Tyler Speicher

April 15, 2009, 4:57 pm

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Canister Jar / 10″ high, 6″ diameter / Stoneware / $125

The profile of grain elevators and barns against the prairie sky is a sight that lays bare human purpose across vast stretches of our state. Icons of the Midwest’s farming industry, these buildings endure the extremes of weather. Their angular silhouettes stand unadorned-dramatically contemporary and industrial in an otherwise pastoral environment.

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Grain Elevator Vase / 12″ high / Stoneware / $175

Raised in the small community of Conrad, Iowa, Tyler Speicher has mimicked the clean lines of these same forms in his ceramic vessels and their glaze patterns. With the eye of a minimalist, he has formatted their outlines to the surfaces of functional stoneware.
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House Vase Pair / Each 12″ high / Stoneware / $295 (set)

Speicher and fellow UNI graduate, Sarah German, have just set up their own working studio. The couple collaborate on many projects, but each maintains a distinctly personal style.
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Oval Vase II / 6″ high / Stoneware / $125

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Fishing

April 8, 2009, 1:26 pm

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Fishing, March 23, 7″ x 9″, Watercolor, Stan Fellows

“If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.” ~Doug Larson

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Fishing, March 20, 15″ x 20″ / Lures, 11″ x 14″ / Waiting for the Truck, March 25, 7″ x 9″ / Watercolor, Stan Fellows

The last three years of my dad’s life were pretty happy ones for him and me. It certainly hadn’t been HIS plan to join my family here in Iowa, but it all worked out pretty well. Bud Steele got to attend his grandchildrens’ college graduations. We picnicked. We drew together in life drawing sessions at Coe College. He worked on his decoys in Craig’s wood shop. And, we went fishing together. It was this last activity that was summoned so strongly to mind when I looked at Stan Fellows’ watercolors of fishermen. I loved fishing with my father! Years just dropped away from him when he cast his line out across the water. He was a smart, patient, gifted fisherman. In watercolors that celebrate the water, sky, and, yes, fishing, Stan Fellows’ sure hand illustrates the beauty at the heart of this most meditative pursuit.

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Bud Steele, fishing

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Julie McLaughlin / Metro Spring Gallery Tour

April 1, 2009, 6:54 am

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I was about 10 years old when Marilyn Monroe was captured on film, her voluptuous, fleshy pillow of breasts rising and falling with a breathy rendition of “Happy Birthday” to our president. Not long after, an improbably skinny “Twiggy” stared out at teen-aged girls from the pages of fashion magazines. Is it any wonder then that the souls of (American) women are conflicted by competing ideals of womanly beauty?! This problematic terrain of sexuality and insidiously superficial and varying norms of beauty have made the form of the corset a potent metaphor for artist, Julie McLaughlin. Predatory and delicately feminine, tissue-thin and strong as steel, McLaughlin’s welded, hand-made paper sculptures plumb the symbolic and visual richness of the curves of her subject. McLaughlin’s latest sculptures are featured in the upcoming Metro Spring Gallery Tour from 5-8 p.m. on Friday, April 3rd. She plans on being here too, so come visit!

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Michael McAreavy

March 25, 2009, 7:38 am

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Oak Tree, Napa Valley, 8″ x 10″, Photograph, Michael McAreavy / $250 (framed)

Despairing of the ability of their hyperactive son to succeed in a traditional academic setting, the parents removed him from the last of the private schools that they had sought out. For the next year, the 12-year-old boy daily attended the Panama – Pacific International Exposition - studying its exhibitions. Fascinated with the natural environment, the boy was an inveterate collector of bugs. He haunted the beach around San Francisco Bay. With his father he shared a lively interest in astronomy, viewing the heavens through their telescope. When he was fourteen, the family went to Yosemite, and Ansel Adams was forever changed. He worked at Yosemite for four years that coincided with his initial exploration of photography-first with a brownie camera given to him by his ever-nurturing parents, and then with increasingly sophisticated equipment. Adams built a career paying homage to the epic beauty of the western United States and advocating for its conservation.

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Returning to the Source, 8″ x 10″, Photograph, Michael McAreavy / $250 (framed)

These are the sparest outlines of the life and work of Ansel Adams that serve as an inspiration to photographer, Michael McAreavy. McAreavy is quick to point out that he didn’t pick up a camera until fully embarked on a career in the financial services industry. Reading the bio that he provided, I frankly thought it a tad presumptuous to claim such a titan as a model. Then I looked at his work. A profound respect for the land is implicit in each composition. Rugged terrain and dramatic sweeps of mountains and coastline mirror the artist’s admiration for Adams. McAreavy, however, clearly stakes out his own aesthetic territory in his images. Subjects are framed with an acute eye, and the viewer is compelled to wonder how far and how long did the artist need to go and to wait to capture that specific moment. Ultimately, I find that McAreavy is an enormously generous artist. Not unlike his hero, Ansel Adams, Michael McAreavy’s work is so passionately, impeccably executed that its power transcends the individual artist to celebrate the grandeur of his subject.

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Shadow Dance, 8″ x 10″, Photograph, Michael McAreavy / $350 (framed) (Also available framed as 4″ x 6″ image, $125)

Michael’s work is featured in the Spring Metro Gallery Tour on Friday, April 3rd from 5 – 8 p.m. The artist is traveling to attend the reception. I hope that you’ll make it a point to visit too!

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Draw the Line, 8″ x 10″, Photograph, Michael McAreavy / $250 (framed)
Hymn to the Muse, 8″ x 10″, Photograph, Michael McAreavy / $250 (framed)
Pure, 8″ x 10″, Photograph, Michael McAreavy / $250 (framed)

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Michael Bond

March 15, 2009, 5:21 pm

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City View, Michael Bond

On a trip to Italy about four years ago, I luxuriated in visits to places and art about which I had studied in a succession of classes with renowned Italian Renaissance scholar and professor, Dr. Wallace Tommasini. For legions of students at the University of Iowa, Dr. Tommasini’s brilliant, spontaneous lectures have animated three centuries of art and life in Italy.

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Piazza Navona, Michael Bond

So it was with great excitement that I enthused that I “…couldn’t wait to see the Duomo!”, as I crossed Florence’s Ponte Vecchio. My head was bent low over multiple guidebooks which I was busily cross-referencing, and members of my ever-forbearing family urged me to simply look up.

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Talk about a big pizza pie hitting you in the eye! That singular architectural achievement, which is visible from all parts of the city, looms large as a testament to the indomitable genius of its designer Fillipo Brunnelleschi and the civic will of the Florentine populace.

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Our entire visit was a giddy blur of art, food, family and Italian wine. It was with no small measure of fondness then when I happened upon Michael Bond’s lyrical little etching of the Ponte Vecchio. I’m proud to say that the etchings of Michael Bond are now represented at the gallery.

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Stan Fellows

March 10, 2009, 3:41 pm

About two months ago, a tall man strode into our drawing group’s regular Sunday session. He was late, and he made a fair amount of noise getting his materials prepared as the rest of us drew for the allotted twenty minutes. There hadn’t been much time left for the newcomer to observe the model, but when she ended her pose, I gathered my pencils and turned to see a lovely drawing on Stan Fellows’ drawing board. Blossoms of vivid watercolor puddled along a graceful contour line tracing the gesture of the model. It was remarkable.

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February 15, Watercolor, Stan Fellows

Curiosity led me to Stan’s own blog. There I saw a succession of marvelous watercolors of birds, still- life subjects, and personal studies. Each was distinguished by the artist’s mastery of a deceptively demanding medium, and a palpable tenderness for his subject.

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March 3, Watercolor, Stan Fellows

I learned that Stan had illustrated for the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, that he had illustrated many books, and he had enjoyed a very busy and successful career as an illustrator for more than thirty years. It’s therefore a particular delight for me to introduce some of Stan’s watercolors to our gallery audience. And, it’s just downright fun that Stan is going to attend and paint during (right on the spot, ladies and gentlemen!) Music in the M.U.D. this Saturday, March 14. Music in the M.U.D. is a new, Saturday night event at Campbell Steele that is getting some serious traction. Pair Stan’s painting with the fact that our cute-as –a-button purveyor of wines, Jeri Travis, will be decanting some delicious selections for our wine bar, and what you have is a great plan. Fun abounds at Campbell Steele.

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Mary Snyder Behrens

March 5, 2009, 7:14 am

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Judges 9 / Mary Snyder Behrens

So, I’ve come up with a (somewhat) popular musical analogy, which may prove helpful in approaching the enigmatic and beautiful, collaged work of Dysart artist, Mary Snyder Behrens. The rich colors, carefully chosen elements and implied content in Mary’s pieces are not unlike the essence of a Leonard Cohen song. They are not always “pretty” in their overt presentation. They are thought provoking on multiple levels. They use the artist’s substitute for words, visual materials, with economy and a keen sense of purpose. Mary’s work is intense. It rewards the curiosity of the viewer with an understanding of how line, color, texture and composition shape an abstract, poetic conceit.

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Judges 12 / Mary Snyder Behrens

The twentieth century artist, Joseph Cornell, is one whom Mary cites as an influence on her own work. Referring to my text on modern art, I was amused to read H.H. Arnason grappling with the irony of writing about something visual. “Too many words”, was my first thought. Then I realized that, like myself, Arnason reverted to the work of a poet as a reasonable parallel to the work of the visual artist: “…(Cornell’s work) is filled with associations-of home, family, childhood, of all the literature he has read and the art he has seen. The only proper analogy for it is Proust…” So it is with Mary Snyder Behrens- referencing a poet will gain you access to the work.

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Judges 19 / Mary Snyder Behrens

Snyder Behrens is one of the five artists to be featured in the Spring Metro Gallery Tour on Friday, April 3, from 5 until 8 p.m. See you then!

In the meantime let me recommend listening to the incomparable Leonard Cohen.

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Julie Kottal

February 25, 2009, 2:29 pm

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X-Scape 6 / 20″ x 20″ / Oil on canvas / Julie Kottal

I work with a group of powerhouses! The professors in the Coe College art department consider the growth of each student so closely over a four-year undergraduate career. They teach well. They continue their own studio work. Julie Kottal is a beneficiary of this teaching practice. 

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X-Scape 9 / 20″ x 20″ / Oil on canvas / Julie Kottal

With her former advisor, Peter Thompson, Julie shares a keen color sense and a painterly fluency. And, the brilliance of Peter’s teaching and the strength of Julie’s artistic will and vision lie in the dramatic distinctions in their imagery. Since her graduation from Coe College, Julie has truly gained an authority in abstract composition. Her gestural, large-scale work now hanging at the gallery is a juicy testament to the the physicality of her medium. I’d say that this woman could handily claim her own status as a “powerhouse”.

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X-Scape 8 / 20″ x 20″ / Oil on canvas / Julie Kottal

Julie is one of the five artists whom we will feature in the Spring Metro Gallery Tour on Friday, April 3rd. Each of those artists will be profiled as we anticipate this harbinger of spring. Save the date!

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X-Scape 11 / 20″ x 20″ / Oil on canvas / Julie Kottal

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Greg Souther

February 9, 2009, 5:41 pm

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Sterling silver, copper (with copper polka dots), and 14k gold / 1″ in diameter

Sometimes it’s that simple. A rosy-fingered dawn, a slight up-tick in temperatures, light lingering a bit longer at the end of the day, and the stalled, best intentions about a blog-posting in a new year become reality. The necessary process of literally “taking inventory” has offered me more than daunting lists of items and numbers this month. Assessing what remains in the wake of December 2008, I’ve handled and marveled at works with a pleasure that the busy-ness of the holiday season often disallows.

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Sterling silver, copper, 14k gold / 1″ in diameter

One delight of this process has been handling the work of Minnesota metalsmith and jewelry designer, Greg Souther. Aspects of Greg’s work that I find most compelling are his streamlined forms and closely considered combinations of materials. The lines of his earrings and pendants are, simply, elegant. Such design, paired with impeccable craftsmanship, make Souther’s work a lovely addition to our jewelry cases. Would that the arrival of a new day always yielded such a quiet appreciation of an object of art.

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Sterling silver, copper and flower stone.

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#15: Katarina Vavrova / December 15

December 15, 2008, 3:11 pm

Etchings by Slovakian artist, Katarina Vavrova, have the uniquely Eastern European focus on the expressively rendered figure in evocative settings. Delicately colored, illustratively detailed, Vavrova’s images range from biblical to mythological and literary. They are small masterpieces at small prices.

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