Here comes the Fall
Current mood: inspired
Category: inspired Art and Photography
Here comes the Fall. No not the kind that makes you land on your ass, but the season when it stops being so damn hot. The season whose cool breeze breathes new life and energy into us. As the artists we are, Kettle this will also reflect this change for the better. You wait and you'll see...
The Art of Richard Ross - Saturday, August 25. This show will trip you out and lead us into the Fall. Richard is a self-taught artist from Irving, Texas. His formative years were spent concentrating on music, eventually co-founding the Denton based (now-defunct) band Brutal Juice. Richard's formal education includes a degree in History from the University of Dallas.
As a visual artist, Ross experiments with all types of media, from pencils, acrylics and oils to found collage materials. His hope is to communicate his search for beauty and glimpses of the Platonic Forms into a new mythology. It seems he is always searching for new icons by sifting through old beliefs and a disposable contemporary society. With an inventory of works well into the hundreds, this show will be something to see first hand.
"A Little Piece of My Art" - Saturday, September 15, curated by Havi Frost. Twenty women will be featured w/ their art and photography including; Debra Gloria, Andrea Rogers, Michelle Proksell, Autumn Beach, Danielle Barry, Paige Moore, Crimson Allen, Aditit Samarath, Suza Canon, Lorene Herrera, Courtney Heintz, Deborah Huber, Theresa Mangum, Lisa Lindholm, Alison Welsh, Judith Lea Perkins, Erica Felicella, Havi Frost, Marie Sena and Cathey Miller.
This exhibit was planned in part to coincide with the Fall Art Walks of both the Dallas Art Dealers Association (DADA) and the Deep Ellum Enrichment Project (DEEP). These people alone should be able to pack the room but you ought drop by because it will truly be an amazing show. You doubt it? Come on by and see for yourself.
"The Collaboration Show" – Friday, October 12th Up to 3 collaborative pieces by each Kettle Core Artist. The Core Artists invited to participate are: Luke Harnden, Mark Nelson, Judith Lea Perkins, Richard Ross, Sergio Garcia, Erica Felicella, Havi Frost, Cathey Miller, Tony Bones and Frank Campagna. Each artists may choose to work w/ other core artists or invte outsiders to work w/ them on their works. This will be a chance to pick up some one of a kind, unique pieces by some of Kettle's finest artists and should be interesting to say the least.
"RE*COV*ER" - Saturday, October 13 This will be mural series project that embraces the future and the new changing face of Deep Ellum. The theme, "RE*COV*ER," speaks both to the recent history of the Deep Ellum tunnel and how artists have played a role in the development of the neighborhood. This first session will focus visual artists large scale portrayals of legendary Deep Ellum area musicians.This project will be sponsored in part by the Deep Ellum Association, the Deep Ellum Foundation and area businesses.
Three of a Kind - November 10th – December 1st A showcase featuring three strong upcoming artists from the Kettle Crew who will be announced very soon.
"Holiday Presence III" - December 8th – December 29th Group Show featuring affordable gifts.
Note: This is a fairly tight exhibition schedlue and shows are already in the works for January, February and March at this time. Several other road trips are also in the plans and details will be made public once we know more. For more info please visit Kettle Art
Well we came we saw and we conquered. New York City, the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps and the city that's seen and done it all... This is one tough place to get any reaction in at all. 9-11, Lennon getting shot, Man landing on the Moon and our homies killing JFK are about the only instances I can think of in my lifetime that got any reaction at all.
So here we are the Kettle crew heading up there all naive and whatnot going into our first art fair, together as a unit, damn near family and as individualists, w/ our heads held high and our art as strong as we could muster. This was good, very good indeed. Out of approximately 1,000 galleries that applied, 65 - 70 were accepted, including us, the only gallery from Texas. Every other gallery showed up w/ few if any artists at all, only gallery reps and really slick works from around the world. Here we are a dozen strong, all hyped up and ready to kill or party with anyone / everyone that'd try and keep up. So that's basically what we did.
We stood out. This can be both a positive and negative thing but we were definately not your run of the mill, generic, nonobjective, canvas gallery. I can not tell you how many times we were told we had the coolest or were the best gallery in the show. We also overheard we had evil / fearful art too, so I assume we made an impression. Above that we put the 'affordable' in the Affordable Art Fair. This deal was advertised as original pieces of art from $100 - $10,000, but we were the only ones w/ all our art under $1,000. We ended up selling around 25 pieces total... Not enough to break even but enough to do it again and consider this the cost of an education.
We learned plenty about presentation. Every other gallery had nice, clean, slick offerings hung at eye level, that could be exchanged for another piece when one sold. We hung ours 'salon style' from floor to ceiling, featuring about 75 pieces in one fell swoop. In other words it was overwhelming. Now this is the norm for Kettle Art in Deep Ellum because we take pride in offering tons of art at reasonable rates, but obviously not normal for this scene. Whatever, we took lots of mental notes and will really be ready next time around.
The best part of the trip was we got much tighter w/ one another and made plenty of new friends as well. Big time thanks to my Kettle Art business partner Kirk, who had the foresight to see this as a new frontier for us. As gallery owners we see it as an utmost imporatnce to promote and nurture our artists on to higher levels. This is obviously the next learning curve and we are prepared to take on this mission. Also huge thanks to artists Richard Ross, Sergio Garcia, Havi Frost, Mark Nelson, Judith Lea Perkins and Erica Felicella for attending and busting ass along w/ us in this venture. Special thanks go out to Alison, Monica and Johno for being there to assist, support and drink lots of alcohol along w/ the rest of the crew. Honorable mentions go out to Marie Sena and Cathey Miller as representing Kettle via their work but unfortunatelty missing the trip of a lifetime. Things could not have gone any smoother if we had paid or prayed for it. No damages or incidents, just passion for what we were doing.
As artists, I know we are all looking forward to creating on a higher realm and doing this again. Guaranteed, the next time we take a field trip like this, our new found knowledge and skills will be exercised in full force. Afterall, being 'the little gallery that could' in one hell of a title to live up to.
Note; many of us took the time to document what we did. At this time Richard has done by far the best right here. Check it out!
Skulls Babes & Sparkley Guns
Current mood: excited
Category: Art and Photography
On Saturday, March 10, 2007 we've got an opening called Skulls Babes & Sparkley Guns Featured will be artists Cathey Miller, Judith Lea Perkins and Marie Sena. All three I admire and wish I could paint as well as. As opposed to hyping the hell out of this show in a traditional manner (that will come soon enough) we thought it might be cool to play with the current medium at hand U-Tube and let them / their artwork speak for themselves. Check 'em out! Frank
A Moment with Cathey Miller...
A Moment with Judith Lea Perkins
A Moment with Marie Sena
If you enjoyed this and would like to see more artists profiled in this manner please let me know, thnks
As always, things keep coming together better and better. Kettle Art Gallery is now taking on a life of it's own and this is a beautiful thing. Underexposed, our second photo show, came off w/ out glitches and is halfway through it's term. It's alive with plenty of diverse and vibrant images and once again has brought many talented people together for one incredible show. Also it covered it's own expense, which is always important in keeping Kettle alive.
What really gets me is how each and every exhibit allows our local scene to shine. To look at 90 or so images and realize they all came from our friends and neighbors and this is the only opportunity to see them all in the same room, in this configuration, really makes me appreciate what we are doing at the gallery. Hell, just standing there talking w/ people (especially those who have been w/ it for the long haul) brings an immense amount of pride in the fact that we have come this far. It's very cool and is something that no single person alone could have created ...
We're getting to the point where we have 'regulars' picking up a piece, just one, each show. This is what I have done since the beginning of this gallery adventure. In no time at all a really sweet collection comes together, w/ knowledge of the artist and memories of where it came from. Collecting in this manner will not break your bank but instead will enrich your life and encourage our local visual art scene in it's creative output. If Kettle Art has a single mission it is to 'Embrace your Culture!
btw We won the Dallas Observer's "Readers Pick" in their annual Best of Dallas issue as the best gallery in town. Simply put, more Observer readers voted for our little gallery than they did for institutions such as the Contemporary or The MAC. It's mind boggling to consider that our gallery effort is prefered over those well established, multi-million dollar, visual art venues. Ours is a less than one year old, artistic concept dedicated to working with the materials at hand, regional talent... One can only guess it's beginners luck but thank you! Your support means a lot to us all.
We try and try, are always open to ideas / suggestions and are constantly kicking around new avenues to explore, in and well beyond our homebase here in Dallas. You'll see...
Last but not least... this is next...
We've had several meetings concerning the amount of artists participating and the general mass appeal of this exhibit. We've decided it's best to prepare for a 'Blow Out' as opposed to trying to tone it down. With this in mind, we're making provisions to cover every aspect in advance. This is one of those shows that keep Kettle Art true to it's conceptual roots, bringing our artists to the people.
Well there you go, we did it again!!! Cleaner and better than ever this time, just like we're supposed to do. We all worked very hard on upgrading the space / presentation for this Fall season and it seems to have paid off. We displayed 90 pieces of art for To the Nines! and ended up moving over 30% of the work on the wall... The Artists all seemed happy and that's what matters most.
Am excited about being open again (Thursady - Saturday 7:00 - 10:00 PM) and look forward to the Underexposed show coming up in a few weeks. Havi is putting this photo exhibit together and it looks like we'll have approximately 25 photographers showing including Frank Lopez, Sil Azevedo, Kate Mackley, Mouse Ramone, Guy Reynolds, Hal Samples and a whole lot more... I'd plug them all but for some reason I can't copy and paste in this blog... (?) Anyway, all will show 4 - 5 pieces, so we're looking at hanging around 100 total, which should end up being one of the larger photography shows in some time.
What I find most gratifying is that 99.9% of the art we show is local home grown talent. They crank it out, we put it up and we all win from the effort. This goofy city of ours is soooo culturally inept, you basically have to die to be noticed. I'm planning on doing just that eventually, but have an awful lot of living to do in the meantime.
Well we have the tattoo show 'Beyond Skin Deep' up and running... The installation and opening went smoother than ever. The art is impeccable and fantastic, just as expected! The artists are all a great bunch of guys and extremely talented. Drop by and check it out, if you get a chance.This show runs through Saturday, August 12th.
Currently I am really excited about the Fall line up as it is falling into place quite sweetly. We're hosting not one, but two exhibits in September. First will be a show of selected painters, followed by a large exhibit of photography... more info on the photo show as it develops.
The painting exhibit will be called "To the Nines". It's one of those old timey sayings that means 'dressed to kill'. Somebody like Frank Sinatra would say something along the lines of 'she's dressed to the nines'. This show is not going to be a 'hoity-toity' affair w/a dress code or anything, but more like Kettle Art, as a gallery, will be looking really, really good.
The title also relates to several aspects of this exhibit. The opening date is Saturday, 9/9/06. The number of artists showing, were nine, except I can't count, so there's ten. And each artist will display nine pieces of their work each... Over all, there will be 90 works of Art!
I curated this show /selected these artists, because I personally like their work and am proud to know them. This does not mean these are exclusively my favs, but they all compliment each other in ways you'll have to witness to understand. So mark your calendar now for Saturday, 9/9/06...
A few days ago I began making animated gif's... I dont know how well they run on other peoples computers, but here's one pertaining to September...
thanks for keeping up to date w/ the energy at Kettle, Frank
Ahhhh the Future! Always such a mystery, always so exciting. I tend to live my life in the future so I have some idea / guidance of where I am going. The present is always cool, because it's always set up to kick ass. The past was a blast but it's gone, alive only in the memories of those who shared it... but the future is what to behold!
The future of Kettle Art is looking really good. We are no longer the 'new kid' on the block and so all the shiny newness has worn off. Any 'trendy folks' have come and gone and we're left w/ the realists who are making Kettle a truly viable gallery. On the other hand we are not the old 'established' gallery yet so I'm going to guess we're somewhere in between, just buying time w/ killer art shows / artists till we get to that point. Overall, I think people get what we're up to now and that's good!
From concept to execution this place has done right in helping a lot of artists get their work out there. We're always on a shoestring budget and never making a dime. Honestly it costs me and quite a few dedicated others time, but we all know it's worth it and is starting to pay off. Folks like Kirk, Havi, Mark, Sergio, Amber and Chris (among others) all seem to share this 'future vision' for Kettle Art and I am sure that everyone involved will benefit greatly in the long run for creating this conduit for creative artistic expression.
The rest of Deep Ellum is catching on too. There are 2 or 3 new galleries that have just opened or will be opening soon. I won't say we started the cultural turn around for this area, but I will say we were in the right place at the right time. When it hit bottom last Fall and the opportunity of opening a gallery, open to supporting local artists became available, we jumped on it.
So here we go into the Summer, when running the AC costs a fortune and people in general seem to slow down or leave town. Since I rarely get away, I'm thinking we'll do the Six x Six show which is all set and ready to kick ass, followed w/a 'sponsored' art show at the end of June for a week, and then hopefully a tattoo artists exhibit in mid-July. This could be really sweet!
Those guys, if anyone, know their shit! I mean think about it... putting a permenant piece of your art on another human? You can't afford to be a screw-up, right? So sometime in July be looking for an art exhibit featuring some incredible tat artists and probably a whole bunch of people wearing a lot less than normal to show the art on their skin as well. If you know any artists that work in this medium, please send them our way and we'll talk details...
Beyond that I'm not sure... it's not even June yet and I'm planning mid July... August would be a great month to shut down to rest, take a break and really lay out a game plan for Fall. We've got a few ideas that we're kicking around that I am sure will capture the imagination and participation of our friends and family, but if you have any ideas for upcoming shows, just let me know... Unlike most galleries we're always open to new ideas...
excited
thoughtful
contemplative