Artebella On The Radio: December 19, 2019

Playwright, poet, and Artistic Director of Stage One Family Theatre Idris Goodwin and spoken word artist Morgan Allison were in the studio with Keith this week reading from, among others, idris' new collection, "Can I Kick It?" Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday to hear Keith Waits talk with artists.

Idris Goodwin is an award-winning playwright, director, orator and educator. He is the Producing Artistic Director of Stage One Family Theater in Louisville, KY for which he penned the widely produced And In This Corner: Cassius Clay. Other widely produced plays include: How We Got On, This Is Modern Art co-written with Kevin Coval, Bars and Measures, The Raid, and Hype Man: a break beat play which was just produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville. His poetry collection, Can I Kick It?, has just been published.

Morgan-Allison is a Louisville native and a graduate of Lane College and Vanderbilt University. She has been a spoken word artist for 7 plus years and spoken word is just a portion of who she truly is. Her particular interest is to use her voice to ask the hard questions or join into conversations that most people want to avoid.

She leads by example as her goal with her poetry is to inspire others to be open and walk in their truths, which she does through her poetry.

Artebella On The Radio: December 12, 2019

Mountain Landscape. Breathitt County Kentucky, 2015. Bob Hower

Photographers Bob Hower & Ted Wathen were with us in the studio this week to talk about the Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project and “Looking at Kentucky Anew…” the Louisville Visual Art exhibit at Metro Hall featuring that work. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to listen to Keith Waits talk with artists.

Bob Hower

The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project is the state’s third photographic recording done in 40-year increments. Taking inspiration from the work of the Farm Security Administration (1935–1943) and building on the success of the original Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project (1975–1977), which included Bob & Ted, The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project will go into each of the state’s 120 counties making a contemporary visual record of Kentucky. This will be the third time in an eighty year period that photographers have roamed the state recording the landscape and how Kentuckians live, work and play.

Bob & Ted’s Gallery Talk about the exhibit is Friday, December 13 at Noon in the 4th floor Mayor’s Gallery at Metro Hall, 527 West Jefferson Street, Louisville.

Ted Wathen

Bob Hower is a Louisville based photographer who was born in Boston and educated at Middlebury College. ... His work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The International Center of Photography, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Kentucky Historical Society, and The Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Ted Wathen was born in 1947 in Louisville, Kentucky. He graduated from St. Xavier High School in Louisville, received a BA in history at the University of Virginia, and an MFA in photography from the University of Florida. Prior to receiving his MFA, Wathen was a naval officer serving on the U.S.S. Yorktown.

Other photographers who have worked on this new phase of the project and are featured in the Metro Hall exhibit are Ross Gordon, Sarah Lyon, Zed Saeed, Alyssa Schukar, Brittany Greeson, Rachel Boillot, & Harrison Hill.

Public Art Spotlight: Hogan's Fountain by Enid Yandell

Photo: Metro Louisville Commission on Public Art

 We call attention to Enid Yandell at the end of 2019, which was her 150th birthday, and as we move into 2020, which is the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. Yandell was an ardent member of the suffragist movement and an internationally recognized artist who studied with Frederick MacMonnies and Auguste Rodin in Paris. In 1898 she became the first woman inducted into the National Sculpture Society.

Yandell created some of Louisville’s most venerable and familiar public sculptures and her birthday was recognized with seven exhibits at various locations throughout the year, and in March her Hometown Hero banner, one of the last of that series, was installed on the Harbison Condominiums building near Fort Nelson Park, located at Seventh and Main streets in Louisville Kentucky.

The Metro Louisville Committee on Public Art (COPA) website relates the history of Hogan’s Fountain:

“In 1903, not long after the completion of Ruff Memorial Fountain and Wheelman's Bench, Yandell was approached by General John Breckinridge Castleman (1841—1918), founder of the Louisville Parks Department and a close friend of the Yandell family, to design a fountain for Cherokee Park. Hogan's Fountain was commissioned by prominent merchant William J. Hogan and his wife, who actively collaborated with Yandell about the choice of subject matter. By that time, Yandell was living and working from her studio in Paris, where she created the Louisville work and had it shipped to the States for construction.” 

“Hogan's Fountain, which was originally intended as a watering fountain for horses and dogs, is topped with a small bronze figure of the mythical Pan, god of nature, the wild, shepherds, flocks, and goats, among other things. Pan, who has the body of a human but the hindquarters and legs of a goat, appears to dance in a patch of lily pads and cattails, holding his famous lute above his head, presumably having just used it to call the animals of the nearby park. Yandell represents Pan's "flock" below, where bronze turtles spout water into the large basin and, located underneath at the base of the fountain, several small dog heads act as water fountains for park—goers' leashed dogs. Yandell, always intent to capture her subjects accurately, is said to have modeled the bronze turtles from live turtles she found near Louisville.” (KTF)

For many who came of age in Louisville, the fountain was a touchstone for after school gatherings and family events, the broad, open space surrounded by trees with its nearby pavilion comprising arguably the most welcoming spot in Cherokee Park.  

And, not surprisingly, Hogan’s Fountain is the subject of an urban legend that allows that, at every full moon the statue of Pan comes down from the perch to wander the park, creating mischief for innocent passers by.

Hogan’s Fountain
1905
Bronze/Vermont Granite

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Hogan's Fountain/Pan, c. 1906-1916

Hogan’s Fountain at Cherokee Park, 1905. Historic photo provided by the University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections, Claude C. Matlack Collection.

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2019 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville. 

Artebella On The Radio: December 5, 2019

"Extreme Prints: Printmaking at the Edge", an invitational exhibit curated by Debby Stratford & John Begley opens at Kore Gallery December 7. They joined us this week and brought two of the participating artists, Tatiana Ryckman & Susanna Crum and gallery owner Don Cartwright. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream at Artxfm.com Thursday at 10am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists on LVA's Artebella On The Radio.

Tatiana Ryckman was born in Cleveland, Ohio and lives in Austin, Texas. She is also the author of two chapbooks of short prose, Twenty-Something and VHS and Why It's Hard to Live. Tatiana's work has appeared on Tin House's The Open Bar, Barrelhouse, Opossum Lit, The Establishment, Nonbinary Review, Flavorwire, and many other publications. Tatiana has been an artist in residence at Yaddo and Arthub, and she is the editor of Awst Press and Assistant Editor at sunnyoutside press.

Susanna Crum’s work has been featured in several international and national exhibitions, she returned to her hometown of Louisville to start the city’s first shared printmaking workspace, Calliope Arts Printmaking Studio & Gallery, with fellow artist and partner Rodolfo Salgado. Since 2015, she has taught printmaking as an Assistant Professor at Indiana University Southeast, New Albany, IN. From 2018-2020, she is serving as President of the Mid America Print Council.

Debby Stratford is an artist and printmaker living in Louisville, KY. She spent many years teaching art to public school students in Louisville, and is now printing full-time in her studio in the Hope Mills Building.

John Begley is currently a Freelance art worker (artist, curator, art services provider). Previously he was Gallery Director and Assistant Professor of Art (Emeritus), Critical and Curatorial Studies graduate program coordinator at the Allen R. Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville, Director, Louisville Visual Art, Director, and was founding director New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, New Harmony, IN. He is now the co-founder with Peter Morrin of AFLOAT: AN OHIO RIVER WAY OF LIFE.

Since 2012 Don Cartwright has owned and managed KORE Gallery, which is now located at 942 East Kentucky. KORE hosts "invitational" shows along with solo and multiple artists shows. This new gallery location offers 4500 square feet of exhibit space.    

Vignette: Fuko ito

“Billowing Hearts” (installation view) by Fuko Ito, Watercolor & colored pencil on paper, 126x156in, 2018

Imagine a world without edges and you begin to understand the work of Fuko Ito. All of figures and the environments that surround them are plush, but not necessarily lacking in conflict or even violence. In her artist’s statement, Ito explains: “Plush is a texture that is both soft yet firm — it is able to absorb trauma and mend itself back into shape. I imagine our hearts and emotional capacities to have the same visceral effect of being bruised and healed like plush. In my drawings, I portray naked, vulnerable creatures called ‘fumblys’ in this plushy ecosystem.”

“Humans and their material belongings collapsed after the ‘Apocalypse of Intolerance’ in which those who denied kindness and compassion to others destroyed humankind. These plushy naked creatures began sprouting from the human remains of those who cared for the well being of themselves and others. Fumblys fill their infinite ecosystem with plush to save themselves from the collapse, fall, and heartache they experience from living among themselves. In my image-making process, I play with color, light, luminosity, and texture to amplify the soft, radiant, and delicate sensations that exist in the otherworldly space of fumblys.”

“Squeeze Cap” by Fuko Ito. Monotype with hand coloring, 17.5x23.5in. 2019

Ito’s imagery is deeply rooted in fantasy that is childlike but not childish, a nursery with all of the rough edges rounded out that still contains indications of the disruption of creativity. In the hand-colored monotype “Squeeze Cap” one of the fumblys has “given birth” to an explosion of plush infants, a bloodless event that nevertheless is graphic in depicting a ferocious eruption of the host form. Ito’s alternate world may be soft, but it does not lack passion or a perspective with social commentary.

“Like in Mannerist works, I exaggerate physical features and figurative gestures of the fumblys to dramatize emotion and physical sensations of grasping, embracing, and releasing. I reinterpret cultural and individual signifiers by presenting fumblys as faceless, naked beings in which empathetic gestures and expression is visualized only through body language. Furthermore, I reference figurative works by male artists throughout art history as a way to question the gendered moral hierarchy of historical narratives. I attempt to reinvent the male-gaze driven imagery by extracting hostility, aggression, and objectification from my figurative forms to ultimately envision a more non-binary narrative that complicate the lines of protagonist and antagonist.” 

“The plushy world of fumblys is not a vision of a hopeless romantic but is a world of soft, affectionate sensations that exists in protest to the often unforgiving social structures we live in. Through navigating my own surroundings and bringing my experiences back into the studio, I attempt to build a more empathetic view of the world and ultimately transcend and invite my viewers into a plushy parallel universe.”

“Shruggles” by Fuko Ito, Graphite & colored pencil on paper, 24x18in, 2017

Ito exhibits frequently, and is scheduled to participate in two upcoming shows in 2020:  "CELEBRATION," at WomensWork.Art Gallery in Poughkeepsie, NY, and "Comfort & Joy," at the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, MO.

She has exhibited in Portugal and Japan most recently was in a show with Eugene Sarmiento at Powell Botanical Gardens in Kingsville, MO.  

Hometown: Kobe, Japan
Education: Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking and Drawing, Honors, University of Kansas, 2018; Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking and Artists’ Books, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2014
Website: www.fuko-ito.com/
Instagram: @fukoito

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“Plushscapes” by Fuko Ito, Colored pencil on paper, 8x10in, 2018

“Soft Armours” by Fuko Ito, Colored pencil on paper, 14x23in, 2019

“Plushscapes” by Fuko Ito, Colored pencil on paper, 16.5inx12in, 2018

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2019 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.