Drawing in Air

Delavan Art Gallery's newest Wild Card exhibition, Drawing in Air featuring work by Andy Schuster, opened this week with a reception on Thursday, November 19.  For this exhibition, Lipe Art Park’s large scale outdoor installation is moving indoors as its designer, Andy Schuster presents renderings of his drawings and planning models for a special exhibit across the way in Delavan Art Gallery. The show remains up through November 28.

Central to his work, Schuster says, is drawing. “I draw on paper, on ceramic surfaces using fire and glaze or in space with steel.” The exhibit at the Delavan will consist of drawings and planning models for the concurrent installation at the park, along with recent ceramic works.

Schuster says, “The drawings, visualizations of the stick sculptures at Lipe, are executed on white ground suggesting snow-covered landscapes, and indicating how the finished installation evolves with seasonal environmental changes throughout the year.” Of his ceramic pieces, Schuster says, “The ceramic work is drawn on clay using glaze and controlled flame patterns produced by a high temperature wood fired kiln, producing loose geometric interventions on the clay’s surface.”

In a recent artist’s statement, Schuster offers insight into a new series of large-scale sculptures he is currently working on that incorporate natural elements, creating pieces that are both interactive with viewer and their surroundings. “The creation of this series of work,” he says, “combines my interests both in sculpture and in natural cycles, and will entail more of an imposing scale than anything I’ve previously attempted.”

Currently On View: Elements

Just a reminder to stop by Delavan Art Gallery before December 19 to see our feature exhibition, Elements, with work by Lynette Blake, Amy Haven, and Jim Van Hoven. While the three artists each enjoy dual art careers and endeavors, all of them offer strong, insightful statements about their work as painters and potter.

Lynette Blake, well-recognized in the Rochester, NY region where she has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, has this to say of her richly colored pieces: “In my paintings, I strive to convey a sense of the infinite which exists in the everyday, but is veiled to our conventional senses. I believe that everything within the universe is comprised of the same elements, of the same energy, and if we are open to it, we can perceive and experience the universe through every object, every form of life and equally through every landscape and every event.” She continues, “My current work is an effort to integrate three facets which jointly help us to experience this sense of the infinite: first, that which we call real, the world experienced through our senses, captured by the depiction of objects; secondly, that which is commonly included in the concept of intellectual, expressed by the use of geometric shapes and patterns; and finally, connecting and embracing the first two, the cosmic, expressing that which we can intuit as though things were unbounded by space and time.”

Painter Jim Van Hoven also references the senses and touches on the infinite when describing his approach to his work, saying that in doing a pure landscape piece, “I strive to capture the experience of being immersed in the primeval environment,” adding, “this not only includes the visual experience, but also the sounds, smells and even the temperature of my surroundings. Sometimes there are signs of civilization that are subservient to the landscape. These are usually vestiges of a time gone by that reinforce the transient nature of human existence.” Van Hoven says that his work “is an extension of his personal connection to nature, a combination of observation and memory,” and that he “hopes that the viewer can relate their own experience to my art and gain access to a place they may never have been.” The artist feels that the use of various media, such as oils, watercolors, etchings and pastels, provides him with more “languages to speak in,” and he says that the rural backdrop and areas surrounding his West Monroe, NY “Settlement Studio” provide much of his inspirations for his art.

Amy Haven uses her art to “understand the world through making and using functional objects.” She says, “Clay gives me a connection to cultural pasts and provides me an affinity with my contemporaries. I believe that beauty can be found in the simplest forms, and to me, there is no simpler form than a pot.’ Haven applies the term ‘infinite’ to its possibilities of surface, form and function. She compares the action of opening a kiln to “opening presents under the tree on Christmas morning –You never know what to expect and if you’re lucky you will unwrap a treasure.” In her more recent work, Haven has been exploring the use of text on the surfaces of her pieces, because she explains, “I have been discovering how words can be both functional and decorative, much like any artwork. It is amazing how what we say often defines us and yet the use of intelligent verse is becoming more and more obsolete these days.” Haven, a studio potter and tile maker in Central New York for ten years, was formerly an artist in residence at the Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino, CA and the Watershed Art Center in Edgecomb, MA.

Keep reading the blog for a review of Elements by Bonnie Rosenberg!

In Case You Missed It: TLS Exhibition

Delavan Art Gallery’s Wild Card Exhibit The Art of Transitional Living Services, which was on view through November 14, celebrated 35 years of services to the Central New York community by TLS, a long-time active organization that provides a broad range of supports and services to individuals living with a developmental disability, mental health issues or brain injury.

The celebratory purpose of the exhibit extended the organization’s focus in helping people live in the community with dignity, responsibility and hope. David Barber, TLS Program and Service Coordinator, says, “An important part of TLS’s philosophy has always been to provide individuals with opportunities to explore their creativity and potential, and we believe that the creative process of art making enriches, heals and enlightens the life of the artist and the viewer as well.”

Transitional Living Services began in 1974 with twenty staff members committed to helping individuals who were being de-institutionalized from state facilities to live in the community. Today, a staff of professionals offer many hundreds of people not only residential services, but also support for employment, education, medical and substance abuse issues, community involvement, habilitation activities and service coordination. The organization’s vision of service encompasses the needs of veterans, immigrants who do not speak English, those with hearing impairments, and other individuals challenged in different ways.

Independent Review: Elements and Transitional Living Services exhibitions

Delavan looks to the elements for its November Show
-Bonnie Rosenberg

Earth, wind, fire, and water are the substances of life and the soul of the Delavan Art Gallery’s latest exhibition aptly entitled “Elements.” Though vastly different aesthetically, three artists – Lynette Blake, Jim Van Hoven, and Amy Haven – come together in this show to communicate their views of nature. The paintings, ceramics, and woodcuts on display reveal the indelible mark nature leaves on each artist and their work.

Lynette Blake explores the infinite through her oil paintings in an effort to connect herself to the viewer, the viewers to one another, and the in the end, everything in the atmosphere.

Blake’s approach to still lifes and landscapes is double-edged, as she melds organic and geometric shapes on the canvas. In Zigzag, tree branches are superimposed with transparent, kaleidoscopic shapes. The paintings appear to have a distorting piece of glass sitting in between the foundational natural image and the viewer’s gaze.

Each painting is covered in hues of blue and copper. When dominated by shades of copper, the canvases nearly glow with warmth, while the bluer canvases are cooler and more somber.

Positive/Negative looks like an over-exposed photograph. Branches and still life elements dissolve into one another. The radiance of suggested sunlight at the heart of the work abstracts and transforms it. Blake’s highly stylized technique is an exploration in unreality and the duality of the image.

Fellow nature enthusiast Jim Van Hoven’s many incantations of landscapes run the gamut in terms of style, technique, and medium. In all of his works, Van Hoven endeavors to relate an experience rather than a likeness. His aim is to truly capture every aspect of the scenes he paints/etches, etc.

His oil works provide placid vistas of the outdoors. In Rainbow Falls a cascading waterfall rushes to the waiting rocks below. Grays, blues, and forest greens constitute this innocuous painting. Beyond paintings, the exhibit also displays Van Hoven’s woodcuts, which sit on a plane above his other works. In Northern Nocturne, intricately cut treetops weave together in front of an invented moonlit night. Less literal and more editorial, these woodcuts alter nature and defy expectation.

Peppered throughout the exhibit are Amy Haven’s ceramic pieces. Not strictly sculpture-in-the-round, and certainly not paintings (although some are fastened to the walls), these works admittedly teeter on the precipice of decoration and function. While the precise setting for them is unclear, the appeal of them is not.

Haven’s ceramic pillows affix to the wall and are ornamented much like a turn of the century travel trunk. Post cards, stickers, stamps, and text are printed on every rotund rectangle as if chronicling a trip abroad. An avian theme flutters throughout the works as does adage-bearing script. Text is applied with a heavier hand in Font Vase, where disassembled letters float on a neutral ceramic background.


Transitional Living Services exhibition

Exterior of the main Elements exhibit is the gallery’s ever-changing Wild Card show. Running until November 14th is the celebratory The Art of the Traditional Living Services. Traditional Living Services (TLS) is an organization that provides services and support to people with developmental disabilities, mental health issues, and brain injuries. It encourages its clients’ creativity while acclimating them to everyday life. The fruit of their artistic labor is what is currently on view.

With some items up for sale and others not, the exhibit offers a diverse collection of works in various forms of media. Graphite drawings, stained glass panels, watercolor paintings, and photographs are just some of the artworks produced not only by residents of TLS, but also by employees and others connected with the organization (which happens to be celebrating its 35 year anniversary).

Elizabeth Edinger’s Family Portrait appears as though it’s been ripped from the cover of a cherished childhood book. The illustration is bright, whimsical, and reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.

This show recognizes the artistic capabilities of those who would not otherwise have the opportunity to showcase their art. It highlights the greater philanthropic project of TLS, while at the same time challenging preconceived notions of what constitutes art and who is an artist.