Art School student featured in The Journey, the Kennedy Center’s 2014 VSA Emerging Young Artists Exhibition

(WASHINGTON, D.C.)— Art School at Old Church student Andrew Weatherly was selected by VSA, a Jean Kennedy Smith Arts and Disability program of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as a winner of the 2014 VSA Emerging Young Artists Program.

The program is designed to give visibility and a voice to the work of young artists with disabilities, ages 16 to 25, by exhibiting their work throughout the United States and around the world, cementing their work in the broader context of the history, art, and culture of the American, as well as global, experience. The 15 winners of this year’s competition receive cash prizes totaling $60,000. Of even greater value, they are brought, all expenses paid, to Washington, D.C. to explore the skills needed for a professional life in the visual arts, preparing them to competitively pursue arts-based vocations, whether as full-time visual artists or in a range of other professional capacities employing their creative talents. During this time, artists will meet with highly regarded professionals in the visual arts field and visit museums and galleries around D.C.

Andrew Weatherly
Winter Worlds, 2013
acrylic on canvas, 11" x 9"

Closter, NJ resident Andrew Weatherly, a student at the Art School at Old Church, has been selected as a winner of the 2014 VSA Emerging Young Artists Program for his artwork, Winter Worlds. As a winner, Andrew will receive an award of excellence accompanied by a cash prize of $2,000. Andrew is a student in a special mentorship program taught by Holly Ciccoricco on Friday afternoons. Holly Ciccoricco teaches the class three times per month to two special needs students from the Demarest area. Holly has taught children's art classes at the school for 14 years including a class for special needs students on Saturday mornings. Gail Rutigliano, a Demarest resident and active student at the Art School, assists Holly with the special workshop program.

The 15 winners were selected by a jury of noted art professionals, including William Newman, the Carolyn S. Alper Professor of Contemporary Arts at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, Brandon Brame Fortune, Chief Curator and Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery, and Sarah Tanguy, curator in the ART in Embassies Program, a program of the U.S. Department of State.

“We are delighted to recognize this inspiring group of talented young artists living with disabilities,” said Betty Siegel, Director of VSA and Accessibility at the Kennedy Center. “This program highlights the contributions that young artists living with disabilities make to American society and culture and we commend Volkswagen Group of America for making it possible.”

The Journey will be on public display from September 15, 2014 to January 5, 2015 at the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution, 1100 Jefferson Drive SW, Washington, DC. The exhibition will be open daily 10:00am to 5:30pm and is accessible by Metro. The exhibition is free, no tickets are required. Following the close of the exhibition at the Smithsonian, The Journey will embark on a national tour to museums and galleries across the country. Volkswagen Group of America will host the first leg of this tour, displaying the entire exhibition at its headquarters in Herndon, VA. For information on the where The Journey is touring, please go to: http://www.kennedy-center.org/emergingyoungartists

VSA's signature programs offer multi-faceted, unparalleled opportunities for youth, with disabilities, who have aspirations in the performing and visual arts. Explore VSA programs at: www.kennedy-center.org/education/vsa/programs/

A Teacher Discovers a New Medium and a New Art Form at The Art School at Old Church

Jackie Shatz, a sculptor whose works often incorporate both collage and painting, has been teaching at the Art School at Old Church for several years. The artist, who lives in Rockland County, has taught workshops and courses exploring the “universal language of abstraction” and encouraging students to play with symbols and shapes in drawings, paintings and sculpture.

Intrigued by the wealth of courses offered at Old Church, Shatz enrolled in Susan Kasson Sloan’s workshop in Precious Metal Clay jewelry design. Smitten with the process, she took the workshop again… and again. Shatz was delighted to have found a material that she could work with sculpturally to make jewelry. With her new mentor and independently, Shatz began to create rings and pendants out of silver PMC.

“I always loved jewelry and used to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to study ancient jewelry pieces, which I think of as miniature sculpture,” Shatz explains. Working in PMC, she was able to bring her sculptor skills and aesthetic to her new medium.

Working in silver PMC also allowed Shatz to indulge in her passion for geology and natural stones. On a visit to the Adirondacks, she bought bags of locally mined garnet dust and even panned for tiny natural gems.

Back in her studio, Shatz experimented with a wide variety of techniques. For some pieces, she made molds from a material called Microsil (used to make impressions for hearing aids) and then pressed natural materials such as lichens, seaweed, and pine needles into it. She then pressed the PMC clay into the mold (which it doesn’t adhere to). Finally, she removed the clay and worked with it sculpturally. Shatz even explored the feasibility of encasing delicate seaweed in many dilute coats of silver clay. The final product, while not exactly what she expected, is lovely.

Each piece is unique and gets all the careful deliberation of a large sculpture or painting. Some rings are set with natural garnets and tiny gems like zircons and peridots. Others are carved with ancient symbols, like the ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus. Still others are include casts of old jewelry pieces or materials like a shard of art glass from a broken ring. Shatz also discovered that with PMC she could go back and reapply the clay to fired pieces, enabling her to add new textures and elements.

Shatz is selling her growing collection of art jewelry at Maria Louisa in Nyack, at the Tailored Mermaid in Beacon, NY, at One Well in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, NY. The Nyack Library is also hosting a show of her work in the month of October. 

Beware of the Year 7000

Art School faculty member and figurative sculpture guru Janice Mauro has embarked on an incredible journey into the future. Beginning in 2009, Janice and collaborator Joanne Pagano Weber began exploring the artifacts uncovered at the site of a future archaeological dig. This month, the ongoing project will be visible to those of us dwelling in 2014 at exhibitions across two Connecticut galleries.

Read more about this project including the artists' statement from bewareoftheyear7000.com:

"Janice Mauro and collaborator Joanne Pagano Weber present “Beware of the Year 7000,” a mixed media installation which expands upon “The Tidal Decade,” hosted by Silvermines’s Director’s Choice to delighted audiences in 2009. Art 101 Gallery held a coordinating exhibit in Brooklyn and visitors were encouraged to “make the pilgrimage.” 

The ever-growing urgency of the ramifications of global warming and corporate greed, along with the evident loss of one’s humanity, provoke our ongoing collaboration. The work will comprise mixed media: sculpture, painting, voice, and text. 

The meaning of sculptures of an evolving robotic race is revealed through a series of letters by two fictional artists, along with their paintings. The correspondence, which thematically explores the human condition circa the year 7000 is a lifeline for the artists, who describe a horrific period of future history where humanity repeats its tragic exploitation of the living planet. The content of the sculpture and the painting in this show is nothing less than the loss of the human soul and the fight to preserve it.

Our ongoing work reopens an uncomfortable wound for examination and presents a fresh way to bring all-important humor and self criticism to the table. We have seen the positive results of engaging audiences by resonating the content of our art with their lives, allowing them to discover the narrative as they move through the show. The use of found objects to create futuristic sculptures, gadgets, and paintings reflects and subverts today’s obsession with technology through comedic social criticism.

The project is inherently educational as a wake-up call and a speculative journey into the unknown. As we consciously experience a monumental shift in our planet’s evolution due to climate change, City Lights Gallery and Trailer Box Gallery presents Beware of the Year 7000, where installation artists Janice Mauro and Joanne Pagano Weber ask the question, if corporations are people, too, what if they lose their humanity? Art lovers, thinkers, prophets, or gamers, look no further."

City Lights Gallery, Bridgeport, CT opening reception 5:30-8:30PM, 9/25, on view through 10/23/14
Trailer Box Gallery, Danbury, CT opening reception 5:00-8:00PM 9/27, on view through 11/1/14

"It’s the second melting of the polar icecap. The power of the few dictate the blueprint of a resurgent planet depleted once again. All resources are up for grabs as the human race divides along biological / robotic fault lines. While multitudes transition becoming semi-human mechanisms under the control of an artificial brain, two artists continue their work in hiding, corresponding by the only thing they have left – their creativity."

Draw Yourself In: 2014

August 4 - August 23, 2014

Over the summer, the Mikhail Zakin Gallery hosted a collaborative drawing project that invited the community to draw on the gallery walls... On mural-sized paper, that is. The theme of the project was portraiture, and we invited artists young and old to add a portrait and "draw themselves in" to this community project.

The project took place over the course of the two-week BLAST! of art program for kids. We received many enthusiastic contributions from the young artists enrolled in these summer classes. Below is the description of the project that was posted on the wall:

"Portraits: A portrait is a painted, drawn, photographic, or sculptural representation of a person. The key is to define the likeness, personality and mood of the person. We challenge you to draw a portrait of yourself, your mom or dad, maybe even make a new friend and draw their portrait. Draw just thier face or draw them in a scene. Give them crazy hair and colorful clothes.You are the artist, so be as imaginative and creative as you would like. Use these famous portraits as guides for your own work. But most importantly, have fun!"

 

Thank you for all the wonderful contributions!

Spotlight in the Northern Valley Press

Check out this great article published by the Northern Valley Press about the successful Uncommon Craft Show held last month in Closter! With special appearances by Hank Gans and his photography students, and ceramic students Gail Rutigliano and Karen Snyder. We had a great time, and hope you did too!

From the Studio Classes...

The Art School is pleased to present the annual student show From the Studio Classes. The exhibition is on view through July 26, 2014. This highly anticipated exhibition fills the galleries to capacity with a vibrant installation of over 200 works of art in the school's Mikhail Zakin and Café galleries. Exhibiting student art is an important part of the creative learning process. It builds community and gives each student a chance to share their progress with the public in a professional gallery. We are proud to showcase the work of Art School students in a fantastic, floor to ceiling, salon-style show!

Cafe Gallery: Summer Workshop Sampler

Susan Kasson Sloan

Every summer, The Art School at Old Church offers a variety of workshops taught by visiting artists and faculty. These workshops provide one or two day instruction ranging in different art mediums.  Samples of work for each workshop can be viewed in a new exhibition in the Café Gallery through June 15th. The workshop sampler exhibition will include work in painting, ceramics, jewelry, crochet, and photography. With a selection of student work and the instructors own art, the exhibition encourages students to see work that will be made in each workshop.

This exhibition includes works by the Art School’s talented instructors; Susan Beecher (ceramics), Harriet Barlaran Finck (mixed media/collage), Hank Gans (photography), Gary Godbee (drawing), Maud Guilfoyle (painting), Sharon Klass (photography), Janet Kohler (drawing/color theory), Paula Madawick (drawing), Stephanie Maddalena (jewelry), Beryl Maddalena (mixed media), Karen O’Neil (painting), Karen Pekelney (jewelry), David Shirey (ceramics), Susan Kasson Sloan (jewelry), Stacy Synder (ceramics), and Joe Terrone (painting).

Susan Beecher

The Art School is pleased to present these opportunities for artistic growth in new materials. Samples of work will be on display in the Café Gallery through June 15^th.  Come by the Art School to view the summer workshop samplers and make sure to register for one of our exciting summer workshops!