Thick line? Thin lines? Wavy lines? Curly lines? Plain old straight lines? Touchstone artists use all these and more to create shape, pattern, form, structure and rhythm in Lines.
Read moreRosa Vera: Painting Narrative Paths to Peace
When hearing about immigration, the word “crisis” comes to mind. Perhaps it’s because so many people are migrating everywhere in the world now. It seems like a new humanitarian predicament, but migrations have occurred in every age and time stirring the human population pot and generating conflict as well as new traditions and cuisines. In the late 1800’s for instance, the multinational population of Peru was transformed by an huge inflow of Chinese indentured laborers.
Read moreShelley Lowenstein Links Science and Art Through Paint
Albert Einstein said that mystery is at “the cradle of true art and true science” In her new solo show opening April 6 at Washington, DC’s Touchstone Gallery “(as far as we know),” artist Shelley Lowenstein explores the mystery and wonder of the human beta cell, a major force essential to human life, and sometimes a victim of autoimmune attack.
Read moreElaine Florimonte: Layering and Balancing
Elaine Florimonte is drawn to the simplicity and consistency of the horizon, specifically the proportions of sky, water and ground in paintings comprising her solo exhibition, The Pursuit of Balance at Touchstone Gallery, February 2018. Through her use of acrylic media and collage, she creates landscape images in an effort to find balance in an ever shifting world.
Read moreBD Richardson: Repetition, Pattern and Form--From Intimate To Immense
In what turned out to be a prescient decision, BD Richardson, fresh from earning a master’s degree from American University, began a habit of carrying a camera everywhere she went. Beginning with a trip to China as part of a women’s press group in 1980, she captured bits and pieces of that huge country just prior to its national efforts to modernize. After that, no place in the world was exempt from her restless eye: Paris, South America, North America’s heartland with its aging buildings and big skies, and coastal villages replete with fishing boats and seamen. Lately she has focused her camera up close on plant forms turning their growth patterns into mandalas.
Read moreJeanne Garant: Parallel Paintings
Touchstone oil painter Jeanne Garant paints abstractly. For a painter like Jeanne, abstract means to focus on a particular shape and color noticed at any given moment and then to discard the rest. She draws from the jumble of life rather than trying to capture it all in a photographic or three-dimensional way. Garant's attitude in creating the flat or one-perspective paintings, 275 Stripes, mirrors that of New England painter Milton Avery. “I try to construct a picture in which shapes, spaces, colors, form a set of unique relationships, independent of any subject matter. At the same time I try to capture and translate the excitement and emotion aroused in me by the impact with the original idea.”
Read moreMarcia Coppel: Conversations
Marcia Coppel's paintings are influenced by the color and spontaneity of Mexico. She loves to sketch in restaurants, cafes and on the beach. Her May 2017 solo, Connect/Disconnect 2, is about communication and the lack of it in today’s digital culture. The interactions (or isolation of individuals in the same space) could have been situated anywhere in the world. But since she loves Mexico and spends a lot of time there, she made drawings and paintings situated in that country.
Read moreApril Rimpo: Finding Different Perspectives
April Rimpo
It’s been said that there are about 34 towns in 25 states named Springfield. Five of them are in Wisconsin and at least one is in Massachusetts. The latter is singular, because April Rimpo grew up there close to her grandparent’s home where paintings made by her grandfather graced the walls. When April drew pictures as a child, copying cartoon figures and exploring what the pencil could do, she received positive feedback from the family and teachers.
Read moreElaine Florimonte: Painting Layered Metaphors
Elaine Florimonte
Elaine Florimonte’s day often starts out over coffee in the morning while she touches base with some of her high school art students. They come in early to talk about the parallels between art and life and what to do when something goes wrong in a painting—philosophical stuff. “It’s a privilege to be present in their lives at these moments when 15 to 18-year olds are forming their identities,” she muses, “and I stay connected to about four or five each year, following their progress through college.” In the classroom Elaine teaches techniques and various media while coaching them through the standard processes of making art. Sometimes she picks up the brush and paints on her own canvas to get a point across, a technique she learned from one of her own teachers during her high school days. It was this particular teaching model that convinced her to study art and then become an art teacher herself.
Read moreDavid Alfuth: Is This Art Really 3-D?
David Alfuth
Are David Alfuth’s new sculptural collage works really 3-D? Or is the architectural subject matter just fooling our eyes? To find out, you’ll have to see his new surreal collage works, Perspective, at Touchstone Gallery between October 5—30, 2016.
Read moreJudy Giuliani: Creating Structure and Spirit through Color
Judy Giuliani
A plethora of sights and sounds like these greeted Judy Giuliani in the far-off places where her military families were assigned. First with her parents in the Navy and then with her husband in the Air Force. All this traveling meant that she lived in 36 different locations in 36 years! She could have lamented the fact that she was missing out on a typical American childhood. Instead, she chose to enjoy and absorb what each new place had to offer, eagerly observing the art and traditions of other cultures. Over time distinctive details were stored away in her mind’s eye until the urge to take up the brush lead her to include them in paintings.
Read moreLina Alattar: The Unscripted Experience of Painting
Lina Alattar
“Abstract work has its own way of explaining itself,” says Lina Alattar, an abstract painter at Touchstone Gallery who works in acrylics on canvas. To understand how her paintings speak, she tunes into each one by being consciously aware and open. “I just respond to the marks, because it’s the experience of painting that drives the painting.” Knowing that nothing is scripted opens the door to tolerance for “accidents” that happen during the painting process. For Lina, these unexpected happenings in the creative process preempt any preconceived ideas. Each one shows her the possibility of going in a different direction, a road less traveled perhaps. American contemporary painter Helen Frankenthaler summed it up saying, “You have to know how to use the accident, how to recognize it, how to control it, or ways to eliminate it so that the whole surface looks complete and born all at once.”
Read moreLinda Bankerd: A Delicate Balance
Linda Bankerd
Riding a bike the way Linda does takes a lot of exertion. That she burns calories as she whizzes through the landscape there is no doubt. But what she gains is more subtle. Forms blur their way into her brain, are stored there and often make an appearance in her abstract paintings. Likewise everyday colorful home objects and special rooms in the interior of her home, also penetrate her psyche and accumulate there until called upon when she faces a new blank canvas. With brush in hand and acrylic paints at the ready, those stockpiled sensations emerge and turn into colorful complex shapes and forms.
Read moreThe Abstract Icons of Paula Lantz
Paula Lantz head shot copy
Paula Lantz always watches people as she goes about her day--in a restaurant, on the Metro, in a park or grocery store. Or at the mall. These folks aren’t doing much; just going about the business of living, but Paula wonders what each one is thinking or feeling, and makes a mental note of her guesses.
Read moreFigure 8 plus 1 (Part 1)
Rimpo’s fascination with people continues today and is reflected in her figurative work. Her semi-abstract method of working results in portraits that are about a mood, an everyday activity, or a way of life, rather than detailed portraiture. She uses a variety of textural techniques in her paintings, but only uses a technique when she believes it enhances the story. In this exhibit you will meet people Rimpo saw when traveling within the United States and in Guatemala. In each case something grabbed her attention and made Rimpo feel she just had to tell the story. Can you find a story in her paintings?
Read moreHarvey Kupferberg: Photographer Ex•tra•or•di•naire
Harvey copy
When Harvey started his photographic endeavors more than thirty years ago, he specialized in black and white images. His chemistry background served him well as he explored and experimented with exposure and development techniques in the darkroom. After the advent of digital photography, his challenges were just as complex and involved a variety of different technologies, the digital camera, the computer and its software, and the printer. Being an inquisitive person, Harvey was up for the challenge.
Read moreJanet Wheeler: Dreaming the Circle of Life
Janet Wheeler
Janet Wheeler grew up in Dutchess County, New York, a place once inhabited by native Wappinger peoples before the Anglo-Dutch settled there in the 1600's. Although Janet had no contact with those indigenous peoples, the wildness of the area and perhaps some Native dreams eventually worked their way into her psyche to be expressed in sculptural form. As a kid Janet loved exploring the forest and making art. As an adult, after obtaining her art degree from Stanford, she and her husband moved to Switzerland and then to Ithaca, New York. Home again she again "went wild" exploring the 30 foot waterfalls, pools and lakes in the natural world that called to her.
Read moreOn Being Nomadic: Gale Wallar
Gale Wallar 3 blog
For Gale, who was born into a military family, being nomadic was the norm. That, and a rich exposure to art, architecture and history. Art is the course that Gale set for herself as a child and she has stuck to it during some circuitous turns and long journeys. After achieving a BFA in painting and printmaking, she freelanced in Washington D.C. and some of her political cartoons were published in the Washington Post.
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