Krapausky, Moore, Gosnell and Wilks: First Thursday!

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.

Retired © Thomas Krapausky

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.

Castle in the Park © Steve Moore

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.

© Jan Gosnell

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.

© Kelley Wilks

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

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....