|
|
Culturally Speaking
By
CORNELIA SECKEL
ART TIMES March 2006
Every
few years I spend January in S.E.
Florida. Most of my time is spent in hanging on the beach, visiting friends,
reading and doing nothing — a very different day-to-day life than
when I am in the office working on the next issue of ART TIMES.
However, I always take a look and see what is happening in the Cultural
Scene and getting to see what I can.
While
in Southeast Florida I visited Lorrie Turner, PSA, who recently
moved to DelRay. It was an excellent opportunity for us to catch up with
one another and for me to get some handles (and pass along to you) how
an established artist creates a new life in another location. Lorrie joined
several guilds, and began submitting her work to regional art shows and
fairs. Basically, this is the route to take (no matter where you may relocate)
in order to get involved, to learn what exhibiting and teaching opportunities
there are, and to meet other artists. Boca Raton Museum of Art Artist
Guild is one of the groups Lorrie joined, and as it turned out I was
available to get to the opening of the exhibit Images: January 2006:
a Juried Fine Art Exhibition. I asked several artists how they
got themselves established and most of then followed the same route Lorrie
took. As with most guild and association shows, the juror and judges come
from near-by museums and galleries, and with all such shows some of the
work was excellent and some not. This group, founded in 1984 by the Board
of Trustees Boca Raton Museum of Art, has a beautiful gallery with
high quality paintings, photography, and sculpture in the very upscale
Mizner Park (a shopping mall with posh shops, restaurants, and galleries)
in Boca Raton near the museum. Currently at the Museum is James
McNeill Whistler: Selected Works from the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow,
Scotland; Milton Avery: A Retrospective of Nudes;
and Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries: The Art of the Poster,
all up until April 2.
 (L to R) Robert, William, Paul Gould at the reception for their father John F. Gould's centennial exhibit at the Hudson Valley Gallery, Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY |
Not
very far South of Boca Raton is the Fort Lauderdale Museum where
The National Geographic Exhibit Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is on view until April 23. Restaurants in the area
are offering Egyptian meals, and stores are featuring Egyptian jewelry
and artifacts. At the Norton Museum in West Palm is French
Impressionism and Boston:
Masterworks from the Museum of Fine Arts
through March 5 and Earthen Images: Ceramics from Ancient
America
through May 28.
One
can find top-notch Music Festivals, Art Fairs, Theater Productions, as
well as The Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Mile Long Art Show in DelRay,
44th Annual Original Miami Beach Antique Show, Basel Art Miami
Show, Art Deco Festival in Miami Beach, Contemporary Art and Antiques
in W. Palm, Palm Beach International Fine Art & Antique Fair, Street
Painting Festival in Lake Worth (100,000 people showed up last year!),
SunFest (reported to be Florida’s largest music, art and waterfront festival),
and new this year is the Fort Lauderdale Orchid Show. This is just a sampling
of the cultural events.
Soon
after arriving back North I received a copy of the Reiss Source
Director of the Arts written and edited by Alvin H. Reiss.
This book, for every area and discipline of the cultural community, has
nearly 450 detailed entries of organizations in the US & Canada, with
local service as well as international organizations. Included is information on their funding,
publications, research projects, conferences and workshops. Available
at www.aebmedia.com
The
sons of John F. Gould’s are celebrating the centennial of their
father‘s birth with exhibitions of his paintings and illustrations throughout
the region. John F. Gould (1906-1996) had a long career in art both as
an instructor and artist. In 1957 John Gould established the Bethlehem
Art Gallery now run by his sons and located in Salisbury Mills, NY
(www.bethlehemartgallery.com or 845-496-4785). The work on display at the Hudson
Valley Gallery in Cornwall-on-Hudson (a gallery with 3 good-sized
rooms owned by his son Paul Gould who has carried on his father’s
tradition of being a well-admired instructor) includes paintings of locomotive
and rapid transit subjects as he was an art consultant for General
Electric Company in Erie, PA in their Locomotive division. There are
also illustrations from his 8 years as an illustrator for the Saturday
Evening Post. I particularly liked seeing his pulp art illustrations
and his sketchbooks. There were 2 large landscapes that I kept going back
to admire. Hundreds of people attended the opening, including former students,
collectors, friends, and admirers. I was quite pleased to see such a tribute
to a man who honored his profession.
A
new gallery has opened in Catskill, NY. Gallery 384 has opened
with an exhibition of works by artist Roberta Griffin. Generally
the work on view will be cutting-edge and socially provocative art from
local and national artists. This will also be a venue for lectures, films,
and cultural programming.
|
Frank
Mason celebrated his 85th year with a sensational exhibition
of his work at the Salmagundi Club, NYC. Hundreds of friends, former
students, family patrons, came as far as Greece, France, San Francisco,
and the Midwest. A video montage of Frank’s paintings, his life, the studio
in NY, and the summer classes in Vermont where he has been teaching for
the past 40 years was shown on the lower floor of the Club. I am looking
forward to the finished project, which may be several years from now.
A major figure on the New York City artscene for almost his entire career,
Frank Mason has almost single-handedly kept alive the tradition of fine
art painting through his many years of passing on the academic baton at
the Art Students League of New York.
Our
website is getting a lot of hits (86,000 last month), and we are offering
advertising opportunities online. Check the website for the rates or call/email
and I’ll send them off.
We
are excited about our editor Raymond J. Steiner’s solo exhibition
“Landscapes of the Hudson Valley” at the Woodstock Artists Association
Museum, Woodstock, NY, on April 8, and invite all of our readers to
join us at the Opening Reception on April 8 between 4 -6pm. Landscape
painting has been an avocation of Steiner’s for some years, his love of
nature and knowledge of the Valley a result of 60 years of wandering the
region’s woods and mountains since his boyhood.
My
time off was excellent and I am looking forward to catching up with you
as I make the rounds of the cultural offerings of our region.