Salon 561: Annual Faculty Show 

DEMAREST, NJ -- Kick off the Fall with the Art School at Old Church! Salon 561 is open to the public and is an annual show that showcases the wide breadth of knowledge, mediums, and talent of the faculty at the Art School at Old Church. New to the school? This is a great opportunity to meet the instructors, who are among many local professional artists devoting their creativity to inspiring students of all ages to experiment, indulge in new experiences, and to grow. While faculty continue to show their artwork in the galleries at the school, this will be the 8^th Annual Salon 561 exhibition, and it is a chance to view the artworks in conversation with each other.  There will be artwork for sale in various mediums in ceramics, jewelry, photography, printmaking and more displayed in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery.  

A few of the eclectic pieces are elegant vases by Susan Bogen and Eric Lawrence, a teapot in the shape of a horse by Alison Palmer, Chinese brush paintings by Jane Chang, a dollhouse by Holly Ciccoricco, and striking photographs by Ray Turkin. The Art School at Old Church continues this inclusive tradition by inviting community members, students, faculty and curious individuals to join the conversation, meet the artists, and feel inspired! There will be a public reception on September 28, 2016 at 5:30 PM, and the exhibition is wheelchair accessible and is now open through October 28.

ABOUT THE ART SCHOOL AT OLD CHURCH

The Art School at Old Church is a non-profit cultural resource center providing community access to enriching experiences in the arts.  The school offers over 90 art classes and workshops for adults, teens and children each semester, as well as free gallery art exhibitions, cultural events, and outreach programs for special populations.  The Art School’s programs are made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as contributions from foundations, corporations, businesses and individuals. 

On View in the Cafe Gallery

On View in the Cafe Gallery: Young Artist Program Sampler

August 26-September 24, 2016

Kathy Eisler, Creating Home Decor

Maria Errichiello, Amazing Oil Pastels

The Café Gallery is proud to exhibit art projects made by faculty of the Young Artists Program.  The sampling of artwork showcases the variety of offerings in our children’s classes, past and present. Each semester, The Art School at Old Church runs a mixture of classes from drawing and painting; to design and fashion. Many of these classes become building blocks to help build portfolios as students decide to pursue art professionally. The projects in this new exhibit give a creative take on a child’s art project made by adults. Not only is it fun to see the faculty work and their own creations, but the parents enjoy getting a sneak peek of the work their kids will be bringing home. The faculty participating in this show include: Holly Ciccoricco, Donna Dolby, Kathy Eisler, Karen Elder, Lauren Ennist, Maria Errichiello, Marcia Oakes, Peter Scanlan and Karen Snyder-Kadish. Please stop by the Café Gallery to see this enjoyable show filled with color, youth and imagination! The Young Artists Program Sampler is on view through September 24th!

Donna Dolby, Draw, Paint & Pastel

ABOUT THE CAFÉ GALLERY AT THE ART SCHOOL AT OLD CHURCH

The Café Gallery is an exhibition space that showcases student and faculty work from the Art School at Old Church, where it is housed.  The gallery is free and open to the general public.  This non-profit cultural resource center provides community access to enriching experiences in the arts by offering art classes for adults, teens and children as well as free gallery art exhibitions, cultural events, and outreach programs for special populations.  The Art School’s programs are made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as contributions from foundations, corporations, businesses and individuals.  

Garden State Garden: 27th Annual NJ Small Works Show

Kathleen Bartoletti, Up Close and Personal No.3,
Acrylic, 12x12 inches

The Mikhail Zakin Gallery at the Art School at Old Church is celebrating Garden State Garden, the 27^th Annual New Jersey Small Works Show with 40 works of art by artists with a biographical connection to New Jersey. The exhibition is curated by Scot J. Wittman, a NJ arts professional, and runs through July 15, 2016. An opening reception with the artists will be Thursday, June 23 from 5:30 – 7:30 PM. The show and opening reception are wheelchair accessible and free to the public. All are encouraged to attend for conversation and light refreshments to celebrate the arts.

Paul Mordetsky, Greenfield, Oil, 10x10 inches

Paintings, drawings, photographs and mixed media sculptures reflect the Garden State Garden theme in ways both literal and experimental. Wittman selected works that portrayed excellence in craft and concept, ensuring a wide variety of black and white work as well as color, garden citation as well as metaphoric reference, and realism as well as abstraction. From dozens and dozens of works, the juror winnowed the collection to works with which he was most impressed.  These works became the heart of the show, representing a range of artists living and working in NJ. 

Congratulations to exhibiting artists Linda Aldrich, Tanya Anastass, Kathleen Bartoletti, Sarah Becktel, Maureen Bennett, Marcy Cagan, Paula Cantor, Robyne Cohen, Jacqueline Collier, Raye Cooke, Howard Danziger, Marilyn Deitchman, May Eason, Hank Gans, Trine Giaever, Anita Gladstone, Marsha Heller, Linda Brooks Hirschman, TingTing Hsu, Sean Jamar, Kathleen Jaffe, Olivia Koopalethes, Marsha Leinberger, Christa M. Leonard, Nancy Michaels, Paul Mordetsky, Beverly Noble, Phyllis Polevoy, Rebecca Rosenheck, Kiyoko Sakai, Susan Sapanara, Sonia Stark, Laura Lee Schultz, Michael Stimola, Peter Tilgner, James Van Gelder, Snejana Videlova, Mary Helen Wagner, Lisa G. Westheimer and Ron Wohlgemuth.

Christa M. Leonard, Cape May Flower, Photography, 18x18 inches

From the Studio Classes, 2016 Annual Student Show

A VISUAL FEAST OF LOCAL ARTS NOW ON VIEW

The Art School at Old Church is presenting From The Studio Classes, an annual salon-style exhibition of artworks by members of the Art School's student body. The show is on view through June 20, 2015. This highly anticipated exhibition fills the galleries to capacity with a vibrant installation of over 200 works of art, shown in the school's Mikhail Zakin and Café galleries.

This celebrated event occurs each spring with an impressive exhibition of work notable for its sophistication as well as skillful technique. The school is a community of artists, some beginner and intermediate students, and many others who are quite advanced and clearly come to class as much for the company of others similarly engaged as for the very fine instruction and discussion to be found in classes in the fine arts and craft. The presence and generosity of these artist-students enriches the conversation for everyone and the annual student show is a witness to that.

Each student is permitted to exhibit two pieces and the school’s gallery walls are almost overfilled with exciting new work. Much of it is for sale and this is a great opportunity to find something that you will surely treasure, whether jewelry, lamp worked necklaces, a crocheted jacket or vest, a great variety of bowls, a tea set, ceramic sculpture, mixed media, collage, assemblage, oils, acrylics, watercolors, prints and encaustics, along with a many striking and unusual photographs.

Regardless of medium, the range of work represented includes the traditional along with many intriguing investigations into abstraction. You will find realistic imagery and sculpture next to abstract figures, animal sculptures that charm and surprise, mixed media with parts that extend into real space, spirited abstractions next to exquisitely detailed watercolor landscapes, beautiful and dynamic charcoal figure studies next to photographs that intrigue with their unexpected focus and mood, and so much more. The gallery is wheelchair accessible and light refreshments will be served. The show remains on view until June 20, 2015 during school hours. You will find many opportunities for excellent discussion, connection, and, of course, purchase. All are welcome!

Personality Test: Contemporary Portraiture in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery

Dave Kube, The Secret Guise

February 16 – March 11, 2016

Curatorial statement

A portrait is an artistic representation of a person that captures their likeness, personality or mood. Traditional portraiture flourished long before the telephone, at a time when representations were necessarily straightforward, if not idealized and painstakingly executed. As our systems of communication get more complex, the information needed to adequately represent a person changes. At times, we find we can reveal more by hiding something, or portray honestly through more improvisational methods.

Kathryn Mecca, Andy

Grand portraiture of royal families has aesthetic and nostalgic allure, but contemporary portraiture is a different genre, reflective of contemporary life. A distinguishing category characterizing contemporary portraiture is the question of likeness. With the advent of photography, likeness in a portrait became a snap to achieve. The contemporary portrait subject has a different roster of traits to be considered. One question we can ask of portraits today is what is the degree of cultural alienation of the subject, as in the portraiture by Dave Kube. Conversely, self-portraits by Joe Nanashe reveal a complementary trait of cultural assimilation and parsing out of the individual from the load roar of pop culture definitions.

A likeness can be revealed and concealed simultaneously, as in paintings by Kathryn Mecca, whose portraits from behind subvert the reverence usually reserved for large-scale oil painting. The photographic print by Stephan Jahanshahi also reveals a likeness while it conceals any details, as if representing a faded memory.

Stephan Jahanshahi, Some Wound of Color

 

Seth Ruggles Hiler, Portraits on Pine Street

Another trait to consider in contemporary portraiture is collaboration. For a portrait to take place, the artist and the subject must be in the same place at the same time, either for the duration of a photograph or a painting from life. Seth Ruggles Hiler utilizes his vibrant sense of color and thorough knowledge of painting to capture likeness from the live subject in his Studio Visits series. In his Portraits on Pine Street series, the community came together to sit and pose and ultimately gather at the opening reception in a celebration of neighborhood friendship and camaraderie. 

Karissa Harvey, Shirley at the Beach

In three paintings by Karissa Harvey, the collaboration was among family members, separated by time and place. The Shirley Series presents a character portrait from photographs taken by the artist’s grandfather, reflecting another aspect of portraiture that connects the viewer to other places and times. Mikhail Gubin connects to the past through his works in reclaimed wood. His portraits give substance to enigmatic characters from poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Marquis de Sade (that liberatory libertine) as well as the more traditional portrait of the artist’s wife.

Mikhail Gubin, Rococo (Marquis de Sade)

These days, a portrait is not just about the subject of the work, it is also a personality test of the artist and the viewer. The ultimate test of our subjectivity and the success of the artwork is whether or not we can recognize part of ourselves in the depiction of the other. When you look at these portraits, what do you see?

-         Mary Gagler, Curator

BergenDanceMakers perform "Off the Wall" at Proximity opening reception

This January's exhibition in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery featured works by local artists. At the opening reception on January 27, BergenDanceMakers delivered an "Off the Wall" performance, responding to the works on view in a variety of five minute, movement-based interpretations. The group is organized by Clare Porter, whose leadership in the improvisational dance group is informed  by her extensive biography of teaching and professional accolades. Dana Crow provided a soundtrack with his skillful, improvised guitar riffs. All together, the event was a fortuitous mix of visual, musical, and movement-based talent. Here is a selection of photos of artful moments during the event:

See you at the next one!

Technology Becomes Them – Curatorial statement

Technology Becomes Them, on view in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery October 30 – November 21, 2015

Welcome to the neo-human era of art, on view in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery. For many, the latest suite of smart phones changes the way culture is experienced and remembered. Each artist in Technology Becomes Them creates work on a new aesthetic path where technology and humanity meet. The contemporary artists in this show employ traditional techniques and forms to explore the new fabric of reality, woven with ubiquitous technology and ever present internet communication.

Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern, Tech Cherubs (Pink Rust),
Silkscreen, 24x18", 2014, $250 

Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern creates hand-pulled prints reminiscent of Baroque wallpaper. Her contemporary color play and close cropped compositions are the first aesthetic vehicles grounding her work in contemporary visual vocabulary. Curious viewers are rewarded to discover the hidden gestures of cherubs and courtly personages and the banality of their focus: the figures are lost in their smartphones, tablets and laptops. While the figures refer vaguely to a distant time and place, the collision with technology reflects our own inane present-day obsessions.

Michael Burris Johnson mediates painterly observations of nature using the grid. The white rose bush in Patience is simplified into millions of tiny squares. While the imposed structure alienates the viewer from nature, this process also alleviates the strain of mimesis. The juxtaposed colors create a unity of lightly contrasting squares of color data. Standing in front of the work, the viewer is struck first by Johnson’s technique, and next by their own instinct to interpret beauty from a patchwork of color.

Michael Burris Johnson, "Patience", Oil on canvas, 42x84", 2015. Archival prints available for $80

Pat Lay, "54AAA0254C,"
Collaged digital scroll, inkjet 
printed on Japanese kozo paper, 
Tyvek backing, gold paint, 96x48",
2015, $6,500

Pat Lay refers to patterned works in art history and draws out the beauty of the computer matrix. Rather than mediating our experience, computer technology becomes the experience itself. The large scale of Lay’s collaged digital scrolls KB54AAA0468B and 54AAA0254C impose veneration while the pattern and shimmering color transfix the viewer. The paradoxical impression is one of aesthetic beauty and unknown strength- this could crush us while we are busy admiring it. The sculpted ceramic heads or “post-human power figures” combine fired clay and computer parts that stand eye to eye with the viewer. The implied functions and super human strength can be intimidating or comforting, depending on how far into the future you are willing to stare.

Judy Malloy, a pioneer hypertext poet from the early days of computing, has devised a series of phrases or lexias that comprise a poem. In Paths of Memory and Painting, the viewer is asked to navigate the poem by clicking the lexia that attracts them. An ethereal narrative emerges based on individual decision. The resulting form reflects the viewer’s desire for a certain path. The act of reading poetry and choosing what portion comes next alters the traditional form and a feeling of intimacy emerges between the viewer and the computer. We may be familiar with hypertext links on the internet that bounce us from one article to the next, but to do so for the purpose of art is a new experience.

Judy Malloy, "Paths of Memory and Painting," Hypertext literature, DHTML, 2010

In each case, the artist is revealing something beautiful yet foreboding, reminding us that the consequences of technology are only partially known to us. What will become of the world that does not fit on a screen? Will we always have the ability to love and share it IRL? In an age where any idea worth sharing comes with a pre-fab hashtag, I invite you to take a look around the gallery and admire the work of these four contemporary artists. Meanwhile, reflect on a question; if an exhibition doesn’t Instagram well, is it worth sharing? #TechnologyBecomesThem

-         Mary Gagler, Curator

Draw Yourself In! Kids Art Index

Collaborative drawing project in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery
August 10 – September 5, 2015

The interactive mural in the gallery is the site of a collaborative drawing project open to all members of the Art School community.

The project showcases creativity by providing a ready-made exhibition space for community members. An outline of an alphabet awaits illustrations from individuals. 

Those looking for ideas are encouraged to reference the art history library located in the Café Gallery. You may find yourselves asking important questions such as: Should you list Cézanne’s apples under “A” for apple or “C” for Cézanne?

This project is collaborative, so we invite you to pick up a crayon or pencil, and add something to the wall! No contribution is too small or too large. Share your creativity in this community project!

  

INSIDE TRACKS AT THE MIKHAIL ZAKIN GALLERY

A new exhibition of photographs by the highly acclaimed photojournalist and National Geographic photographer, Rick Smolan, is on view through March 4-31^st in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery. A free film-screening will accompany the exhibition on Saturday, March 7 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM followed with a talk by Rick Smolan, author and photographer of Inside Tracks. This bold, beautiful “smart phone enabled” coffee table book, is based on one of the most beloved stories in the history of National Geographic Magazine: 27-year-old Robyn Davidson’s 1700 mile trek across the Australian outback.  Davidson’s journey from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, accompanied by just four camels and a dog, inspired her own bestselling book, Tracks, a cult classic that has sold over a million copies, has been translated into 18 languages and is required reading in Australian schools.

Rick Smolan, the American photographer assigned by National Geographic to document her journey, had his own adventure tracking Robyn down in the desert periodically throughout her journey. The outback of Australia, seen through Robyn's eyes and Rick's cameras, is an ancient awesome landscape swept by rain, heat and dust and inhabited by all varieties of marauding life, from poisonous snakes to wild bull camels but is also inhabited by the caring aboriginal people of the Pitjantjatjara tribe and the outback farmers who encouraged and helped Robyn during her journey.

The incredible story is now a major motion picture titled “Tracks” from the Oscar winning producers of "The Kings Speech". In the film Robyn is portrayed by Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and Rick by Adam Driver (HBO's Girls). A special state of the art Canon projection system will be used for the March 7th presentation of the feature film.

At the film screening event, Rick will share images and behind the scenes stories from Robyn's adventure and will also autograph copies of Inside Tracks. The magnificently printed book features more than two hundred photographs from Robyn’s journey, many never published before, as well as an inside look at the making of the TRACKS movie, with scene photographs and excerpts from the script.

“To me” says Rick Smolan “what matters most is that she [Robyn]  permitted herself to listen to the little voice in her head that propelled her to set off on such a risky journey. My deepest hope is that Inside Tracks and Robyn’s belief that ‘an ordinary person is capable of anything’ will inspire readers to embark on their own voyage of self-discovery”

Special thanks to Hank Gans, photography instructor at the Art School at Old Church who helped organize this inspiring exhibition of photography. Please call (201) 767-7160 by March 5th to RSVP to the March 7th film screening. The exhibition and film event are wheelchair accessible. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday: 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM. Call ahead for evening and weekend hours.

Floating Islands on view in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery

Ken Cro-Ken, Brief Moment in Time in foreground, Ken Cro-Ken, There in background

Floating Islands is an exhibition of works by four contemporary artists making art with an environmental edge. A variety of materials and processes come together in this group show, immersing the Mikhail Zakin Gallery in sculptures, installations, paintings and a live painting experiment with nature.

We are proud to feature the works of Riccardo Berlingeri (Middletown, NJ), Ken Cro-Ken (New York, NY), David Purcell (Baltimore, MD) and Etty Yaniv (New York, NY) in this exhibit.

Riccardo Berlingeri, Deep Down

The exhibit takes its name from the floating islands of trash that have collected in the Pacific Ocean. These islands, inadvertently formed, have held up a mirror to our culture of use. This process of realization catalyzed by a physical form led me to think of the symbolic power of art in contemplating our experience of the world.

One of the most striking aspects of the exhibit is the way art can seem exclusively expressive of the self yet evoke a vast system of interrelation. Each piece in this show is seated squarely in the artists’ respective styles, established through ongoing practice and investigation of materials. And yet, each piece has the quality of being rooted in our society and performing an act of reflection, forming a conceptual bond with nature that can be collectively shared.

The works on view recap the awe of the natural, where seemingly disparate organisms interweave to create a tapestry of living beings and ecosystems. Together the artists have formed a humbling space, starting from scratch with layers of corrugated cardboard or colored pieces of newspaper that provide entry to a new slant on the physical world.

David Purcell, Memory of a Hike Through Echo Canyon

The exhibition is equal parts an ode to Mother Nature, an apology and a pledge. This is what we have done, this is what we love about living here, and this is what we hope for: a planet that we not only avoid offending, but one that we seek to love in all the ways in our power. Through understanding every crevice, walking through the logic that creates these forms, acknowledging the beauty of juxtaposition and the details hidden in plain sight, allowing ourselves to be humbled by the simultaneous representation of a river delta and the veins of a maple leaf, or getting our hands dirty and building monuments to our great mistakes.

Most importantly, and in the context of the Art School at Old Church, the exhibition is a manifestation of the power of the artistic process to transform inanimate materials into complex comments, critiques, and calls to arms regarding human society. We can all benefit from considering our actions as paths from creative ideas to material expression. The show is on view at the Art School, a gathering place for creative development, where it is hoped that all our lives will leave a mark and that mark will be deliberate and artful.

Join us for a reception with the artists Thursday, January 29, 2015 from 5:30 - 7:30 PM.

Etty Yaniv, Parallel Topographies in foreground; Ken Cro-Ken, There, in background

40th Annual Pottery Show & Sale: Daze of Clay

Forty years ago, a Pottery Show and Sale was born in the small town of Demarest, New Jersey, just south of the New York state border and a few miles north of the George Washington Bridge. It came into existence through a long-time friendship between two respected potters, the late Mikhail Zakin, co-founder of the Art School at Old Church, and the eminent Karen Karnes. 

Sometimes called the “grandmother of American ceramics”, Karen Karnes taught at the avant-garde Black Mountain College in North Carolina into the early 1950’s, and later moved to Vermont where she has lived and worked since 1979. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among numerous others.

Back then, Karen decided to make a pottery sale to benefit the newly formed community art center, but she also wanted to create an event that served as an annual gathering place for potters to meet and exchange ideas. The grassroots culture of the school and the familial convening of potters helped to quickly establish the Annual Pottery Show & Sale as one of the best invitational shows in the country.

The Annual Pottery Show & Sale is unique because it has remained relatively unchanged in forty years. Karen has continued to curate the sale, bringing together some of the nation’s best potters of one-of-a-kind, functional and sculptural pieces. Pottery is displayed on humble wood benches and adorned with unpretentious flowering branches and sprigs of greenery. The show is held each year on the first weekend of December. This year’s preview reception is on Friday, December 5^th, 6-10PM, and the show continues on Saturday, December 6^th, 10AM-6PM, and Sunday, December 7^th, 12-5PM.

The 40^th annual Pottery Show & Sale marks the first noticeable change in the event’s long history. This year, Bruce Denhert and Chris Gustin join Karen in co-curating the show. Both are well-known figures within the American ceramics community, recognized among their peers as experts in the field.

Bruce Denhert is currently the director of the ceramics program for Peters Valley School of Craft in Layton, NJ, and has taught workshops internationally. He has published in many journals on ceramic technique and processes.

Garth Clark, a chief writer and critic on ceramic art and fine craft, calls Chris Gustin “one of the leading ceramists of his generation”. Chris is cofounder of the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine, and retired from academia in 1999 to devote his energies to his studio work and tile production company. Before then, he was associate professor of ceramics at University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Their collaboration brings together 30 potters from around the nation for the 40^th annual invitational, including:

Richard Aerni, Dan Anderson, Mary Barringer, Ingrid Bathe, Bruce Denhert, Judith Duff, Heather Mae Erickson, Julia Galloway, Scott Goldberg, Tyler Gulden, Chris Gustin, Kenyon Hansen, Bryan Hopkins, Nick Joerling, Karen Karnes, James Lawton, Robbie Lobell, Matt Long, Matthew Metz, Maureen Mills, Ted Neal, Aysha Peltz, Doug Peltzman, Seth Rainville, Rob Sieminski, Mark Shapiro, Jeff Shapiro, Jack Troy, Adero Willard, and Erica Wurtz.

Each potter will ship and tote hundreds of their best pots to Demarest in early December, arriving on Thursday morning before the show to set up their displays. Then, Friday through Sunday, they will meet and greet both potters and ceramic enthusiasts, sharing in relevant discussions about pottery-making, and having the pleasure of seeing their wares in the hands of those who appreciate artisan pottery just as they do.


For more information about this year's show, check out oldchurchpotteryshow.org