While writing Touchstone blog essays, I ask the question, ”How do artists arise in America?” The answer, of course, is that exceptional artists come from small towns and large all across the land, predictably and unpredictably. I thought about this recently while driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike, where my attention alternated between fast-moving 18-wheelers and glimpses of green pastures sculpted from long-ago deciduous forests when horses were the main mode of transport. Road signs mention the small towns that are quickly by-passed.
Read moredana brotman: capturing the confluence of humble materials & insightful gaze
If we each open our eyes a little wider and really look at our environment, we begin to see a lot of packaging “stuff” that might be falling to the floor as we open a gift or other everyday objects--the worthy and useful objects we think important. We throw that packaging away mostly without really looking at it. But, even if the rest of the world ignores it, Dana Brotman does not. She’s actually attracted to many of those “stuffs” and now actually uses it in her art processes.
Read morePatricia Williams: Ordered Complexities
“Both science and art have to do with ordered complexity.” –L. L. Whyte, 1957
My September 2017 solo show was originally intended to be an abstract landscape series, but it turned into an homage to math and science. This happened because the people who decide such things declared March 14, 2015 to be the official pi (π) day. (Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter and always equals 3.14159265359….) I met my husband Andy in engineering school, and while neither of us claims any particular STEM skills at this point in our lives, we had a vigorous discussion of this important issue over breakfast one morning, and we vigorously dissented. In our opinion, the official pi day should have been March 14, 2016. That’s because 2015 is truncated, and we believe it more appropriate to round up to 2016.
Read moreClaudia Samper Mixed Media Stories
Argentinian-born Claudia Samper reminisces on her early life in Buenos Aires. “As a youngster I was always drawing and creating things with my hands,” she recalls. “By the time I entered the university I didn't have many choices in Buenos Aires except for traditional career paths--medicine, education, law, etc. We of course did have a wonderful art institute, but it never crossed my mind to pursue art then.” The one track that suited her the most was architecture. After completing that 6-year degree program, she had acquired a solid base in both the technical and the art spheres of the curriculum.
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 moreJanathel Shaw: Portraits of Courage
Janathel Shaw’s April solo show, SOLIDAREity! is a reflection upon the status of Blacks in America: a series of figurative pieces and portraits of men, women and children looking boldly into the present and the future. Inspiration for this new series derives from the lost souls, activists and community of people who are part and parcel of the American landscape—people who enrich that landscape in both hidden and overt ways. The portraits incorporate texture, rich deep lines and are anchored in contrast. Several are rooted in a defiant solidarity of consciousness, soulfulness, and personal voice. Some are dark in tone in recognition of ongoing struggles.
Read moreLisa Tureson: Curiosity ---> Exploration ---> Creativity
Lisa Tureson
Once Lisa Tureson decided to leave her career in the insurance industry, there was no stopping her from exploring and learning about the many techniques, materials and tools artists use to express themselves. Actually, she probably always did have a curious and exploratory bent. At age four Lisa often watched her artist-teacher mother at the easel. Thusly inspired, her first murals were created out of her mother’s lip stick on her sisters’ bedroom walls. Whether she was chastised for her use of the lipstick medium or praised for her ambitious wall-size art expression, this “project” proved a precursor to the large paintings in her present day solo exhibit Scribbles: An Urban Art Expression at Touchstone Gallery during March 2017.
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 more“Hands On”: Touchstone Foundation for the Arts Fellows Make their Mark on Touchstone Gallery in 2017
Carol Moore
This year the Touchstone Gallery artist members circles includes four Touchstone Foundation for the Arts-sponsored Fellowship members, two of whom will solo in June 2017. The four are Lionel Daniels, Susi Cora, Jo Ann Block, and Carol Moore. Each is working in a different medium and each is working towards a unique goal. Their work can be seen in each monthly Touchstone exhibit.
Read moreMary Ott: The Pull of Metallics
Mary Ott working in the Montgomery College Print Studio, Silver Spring MD
Mary Ott’s February solo exhibit “Metallics: Paintings and Prints” at Touchstone Gallery features artwork that includes copper, silver and gold-colored paints and inks. Mary’s techniques, whether on a smooth canvas base or a unique and textured paper, result in images of nature that seem influenced by the Zen of Japanese art, an art aimed at uncovering the essence of the object under scrutiny. In Mary’s work, grasses are singled out and isolated from complexities of a natural biosphere; then presented in a simplified space, elucidating the purity of seemingly simple life forms--forms often forgotten in our contemporary rough-and-tumble mechanical world.
Read moreSteve Alderton’s Fleeting Memories
Steve Alderton
Steve Alderton, in his third series “Memoryscapes: Blurry Lines III,” continues an exploration of landscape memories as viewed through the prism of time. In this final component, Alderton pushes his works until they become abstract and the focus is contemplative in nature. His acrylic paintings describe landscape qualities that are “felt” rather than defined as specific representational scenes our eyes see in the real world of land, sea or sky.
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