Lina Alattar: The Unscripted Experience of Painting

July 4, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

“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.”

McCain McMurray: Stained Paintings

June 28, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

Think about diving into the waters of the Caribbean. Imagine feeling the sensations of being under and in the water off St. Bart’s, St. Johns or Martinique. Cooling blues and greens float with muted reds, yellows or oranges. Then visit the newest paintings by McCain McMurray in his solo exhibit Immersion at Touchstone Gallery during the month of July. You’ll see slices of the Caribbean in his long vertical paintings—painted essays defining the essence of this watery space and the experience of exploring life in it.

Linda Bankerd: A Delicate Balance

June 5, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Touchstone Gallery Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary!

May 11, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

It’s 2016 and Touchstone Gallery is in a celebratory mood! Being one of the longest-tenured and most highly regarded artist-owned galleries in Washington, DC, Touchstone will celebrate its 40th year in Washington on May 13th with an Anniversary Gala and a May 4-29 member artists show, featuring solo artists, Paula Lantz and Colleen Sabo, and works by present and former members. The gala and show are open to the public.

The Abstract Icons of Paula Lantz

May 1, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Colleen Sabo: Playing Favorites with Oil

May 1, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

In her May 2016 Touchstone Gallery solo exhibition, A Few of My Favorite Things, Colleen Sabo introduces her new body of work in oils. Long a color painter in water media, Colleen shifted her focus to oil several years ago and has not looked back since.

Rosemary Luckett: Uncovering Nature’s Dream and Us

April 3, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

Rosemary Luckett has come full circle this April in her Touchstone solo exhibition Earth House. She continues with a circle of life theme that she started in a Round River series some years ago, probing relationships between the earth, its living creatures and humankind. Through images of the seen, she points to - hints at - what is often unseen. "The apparent visible and the hidden visible... in nature are never separated," wrote Magritte, an artist she admires. The fun in looking at her works is to discover both visible and related hidden.

Rob Goebel: Painting Symbolic Reality

March 30, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

For Rob Goebel soccer, swimming and tennis were the sports that filled his young life. Maybe it had something to do with living in Toms River, New Jersey. The beach was nearby and surfing with friends a fun pastime. By the time Rob was a senior in high school his swim team ranked in the top 10 in the state. While some TV specials, like HBO's Boardwalk Empire, were filmed here, the town of fewer than 100,00 friendly folks was rated one of the safest small cities in the nation in 2006 and 2007. Add to the beach life an annual Halloween parade touted to be the second-largest in the world, and you have a genial place in which to grow up.

Figure 8 plus 1 (part 2)

February 25, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Guest Artists: John Blee and Dee Levinson

February 6, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

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)

January 17, 2016 Touchstone Gallery

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?

Finding a Home in Art: Miriam's Kitchen Studio Artists

November 7, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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."

McCain McMurray: From Architectural Drawings to Geometric Paintings

August 23, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Rima Schulkind: Dancing With Change

June 25, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Aleksandra Katargina: Painting the Road to Happiness

April 27, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Cynthia Young: Color Field Painter

March 27, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Pete McCutchen Wins Honorable Mention in the Monochrome Awards International Black & White Photography Contest, 2/2015

March 6, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Harmon Biddle: Transforming Landscapes

February 9, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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.

Gail Vogels: Exploring and Transforming

January 3, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

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."

Pat Williams: Coaxing Abstracts From Reality

January 3, 2015 Touchstone Gallery

"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.