Painting by Alyssa Drake
After pledging to ride my bike everywhere, Wednesday evening offered an opportunity to visit an Open Studio walk at The Studio at Billings Forge in Frog Hollow. It was a great night to be out, see some new art, hang out with some friends and hear some live music (playing at the Firebox). Full story and photos after the jump.
Let's start with this disclaimer: I'm no art critic. Film critic, yes, art critic, despite working in the arts, no. So my basis for discussing this is about visiting this interesting project and seeing how the inaugural group of artists worked this summer. 'The Workshops at Billings Forge' is an interesting concept: spinning out of the success of the multi-use performance space, The Studio at Billings Forge, The Workshops is a new 3 month residency for artists to work and instruct. The management at Billings Forge convert 5 studio apartments along The Firebox Restaurant into studio workshops for artists. The deal: they each get a space for 3 months, while offering time to teach art to the youth that live in the Billings Forge community.
The initial group of artists from this summer were Jeff Cowie, Alyssa Drake, Jonathan Frechette, Matt Morello, and Kyle Andrew Phillips. Of them all, I'd only known Jeff Cowie via mutual friends, but had never seen his work, so I can feel free to slam his art (/sarcasm! I actually loved his surreal collage work! And I ended up spending the rest of the art opening in his workshop, which was a great environment. Jeff had set it up as if it were all still a workshop in the midst of art being created. Visitors weren't visiting a gallery but an artist finding inspiration for art and creating it while sitting around drinking cherry brandy and talking about the experience. Even fellow local artists Walter Wick and Sam Mckinniss stopped in to hang out and talk.
While Jonathan Frechette and Jeff Cowie were the veteran artists, seeing the presentation and art of new blood Alyssa Drake, Matt Morello, and Kyle Andrew Phillips was very inspiring for me. Matt Morello's studio was first and a fresh change from Cowie & Frechette's very chaotic spaces (as I said, clearly, they'd been caught in the act of creating art). Mr. Morello presented adaptations of cartoon and comic book panels and scenes, but with the characters absent. Only minor details of the classic characters were presented, often times resembling just the background waiting for the cartoon figure to be layered over it. Each piece was altered in various ways, sometimes to emphasize the action lines and cloud of confusion in cartoons, other times to detail a seemingly serene background. My favorites were of two cartoon nature scenes with the cartoon gun sound effect 'BLAM' on them. The violence inherit but missing offered much to the viewers' imagination. While there, Mr. Morello was still working on pieces, including a new technique of layering images over images.
The most professional looking gallery (sorry everyone else) was Mr. Phillips: one felt like they were entering a storefront art gallery in the Village, with the attention given to the set up. The process of creating art wasn't there, only the end result: an eloquent exhibit of detailed paintings of tools and backgrounds. Most notable standout was his tribute to the American artistEdward Hopper influenced. As an admirer of still lifes, I was incredibly impressed with his detailed series of tools from the forge.
The final workshop was Alyssa Drake, who along with Matt Morello and Kyle Phillips, is a graduate of the University of Hartford Art School. Miss Drake's workshop was an interesting combination of work in progress and gallery. Similarly, her work displayed a combination of techniques, from oil, to water color to illustration. As a former illustrator, I was very taken with her line work and color. Similarly, she presented her art on found and recycled pieces, from every day scraps of paper illustrated with colorful images of Mary to pieces of cardboard with detailed studies. As I told Miss Drake, this Open Studio made me look forward to the future works of all the artists. Equally inspiring was that this activity happened in the heart of a neighborhood in Hartford.
Photo by MiraHartford
Works by Jonathan Freshette
Collage by Jeff Cowie
Illustration by Matt Morello
Illustration by Matt Morello
Paintings by Alyssa Drake
Illustration by Alyssa Drake
Apologies to Mr. Phillips, I didn't get any photos of his art. To be fair, I don't think I would have done justice to his presentation. As it is, these simple iPhone camera shots don't justice to detailed work of these fine artists.
If you're interested in finding out more about Billings Forge and their projects, why not join their 'Farm to Table Dinner Fundraiser'
A special farm dinner showcasing
the best of the season’s harvest and supporting
the non-profit initiatives at
Billings Forge Community Works.
Thursday, September 17th, 6 pm
Billings Forge Farmers’ Market Green
539 Broad Street (next to Firebox), Hartford
Entertainment, auctions, food, wine &
a memorable evening.
Casual dress for an outdoor event.
0 comments:
Post a Comment