Steve Williams' Show Opens This Thursday

I'm very excited about the new artists I have had the opportunity to exhibit and represent once we made the front portion of our store a gallery space. The first artist we showed in June and July was Asser Saint-Val. His work is surrealist with a whimsical nature that really captured me. He works with all sorts of media trying to achieve an array of textures. This collection was known as "The Melanin Project." I had to take home two pieces. Here are a few we showed:


I have also shown the work of a ceramist named Gerbi Tsesarskaia. She makes all her work out of soda fired grolleg porcelain which means it can be used functionally as it is safe to eat on, or aesthetically as art.

This Thursday is our opening reception for Steve Williams, who created a show entitled "Currency" for us. For those of you who may not know, I also maintain a blog on our website where you can read more about Steve and how he created this exhibition. If you're in the area I hope you will stop by to have a little wine and cheese with me, this Thursday, January 27th at 7 o'clock.

More random thoughts and commentary

A few days ago I attended a lecture given by a few very successful bloggers in the interior design field. One of the questions that came up was what parameters they applied to their blog subjects/writing. All three said that they only say positive things. If they see something they don't like, they simply won't bring it up on their blog. Sort of a "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" rule. While I completely understand the logic behind this attitude, I simply can't subscribe to it. Is that terrible? Sure, I'm not going to go out of my way to blast someone personally, but I feel that the whole purpose of my blog is to have a personal space where I can feel what I feel and say what I want to say. That includes being self-deprecating from time to time or commenting on something I find ridiculous. And, the posts in which I have been most honest have been the ones that elicit the most responses from my readers. That said, I don't have "over 5000 subscribers" as one of the panelists said she does. But for me, that's ok, I want to be me, and if that means less people like me, so be it.
That said I am going to be outright critical of something I saw recently. This is the cover of the current issue of Town & Country:

This is a case in which I feel that the Editor should have applied the "only positives" rule. "What he really thinks about your plastic surgery?" "The divorce of the year" "I wish I'd married rich". WHAT!!??? Thank you T&C for underlining everything wrong with our society and putting it in bold letters on your cover. You have successfully alienated every non-gold-digging-plastic surgery boycotting-married woman in the United States. And yes, the editor in chief did lose his job this week so thankfully I wasn't the only one who felt something is very wrong with this picture.
I hate to make promises I won't keep, but one of my new year's resolutions is to write more often--and not to have any parameters. Hope you enjoy the ride....dancing through my figurative Paris.

Art and The Artist (thoughts on the subject)

For a while now I’ve been trying to understand the definitions or categories of what is “art”. Or as a corollary what it means to be an “artist”. For some art forms, this description is very clear. Or I should say if one finds success, then it is very clear. A person who paints and can sell his or her works at a price on which he or she can make a living is easily defined as an artist. A musician who finds employment in a band or orchestra, likewise. But what if an artist cannot make a living with their art and so takes on other responsibilities, does that mean they are not an artist?

Or take the instance that is a bit closer to home for me. I recently had a discussion with a friend in the same situation. I trained for many years to be a dancer. As performers, dancers certainly fall in the category of performing “artists”. But then, I stopped. Or my friend, got injured. From one day to the next we weren’t dancing anymore. But does this mean that overnight, we were no longer “artists”? So then that would mean that to be an artist is not to “be” something but to “do” something. Both of us feel that we are still artists. Artists without an art form, but still artists.

My former classmate Sara Webb in Stanton Welch's "TuTu" (Houston Ballet)

Then there is the whole question of the limits of sanity. Or perhaps I should say, the praise for what has gone beyond sanity. I recently saw the film “Black Swan” and read many critiques on it both before and after. No writer fails to discuss the fact that artists are expected to push beyond what is humanly possible in the name of “art”. And that somehow that is perfection or “absolute art”. In the scene at the end of the movie when “Nina” has reached that supernatural point, her only words are “I was perfect.”

Yet, what exactly did her performance achieve?

Did the audience experience the same supernatural euphoria that she was feeling as she was spinning her way into a physical transformation?

What was the purpose of her “art”?

Why do we have such a fascination with the abnormal?

And if it’s not beyond the limits, then is it not art? Is a dancer who is not mad, less of an artist than one who is?

Is no one really crazy, just very creative? Or the reverse, are some of the things we categorize as art just something totally insane?

This was a question I pondered more than one while walking the halls of the many art shows during Art Basel week here in Miami.