Town Hall Meeting

2009-05-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

2008-10-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

Jesse Bercowetz (KY)
website

photo by Chester Alamo & Costello, Jesse Bercowetz, Chicago, IL, 1997

left: all flowers are dead, 2008

right: The Pale Memory of Man, 2008
mixed media, 16'X20'x20'

i got kicked out of school in kentucky and followed a girl to indianapolis. then i followed a guy to chicago and then another girl to new york.

2008-10-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

Paul Brainard (PA)
website

left: O The, 2008
graphite on paper, 30" x 22"

right: Coney Island Whitefish, 2008
graphite on paper, 40"x 26"

I was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and lived there until I moved to New York to attend graduate school at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. While living in Pittsburgh , I had many different food service jobs that were alternately hilarious and totally loathsome. The experience was very informative to the directions taken years later in visual art.

The use of advertising in my work came from the subversion of the advertising used in one of the “Family” Restaurants where I worked in the late 1980s. The small ad's at each table , shiny and glossy, were food pornography. The assault of loads of whipped cream, ice cream and enormous burgers with bacon, ham and cheese loaded with friend onions and special sauce was nauseating to say the least. One place served a “mystery sandwich” with at least 4 kinds of meat, sauce etc. The customers were fairly extreme in the tastes too, I can recall cooking 14 scrambled eggs for a young groom, still in his tux and his newlywed still in her gown at 4 am.

The composition of much of my work is influenced by the figure ground relationship that occurs in the average advertisement, through the person/product visual relationship. In most ad's, a happy consumer is pictured next to a product and their life becomes better as a result. The inclusion of self portraiture into the environment of the advertisement is representative of the gulf that exists between reality and the world of unreality.

2008-10-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

David B. Frye (IN)
website

Well Gwendolyn, lets see...... I was born in Mildenhall, England in 1963. I am the son of a black U.S. airman and an English woman. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I have worked in various trades since leaving Indianapolis, Indiana where I was raised. I have cooked (line cook /Souse Chef), painted houses and repaired walls for divorcing couples (David B. Frye - Divorce Carpenter ca 1988-90). I taught school, worked in a museum as a guard, studied vocational rehabilitation counseling, and I now work as an elevator man. I have lived in Virginia, Washington D.C, New Jersey, and New York (Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens). Hope you are well.
Dave

Artist Statement, regarding the Lincoln Paintings

American historical painting has, for the most part, always been about ideals and ideal realities. Americana is an ideal representation of the glory of us. Through this device painting is frequently pressed into the service of some perceived “good” to our society. I think of the happy slaves one sees romping through their chores at the splendid home of George Washington. I can promise you all there is such a painting. It hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I did not paint it, of course, but it is as much a product of lies as any thing I ever dreamt up. Such a painting not only tells the “story of George Washington,” it supports an ideal social order that many Americans are comfortable with. Think of pious Christian mothers free from the struggles and trials of women, or walls filled with images of those soldiers who do not bleed, but walk eternally towards the glory of battle. Our national story is made clean by means of these symbolic realities. Our history is thereby esponged of the lessons hidden in its tragedy. This may be seen as the noble lie that Plato spoke of.
Years ago, while I was attending a funeral reception, an old friend commented on his horror at seeing two men kiss. He went further to express his contempt for gay marriage. The whole time he was speaking his children played in front of a blaring television. On the T.V screen were images of the burnt bodies of two men hanging from a bridge. The Iraq war was decent enough for his children, but sex never! It was then that I began to really wonder; what could be making so many people blind? Violence is all around and few people act to stop it. Very few people curse and oppose violence the way they oppose equality for gays. People speak out on somber occasions, organize voter referendums, and scream all night in churches to stop sex. The fact that American children are being shot on the way to school proves my point. There are limits on who can see sex, still more limits on who can buy or sell sex. However, anybody can buy a gun in most places. I am convinced that no amount of depicting violence as it is would cause reflection or even discussion. My work uses sexual imagery as a form of protest. I have asked myself, “Is a dick in somebody else’s ass worse than a child being shot on the way to school?”

My piece is called Sick Semper Tyranus. “Sic Semper Tyranus” is what John Wilkes Booth shouted as he murdered Abraham Lincoln. In my Painting Mr. Booth is absent. Instead I depict Mr. Lincoln, and the rugged frontiersman Davy Crocket, double teaming a Black woman in front of a rustic log cabin. As I worked the painting I realized that the original small penises weakened both the composition and narrative of the painting, so I decided to render the first of many snake cocks. The carved figure was built sometime after the completion of this painting; I reasoned that the use of real sculptural space combined with the theatrical qualities of my painting would create a more dramatic piece. I felt that the result was much more confrontational and aggressive. When this piece first showed in Indianapolis, (Town Hall Meeting exhibit) the public was clearly charmed. A steady stream of visitors left comments about my works ability to offend Jesus. Meanwhile something like three people are murdered in Indianapolis everyday. So few “cheeks” are turned in my home town, yet I was flattered that Jesus found time to hate my paintings.

Sincerely David B. Frye

2008-10-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ben Godward (IN)
website

Caves of Limestone, Caves of Bedrock
Cool and wet.
Respite for the summer heat.
They wonder with their wildlife
and give you a place to know you are alone.
Emerge
Light glinting off the slot canyons of glass.
Unsure of direction.
A world of motion and pace.
Slide into the flow.
Test its’ dimension.
You are always youself.
Cold wind above, unrelenting
Gusting steamed air from below.
The city that is impossible to get lost in.
Fall in step with the umbrellas and do exactly that
or
Ride a dream in the neon’s glow

left: Cock Rings and Bubble Gum, 2006

right: Fit to Live and Love, 2008

2008-10-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

Luisa Kazanas (MO)
website

I was born in Columbia Missouri and moved extensively. I have lived in Brooklyn for 13 years, 10 years longer than anywhere else.

2008-10-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

Gwendolyn Skaggs (IN)
website

"it's not about "where" you are, as much as it is about "who" you are and "what" you gather and give."

corresponding pages from Elephant Ears (an object d'art)
Wendaferd Press 2009
a scene from a Billy Graham crusade
a scene from a stoop

I was born to a carpenter and an artist/activist/homemaker in Indiana, right smack-dab in the middle of the middle class and white culture. I am number 7 of 8. I thought I wanted to be a draftsman. I chose to explore art. I went from Indiana to Southern California, and back to Indiana. I tried Chicago and Baltimore. I wanted extreme diversity, deep tones and rich contrast. New York is a nice fit. A good challenge. A great competitor. When I create art of any medium I trust my intuitions, I am driven by the "tug and pull" effect (both physically and metaphorically) of an artwork, whether 2d or 3d.

2008-10-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

Jacqueline Skaggs (IN)
website

I was born in Indiana and moved on some 30 years later, for good. I lived in Atlanta for a bit in my twenties and considered Colorado, for a second. I moved to Baltimore for graduate school with plans to move on to NYC afterwards. And so I did. Finally, New York feels deliciously like home.

left: For Mr. Reinhardt, Opals, Dreams, Lines and Hearts, charted periods from "Art as Art", Art in Theory, pp. 806-809, graphite powder and ink on paper. Dreams (above) is one of a set of 4 drawings/essay pages.

right: Knows no bounds, gouache on wood, rhinestones, 10 1/2" x 11 1/2" From the series The charted breaths of letters, poems and notes. Received. Some never sent. Some charted and destroyed.

2008-10-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

Chris Uphues (IL)
website

left: Screaming Skull, 22" x 22"
oil on canvas 2008

right: For You (In Full Bloom), 32" x 30" oil on canvas 2009

When I lived in chicago I felt like some hunchback that stood outside in the cold peeking in the windows of a party I would never be invited to. In New York women tell me I'm good looking, bartenders buy me drinks, and money appears from thin air.

2008-10-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

Doug Young (IL)
website

left: Mission Control 48" x 96" wool rug, 2005

right: Nuclear Launch Center, 2008
wood, plastic, paint

Mine is a story similar to the thousands, and thousands, and thousands who came before me. And there will be thousands, and thousands, and thousands after me. Growing up in Chicago I knew what I wanted to do with my life from an early age, and as I grew older the semblance of New York was all to clear. Where else would you go? I worked my way through high school and college as a janitor, moving to Brooklyn straight out of college in 1995.
New York is unique in the fact that it is one of the few places which offers such excess in emotion, fortune, and misery. One of the first things I noticed after moving here was how people would refer to New York not in the same context of other American cities, but as an entity, a being, a welcomed/unwelcome participant in their lives. As if the city was capable of making decisions, granting wishes, or destroying hard won creations.
Living here I have had my share of humiliating jobs, uncaring girlfriends, and frantic plans to pay the rent. On the opposite side I have found acceptance, love, and a belief in oneself. The movies chose to capture the city in one of two ways. First the apocalyptical, chaos roaming through the streets of Escape From New York, The Warriors, and Fort Apache the Bronx. On a literal sunnier side we are given the beautiful spring day when life is a new and we cherish the moment when Harry Met Sally.
No other city is portrayed in such black and white gestures. New York is a romantic landscape. How you want to capture that landscape is up to you, and you alone.

Town Hall Meeting

2008-10-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

A Statement

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born some-where else and came to New York in quest of something....Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.
E.B. White (1899-1985), Here is New York
From Here is New York, Copyright © 1949, 1976 by E. B. White.

I began investigating and creating installation art in 1995 while living in the Midwest, creating artworks in unused “real” estate. In 2000 I moved to New York, and over the years I have adjusted to smaller works and photography to get me through the long period of time of adjusting to smaller live/work spaces and deciding where I wanted to call home. It was in 2006 when I founded Alcove, formerly nestled in New York's Chelsea art district (547 W. 27th st. 6th flr.). Alcove was a cozy alternative exhibition space (hallway, and yet again, unused real estate), where art came face to face with art, and the viewer. It was approximately 5’ wide x 20’ deep. I exhibited group shows with 2-3 artists whose work had no visual commonality. The exhibits where rhymes and sometimes riddles. The exhibits made perfect (perfect is elastic and circumstantial) sense. I appreciated the tug and pull effect of the coupled works, the boisterous with the demure, and the generous give and take when a copasetic dialogue ensued. The space was an “ongoing installation”, for a year and a half. In April of 2008 I decided that Alcove did not have to be tethered to a lease. I could still conjure a mission, gather artists, and locate unused (for art purposes) real estate, without the monthly financial obligation and without borders. It is my shtick. It was in October of 2008 when the idea of a town hall meeting was conceived, over a cup of coffee with a fellow New York based artist who was born and raised in Ilinois.

Town Hall Meeting is an exhibition of works by 9 artist who were born and/or raised in the Midwest and have migrated to New York for the sake of art. The premise of this gathering of works is rooted in process, not only through medium, but also through the constant ongoing procession of choices made to stay beholding to a dream and an ideal. The selection of artwork is nonpartisan to this fact. The artists are devoted to their intuitions, sensibilities, and concerns (or lack thereof); they are relentless and willful with their execution. They are diverse in media and vision, using the strength of subjectivity, suggestion & knowledge to their advantage. This town hall meeting is not a political arena. I do not want to burden the artwork or the artist's history with politics. The curation behind this forum neither embraces nor despises the stereotypes of Midwest America (or it's eastern edge), nor is there intent to unveil or measure ignorance or intellect amongst the dialogues of the works, the viewers, or it's critics (as politics can). My intent is only to bring these artists, along with their labors and diversities, to their roots.

Gwendolyn Charlene Skaggs

To see past Alcove exhibits and purchase the Town Hall Meeting book: www.alcove547.com

Many thanks to Robert Lebow of Midland Arts and Antiques for opening his doors, mind and heart to this exhibition and making it possible for us to bring our work to this forum. To Shannon Moody, of Midland, for her patience and assistance while coordinating this exhibition from afar, and to David Andrichik of the Chatter Box for his kind donation.

A special thanks to Prof. Steve Mannheimer for his essay Art for Our Home (introduction Town Hall Meeting, the book), whose thoughts and words were just as greatly appreciated when he was the art critic for Indianapolis.