Micrometamorphia

 

Micrometamorphia 

Before I Get Carried Away

The Lesson

Panic's Platter II

Bedlam's Bowl

Reducing Nature's Embrace to a Few Casual Comments

detail from Dystopian Fragments of an Abandoned Repertoire

detail from Reducing Nature's Embrace...

Dystopian Fragments of an Abandoned Repertoire

By Tom Wachunas 

“Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.” - Keith Haring

“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.”  - Paul Klee

“For the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.”  - John Berger

“Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.”  -  David Hockney

 

EXHIBIT: John Thrasher Artwork: Graphics, Drawings, Ceramics / at Strauss Studios, THROUGH AUGUST 2, 2024 Studios – closing reception at 6pm on August 2 / 236 Walnut Avenue NE, Canton, OH / Viewing Hours: Mon-Fri 10am to 5pm, Sat. 12noon to 5pm 

https://www.johnthrasherfineart.com/

 

   Welcome to the gobsmacking art of John Thrasher. His visions have thoroughly awakened the brainy wordy word nerd in me, making my hippocampus go all cattywompus. Say…whaaat?

    Here are works comprised of more than simply lines going for a walk. The lines can be winding routes across whispers and shouts, crowded with higgeldy-piggeldy rambles through the brambled gambles of our world. Prickly and tickly visual essays, or even incantations, on the condition of our worldly condition, the happenstances of our circumstances, both random and reasoned. Dangled angles on the riddles and rhymes, wants and wishes of our wandering, wondering minds.

   Contemplating for a moment… dirty dishes. While Thrasher’s ceramic works such as Bedlam’s Bowl and Panic’s Platter II are referenced as “glazed earthenware,” we could just as well regard them as chunks of crazed earth. They’re not awash in shiny delicate pretty colors, but instead immersed in sharply delineated descriptions of explosions or chaos. These lines aren’t on a casual stroll into innocent ornamentation.

   We viewers shouldn’t be either. Thrasher’s complex monotype prints and ink-gouache drawings are truly entrancing, but only to the degree you’re willing to not just look at them. They command the necessary time, and intentional commitment to look inside them. To do that, maybe make like you want to get close enough to smell them, with your nose that close to their surface. Only then might your eyes focus enough to appreciate the astonishing clarity of seemingly microscopic details that inhabit these facile flows and fragments, these stratified streams (or screams?) of the artist’s consciousness, these giddy and gripping ventures into memory, mystery and mayem, fact and fiction, judgments and jokes. Mesmerizing minutiae.  

   With my amygdala agog, sufficiently bumfuzzled, dizzied and dumbfounded, I feel, uhm…Thrashed. Exhausted. Yet inexplicably enlivened. Art such as this will do that sometimes. Say… whaaat?

Scott Simler's Radiant Realeyezations

 

Scott Simler’s Radiant Realeyezations 

By Tom Wachunas

“…Scott left deep and lasting impact on us here at BZTAT Studios. His smiles, his quiet diligence as an artist, his gentle soul – all are missed greatly. This exhibit is bittersweet. We are so thrilled to share the many works of this phenomenal artist, yet also sad that his presence and creativity are now spoken of in past tense. His art, however, allows his presence to be felt each and every day. We are honored to share it with his adoring fans.”  - Vicki Boatright/ BZTAT

“…So take a walk through Scott Simler’s re-imagined worlds and see how they challenge your notions about time, space, narrative, how beauty is created, and who it’s created by. I guarantee that the journey will be a delightful one - and that you’ll be changed by your travels.”  - Craig Joseph (2022)

EXHIBIT:  Scott Simler Retrospective Art Exhibition: Honoring the Art of a Friend / BZTAT Studios at Canton Creator Space, 730 Market Avenue S., Canton, OH / Through August 3, 2024 / Viewing hours Monday – Saturday Noon to 5pm / 330-371-3150

 http://bztatstudios.com/scott-simler-retrospective-art-exhibition-honoring-the-art-of-a-friend/

 

   I herewith offer my heartfelt THANK YOU to Vicki Boatright – the artist BZTAT – for her remarkable service to individuals with developmental disabilities, to those she has called “differently-abled” and undervalued artists. Her impassioned encouragement and mentoring of their capacities to create unique perspectives on being alive is a truly valuable enrichment of Canton’s cultural ethos.

   And so…here’s a history. His story. Scott Simler. Though he passed away on April 28, 2024, the engaging art of this prolific painter remains ever in our midst. This exhibit is an enthralling here-and-now witnessing of an indefatigable response to life. An electrifying testament, to be sure.

   You’ll find nothing too obtuse, too sinister, or too threatening, about Simler’s eye-popping paintings. In many of his works you might notice some stylistic nods to such modernist influencers as Van Gogh, Picasso, Gaughin, or hints of Matisse. But Simler’s pictures aren’t academic imitations or copies so much as appreciative conversations with inspiring legacies. Think of them perhaps as sympathetic, reverential dialogues that Simler has recontextualized into spatially playful personal moments, memories, scenes – a world, indeed a legacy of his own making.

    His is an uncomplicated yet immersive world, one all abuzz with bright colors, confident lines and lively shapes floating, bouncing, dancing with a radiant, unmitigated optimism. A welcome and courageous salve for our tormented times.

   Scott Simler lives among us with his art. It’s a fearless, joyous art. It’s art that simply asks us to remember our own ability to smile.

A Compelling Catharsis

 

A Compelling Catharsis 

 

By Tom Wachunas 

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.”  ― C.S. Lewis

   The sky fell, the earth bled. On December 21, 1988, 270 people from 21 countries died in the terrorist bombing of Pan American Flight 103 en route from London to New York. The explosion rained a torrent of human bodies and debris across many miles, including the city of Lockerbie, Scotland, where 11 of the dead were Lockerbie citizens on the ground.

   That’s the start of the story in Deborah Brevoort’s 2001 play, The Women of Lockerbie. It’s written as a modern form of classical Greek tragedy. This profoundly moving ode to mourning, anger and redemption, presented by Seat of the Pants Productions and directed by Craig Joseph, is as breath-giving as it is breathtaking.

   The combination of scenic design by Ron Newell and lighting by Micah Harvey is a potent one, creating a sensation of barren, haunted landscape. Abstract sculptural forms hover in the air, alternately suggesting plumes of smoke, mangled wreckage, or twisted bodies descending.  

   The play unfolds during the night of the winter solstice -  December 21, 1995 -  in the rolling hills of Lockerbie on the 7^th anniversary of the horrible crime. Wandering through the Lockerbie landscape is Madeline Livingston (Anjanette Hall), a New Jersey housewife who had spent every day of her life weeping since the bombing.

    Arriving in Lockerbie with her husband, Bill (Terence Cranendonk), for a memorial community mourning vigil, Madeline senses ghosts in the hills and immediately goes on an urgent search for the unrecovered remains of her 20 year-old son who had perished in the crash. Bill, knowing such a crazed hunt was futile, is powerless to assuage her misery. He questions Madeline’s sanity. He wonders if God even exists in this world. His own pent-up grief is all the more augmented when his wife says he doesn’t love their son at all.

    Bill connects with tender-hearted, feisty Lockerbie resident, Olive Allison (Anne McEvoy) and two of her friends (Woman 1, played by Charlene V. Smith, and Woman 2, played by Natalie Sander Kern). Each member of this lively ‘chorus’ suffered personal loss in the bombing. When Olive encounters Madeline’s whining self-pity, she breaks down, unleashing a furious, hateful tirade against America’s role in the bombing. The need for mutual healing was never more urgent.

   The women unite and embrace a mission of mercy to retrieve 11,000 pieces of clothing recovered from the crash so they can wash them in a stream - a symbolic action of purification meant to cleanse broken souls. The clothes had been sealed in bags (deemed “contaminated evidence” by the U.S. government), and stored in a warehouse guarded by a cold-hearted, disgruntled American bureaucrat, George Jones (Doug Sutherland). “Lockerbie is the Siberia of the State Department” is his blithe assessment. He refuses to release the clothing as it is scheduled to be burned up very soon. Eventually he will relent, proclaiming, “Hate won’t win in Lockerbie.”  Meanwhile, he accuses his Lockerbie employee, Hattie (Sabrina Maristela), of being a spy as she’s constantly at his office door busily sweeping up the dirt from his shoes. An amused Hatie denies the accusation, and then casually denies her denial in a welcome dose of sassy humor.

   In his program notes, director Craig Joseph wrote, “I’m grateful for the clear-minded, open-hearted, and full-bodied cast and design team who bravely explored these questions: What might a Greek drama look like in the 21st century?  How would it force us to work differently? What new skills would it invite us to develop?...”

    Open-hearted, full-bodied bravery. New skills indeed. The startling caliber of unflinching expressionism from all the performers in this heart-wrenching story of communal connection and healing is extraordinary. It’s an expressionism, certainly a poetry, at once terrifying and painful, sincere and credible. And ultimately inspiring.

    Sky falls. Earth bleeds. Alone we are broken. Together we heal. Catharsis is that simple, that complex. Come see. Listen (oh, those marvelous Scottish accents!). And be grateful.

  

 The Women of Lockerbie – photos by Aimee Lambes -  July 19, 20, 26, 27 at 7:30pm / July 21 and 26 at 2:30pm / at Founders Hall, Malone University, 425 25th Street NW Canton, OH / Tickets at

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-women-of-lockerbie-by-deborah-brevoort-tickets-685782894097?aff=oddtdtcreator&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2j84eMZujTPU65O8dpAWt9OoBDG_R1hoIN8bVV2LHLnyJt8Si-Z2VZJYo_aem_BnxOlna74cJnN5o4_454og

Technique Domestique Unique

 

Technique Domestique Unique

Handkerchief

Chicago Tangelo

Somethin' Growing Here

It Was Miami

Regrowth (All Is Not Lost)

Bedroom Garden

Feral Mothers

By Tom Wachunas 

“In this exhibition you will see materials like my family’s discarded pizza lids, vintage handkerchiefs, furniture, IKEA curtains, yarn, and other household materials…I explore the relationship between domestic materials and abstraction. These paintings push the boundaries of what a painting can be, while using everyday objects with joy, playfulness, and all the messy, raw layers of domestic life…”  - excerpt from the artist statement by Katie Davis

EXHIBIT: Raw Material – work by Katie Davis, at Massillon Museum STUDIO M, through July 14, 2024 / 121 Lincoln Way East, downtown Massillon / Thursday, Friday, Saturday 9:30 am – 5:00 pm, Sunday 2:00-5:00 pm / 330.833.4061

https://www.katiekdavis.com/    https://www.instagram.com/kdavisstudio/

 

   A few days after seeing this exhibit, I chanced upon this curious statement posted on Facebook: ”Art is not meant to match your curtains. It’s meant to speak to your soul.” A snarky, snide, and silly dictate if ever there was one. And needlessly dismissive. As if curtains (or pizza boxes or couches or laundry piles) can’t possibly be art.

   In her statement for this exhibit, Katie Davis wrote further that those “messy, raw layers of domestic life” embraced / implied in her art were born in the context of challenging stay-at-home motherhood. Her paintings/collages became a satisfying way of processing the endless demands of domestic labor. “These moments of revelry were pure abstraction, arrangement,” she muses, “and something that verged on design and madness.”

  Madness? Only of a sort. Maybe better to think of it as compelling wildness. There’s no morose insanity here. No hopeless or brooding darkness. Katie Davis invests her delightful accoutrements of domesticity with exquisite tactility, all suffused with bright, vibrant colors.

   I felt an ineffable presence of childlike songfulness. Rhythms and rhymes, delicate and bold, filling the air of a household now transported to an art gallery. In her ambitious installation work called “Somethin’ Growing Here,” Davis invites viewers to relax on the loveseat. It’s not just a piece of ordinary furniture. It’s a painting in itself.

   So go ahead and sit. Look out at all those tunes lining the gallery walls. Sing along with the pulsing, illuminated soul of an artist mother.

Fired Up

 

Fired Up

By Tom Wachunas 

“…We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed...”  2 Corinthians 4: 8-9

   Yes. I’m fired up. About my most recent artwork. It’s a meditation, a prayer of celebration, renewal and gratitude.

    This piece, this peace, which I have named “Holy Ground,” was inspired by Exodus chapter 3, wherein God says to Moses (who was perplexed by how a bush could be on fire yet not burn up), “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”  

   The high-relief forms here were made with paint-stiffened, repurposed clothing adhered to the gold- colored ground of the canvas. I wanted the somewhat twisted perspective of the wrinkled white figure - its open heart indwelt by the fiery glow of divinity - to simultaneously suggest a posture of kneeling and an ecstatic leap. A synchrony of groundedness and joyous levitation. Surrender and victory.

   Moses asked what specific name he should give to God. The red calligraphy at the top of my work is the Hebrew transcription of God’s answer: “I AM WHO I AM,” or simply, “I AM.”

   He is indeed. And I’m glad of it. This is my Happy Force of July.