In January we introduced you to four of the artists who will be exhibiting at Touchstone Gallery in March. In their exhibit FIGURE 8 PLUS 1, the artists continue the historical tradition of exploring the human form in a variety of media and styles including photography, oil, acrylic, watercolor and sculpture. Opening Reception: Friday, March 4, 6 – 8:30 pm Artists Talk: Saturday, March 19, 2 – 4 pm.
Read moreGuest Artists: John Blee and Dee Levinson
Washington, DC, artist Dee Levinson learned at an early age to collage imagery and colors together. As a child she began by pasting small museum art reproductions into little booklets her mother provided. This seemingly inconsequential activity instilled in Levinson the notion that one could mix just about anything together to make a piece of art. Today she does this “collaging” by mixing classical forms painted in a linear manner with highly saturated colors reminiscent of early 20th century German Expressionists.
John Blee, a Washington DC artist, explores new spatial and emotional dimensions in Orchard Suite, his latest series of acrylic paintings on exhibit at Touchstone Gallery. While most of his works vibrate with the intense spring blossom hues that are signature to his palette, several other paintings offer deeper, nocturnal shades, reflecting inverse color themes. Playful geometries activate abstract, luminous sky-and-earth compositions and dance with one another to create an unlikely balance and playfulness. The effect in the viewer is usually an uplifted spirit one might call joie de vivre.
Figure 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 moreFinding a Home in Art: Miriam's Kitchen Studio Artists
Miriam's Kitchen Studio Artists are homeless individuals trying to find jobs and homes in Washington DC. During this process they participate in art activities that nurture their creative sides. Some of their works are on exhibit at Touchstone Gallery during the month of November 2015: "Handpicked: Works from Miriam's Kitchen Studio Artists."
Read moreMcCain McMurray: From Architectural Drawings to Geometric Paintings
McCain McMurray
Malleability is a relative term depending on the material a person is trying to shape. For architects, wood, metal, masonry and glass are molded as necessary to build a structure inside and out. McCain McMurray worked with these materials during his 37-year career as an architect designing a variety of residential and commercial projects. It’s no surprise that he was drawn to architecture, because he started constructing things when he was a child growing up in North Carolina. Equipped with tools and wood scraps, he built many a tree house.
Read moreRima Schulkind: Dancing With Change
Rima Schulkind2
Rima Schulkind, a native of New York City, came to Washington DC at age 15 and has remained ever since. In 1972 she obtained a sociology degree before realizing the profession was not for her. Wondering what to do next, she “almost accidently took a ceramics class with the worst teacher in the world.” Rima recalls. “But the clay felt heavenly to my hands, and I knew I wanted to make things with it.” Serendipity #1.
Read moreAleksandra Katargina: Painting the Road to Happiness
Aleksandra Katergina
The color of a bud opening in spring, dismal gray leafless trees looking slightly reddish from a distance, and the almost crass lemon yellow of blooming daffodils announce the freshness of each new spring. The transformation of dormant life into energetic green and wild color is so powerful that poets wax on about it and artists paint about it. Aleksandra Katargina, a blossoming young painter living in the DC area, is on the same path. She is the Touchstone Foundation for the Arts first Emerging Artist Fellow Winner mounting her first oil painting solo exhibition In Pursuit of Happiness.
Read moreCynthia Young: Color Field Painter
Cynthia Young
As I write this essay, I’ve got one eye on the keyboard and the other on the sunset. Glowing peach and gray clouds streak across an aqua sky. It’s the kind of color phenomenon that penetrates Cynthia Young’s eye and then transfers to canvas when she starts a painting. She begins by positioning her canvases on the floor, then pouring oil paint thinned with turpentine on to them. She watches the colors percolate and swirl around each other forming shapes. After the paint dries, the canvas goes up on the wall where she paints with a brush to finish up the composition. While observing her surroundings Cynthia learned intuitively to “see forms instead of objects.” She sees color patterns instead of tree canopies, and meditates on colors in the dark shapes forming storm clouds.
Read morePete McCutchen Wins Honorable Mention in the Monochrome Awards International Black & White Photography Contest, 2/2015
Pete McCutchen
Winning an Honorable Mention in the Monochrome Awards means a lot. I began photographing at eleven years of age, and like most of my generation I started in the black and white darkroom. (No iPhones back then.) I did black and white almost exclusively for years. With the advent of digital technology, I began exploring color. The tools of digital editing allow for precise control that isn't possible in the color darkroom and inkjet printer have a color gamut and archival qualities that far exceed any chromogenic process.
Read moreHarmon Biddle: Transforming Landscapes
Harmon Biddle
Army families and those in the diplomatic corps move around the country a lot and often get stationed “overseas.” Harmon Biddle’s family fit those service categories. She lived in many states and European posts including Germany, Japan and England. While she didn't think of herself as an artist at a young age, she was often at the side of her mother who painted pastel portraits. Perhaps some of that artistic sensibility and some of those varied landscapes seeped into her psyche only to become an active force in adulthood. Harmon always dabbled in art but this took second row seat to becoming a psychoanalyst. She currently practices psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in tandem with her art.
Read moreGail Vogels: Exploring and Transforming
Gail Vogels
It's not surprising that Gail Vogels was inspired by the novel All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr when she set out to construct her new multi-media art works. She's been interested in literature most of her life, studying it in college and coming away with a bachelor's degree in the field. "That book was a launching point for me. I wanted to explore micro and macro themes happening simultaneously--those natural forces and choices that make us human beings. Using mixed media elements -instead of painting - I tried to figure out how to make various themes intersect on a picture plane. Plus, using scissors and glue is fun. The process is old school and the experience evokes your childhood."
Read morePat Williams: Coaxing Abstracts From Reality
Pat Williams
"I enjoy painting more than anything else I’ve ever done, and I’ve done quite a few things," says Pat Williams, a native of North Carolina who now lives in Falls Church, Virginia. This is quite a remarkable statement coming from a person who majored in engineering and spent most of her career working for electrical cooperatives and other energy companies.
Read moreAnnika Haas: Observing with a Photographic Eye
Annika Haas, Estonian Photographer
Photographer and Touchstone Gallery Guest Artist Annika Haas lives and works in Estonia, a small country located between Latvia and the Gulfs of Finland and Riga—a cool, but fertile land. Annika grew up there and received her BA from the University of Tartu in Finno-Ugric languages. Subsequently she studied photo journalism in Tartu. Traveling to London provided her with the chance to continue studies at the Photo Opportunity Studios and foto8 gallery.
Read morePaula Lantz: Designer of Plans and Paintings
Paula Lantz head shot copy
Paula is one of those rare persons who can make and follow a detailed plan of action and yet act spontaneously in the next moment. For the first half of her professional life, she focused on corporate jobs as a "structural planner" of employee self-improvement programs. In the second half she became an abstract painter. Perhaps these seemingly contradictory abilities are innate, or perhaps she learned them along the way.
Read moreDavid Alfuth: Bohemian Builder
David Alfuth
"You are on your own now," said David Alfuth's father the day of David's graduation from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. David had a double major in drawing/painting and art history, and was equipped with teaching credits, so he was good to go. David took up the role of elementary art teacher in the Sheboygan school district for three years, enjoying the exuberance of children receptive to art - and, contrarily, putting up with the hard winters and enduring small town ordinariness. But the longing to travel finally caught up with him after his Triumph Spitfire sports car got stuck in the snow one too many times.
Read moreTouchstone Artists Shine at 2014 (e)merge DC Art Fair
The (e)merge art fair presents an extensive line-up of special projects and performances. Three Touchstone Artists join the fray: Leslie Nolan, Pete McCutchen and Ai-Wen Wu Kratz. (e)merge also engages curators, gallerists, collectors, artists and other art world innovators in panel discussions during the fair.
Read moreBill Mould : The Art of Allusion
Bill Mould 2012
Bill is a ceramic sculptor — one who works at taking clay from the earth and transforming it into sculptures, which recall ancient myths. The clay, heavy to begin with, becomes light and intensely fragile as he works with it.
Read moreNewton More and His Photographing Tools
newtonmore
When it comes to cameras, Newt More has a hard time choosing his favorite. It might be the pinhole camera or the now extinct Polaroid. Or a digital camera which enables him to use the high dynamic range (HDR) process. Then again, it might be the Holga toy camera, which he is having a lot of fun with these days.
Read moreSteven Fleming: Artist on the Move
Steven Fleming (Rosemary Luckett photo)
Steven Fleming is a runner and a cyclist, moving happily through the landscape in all seasons. A feeling of wanderlust is part of what keeps Steven moving, both physically and artistically. Maybe it's because he grew up in a Navy family that relocated every 18 months or so. Maybe it's because he has a zest for exploring new landscapes and new ways to make art. Maybe it's because he is "never content to rest in one place and repeat the formulas of the past."
Read moreCharles Goldstein: Painting His Way Through Memories
Charles Goldstein
Natalie Portman once said," Everyone dreams of living in Paris," a city both beautiful and severely scarred by periods of cruelty, revolution and war. Artist Charles Goldstein doesn't just dream of Paris. This is where he was born and near where he lives now. However romantic the Paris of our dreams is, reality is different for Charles. The memories he paints in Les Chemins de Memoire (The Paths of Memory) currently on exhibit at Touchstone Gallery, are rooted in the Holocaust and the disappearance of 84 members of his close family in France and in Poland.
Read more