Drawing Line into Form

Works on Paper by Sculptors 

reviwed by Alec Clayton

The Weekly Volcano, March 7, 2013

 

Mark di Suvero (American, born 1933)
    Untitled (Study for Lady Day), 1972
    Mixed media on paper
    Sheet Overall: 58 × 69 1/2 in. (147.3 × 176.5 cm)
    Collection of BNY Mellon

Henry Moore (English, 1898-1986)
    Reclining Figure, 1972
    Felt tip pen, watercolor wash, and chalk on paper
    Image Overall: 11 × 15 in. (27.9 × 38.1 cm)
    Collection of BNY Mellon

Martin Creed (English, born 1968)
    Work No. 1367, 2012
    Watercolor on paper
    Sheet Overall: 12 × 10 in. (30.5 × 25.4 cm)
    Collection of BNY Mellon

The latest exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum, Drawing Line into Form: Works on Paper by Sculptors from the BNY Mellon Collection, explores the importance of drawing as a creative tool for sculptors.

The drawings in this show go far beyond studies for sculptures. In fact, there are few actually studies in the show. Most are two-dimensional works that stand alone regardless of their relationships to sculpture. They are, as a whole, damn fine drawings — strong, inventive and confident, and as good as anything by artists who work exclusively or wholly in two dimensions. There are drawings by up-and-coming artists and drawings by famous artists including Mark di Suvero, Richard Artschwager, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Tony Smith, John Chamberlain, Jim Dine, Barbara Hepworth, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman and Henry Moore, which you may never get another opportunity to see (museums are not given to collecting drawings by sculptors, but the BNY Mellon collection specializes in it). 

Even though the works in this show are called drawings, many are paintings in full color and in a wide variety of media.

There are a few figurative pieces or works that relate to the human figure, and there are a few architectural studies, but the vast majority of the works are abstract paintings with a decidedly edgy look.

“Senza Titola,” mixed media by Mario Merz, is a fascinating little line drawing that looks like a flying saucer.

There’s an atypical drawing in red ink and pencil on blue paper by Bourgeois. Also slightly atypical are two small oil on paper pieces by John Chamberlain. Famous for massive works made from crushed automobiles, his paintings in this show have a delicate touch.

Artschwager’s “Corner with Parquet” is a drawing of the corner of an empty room with a parquet floor that does strange things with perspective. This and a majority of the drawings in this show look at the oddities of forms in space — an obvious concern of sculptors but of particular interest when depicted on a flat surface.

Martin Creed’s “Work No. 1367” is a brilliant watercolor that reverberates with optical movement.

Di Suvero’s “Untitled (Study fo Lady Day) is in many ways more impactful than his large steel sculptures. The same can be said for Joel Shapiro’s “Untitled, Rome,” charcoal on paper, a minimalist “V” shape like stacked metal bars with wonderfully black blacks and delicate grays.

I particularly like Al Taylor’s untitled drawing in acrylic on newsprint that balances four oddly angled structures and two very large works by Jim Hodges, “Arena I” and “Arena II.”

Curator Rock Hushka has done a terrific job of placement, grouping certain works by theme, such as a wall of architectural drawings including the Artschwager, a Urs Fishcher drawing of a room and Franz West’s “Reminiszenz (Patentolurinoir),” gouache and collage on paper, which is another room drawing but which also functions as a delicately balanced abstraction; and by placing Paul Noble’s “Mountain Sketch,” a humorous homage to Henry Moore, next to two Moore drawings. He has also included next to many of the drawings photographs of sculptures by the same artists, many of which are public works installed in Washington state in places like the Olympia Sculpture Garden in Seattle and on the campus of Western Washington University in Bellingham.

 [Tacoma Art Museum, Line Into Form, Wednesdays–Sundays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Third Thursdays 5–8 p.m. through May 26, adult $10, student/military/senior (65+) $8, family $25 (2 adults and up to 4 children under 18), 5 and younger free, Third Thursdays free from 5-8 pm., 253.272.4258, www.TacomaArtMuseum.org]

WWBHD: What would Benny Hill do?

Lend Me a Tenor at Centerstage

Max (Daniel Wood) and Maggie (Kate Alden) photo by Michelle Smith Lewis

reviewed by Michael Dresdner


Forget subtlety and dramatic nuance. Lend Me a Tenor at Centerstage is farce in its purest form; fast-paced humor filled with improbable situations, mistaken identity, physical comedy, verbal gags, and very broad portrayals of pure, bawdy nonsense. Its sole purpose is to make you laugh, and this outstanding cast, directed by Vince Brady, is certain to do so.


Lend Me A Tenor runs through March 24. Friday and Saturday evenings at 8; Sunday afternoons at 2.
Tickets: 253.661.1444 and www.centerstagetheatre.com

Read the complete review

Please do not buy my...

Please do not buy prints on canvas from my sites on artistwebsites.com or fineartsamerica.com. I set up these sites so I could sell prints made from digital images of my paintings. Through these sites you can buy prints at different sizes, framed or unframed, on paper, aluminum, canvas, etc. I would love for you to buy prints, just not on canvas. The prints on canvas look too much like original paintings, yet they are not. Anyone with a discerning eye can tell the difference. I don't want anyone seeing a print from one of my paintings on your wall and thinking its a painting. Or, worse yet, a fake.

The artistswebsite site does not allow artists a choice of what type prints are available. They do, however, allow us to choose what sizes are available and I make sure that all of mine are smaller than the original to prevent them from looking too much like fake paintings.

Urban detritus

Marsha Glaziere’s roadside paintings at Fulcrum

reviewed by Alec Clayton

The Weekly Volcano Feb. 28, 2013

 

Marsha Glaziere, "Schuster Parkway I" acrylic and mixed media

I was impressed with Marsha Glaziere’s paintings at Fulcrum Gallery.

There are only seven paintings in the show, but they are large. They fill the space and demand attention.

Glaziere’s acrylic and mixed-media paintings picture the gritty industrial side of cities with a focus on interweaving networks of highway overpasses and ramps. The city in question is clearly Tacoma although something like a kaleidoscopic view of Seattle’s Safeco Field makes an appearance in one of her paintings.

These paintings are raw, gritty and bombastic, with collage elements integrated into the painting as well as any I’ve ever seen. She uses wire mesh, wood, metal, paper, corrugated cardboard and other materials to create textures and hints of imagery that peek out here and there like remnants of old billboards showing through where more recent ones have been ripped open. 

Despite dense and complex imagery and materials her compositions are simple with, in most paintings, no more than two or three major forms delineated by sections of road or a scrim of buildings. These larger forms set up strong directional sweeps of motion that are highly dramatic.

Gallery owner Oliver Doriss describes her work this way: “The only way to examine a departed culture is through its legacy of artifacts. Like the Egyptian pyramids and the Pantheon of Rome we shall be known as The Great Road Builders. Marsha Glaziere reworks these monumental formations into intimate landscapes. Coaxing the essence of sun-dappled glen from visually neglected industrial spaces. The resulting mosaic of color, repurposed imagery, and textured physical objects mimic the frenetic vibration of our contemporary culture.”

“Schuster Parkway I” is light and airy in atmospheric tones of blue and white despite heavy materials with a view of the parkway looking up from midway between a lower and upper expanse. “Schuster Parkway II” offers a much heavier look at the same structure with strong movement from different directions converging to a point a little off center where they meet like slipping tectonic plates.

“View From the Viaduct (Tacoma)” is the one referred to earlier with Safeco Field in the background. With this recognizable image and a couple of cranes and industrial buildings and Mt. Rainier in the background, this “Tacoma” painting is set in Seattle. With its long horizontal format it is a more peaceful painting than any of her others and also the safest, most accessible and most gimmicky — due primarily to the inclusion of a woman easel painter on the left. 

Also fascinating are many of the small details that pop out upon close inspection. Notice the way the sky shows through the pillars in “Schuster Parkway I” and the chain on the left, the map on the right and the Art Work logo that shows up in more than one of her paintings.

This is an excellent show of powerful paintings by an artist I’d love to see much more of.

[Fulcrum Gallery, Roadside, noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday and Fridays and by appointment, through April 12, 1308 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.250.0520]

 March 12th - April 19^th

Black clad and black hearted

L to R: Dylan Twiner, Nathan Rice

The Woman in Black at Lakewood Playhouse

reviewed by Michael Dresdner

If a classic ghost story rings your bell, Lakewood Playhouse has just the ticket for you, literally. The Woman in Black, directed by Beau M. K. Prichard, is an old style chiller that starts with a puzzling but innocent premise, and slowly unfolds to a decidedly upsetting conclusion.

Read the complete review

A note of explanation:Once in a while I feel that I need to explain to my readers why I am posting reviews by Michael Dresdner. When The News Tribune cut my column from weekly to monthly I announced that I would continue reviewing plays in Olympia on my blog but that I would not be able to review as many Tacoma area plays because of the cost of commuting. At that point Michael offered to review Tacoma shows for me. I've know Michael since I first began writing theater reviews, and I knew that he was knowledgeable and had discerning taste, so I gratefully accepted his offer. When he started his own blog I decided it would work better if we posted blurbs and linksw from one another's blogs. This way we are able to help each other have wider coverage of area theater and hopefully our readers will reap the rewards and the theater companies will get more butts in seats.

Glorious madness

The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged (revised) at TLT

from left: Alex Smith, Luke Amundson, Coleman Hagerman

reviewed by
by Michael Dresdner

With her unerring eye for humor and a truly amazing cast, director Suzy Willhoft has brought one of the stage’s funniest properties to a new and greater height of hilarity and lunacy. The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged (revised), now playing at Tacoma Little Theatre, is the update of a screamingly funny mishmash of all (yes ALL) of the Bard’s plays delivered not in warp speed, but rather in warped speed. Along with out-and-out mockery of Shakespeare, there’s wild physical comedy, bawdy jokes, malapropisms, cross-dressing, mondegreens, and plenty of sexual innuendo.

It may seem like an onslaught, but it’s only a three person cast; Luke Amundson, Coleman Hagerman, and Alex Smith, all of whom are well beyond outstanding.

Read the complete review.