Posts By libby
Travel: A kinder gentler beach
The whole North Carolina June vacation started at the University City Arts League auction. Someone had donated a week at a nice beach house for bidding. My arm kept popping up to raise my bid until I exhausted my competition. Yesss. We did not know what I had bid on or where it was, really. After a bit of research into Oak Island, which is in the Cape Fear area north of Myrtle Beach, we decided to drive (a big thank you here to Michael Connelly’s The Fifth Witness, on audio, which engrossed us down and back). On the way ... More » »
A visit to the Union League–mostly picture post
Murray bid vigorously to take home from the University City Arts League annual auction a four-person tour. He succeeded, and so Friday, we and two friends, Ed and Sharon, went to the Union League, one of the last three Union Leagues remaining in the country. We learned from our tour guide, archivist Jim Mundy that during the Civil War Union Leagues were as numerous as mushrooms, formed all across the North and West to lend support–financial, moral, political, practical–to the Union cause. My own memories of the Union League were not kind–a bunch of self-important old white men. But the club, while retaining ... More » »
Another art resource
Thanks to Uri Halevi for featuring us on his Art Faves page, which he describes as “a visual, one-page database of the Internet’s most useful, interesting and unique Art websites, blogs, tools and apps that gives our users exactly what they need.” We’re in great company. The site is part of AllMyFaves.com, which covers subjects from architecture to weddings.
The pianos of summer in University City
Artist-modified pianos are scattered around University City to June 17, waiting for a public with itchy fingers. When the project Heart & Soul launched Wednesday night, June 6, the eight transformed pianos looked so inviting that people of all ages sat down to play. Say you make it your mission to play every one of them, you can find the map of the locations at universitycity.org/heart-soul. Here’s a 1.5-minute video of what I saw at the launch. The pianos are a borrowed idea–New York and Lancaster, PA beast us to the punch. But as public art, they far outshine those ... More » »
Book review – The Hare with Amber Eyes
When a well-known curator and artist inherits a collection of 150 netsuke–button-sized Japanese carvings in ivory or wood–he starts to think about how it came into his hands. Netsuke are button-sized Japanese carvings in ivory or wood that according to Wikipedia have a functional use–to hold up purses of men in kimonos, which otherwise have no pockets. The inquiry becomes a quirky family history about power, wealth, inheritance and obsession. The Hare with Amber Eyes is by Edmund de Waal, former curator of ceramics at the Victoria & Albert Museum and a ceramics installation artist in his own right. ... More » »
Interview with Douglas Witmer on art and modesty
Artist Douglas Witmer thinks a lot about community and how he can create an ideal one around him–and beyond. You may know him as a co-owner, with his brother-in-law, of the Green Line Cafes, which I think of as the community hub of University City. Or maybe you know him as a musician, or by his art work. The thread that weaves through everything he does is that commitment to community, and how he’s just a part of a larger whole. The modesty carries over into his philosophy of art, including issues related to whether we should care if art ... More » »
My heart in San Francisco
Recession-proof Union Square is finally looking a little frayed around the edges. On this visit we saw a number of closed storefronts where there had been businesses before. We also saw scrappy young galleries closer in to the center of things, which says to me that rents are down. But the place is still glorious–and green. Even the hotel is green, with recycling bins and reduced linens laundering. Big deal, you may say, but on a recent trip to New York, we stayed in a hotel room with only trash cans. In a parking lot next to Crissy Field in ... More » »
San Francisco part 1–a gallery find
The pleasure of happening on unexpected art–maybe a stencil on the sidewalk, maybe a public sculpture–happened more than once to me last week in San Francisco. The first time was a gallery window I passed while walking toward Union Square. The work was a taxidermied deer head attached to an ultra-long neck hanging off of a modest wooden trophy placque. The head and neck were covered in a homey, crocheted sweater with wooden buttons. The merger of the traditional tender craft with a macho trophy, the luchera mask (or is it a balaclava?) with the Dr. Who scarf, pulled me ... More » »
Peeps madness and holiday silliness
Peeps, those little marshmallow sweets that fill an Easter basket, have become a craft trendlet. First my friend Cindy told me her daughter’s workplace was in a Peeps diorama contest. Cindy emailed me the Wee Willie Wonka entry. Then my friend Andy sent along an ABA Law Journal contest. Who said lawyers don’t have a sense of humor? He also linked me to a Chicago Tribune contest, but the energy there seemed kind of low. I don’t get the Easter passion for Peeps, but I do get being silly. Besides, Peeps are a fine art material too. I’m thinking about Gabe ... More » »
Arcadia’s A Closer Look 8: Dechemia, Leclercq, Shaddock, Wahl
How, I say to myself, am I going to write about this show that brings up issues of What is Contemporary Art? and What is art of any kind? It’s a show that wrestles with beauty, concepts, the handmade, and even more narrowly, the made and not made, and the material and immaterial. It also wrestles with group show constraints–the meaning of being jammed into one space with others whose work impinges on your own in some way–and talks to your own, redefining and expanding, in the best of worlds. The show is A Closer Look 8, the show at ... More » »
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