Printmaker Bethia Brehmer’s Wisconsin youth has stayed with her through her changes of venues from Sheboygan to Madison, to Amherst, Massachusetts and Cape Cod, where she’s lived for decades. Her vegetarian, pacifist parents took her on walks through the woods instilling in her a desire for peace, harmony and nature. She’s a world traveler who lived in Ghana, and has visited India, China, Bali and Europe. Her passion is to connect people to nature through art (she loves that “ART is in eARTh”). But her work is not just about the natural world. It also encompasses a mandala-like symbology, as well as quoting from other artists and cultures, to create a unique runic consciousness, (imbued with a wee tinge ofAubrey Beardsley). And it is not all peace and love; sometimes the political speaks, as in a piece she did of America as Shiva, or when she imprints clocks with messages about running … [Read more...] about ART FOR OUR EARTH

I’ve written hundreds of reviews of galleries, museums and fine craft shows over the years, with many clever theme titles, but I must say this is among the cleverest titles I’ve seen. “Suspended Animation” is a fresh look at the concept and how it can be expressed as art. The mixed mediums of five artists span from assembly work, watercolor and oil paintings to found materials. The artwork selected for this exhibition offers perspectives on daily living and our connections to the spaces and structures of our lives. The diversity of this show adds immensely to the joy of experiencing it. There’s Andrew Chulyk, who won’t be limited by well-defined expectations. His career spans five decades and includes product and package design and works featured by the Society of Arts and Crafts and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. His paintings have also been exhibited widely in museums and … [Read more...] about SUSPENDED ANIMATION

Merriam Webster provides a primary and secondary definition of Indigenous: “produced, growing, living or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment” and “of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized by a now-dominant group.” Both definitions might be applied to the cultural foundations of two expansive exhibitions running concurrently at the Hood Museum in Hanover, New Hampshire. “Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined” and “Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala” embody the preservation and development of personal and artistic identity in the wake of occupying influence, and the enduring strength of cultural tradition. Born in Kyŏngsang Province in 1945, the year Japan surrendered its decades-long annexation of Korea, Park Dae Sung was five years old when he lost his … [Read more...] about AN INSPIRATIONAL PAIRING

A trend of social commentary has emerged among the latest generation of glass artists, a conceptual development evident in “Fired Up: Glass Today,” an exhibition curated by Brandy Culp, Richard Koopman Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. There are over 100 artworks by 57 artists in the exhibit. Included are works by luminaries of contemporary glass such as Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra and others, that foundationally frame perspectives by a new generation of glass artists combining consciousness raising content with aesthetics and technical skill. I spoke recently with Aaron Schey, co-owner of Habatat Detroit Fine Art, which represents a number of artists in “Fired Up: Glass Today” (including UK artist Hannah Gibson whom I met at the exhibition’s press opening). Schey and I discussed the current of activism as a … [Read more...] about FIRE IN THE ATHENEUM

“Sixty Years of Collecting,” a two-semester exhibition at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA) at UMass Amherst, showcases 112 works from the museum’s permanent art collection. To some visitors, descending the concrete plazas, steps and ramps of 1960s Brutalist architecture leading to the Fine Arts Center’s entrance may recall academic fortresses and student protests. To younger ones, it’s a skateboard park. Although backpacks must stay outside, inside around the corner hangs Ryan McGinness’s silkscreened skateboard, lush with vegetation, and Keith Haring’s low-slung aluminum pyramid shimmers with teal and gold pictographs, beckoning to all ages. On an early October afternoon, moments of stillness and bursts of color draw me through the museum, past frequent doublings, folding, mirroring and reversals. Alison Saar’s sewn lithograph, a flip-flop image of an African and a … [Read more...] about ‘3,800 HIDDEN TREASURES’