the more people go gaga over AI /
the more – I go deep into . . handmade.
‘LIGHT FROM WATER: Reflection and Refraction’ . . .
HEIDI HOWARD & ESTEBAN CABEZA de BACA, with LIZ PHILLIPS
AUG 19 – NOV 26, 2023
WAVE HILL / 4900 Independence Avenue, Bronx, NY 10471
‘Light from Water’ . . . was organized by Gabriel de Guzman, Director of Arts and Chief Curator, with Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger, Curator of Visual Arts / Wave Hill
ALL PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH, SEPT 17, 2023 – WAVE HILL
HEIDI HOWARD, CERAMIC VASE.
“Light from Water presents new works by HEIDI HOWARD and ESTEBAN CABEZA de BACA that share a deep-seated connection with the natural world. Featured in the exhibition are collaborative works made by both artists, as well as portraits, self-portraits, and installations by Howard, landscape paintings and sculptures by Cabeza de Baca, and a multi-media (sound) sculpture by LIZ PHILLIPS.”
~GABRIEL de GUZMAN
ESTEBAN CABEZA de BACA, Installation over fireplace, Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill
“The spirit of collaboration is integral to the work of the artists in ‘Light from Water’, acknowledging the greater communities within which they feel a sense of belonging.”
~GABRIEL de GUZMAN
ESTEBAN CABEZA de BACA, ceramic figure / with a snippet of one his smaller landscapes.
ESTEBAN CABEZA de BACA, clay figure on the other side of the mantelpiece.
same figure, different angle.
if that figure isn’t imbued with a spirit – then, I don’t know what, is.
ESTEBAN CABEZA de BACA, clay vessels in the fireplace.
close-up / clay vessels . . . speaking to me, for sure.
ESTEBAN CABEZA de Baca, ‘Embrace of the Serpent’, 2023 / multi-media.
HEIDI HOWARD, painted mirror.
in Heidi’s room, we also find . . lively spirits, which manifest more as portraits – of real people.
Heidi Howard, ‘Anna Tome’, 2022.
acrylic on canvas / 60 x 40 in.
(Painting courtesy of the artist & Garth Greenan Gallery)
HEIDI HOWARD, ceramic vases.
these vases struck me as very unique, expressionistic yet secretive, and again – imbued with spirits.
Heidi Howard, ‘Ashkenazi Doll’, 2023 / ceramic vase.
a visitor beside, HEIDI HOWARD’s . . ‘Alex Chowaniec’, 2022.
acrylic on canvas, portrait.
LIZ PHILLIPS, surrounded by HEIDI HOWARD’S work.
Liz had an entrancing sound piece of her own, in the room, next door.
EMERSON BORAKOVE, 1/2 of “a very loud band”, titled: untitled noise night, with Shiloh Blue.
you might remember the name / we wrote them up, this past summer.
turns out, Emerson is a former ‘Sound & Interactive Media’ student, of Liz’s / at Purchase College, SUNY.
note: that’s Heidi Howard’s painting, ‘Pond’, 2023 / acrylic on canvas, 77 x 102 in., on the back wall.
a second set of photos – posts shortly.
ALL PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH. Wave Hill, Bronx, NY – Sept 17, 2023.
~HEIDI HOWARD, ESTEBAN CABEZA de BACA , LIZ PHILLIPS / ‘LIGHT FROM WATER’ / WAVE HILL / BRONX NY / up thru . . NOV 26 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | November 3rd, 2023, 12:22pm
when is a calling card – not a ‘card’ . . ?
when it’s a . . . . rectangular, STAINED GLASS WINDOW – of course.
‘THE GLASS SHOW’ . . . . OPENS SAT OCT 28 / 4 – 7 PM
and runs thru . . . . DEC 31, 2023
HALSEY McKAY GALLERY, 79a Newton Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937
a big & diverse group show – of 25 ARTISTS . . . !!!!!!
CURATED BY: DAVID KENNEDY CUTLER
with:
TAUBA AUERBACH, LAYO BRIGHT, A.K. BURNS, JONNY CAMPOLO, GRAHAM COLLINS, ANNEKE EUSSEN, MARLEY FREEMAN, MARTHA FRIEDMAN, JOANNE GREENBAUM, FRANKIE HAINES, ELIAS HANSEN, JONGHO LEE, SUZANNE MCCLELLAND, STEVE MILLER, SAM MOYER, HEIDI NORTON, SARA GREENBERGER RAFFERTY, UGO RONDINONE, LARA SAGET, MERET SEGER, BEVERLEY SEMMES, LOUISE SHELDON, JUSTIN STERLING, R. BLAIR SULLIVAN, JEFFREY TRANCHELL
JEFFREY TRANCHELL, ‘Calling Card’, Stained Glass Window, 2023
Jeff is taking orders for customized commissions . . . !!
989-277-8663 is his phone no. / thus; ‘Calling Card’ . . . !!
Photo: courtesy Jeffrey Tranchell
‘Calling Card’ by Jeffrey Tranchell, who is seen here at left, with the show’s curator, David Kennedy Cutler.
image via Instagram @jeffreytranchell
top: Stained Glass hanging lamp by JONNY CAMPOLO / Louis Comfort Tiffany . . . roll over !!
lower: ‘Calling Card’, a stained glass window / rectangle by Jeffrey Tranchell, from the inside.
image via Instagram @jonnycampolo
~JEFFREY TRANCHELL, JONNY CAMPOLO & many others . . / ‘THE GLASS SHOW’ / curated by DAVID KENNEDY CUTLER / OPENS SAT OCT 28 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 27th, 2023, 4:57pm
serving up, WALT WHITMAN . . . !!!
talkin’ about: doing donuts*, writing poetry, being free – and appreciating NATURE /
and, American history /
*making marks on the landscape.
JAKE SHORE / LADYBUG GALLERY, PROVIDENCE RI / OCT 15 – NOV 12, 2023
finally got to see, some install shots . . . . . . !!!!!!!!!
well, all I can say is: dollars to . . . . donuts !!!!!
JAKE SHORE, ‘Walt Whitman Bag’, 2023 / edition of 10 + 1 AP
image via the artist on Instagram @idiot1000 (Jake Shore)
that Ladybug logo / is too, much !!!
~JAKE SHORE / LADYBUG GALLERY, PROVIDENCE RI / RHODE ISLAND |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 27th, 2023, 4:09pm
EARTH WORKS, subtext: south-west desert
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, the more they stay – the same /
Making . . . TRACKS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH-WEST – DESERT.
DOLLARS to DONUTS . . . !!
I CAME ACROSS THIS PHOTO, RECENTLY:
‘SAND HILLS, Near Carson Sink, Nevada / Photographed by TIMOTHY O’SULLIVAN in . . 1867.’
FIVE BEST – ON THE AMERICAN WEST:
TRACY DAUGHERTY / The author, most recently of ‘Larry McMurtry: A Life’
The WALL STREET JOURNAL / BOOKS / SAT/SUN, OCTOBER 14-15, 2023.
KEN BLOCK, RIP . . . doing ‘desert donuts’ / in the Utah desert / 2014.
FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH by JIM MAGNAN / (with gallery ambient light),
‘BLAST’ Book Launch, & exhibit / East Village, NYC
Installation photo: Nancy Smith, Nov. 19, 2014.
another shot of the “Blast” book launch & exhibit /
a JIM MANGAN – KEN BLOCK collaboration / DASHWOOD BOOKS, NYC
at Ave-A Gallery, now defunct / East Village, NYC, Nov 19, 2014
Photo: Nancy Smith, Nov 19, 2014.
~JIM MANGAN, KEN BLOCK, ca. 2014 & TIMOTHY O’SULLIVAN ca. 1867 / DESERT . . DONUTS |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 27th, 2023, 3:19pm
THURS OCT 19 / 6 – 8 PM
DASHWOOD BOOKS – 33 Bond Street, Downtown NYC
@DASHWOOD_BOOKS: “Please join us tonite, Oct 19th 6-8PM, at Dashwood for the launch & booksigning for Jim Mangan’s ‘THE CRICK’ / published by Twin Palms. In the crumbling community of a fundamentalist Mormon Sect, the boys who remained behind reinvent themselves as modern-day cowboys. ‘The Crick’… is a meditation on religious succession, patriarchal systems, zealotry and fraternity… Mangan’s pictures transport the reader into an alternate reality of the boys’ making: where they explore the rugged terrain of southern Utah, northern Arizona and southern Nevada on horseback, emulating old-time explorers of the Western frontier.”
read: the whole statement on IG / @dashwood_books
artlovers editorial note: and, that’s “European Colonial” / old-time explorers, to just to include a little ‘radical’ contemporary, pro-indigenous . . ‘salt’, into the great USA desert mix of many, many grains of sand, time, and politics, including the way, way-back / Ancestral Puebloans, Mogollan, Hohokam, and Patayan peoples.
JIM MANGAN, from ‘The Crick’, Twin Palms, Publisher, 2023
photo via Instagram courtesy: @dashwood_books
JIM MANGAN, from ‘The Crick’, Twin Palms, Publisher, 2023
photo via Instagram courtesy: @dashwood_books
JIM MANGAN, from ‘The Crick’, Twin Palma, Publisher, 2023
photo via Instagram courtesy: @dashwood_books
JIM MANGAN, ‘The Crick’,
Twin Palms, 2023
ISBN: 9781936611225
Condition: Fine
Hardcover, First Edition
SIGNED 10 x 13 in. / 124 pages
$88.
~JIM MANGAN . . ‘THE CRICK’ / BOOK LAUNCH & SIGNING / DASHWOOD BOOKS / THURS OCT 19 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 19th, 2023, 2:41pm
I wrote up a little archival / look back, to . . . Nov 19, 2014
the NYC book launch – of the hugely successful, ‘BLAST’,
a one-time collaboration, between photographer JIM MANGAN, and legendary extreme rally driver, KEN BLOCK (RIP).
‘Blast’ . . . was a limited edition, Dashwood Books Publication, 2014 /
the photo-based article – just published on Noah Becker’s WHITEHOT MAGAZINE.
see: WHITEHOT MAGAZINE / ‘Art Lovers New York: Tripping Down Memory Lane with Jim Mangan, and recently deceased Ken Block’ /
‘Episode 3: Blast-off Jimmy, and the King of the Kens’
archival photo: NANCY SMITH, NYC. Nov 19, 2014.
~JIM MANGAN & RALLY DRIVER KEN BLOCK / A LOOK BACK on WHITEHOT / OCT 2023 |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 19th, 2023, 2:22pm
Yesterday – was cancelled because of rain storm / but . . TODAY – IS ON !!!
SUN OCT 15 / 1 PM – DARK !!
‘THE A LOT FAIR’ . . “is an artist-driven hootenany organized by . . .
ABBY LLOYD & CHRIS RETSINA . . .
ART LOT BROOKLYN, 206 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
image via IG @artlotbrooklyn
~’THE A LOT FAIR’ / ORGANIZED BY ABBY LLOYD & CHRIS RETSINA / ART LOT BROOKLYN / IS ON !!! TODAY !!! SUN OCT 15 !!! |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 15th, 2023, 12:20pm
LADYBUG’S – SECOND SHOW . . . !!
‘JAKE SHORE’
OPENS – SUN OCT 15 / 7 – 9 PM
AND RUNS THRU . . . NOV 12, 2023
LADYBUG GALLERY, 35 BOWEN STREET, APT 2 / PROVIDENCE, RI / RHODE ISLAND
see: @ladybugpvd
~JAKE SHORE / LADYBUG GALLERY / PROVIDENCE, RI / RHODE ISLAND |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 13th, 2023, 9:18am
SHOUT OUT TO: JEFFREY TRANCHELL / and . . . DONUTS & CIDER !!
‘FUEL, POWER, GLORY!!’ . . . .
SUNDAY SERMON by young RALPH HILL / ACCOMPANIED by JONNY COMPOLO
who also made – the fab flyer !!!!
SUN OCT 15, 2023 – 2 PM
with . . . CIDER & DONUTS !!!!!
LAVENDER COUNTRY, DETROIT / @lavendercountrydetroit
12333 MACKAY, DETROIT
on the right, young RALPH HILL, accompanied by . . . JONNY CAMPOLO
Photo via Instagram @jeffreytranchell
~JONNY CAMPOLO . . POSTER ART / SUNDAY SERMON by RALPH HILL / LAVENDER COUNTRY, DETROIT |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 13th, 2023, 8:56am
‘PERPETUAL SCREW’ / GROUP SHOW
INTERNATIONAL OBJECTS
Perpetual Screw ?
be careful – what you wish for / as the world turns,
towards the end game of a future entropy.
this, fairly ‘cold-hearted’ exhibit, and, I say that with admiration, but . . playful exhibit /
takes talk about craft vs design vs art – to the wall, so to speak; despite the folksy, text-driven exhibit mission statement hand-out, with it’s brief, vintage tales of the first ‘found objects’ to be exhibited for their own intrinsic shapes, and consequent beauty, and, not so much for their utilitarian, everyday function.
for me, the work presented here comes more heavily down on the side of design, rather than craft / even though the over-all theme would be: tools. when you are talking about de-construction, up-cycling, mutation, and customization, to me that is design, and contemporary design at that. and, seriously, what’s wrong with that ?
craft, or design . . done well = art.
I personally, regard craft more as older determination, or label / coming from the days when ‘objects’ were truly hand-made, i.e. crafted / as opposed to mass-made, and, then industrial meaning by factory, which still could mean man-made decoration, etc. Early European ‘art’ was a much more glorified, religious-based expression. going back further, to earlier civilizations / I don’t think there was much difference between art or craft, except perhaps some things were more functional, others more decorative, and still others, more ritualistic.
I think the concept of design comes in, with the growing ‘fanning out’ of art, such as portrait painting, stenciling, calligraphy, and highly skilled porcelain, just to name a few. It’s a kind of less ‘spiritual/divine’ / and involves a more self-conscious human mind-set, of vernacular ‘invention’, and ‘function’.
A lot of the objects in ‘Perpetual Screw’, case-in-point: Max Heiges’ taped chairs and bench . . celebrate ‘De-construction’, and also, often; it’s sister concept of ‘sustainability’. these are both fairly new concepts, or ‘creative conceits’; within the vast history of art, and craft / both, bottom-line focused on ‘the making of…’ / with no inkling of global ‘end game’.
Deconstruction and sustainability, are fairly contemporary, newly-birthed topics, and in my mind that makes them lean more into design, and consciousness / vis-a-vie craft, in that they also concern less purely ‘artisanal’ skill / and, more ‘intent’.
though it’s also curious to think, that tools, and the crafted / objects which they can make, carve, incise, spin, melt, and cobble together / especially in years gone by . . and by especially indigenous peoples, were said to hold ‘spirits’; while many of the ‘twisted’, or manipulated, customized, and up-cycled tools, and/or their results / which we see in this exhibit / just might be talking about ‘entropy’, and the ‘new now’ / as opposed to encapsulating ‘spirituality’ / though things take a turn more to the playful, than the dire, this time – around.
and turns out a short week later, the world can take a turn to the dire, all on it’s own.
MAX HEIGES, ‘Tall Chair, (Lime Green), 2023.
steel, plastic ratchet straps / 47 x 16 x 22 in.
so great, how this was placed, almost hidden /
like a . . second thought /
and, then when you catch sight of it – you wonder:
well, is it safe to sit on ?
knowing a few previous works by this artist, I would venture to say that the apparent ‘fragility’ of the chair is a mere ruse, and a much hoped for (design) illusion / and, that its underpinnings are indeed, fairly stout, and strong. it’s a bit of an ode, to the history of a specific kind of chair-making, starting with early twig / basket-inspired woven cane, to the more fabric-driven Shaker chairs, with their handwoven-tape seats, and backs, peaking in the 1930s. as well as tip-of-the deconstructed hat – to modern garden / patio furniture. it’s all about . . illusion and disorder / fun and decorative ‘vernacular’, high design . . of a lowly object.
MAX HEIGES, ratchet chair, 2023.
again, the staging was totally forlorn and yet, conceptually playful..
when everything is all cold concrete, and steel, of a very minimal utilitarian architecture, a tab ‘futuristic’ too, you do want some . . . ‘secrets’, some incongruent tangents.
and, perhaps a touch of ‘romantic’, or non-sentimental ? . . insouciance, anybody ?
MAX HEIGES, ‘Yellow Bench’, 2023.
steel, plastic ratchet straps.
Photos: NANCY SMITH
@shakermuseum: “No. 3 production rocking chair with arms, South Family, Mount Lebanon, NY / ca. 1875-1900
Object ID:2008.8.1. / Chair constructed of maple, with taped seat and back of bright red. Turnings stained dark. ‘Production’ refers to the fact that this chair was produced for sale, rather than (Shaker) village use. All Shakers were matched to some kind of handwork to benefit the community, which includes making items for sale. The Shaker Chair industry was an important source of income, and the South and Second Families at Mount Lebanon were particularly known for their chairs.”
image & text / via Instagram @shakermuseum
~MAX HEIGES . . TAPED CHAIRS / ‘Perpetual Screw’ / with a side of Shaker |
Posted in The Bomb | By Nancy Smith | October 10th, 2023, 1:44pm
