Praeterita

From last Thursday through yesterday, Sunday, I had a weekend that was filled with lots of good art, and a feeling of advancing significantly with my own work. The fact that the clocks went forward in the USA and that the temperatures rose after a horrible February helped, too. First was the A+D gallery, for a group show called Scaped that included an artist whose work I know, and whom I am acquainted with personally: Neha Vedpathak . I met her via the Paul Klein art advisory seminars, and her stunning work is in good company in this show organized by curator MK Meador. Neha is an artist who is clearly going somewhere big, so make note of her name now. Next, on Saturday, I had a great studio visit with curator Teresa Silva , who is writing a catalogue essay for my upcoming show at Corner . It's not just that she's a great person to talk to: she says things that reflect your work back to you in a way that makes you subtly improve it.  On Sunday, I met someone w...

  Last Friday I spent a few hours in the studio of Lynn Basa . Her studio is a storefront space in a building that once housed an eastern European-immigrant sausage maker -- an apt history for a contemporary artist. Our conversation ranged widely: current studio work, artist's block, the problem of changing your direction when your recent direction is in quite high demand, what represents good public art, the demands of an MFA program, how Andy Warhol influences the current generations of young success-hungry internet-obsessed artists.  Lynn has a successful career as a public artist, with ongoing commissions in Baltimore and Chicago. She wrote a book a few years ago called The Artist's Guide to Public Art: How to Find and Win Commissions , which I think was how her name first came to my attention. Facebook, of course, provided the final bridge. Her studio work currently involves making these gorgeous images from combinations of spontaneous, gestural accumu...