WSG, Family & Friends

WSG Invites Family & Friends
February 23 - April 4, 2010
reception: March 12, 6-9pm

That's right, folks! We invited family members and friends who make art to take part in this show. Artists from 9 years old on up have work in the gallery for this show. People making work in plaster, porcelain, oils, watercolor, printmaking, photography and mixed media are represented here and the artists are from Michigan, Ohio and South Carolina.

Be sure to stop by and see the giant doll house with an elaborate story and riddle to solve!

Natural Landscapes

natural landscapes
Karin Wagner Coron

January 5 - February 21, 2010

reception: Jan. 8, 2010, 6 - 9pm

Karie paints the landscape of Michigan with a special attention to the skies in this show. She has a talent for capturing the vastness of the sky and its humbling nature, noticing subtleties and bringing them to the canvas in a way that makes the viewer say, "Yes, I've felt that way when I've seen the sky."

Visitors to WSG during Karie's show will step in the gallery and stop immediately inside the door to catch their breath. Her work transports the viewer to a favorite place, physically or metaphysically. Landscape can do that.

Karie took her camera on a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, prior to her show. She snapped photos on the way up and back, drinking in the beauty of Michigan. When she returned to her studio, she chose the photos to use as a stepping off point and brought the landscapes to life with her favorite media - oil on canvas.

This show is a great break to the cold, gray winter in Michigan. However, one of my favorite paintings is the large, square-format painting of a winter sky straight ahead, as you enter the gallery. Karie captures the subtle coloration and glow of the sky in a way that stops me in my tracks every time I enter the gallery.

Holiday show

WSG Holiday Show

December 8, 2009 - January 3, 2010

Reception, Friday, December 11, 7 - 10 pm

Our Holiday show is full of surprises! We have pieces of all sizes and media. The space as you enter the gallery is hung with paintings, drawings, hand-pulled prints, photography work and felted wool hats. On the pedestals, you'll find bronze sculpture, mixed media sculpture, books, recycled wool mittens, porcelain and stoneware pieces. Something for everyone!

We've tried something new for this Holiday Show. Each artist has produced several smaller-scale pieces, in addition to their larger-scale pieces so visitors to the gallery will have a broad range of pieces at a broad range of price-points and can choose gifts for yourself or others!

In addition to our member-artists, the following visiting artists will also be on display:

Pat Truzzi, John Lilley, Matruka Sherman, Maria Ruggiero, Ruthann Baker and Margaret Parker.

Figures & Spaces - paintings by Nora Venturelli

NORA VENTURELLI

Figures & Spaces

October 27 - December 6, 2009, Opening reception November 6, 6-9pm

Also showing are gallery member-artists and the following visiting artists:

Ruthanne Baker, John Lilley, Chris McCauley, Margaret Parker, Pat Truzzi, Maria Ruggiero and Matruka Sherman

As you walk into WSG, you have 3 choices as to where you can indulge your eye.

1. Straight ahead, on the title wall, are 3 still life paintings, each with a mannequin, a wooden frame and a rectangular piece of paper as the objects. Venturelli has set up a challenge for herself in these pieces - a very limited palette of khakis, browns and off-white colors are used to define the objects, visually pulling you into the spaces with the complex layers of shadows and the illusion of depth.

2. To your left is a grouping of 5 oil paintings - figures in dynamic poses, dramatic colors capturing the figures moving, changing poses. One model super-imposed atop himself almost seems to be struggling to release himself from the canvas. Another seems to be moving back and forth through the deep spaces Venturelli has created.

and your 3rd decadent choice is:

To your right, is a grouping of large-scale drawings - 46 x36". Venturelli's love for the figure is truly evident in these charcoal and pastel pieces. Their quiet power makes you stop...breathe... and stare in awe.

September 15 - October 25, 2009

Beyond Words - A Celebration of Book Arts

curated by Barbara Brown

Includes work by artists Char Bacon, Ruth Bardenstein, Mona Diane Benton, Barbara Brown, Catherine Hightower, Alvey Jones, W. Wayne Jones, Julia Miller, Ben Reynaert, Sally Rose, Susan Skarsgard, Pati Scobey, Graceann Warn, Howard White, and Elaine Wilson

See this link to an incredible review of this gorgeous show!

http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/arts-and-entertainment-101809-wsg-beyond-words/

Opening Reception: Friday October 2, 7-10 pm

Gallery Book Artist Panel Discussion: Sunday, October 4, 2pm

Talk by Visiting Artist Pat Truzzi: Sunday, September 20, 2pm

Also showing are all gallery member-artists and the following visiting artists:

Ruthanne Baker, John Lilley, Chris McCauley, Margaret Parker, Pat Truzzi, and Maria Ruggiero

Middy Potter's Art and Math: a sweeping vision from classic to modern

Middy Potter's versatile art life ranges so widely a blog post can barely scan the highlights.

His show at WSG running through September 13 demonstrates the reach. Here's a look at some of the works at his studio.

This is the logarithmic spiral in progress. It's related to the Fibonacci spiral and the "golden spiral."

Here, a red geometric elliptic hyperbolloid contrasts with the green grass:



These two mosaics reside on his sunroom floor and foreshadow the large pyramid in the gallery, as well as the spiral design:



Here is a look at how his works appear, first in progress at his studio and then as final versions in the WSG.

This cube shows Middy's penchant for art play: "It's fun to do sculpture related to geometry," he says.

At his studio:



And in the gallery:



A polyhedron-fish uses a Platonic solid dating from ancient Greece and contemporary fish form. Here is the work at Middy's studio:



Here is the final product at the gallery:



This is the mosaic pyramid inside the gallery door, referenced above in his sunroom mosaics:



This cyclide form was invented by a French naval engineer. Here is the cyclide in the studio, next to his double cone:



At the gallery:



These spirals were formed by wrapping strips of various woods along a cylinder:



These works are the classic counterpoint to his silver people:



You can see these pieces and more at Middy Potter's "Art and Math" exhibition at the WSG Gallery, located at 306 S. Main street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. The gallery is situated between Le Dog and The Ark. His show runs from August 4 - September 13, 2009. We hope to see you there!

Marlee Hoffman: On technique and being In the Moment

by Martha Rock Keller

Marlee talked with me in the gallery about her painting and her technique - all of it enhanced by the focused close observation shown by all the great realist painters and by being "in the moment."

She begins each day with a 3 mile jog and an attentiveness to "smelling the roses." "It's all about getting as much as I can from each day," she says. "Feeling it. Enjoying it."

As for the "moments" of technique, Marlee works from photographs and a lightly penciled drawing on paper. She uses Winsor/Newton brand watercolors and a limited palette of five pigments: two blues - French Ultramarine and Cobalt, two yellows - Winsor Yellow and Winsor Lemon, and one red - Alizarin Crimson. She paints on 140 lb. Arches watercolor paper dampened and taped to a 1/2 inch watercolor board. She masks the light areas with a brush filled with W/N liquid masking agent (which she keeps in a bowl of water and dish soap to keep the brush from getting ruined by the masking liquid). Then she begins layering with washes of color - up to five in the darkest darks. She mixes blacks with ultramarine, alizarin, and lemon yellow. After removing the mask she layers the lightest lights. Note her skillful handling of strong contrasts in the light and shadow areas of "The Abbey" painting with soft-edged color in the lavender. One triangular rooftop glares almost white in the strong sunlight.

Here's a game any viewer of this exhibition can play: find the crosses. "Among the first couple things I do when painting," she says, is to place a small cross (about 1/8 inch high) in the composition. "The funny part is that no one noticed it for years." The crosses refer to the fact that for Marlee, painting is "something God and I do together." It's not that easy to find ALL the crosses, but it's a fun challenge to one's powers of observation.  (Details of 2 of her paintings are shown above and below.)

"God is in the details" could be her aesthetic. We checked on Google to find the phrase may have originated with the French writer, Flaubert, and is associated with the German architect, Mies van der Rohe and others. To extend the international reach of Marlee's aesthetic, here's Japanese Buddhist, Shunryu Suzuki's, take on the "magic of the moment:"

Moment after moment,

everything comes out of nothingness

this is the true joy of life.