Tag: Fine Arts

Like many young urbanites, New York- based artist Patrick Costello finds satisfaction in a can.

“I started to get interested in canning when I was 19 and started growing food,” he says. “The knowledge was taught to me by my mom and my grandma, and it became a way of rooting myself to patterns that have sustained other generations of my family.”

At the time, Costello lived in Charlottesville, where he graduated from UVA with a studio art degree and co-founded C’ville Foodscapes, a worker-owned edible landscaping cooperative. He began making pieces related to canning food and preserving and arranging them in a color spectrum.

“My grandma wrote me this note that I still carry around with me,” says Costello. “It said, ‘I’m so glad you’re doing this, and I think it’s great that you’re using it in your art. Your great-grandmother would be so proud of you.’”

Canning may be trendy, but the practice marks a profound lifestyle shift for artists like Costello and Kate Daughdrill, collaborators on Second Street Gallery’s latest exhibition, “Listening Spirit: 5 Years of Burnside Farm.”

The pair met in Charlottesville where, Costello says, “we started to learn about growing food and building community.”

They met again at Burnside Farm, Daughdrill’s six-lot urban farm/art gallery on the east side of Detroit, where Costello spent three weeks as the farm’s first visiting artist. Elbows-deep in preserves, they decided to collaborate on a color spectrum specifically for Burnside.

“Suddenly we were like, ‘What other things could make colors?’” Costello says. “Kate was getting into herbal medicine, so we made tinctures out of plants that were growing wild around the garden.”

The expanding spectrum of plant-based material led to a full-blown exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

“We translated a lot of the visual and emotional aesthetic of my home into the museum space,” Daughdrill says. “We built these beautiful canning shelves and made a holy water station with beautiful, fresh, pure water we collected directly from the earth and blessed. All these visuals and experiential components connect to the magic of Burnside Farm and the story of growth and healing that that place seems to inspire.”

“Listening Spirit: 5 Years of Burnside Farm” expands the concept further, bringing to Charlottesville an installation that features shelves of jarred foods arranged in a color spectrum, a circular gathering table for sharing artist-made food and teas, a holy water station, plants, herbal medicines, ceremonial objects, an attuning station and the sounds and scents of Burnside. In addition to work by Costello and Daughdrill, the show includes contributions by artists Ali Lapetina, Phreddy Wischusen, the Right Brothers and The Printmakers Left.

The exhibition captures an intrinsic duality present at Burnside Farm: high-energy community activity and meditative calm.

“In the big room [at Second Street Gallery], we’ve got jars and food and stories and photos of Burnside,” Daughdrill says. “Then you move into the smaller room, which will be filled with wild grasses, and sit on a huge meditation cushion under a 7-foot dome made of woven yarrow and suspended from the sky.”

This attuning station highlights a deeper theme at play in “Listening Spirit.”

“The spaces we live in can help us adopt a posture of openness or invocation and make us more receptive to the healing energy of connection that’s all around us,” Daughdrill says.

That theme explains the exhibition’s relevance no matter where it goes.

“These processes—gardening, canning, knowing your neighbors, working with diverse groups of people, finding ways of creating nurturing spaces—those are the basic skills for building what cities might look like in the future,” Daughdrill says.

Communities like Burnside Farm nourish participants on a spiritual level, too.

“I thought I was working on Burnside, but it was transforming me,” says Daughdrill. “By learning these more essential skills, I found I connected even more deeply to myself.”

Costello is quick to jump in. “I’ve never had a religious practice, personally, and I’ve never been affiliated with a church in my adult life, but going to Burnside taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid of the word spirituality or of a spiritual practice,” he says. “Those things manifest in our relationships, in the energy of communing with plants and working with your hands in the soil.

“You took the time to start the tomato seedlings and transplant those outside of your front door. Then each day you go out and maybe you water them with water from a rain barrel. When you think about sustaining this other life, you start to think about your health in relation to that plant. A weird dialogue happens between you and this growing plant.

“Then it starts to fruit and you have a zillion tomatoes…in that bounty there’s real health, because you don’t need 20 dollars to go get a fancy meal. You just have a fancy meal.

“Then every August or September, you take the large amount of energy stored in these tomatoes that you helped create, and…on the coldest day of February when you’re just like, ‘All I want is summer air and warmth and comfort,’ you get a taste of that. To me, that’s spirituality.”

When was the last time you fell asleep thinking about monsters in the other room? For most of us, that thought fades after childhood. But Matthew Gatto knows there are monsters just 10 feet away from where he sleeps. They reside in his living room or, as it’s more commonly known, the Parlor of Horrors. A hobbyist mask maker and collector, Gatto has spent the past few years outfitting his apartment as a small museum of horror movie memorabilia alongside his own handcrafted monster masks.

Looming high above the checkerboard tile floor of Gatto’s lofted living room, a 10′ model of the Alien Supreme Commander from Independence Day hangs from the ceiling. Only about 50 of these were made and this one’s tentacles twine together to give the appearance of a chandelier. Below, Gatto’s collection of props, practical effects ephemera and one-of-a-kind masks fills antique display cases. Original movie posters line the walls, including a theatrical release one-sheet for An American Werewolf in London signed by director John Landis and one of its stars, David Naughton, who wrote, “Beast wishes, David.”

“When I saw An American Werewolf in London, I was blown away. What I loved most about the film was how amazingly groundbreaking the practical effects were,” says Gatto. The movie’s makeup and effects artist, Rick Baker, won a 1981 Academy Award for his work on the movie and Gatto counts Baker among his biggest inspirations. “My fascination and obsession with this film led me to want to create things myself,” recalls Gatto.

He spent three years teaching himself the techniques to craft a full-fledged werewolf mask with carved fangs and contoured latex covered in fur. Though Gatto wore it when it was finished, the mask is now mounted on a taxidermy plaque watching over the rest of his collection. Gatto’s most recent mask is of the titular character from the 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon, complete with blood-red lips and glowing green latex that folds and creases to form the creature’s skin. Created for a friend’s Halloween wedding, the mask demonstrates the evolution of Gatto’s skills in carving molds and breathing life into his monsters.

Other highlights from Gatto’s collection include the Metaluna Mutant head and claws from the 1955 movie This Island Earth. The mask is a bulbous blue latex monstrosity, a replica made from the original plaster molds used to create the costumes in the movie; the claws are original licensed merchandise from the 1960s, made by the legendary Don Post Studios. “To find one of those original Don Post items is very rare,” says Gatto.

Gatto has been compared by friends to Forrest J. Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Like Gatto, Ackerman created a horror and science fiction memorabilia museum in his home—the Ackermansion—and led tours for fellow genre fans. Guiding his own tours of the Parlor of Horrors, Gatto shares his knowledge as a storyteller and historian for the items in his collection; the museum’s guestbook is filled with enthusiasm and encouragement from past visitors.

Unfortunately, the Parlor of Horrors is about to go underground because Gatto is moving at the end of June. His new home will have expanded workshop space for mask-making, but there won’t be space to reinstall the museum. Gatto is hopeful to find a new home for the museum so that he can once again lead tours and continue growing his collection. To view selected items from the Parlor of Horrors, visit the museum’s digital gallery on Instagram at @parlor_of_horrors.

Charlottesville has had an active, if continually changing, gallery scene for many years, but there now seems to be a critical mass developing that could turn our maturing city into a serious art collector’s destination.

With the opening of some new downtown art venues there is more reason for art lovers to make a trip to town—and stay an extra day or two. One of these galleries is Graves International Art, known as GIA.

In one of Court Square’s genteel 18th- century brick homes at the corner of Jefferson and Fourth streets, John Graves and his son, Alex, run an impressive operation. Room after room is filled, from floor to ceiling, with etchings, prints and paintings by many of art’s luminaries. And add to that inventory capably executed works of a few yet-to-be-household names. Mahogany tabletops fill the center of the rooms, covered with myriad porcelain platters, figurines and framed miniatures on easels, illuminated by splendid crystal chandeliers.

John Graves ventured into the art business in Florida in the late ’70s, at a time when art was still flying off the walls of many urban galleries and into newly constructed homes with vaulted ceilings and cavernous square footage. However, with the subsequent ups and downs of the economy, the art business went through a rash of uncertainties and rough patches. Galleries struggled and tried relocating to lower rent districts, and many ultimately closed, with the big art fairs supplanting them. John Graves persevered through all of that upheaval, slowly building his gallery’s notably diverse stable of artists and developing long-standing relationships with his buyers.

In 1994, Graves International Art relocated to Orange County, and then to the handsomely renovated Dollar General Store building in Gordonsville. However, the dynamic quality and population of a university town appealed more to John and Alex, so they moved to Charlottesville to introduce us to some of the authentic greats of art’s history, direct from their own vast collection.

John and his son are passionate about what they do, and their enthusiasm is evident. John relishes the 19th century English landscape engraving as much as he loves Scottish painter Gary Thomas Morrow’s romantic impressionistic painting of slender young women demurely gazing at their gardens. He admires the surgically perfect rendering of a pair of Ron Louque’s waterfowl afloat in an icy estuary, and the brashly exuberant slashes of primary color in a limited-edition Miro poster.

His admiration is also clear as he introduces the kaleidoscopic portraits, paintings and prints of his other son, Jack, whose exhibition space is also in the gallery, and who has been making strides on the New York scene.

There are many other offerings to drink in as one wanders through GIA’s brimming rooms. Thomas Gainsborough, Jacques Villon, Edgar Degas, Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky, John James Audubon, William Merritt Chase, Philip Pearlstein, Jim Dine, Andy Warhol and even a Damien Hirst, just to drop a few names.

Graves does all the matting and framing for the work they sell. Rococo gold, distressed pecan or Art Deco silver leaf frames present each print or painting with added finery. John does all the frame designing, and says his clients trust him to make the aesthetic decisions on what most befits the piece. It is a charming paradox to see a painting once made by an artist with medium-stained fingernails, spattered clothing and a minimalist’s desire for reduction, shoulder-to-shoulder with a painting intended upon conception for society’s finest parlor, both dressed in hearty gold frames and fraternizing as politely as posh guests at an awards banquet.

Alex Graves’ role at GIA is to research and manage the gallery’s international Web outreach, establishing its visibility and facilitating connoisseurship in all corners of the globe. He was packing up a piece to send off to Australia when I arrived.

Purchasing something of significant value, sight unseen, has become a standard practice that relies on a solid degree of trust in the source. This is something that Graves International Art has successfully cultivated over the years.

But nothing is as satisfying to those who love art as seeing it firsthand, where the object reveals the quiet reasons behind its worth—the qualities that surpass brand-name recognition and the gift of an enriching moment spent in an individual piece of art’s presence. This, GIA offers free of charge.

The experience may require some concentration from the visitor to focus on each piece of interest amid the salon-style presentation. There is much to relish, and for those who can, to invest in. There are some small affordable matted prints to be found in the bins as well.

Outside, on the front stoop of GIA, stands a vinyl blowup of Edvard Munch’s startled protagonist from “The Scream”—a fitting mascot to welcome gallery visitors. Sotheby’s auctioning of “The Scream” for close to $120 million in 2012 heralded what is turning out to be a bright new era in contemporary art collecting and investing.

—Deborah McLeod

Artists-turned-activists typically use their work to amplify awareness about an issue. Increased publicity, the thinking goes, inspires action in the field.

But poet Amelia Williams has found a way to leverage art as a direct blocking and delay tactic in the fight against fracked gas pipelines and compressor stations.

“In 2014, when we learned about the prospect of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline coming through Nelson County and other counties and wild areas in Virginia, I wanted to do something,” Williams says.

The poet and eco-artist, who has a Ph.D. in English from UVA, lives on Shannon Farm Community, an intentional community in Nelson County with 500 acres owned in common by the people who live there. “This big property has beautiful wetland areas and open meadows and communal organic gardens, and they would have been plowed through by the pipelines,” she says, referring to one of Dominion Resources’ proposed routes for its planned 550-mile natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina.

“I chose a lifestyle that isn’t about money and things,” says Williams. “It’s about being here, on this land, living with other people together. Something that’s hard to touch on with numbers and dollars is what happens to your heart when your place is ripped away from you. There are birds that are dependent on deep woods environment. What happens to the wood thrush, the whippoorwill, the barn owl, when these trees are gone? What happens to me? What kind of spiritual desolation do I experience?”

She says that many members of Shannon Farm are working against Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline, not just because it threatens to “carve an enormous swath” through their backyard but because pipelines are a regional and statewide issue.

“Natural gas pipelines, in general, are a very bad idea,” she says. “How they leak methane, how environmental protections are often ignored by state-based departments, how rivers and streams and well water is polluted. We also learned about how energy companies can earn money from a pipeline even when the ‘need’ for it is not really substantiated.”

So Williams’ interest piqued when she read about Canadian artist Peter von Tiesenhausen, who waylaid a mining company when he registered his 800 acres as intellectual property in the form of land art.

According to an article in the Cantech Letter, von Tiesenhausen explained that any disturbance to the top six inches of his property would constitute a copyright violation—and, ideally, a prohibitively expensive legal battle that dissuades installation of a pipeline.

“I’m not a legal scholar, and I didn’t know if there was any precedent for doing this kind of thing in the U.S., but I thought I would imitate it here,” Williams says.

The lifelong poet reviewed her work and found a large number of poems with roots in Nelson County. Next, she set about creating sculptural containers and assemblages that would integrate her writing with the landscape.

“I wanted to make land art like the projects of Andrew Goldsworthy, whose works are intended to fade back into the landscape because they are created out of natural elements like twigs and leaves,” she says.

Ultimately, Williams made 16 different containers out of local biodegradable materials, including clay bowls, cedar boxes, felted bags and fire-hardened bamboo. Community members donated many of these materials, all of which hold up well in rain, snow and the humidity of Virginia summers.

She sealed the cases with local beeswax and placed each piece in the location referred to in its poem. “This included hauling two of the pieces up to the trees in an area we call the Beech Grove, which is on a ridgeline, because those trees would have been taken down by the pipeline,” she says.

As soon as the project was installed in the field, she had a documentary photographer take pictures of each piece, which she submitted as a collective eco-art trail for copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office.

“As a maker you own the copyright as soon as you make it, but you register that copyright if you anticipate some kind of legal issue,” she says, which is an important distinction for artists-turned-activists.

Because land art derives its meaning from its precise location, an eminent domain lawyer would likely recognize that you can’t just put it somewhere else and maintain its value.

So does the theory work in practice?

Hard to say, because no precedent exists and Williams’ work hasn’t been put to the test. Though she’s collecting examples of successful art-as-environmental-protest tactics, she points to the fact that most battles are won by fights on multiple fronts.

“When we learned that the preferred route [of the pipeline] was now not going to run across this land, I felt it essential to keep up the fight to help other landowners and other people,” she says. “I also don’t trust Dominion; that they won’t move it back.”

Williams wants to inspire others to consider land-art protests of their own. “The best-case scenario is that the energy companies wake up and realize the future lies in renewables, and if they want to do their shareholders a favor, they will move in that direction with all of their money and their R&D and their publicity,” she says.

All proceeds from Walking Wildwood Trail: Poems and Photographs, a book of poetry and photography documenting her project, benefit Friends of Nelson and Wild Virginia. The significance, she hopes, reaches everyone.

“The words of poets speak to people’s hearts, she says. “It allows them to figure forth their own attachments to the trees and the water and the land.”

Related Links:

May 24, 2016: A win for Nelson pipeline opponents