Friday, March 12, 2010

606 State Street Gallery

There is a new art gallery in Bristol TN / VA!
"606 State Street Gallery" will open in March 2010. A Co-op artist's gallery, the downtown location on the Tennessee side, nestled between the many famous antique stores and beside a pottery, the beautifully refinished vintage space is dazzling.
look for my paintings and sculptures in the windows and in the far back left corner.
You'll see them!

"22 Women" Exhibition at Blue Wind Mill Gallery

Friday March 12th 2010 is the opening of "22 Women", the first artist exhibition of the season for Blue Wind Mill Gallery in Abingdon, VA. My latest Painting "Waiting for the Cure" incorporates a real tobacco leaf and a shed snake skin into the mixed media painting on linen. It is a different direction for me, in that it works with the ideas and concepts of barn. slats of light, barn architectural shapes, the feeling of being inside an old Appalachian barn rather than a more realistic representation.

Lecture at Ringling College of Art and Design

I was invited back to my Alma Mater to lecture to the senior students at Ringling College of Art and Design. It is quite gratifying to be welcomed "home", have time to discuss art and politics and the politics of art with former professors over an Italian meal, visit old artists friends both from school and from outside of school, and talk serious shop with the new crop of artists.
We drove like crazy barely outrunning the grasp of a major snow storm, heading south. Stopped in Atlanta to see theLeonardo DiVinci show, it was amazing and pertinent, before heading to Sarasota. After a memoralble time there, we scooted over to Savannah for Valentine's Day. What a lovely city that is!

"Real(ists)" Exhibition, Sarasota FL

The "Real(ists)" Exhibition curated by Kevin Dean of The Selby Gallery at Ringling College of Art and Design was an excellent concept with international top notch talent displayed to illustrate the many ways in which contemporary artists are using inspiration from the real world to create art.
"Tea Time for Darfur" was included in the show, my cocklebur / burdock jumbo sized tea set that raises political and moral questions about the ongoing tragedy in Darfur.
Dean writes in the beautiful 40 page full color catalogue about my work;
Unpleasant and Shifting Realities
Equally disturbing is Val Lyle's tea service made from cockleburs. The title refers to a real nightmare. Lyle called it Tea Time for Darfur (from the Sticky Subjects Series.) the sticky subject here is the death from starvation, disease and war of an estimated 300,000 people in the former British Colony, and our inability to stop it.