Oil and Clay: Dorothy McGeorge & Judith Richey

Dorothy McGeorge and Judith Richey created the recent buzz at The Old Schoolhouse Gallery in the East Mountains. Visitors were captivated with Richey’s unique pottery featuring peaceful scenes cut in to the sides of ceramic mugs and bowls, broken tree branches for teapot handles and intricate, petite pieces with slots for tiny spoons.

Judith Richey has been a clay artist for over forty years. Her goal has been to create pieces that people will enjoy and use often. Richey works both in stoneware and in porcelain and incorporate slab forms and hand built and carved addition into her work. As an avid gardener, she has recently created a series of items for garden ornamentation. Her sculptural pieces called “garden beads” are composed of individual elements stacked together in interesting arrangements. Why clay? Richey says, “Clay is a wonderful medium, perfect in every way for many uses and forms of expression. It is also one of the most enduring art forms in any culture. It lets my spirit sing.”

Dorothy McDonough McGeorge’s work is often of structures that reflect the character of a place such as the open plains of the Midwest, the urban cityscapes of Montreal, Quebec, or the suburbs of Washington, D.C. 

McGeorge chooses to organize her picture plane into segments to compel the viewer to share the whole of the image through its parts. The idea of perfect proportions found in nature, supported by mathematical principles, have had a direct influence on her work. McGeorge earned her Masters of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Nebraska in 1993. At the University, she worked closely with James Eisentrager, who believed strongly in the gestalt principle that we perceive visual data in organized or configured terms and Dynamic Symmetry, a term presented in the 1920s by art theorist Jay Hambidge. 

Present in McGeorge’s artwork, the same principles can be seen not only in the work of the impressionists and the post impressionists, but in contemporary, and sometimes abstract work of artists like Richard Diebenkorn and Willem de Kooning. 

Oil and Clay will hang through the end of August at The Old Schoolhouse Gallery, 12504 North Hwy.14, San Antonito, NM, 505.281.1250,  http://www.theoldschoolhousegallery.com

Ross Ward: Art, in the Pursuit of Happiness

Ross Ward’s visual art is provocative, daring, colorful, mind-blowing, seductive, dreaming, psychedelic, and wonderful all at the same time. To really understand the depth of the genius behind his art, one must first grasp Ward’s humble beginnings.

Ross Ward was born to paint, carve and tinker. As a boy growing up in the Midwest, he was captivated by the tiny villages, farms and circuses created by “spare time carvers.” His own miniature world began with circus figures carved while in junior high school. He began carving the first figures for the turn-of-the-century general store in 1962. Ward carved and built his folk art environment as a hobby for most of his adult life but he was even more prolific in his artistic endeavors of painting, etching, drawing and sculpture. A self taught artist, most of his paintings and drawings have remained hidden from the public until now.

Ward’s last 9 to 5 job was with Walker Display Company in 1964 where he honed in his sign painting skills. He lettered trucks, did murals in bars and restaurants, painted mail boxes and spare tire covers. After being laid off from Walker Display, Ward became a show painter for carnivals for the next 25 years, traveling the country painting on all the major carnival shows and in winter quarters from Texas to Florida. He took advantage of his time on the road to collect as many antiques as possible. In 1978, Ward settled on “Tinkertown” as the permanent name for his growing collection of miniatures. His exhibit was initially shown in a sixteen foot trailer at the New Mexico State Fair. However, in the fall of 1983, with the help of his second wife Carla, Ward opened the Tinkertown Museum in Sandia Park, New Mexico to the public. 

In February of 1998, at age 57, Ward was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and passed away November 13, 2002. The Ward family continues his legacy by maintaining and running Tinkertown in his memory. According to Carla, “The museum is testimony to Ross’ singular pursuit of creating a folk art environment that has joined countless other multidimensional artists around the world.”

The Ross Ward art exhibit will hang through September 30 at the Johnsons of Madrid Gallery, 2843 Highway 14, Madrid, NM 87010, (505) 471-1054, www.collectorsguide.com/johnsons

Jane Abrams: Flow and Tangle

The hypnotic paintings in Jane Abrams exhibition, “Flow and Tangle,” draw viewers in, closer and closer. Then, naturally, an equal and opposite reaction occurs: the audience starts to back up, farther and farther, until the pictures come into focus again. 

Despite the motif, Abrams’ artwork does not feel repetitive. Two distinct works “Capricorn Morning” and “Silvery Pond” seem only tangentially related with their tangled brushwork and pale tones of blue and green. Abrams’ labyrinths of plants deflect attention from any one thing. The rhythmic density of the flora is like a subway station at rush hour full of energy, ambiguity, and wild uproar as demonstrated in “Elijah’s Fish Tangle.” Abrams’ “Duranes Pond” echoes Claude Monet’s and Vincent Van Gogh’s appreciation for natural forms and light. Even Abrams’ energetic brushwork in the background has links to Van Gogh’s intuitive understanding of the relationship between energy and matter.

Abrams, a native of Wisconsin, for the past thirty years has lived and worked in Los Ranchos Village in the North Valley near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her travels to Mexico, Central America, Spain and Asia have introduced exotic subjects into her pulsing, colorful canvases which deal with themes of man and nature. The jungle, with its hidden wonders and mystery, is often times the setting for her work.

Abrams is Regents’ Professor Emeritus from the University of New Mexico where she taught painting and drawing from 1971 until 1993. Her work is included in public collections across the United States and in London, Costa Rica and Spain. She continues to exhibit her work and paint in her studio in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

The Mariposa Gallery, located in historic Nob Hill on Route 66, remains one of the oldest contemporary craft galleries in the country, exhibiting the finest contemporary art, jewelry and ceramics in New Mexico since 1974.

Jane Abrams’ exhibition, Flow and Tangle, will hang through August 31 at the Mariposa Gallery, 3500 Central Ave. SE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, (505) 268-6828  www.mariposa-gallery.com

Tara Massarsky: Conveyance ~ part two

Last Saturday, I attended the closing reception and artist discussion for Tara Massarsky at The Art Salon at Inspire. Her art show, Conveyance, has been well received at the salon since it’s opening on June 1. 

Massarsky, as a visual abstract painter, has been inspired by science and by alchemy, the psychological process of turning a common thought or object into a pure, or higher thought. The sheer act of painting has allowed her to discover the world. The framework for her paintings is the interconnectedness of forces, the heightened emotional connection of objects. A number of individual artists have influence Massarsky in her own development as an artist. Below is a short list of those who have and her personal comments on each:

Adolph Gottlieb

At one time after seeing a Gottlieb show at the Brooklyn museum with the Indian Space Painters, I realized I shared with them the use of a primitive pictograph like language depicting a mystical, poetic universal language.

Arshile Gorky

His incredible personal imagery is so pure it's scary. His suicide shortened what would have been a continued and sustained genius.

Wassily Kandinsky

A most likely and obvious influence. As the assistant librarian at the Guggenheim Museum, I had many a chance to study his works and writings. I admire his works more for the spirituality he imbued into his work then even his palette, his use of forms and color have inspired many of us.

Ad Reinhardt

The retrospective a few years ago at MOMA explored his incredible meditative studies of the effects of color in its purest forms. His writing's, especially when he was a member of the 1950s AAA, were incredibly witty and insightful on the art of his day, and its criticism's still hold up.

Willem De Kooning

The sheer fierceness of his stroke and appetite to deconstruct the things before him are so compelling. A master of color as well. Another major influence.

Louise Bourgeois

Her organic and metamorphic sculpture and persevering spirit I find inspiring. She has a wonderful sense of humor about the art world that I find truly refreshing, even in her 90's she could laugh at all the pretense surrounding her "late in life" retrospectives and "re-discovery".

The idea for The Art Salon at Inspire is unique.  Designed for an intimate and comfortable experience by offering visitors avant-garde hair design, the Inspire Salon also provides an appreciation and understanding of art and its role in society through direct engagement with original artwork. For more information visit inspireartsalon.com.