Artist Profile

BOOKISH: Jane Cassaday's For the Comfort of Automated Phrases

POSTED: Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 10:20 AM

From Jane Cassaday's "Dear Philadelphia"—

“…But you know what, I surrender,

your openhearted narrow streets,

trolley-tracked arterials form one room

of lighting-crack hearts to the next…”

For the Comfort of Automated Phrases is local poet (and CP horoscopist) Jane Cassady's first book, comprising poems written in the last eight years. She explains it as a series of love letters to all types of things — from Zumba to Beyoncé — and a souvenir that “helps me keep my emotional bond to the people and places I’ve visited." She began writing poetry in 2000, when living among other creatives in Laguna Beach. “I felt like I’d finally found someplace I belonged,” she says; she counts the poets of that scene — people like Daniel McGinn and Rachel McKibbens — among her biggest influences.

The collection is playful and light, best suited for sunny days. Cassady's words of affection for Philadelphia, for example, impart a warm feeling of solidarity. If your bus came an hour late, though, it might not be the right time to give this a read.

The collection's release party is 6 p.m. on Sat., July 21 at Cake and the Beanstalk (1112 Locust St.); aspiring poets are invited to join her and read their own work.

(Jodi@citypaper.net) (@gij0de)

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"Interlude" at Twenty-Two Gallery

POSTED: Friday, July 13, 2012, 2:46 PM

To step into the Twenty-Two Gallery is to enter a separate plane of existence, far removed from the frantic pace of the city beyond its walls.

Melissa M. Bryant reigns over this quiet kingdom, speaking with me at a small table in the center of the paintings that comprise "Interlude," her current exhibition. The artist maintains that “you learn quite a bit about life by being still,” an idea captured in the surrounding oil paintings that are meant to embody mindfulness. Bryant's work is mostly made up of landscapes — her “first love” — as well as several portraits and still lifes. A large canvas of Mother's Day flowers preserves their vibrance before they begin to wilt, and a scene depticting a winter dawn captures a transient moment of morning peace. Her whimsical brushstrokes are remeniscent of the en plein air Impressionists, colorful and full of contemplation.

Only through attentiveness, Bryant maintains, can we truly take the time to appreciate these scenes of nature that surround us. A look at her paintings and a moment in her presence are a welcome respite from the fast-paced working day, and may help you pause to appreciate the breeze in Rittenhouse Park next time you pass through in hurried transit.

Through Sept. 9, opening Fri., July 13, 6–9 p.m., Twenty-Two Gallery, 236 S. 22nd St., 215-272-1911, melissambryant.com.

(Jodi@citypaper.net) (Gij0de)

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CURATOR: "Hot and Busted" @ Ven and Vaida Gallery

POSTED: Friday, July 6, 2012, 3:41 PM

Inside Butch Cordora’s Washington Square West studio, the local conceptual artist shows me the large, yet-to-be-framed mugshots that now comprise his latest exhibition, "Hot and Busted."

Cordora searched thousands of photographs (2,219 to be exact) on the websites of correctional facilities across the country until he found subjects meeting his aesthetic specifications: “Piercing eyes, square jaws — that kind of soap-opera beautiful, like 'Oh my God, you’re so hot.'” Oh, and they’re all Caucasian.

“I had wanted white guys on purpose,” Cordora explains. When browsing the different websites, he focused on the areas of the country where there would be a larger selection of light-skinned beauts. It would be “too easy,” he says, to add African-Americans, a race he notes is all too often associated with crime and punishment in the U.S. “For the white, straight, handsome male,” however, “the world is their oyster.” These are the kind of faces that HHo

One of the men resembles a young Brad Pitt, with a firm jaw and a faint smile. Some, however, have a more haggard appearance. One looks up with tourmented eyes from a head angle that’s reminiscent of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode III. With tousled hair and pallid skin, his beauty hovers just beneath the surface of obvious strain.

These photographs seem more mysterious and profound than the pop art-y paintings of Cordora’s last show, “Absolution Lab,” and his popular 2010 calendar “Straight and Butch” in which he posed nude with an assortment of naked heterosexual men.

The inspiration for “Hot and Busted” stems from Cordora’s visits to a friend in jail. Though the man in question will not be featured, Cordora claims his mugshot is equally captivating. “You look at him, you’d think he has the world by the balls,” says the artist. However, after 2 DUIs and a house arrest broken on account of soy-related cooking, Cordora’s friend was locked up for six months. The artist visited him every week, and “I just became fascinated – with jail, with the booking process, with the whole idea of taking your freedoms away.” Each mugshot in the show reflects the emasculation and defeat up to the point at which the photograph is taken, explains the artist. Each portrait is therefore not only a face but also a depiction of the harrowing experience of arrest that recalls the mistakes of his friend. “Hot and Busted” is about this push and pull between an attractive face and a crushing experience.

But who are these Luciferan adonises, the focus of the show?

Cordora refuses to reveal names or origins, and he’d prefer you guess their crimes – the list includes everything from armed robbery to failure to possess a saltwater fishing license. Similarly, these convicts and would-be convicts have no idea that their likenesses are being blown up to two feet by two feet and hung on a gallery wall. Questions of morality and legality tossed to the wayside, Cordora cares only that the viewer share his fascination with prison and the contradiction embodied by its most beautiful.

opening reception Fri., July 6, 6 p.m., through Sept. 2, Ven and Vaida Gallery, 18 S. Third St., 215-592-4099, venandvaida.com.

(Jodi@citypaper.net) (@gij0de)

Posted by Jodi Bosin @ 3:41 PM Permalink | Post a comment

INTERVIEW: Graphic designers and gig-poster makers The Heads of State

POSTED: Thursday, April 5, 2012, 1:30 PM

In the last ten years, Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers have gone from back-table gigs selling posters at the Church to doing illustrations for the pages of the New York Times. There have been stops along the way — working with Wilco led to working with R.E.M., for instance. They relocated to Brooklyn and Seattle respectively, and finally circled back to Philly two and a half years ago to set up permanent shop. They've been working the lecture series for about five years now, and as they prepare for a hometown talk tonight at 6 p.m., back at the First Unitarian Church, they took some time to speak with CP.

CP: I see your work as simultatneously clean and rustic — clean in the sense that you don't clutter a lot of shit around it, and rustic in the sense that it has a very handmade quality.

Dustin Summers: It's really important to us to keep it as elegant and simple as possible. We like for the finished product to to have a human quality to it.

Jason Kernevich: That's just the way we like our images, with that hand-done element; we definitely feel more connected to work that communicates that aspect.

Can you speak at all to your creative process?

DS: We probably spend about 75% of the time figuring out the concept. We don't really spend a lot time thinking about the image, which probably sounds weird since we're visual artists, but we're much more concerned with the concept.

JK: Basically, we just like to design rectangles. (Laughs.) Seriously, though, rectangles draw your eye in. You kind of need that boundary. When we're in the planning/sketching phase, If I have a big, blank piece of paper, it's difficult for me to begin. I need that confinement. For the most part, my sketchbook is full of words.

Do you prefer making posters or designing book covers, or would you rather just do projects like the Gatsby business cards?

JK: I get restless. If we've been doing illustrations for 18 months then I want to do a Gatsby-type project or typography type thing.

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PHILLY ARTISTS: Diane Burko's Lifetime Achievement

POSTED: Friday, February 11, 2011, 4:00 PM

DianeBurko.com

Burko's Khumbu Icefall #2, half a diptych from The Politics of Snow.

Injecting politics into art poses a variety of challenges: How does she make her message clear? And will an audience hear that message? Philadelphia artist Diane Burko — who will take home a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art this weekend — can answer both these questions.

NationalWCA.org

Burko's work is largely in landscapes, both painted and photographed. "Landscape captivated me because I came from a city," she says. "I fell in love with large open spaces. They allow you to make anything you want out of them." Her latest project uses the form to make a resounding point about the environment. It began a few years ago when a curator asked about one of her 1976 works depicting snow in the French Alps. How, she wondered, had the landscape changed over 30 years? Thinking and reading more about global warming, the artist ultimately felt she could no longer paint landscape without confronting the issue. Thus, The Politics of Snow was born. A series of diptychs, the work reveals our changing landscape by comparing past and present. To get her message across, Burko simply stayed "true to myself" by working within her chosen form. The works "seduce the viewer to look at the landscape" — and he/she can't miss how quickly it's changed. As for an audience, Burko has been heard, loud and clear: She'll receive her award this Saturday in New York. The Women's Caucus for Art, founded in 1972, is a national organization dedicated to building community and advancing equality in the art world. Its Lifetime Achievement prize, which recognizes a range of arts professions, was first awarded in 1979 in the Oval Office. This year, Burko will be one of six recipients in a ceremony at the American Folk Art Museum. Burko's not just being recognized for her work: She's been instrumental in advancing women in the arts. As a pioneer of the women's art movement in the 1970s, "I was there from the beginning," she says. She helped found the WCA, and organized a landmark celebration of women artists in Philadelphia, called Focus: Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts. The 1974 event grabbed national attention as, over the course of a month, city institutions from PAFA to the Civic Center focused on women's art. In the 1970s, when Burko's career began, there were no women on the board of the prestigious College Art Association, now a century old. Today, she chairs its Committee on Women in the Arts. Official recognition of her achievements, the WCA says, is long overdue. You can see Diane Burko's work at the Locks Gallery, 600 Washington Square South. For gallery listings that you may never have heard of, check out our online event database.

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ARTIST PROFILE: Leroy Johnson's "Remnants of a City"

POSTED: Tuesday, January 18, 2011, 4:00 PM

Filed Under: Arts | Artist Profile Arts Events

Leroy Johnson's found-art cityscape in his new exhibit, "Remnants of a City," takes you onboard an El ride filled with more than fifty years of commuting and collecting the streets — fragments of the sidewalk, bits of toys, newspaper shreds, faded photographs, spoons from Mickey Dees, you name it. The exhibit will run through Feb. 19th at the Magic Gardens, with a public reception and talk by the artist on Jan. 28th. Johnson stopped by the exhibit for MLK Day to lead an arts workshop for children. On a break, he took some time out to speak with CP about his artwork and its relation to MLK, but when the kids arrived, you could see who he really wanted to talk to.

"It's always children who see my artwork the best," says Johnson. "They inspect every word and detail just as carefully as someone reading James Joyce." That said, Johnson's dizzying play with perspective and medium — sometimes throwing in acrylics, photography, sharpies, and sculpture into the same piece — has more to say for itself than simply unaffected eagerness (even though there is a lot of that). A number of Johnson's ceramics and dioramas tell sobering stories of gang violence and the city's history of racial inequality; yet, they also do justice to Philly's in-your-face creativity that has grown up alongside the local artist, who recalled reading Richard Wright in the fifties and knowing then that he would be an artist. More good stuff after the jump ... For Johnson, education and imagination were the keys to Martin Luther King's dream of equality. And you can see it all happening in his art. "I feel like an alchemist in the studio. Trash, garbage, whatever you want to call it, I want to turn it into gold. When I was younger, I used to worry when I broke something. Now, I realize that I need those pieces so that I can form them into something new."

While Johnson's subjects are by no means limited to issues of race and urban inequality, works entitled "Lynching Series" and "Rest In Peace" are appropriate reminders of what, for many, is not a far-off chapter in Philadelphia history; the second piece depicts a churchyard scene that Johnson painted during the crack epidemic. "In the news, all you'd hear was that crack was everywhere. But I was in the hood, and I knew that every three houses there was a church; everyone was always praying. I needed to show that you can't know a person from just one encounter anymore than you can know a neighborhood from just one detail." Alongside these socially minded works, however, hang brightly-lit portraits of Philly's neighborhoods as seen from the El, a place where all city-goers share the same view — graffiti and picturesque skylines alike. As it turns out, these vignettes come from an affectionate nostalgia (something most commuters don't attribute to Market-Frankford). Recalling his hour-long commute from Eastwick, Johnson said, "Back then, you'd crossed the river on the trolley, look down, and see the water right below your feet."

Posted by Will Stone @ 4:00 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Q&A with SHARI SOLANIS: "The goal isn't pornography"
What we're trying to do this weekend
SEXY TIME Q&A: I've never had an orgasm during sex with a man — and I'm 30!
Coming soon to Philly: Two cockamamie movie promotion schemes
ICE CUBE: In Memoriam: Joe Tartaglia
Q&A with Tony Goldwyn: "Life is gray, and relationships are, too"
CONCERT REVIEW: Primus (3D & quadraphonic sound) @ The Tower 10/17
NOW SEE THIS: Transit cop arrests marijuana activist for alleged disorderly conduct.
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: The Archbishop meets the Geator, the Mayor goes suit shopping, Le Bec Fin fin.
NOW SEE THIS: Tim and Eric direct Terry Crews for Old Spice

About this blog

Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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