting new works in her exhibition Six Miles Down a Dirt Road, in the Vault Gallery. Cheri Bohn will be the featured artist in the E street gallery, presenting her whimsical stained glass and wood works. All exhibitions will be up through November 27th.

We will sink to the bottom of the ocean together
© 2010 Megan Chapman

Megan Chapman
Falling into Sound
Hive Gallery

Megan Chapman's exhibition Falling into Sound features all new work created during 2010.Falling into Sound will debut in the Hive Gallery at the Fayetteville Underground during the month of November. Megan Chapman is better known for her richly colored mixed media paintings on canvas and paper, while this work is more minimalist in nature, with a near monochromatic palette comprised of various tones of dark charcoal, translucent shades of blue, yellow, rust, and the occasional flash of green. As the title suggests, Chapman's works are greatly influenced by the music she listens to while painting. These paintings are quiet and meditative but also buzzing with layers of subtle colors and texture. Along with her works on canvas, Chapman will be showing the Manual for Living : A ten page guide. This "book" will never be bound but will be shown in sequential order, always to remain together. Each page its own chapter, the viewer will “read” this work starting with the wordless prologue, the eight pages in between with their text, and concluding with a wordless epilogue.This work explores themes of love and loss mixed into a poetry of longing.

Megan Chapman was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She received her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Oregon. Chapman has shown her paintings over the past fifteen years in galleries in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Washington State and Washington D.C. Most recently a collaborative painting by Chapman was exhibited in the Liverpool Independents Biennial in Liverpool England. Chapman's work has appeared in various publications and is held in numerous private collections nationally as well as internationally. For more information about her work please visit her website www.meganchapman.com and her studio blog www.meganchapman.blogspot.com

Dana Idlet
Six Miles Down a Dirt Road
The Vault Gallery

I see lines everywhere, in rocks, maps, veins, roots, cuts of fish, petals, and leaves. My interest in lines sparked ideas of representing growth drought, scars, time lines, and personal history in the tree rings. Like trees, people extend themselves, move toward light, branch, are marred, go without, and heal. The parallels have moved me. By drawing imagined rings and lines,some more realistic than others, I have begun to draw connections between recorded human experience and the histories revealed in what seem on the surface to be simple cross sections
of cedar.

Duane Gardner
Looking for the Broadcaster
The Revolver Gallery

This series of paintings is about exploring mark-making, about returning to the artistic control, or lack thereof, one had as a child. I find the expressive quality of children’s art work curious and interesting because of the lack of control. I like to think of it as returning to the innocence of mark-making. There is also something about the immediacy of drawing that I enjoy and attempt to make happen in the paintings.

Along with mark-making, I also allow the history, or process, of the work to be seen. In my style of working, I continually edit the piece, adding and subtracting paint, lines, shapes, as I am working. The viewer can see the decisions that I made to achieve the final product, the evidence of solving the problem. But it also makes the viewer wonder what may be going on underneath the images they see. I hope to show the viewer the questions and answers that presented themselves throughout the process of the piece.

Ultimately for me, the process of creating the work is where the enjoyment lies. I do not attempt to paint from emotion or experience. I think more along the lines of color and composition. I wish the viewer would see something new or different each time they looked at one of my pieces, letting the painting evoke emotion.

Cheri Bohn
The Ascension
The E Street Gallery

I am a 38 year old mother of three. I have been interested in the arts since the first grade when I learned about Van Gogh’s ear. I grew up in Texas and graduated from The University of North Texas with a Bachelor in Fine Arts. My family and I moved to the Ozark Mountains in 1999. I had grown up on 20 acres and it was great getting back to nature. I have been working with stained glass for fifteen years.In 2002, I was inspired to add glass and pure crystal balls to the unique tree roots that were on our land.

I give the tree respect and preserve its beauty. The hearts of the tree, the roots are rarely seen. Like the human spirit, these masterpieces are often overlooked. After being introduced to Andy Goldsworthy’s work in 1997 he has been a major influence in my work. My sculptures express the communion we need to have with nature, to work as one.

I recycle dead tree roots that would normally be burnt or rot away. As an artist, I surrender most of the design principles to the tree. The natural designs in the wood are so amazing. Some of the roots take the shape of something like dragons or butterflies; that I bring out with stained glass wings. Others end up being abstract pieces. Most of these can be mounted onto the wall bringing nature into the homes and businesses in a way that has never been seen before.

My work has been evolving over the years. It expresses the fusion between humans and nature. The balance we need to have. Nature has greatly affected me and should be respected in every way.

***********************
As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through November 27th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Spirit of the Times, More than a Picture & Earth and Fire

2010-10-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

Fayetteville Underground First Thursday Opening Reception October 7th 5-8pm

October will be another exciting month for Fayetteville Underground. The Hive and Revolver Galleries will host photography from the South Central Region Society for Photographic Education, who's members are having their annual conference in Fayetteville. The Vault Gallery will feature photography from most of the Fayetteville Underground Studio artists in a show entitled "More Than a Picture." Martha Molina's non-functional Raku pottery works will be shown in the E-Street Gallery.

Devyn G

Eat. Chill.

Sonja Rieger
K'hia Campbell as Queen Amidala

Revolver Gallery & Hive Gallery

The University of Arkansas Art Department

The University of Arkansas Art Department will be hosting The South Central Region Society for Photographic Education annual conference, “Spirits of the Times”, October 7 - 9, 2010. Programming is scheduled on October 8^th and 9^th at the UA Global Campus, located in downtown Fayetteville, and in the Fine Arts Center, located on the main University of Arkansas campus. Registration is required for conference programming. More information can be found at www.spesouthcentral.org

The conference will bring photography educators, students and professionals from a six state region to Fayetteville for two days of presentations and lectures. This year’s Honored Educator is Sonja Rieger from the University of Alabama. The SPE holds its national conference in the spring and the individual regions hold their annual conference in the fall. Conference location rotates around the region. The Art Department at UA has previously hosted the SCSPE conference in 1981 and 2000.

The featured speaker at the conference will be internationally renowned documentary photographer Danny Lyon. Lyon’s keynote address will be held on Friday evening, October 8, at 7:00 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Center. Seating is limited. For information call the Art Department at 479-575-5202.

An exhibition of Danny Lyon’s photographs on motorcycle culture, “The Bikeriders,” will be on display at Crystal Bridges at the Massey in Bentonville from September 9 – October 31. Crystal Bridges at the Massey is open Thursday – Saturday from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm and Sunday from 1:00 – 5:00 pm.

Other photography exhibits on display during October in conjunction with the conference include the SCSPE Members and Students exhibits at the Fayetteville Underground galleries October 6 through the 30^th. The Revolver Gallery will feature the work of SCSPE members, photographic educators and professionals, and The Hive, will feature work by photography students from universities and colleges in Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. An opening reception is will be held on “First Thursday” October 7 from 5:00-8:00pm. For more information: http://www.fayettevilleunderground.com. Fayetteville Underground is open Wednesday – Friday from 12:00 am – 7:00 pm and Saturdays from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm.

“Black in White America,” photographs by Leonard Freed, curated by the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City will be the featured exhibition in the UA Fine Arts Center Gallery. “Black in White America” is a moving collection of photos that document the African American struggle for self definition in mid-20^th century America. Leonard Freed (1929-2006) was a member of the Magnum photo agency. “Black in White America” will be on exhibit in the Fine Arts Center Gallery on campus October 6 – 29. Gallery hours are 9:00 am – 5:30 pm, Monday – Friday and 2:00 – 5:00 pm on Sunday. For more information: smitche@uark.edu or call the UA Gallery Office at 479-575-7987.

“Arkansas Photography Educators,” an exhibit featuring current work by twelve faculty members from universities and colleges in Arkansas, will be on display at the sUgAR Gallery in Bentonville from September 30 – October 23 with an opening reception scheduled for Saturday October 9 from 4:30-7:30. Featured artists include Beverly Buys, Gary Cawood, Victor Chalfant, Neal Holland, Joanne Jones, Margaret LeJuene, Maxine Payne, Michael Peven, Donna Pinckley, Carey Roberson, Curtis Steele and Marcia Wallace.

Also during the month of October, the work of UA photography students will be on display in the hallway cases in the Fine Arts Center.

For more information on conference programming and registration, please contact: Michael Peven at mpeven@uark.edu or the Art Department at artinfo@uark.edu. Or call the UA art department at 479-575-5202

Sabine Schmidt

Vault Gallery

More Than a Picture

Fayetteville Underground Studio Artists

Fayetteville Underground studio artists will be presenting photography-based works in a group show entitled More Than a Picture in the Vault Gallery during the month of October.The artists are excited and inspired by the visiting SCSPE member and student exhibition that will be hosted in the Hive and Revolver galleries. More than a Picture will be an interesting and varied exhibition as the artists come together to explore photography as a group.

Martha Molina

E Street Gallery

Martha Molina

Essential Elements: Earth & Fire

Martha Molina grew up in Clay County in Northeast Arkansas influenced and encouraged to embrace her great grandmother’s Native American culture. She actively practiced various crafts and loved the materials that were found in nature and from an early age she hand built animals and vessels from clay. Martha received her B.A. and M.ED. from Southeastern Louisiana University where she discovered the process for life masks and began making performance masks for costumes and storytelling as well as decorations such as three dimensional portraits through experimentation. Martha returned to Arkansas in 1993 and has been active in the arts community every since living and working in Fayetteville. She has worked as a multi-disciplined on the Arkansas Arts Council AIE Artist Roster and has conducted artist residencies throughout the state in theatre, mask-making, watercolor, and clay. She currently teaches art at St. Joseph School in Fayetteville.

Martha Molina’s recent works are mostly nonfunctional pottery choosing alternative firing techniques which give the most unpredictable results. The process of Raku firing intrigues and excites Martha the most as she watches the translucent glow of the work as she pulls it from a 1900 degree kiln. The rapid reduction, cooling and trailing made by the flames creates a final product that cannot be reproduced. It is like an amazing Christmas morning every time she opens the kiln!

The word “Raku” in Japanese literally translates to “pleasure.” Martha gains much pleasure from the process of creating pottery and she hopes others gain pleasure from it as well.

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts and sculpture you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through October 30th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

September: Petillo, Gosnell, Chen and more...

2010-08-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

September at the Fayetteville Underground:

First Thursday Opening reception Sept 2nd 5-8pm.

This September will be another exciting month for the Fayetteville Underground. The Hive gallery will host Nashville, Tennessee based photographer Thomas Petillo. In the Revolver gallery painter Lin Chen will present her exhibition of still life paintings. The Fayetteville Underground's own Jan Gosnell will present his most recent work in an exhibition in the Vault gallery, entitled Past Forward. Join us First Thursday on September 2nd from 5-8pm for our opening reception and meet these talented artists.

Thomas Petillo

Hive Gallery

Thomas Petillo : North, West, East, South

Thomas Petillo is perhaps best known for his strikingly intimate portraits of great musicians (Robert Plant, Ben Folds, John Prine, Kid Rock and Porter Wagoner, to name only a few).Thomas has spent fifteen years honing the skills necessary to produce these beautiful images for record labels, magazines, and ad agencies. These portraits have come to define his style. But a very different Petillo has emerged in the last few years as the result of a series of commissions by Hammock, the ambient duo, who asked him to create images for their recordings. No matter his subject, Petillo's images are characterized by a delicate balance of stark realism and magical wonder, as if he stands with one foot in the spirit and the other in the flesh. This rare talent has given his work a singular imprint and has earned for him a distinguished place among contemporary photographers.

Jan Gosnell

Vault Gallery:

Jan Gosnell: Past Forward

Jan Gosnell will be exhibiting a selection of paintings he has completed during the past year. They are the results of the desire to explore subject matter chosen intuitively from a lifetime exposure to the written word, media imagery, and the works of other artists. This series of paintings represents a development along a natural path, primarily with regard to the resolution of opposites. This direction is reflected in an attempt to resolve the use of masculine subject matter exhibiting aggressive spatial confrontation with a more sensitive usage of line and a richness of color. While these paintings are apparently straight forward in their imagery, they are also an engaging invitation for personal interpretation.

Jan Gosnell received a B.F.A. from the University of Texas and an M.F. A. from the University of Arkansas. His professional personae includes that of college level art instructor, gallery owner, commercial art director, movie sketch artist, and editorial cartoonist. He presently lives in Fayetteville, teaches painting and drawing at NWACC, and is a resident member of the Fayetteville Underground.

Lin Chen

Revolver Gallery:

Lin Chen

Artist Statement:
"When I set up things to paint, I have a vague idea about how I want the picture plane divided depending on the shape and attitude of the figure, still life, etc. After spending a brief time looking at the setup, I establish a vision. All I do after that is geared toward realizing that vision.

Vision is bigger than sight, or, what meets the eye. It can also be fragile and elusive, and paradoxically, can only be made visible through sight. I try to hang on to that vision because it is what has stirred my imagination in the first place. In the meantime I remain open to necessity for revisions, even serendipitous happenings. Not infrequently I find myself, half-way through a composition, stopping to completely revise a setup or color scheme. When the established vision is too forced, or worse, false, I have no choice except to adjust or throw it away and start over upon the realization of it.

Painting from observation requires the process to be dynamic. Sight is physical, empirical to the extent applicable to the structure of the human eye. Vision wants purging, clarification, eventually, crystallization. The painter moves between the tension of the two forces, slowly peeling away and discarding the false and the incidental. An apple must look like an apple, also a globe, a circle, a crucial participant in the poetry of the picture’s totality.

As a painter I am not a rationalist. What’s being purged and discarded are confusion, false notions, melodrama, bravado, etc., not mystery.

I paint to understand who I am, how I relate to the external world, with which I am smitten. But more often than not I paint to overcome boredom, to combat ennui."

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through October 2nd

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

August Art talks: Fayetteville Undergound

2010-08-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

One of the Fayetteville Underground's goals is to present more regularly scheduled artist talks in the coming months. We really want to engage the community, allowing potential patrons to learn a bit more about the artists and the work that the Fayetteville Underground represents. Our first Thursday opening receptions each month are a fun and lively event, but sometimes due to the crowds and the reception atmosphere it is hard for those who are truly interested in learning more about the artists and their processes to connect.

Last month, we gave a talk about the photographs by the Institute du loop, the exhibition that was visiting from Taiwan. Visiting artist Matthew Lyman spoke about his paintings in the Revolver, and Gailen Hudson spoke about his pottery that was featured in the E Street.

For the month of August, Leilani Law will be speaking about the Shift Gallery Collective,visiting from Seattle, currently in the Revolver and Gregory Moore will be speaking about his paintings on metal in the Vault. Their talk will be Thursday night August 26th 6:30pm.

Megan Chapman will be speaking about the photographic works in the Hive Gallery by Christian Demare, a photographer from Paris, France and his exhibition, Ghosts in the Landscape #2 on Saturday morning August 28th at 11am, on the final day of the exhibition.

In the future we plan to have dedicated days once or twice a month when we will have the artist's talks so that people can depend on them as easily as first Thursday. We are excited about offering these casual and more intimate gatherings for those in the community interested in learning more about our current exhibitions at the Fayetteville Underground.

Upcoming Talks:Hosted by the Fayetteville Underground
Thursday August 26, 6:30pm

Leilani Law and Gregory Moore

Come to Fayetteville Underground for a Thursday night art talk with Fayetteville Underground artists Leilani Law and Gregory Moore. Leilani will discuss the current show entitled "Continental Shift" which features work from a Seattle art collective Shift in the Revolver Gallery at the Underground. Gregory will discuss his exhibitiong of paintings on found objects,"Reclaimed Surfaces" in the Vault Gallery.

Saturday August 28, 11:00a.m.

Megan Chapman

Pop in from the Farmer's Market and come to the Fayetteville Underground for an informal Saturday morning art talk with Fayetteville Underground studio artist Megan Chapman. Megan will discuss the photographic works of French photographer Christian Demare in his exhibition Ghosts in the Landscape #2 currently on display in the Hive Gallery. Megan will talk about Mr. Demare's process as well as answer any questions viewers may about the artist's work during the final day of the exhibition.

Please join us Thursday August 26th at 6:30pm and Saturday August 28th at 11:00am to learn more about these wonderful exhibitions. Dig deeper at the Fayetteville Underground.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts presented by the Fayetteville Underground.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through August 28th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

August: Demare, Moore, Freeman & Shift

2010-07-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

Fayetteville Underground First Thursday Opening Reception August 5 from 5-8pm

This August, The Fayetteville Underground is pleased to present four new exhibitions with works by local, national and international artists. Christian Demare, a photographer from Paris, France will present his mysterious dark worlds in his photographic exhibition, Ghosts in the Landscape #2 in the Hive Gallery. The Revolver gallery will host our first gallery exchange, with the works of Seattle, Washington based artist collective Shift.The Vault Gallery will feature Fayetteville Underground artist Gregory Moore's new additions to his Reclaimed Surfaces paintings on found objects. Over the past year, Gregory's subject matter has expanded to include feral animals along with weeds and wildflowers. The E Street Gallery will showcase pottery artist Karan Freeman's functional vessels in her exhibition, Let's Eat.

Christian Demare

Christian Demare
Ghosts in the Landscape #2
Hive Gallery

Christian Demare is a photographer living and working in Paris, France. His exhibition, Ghosts in the Landscape #2 will be featured in the Hive Gallery at the Fayetteville Underground during the month of August. After exploring drawing, painting and engraving, it is photography that Christian has turned to in recent years. Exhibitions and publications punctuate this prolific artist's life entirely devoted to his work, research and experimentation. Recently his work entered a period of greater visibility, with exhibitions at the French Institute in Thessaloniki, Greece as part of the 2010 Photo-Biennale, and at Les Insolites, in Tangiers, Morocco. Artist Megan Chapman, always inspired and impressed by Christian's dark, lush and mysterious photographic worlds asked the artist if he would consider having an exhibition at the Fayetteville Underground, she was thrilled when he agreed.

About his work, Christian Demare writes, "Stopping for a moment, seeing, trying to take the time to look at things humbly; between contemplation and meditation. Trying to offer a view of the immensity of things, approaching the others, touching the palpitations of life. Offering people a view, expanding their perspective, feeling and touching reality with the fingertips.This reality that contains all the tragic and the magic. All the light and the incredible hope.The torn hearts and the dazzling nature.The deadly boredom and the absolute love. My art is figurative even if sometimes the subject disappears; my art is narrative even if the stories are fragmentary.The images are nothing other than furtive traces and testimonies; a few clues left here and there…"

Shift Collective

Shift Collective from Seattle Washington
Continental Shift
Revolver Gallery

Shift, a collaborative artists’ studio/gallery in the Pioneer Square district of Seattle Washington will feature 9 of it’s member artists in this exhibition titled Continental Shift. Shift was established as an artist-run space, with the primary goal of supporting Northwest area artists, working in a variety of media, who are dedicated to creating challenging and innovative work. Shift is committed to celebrating art of diverse media and rigorous content. Exhibiting artists include Sharon Birzer, Yun Hong Chang, Mary Coss, Ellen Hochberg, Jo Moniz, Bailey Russell, June Sekiguchi, Paula Stokes and Rickie Wolfe.

June Sekiguchi from Shift collaborative studio and Fayettville Underground studio artist Leilani Law co-facilitated this member exhibition exchange. Fayetteville Underground studio artists will be featured in October at Shift Collaborative Studio in Seattle.

Gregory Moore

Gregory Moore

Reclaimed Surfaces
Vault Gallery

Gregory Moore's paintings are about searching through discarded rubble and finding beautiful things. He find pieces of rusted, dented metal debris and paints on them in a way that doesn’t obscure the original texture and color of the object. He seeks out objects that are notable for their their interesting stains, rust and damage and he lets those characteristics guide the painting.

"The subject matter I choose is largely informed by the pieces of debris I start with. Often I evoke or re-imagine the scene where decaying trash might be found (a field of red clover, a cluster of thistles). When I first began painting on metal, I was drawn to weeds and wildflowers. Now I find my self more open to letting the metal guide me," Moore says, "My recent works include birds, insects, cats and fish."

Moore hopes to take forgotten, decaying objects usually thought of as trash, and use them to make intriguing and soulful works of art that people would want to bring into their homes, offices or gardens.

Karan Freeman

Karan Freeman
Let's Eat

E Street Gallery

As an independent potter working out of my home in Fayetteville, I think most about the functionality of my pieces. I prefer to work with white stoneware, midfire, that lends itself to long lasting, durable pieces.I have been actively involved in clay work since the 1970s, originally hand building and then throwing on the wheel. I’ve attended workshops and other collaborative events with other artists to learn new techniques and develop my own style. For me touchability and texture is a huge part of clay appreciation both in the crafting and the finished product. It is impossible for me to simply look at a finished clay object, it must be explored. There is a need to check out the surface, lift the piece to see it from another angle, look inside or see if the weight matches the visual perception. The enduring quality of clay objects also appeals to me. When someone tells me they have a 5 or 10 year old bowl or mug, they still love it and use it regularly; it reinforces my sense of purpose and satisfaction. Working with clay reminds me of my connection to the earth; how the earth provides everything we need to produce food and forms the vessels to contain the food.

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through August 28th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

July: Institute du loop, Kelly Price-Colston, Matthew Lyman and Gailen Hudson

2010-06-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

Fayetteville Underground First Thursday Opening Reception July 1st 5-8pm

This July, Fayetteville Underground will host four new art exhibitions. In the Hive Gallery, the mysterious Institute du loop from Taipei, Taiwan will show a series of photographs, in their premier international exhibition, A place to drown. In the Vault Gallery, Fayetteville Underground artist Kelly Price-Colston's exhibition entitled "The Super Cute Show" will feature her multi-media collages. The Revolver Gallery will be filled with the works by area artist Matthew Lyman whose show will include UV reflex paintings, an animated UV lighting installation, custom furniture and a surround soundtrack. In the E-Street Gallery, pottery by Gailen Hudson will be on exhibit. It's going to be another exciting month at the Fayetteville Underground!

Institute Du Loop

In the Hive Gallery:
A Place to Drown
Institute Du Loop

Institute du Loop will present its premier international exhibition, A Place to Drown, in the Hive Gallery within the Fayetteville Underground during the month of July. This exhibition, curated by artist Megan Chapman, comes to the Fayetteville Underground from Taipei, Taiwan. The Institute du Loop is the brain child of English born visual and sound artist, "Mr. Loop." Mr. Loop has lived in Taipei for two years, and this body of work reflects his sense of being lost in the city, drowning in emotions, submerged and dreaming on the strange island he now calls home.

The photographic works presented capture what the artist's eye misses, he is using his camera to “see” what he cannot. The camera gives the artist a chance to lose himself in fleeting moments again and again. Mr. Loop sees his work as a form of emotional documentation: through these images he is finding his eyes and his heart. The Institute du Loop's exhibition presents the viewer with an archive of images, words, and sounds, or as the title suggests, A Place to Drown.

Kelly Price-Colston

In the Vault Gallery:
The Super Cute Show
Kelly Price-Colston

Kelly Price-Colston is a mixed media artist residing in Farmington, Arkansas. She has been published in the book We Feel Fine about bloggers and social media. She also is a regularly featured artist in the magazine Sew Somerset Mixed Media and will be contributing to Somerset digital magazine in September. Her studio is located in the Fayetteville Underground artist collective where she also teaches mixed media collage classes Wed. nights at 6:45pm. This is her second solo exhibition at the Fayetteville Underground Vault gallery. Cupcakes, happy child-like illustrations and paintings will set the scene for the next First Thursday show. This will be a great family event for everyone.

Matthew Lyman

In the Revolver Gallery:
Poor Traits & Land Scapegoats
Matthew Lyman

Matthew Lyman lives in the woods, with his cat Lonely Jay Kadogan, on the northern most outskirts of Northwest Arkansas. It’s all too easy to say “Unusual” when dissecting his brand of mixed media painting. When asked about his influences he names a cross section of his favorite nineteenth century scientists and twentieth century cartoon animators. When asked about his education he proclaims: “I didn’t know anything until I knew nothing.” In fact, the more you ask Matthew about his art, the more he makes it abundantly clear that art should be the last thing on your mind. For Matthew, this is simply an attempt at connecting.

A self-proclaimed existentialist weightlifter, art bodybuilder, long distance drummer and magical wizard, Matthew seems to perpetuate his own mythology which bleeds through every pore of his highly personal catalog of characters. Portraits of closed-eyed figures appear from darkness, radiating their own light reflected by a canopy of neon sky. Landscapes cascade to occupy space like slow migrations of house and hill. The ever-changing array of pattern work acts as a system of iconic folklore, unrefined ideas and rhythms. The narratives are subtle, singing quiet songs of Jungian duality, existential dilemma, high anxiety, irony, satire, desperation and beauty. It’s the kind of poetic storytelling that is abstract and painfully absurd but, somehow, everyone can still relate to. Matthew has created a whole world of imagery and iconography. There is a certain all encompassing, big bang to black hole feeling about viewing even the smallest and simplest of his multi layered paintings. Something vaguely familiar. There is, at first, an immediate connection with the obvious, the vivid color palette, two-dimensional cartoon like rendering and often quite humorous text sprinkled throughout but, there is still something more to be felt. The work tends to leave the viewer reeling for more of that deeper, invisible and unexplainable connection.

Matthew has exhibited paintings and sculptures in New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Atlanta and Dallas. In July 2010, he intends to bring it home to Fayetteville. Matthew’s first solo exhibition at the Fayetteville Underground titled Poor Traits & Land Scapegoats promises a selection of over thirty new UV reflex paintings, an animated UV lighting installation, custom furniture, a surround soundtrack orchestrated by none other than the magic wizard himself and, possibly, some balloons.

Gailen Hudson

In the E-Street Gallery:
Gailen Hudson

"Clay is a fascinating thing to me. When I am in the woods or along a creek, I search for this material derived from the natural processes of chemical weathering and erosion of the bedrock and soils. I enjoy the formless natural and primitive character of clay and its manipulation and creation into an entity of my choice. The process of this raw earth material and its interaction with fire, transforming the clay into a man-made stone is exciting to me and when opening the kiln after the work of the fire is complete on the clay, I know that something new and never before seen is waiting inside.

Clay lends itself to many processes of manipulation, ideas, dimensions, form, color, texture, volume, scale, and function. I enjoy making forms on the potter’s wheel and hand forming pieces and combining forms. My influences include the functional ware of the Southern Folk Pottery tradition of wood ash glazed functional ware with storage jars, bowls, urns, and whiskey jugs. The earthenware of the Mississippian / Central and Southern Plains tradition of Native American pottery have always been a favorite of mine for its decorative designs used to enliven the fragile pottery in daily use. The stonewares of the Japanese Shino and Chinese Sung Dynasty always have my attention, as the soft boldness of the clay bodies and the covering glazes have created forms that entreat you to physically interact with the work, to feel its form, its mass, its texture and color. I like the post-fired reduction of American Raku, playing with fire, smoke, and color.

Clay is a natural organic form which can be made into a coffee mug to hold and feel the transmitted warmth of the liquid it carries, a piggy bank to hold my pocket change, a casserole pot in which to cook my supper, or a sculpture to create and define a spatial identity in my home. Or, it can be engineered into a design of a 3200 degree fabric blanket for the space shuttle, ceramic cutlery, or as a material of cold fusion technology research. I like to think of myself as somewhere in the middle of this process … but leaning more towards the coffee mug."

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through July 31st.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

June: Kaminsky Family & Samuel Gray

2010-05-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

Fayetteville Underground June 3rd 5-8pm

First Thursday opening reception.

Kaminsky Family Show & Samuel Gray: Lift my eyes to you

Join us this June as the Fayetteville Underground presents works from all four members of the talented Kaminsky family. Hank Kaminsky will bring hundreds of new pieces of jewelry to the E Street Gallery along with a room full of new sculptural works in the Revolver Gallery showing along side his wife Jo Anne Kaminsky's beautiful abstract oil paintings. Their son, Jessie Kaminsky, currently an artist in residence at Boston Center for the Arts, will hang an enormous installation in the Fayetteville Underground circular foyer. Daniel Kaminsky who lives in San Francisco, will be showing his film loops and collage in the Hive.

We are also thrilled to share the new works of Samuel Gray, a young, prolific Underground Studio artist in the Vault Gallery. Samuel's impressive charcoal pieces are sure to amaze and inspire! June is going to be a very exciting month at the Fayetteville Underground!

Hank Kaminsky

Artist's Statement:
I am working on a project called the Sacred Ground. With symbols and words integrated into the surfaces, the sculptures speak about the sacred nature of the Earth and the concepts of peace, citizenship, fairness, and other positive values we hold as a community. The pavement or background of the sculptures contains language contributed by various members of the community. On top of that language, which is an inherent component of the sculptures, are succinct words and forms that convey the concept of hallowed ground. I believe that art is the symbolic transformation of experience and that the sharing of these symbols acknowledges art’s significance in society.

Hank Kaminsky believes the artist is an integral part of the community. He has been making sculptures for 50 years and is still concerned with finding the shape of the face of god. He has many public sculptures, including the World Peace Prayer fountain on the Fayetteville Town Square, which was sculpted and cast in his own studio and foundry in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Jo Ann Kaminsky

Artist’s Statement:
These oil paintings present a personal process, which is a more free and timeless zone than what my puppets and other work entail. When a person enters the altered state of creative expression, many things happen. The artist (any person making art) enters a dream space where the right brain can use powers that are inaccessible during everyday rational activities.

Jo Ann Kaminsky is an artist, therapist, art teacher, and owner of the Art Experience, a center for expressive arts, healing and growth in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She has a private counseling/art therapy practice, where she sees people individually or in families or groups. She leads a personal growth group for adults using masks as metaphor for change. She is also an Artist-In-Education

Jesse Kaminsky

Jesse Kaminsky

Artist's Statement:
The work that I'm making for the show in Fayetteville fits into a larger body of work that is about how to make shapes using very simple rules and processes. I'm interested in the way the natural world creates extremely complex shapes from the simplest building blocks. I have a feeling that the rules of construction are the key. The pieces I'm working on in this vein begin with a simple shape and an equally simple set of rules and then I follow it to its conclusion.

Jesse Kaminsky lives in Boston Mass and works in computers at M.I.T. He is currently the artist in residence at the Boston Center for the Arts.

Daniel Kaminsky

Daniel Kaminsky

Artist's Statement:
Known as a retro artist, his work involves 16 mm film, view master film loops with sound and two-dimensional collage. Also a writer and a guitarist, Daniel will join his mother (on drums) and his brother (playing sax) as they make music for the evening.

Daniel Kaminsky lives in San Francisco where he is studying film at City College.

Samuel Gray

Samuel Gray: Lift my eyes to you

Artist's Statement:

As an artist I know that I have an opportunity to affect someone with my images. I want my work to connect to people and their emotions. As I strive to make a positive impact in this world and not let my talents go to waste, I am humbled by the responsibility to make a difference for good.

My exhibition in the Vault Gallery will be focused on children living in a ministry-based orphanage that cares for AIDS orphans and abandoned children in Mozambique, Africa. I will be living at the orphanage and helping to take care of these children during the summer and wanted to dedicate a body of work to them. The purpose of these pieces is to reflect the hope for change and promise that these children have in the midst of their hardship.

Samuel Gray is currently in the B.F.A program at the University of Arkansas and has additional representation in Little Rock at Boswell Mourot Fine Art Gallery. He has created all new work for his exhibition for the Fayetteville Underground. We are thrilled to have this dedicated young artist in our stable of studio artists at the Fayetteville Underground. Come and get to know him and his work.

Listen to artist Samuel Gray talk about his latest exhibition, "Life my eyes to you."
This interview originally aired on KUAF Ozarks at Large 91.3fm

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through June 26th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

May: Leilani, Sabine Schmidt, Christopher Mostyn, Ed Pennebaker

2010-04-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

Fayetteville Underground : May 6th 5-8pm
First Thursday Opening Reception

Join us this May as the Fayetteville Underground unveils four exciting, new exhibitions. The Revolver Gallery will feature Fayetteville Underground artist Leilani's new paintings entitled "Django" in her striking, allegorical style. The Hive Gallery will feature Sabine Schmidt, also a Fayetteville Underground artist, in an exhibition of her intriguing photographs, "We've Been Holding This Moment for You." The Vault Gallery will feature the playful monster drawings of Christopher Mostyn, a visiting artist from Springfield, Missouri. The E-Street Gallery will showcase the colorful blown glass works of the nationally acclaimed artist Ed Pennebaker.

Paintings by Leilani

In the Revolver Gallery:
Django
2010 paintings by Leilani

Artist Statement: Django; Romani for “I awake” is the exhibition title which will include two series of paintings titled Dream Awake and Enthronement. Art is a means to actively dream. Visceral messages compel me to create a kind of narrative order to the series of moments that occur somewhere between total darkness and total light. Living my potential is to use and be used by art to overlap the distance between the two. The allegorical Dream Awake series of paintings are inspired by actual events as well as dreams. Painting allows me to revisit life experiences in search for their universal truth. A recalled dream can reveal a story that through the act of painting becomes an event, a place for interaction, a place to begin again to dream.The large scale ﬁgurative Enthronement series of paintings borrow the imagery of thrones as a means to express a kind of rite of passage into self-authority. As a culture we seldom celebrate individualized authority; the ability to lead oneself, to follow oneself. I address the necessity of inauguration; the celebration of ones earned authenticity and conviction as a necessary component to an awakened life.

Photography by Sabine Schmidt

In the Hive Gallery:
We’ve Been Holding This Moment for You
Photography by Sabine Schmidt

Artist Statement: Two people walk down a city street. Do they see the same street and have the same responses to what is around them? Or do each person’s senses create a different street? The street consists of moments in time, offered to the passers-by. Almost all of these moments are as mundane as the environment in which they take place, but they all have the potential to become something bigger, something symbolic or memorable. Whether in cities or out in the country, the camera eye is ready to find the formal in the mundane, give it permanence, and connect time with place.

Sabine Schmidt was born and raised in Germany and came to Fayetteville to study literary translation at the University of Arkansas. As a music journalist, college instructor, and translator, she has lived in several countries and likes to test the walkability of cities in North America and Europe. Top three so far: Hamburg, Montreal, and New York.

Works on Paper by Christopher Mostyn

In the Vault Gallery:
Christopher Mostyn

Artist Statement: I've been making monsters my whole life. I grew up in a day when Saturday mornings made kids kings for a moment. As a bored suburbanite, I needed something to keep me interested and pop culture was just the ticket. Monsters, sci-fi, comics, all fed an insatiable appetite, one fueled but the ordinariness of the neighborhood and the dysfunction of the family. The work in this show is mostly new work with a few older imaged peppered in. Sheer joy is it's one constant theme. I have recently returned to making comics and this may be the last show of strictly "art" for a while but who knows. If there is one thing I have learned it is not to underestimate the power of ennui.

Glass works by Ed Pennebaker

In the E Street Gallery:
Glass works by Ed Pennebaker

Artist Statement: Much of my work with the glass shows its fluid qualities and its interaction with light. I derive inspiration from the garden and the woods surrounding my home and studio. The many seeds, buds, blooms, pods, and growing and developing plants and organisms continually amaze and inspire me. But I see no need to replicate nature, I prefer to interpret and reimagine. My latest sculptures deal with the natural environment and our relationship to our natural resources. "Prairie Grass" is indicative of the wind and the way it moves the plants rooted in the layers of earth.

Ed Pennebaker owns and runs Red Fern Glass, a one man glass blowing studio. In 2005 one of Ed’s works was installed in the Fred W. Smith Conference center on the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences campus in Little Rock, Arkansas. Glass made by Ed has been shown at SOFA Chicago by Function Art Gallery. Chandeliers by Ed were awarded the "Excellence in LIghting" award at the Philadelphia Furniture and Furnishings Show and a Red/Amber/Smoke chandelier was chosen to exhibit in the 2001 Hsinchu International Glass Art Festival in Hsinchu, Taiwan. His work was chosen in 1993 for the White House Crafts Collection. He has sold glass in major museum shops and galleries nationwide.

Behind the Hive Gallery:
Leilani's art mentorship student exhibition

Behind the hive, features the art work of Leilani's private & individual students as a part of Art Mentorship; a program offered through The New School. Leilani sees herself as a catalyst, inspiring creative potential. She encourages trust of intuition as the informant.

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through May 29th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Fayetteville Underground: One Year Anniversary!

2010-03-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Fayetteville Underground: First Thursday April 1st 5-8pm
Join us Thursday April 1st. from 5-8pm for Fayetteville Underground's first Thursday opening reception. This April marks a full year of great art shows at Fayetteville Underground! We have a lot to celebrate, so don't miss it!

In April we will feature the brilliant and colorful portraits by painter Basil Seymour-Davies in the Vault Gallery. San Francisco schooled artist Matthew Depper will fill the Hive Gallery with a playful and clever collection of paintings called "It Eels What it Eels" and paintings by Anthony TW Meyers will be shown in the Revolver Gallery.The E-Street Gallery will feature richly patinated and rustic jewelry by Teresa Hall.

Painting by Basil Seymour-Davies

In the Vault Gallery:
Between You and I
Paintings by Basil Seymour-Davies

All the pieces tell a story. All the graphic information supports the narrative derived through the act of contemplating the relationship, shared experiences, and certain commonalities between subject and artist. Usually these graphic images are developed through a series of loose associations and as a result trigger a vague sense of some set of ideas. In the end, the initial narrative is not important. It is the lingering residues that matter. It is the impression of some insight into a person or place’s story that allows one to freely explore and interpret it. And by this process establishes the connections to make the story one’s own.

Basil Seymour-Davies spent his impressionable adolescent years in Bangkok, Thailand. He grew up staring in awe at the enormous hand painted billboards and movie posters that were are a part of a rich Thai tradition. When he decided to pursue painting in his late twenties he inevitably reverted back to the images of the larger than life figures and story vignettes he saw in the city streets as a kid. He currently lives and works in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Painting by Matthew Depper

In the Hive Gallery:
It Eels What it Eels
Paintings by Matthew Depper

Matthew Depper studied graphic illustration at the Academy of Art, University San Francisco. His latest body of work is a collection of stylized sea creatures painted on convex wood panels. The title of the series,"It eels what it eels," reflects the typically clever and playful nature of Matthew's art.

Painting by Anthony TW Myers

In the Revolver Gallery:

Paintings by Anthony TW Myers

Growing up terrorizing a small town in Oklahoma, Anthony spent most of his childhood exploring abandoned structures, getting dirty in creeks, and pestering his fellow neighbor kids. During his perilous escapades, he’d hoped to discover a new unrecorded aquatic species, a real live ghost, or most importantly a true friend that was at least half as crazy as he was. Whether or not these aspirations ever became a reality is hardly relevant. His childhood ambitions stewed and fermented in his soul and his head throughout his life. They evolved and spun into all humanly possible directions getting expelled and contorted through drawings, mud sculptures with yarn hair, homemade forts, puppets, and finger paintings in the process. If the neighborhood kids didn’t fear Anthony’s capabilities, they might have envied them. But mostly, they ended up loving him because he brought something unique and priceless to the town and to the world.

Jewelry by Teresa Hall

In the E-Street Gallery:
Jewelry by Teresa Hall

Teresa Hall is a mixed metal artist with a focus on rustic and organic forms, abstracted from nature. Her fascination began with an accidental walk around a junkyard some fifteen years ago where she discovered an array of metals and the intriguing patinas that were a result of weather, and age. Teresa began experimenting with the manipulation of metals by hammering, torching and soldering forms to achieve desirable colors and shapes that she incorporated into large format wall hangings, as well as smaller investigations which she continues to explore in the form of jewelry. Teresa considers the art of jewelry design to be closely related to sculpture, as her pieces involve building and balance to achieve a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing piece of jewelry that can be worn on a daily basis. In addition, Teresa finds there is a lot of satisfaction in transforming salvage into what she considers a rustic style of functional art.

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery. Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

March: Stories, Dreams, Reconciliation

2010-02-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

Fayetteville Underground: First Thursday March 4th 5-8pm
Featuring: Jennifer Libby Fay, William Mayes Flanagan, and Don House

Stories, Dreams, Reconciliation
Three artists come together March 4^th in three separate galleries within the walls of the Fayetteville Underground. The works of Jennifer Libby Fay, William Mayes Flanagan, and Don House might seem, at first glance, to be as distinct and unconnected as their choices of media – dye transfer, watercolor painting, and photography. However, walking back and forth between the galleries, the underlying, defining force that connects these artists becomes apparent.

Jennifer Libby Fay is the most likely to use the word spiritual when she describes her creative process, her search for meaning: “When I am thinking about my work or making my pieces I try to begin with an open and generous heart in order to ‘see’ what is being asked of me. For me, making art is an intuitive process, it comes from a place inside me that is difficult to articulate but I think it is very concerned with finding meaning in life. For me this is a spiritual quest.” And she has credentials to prove it. Her The Seven Step Spiritual Art Discipline, was included in the recently published book Visio Divina, a collection of essays that deal with the experiences of practicing artists.

An accomplished hand weaver and fiber artist, Fay focuses now on textile surface design using multiple dying techniques, embellishment, and fabric manipulation. Each of her dye transfer processes coalesces the various layers and textures into a unique original print. She will be exhibiting a collection of new work entitled Reconciliation in the front Vault Gallery.

The word spiritual carries a great weight, and a multitude of meanings, and while William Mayes Flanagan might be hesitant to evoke it when describing his work, it nonetheless pervades it. So many of his rich watercolors describe that wondrous period of dusk, when darkness gathers outside and windows begin to warm and light from within. The viewer rarely glimpses the scene beyond the window, yet feelings of curiosity and great nostalgia and longing can surface as the observer fills in the blanks from her own memory. “There’s nothing scary about my nights”, says Flanagan, “it is a time of great peace and beauty and mystery.” A Kansas City gallerist once described Flanagan as a Southern storyteller, and true to that metaphor, he lets the listener, walk right into the scene.

Flanagan will be displaying an array of new work entitled Dreams in the Revolver gallery, most of which has never been exhibited. He credits his association with the Fayetteville Underground as a critical factor in his prolific production of work in the past year. “It’s inspiring,” he says, “I work in the presence of very creative and disciplined artists, and their energy seems to activate my own.”

Don House often describes his approach to photography as a search for the essence, and he finds spirituality most often associated with the places to which he is drawn, with or without the presence of people. "I often seek the isolation of wilderness," he explains, "only to find myself pulled to signs of prior habitation, of human presence – the stone wall, the crumbled foundation, the tombstone – places with emotional weight." Nudes, landscapes, architecture – House approaches them all as he would one of his powerful portraits- searching for the character, the spirit, the essence, before he releases the shutter.

Most often, House finds that black and white film is the tool of choice, but he’s known to use color processes when he feels it better conveys his vision, and his selection of pieces for this exhibition contains both – works from different periods, a collection he titles Stories. Don House's work will be in Hive gallery.

The Fayetteville Underground is the perfect setting for this exhibition of kindred spirits. Four well-appointed galleries are surrounded by artist studios and a classroom space. The Fayetteville Underground's monthly opening receptions have anchored the First Thursday event in downtown Fayetteville, and drawn record crowds. The Underground and First Thursday has been credited by many artists as having revitalized the art scene in the region, even in the face of a national economic slowdown. The Underground provides a community of and for working artists, and this sense of community has drawn together a fascinating and diverse group of professional artists.

The opening reception for the Fay/Flanagan/House exhibition is March 4th from 5-8pm, and their work will remain in the galleries throughout the month.

For more information about these artists and their work please visit:

http://www.jenniferlibbyfay.com
http://williammayesflanagan.com
http://www.donhousephotoworks.com

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. Also there will be a group exhibition of the talented underground studio artist's in the back vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery. Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

February: C.E. Nelson and Kat Wilson

2010-01-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

Fayetteville Underground: First Thursday February 4th 5-8pm
Featuring C.E. Nelson and Kat Wilson

Join us Thursday Feb 4th. from 5-8pm for Fayetteville Underground's first Thursday opening reception. In February we explore the figure at the Fayetteville Underground. In the Hive we will have Fayetteville photographer, Craig Earl Nelson's Strangers and Not So Strange; a series of intimate and piercing close up portraits taken while using the natural light from the windows of a local pub. The Revolver gallery will feature Ft. Smith photographer, Kat Wilson's Habitats; a stunning series of environmental portraits placing people among their things, giving the viewer a true sense of the subject's lifestyle. In the Vault gallery, the underground studio artists will showcase a selection of their various figurative works and the E Street Gallery will have a wonderful selection of fine crafts. All exhibitions will continue through Feb 27th.

In the Hive Gallery: Craig Earl Nelson : Strangers and Not So Strange

Craig Nelson's latest work is being executed on Fujifilm's wonderful FP-100C, a 3x4 instant, peel-apart pack-film modeled after Polaroid's now discontinued versions. These portraits are shot using a Mamiya RB67 Pro-S medium-format camera with 90mm & 127mm lenses, largely hand-held, using only available light--no reflectors or other, secondary light sources. Craig favors hard fall-off, contrast, what most would refer to as chiaroscuro or Rembrandt lighting. The work is simple, straightforward, minimally posed. The latter is restricted to turning subject into or out of the light. Otherwise, direction involves only asking that subjects relax as best they can and to ogle the lens as he composes each shot. What results is a glimpse beneath the skin, a peek at the animal under the surface. In essence, Craig is working to remove the masks that we often feel compelled to wear. He hopes to give subject and viewer permission to stare, to drink in every line and blemish. Many subjects find it difficult to stare directly into the lens; does it trouble us to look at them? We live in a society in which direct eye contact is often considered intimidating, verboten unless the eyes regarding each other belong to lovers, family members, or perhaps the optometrist. The prints Craig makes from the original images are kept small to force the viewer to come close. He wants the experience to be personal, intimate; the same way he works, in nearly every case...up close, in the face of his subject, at less than arm's length. Both the act of photographing and the resulting images are quite potent.

In the Revolver Gallery: Kat Wilson : Habitats

Arkansas artist Kat Wilson is best known for her Habitat series of photographic portraits, in which ingenious arrangements of household furnishings and possessions, both everyday and exotic, surround their owners. Inspired by the Old Masters’ portraits, Habitats, says Wilson, is “a study of objects people keep dear to their hearts." Wilson’s work has been shown in New York, California, and Arkansas — where she has shown four times at the Arkansas Arts Center's Annual Delta Exhibition, winning a Delta award this year. Kat Wilson has been published in Oxford American, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock Monthly, Communication Arts, and others. A graduate of the University of Central Arkansas, Wilson also studied at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. She currently lives in Northwest Arkansas, working at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith. Kat Wilson's says the habitat series is a "search for a new iconography. Influenced directly by the Old Masters; the lives of the normal folk are eulogized."

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. Also there will be group exhibitions of the talented underground studio artist's Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery. Don't forget to visit the fabulous DDP gallery as well. Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

Matters of Consequence: January 2010

2009-12-30T11:42:00.000-08:00

Please Join us Thursday Jan 7th. from 5-8pm for Fayetteville Underground's first Thursday opening reception. You really do not want to miss this show!
The Fayetteville Underground starts 2010 with a bang!

The month of January features two exciting new exhibitions.

Revolver Gallery : Christopher Baber, Michael Shaeffer = Pedigree

"Matters of Consequence"

Christopher Baber and Michael Shaeffer = Pedigree
photographed by Thomas Petillo

After five years of working together; Hot Springs, Arkansas art duo Pedigree will be showcased in the Fayetteville Underground's Revolver gallery. Pedigree is the collaborative art of Christopher Baber and Michael Shaeffer.

In 2004, Shaeffer was living in New York, and Baber was running VS. Art Gallery in downtown Hot Springs. In the Spring of that year, a chance encounter occurred for the two at the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, where they were formally introduced by a mutual friend. Shortly after meeting, Shaeffer came down from the Empire state to show at Baber’s gallery, and a few months later; Baber moved to New York with Shaeffer and the two began working together. In 2006, they were asked to show at the 404b Gallery in Hot Springs. In 2007, they both returned to the Spa City and opened the short lived Nobrow Gallery, a gallery focused on the works of local young talent they felt were not receiving proper exposure from the art community they called home.

“Matters of Consequence”, the latest Pedigree project, will feature solo works by both artists as well as their collaborations. Baber’s work is described as schematics of the human experience; by creating drawings loosely based on time lines and electrical schematics, he creates a visual representation of abstract concepts such as love, jealousy, hate, loss, elation as well as others. The result is jumbled and chaotic, while still being coherent. His work hosts an intentional array of colors, lines, circles and shapes. Each color, line or shape, representing a moment in time, or a connection he has with the world around him.

Shaeffer’s work began as fashion-based illustration dealing with the concepts of personal identity, and the influences of American popular culture within his surroundings. Recently his work has taken a turn to more personal interests, such as the idea of potential within oneself as well the town he calls home. By starting each work with geometric patterns he shows the concept of possible potential and how it can be used for beauty or simple escapism.

The combination of the two leads to what some have called an attempt to create an emotional blueprint, a constant search for some understanding within their lives, and their environment.

Hive Gallery: Nationally Recognized Potter Don Nibert

The glowing works of artist Don Nibert have earned him national recognition. Each elegant pot he makes is a portrait of flame. In addition to many other awards, his work earned him an Arkansas Arts Council Fellowship, $5000.00, in 1995.

“I moved here to join a documentary film company. “We intended to shoot films with anthropological themes, travel the world and only come back to collect the money. “When it didn’t pan out, I didn’t intend to stay. But I fell in love, found people to play music with (I still play with) and discovered this is a powerful place to be.

In a previous life, 1970 to 1973, he was a math major studying computer science at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Nibert continued college at the University of Arkansas. He wanted to teach elementary school, but once again his plans did not pan out. The class ‘Public School Art’ was a required course, in that class he found his way to the clay studio and his real work.

He spent most of his remaining college hours taking clay courses. His second semester in pottery he did his first show, Natchitoches, La., “I made money selling my Homework”, he says.

Don Nibert has lived in Fayetteville for thirty three years, twenty two of those years as a Studio Potter. He sells at Juried Art Shows all over the country. This upcoming show will be a rare opportunity view and aquire Nibert's work.

The Fayetteville Underground is thrilled to bring you the best from the cutting edge Hot Springs' art scene and this rare exhibition of Don Nibert's work and as always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. Also there will be group exhibitions of the talented underground studio artist's in the Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery. Don't forget to visit the fabulous DDP gallery as well. Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

Steve Moore: Memorial

2009-12-19T07:45:00.000-08:00

The Fayetteville Underground mourns the passing of photographer Steve Moore. We are grateful for all he has given the community with his art, and are pleased we were able to share his Fayetteville Panarama project with the community this past September.

A memorial service will be held at St Paul’s Episcopal Church community room in Fayetteville today, this Saturday, Dec. 19 from 2 – 4 pm.

In lieu of flowers, Moore’s family is requesting that donations be made to the Steve Moore Memorial Fund (in care of Sadie Moore) at the Bank of Fayetteville.

Here is a nice piece that was written about Steve Moore and posted by the Fayetteville Flyer. Steve will be missed.

Here is the press release from Steve Moore's exhibition this past September:

In the Hive gallery we have long time Fayetteville craftsman and photographer Steve Moore and his exhibition, A Panoramic Project. Moore’s photographic style is a culmination of his early ﬁlm photography, inﬂuenced by Ansel Adams, and his more recent investigations of panoramic images using contemporary digital processes. His early ﬁlm photography, documenting village life in Mexico, will be included in this exhibition along with his more recent documentary photographs of Fayetteville's changing landmarks over the past several years.

Moore's work is ﬁrst inspired by light; illuminating from within a building or reﬂected off or around a structure. Whether you recall a location of Moore’s image as it once appeared or you come to it for the ﬁrst time, you are left with a haunting sense of human intervention; the composition of a place and the artist's will to reveal a theatrical sense of time and light during a moment. This exhibition is curated by Leilani Law.

December: Art for the Holidays

2009-12-02T19:40:00.001-08:00

Fayetteville Underground:
First Thursday December 3rd 5-8pm - Art for the Holidays

Join us first Thursday to celebrate the opening of Art for the Holidays. This month we will feature fun, affordable works of original art created by our Fayetteville Underground artists. A variety of works will be shown from painting, mixed media, collage, and photography; to jewelry, ceramics, custom blown glass chandeliers and unique vessel sinks. Come find your perfect gift. December will also feature a fun and colorful suspended art installation by Fayetteville artist Garrett Hunt.

A taste of what some of our studio artists will be offering:

William Mayes Flanagan currently has smaller paintings that are framed, matted and ready to hang for only $110. So if you love his moody blue watercolor worlds, you may find one that is just right for you. He will also have a selection of medium sized works in the $400 price range.

Leilani Law has been hard at work to bring you an exciting selection of new small works. Elegantly framed 8x10" oil and acrylic paintings for only $150 along with a selection of mixed media works on wood panel in the $150-200 range. Leilani will also have a selection of drawings for $200. These new works have an urgency, design and color combination that is very alluring. I have been very excited when I have popped into Leilani's studio and catch her working on these new pieces.

Jennifer Libby Fay is one of our newest studio artists and we are very excited about her addition to the group. In this new series of mixed media collages Jennifer is exploring the colors and textures created by working with many layers, some opaque; some translucent. Each piece is created from a thought or a question. For instance, when she was making “So They Say,” Jennifer was thinking of all the things we tell ourselves “They” say--which we believe for awhile--and then we have a revelation because it turns out “They” were totally wrong. The pieces are small, sizes—up to 5x9" unframed, and range is price from $25.00 to $75.00.

Kelly Booker (Kelly Price-Colston) is the queen of affordable and especially unique smaller works. She has a whole new selection of works with prices and sizes suited for your art buying needs and tastes. This is a wonderful opportunity to purchase Kelly's work.
Did you know that Kelly Booker...
• is a member of the arkansas artist registry [kelly price-colston]
• has two upcoming publications [Sew Somerset Mixed Media and We Feel Fine, a book about visiting human emotions from sources around the web]
• has shown in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Houston, Art Market, Art Amiss 8, and had a successful solo show in FU Vault Gallery.

Jan Gosnell has provided a large selection of works for your enjoyment, that according to Jan are "for the most part are 16x20" acrylic paintings on canvas, the subject matter being the figure as well as "unstill" still lives." He will also have 18x24" figure drawings available for sale. His holiday themed paintings take it to a whole new level. Do not miss them!

There are more wonderful and fun works by Dana Idlet, a selection of $50.00 works by Gregory Moore, and a new selection of small paintings by Basil Seymour-Davies, and last but not least, talented new comer to the Underground, Sabine Schmidt's wonderful photographs.

And of course the E Street craft artists have great gifts starting at less than twenty dollars; just perfect for your gift giving this Holiday season. It looks great in the Revolver gallery as the fine crafts have been combined along side the studio artist's work and it just makes the gallery come alive.

This is a cash and carry show as well, meaning you can pay for it when you see it and take it home! Purchasing original art is easy at the Fayetteville Underground. Just contact anyone wearing a name badge, and we will be happy to facilitate your sale, we have two sales offices located in the E Street and Revolver Gallery. Cash, Check, and Major credit cards are accepted.

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. Don't forget to visit the fabulous DDP gallery as Dede Peter's presents her artist's 3rd annual small works show. It is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Enjoy this quick tour of the Fayetteville Underground: Just a taste of what you will see. Can't wait to see you all out at First Thursday.

December Preview: Fayetteville Underground. from Megan Chapman on Vimeo.

Fayetteville Underground

One East Center Street

East side of the Fayetteville Square.

Fayetteville, AR

Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm

Saturday 10-5

4 galleries: Open Studios

www.fayettevilleunderground.com

The Fayetteville Underground Galleries will have extended hours on Saturday from 10am to 5pm

November: Leon Nihues and Art for the Holidays

2009-11-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

November's First Thursday will be another do not miss event. The Revolver gallery will feature nationally renowned basket maker Leon Niehues as well as an exciting selection of affordable new works from the Fayetteville Underground studio artists in the Hive and Vault galleries along with new work from artists in the E Street Gallery.

Join us this Thursday Nov. 5th from 5-8pm to celebrate and support our artists and the thriving arts district in downtown Fayetteville. It is not too early to start thinking about giving the gift of original art for the holidays and you are sure to find something unique and within your budget at the Fayetteville Underground.

Revolver Gallery:Leon Niehues

Leon Niehues is a studio basket maker living and working in Huntsville, Arkansas. His baskets are made from the young white oak trees that grow in his immediate area of the Ozarks. While using traditional splint techniques, he has added innovative ideas, new construction methods, and simple design elements that dramatically change his oak baskets into exciting contemporary pieces. In 2005 he was named an Arkansas Living Treasure by the Arkansas Department of Heritage. His baskets have been featured in the New York Times, American Craft Magazine, and Craft Arts International. He exhibits widely throughout the U.S. and his work is included in the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, Racine Art Museum in Racine Wisconsin, Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, West Virgina, and in The White House Craft Collection, Washington, DC.

We are very excited to welcome Leon to the Fayetteville Underground for his November exhibition. Please come and learn about this talented artist and his work.

Hive & Vault Galleries: Studio Artist's Group Show: The Gift of Art

This November, all of the represented Fayetteville Underground artists have come together to help you with your holiday gift giving! All month long, both the Hive and the Vault galleries will be full of affordable, original works of art. This year, consider buying beautiful, special and unique works of art for your loved ones. Sweaters may fall out of fashion, housewares fade or break over time, but art is the gift that endures.

I had the pleasure of talking with a few of my fellow studio mates to see what types of affordable works they were creating for your gift giving needs. Let's just say whether for yourself or a friend now is the time to buy.

William Mayes Flanagan currently has 19 smaller paintings that are framed, matted and ready to hang for only $110. So if you love his moody blue watercolor worlds, you may find one that is just right for you. He will also have a selection of medium sized works in the $400 price range.

Leilani Law has been hard at work to bring you an exciting selection of new small works. Elegantly framed 8x10" oil and acrylic paintings for only $150 along with a selection of mixed media works on wood panel in the $150-200 range. Leilani will also have a selection of drawings for $200. These new works have an urgency, design and color combination that is very alluring. I have been very excited when I have popped into Leilani's studio and catch her working on these new pieces.

Jennifer Libby Fay is one of our newest studio artists and we are very excited about her addition to the group. Jennifer will present a selection of hand dyed fabric and paper prints. Framed 5x7" works as low as $65 and ranging in price up to $150 for an 8x10". Come welcome Jennifer and learn about her unique medium and process. These works are rooted in clean and stylish design, color, and spirited experimentation with this unique medium.

Kelly Price-Colston is the queen of affordable and especially unique smaller works. She has a whole selection of prices and sizes suited for your art buying needs and tastes. This is a wonderful opportunity to purchase Kelly's work. I know I would be thrilled to receive one of her mixed media collage pieces this holiday season.

I have also seen some of the works to be exhibited by Jan Gosnell, Dana Idlet, Gregory Moore, Basil Seymour-Davies, and talented new comer to the Underground, Sabine Schmidt. Let's just say I think there is something for everyone. If you have been a long time fan of any of these artists but have been waiting to purchase- wait no more, now is your opportunity to enjoy the underground studio artist's work in yours or your friends and families homes.

E Street Gallery: Fine Hand Crafts for the Holidays

Great gifts starting at less than twenty dollars; the E Street Gallery of Fine Crafts is unveiling many new works that are great for your gift giving this Holiday season from jewelry and coffee mugs up to custom blown glass chandeliers and unique vessel sinks. Come find your perfect gift with heart and soul for your treasured friends and family.

This is a cash and carry show as well, so if you see a piece you like in the Hive, Vault, and as always in the E street, you can pay for it when you see it and take it home! Purchasing original art is easy at the Fayetteville Underground. Just contact anyone wearing a name badge, and we will be happy to facilitate your sale, we have two sales offices located in the E Street and Revolver Gallery. Cash, Check, and Major credit cards are accepted.

Please join us for all this as well as new work by studio artists in the back vault. As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. Don't forget to visit the fabulous DDP gallery as well. It is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Fayetteville Underground

One East Center Street

East side of the Fayetteville Square.

Fayetteville, AR

Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm

Saturday 8-2

4 galleries: Open Studios

www.fayettevilleunderground.com

15 minutes with Dana Idlet

2009-10-30T09:57:00.000-07:00

Don't miss the last two days of Dana Idlet's current solo exhibition, The Nature of Faces, which opened the First Thursday of October and will close this Saturday, October 31st at 2:00p.m. This is her shows final week, so be sure to see it and all the other wonderful exhibitions currently on display at the Fayetteville Underground.

I hope you enjoy getting to know this young, vibrant, and talented artist.

Dana Idlet, 23, born Houston TX,

Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Tulsa in painting

When was the first time you called yourself an artist, what did that feel like?

The first time I called myself an artist was at my first solo exhibition in Tulsa. It felt odd to say it out loud, and it still does a little. But that's what I am.

Were the arts actively encouraged in your home? Have people always supported your desire to be an artist?

The arts were definitely encouraged in my home, anything my brother and I were interested in was supported in our home. My parents took us to piano lessons, thousands of basketball practices and art lessons. My family has always supported my decision to be a full time artist.

What is your long term goal as an artist? What is the best part about being an artist? What is the worst?

My goal is to make enough money to live comfortably and continue on a natural path as an artist. The best part about being an artist for me is that I'm able to do something I love and care about, using my energy for what I believe in. I think the worst part is the doubt and that negative voice in the back of my head sometimes, but there are ways of stopping that. Not knowing exactly how much money you will bring in each month can be stressful too.

What is something you would like people to take away from your work, something that viewers might be missing?

I want people to notice the shifts in color, some obvious and some subtle, that make up the image.

Are titles important to your work? If so how do you come up with them?

I used to hate titling my work, I never want it to affect what someone else might see on their own. I try to leave it as open as I can, a lot of times I write down words I hear or see that I like together. Some titles come from songs that mean a lot to me, or that I've been listening to while that painting was made. Once the painting is done I find a title that works with the image/idea.

Do you have an idea for what you want to create in a piece of art before you start the piece or does it evolve organically?

I have a very loose idea before I start a piece, but often what comes out first triggers a response that can change the whole painting. I think it's very organic and comes out fast when I just respond to lines or color, I try not to think too much.

Dana, you paint on traditional materials and you also do your cardboard collage work. How did the cardboard collage come about? Had you seen anything like that before? How did this evolve into your work?

I started painting with oils on sheets of cardboard I would find in dumpsters around campus. I used it because it was free, light, easy to store and I really liked painting on the brown cardboard. Then I started building up a surface with cardboard before I started painting on it, doing the collage part before I would paint, more sparse and bigger pieces. The paintings never really matched up with the random collage method...so I switched to acrylic paint so I could collage over the whole piece. I chose my pallet and painted each piece of ripped up cardboard, leaving some corrugated and had a enough warm and cool light and dark to pull from. It was very natural for me to do the collages so I kept them up.

I had never seen anything like that before with cardboard, some pallet knife paintings or paintings with very thick and clear color choices and not much blending were inspiration. I think the reason I kept making them was to practice painting from them. It's a fun process and I enjoy seeing the color changes throughout the collage when it's done.

What or who influences/inspires your work?

The people and things that bring joy to my life are my inspiration. The landscapes and seasonal changes influence my color choices, I feel like there are so many intense colors we kind of overlook around us. I use natural colors in my paintings, as bright as they may seem I find them everywhere. I love painting people and nature around me. Sometimes seeing someone else's paintings or photography can be inspiring as well, it could trigger something inside me that must come out.

Do you listen to music while you work? If so who is on heavy rotation in your studio currently?

Sometimes I feel like listening to music and sometimes I don't, it can either be distracting or meditative for me. Just depends. But when I do listen to music...lately it's been a lot of accordion, French and Gypsy styles, Hoots and Hellmouth has also been playing a lot.. so much, it may be a little irritating for the people around me, and Cinematic Orchestra.

What has it been like working in the Underground studios? Have you ever worked around a group of artists in this way before? What are the pros and cons? What have you learned about yourself or your work since your time in the Underground?

It's been interesting working in the Underground. I graduated a year ago, so I'm used to being in close quarters with other artists. I really enjoy being around all of the artists, each person has taught me something either by my observation or having talks about business or how to get an affect with the paint I'm using. There is feedback if I want it and everyone brings something different to the table. The space is great, the galleries are very nice. I feel so lucky to be a part of the First Thursdays, showing my work with all the other artists. It is a little scary how time can pass down in a basement though, there's no natural light which takes some getting used to.

What do you enjoy about First Thursday's at the Underground? What is the experience of having people in your studios like?

I really enjoy eating the cheese. I usually start out pretty nervous about talking to people, but it fades quickly when everything gets going. I like that people have the chance to see the studios because I love looking in other artists spaces and feeling the energy. I hide the work I don't want people to see, but I think the studios being open is a great thing. I hope it feels special to the people who visit too.

As is common in this segment, I ask the artist to list 15 things. Dana came up with a list of 15 things she can not live without.

family, friends, cheese, accordion, my dog Lenny, music, art, trees around me, cozy chair, family treasures (things I've stolen from home), alternative lighting (lamps/lanterns), dried mango, my Subaru, ability to travel, Sushi

Dana Idlet
"The Nature of Faces"
Exhibition remains up through this Saturday October 31st at 2:00pm.

Fayetteville Underground
One East Center Street
East side of the Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8-2
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

First Thursday: Brodnax, Idlet, Moore

2009-09-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

October's First Thursday is sure to thrill. Don't miss these talented featured artists, as well as new work from the Studio Artists in the back vault and new work from the E street artists. First Thursday is sure to be a wonderful night at the Fayetteville Underground. Join us Thursday Oct.1 from 5-8pm to celebrate these artists and the thriving arts district in downtown Fayetteville.

Revolver: Randy Brodnax: Joie de vivre

Randy Brodnax, a life-long potter and educator in Dallas, Texas, creates everything from functional dinnerware to large sculptural vessels and painting. A Louisiana native, Randy has retained much of the Cajun joie de vivre with which he was raised, and has spent a career building bridges among clay artists with all levels of experience.He has specialized in Raku for many years using images from nature and drawing upon a wild fantasy world of creatures of the mind. He's a very inventive and intuitive technician.In workshops, Randy cajoles and entertains as he shares his deep knowledge with participants, helping them seek a refined focus, new direction, or simply building camaraderie among clay artists.He has participated in numerous exhibitions throughout North America and is a dedicated and humorous teacher.

The Vault: Dana Idlet: The Nature of Faces

Local artist Dana Idlet will show her most recent work, a mix of oil paintings on canvas and re-purposed cardboard transformed into colorful collage pieces. This show represents where the artist is at this very moment of her life. It focuses on her fascination of the human face and many of its forms and emotions. This subject is juxtaposed by nature--trees, water, color, earth. This exhibition creates a beautiful and balanced organic product which moves the artist and somehow comes across as simply whole. A unique blend of media and artistic interpretation, this colorful collection of art is refreshing.

Hive: Gregory Moore: Reclaimed Surfaces

For the past 2 years, local artist Gregory Moore has been combing Fayetteville's salvage yards, scrap heaps, recycling centers and dumpsters in search of the perfect materials to transform into art. He collects pieces of rusted, dented metal debris and paints on them is a way that doesn't obscure the original texture and color of the object. He seeks out objects that are notable for their interesting stains, rust and damage and he lets those characteristics guide the paintings. Gregory will show paintings of wildflowers, weeds and other plants painted on salvaged metal and wood.

Please join us for all this as well as new work by the E street gallery artists and new work by studio artists in the back vault. As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. Don't forget to visit the fabulous DDP gallery as well. It is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8pm

Fayetteville Underground
One East Center Street
East side of the Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8-2
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

15 minutes with Jan Gosnell

2009-09-21T18:41:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down to talk with painter Jan Gosnell about his life as an artist. We sat outside of The Vault Gallery in front of his current solo exhibition, Back from Krypton which opened the First Thursday of September and will close this Saturday, September 26th at 2:00p.m. This is his show's final week, so be sure to see it and all the other wonderful exhibitions currently on display at the Fayetteville Underground.

Jan has always been an artist; drawing and painting from a very early age. He was encouraged in his art by his geologist father (who perhaps yearned to be a painter) and his crafty homemaking mother. He remembers his father laughing and enjoying the art Jan would make and this encouraged him to remain on the artist's path for life. Jan also remembers time spent creating art in local museum classes; he was especially intrigued by an oil painting class that was going on across the way from where he was making "kids art." He wanted to take the more advanced class so badly that he went and talked with the teacher and they told him to come back when he was 11 years old. He did come back and he remembers his first oil painting was that of a still life.

Jan maintained his affinity for art through school, and once headed to college there was only one major that would do. Jan received his B.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and then later he received an M.F.A from the University of Arkansas, here in Fayetteville. Jan taught art as a graduate assistant for two years while there. Currently he has been teaching at North West Arkansas Community College for the past for 4 or 5 years. Jan says he particularly enjoys the advanced courses he offers because of the one on one interaction he has with the students.

When asked to classify his style of painting, he says it is "basically pop imagery done with traditional oil painting techniques." Jan's paintings are filled with the same sardonic humor that make working with him such a joy. He says he approaches his work playfully with an openness that children have when making art.

I asked Jan if he ever experienced any of the common "artist's blocks." He mentioned that starting a painting can be a problem at times, like jumping in without warming up. He actually has a term for this issue: "The Shit Barrier." He has gone 2 months without painting as sometimes he feels it becomes too much of a commitment to get started with a new work. When this happens he turns to his drawing, as he feels this is less of a commitment. Jan also can become self conscious about a painting, and when this happens he feels the most important thing to do is just to keep on working. He knows that eventually he can make it work, but even then it doesn't mean it will be a good painting. There have been at least 2 instances where Jan has burned his paintings, whether because of moving or just making space, sometimes he has to let them go. He is not as sentimental about his work as some artists but at the same time when he looks at a body of his work up in the Underground or in his home gallery, he is always shocked, and wonders where it all came from and he is pleased with what he sees.

Jan has been enjoying working around other artists in the Fayetteville Underground. He wanted to re-establish his ties with the Fayetteville art community after feeling a bit reclusive over recent years. When I asked him if he had any advice to younger artists struggling with their art careers or passion for art, he said, "Use your ability in art: Art has a stabilizing influence in your life, you shouldn't let it slip away, just do the work and focus on the process. Whatever else comes from it, is gravy."

Jan Gosnell
"Back from Krypton"
Exhibition remains up through this Saturday September 26th at 2:00pm.

Fayetteville Underground
One East Center Street
East side of the Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8-2
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

As is common in this segment, I ask the artist to list 15 things. Jan came up with a list of 15 Diversions. So when he is not painting you will find Jan Gosnell...

Reading Science Fiction, Exercising, Practicing Martial Arts, Enjoying Ice Cream, Building things, Meditating, Spending time on the Computer, Focusing on Politics ( comes in handy when you draw award winning editorial cartoons) Watching Films, Smoking, Shopping, Researching a variety of subjects, Making conversation, People watching, Writing

Pictured above: a selection of works from "Back from Krypton"
© 2009 Jan Gosnell
Photography by Henry Turner

Krapausky, Moore, Gosnell and Wilks: First Thursday!

2009-08-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

September's First Thursday is sure to pack a punch! Don't miss these talented featured artists, as well as new work from the Studio Artists in the back vault and new work from the E street artists as well. Sure to be an wonderful night at the Fayetteville Underground. Join us Thursday Sept 3. from 5-8pm to celebrate these artists and the thriving arts district in downtown Fayetteville.

In the Revolver gallery we have Supremacy and Myth, an exhibition of photographs by Thomas Krapausky. The works on display explore the strains of human activity on a constantly recovering natural world.

Krapausky’s photographs emphasize the “hidden worlds” that we pass by every day, but rarely notice. His unique and sometimes abstract work has received multiple awards, has been displayed in juried exhibitions, and has been published on an international level.

In the Vault gallery we have painter Jan Gosnell, treating us to selections of his newest paintings in his exhibition Back from Krypton. For sixty years Jan has been a compulsive picture maker. His work enjoys a conventional knowledge of drawing and painting, and its apparent sources of influence lie in both the classical and popular modes of two-dimensional expression.

He sees his work as primarily an orchestrated projection of the imagination upon a simple rectangular support. It is there that he seeks to firmly establish a visual pathway between literal consciousness and the alternate reality of the unconscious. The traveling of this pathway, with its inherent experience of the greater personality, sustains and enriches his life.

In the E Street Craft Gallery the featured artist will be Kelley Wilks. Kelley Wilks, a Fayetteville native, is the gallery’s second artist to hold a solo show. She’s been working primarily in clay for almost 20 years. The theme of this exhibition is Let’s Party and the works range from punch bowl sets, cake plates and platters to individual colorful cups all with a fun and festive feel since everything from Game season to the Holidays are just around the corner.

“I really enjoy creating with clay and working with it’s natural characteristics. It’s so pliable and it is possible to mold it into most any form. I love coming up with an idea, putting it on paper and then working the clay until I get what I was looking for. I like holding to the body of a cup like as in a teabowl. So, when I was making the cups for the punch bowl, I decided I did not want handles but had to come up with another way to store and present the cups with the bowl as a set. I designed this basic form for the cups and mimicked it in the bowl. The shape allows the base of the cups to be the instrument to hang the cups on the rim of the bowl there by eliminating the need for handles and making them more sleek and unique.”

Kelley will also be giving a Gallery Talk about her work and process Thursday Sept 10th from noon to 12:30ish. Bring a sack lunch and come gain some insight to the workings of an artist and her process of creating these wonderfully unique pieces.

Please join us for all this and new work by Studio artists in the back vault and open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. Don't forget to visit the fabulous DDP gallery as well. It is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8pm

Fayetteville Underground
One East Center Street
East side of the Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8-2
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

15 minutes with Maggie Ivy

2009-08-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

Maggie Ivy came into my studio with her freshly nuked lean cuisine pizza- we had an interview to do after all and she needed some fuel. Maggie sat down at one of my studio tables and we got started, our interview lasted more than fifteen minutes, but here are the best parts.

Maggie Ivy was born in Arkansas in 1989, making her nineteen about to turn twenty at the end of September. I wanted to get a sense of her history as we began. Maggie started drawing around the ages of 4 or 5, and was encouraged under the care of her baby sitter Ellen Lewis. Ellen showed great excitement over young Maggie's abilities, and began to more seriously mentor Maggie from the ages of 5-8. Maggie learned oil painting and acrylics at this time. This initial support and interest in Maggie's artistic abilities went a long way as she had also been diagnosed with a severe language delay in speech and writing. Maggie didn't really speak until the age of 5 and when she finally did, it was in sentences. Maggie credits the "fake it till you make it" plan for helping her through school as she was still not reading or writing at grade level until around the age of 12, and even then it was a struggle. Maggie says this diagnosis along with expectations of her not doing well academically by teachers and peers kept her from trying and succeeding.

However, it was a different story when it came to her art. This talent would save her. Maggie felt her art was the only thing that was entirely her own and she excelled, won awards, and took the praise and attention she received there and ran with it. Maggie says that her art gave her a sense of identity that was missing and the rest is history...

Maggie attends the prestigious Florence Academy of Art, and at the end of September she will be heading back, this time to their sister campus in Sweden to continue her studies. Maggie looked at other schools as well, such as SCAD and Kansas City Art Institute. She chose the Florence Academy while in a Barnes and Noble with her father. They were looking through a 40 top artists under 40 article in Art Connoisseur Magazine and noticed that the many in the top 10 came from the Florence Academy and that is when she decided she wanted to apply. She and her family knew the odds weren't good, as most regard the Florence Academy as more like a graduate program and that she was much younger than the typical student at the school. She applied anyway, and a week later she received her acceptance letter. She got in!

I asked Maggie about her current exhibition So close to farewell at the Vault gallery in the Fayetteville Underground. She is very pleased with the response her work has been given, and feels it was a good showing for an early student. Six out of seventeen pieces sold from the exhibition and Maggie has sold another two pieces while showing and working at the Underground for a total of 8 paintings/drawing over the summer. Maggie praises her experience at the Fayetteville Underground, and says she has learned a lot from her studio mates as she bridged the gap between art student and professional artist. We have learned a lot from Maggie.

Just the other day I told someone that Maggie Ivy is the diamond of the Fayetteville Underground. She has given her time, attention, heart and poise to her peers and the organization and is already a consummate professional.

Don't miss So close to farewell, this is the final week for Maggie's exhibition, as it closes Saturday August 29th at 2:00pm. Her pieces are classic, elegant and unassuming yet packed with a bit of high contrast drama just like the artist herself.

Maggie Ivy
"So close to farewell"
Show remains up through this Saturday August 29th at 2:00pm.

Fayetteville Underground
One East Center Street
East side of the Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8-2
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

all art pictured above © Maggie Ivy

PS. Maggie likes snacks. Her 15 or so favorites are:
twix, reeces, chocolate chip cookies, captain crunch (crunch berry), Fruit loops, lucky charms, cookie crisps, drumstick dibs, any lean cuisine meal that contains meat and cheese, Lunchables (turkey with American cheese ONLY) sweet potato, lemonade, bagel and cream cheese, and when abroad she eats cheerios, pasta, and clementine oranges.. now you know....

David Murphree: Machines in the Ghost

2009-07-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Machines in the Ghost
New Paintings by David L. Murphree explore the intersection of industry and the natural world.

How can you measure the transformation of the natural landscape in the wake of American industrialism? Fayetteville artist David L. Murphree confronts that dilemma in an exhibit of contemporary oil paintings, “Machines in the Ghost,” on display July 15 – August 29 at the Fayetteville Underground's Revolver and Hive Galleries. The show features 24 new paintings that investigate the dichotomous relationship between the organic world and the scientific apprehension of it in abstract field paintings of intense color and boundless space.

Born in rural Mississippi, Murphree was raised with an abiding concern for the natural riches of the Deep South. At the same time, hours spent in the laboratory with his father, a pioneer in the field of plasma physics, stimulated the artist’s fascination with actualizing the forces of nature through the lens of physical science. Murphree is quick to point out, “These influences combined form the central theme of my painting: the land and the battles it wages with the technologies of our age.” Join us at the opening reception for David Murphree's exhibition on First Thursday, August 6 from 5-8pm.

Pictured above:
Solar Wind
© David Murphree
Image Courtesy of Artist

Fayetteville Underground is located on the East side of Fayetteville's historic square at One East Square Plaza.

Fayetteville Underground
Gallery hours
W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8am -2pm.
4 Galleries
Open studios
Join us on First Thursday Art Walk at the Fayetteville Underground on August 6th 5-8pm.
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

Maggie Ivy: So Close to Farewell

2009-07-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

Maggie Ivy
"So Close to Farewell"
Artist Reception: Thursday August 6th 5pm-8pm.
Exhibition dates: August 5th-29th.

Native Fayetteville artist Maggie Ivy will be featured at the Fayetteville Underground from August 5th to 29th. There will be a reception for the artist on Thursday, August 6th, from 5-8 pm. For the past year and half, Maggie has been studying at The Florence Academy of Art, and is a visiting artist to the Fayetteville Underground for the summer. Maggie's exhibition "So close to Farewell" will showcase art created while working in her studio in the Underground, along with a selection of her impressive academic drawings. This exhibition will be the culmination of her experiences at the Underground before she leaves to attend The Florence Academy of Art’s sister school in Sweden this September. Please visit www.maggieivy.com for more information about the artist and her work.

Fayetteville Underground is located on the East side of Fayetteville's historic square at One East Square Plaza.

Fayetteville Underground
Gallery hours
W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8am -2pm.
4 Galleries
Open studios
Join us on First Thursday Art Walk at the Fayetteville Underground on August 6th 5-8pm to celebrate this amazing young talent.
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

Whatever happened to Daphne
Mixed Media
11.5 x 18 inches
$225
© 2009 Maggie Ivy
image courtesy of the artist

15 minutes with Kelly Price-Colston

2009-07-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

If you had 15 minutes with an artist you admire what would you say? What questions would you ask? This is a new feature of the Fayetteville Underground blog. I will present a short fifteen minute conversation with one of our featured Underground studio artists about their work and their life as an artist. If you have additional questions for the featured artist- just leave them in the comments.

I sat down with the prolific and talented Kelly Price-Colston outside the Vault gallery in the Fayetteville Underground, for a chat about her current exhibition, "You could have been home by now." We had a short but spirited conversation about what makes her tick, her art and her role as an artist.

Like many artists, Kelly listens to music when she creates, and she enjoys many genres. While working on her current exhibition she listened to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, R.E.M, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos and a dash of Joni Mitchell, not to mention whatever other music that filtered through from her studio-mates' walls.

I asked Kelly if she had any expectations about her exhibition. I was surprised to find out that she doesn't. Kelly claims to have no expectations once she hangs the show; for her it is about the process of creating the work and once it is displayed, it ends for her. She is off and running and ready to move on to the next project or pieces. Kelly feels that her art is not about the crowds, the schmoozing, or money from sales. She feels that part of the art world is simply a form of pageantry.

I asked Kelly when she felt she became or claimed the title of "artist." Kelly recounted selling a piece to a documentary film director who was working for the Discovery channel several years back. He had found her work online. This was a big milestone and an important step for her. Another instance was when she was searched out by a gallery in Pittsburgh for a group exhibition with other artists that she already admired from a far. This validation was important for her and proved that people were taking an active interest in her work as an artist at home and around the country.

We then discussed her art and the stories that her work creates for the viewer. Her mixed media collage incorporates photographs, watercolor, spray paint, thread, buttons, stitching or whatever it takes to obscure and tell the story. There is the surface story of the image or photograph she uses in the piece and then the layers that are then created atop that deepen or change the meaning of the original image and a new story emerges. Kelly hopes to make a significant psychological connection with the viewer through her art. However, she finds that at times the viewer can think that the work is purely autobiographical and they may reach for connections between themselves and the artist that simply aren't there.

When I asked if there was anything that she hoped the viewer might take away from seeing her work, she mentioned her use of inexpensive, simple and recycled materials. Things that people throw away or offer at their yard sales tend to find their way into her pieces. She believes that everybody and everything can have a second life in her art; these cast away items and photographs merge together to become reborn into something new, taken out of context, obscured and embellished; thrown into a new world of her creation.

Kelly does not find any real special significance in being an artist, she simply thinks of herself as a laborer. This is her work; a job that she must do. She feels that the vibe and energy of the Fayetteville Underground enables her to fulfill this position. She enjoys the process of getting to know herself just by the act of showing up for the job.

And that is what she does; she shows up. After our talk, she was right back at work- behind a wall of music, sitting at her studio desk creating new worlds for old images again, creating new worlds for us again. Creating places to find ourselves, places to question, and places to get lost.

Don't miss this exhibition:
Kelly Price-Colston
"You could have been home by now"
Show remains up through Saturday August 1st.

Fayetteville Underground
One East Center Street
East side of the Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, AR
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8-2
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com

Sample 15 songs that Kelly listens to when she creates her work:

Kelly Price-Colston : Opening Thursday July 2nd!

2009-06-24T19:11:00.001-07:00

Kelly Price-Colston

New Works

"You Could Have Been Home By Now"

Artist Reception: Thursday July 2 at 5pm-8pm.
Show runs through July 30, 2009

Kelly Price-Colston is an award winning collage artist residing in the ozark mountains. Her work is characterized by the energetic splats, drips and grime that accompany a diverse cast of vintage black and white photographs. Her use of sewing and graffiti collage on paper has been recognized by art collectors and galleries across the country, and internationally.

Come and see these amazing works in person and meet the artist only at the Fayetteville Underground. You do not want to miss this exhibition!

For more information about this exciting and prolific artist please visit http://paperballet.com and www.fayettevilleunderground.com

Fayetteville Underground
Gallery hours
W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 8am -2pm.
4 Galleries
Open studios

Pictured Above:
Letting Go
Mixed Media 11x14"
© 2009 Kelly Price-Colston
Image courtesy of the artist

Blurring Boundaries and more...

2009-06-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

The Fayetteville Underground is buzzing with new activity. We are fortunate to have three visiting artists with us this month. Marianne Wilson, Jennifer Henbest de Calvillo, and Nann Nann (who is visiting from Myanmar) have created an exhibition packed with color, design, form; along with cultural diversity and significance. Blurring Boundaries is a striking exhibition, showing June 17 – July 11 in both Hive and Revolver galleries. Don't miss it! Also currently showing in The Vault gallery are Dana Idlet and Greg Moore in the front section, with a selection of works by our talented resident Underground artists in the newly renovated back Vault. As always, the E Street Gallery of Fine Crafts, has a wonderful assortment of jewelry, decorative and functional ceramics and sculpture, with new pieces being added all the time.

Underground Gallery hours are Wednesday-Friday 12-7pm and Saturday 8-2
Don't forget First Thursday Art Night from 5-8pm
Join us the first Thursday of each month for great art and open studios. Mix and mingle with the artists, peek in on their spaces and process. It is a fun night for the whole family.

Visit the Fayetteville Underground's Website for more information.
http://www.fayettevilleunderground.com/

Current Artists of the Fayetteville Underground...

2009-06-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

I just want to take a minute to let you know the impressive roster of artists that now have working studios within the Fayetteville Underground. These artists work in a variety of styles and mediums and come with a wealth of experience in their fields.

Megan Chapman
Kelly Price-Colston
Basil Seymour-Davies
William Mayes Flanagan
Duane Gardner
Robert Glick
Jan Gosnell
Dana Idlet
Maggie Ivy
Leilani Law
Greggory Moore

There will be more talented artists coming soon as we fill the last 4 remaining studio spots in the Underground.This is such an exciting time for the Fayetteville art scene. Please visit the website for more information about the Fayetteville Underground and upcoming events. Remember to come and bring your friends and family to the first Thursday Art walk of each month from 5-8pm. 4 art galleries along with open studios and artists to meet and mingle within a festive atmosphere. We hope to see you there!
Regular underground gallery hours are
W-F 12-7pm and Sat 8-2pm

Fayetteville comes alive underground...

2009-04-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

As more artists move their studios into the underground, it is sure to become an energetic and exciting destination. The public will be able to visit artists working in their studios and learn about their art as well as see first rate exhibitions in our four galleries that are a part of the underground.

Stay tuned as things evolve...