Tag Archives: VACI
Nathan Trevino hangs art in for the VACI Open Members Exhibition, which opened Sunday in Fowler-Kellogg Art Center. Photo by Adam Birkan.

Open Members Exhibition combines talent, community, philanthropy

August 6, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

As the Student Exhibition comes down in the Fowler-Kellogg Art Center, another show goes up featuring different artists but with a similar philosophy.

The annual VACI Open Members Exhibition opening reception is today from 3–5 p.m. Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution will highlight local artists and community members, who will show their work and support the School of Art.

Bob Hopper, member of the VACI Partners board, enjoys where the Members Exhibition sits in the Chautauqua art scene.

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Visual Arts
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Victoria Brunson, 13, and A.J. Shostak, 12, sell their hand-made jewelry at the first Art in the Park on July 15. Photo by Lauren Rock.

Second ‘Art in the Park’ event brings encore artists to Miller Park

August 4, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

The forecast for Sunday is a little overcast, but that won’t stop the artists at “Art in the Park” from bringing some sunshine to Miller Park. Last month’s show was likewise threatened with rain before the vendors and buyers drove the clouds away with their enthusiasm and art.

This Sunday’s show, from 12 to 4:30 p.m., sees many of the same vendors from last time, some of whom have been selling at the show for years and some of whom are newcomers, including students from the School of Art.

Among the old hands are painter Sean Huntington and Hope Alcorn, who will show her jewelry. Huntington came to “Art in the Park” for the first time in 2006, an experience that helped to change the course of his life.

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Visual Arts
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Vanessa German’s power figures are constructed from found objects. “They come with a history, and they come with an identity,” she said, “and they come with so many stories inside … already.” German’s work is on display for the remainder of the season, in the Strohl Art Center Bellowe Family Gallery exhibition “American JuJu.” Photos by Lauren Rock.

In ‘American JuJu,’ Strohl displays power figures that reckon with liberty, value, humanity

July 25, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Vanessa German’s sculptures have the power to fly, to sing, to heal ailments, to call deeply upon history, to spark curiosity and to bind us together in our humanity. Her mixed-media found-object compositions have their roots in her endlessly creative life as a poet, photographer, actress, designer, educator and sculptor.

Her solo exhibit, “American JuJu: Root and Power for a New Century,” opens today from 3–5 p.m. in the Strohl Art Center’s Bellowe Family Gallery, with German performing several of her spellbinding spoken-word poems at the reception.

“I grew up in an environment where there were always the ingredients for making something else,” said German, the daughter of a fiber artist who encouraged her children to create, to read and to perform. “There was never a time in my life that I don’t remember making things and being a performer. That’s how I knew myself; that’s how I understood who I was.”

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Photo by Michelle Kanaar.

Student exhibition shows talent, variety in School of Art

July 21, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

There had been a countdown on the chalkboard at the Chautauqua School of Art for more than a week. It read: Seven days before Don picks your work for the Student Exhibition! Then five days, then three. Friday, Artistic Director of the Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution Don Kimes chose work from each student to hang in the Fowler-Kellogg Art Center during the quickest exhibition installation of the season.

The art was hung in just one day, ready for the opening of the School of Art Annual Student Show Sunday from 3–5 p.m. in the Fowler-Kellogg Art Center. The show is unique among Chautauqua art shows, because the gallery does not open to viewers until the opening reception begins, in part because of the rapid manner of its assembly, and in part because of the popularity of the art.

“It’s always a challenge to place the show,” Kimes said. “A group show is always difficult to hang. There’s obviously no theme, except that it’s all students.”

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Wesley Anderegg. “Man,” “Two Headed Man,” “Woman,” “Lollipop,” “Man with Pipe.” Ceramic plates. 18˝ × 23˝ Photo by Lauren Rock.

31 nameless orphans, looking for a home

July 18, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Very few pictures wear name tags. Naming is the province of the caption, or of an oral tradition, sometimes passed on from parents to children, but more often eluding the good intentions of commitment to writing. The boxes of anonymous photographs in most home closets are silent testimony to this nominative failure. Worse yet, consider the images of family and friends banished, orphaned, at estate sales and flea markets, touching evidence of the painfully anonymous tradition of the portrait.

Judy Barie, director of the galleries of the Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution, has opened an image shelter for the nameless at Strohl Art Center, in which she offers 31 unnamed images to patrons ready to provide foster parenting and a new home for only partially identified images.

Yes, there are a few pictures known by first names in the shelter — Allen, Joe, Steve, Trudy, Joe, and Virginia among them. Otherwise, we must be content with Two Headed Man, Small Female Head, Young Bride, and Teens on the Beach.

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Guest Critic Reviews
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Olive Ayhens, “City Edge.” Oil on canvas.

Ayhens paints natural energy into New York City

July 17, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Transparent buildings lean on each other, scrabbling for purchase on slippery concrete. Around them, tiny cars beetle insistently along a yellow line, or are swept through New York on a swollen river. The city tries and tries not to fall into the ocean.

Olive Ayhens’ oil paintings and drawings reflect the hectic life of New York City, using the energy of the natural world she grew up with on the West Coast. Sometimes the geysers, volcanoes, earthquakes and floods tear up the city, and sometimes they serve as glimpses into its true nature.

Ayhens will speak tonight at 7 p.m. in the Hultquist Center about the progression of her work.

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Visual Arts
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President of VACI Partners Jack McKibbin stands with scholarship recipient Erika Mcllnay. Mcllnay is a sculptor attending Texas A&M for graduate school. Her scholarship was given in memory of McKibbin’s late wife Roberta McKibbin. Photo by Lauren Rock.

McKibbins’ support helps art student to immerse herself in her work

July 13, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 1 Comment

For many artists, studying at the Chautauqua School of Art is a unique and incredible opportunity to create a body of work, to connect with other students and teachers, to hone in on their true artistic form or to experiment with a new direction. And for many students, generous gifts and endowed scholarships make an otherwise out-of-reach experience possible.

For Erika McIlnay, a graduate student in sculpture at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, coming to Chautauqua gives her the time to try incorporating new media into her work.

“I found that here, I’ve had time to think about where my work is going, and I’ve shifted quite a bit since,” she said. “Having the time to actually think and work has been great — and the opportunity to be in this environment.”

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Sana Musasama, “The Wall.” Mixed media

Musasama makes art talk about the unspeakable

July 12, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

“I got on the road because clay exists all over the world,” ceramic artist Sana Musasama said. “It’s made by Mother Nature, so it doesn’t matter where you go in the world, you’ll find clay.”

Clay has taken Musasama to many places — from her hometown of New York City to Sierra Leone, Japan, India, France, Holland, Vietnam, Thailand, China and Cambodia. Musasama will speak tonight at 7 p.m. in the Hultquist Center about her life, travels and art.

“I pick places to travel based on how their pottery forms were, what their pottery history was,” she said. The first place she traveled was western Africa.

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