“Trees for me are a symbol of strength, a metaphor of hope.” – Gretchen Treitz

*"Sycamore" by Gretchen Treitz, 8x8in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016)*

Trees are important in the work of Gretchen Treitz, the form providing compositional structure while also expressing a highly spiritual theme. Everyone has heard of druids, but Treitz is following a longer, more complicated tradition of using the tree as a religious symbol; their endless cycle of renewal allows an easy metaphor for life, and the evergreen has often represented the eternal or divine for precisely its lack of a cycle of change. No death or renewal, but constant and unending life.

“I am amazed how trees seem to personify a perfect being in adversity. My current series of trees is an attempt to explore a reality beyond appearances. Like many artists from the past, I use nature, light, and celestial luminosity to search for the divine. Painting trees with silver leaf not only highlights their shape but also calls forth the universal tension between matter and spirit. I engage trees to approach the spiritual realms of the wilderness, the cosmos, and the mysteries of the soul. Trees for me are a symbol of strength, a metaphor of hope. Silver leaf, white gold leaf, and aluminum leaf emulate a kind of ethereal light. I utilize these materials to represent the delicate vulnerability of sky, wind, atmosphere, and other environmental factors. Other times I manipulate these metal leaves and watercolor to embody the wonder of the life energy of a tree’s progression against these forces.”

*"Light on Broken Places II" by Gretchen Treitz, 15x15in, watercolor, silverleaf (2017)*

Treitz was just a part of Painting Exhibition #1 at Galerie Hertz in Louisville, and in 2016 participated in Aqueous, Kentucky Watercolor Society, Actor’s Theater, Louisville, and in Horizon: Contemporary Landscape, Community Arts Center, Danville, KY.

Permanent Collections:
The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn New York
National Westminster Bank, New York, New York
Hilliard-Lyons Collection, Louisville, KY
Holcomb Farm Permanent Collection, Granby, CT
Private Collections in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Michigan

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: BFA, Stephens College, Columbia, MO; MFA, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Website: http://www.gretchentreitz.com/

*"Kentucky's State Champion Swamp Chestnut Oak" by Gretchen Treitz, 14x14in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016)*

"Good Fruit II" by Gretchen Treitz, 25x25in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016), $2000 | BUY NOW — *"Good Fruit II" by Gretchen Treitz, 25x25in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016), $2000 | BUY NOW*

*"Rose on Gerardia" by Gretchen Treitz, 10x12in, watercolor, silverleaf (2015)*

*"Study for In the Shadows" by Gretchen Treitz, 8x10in, watercolor, silverleaf (2015)*

Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more. — *Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.*

Painting

Vignette: William Pichette

Josh Jenkins · July 7, 2017

What portions of our self do we edit, manipulate, and hide from view for the greater good of likes and followers? – William Pichette

"Under Control" by William Pichette, 8x20in, acrylic on printed canvas (2016), $210 | BUY NOW — *"Under Control" by William Pichette, 8x20in, acrylic on printed canvas (2016), $210 | BUY NOW*

William Pichette is a painter who sees the inherent qualities of his medium as integral to expressing the themes in the imagery. In his own words: “The thrill of the acrylic paint medium comes from how quick you must work to create. The paint dries very fast but each attempt at progress easily hides the previous attempts. Hiding ourselves proves more difficult. Once we reveal our truths through action and speech, it is not so easily undone. In a world where compliance and filtering our daily expression is the norm, muting the brilliance of our emotion is preferred, and it would be an outrageous offense to demonstrate weakness, vulnerability, honesty—humanity—I cherish in sight of visibility.”

Pichette often sets his figures against patterned backgrounds, the human a silhouette initiating a conversation with negative space, full of emotional suggestion, signs and portents.

“My pieces are inspired both by how we see and how we are seen. How do we see ourselves behind closed doors, looking in vanity mirrors, and through the lenses of our Instagram and Snapchat feed? What portions of our self do we edit, manipulate, and hide from view for the greater good of likes and followers? Those raw bits; the understanding of ourselves we hold so true that we would hate for others to see. Those nuances draw my focus; typically not blemishes and physical flaws of our outward appearance, but parts of our body none-the-less. They are the fights with mental illness and turmoil of thought, our agitation and need for direction, the imprints of the souls of others and the scars of love lost.”

Pichette just participated in 2017 Group Exhibition, Queer Voices, at Open Community Arts Center, Louisville, KY.

Age: 25
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Education: Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Ethnic Studies (Asian-American Studies), University of Texas
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Shquiggles/

"Impressionable Young Minds - Christine" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW — *"Impressionable Young Minds - Christine" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW*

"Wanderlust" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW — *"Wanderlust" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW*

"Impressionable Young Minds - Will" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW — *"Impressionable Young Minds - Will" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW*

"See and Be Seen" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2015), $110 | BUY NOW — *"See and Be Seen" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2015), $110 | BUY NOW*

"Turbulent Thought" by William Pichette, 18x18in, acrylic on wood board (2016), $375 | BUY NOW — *"Turbulent Thought" by William Pichette, 18x18in, acrylic on wood board (2016), $375 |* *BUY NOW*

Photography, Mixed Media

Vignette: Jenny Zeller

Josh Jenkins · July 5, 2017

“I continually look to the past to process the present.” – Jenny Zeller

*"Suckle" by Jenny Zeller, 8.5x8.5in, digital photograph, encaustic and modeling impasto waxes, oil pastels and image transfer on board*

Jenny Zeller is the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest’s first recipient of a ‘Regional Artist in Residence’ award, part of their Arts in Nature program, which includes residencies for artists from around the world.

On her website, Zeller expresses enthusiasm for the opportunity: “Bernheim is providing me a stipend and temporary living quarters in exchange for a work of art to be left to the Bergheim Foundation. This particular residency is also unique in that I have access to all horticulture and operations departments, as well as ecologists, scientists, naturalists and forest managers. I am also allowed admittance to most scheduled hikes and eco classes offered throughout the calendar year. I have literally been invited to become part of the entire ecosystem at this amazing place and I love how this program enhances the visitor experience through arts interaction.”

Zeller, who is primarily a photographer, spent the month of April at Bernheim, working at Lake Nevins Studio and shooting images for a planned multi-panel photography installation to be installed on the Bergheim grounds. Thursday July 6th, she will be speaking about her experiences at Bernheim at the Wildlands Social Club, an event hosted by Kentucky Natural Lands Trust at 21c Louisville, 6-9pm.

*"Through the Trees Comes Autumn" by Jenny Zeller, 30x40in, digital image transfers and oil paint on custom made aluminum substrate*

In 2017, Zeller was also awarded an Artist Professional Development Grant from the Great Meadows Foundation. The travel grant allowed her to attend CONTACT, the world’s largest photography festival, held in Toronto Canada each May.

Zeller has also been the Education Coordinator for the Louisville Photo Biennial since 2015, and is currently teaching a class at Zoom Groups' Studio Works in partnership with the Biennial, a 12-week course that will result in a Studio Works exhibition for the Louisville Photo Biennial in October.

The 2017 Louisville Photo Biennial is a regional festival occurring in over 60 venues throughout the Louisville, Lexington, and Southern Indiana area from September 22-November 11. Through exhibits, receptions, workshops and educational opportunities, the Biennial celebrates the medium of photography in all of its richness and variety, and its ability to touch and enrich our lives.

*"New (found) Harmony" by Jenny Zeller, 24x24in, dye sublimanation print on aluminum*

As an exhibiting artist, Zeller’s work will be seen in two 2017 Louisville Photo Biennial. The first, Altered Perceptions, an LVA Photo-Biennial Exhibit at Metro Hall, runs July 17 through January 12, 2018. Some of the images we see here are featured in that show, many shot using an iPhone with a macro lens. Zeller investigates nature as an explorer, introducing her full-size human self into a world of significantly smaller scale, momentarily shrinking her sensibilities to the task.

Then she will have a solo exhibition at Swanson Contemporary entitled Aluminature, which will run September 27th- October 28th, with an Artist’s reception the evening of October 6th, 2017.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Age: 44
Education: BA in Art Administration, University of Kentucky; attended photography classes, Florida Keys Community College
Website: http://www.jennyzeller.com/

*"Fallen" by Jenny Zeller, 8.5x8.5in, digital photograph, encaustic and modeling impasto waxes, oil pastels and image transfer on board*

*"Florida Reflected" by Jenny Zeller, 30.5x31.5in, digital image transfers and oil paint on custom made aluminum substrate*

*"HerLand" by Jenny Zeller, 24x24in, dye sublimanation print on aluminum*

Public Art

Feature: Sarah Lindgren

Josh Jenkins · June 30, 2017

Raising The Ante On Public Art

Sarah Lindgren is a government employee, which makes her, almost by definition, a bureaucrat - a terrible word with little positive association. Yet, as Public Art Administrator at Louisville Metro Government, she is the top authority on public art in the city, a job description that sounds anything but monotonous.

In conversation, Lindgren speaks of the issues surrounding public art with detail and confidence, but she also effectively illustrates the complexity of the topic. With substantial experience in museum administration with The Speed in Louisville and the St. Louis Art Museum, she clearly has the bona fides for the job.

Public Art Administrator is a job that never existed before 2014, a creation of the long in development Louisville Public Art Master, which in turn gave birth to COPA, the Commission On Public Art. Part of Lindgren’s role is to, in effect, head up COPA. But what does a commission on public art do exactly?

“COPA was established to advocate for all of the recommendations in the Master Plan, which included a position for Public Art Administrator,” explains Lindgren. “My job is to help artists and arts organizations navigate their way through the bureaucracy of public art. What permits are needed? What is required to site artwork in the right-of-way?”

So COPA is an advisory body making recommendations to Mayor Greg Fischer and the Metro Government on such questions as how to adequately archive and maintain the rich history of public art in the city. How much does the general public know about the significance of sculptures that have been a part of the fabric of the city for generations? How often do you drive past the Daniel Boone statue at the entrance to Cherokee Park with any thought to the fact that it was created by one of the most important women sculptors in the United States, Louisville-born Enid Yandell (1869-1934), who studied with Auguste Rodin? How many of us know with assurance where to find all of the Barney Bright statues in the city? Or works by Ed Hamilton?

That archive was one of the first tasks implemented from the Master Plan, with the help of Kristin Gilbert, Lindgren and photographer Luke Seward, who took fresh pictures of many of the pieces. But there also is a need to build consistent public policy towards public art, both old and new.

*Beneath the Surface by Mary Carothers. Part of the 2015 Connect/Disconnect: A Public Art Experience.*

COPA is what Lindgren calls “a nexus for various areas of expertise to come together to address public art policy.” In some instances, city and state government might cross paths, and if the topic involves an institution such as the University of Louisville, the paths between action and accountability can be difficult to chart. “We also work with city departments and overlay review committees. Depending on the project, it can be a lot of moving parts.”

Most cities have requirements in place for new construction that demand developers include initiatives public space and/or public art, and so does Louisville. “We have a unique formula in the Land Development Code,” explains Lindgren, “which stipulates outdoor amenities or focal points be included in building plans for large-scale developments, or the developer can choose a fee in lieu of the amenity or focal point which goes into a restricted fund for public art.” The result is the establishment of a funding opportunity that will be offered in the next fiscal year, a grant application for funding new public art. The size and availability of this opportunity will, of course, vary depending upon the volume of new construction each year and developers that opt for the fee-in-lieu to support public art. “The fee-in-lieu option was added to the Code in 2010, but the recession slowed down construction. By 2016 with an increase in new development projects, there is also an increase in this type of funding for public art.”

The funding opportunity is just the latest initiative that Lindgren has brought to the Metro Government’s renewed attention to public art. In 2015 she managed Connect/Disconnect: A Public Art Experience, the inaugural project of COPA and Louisville Metro Government’s Public Art, which featured outdoor installations by five artists – Simparch, Jean Shin, Mark Reigelman, Jenny Kindler, and Louisville artist Mary Carothers. The pieces were only in place for a few months, but several have received national recognition. Other projects in various stages of development include:

*River Monument (glomus) by SIMPARCH (Steven Badgett and Matt Lynch). Photo from Develop Louisville.*

The Louisville Knot

A project to install public art and lighting features to enhance the Ninth Street underpass, it is being developed in coordination with the Louisville Downtown Partnership. A multi-disciplinary team led by Interface Studio Architects (ISA), based in Philadelphia, and includes Shine Contracting, Louisville; Core Design, Louisville; Element Design, with offices in Lexington and Louisville; and LAM Partners, Cambridge, MA, would seek to turn the area under the 9th Street I-64 ramps into “an engaging and enticing public space tied together by local influences and traditions, providing a destination for exploration, commerce, and play.”

Love In The Street

An initiative by local poet and artist Lance Newman to curate a selection of poems by local poets and stamp them in a newly laid concrete sidewalk on 4th Street, between Chestnut and Broadway. The poems are intended to be love letters to the city. The project has a target completion date in spring 2018.

*"Opportunity Portal" by Don Lawler & Meg White. Photo courtesy Meg White.*

Bike Sense Louisville

Bike Sense Louisville is a public art project designed by Todd C. Smith. By providing sensor units to 100 Louisville cyclists (Citizen Cyclist Volunteers), data will be translated into helpful maps online as well as drive a public sound composition on the pedestrian Big Four Bridge. The resulting dataset will be open to the public and used by the city at the project's end to help in developing further improvements in bike infrastructure and planning.

*Marquis Marie de Lafayette by Jean-Antoine Houdon (after). Photo by Michael Popp*

It’s fair to observe that the creation of a Public Art Administrator position and the formulation of COPA represent a renewed focus on arts and culture that accompanied Greg Fisher into office, so given the shifting political landscape that characterize America in the last few years, how long can Louisville expect an arts professional such as Lindgren to have a seat at the public policy table?

“Well, my job is as vulnerable as any to a change in administration, but COPA is a public commission without salaries or budget of any kind – members are appointed by the Mayor and serve as volunteers, so it would be difficult to imagine why any new administration would not see their value.”

The recommendations are not limited to the benefit of the current administration or the city of Louisville but also extend to the uncertainty and lack of protections for individual artists. “As an artist, you deserve to work under a proper contract, to be paid appropriately and on time, and, when necessary, to have liability insurance in your project budget provided by your client. I want Louisville to raise the ante in advocating and implementing for best practices creating art in public spaces.”

Public Art Database: http://louisvilleky.pastperfectonline.com/
Explore Public Art: https://louisvilleky.gov/government/public-art/explore-public-art

This Feature article was written by Keith Waits.
In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, www.Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

Painting, Print Making

Vignette: Adrienne Miller

Josh Jenkins · June 28, 2017

The Community Foundation of Louisville, in partnership with Louisville Visual Art, has presented Louisville-based artist and printmaker, Adrienne Miller, with the fifth annual Mary Alice Hadley Prize for Visual Art. The $5,000 award is an opportunity for local artists to enhance their careers through a targeted enrichment experience.

Miller will use the prize to research the landscape and art historical influence of the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. The two week trip will cover close to 2,000 miles in a loop through the Four Corners region and will include a variety of stops, including several different pueblo ruin sites, printmaking studios in Albuquerque, The Georgia O’Keefe museum and archives, several National Parks, energy vortexes in Sedona, and several large earth works in the region.

"Keep Out/ Stay In" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016), $600 | BUY NOW — *"Keep Out/ Stay In" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016), $600 | BUY NOW*

“I want the experience to be transformative and immersive so that I come away feeling as though the experience really was a tipping point for me,” said Miller of the Hadley Prize enrichment experience. “I want to return to Louisville renewed to create a whole new body of work.”

*"Come With Me Into The Void" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016)*

Miller’s images are hybrids of the representational and abstract that explore the human experience of constructed space. “Within the tradition of landscape art, the term picturesque refers to a view where the human presence is apparent,” states Miller. “We are often presented with a view or vista for our consideration. When viewing a landscape we are allowed to be objective, but when viewing ourselves, does that perspective change?”

“Within the delicacy of the Mylar drawings, I am beginning to break apart the environments into tiny details such as potted plants, ladder rungs, or the tilt of a roof line. For me, the landscape I embody on a daily basis is the idea of the home, an interior and much more intimate space. In some, the details explain a building interior while in others it appears to be just outside, similar to a residential yard space. The fluttering of the Mylar layers serves to remind the viewer of the constant state of change these sort of psychologically charged places experience. Through changes in perspective and unrealistic coexistence, the work encourages the viewer to address their own environments as well as themselves.”

"Man Made Islands" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW — *"Man Made Islands" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW*

The $5,000 M.A. Hadley Prize is awarded from the George and Mary Alice Hadley Fund at the Community Foundation of Louisville. The endowment was established in 1991, and it supports the arts and humanities, particularly visual arts, crafts, theater and the Louisville Free Public Library. The award is a partnership between the Community Foundation of Louisville and Louisville Visual Art, which managed the application process.

Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee
Education: BFA, Studio Art with an emphasis in Photography, Murray State University / MFA, Studio Art with an emphasis in Printmaking, Northern Illinois University
Website: http://www.adrienne-miller.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ay_dree_un/

*"Man Made Islands (detail)" by Adrienne Miller,*

"Maintaining the Overgrowth" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW — *"Maintaining the Overgrowth" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW*

Vignette: Gretchen Treitz