“You can’t talk about these things!” an artist replied in exasperation to a question I posed to him at the beginning of a three-hour panel discussion about portraiture. He then proceeded to talk about the issue for next 5 or 6 minutes, which afforded me ample time to frame an appropriate response to his response. [...]
Category Archives: Marion
19th annual Marion Arts Festival!
May 19, 2011, 7:32 am
I confess that I burst into tears when I drove past a billboard in downtown Cedar Rapids heralding the first Marion Arts Festival. Hard won, the product of a Herculean effort on the part of an intrepid core of believers, the festival had become a reality. Since 1993, during this week in May, I have [...]
“This is who we are.”
April 12, 2011, 7:45 pm
As I talked with John Beckelman about the arrangements for a hands-on demonstration to be given by artists from the Ceramics Center during the upcoming gallery tour, we laughed at the shared memory of an audience member in a gallery talk that John gave many years ago. This woman had the bravery to verbalize her [...]
Winter weather
January 21, 2011, 8:13 am
I’ m going to be brief. It’s important to remember that complaining about weather – however hot, cold, icy, rainy or snowy – is pointless. In direct defiance of repetitious weather advisories forecasting ungodly cold, I have installed new work by Marcia Wegman and John Beckelman; displayed new pots by Sarah German; surrounded myself with [...]
Dave Gordinier & The CR Metro Gallery Tour
September 24, 2010, 3:15 pm
“Priscilla, are you with a customer?” This is how every conversation with my friend Dave Gordinier has commenced since he moved to Mesa, AZ over a decade ago. Dave wouldn’t dream of putting himself ahead of anyone else. That excruciatingly unassuming aspect of Mid-western courtesy remains decidedly in tact, despite Dave’s now long-term residence in [...]
What I meant to say…
September 8, 2010, 12:33 pm
The Pastoral Scene by Larry Welo / Color Intaglio Etching / 18″ x 12″ “It was a nice talk, and you gave some good personal information about how the gallery started.” That was Karen Hoyt’s kind assessment of a presentation that I had given to a group of highly motivated, well-educated, civically committed women who [...]
Introducing Thomas Agran
July 8, 2010, 7:09 am
Thomas Agran, working in his studio I remember instructing Thomas Agran to look for a small, gray-haired woman at the Grinnell College’s Bucksbaum Center for the Arts opening for the summer of 2009’s exhibit. I had a few pieces in the show, and I wanted to meet Thomas and visit his studio during the same [...]
Sunday in Des Moines
June 30, 2010, 7:54 pm
“You have a magic carpet That will whiz you through the air, To Spain or Maine or Africa If you just tell it where. So will you let it take you Where you’ve never been before, Or will you buy some drapes to match And use it On your Floor?” – Shel Silverstein Ours was [...]
Steve Lauterwasser + Talk in the MUD
June 8, 2010, 3:14 pm
“… John Preston and Steve Lauterwasser who sometimes paint together on god-forsaken roads have the big sky thing down…” James Duncan, Des Moines blogger Indeed, I know for a fact that Steve does have the “big sky thing down,” so to speak. When he lined his latest paintings up against the gallery’s baseboard, my first [...]
Uptown Marion is abuzz!
June 3, 2010, 8:44 pm
Periodically I am reminded that I share Uptown Marion with an assemblage of personalities who are all laboring in a universe roughly parallel to my own. Sure, the variables change, but they too ponder hours and staffing. They fret over display, and delight in sharing their goods with their customers. I had one of these [...]