Review: SMALL IS BIG AT THE TORRANCE ART MUSEUM

Before I forget- To Live and Paint in LA was reviewed by Chris Hoff at the OC Art Blog. 
I got some good ink.

SMALL IS BIG AT THE TORRANCE ART MUSEUM

Posted by Chris Hoff on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 · Leave a Comment 

For the last several months the Los Angeles art world’s attention has been captured by the blockbuster Pacific Standard Time exhibitions happening throughout southern California. In the midst of this dominant viewing of the past art of Los Angeles there has been a few brave souls staging exhibitions that sit outside of this particular lens. One of these shows is the quiet survey of current Los Angeles painting that recently opened at the Torrance Art Museum titled To Live and Paint in LA curated by Max Presneill and Jason Ramos.

This satisfactory show tucked away in the south bay provides rich conversation for what challenges a painter in Los Angeles may face. When one first enters the main gallery it is apparent that scale is on the majority of these painters minds. L.A. painters are going big, with mixed results. I found myself wondering if this is how you get noticed in the noise of the L.A. art scene these days, go billboard size. Most of these large paintings had interesting parts and would have worked if they had been scaled down to a quarter of their current size. Working on such big canvases is difficult work, and I applaud the effort, but most fell short. The funny thing is, in the heart of all these large canvases, it’s the small paintings that work best.

I attended the night of the opening, and while walking through the main gallery fighting the crowd; it was the smallest painting of the show that drew my attention. Mary Addison Hackett’s slight depiction of a figure and a dog stood out among the noise and crowd of opening night because of its tenderness. I went back a week later and still experienced the work in the same way. Hackett’s painting is reminiscent of David Park’s figure work, but with a sunless palette that left me with a sense that her subjects reside in place far away from Los Angeles, possibly giving us a glimpse into the psyche of every Los Angeles based painter, the hope of escape one day.

One take away from this exhibition will be that L.A. painters are not afraid of color. A strong work in this show that captured what seems to be the prominent color field in current L.A. painting best (minus the hot pink) could be found in the work of Tomory Dodge. Dodge’s hard-edge abstraction is firmly Californian in its roots, but thoroughly L.A. in its color choice.

Another quiet work that was almost missed among the colossal works in this show was the meditation on line and pattern by Alison Rash. Rash’s markings stood far outside the kinetic energy of the majority of works in this exhibition that it almost felt like a break to get lost in the line of Rash’s subtly strong work.

To Live And Paint in LA is a wholly gratifying examination of the current state of L.A. painting, even in the work that fell short, providing a broad survey of the painting of our location and time. The show will run until some time in March and should not be missed.

To Live and Paint in LA at the Torrance Art Museum

The Torrance Art Museum Proudly presents

To Live and Paint in LA

Curated by Max Presneill and Jason Ramos
Opening reception Saturday, January 21st, 6-9 pm

A broad survey of current and emerging painting trends and talent from Los Angeles

Jonathan Apgar, Rebecca Campbell, Daniela Campins, Alika Cooper, Noah Davis, Tomory Dodge, Asad Faulwell, Jon Flack, Yvette Gellis, Iva Gueorguieva, Mary Addison Hackett, Carlson Hatton, Thomas Whittaker Kidd, Andy Kolar, Constance Mallinson, Allison Miller, John Mills, Aaron Noble, Antonio Puleo, Alison Rash, Nano Rubio, Conrad Ruiz, John Seal, Ryan Sluggett, Comora Tolliver, Chris Trueman, Miller Updegraff, Grant Vetter, Ben White 

* * * * * * * * * *

This is a wonderful roster of painters. I'm honored to be included. A catalog accompanying the show is available. 

Mary Addison Hackett

"The Walk," 2011

oil on canvas

10 x 8 inches

Just between you me and the lamp post...

It's pleasant enough being back here, but honestly, I'm already to go home again. Apparently this means I have defined home. I also am at a small crossroad regarding blogging and facebook. Feeling a hibernation coming on. A retreat or withdrawal.  Made it to Steve Roden's show at the Armory today. Very good. Dental appointment followed by studio visit with Mark Dutcher tomorrow. My hostess has suggested I go to the Korean Day Spa. Perhaps I will. I did yoga this evening and fell asleep during shavasana. I rough hung the show this morning. Last night I had sushi with Matt.

9/25/10 Addendum: Bummed to have postponed my studio visit with Mark due to the dental appointment. My face was so numb my friend said I looked like I had botox and Bell's palsy. I'm still hungover from the anesthesia. Lesson learned: Never, EVER, miss the 6-month check-up again.

Today is a studio day, but first....

An online arts journal, called Nashville Critical recently started up with something of a call to arms in defining what's critical in Nashville. Having moved away from Nashville about 20 years ago partially due to a lack of professional exhibition opportunities, I felt compelled to contribute.

Addendum: (To clarify- when I say a lack of professional exhibition spaces, what I really meant to say, was that there were only one or two commercial galleries in town. Didn't want anyone to get the impression that there was a plethora of non-professional spaces in town, or that there was a total dearth of professionalism. Just not many spaces, period. Why, back in the day, there weren't even coffeehouses, and I had to grind my own pigment and chop my own wood.)

I'm tired of thinking.

I decided to leak some new images to Kris Chatterson's blog.

Kris Chatterson featured me on his blog KCLOG. Kris is painter based in New York. He is represented by Western Project here in LA. His blog is devoted to featuring other artists and what's on the walls in New York and LA.*

*As opposed to my blog, which was most recently devoted to telling you how many William Orbit tracks it takes to get from Culver City to Glendale and back.

PS. Thanks Kris!

Let me introduce you to my new friend, the Los Angeles Freeway System.

Last night I documented a friend's performance at the Brand Library and Art Center. I was hoping to finish up in time to get to an open studio, also on that side of town, but by the time I was done, it was a crapshoot on whether I would have made it. Considering I'm not too good with finding my way around the Los Angeles foothills in the first place, I drove straight home instead. Straight, being the key word. I scored a perfect 100 for not veering toward the wrong freeway exchange at any point during the evening. Embarrassing as it may sound, when I don't pick the wrong exit on the freeway, I am elated. Countless times, I've had to pull off at the next exit, turn around and try it again. Painful. The drive home was nice but bittersweet. LA is beautiful at night with all the city lights twinkling; I'm driving a nice little sports car, and I have William Orbit, Strange Cargo playing. I felt like I was in a David Lynch Film and it made me a little sad. The whole trip was about 50 miles or the entire cd plus track one repeated.

Jolly good.

Trivia: my grandmother's (Father's side) maiden name was Jolly. Annie Lee Jolly. And of course, Annie Lee was pronounced, Annilee. Nice name, Jolly.



Today was a good day. I love studio visits, but I can see why artists have separate viewing rooms built specifically for viewing the work. The taking down works in progress, pulling out works for show, cleaning up and rearranging the furniture so that peeps can get an unobstructed view is time-consuming. This is not new news. It's old news. The studio is essentially down for a day because I'm usually too lazy to go in and strike the set and get back to the mess right away. Like right now, I could be painting, but instead have decided to write about what a dreadful chore it is to show work to people who love art. I am SO being sarcastic. Of course, it's NOT a chore and I love it. I'm just telling you how lazy I can be after I clean up the joint. (Okay, so maybe I'm more antsy to work than I let on- after my official guests had left, I pulled out those 3 small paintings in the foreground of the picture above to show KE some works in progress.)

To backtrack, Kristi had set up a studio visit with a couple interested in some of the larger paintings. My friend, Jason, was kind enough to let us view a painting on loan in his office on the 14th floor of the Condé Nast building. Afterward, we caravanned over to my impeccably organized studio and I showed them a few other paintings. After everyone left, I took ole Fuzzy Face for a walk, fixed us both some dinner and told Fang we were the most boring couple on Earth. Creative and smart, but boring.

Drawing takes time.

My students did, for the most part, a kick-ass job on their value project. I'll be grading mid-term portfolios Monday and Tuesday, but by end of class yesterday, their approximately 7 to 8-hour drawing of a sphere, a cone, a box and some metal thing, under dramatic lighting looked very good. I used to be of the belief that anyone's drawing will look spectacular after 8 hours. I have discovered this is not true, but that's okay, an 8-hour drawing is still admirable no matter how awkward it is. The student above works quickly and had an excellent drawing by the end of the first day, yet she managed to put another 3 hours in on the second day. It shows.

Damn, cleaning out the studio is grueling and not for the feint of heart.

That would be feint faint of heart as opposed to the deceptive thrust of the heart as implied in the post title. 

The game is structured and extremely hard, like diamonds, 2009
oil on canvas
7" x 5"

Three days it has taken me to weed out the studio. One full day, one full, but kind of half-ass day and today was the finessing. I also trucked some work over to storage. Moving into a smaller storage unit was a dicey move, but I think I'm okay with it. It's a tight squeeze and it definitely means I will not be making any more larger paintings. I haven't issued a moratorium, per se, but secretly, that's where I'm heading. I think this is a dicey move as well. When was the last time you saw an installation view at a gallery or a museum in which all the works were under 10 inches? When was the last time a show of tiny paintings was reviewed? (Other than a review last year in the New York Times.) It seems like a death wish or the fast track to oblivion to impose a size limitation on my paintings. Here in Los Angeles it seems that small paintings are the mainstay of  salon-style group exhibitions held during the month of December and benefit auctions. This is one of the reasons why I was reluctant to do them and also why I suddenly found myself enthralled with investigating this scale after having such a bias against them. I love disputing myself. 

So far, the head count of the 5x7's is 12. It's the titling that's been slowing me down. That, and the ongoing search for self within them. More on that later. I also need to update my statement.

***
Just got the disappointing news that I  was NOT selected as a pre-qualified candidate for upcoming public arts projects. Bummer, I was thinking I'd have fun doing murals and being a public artist, as opposed to the private sector artist that apparently I am. Oh sadness.

And totally unrelated,  but quite funny as hell, I came across this quote by Anthony Lane  in his review of Star Wars: Episode 3-Revenge of the Sith, "Break me a fucking give." It's from 2005 so I'm already four years past the shelf-life, but I'm intent on finding a way to insert this into every conversation I have from now on. 

Quick report on the workshop

Informative workshop hosted by the Los Angeles Civic Arts Program. I've been vetted for a public arts program in the past, but was not a finalist, so it was good to get some more information on how to make a stronger app. I've been doing some things right.
√ Sincere letter of interest
√ Strong work

What I did learn was what to include on the resume and what to leave off. They could care less about group shows. They want to see your teaching experience. They want to know from your references that you can work well with others and meet deadlines. I'm pretty sure my references will back me up on that and now I can highlight my teaching experience rather than mention it at the end. And lose the majority of group shows. They were useful when I first moved to LA and when I returned to painting, but they've probably served their purpose now.

They're really open to gallery artists who have NOT done public art before, so that's not as big a deterrent as I thought. They also showed some examples of some projects and I can't believe I'm going to say this, but in a million years I never imagined simply painting a supergraphic on building or a wall would be considered public art. I know- murals, where have I been? But again, in my mind most murals are narrative like the amazing examples I've come across in post offices. Think Diego Rivera or Thomas Hart Benton. Seeing abstract painted buildings totally opened up my world of interest and ideas. As a gallery artist, (that's the term the commission used) I kept limiting myself to what I considered public art. You know, traditional outdoor materials, large scale, sculptures or intricate bronze work, stained glass, etc. My biggest obstacle was figuring how, as a painter, to make public art. And on top of that, I had mistakenly assumed that abstract art would be dismissed for not relating to a broader community. So, yep. excellent use of 2 hours of my day, not including travel time. They even reimbursed for parking.

I will renew my membership to MOCA

I am not much of an activist, though on two occasions I protested the war by demonstrating all by my lonesome on the corner of Sepulveda and Culver. I'm not agoraphobic, enochlophobia, demophobia or ochlophobia. I just get flustered around semi-organized groups of people. So instead of showing physical support today at the Geffen, I will renew my MOCA membership. A couple of weeks ago, we politely informed the membership telemarketer that we were going to have to bypass the membership renewal this year. Like lots of artists and arts professionals, I have alternated which museum to support from year to year. This year, I was going to let them all lapse. Not honorable, but true.

The fact that I'm going to shell out a membership fee might seem financially insignificant, but it's not. I've been acting all hopeful about the economy, like it was maybe some kind of group consciousness that would self-correct in a few months.

I was on a roll in the studio and was beginning to think that being partially self-employed was a small coup during these times. I had already been offered a class for spring AND the summer intensive, plus I got wind that they changed the rules so that adjuncts could teach more than one class per semester and was told my name was brought up as a possibility to teach one of the additional classes. I was on the verge of actually being comfortable, optimistic and bullet-proof. I thought about the phrase, "Everyone's got to eat" and figured that without art, life would indeed be very bleak, so I was thinking to myself, "Everyone's got to have art."

Then for some reason, seeing the 'Mandatory Budget Cuts' sign posted in the fine arts dept. mail room on Saturday, along with not hearing back from a couple of people who had recently inquired about my work, and a couple of other things, triggered a dive into the abyss. Ironically, logging onto Fidelity and seeing I still had a few token dollars in what is the last vestige of my retirement account a.k.a the reminder of my 4-year-participation-in-the-civilian-world-back-in-the-90's-and-why-that-didn't-take, was actually a surprise. Not pleasant, just a surprise.

So, um yeah. The MOCA renewal is a big deal and this is a post encouraging others to join in support. Please read the Christopher Knight letter linked below.

And while I'm laying stuff on the table, I'm also looking for additional teaching job(s). Preferably painting or watercolor, but drawing's cool too. And commissions, I'm still good for these too. And if all else fails, I suppose I will paint fruit, because I'm pretty sure everyone likes fruit, although I was hoping to wait until my 70's or 80's before I trotted out the fruit still lifes. I'm only half-kidding about the fruit. The one above was done while demonstrating gouache techniques.


Open letter to MOCA trustees from Christopher Knight

MOCA Mobilization group on facebook

Upward and onward

I just lovingly placed the RFQ for the Los Angeles Intl. Airport project in the mail. I don't know why organizing the elements and resizing jpegs seemed so time-consuming yesterday. Some days are just molasses. It felt productive though and I've always envisioned some of the watercolors translated into tiles, so it was doubly good to throw my name in the hat. As a painter, I'd actually like to do public art, but I sell myself short thinking that my work is too chaotic to be adapted for a public space. No more. I'm beginning to see the possibilities.

This week is going by fast.

car talk

Yesterday I was in a car, for most of the day it seemed. I'm in Los Angeles, so this would be considered normal for many people, but not me. I didn't even leave the boundaries of Culver City and yet because I had to cart stuff here and there, I couldn't bike or walk. No wonder people drive Bentleys.

Oh and I'm giving mobile blogging a go while I'm in the studio, just for kicks and because it's forced brevity. So if a post is choppy and brief like the one below, chances are I phoned it in.

Just when you think it doesn't get any better, the Los Angeles Times sends me a plush bathrobe because I'm a loyal subscriber.

Honestly, it really is the little things that give me moments of joy. I've haven't had a plush bathrobe since I left Chicago, and I'm pretty sure that one had paint all over it.

Heads Up: Art Talk at Kristi Engle, This Sunday May 18

Kristi Engle Gallery
5002 York Ave.
Highland Park, CA 90042
323.472.6237

I forget now what all this is about...*
solo show of new paintings by Mary Addison Hackett

May 3 - June 7, 2008
artist talk: SUNDAY May 18, 2 pm.


________
*John Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol.1, endnotes

Never get your bangs trimmed the day before an event

Famous last words: "I want them really short. They grew out so fast."

[sigh]

****

Well, my intentions today were to work on the laptop and compose some eloquent letters to folks I'd really like to see the show. And I would have, except that one of the nicest people in LA called to see if I was available to have lunch in Culver City. Then I two-wheeled it over to Venice to visit another one of the nicest people in LA, who honored my request to trim my bangs a tad too short.

Then there was grocery shopping, a dog food run, getting the details for pet sitting a neighbor's dog this weekend, and the disappointment of realizing the dress I won on ebay, was not REALLY a vintage Lilly Pulitzer dress after all. I mean, it's still a vintage frock, but I thought I had found an near-exact replacement for my summer painting outfit, which happens to be a well-washed and worn Lilly dress from the 90's. Instead I received a knock-off, but for 10 bucks I can still paint in it. Still, I had my heart set on finding an exact match.

And of course, later tonight is LOST.