Beacon Open Studios weekend; some images

The Mill's movie set-like exterior.

The Beacon Open Studios was pretty colossal this weekend.  I was only able to make it to a portion of the spaces.  Here are a few images of what I saw.

 

Above and below:  Stephan Spaccarelli's space at the Mill.

 

 

Above, Greg Slick's studio and below, Sara Corson's  portrait setup, both at the Mill.

 

 

 Alice Vaughn's Hudson River Bindery workspace at Beacon Studios - which is a name I've given up using.  Bulldog is what spills from most folk's lips still.

 

 

Jean-Marc Superville Sovak's stack in the library gallery of the old high school

 

 

Kirsten Kucer's drawings.

 

 

Theresa Gooby's napkin installation above, and her plastic bag works below.

 

 

Thomas Huber's work above and below.

 

 

Richard Bruce's studio.

 

Virtually everywhere I went, I encountered this baby stroller woman, let's call her "Kathy Feighery" and her adorable daughter whom we'll simply refer to as "Tess".  I swear she was intentionally following me.  She did it so well that her arrival in a location actually preceeded mine...very clever.  There was an episode of South Park where Ginger kids (a term I had never heard) run amok, led by the character Cartman.  Obviously, I was starting to get nervous.

Elia Gurna's work in her studio.

 

Outside Stephen Dickens' and Marsha Aliaga's Dirt Floor Studio.

 

Marsha's stair installation above and some of Stephen's paintings below.

 

The next several images are from my own open studio:

 

Below, some of the goodies provided by the Funky Baker.  I'm really trying to pimp her stuff. MMm, its good. These marble topped brownies that a surprisingly rich, Rich cocoa flavor.

 

 

 My now-upstair-neighbor, Marc Schreibman's photos on the front of the house.

 Above:  Elia Gurna's installation on our porch.  Below:  Inside the kitchen, Peter Iannarelli's work appropriated from byproducts of my studio labors.

 

 

 Stephen Dickens and friends krafting sound at the BOS after party at Spire Studios.

 

 Indeed.

Kudos to Theresa Gooby in pulling this off, with the assisstance of BACA, and other helpers.  My impression is that it was very successful over all.  Saturday seemed awash with visitors and Sunday featured a steady stream of people despite the threatening rain. 

A survey is being prepared to collect the feedback from artists which will shape the event next year.  And indeed, there will be an event next year, Theresa's already laying out her approach.

If anyone has any thoughts, any input from the weekend and what they saw, throw down some comments here.

I now have many more artist links to add to the sidebar.

Kork is the new Mahogany

Beautiful Dreamer by Elia Gurna.

kork, the art exhibition juggernaut that is certain to bring visual culture in Pougkeepsie to its knees received a blush enducing mention on C-monster.net yesterday.
I've mentioned the bulletin board project in passing in a post about my studio visit with Elia Gurna. Elia's work will be on the board through the end of the month, followed by Marc Willhite of Denver in January and February.
Stay tuned for more details.

Meet yer Maykr: Elia Gurna

Early in October, I paid a visit to Elia Gurna's studio in the Beacon Studios building. Of course, I snapped some images.

The work in her studio was predominated by her lushly hued paintings and blanched sculptures of silk flowers and plastic tchotchkies. The objects collaged together create hieratic verticals and are unified under layers of white enamel. I was pleased to learn that the constituent material is resurrected from a previous life and generally it is sourced from within her own home. This knowledge pleases me for two reasons. First, one who hordes likes to know he's not alone and secondly, because the forms of the sculpture take their cues from Elia's intuitive play with what's available. They grow out of what is - responding to that condition, not negating it as does a fully premeditated work. The little item in the foreground in the above image is sitting on a plinth of stacked Pakistani (I believe) chewing gum, which I believe Elia said is at least a decade old.

Though all of this work has been greatly influenced by her becoming a mother last year, the tiny pieces lining the windowsill (above) are the most directly affected by this change in her life. What she calls her 'Sculptures for Mice' are works of opportunity made during the sporadic and fleeting moments of art making that present themselves to the mother of a one year old.

There's such a stark chromatic difference between Elia's paintings and sculptures. In surface and form they but two sides of the same coin - oozy, glossy, dimensional. But where the paintings are blindingly vivid, the sculptures are subdued, with hints of the underlying objects' inherent, often garish, color barely bleeding through.

Elia is the second artist to go on the board of kork - the newest and most exciting project space for contemporary art in Poughkeepsie, NY. kork is located on the wall above the photocopier in the office of Bailey Browne CPA and Associates. The work Elia created for kork will be installed this week and remain through December.