See Saw

JOAN LOVELL AT HEALTHY LIVING NATURAL FOODS

I first saw Joan Lovell's prints when I was jurying the Burlington Vermont Art's Alive Show. I loved them, even on the power point. I thought no more about them until a few days later a woman walked into the gallery and introduced herself as an old high school classmate.  It was Joan, who had married and changed her name so I didn't recognize it in print. Wow. What fun.

Joan Lovell prints at Healthy Living, South Burlington, VT.

Last week Joan and I hung some of her prints  at Healthy LIving Natural Foods in South Burlington, VT. They look terrific. Oh, and the Richard Gombar paintings that were at Healthy Living last month are now up at Pine Street Art Works for July.

Here's what Joan says about her work:

"My prints are about roadside weeds: the way they jockey for position, explode with life, gracefully perish; the strains of their visual music intensified by random off-beat elements. My work says, "Explore Your Wilderness. Let old paths yield to fresh and natural harmonies.

Joan Lovell, Red Squirrel.

"I hand-burnish limited edition prints using a baren and wooden spoon onto tissue-thin Japanese papers. My studio home on a forest road in southern Vermont is critical to my work. Immersion there and and solitude has heightened al my senses and creative energies.

Joan Lovell, Spring's Up.

If you will be near South Burlington in July, get over to Healthy Living  at 222 Dorset Street to see Joan's work, and have a great shopping experience.

Joan Lovell, Runners and Their Companions

RICHARD GOMBAR AT HEALTHY LIVING

 The Richard Gombar exhibit is now up at Healthy Living, Natural Foods, at 222 Dorset Street in South Burlington, and it looks great.

Melaney with Richard Gombar Paintings at Healthy Living Natural Foods.


Melaney and Amanda in front of Richard Gombar painting at Healthy Living Natural Foods

The paintings will be at Healthy Living until July, when they move over to Pine Street Art Works. There will be more Gombar paintings at PSAW than there were room for at Healthy Living, so please, if you are in the neighborhood, stop into Healthy Living for this great preview, and then join us a Pine Street Art Works in July for the full exhibit.

DOK WRIGHT BANNERS AT PSAW

Burlington photographer Dok Wright came over to Pine Street Art Works yesterday to hang three of his banners in the window. These banners were a highlight of Dok's recent show at Burlington's Art Space 150 (which is where I had my first show in Burlington). 

Dok Wright hanging his banners in the PSAW window.

I love Dok's work. Recently he's been concentrating on stylized images of the human torso, in black and white. I love how he's had these three printed  as banners. I think they are particularly suited for windows because of their translucensce, as well as their size.

Dok Wright photographs in window of Pine Street Art Works

My windows face west, and the strong afternoon and evening light off of Lake Champlain, three blocks away, makes very strong reflections. They are backlit by three bulbs, as well. The effect of this is to make Dok's photos appear almost ghostly. The appear to shimmer in the window, blending with the reflections of the buildings across the street, as well as those of cars and pedestrians.

Dok Wright photos in the window of Pine Street Art Works

It helps, too, that the background of the images is black, so they disappear into the seeming blackness of the window. They look stunning from inside, as well, with the light from the window shining through.

CARA BARER AT CONVERSATIONAL READING.COM

Cara Barer was interviewed in Conversational Reading (an online literary quarterly)  Issue 12, summer 2008. The article is about book art featuring Robert The, Cara and Jacqueline Rush Lee. Essay by Elizabeth Waddell.

"Behind their playful solemnity, these books that flaunt their pages and pose as insects have an oddly wistful, fleeting quality. The ephemerality of books, not just individual volumes but the future of books, is one thing that led Barer to embark on the project. "I'm afraid the printed word will become a rarity, and the next generation will rely on the ephemeral word—the digital kind that only exists through a computer monitor, or a sort of virtual book that can hold thousands of titles. I'm not saying that's a bad idea—I only hope that the paper version continues to be exist for the people that want the real tactile sensation of turning a page and holding the real thing."


Cara Barer, Shitake

Jacqueline Rush Lee's work is something like Cara's but she presents it in it's sculptural form.

"Confronted with Unfurled, a sculpture by Jacqueline Rush Lee, it is difficult to know exactly what we are looking at. Delicate yet durable, its white striations blossom forth like the remains of some heretofore unknown sea creature or perhaps a fossilized fungi. It is neither of these. It is a book, fired in a potter's kiln at high temperatures until, instead of disintegrating, it reached a brittle, "petrified" state."


Endoskeleton by Jacqueline Rush Lees


Also featured - Robert The:

"Robert The never intended to be an artist. As an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he double majored in Philosophy and Math and was interested in language and logic, pursuing what he calls the "foundations of truth and meaning." You might say his artwork continues that same search—but in a skewed way. Books are guns, a dictionary is a noose, and bugs crawl out of covers. They seem to mean something, but what? At the very moment that these works create new significations, the meanings float ever-elusively away."


Robert The: Book gun

CARA BARER AT HEALTHY LIVING

Cara Barer is one of my favorite photographers. She has had two solo shows at Pine Street Art Works in the past two years and now I have the pleasure of introducing her work to shoppers at Healthy Living Natural Foods. As some of you know, I curate exhibits at Healthy Living, which is  a great place to buy all fabulous foods, local, regional and imported, as well as totally groovy accessories.

Melaney and Scott at Healthy Living with Cara Barer photos.

Cara Barer, Butterfly 2. Available through Pine Street Art Works

Cara Barer Roget's available through Pine Street Art Works

Cara Barer, Flurry, available through Pine Street Art Works

Cara has a new blog  -  yay! Cara, so be sure to check out her blog and stop in to say "hi" in a comment.

 
Cara Barer, Winston's on the cover of  Bound To Please, essays on American Writers and their books.

Cara's exhibit will be at Healthy Living until June 6th. The next artist will be Richard Gombar, for the rest of June, after which his work will go up a Pine Street Art Works.

MAKING A LIZA LEGER

Reader Ginny J-B asked about the reverse painting on glass in the photo of my exhibit at Healthy Living in South Burlington.

The Liza Leger she asked about it is the first one of his works that I FAKEd. I've always been a huge Leger fan. I remember copying "Big Julie" using scraps of color from magazines for my color class during my foundation year at The School Of Visual Arts in NYC. But that wasn't  a FAKE! Yet.

During the winter of 1999 or 2000 I was doing a lot of painting on windows, experimenting with color and line. I had just discovered a wonderful glass paint made by Pebeo of France. The line is called Vitrail and I love them. When I was looking at a book of paintings by Leger  it dawned on me that the color fields he used in some of his work would look wonderful as translucent shapes.

Here is the color chart I made for working with the product.
 

This is a scan of the reproduction of the original Leger. Two women and flowers. 1949

My cartoon and graph for my FAKE painting.

Liza Leger. Two women and flowers. Reverse paint on old window. 2000

I was still experimenting when I made this. Well, I'm always experimenting, but in this case I hadn't used translucent paint and opaque paint on the same piece, and I was initially disappointed with the combination, because when you hold the piece up to the light the opaque paint looks nasty. It is the vines on the edges that are opaque. So the whole translucency of the piece was compromised and it had to be a wall piece. I solved this by backing the painting with white board,  which actually is great because when light is on the piece, it casts shadows onto the white backing, adding a whole new dimension. Extra bonus - the piece changes with the changing light.

I hadn't thought of the FAKE series when I made this. I just wanted to experiment and have a Leger. Most of the works in the actual series work with tweaking the pieces to see how much I can change a painting, add my own "paw" as the French say, and still have it recognizable as a Leger or a Picasso or a Matisse. This one is almost pure Leger. Except it's not.

So, thanks for asking, Ginny. And yes, the piece is for sale. Price $1,800.

AMERICAN PHOTOBOOTH IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

Today's New York Times ran a long article on photobooths based on Nakki Goranin's book. And there's a great video with a walking tour of NYC photobooths.

RETAILING FOOD AND ART TOGETHER!

I hung the first show at Healthy Living Natural Foods in South Burlington on Monday, and it looks swell. If you are in the neighborhood, go over and check it out, buy some great food or products, and tell me what you think.  I'm so excited to have this new adventure in retailing. Brilliant, if I do say so myself, to combine art and food retailing. I wonder if it will become a trend.

Melaney and Megan at the customer service counter at Healthy Living Natural Foods .


information counter at Healthy Living

FAKE! on the long wall at  Healthy Living. The one on the right, Liza Leger Woman With Vase is a print of my original painting. I had it done on water color paper and it looks amazing. Best of all, it only costs $200 unframed, so if you want one, send me an email (liza@pinestreetartworks) or call. 802 863 8100. I don't have a paypal widget but I'm happy to wait for a check, or take a credit card over the phone. the rest of the work is for sale as well, at slightly higher prices because they are originals.

Megan on the phone in front of my two Picassos. The one on the left, Portrait of Jacquline,  is on a mirror. In the back Portrait of Marie Therese, is a reverse painting on an old window.

 
Amanda at the coffee bar.


Head Chef, Jaime Eisenberg.


Cosmetics counter, Healthy Living

Cup display at Healthy Living

Display at Healthy Living. Seriously good visual merchandizing  by Rhoby throughout the store.

PBS at PSAW

Paul Larson produces Art Express on Mountain Lake PBS in Plattsburgh, NY. He has been incredibly supportive to me and to PSAW in the past few years. He did a piece on my FAKE! Series in 2004, then last summer he came to the gallery to do a piece on the Paint By Number show, which I think will be aired soon. This week he and camera man Jared Stanley braved the snow and ice to travel across the lake  to tape a show on Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed my experience working with Paul and Jared when they interviewed me. Paul is a good director, and  I absolutely loved it when he'd say, "wait, there was a truck in the background noise, we have to re-shoot that sentence." or "please make that statement a bit clearer" or "turn this way". He took the same care with the PBN story and the American Photobooth. I'll let you know when they air. Meanwhile, if you want to see the FAKE! story you can go to my website and click on "media"

Food and Art Together? Naturally.

Pink Tulips, photo by Liza Cowan

I'm thrilled to announce that Pine Street Art Works will soon be opening an annex at Healthy Living Natural Foods, on Dorset Street in South Burlington. For those of you who don't live in these parts, Healthy Living is a locally and independently owned, ethically operated, and now rather large, retail provider of food and related products. HL started 20 years ago with a staff of two and now employs over 100 people.

I'm a fussy shopper and HL meets all my criteria. It's locally,independently and ethically owned and operated- by a dynamo of a woman named Katy Lesser. It is beautiful, it sells local organic produce and foods (thereby supporting local agriculture and artisinal food crafters), provides prepared food and baked goods  (I'm a pretty big fan of take out.)  The staff is great, and it functions as a Third Place, with it's restaurant and coffee bar, where people can sit and read the paper or run into old, or new, friends.

Here's the deal with Healthy Living. I will curate shows, small shows, in the store at the information/welcome center lasting up to two months. I estimate that between five to ten pieces can go up for each show. I will choose some of the artists who show at PSAW  but others will be coming in first to Healthy Living, and then maybe ending up later at PSAW.  So far, Cara Barer and Richard Gombar have agreed enthusiastically to showing at HL, which is two for two.

Best of all, this is a win -win -win situation. I get to show and sell my artists work to many more people than show up at my gallery, which is situated in a section of town I fondly call New Siberia.  Shoppers at HL  can view gallery quality art in an enhanced shopping experience. And HL gets to offer this visual treat to their customers. It's kind of the visual equivilent to being served a cup of free  coffee while you shop. This actually happened to me one morning at B*rns and N*ble bookstore a few weeks ago, and it was such an unexpected treat. The fact that they have a St*rbucks cafe in the store was not lost on me, but it didn't diminish my pleasure at being served a coffee. Such is the nature of marketing.

I'm starting the Healthy Living exhibition series with my own Fake! series because it's ready to hang and quite frankly, I can't resist the thrill of seeing my fake Matisses and Legers hanging in a grocery store. I can't even explain why I find this so exciting and amusing.

And here's a funny coincidence. It turns out that I used to live right next door to Katy's sister Elizabeth Lesser, in Woodstock, New York. My dog Alice, a beautiful German Shepard mix, used to trot through the small woods that separated our houses, sneak into Elizabeth's kitchen and steal food off her table. Apparantly Elizabeth isn't a major dog lover, but she was always gracious about it.

STRIP MINER- PHOTOBOOTH ARTICLE IN 7DAYS VERMONT

Burlington's alt weekly, 7Days Vt published a fabulous article about Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth in this weeks issue. It's beautifully written by publisher/editor Pamela Polston with tons of images from the book, and some photos of Nakki by Matthew Thorsen.

Nakki Goranin in one of her vintage photobooths. Photo by Matthew Thorsen for 7DaysVT

The article is too long to reprint here but link on over to 7DaysVT

There's a bonus that you can only get online. Cathy Resmer and  Andrew Sawtell,  from 7Dvt, came over to psaw last week to tape an audio interview with Nakki. It is online, with a photo slide show and you must listen/watch.

And remember, you can buy American Photobooth through my link to Powells Bookstore at the top of the sidebar of this blog. Merci.

CONNIE IMBODEN

A lot of people here in Burlington, VT got to see Connie Imboden's photographs when she showed at Pine Street Art Works during Art Hop '07. Actually, about a thousand people came through the gallery during the weekend, and many more during the following month of the show.

Connie is now featured in the Special Collector's Edition of Focus Magazine, Feb. '08. And she has a new blog.

Yay for Connie. Now aren't you sorry you didn't buy a print while she was here!!

Photo by Connie Imboden.

AMERICAN PHOTOBOOTH IN VENDING TIMES

Some of you don't read Vending Times. OK, most of you don't. Probably most of you don't regularly read any trade magazines, which is a shame. I became addicted to them when I worked in an ad agency that serviced clients who advertised in Car Wash Times, and Progressive Grocer.

Vending Times,  the newsmonthly  of vending, foodservice, coffee service and coin-Operated Recreational Services pubilshed a thoughtful and insightful review of American Photobooth this month. It was written by the editor Tim Sanford. Here are some excerpts:

"Very fortunate inventions attract the attention of historians like Näkki Goranin, a Vermont photographer and collector of historical photographs. American Photo Booth is the product of a decade’s research which, by the author’s account, she originally had no intention of undertaking. She became interested in the photos dispensed by these booths, plentiful but usually anonymous, and wondered how they were made...

Goränin understands, as many historians of technology do not, that the great inventors were also manufacturing and marketing geniuses who envisioned not only their creations, but the context in which they could be profitable...

The present grows continually out of the past, and anyone interested in the growth of the coin-operated industries will find this book not only uniquely informative, but lively and sympathetic. Entrepreneurs are known for looking ahead, not back – Henry Ford famously said, “history is bunk” – but they deserve their histories, and American Photo Booth is one of the best."

AMERICAN PHOTOBOOTH OPENING

We had a great opening here at Pine Street Art Works yesterday. Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth made it's official exhibition debut as thousands thronged to get in. Just joking - that only happens at Art Hop. But, despite snowy roads and a host of other Burlington happenings, we enjoyed a full house of friends and art mavens.

Nakki Goranin (right) discusses her work with my friends Alison Bechdel and Holly Rae Taylor while other friends and visitors look at the images.

We sold over forty books in two hours, and that hasn't happened here since Alison Bechdel's launch party for Fun Home. Several people showed up because they had heard the interview with Nakki the night before on Vermont Public Radio.  I couldn't have asked for better publicity.

NAKKI GORANIN IN PEOPLE MAGAZINE

American Photobooth has made it to People Magazine. That means a shelf life of months if you think about reading it in doctor's waiting rooms or friends' magazine piles. Yea!! for Nakki Goranin and American Photobooth.

American Photobooth in People Magazine, Feb. 18th issue

I wager that this is just the beginning of a flurry of great publicity for this fantastic book.

And remember, if you are in the area, the exhibition based on this book is showing at Pine Street Art Works, 404 Pine Street in Burlington VT. Artist's reception and book signing Saturday, February 9th, from 2-5.

AMERICAN PHOTOBOOTH REVIEW AT BOOKLIST

Booklist had this to say about American Photobooth By Nakki Goranin :
Review by Ray Olson

Like many other American Inventions, The DIY Photo-portrait machine was the brain-child  of  immigrants, each of whom approached slightly differently the challenge of putting a developing and printing lab, along with a good camera, in the same box with a sitting studio and making the whole shebang percolate at the drop of a quarter. Goranin briefly recaps the careers of those inventions, as well as  notable exploiters of the technology once it was in productions….

…the gallery of photobooth portraits Goranin has amassed and, as a photographer, contributed to, constitute the book’s big attraction. These faces of six decades are everything their autoportraitists could have hoped they would be – silly, joyous, friendly, loving, frank, naughty, honest – and charming besides. Spellbinding.

AMERICAN PHOTOBOOTH DEBUT

Despite an ice storm that pretty much closed down Burlington yesterday, Nakki Goranin and I managed to get the Photobooth Exhibit ready for it's debut. Unfortunately the ice storm prevented us from being open for First Friday, but the good news is that the show is up and ready for visitors this week, and then the big opening is next Saturday afternoon.

Pine Street Art Works, Nakki Goranin American Photobooth Exhibit

Meanwhile, I had to show you some pictures of the great show window and some interiors. Nakki has this amazing lilluminated sign from an old photobooth that we hung in the window. It reads, "Photos Lumiere Electronique Photos Son Claires et Precises"

Hand made 20th Century photobooth sign. Photobooth ephemera and American Photobooth Poster

Pine Street Art Works, American Photobooth, show window from inside
The mannaquins are holding enlarged photobooth strips.

There's still some tweaking to do, but the exhibit looks grand and is ready for visitors, so come on over if you're in the neighborhood.

GETTING READY

Pine Street Art Works is getting ready for our new exhibit: Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth.

Opening Friday February 1st during Burlington's First Friday Art Walk,  5 to 8.

Artist's reception Saturday February 9th, 2-5.

404 Pine Street
Burlington, VT

image (cropped) from Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth

American Photobooth Exhibit

anonymous photobooth photo. Copyright Nakki Goranin from American Photobooth, WW Norton 2008

Who amongst us hasn’t enjoyed a trip to a photobooth and then tucked those strips of paper into photo albums or given them away to friends? What happens when those pictures, made so casually, leave their original owners and begin to circulate publicly though flea markets, antique dealers and auctions?

One answer: they become Art and History.

Burlington, Vermont artist, writer and photo historian Nakki Goranin has collected several hundred of these images into a new book,  American Photobooth, to be published in February by W.W. Norton & Co. Leading the now hot trend in collecting vernacular photography, Goranin   spent twenty five years gathering thousands of photobooth images made since their invention in the 1920’s.

anonymous photo booth photo. Copyright 2008 Nakki Goranin from  the book American Photobooth

A selection of these pictures. along with images of original booths and their settings, make up the body of the new book, along with the social and technological history of this photographic phenomenon. Several of Goranin’s own photobooth-based works are also included.

Goranin’s collection will make it’s exhibition debut at Burlington VT's Pine Street Art Works in  February and March. Dozens of images from the book, enlarged for exquisite viewing, will be included in the exhibit.

Anonymous photobooth photo. Copyright 2008 Nakki Goranin from the book American Photobooth

American Photobooth, which has already been cited in The New York Times and The New Yorker, is sure to be one of the most talked about photo books of 2008. After it’s debut at Pine Street Art Works, the pictures will travel to New York City for exhibition at a major New York City photography museum.

Signed copies of the book will be available at Pine Street Art Works, and the artist/author will be on hand at the opening, Saturday, February 9th, from 2-5.

PHOTOBOOTH TEASER

Anonymous Photobooth photo from American Photobooth by Nakki Goranin

Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth -The Exhibit will be making its world debut next month at Pine Street Art Works to coincide with the publication of  Nakki's book, American Photobooth. Forthcoming from W.W. Norton & Co., the book has already been cited in The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Nakki is a Burlingtonian, an artist, writer, teacher, folklorist, anthropologist and major collector of photobooth images. American Photobooth is a sure bet for one of the top photo books of '08.

There's more to come on this subject but I couldn't resist bringing you this photo which will become the show postcard.