I Like Art #1: Kathy Kelley

I went gallery hopping yesterday and saw some art I liked, so I decided I'd start a new series of posts about local gallery art. Unlike Beth Secor, I have no intent to try to visit every gallery or see every show. I don't have that much time or energy. But if I see something I like, and I can get some photos, I'll post 'em.  I'm not sure what the titles of these individual pieces are. They have really long, angst-ridden titles like "the fracture between us yawns as a cavern so wide, I feel the bruise of soul" and "i obliterated that which i loved." Really kind of unexpected for the work. 

Indeed, if I had to describe this work, I would think of words like "industrial," "junk," "heavy," even "masculine." I would think of artists like Keinholz, Richard Serra, Robert Morris, Joseph Bueys. 

But I did some research on the artist. She has a blog and ... well, here is an excerpt.

Not observed, but assumed based on my life experience to also be considered is each partner’s capacity to own their own crap and actually do the work to move each individual toward the healing of life wounds. I also believe even if the marriage is dissolved, healing and the non-repetition of wounding behaviors come to those who exercise and expand these capacities. I also believe these capacities even without infidelity to be building blocks of a strong marriage because everyday there are little betrayals, perceived or actual, that need to be dealt with. I choose to exercise and expand these capacities within myself. [defining forgiveness in terms of significant reductions in ceasing to seek or demand justice or revenge, ceasing to feel ongoing anger/resentment, and increases in wishing the other person well and restoring relational trust - Handbook of the Clinical Treatment of Infidelity By Fred P. Piercy, Katherine M. Hertlein, Joseph L. Wetchler]

Yow. She reveals a lot more of herself than I ever would! Her blog contains a lot of Kelley's poetry, lots of photos of her art (including "in progress" photos, which are quite interesting), and quotes from inspirational texts. She seems to be rather spiritual (and even religious) and sensitive. How she ended up doing work like this is mysterious to me. 

Her website shows a lot more of her work. I don't love all of it, but I like most of it. 

What else is strange about this artist? She lives in my neighborhood (according to her resume online). I won't say what neighborhood specifically, but let's just say that it is a neighborhood where one would never think of an artist--particularly a post-minimalist artist--choosing to live. One never knows what goes on behind people's front doors, but if one were to judge my neighborhood by its exterior appearance, the word "art" would never come up. This just makes Kelley more intriguing. I like her art a lot. Her work is being shown at Ggallery on 11th street in the Heights. The show was supposed to end June 22, but it has apparently been held over. I don't know how long it will stay up, so see it soon!

Art + Art

Nice, huh. A beautiful Pogo daily from 1951 by Walt Kelly. Despite all that fine brushwork, Kelly worked pretty small--that original is only 17.5" x 6" with the strip itself 16.5" x 4.75".

But check this out:



If you look closely, you can see Kelly's underdrawing. He uses blue pencil which would disappear in the photographic process for making the strip print-ready. His blue pencil drawing is very tight, except (curiously) on the lettering and (less curiously) on Porky Pine. But what is amazing is not his pencils but his inks. Not a single correction on the page. What an amazingly skilled brush-handler he was! It's freaky that a guy who was such a brilliant writer and satirist should also be such a skilled artist--but that combination describes many (but not all) of the greatest cartoonists, of whom Kelly is one of the very top ever.



This photograph is "Untitled from Rabbits in the Land of Squirrels" by Elaine Bradford. If you are from Houston, you might have seen her recent show at the Art League called the Museum of Unnatural History. This show was half Museum of Jurassic Technology and half knitting. I understand a fake museum--museums are so central to art in our day that basic postmodern theory practically demands that artists create pastiches and parodies of museums. You see it in David Wilson's and Hans Haacke's work, among others. It's a form of conceptual art, but it involves a lot of precise craft.

Likewise knitting. Knitting is kind of a new thing in art. I don't know what it means. Maybe Bradford can enlighten us a little with some words from her own website.

Through crocheting sweaters for inanimate objects, she references connotations associated with the handmade, and personal ideas of comfort and warmth. These ideas about the process of crocheting are juxtaposed with the absurdity of its application. She has covered a variety of items in handmade sweaters, including trees, vacuum cleaners, and groceries. Her most recent work involves crocheting sweaters for taxidermied animals.

So OK. I thought it may refer to early feminist artwork that often used traditionally female artforms (like sewing) and wrenched it into the man's man's man's world of contemporary fine art.

This was one of the pieces for sale for either $50 or $100 at the Apama Mackey Gallery. This was a one-day show called the "The AMG Visual Stimulus Package" that was co-sponsored by Houston video site, Keep Houston Rich.

Anyway, I bought these two pieces of art, adding them to my "collection," such as it is.