PHILIP Mccracken | KRIS EKSTRAND MAY 4-27, 2018
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TM Philip McCracken • “Night Journey,” bronze, 11 x 21 x 11 inches, photo by Mary Randlett PHILIP McCRACKEN | KRIS EKSTRAND MAY 4-27, 2018 Volume 27 May • June Number 3 www.ArtAccess.com 2 ArtAccess.com © May • June 2018 THE MONTHLY GUIDE TO THE ARTS ART ACCESS CONTENTS Volume 27 Number 3 “True strength is delicate.” Features ~ Louise Berliawsky Nevelson FEATURES American Sculptor (1899-1988) The Man & The Myth: The Epic Works of Michael C. Spafford …Madeline Reeves 8 Editoon: Cascadia Art Museum …Edie Everette 10 VISUAL ART Listings Anacortes, WA 13 Bainbridge Island, WA 13 Bellevue, WA 15 Bellingham, WA 16 Camano Island, WA 17 Edison, WA 18 Kris Ekstrand • “Big Dark 3” monotype, 22 x 24 inches Edmonds, WA 19 Smith & Vallee Gallery • Edison, WA Ellensburg, WA 19 Everett, WA 20 Front Cover: Friday Harbor, WA 20 Philip McCracken • “Night Journey” Issaquah, WA 21 2008, bronze, 11 x 21 x 11 inches photo credit: Mary Randlett Kingston, WA 21 Smith & Vallee Gallery • Edison, WA Kirkland, WA 21 La Conner, WA 21 Philip McCracken | Kris Ekstrand Mercer Island, WA 22 May 4-27 Port Townsend, WA 22 Poulsbo, WA 22 Artist Talk: Seattle, WA Saturday, May 5, 3:30 P.M. • Ballard 23 Tony Angell speaks • Columbia City 24 on behalf of McCracken • Downtown 24 • First Hill 25 Reception: • Pioneer Square 25 Saturday, May 5, 5-7 P.M. • University District 29 Pieter VanZanden Tacoma, WA 30 June 1-24 Vashon Island, WA 30 Whidbey Island, WA 31 Artist Talk: MAPS Saturday, June 2, 3:30 P.M. Maps Bainbridge Island, WA 15 Reception following 5-7 P.M. June 1-24. Poulsbo, WA 23 Pioneer Square / Seattle, WA 27 Smith & Vallee Gallery 5742 Gilkey Avenue • Edison, WA (360) 766-6230 • Daily: 11 A.M.-5 P.M. [email protected] Publisher Debbi Lester www.smithandvalleegallery.com Art Access Special Thanks (888) 970-9991 Helen Johanson, Greg Miller, Reed Aitken, Cheryl H. Hahn, Karen Stanton, Gregory Hischak, Gwen Wilson, Clare McLean, [email protected] Alec Clayton, Sean Carman, Tom McDonald, Kathy Cain, Box 4163 • Seattle, WA 98194 Deloris Tarzan Ament, Elizabeth Bryant, Susan Noyes Platt, Molly Norris,Ron Glowen, Adriana Grant, Molly Rhodes, Milton Freewater, Erica Applewhite, Mitchell Weitzman, July/August info & payment due June 10 Lauren Gallow, David John Anderson, Rachella Anderson, Kim Hendrickson (Happy Birthday), Christine Waresak, Eleanor Pigman, Edie Everette, Katie Kurtz, Chris Mitchell, Listing in Art Access is a paid service. Ron Turner, Tammy Spears (Happy Birthday), Shauna Fraizer, The charge for 60 word listing per month is Meg McHutchison, Steve Freeborn & Tia Matthies, Bill Frisell & Carole d’Inverno, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, $39 or $51 with map placement, if available. Schack Art Center,Frye Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, Initial map placement one-time design fee is $35. Bellevue Arts Museum, Museum of Northwest Art, Allied Arts of Whatcom, Alliance for Pioneer Square, Image(s) with the listing: $110 each. Limit 3. Doris Lester, Teresa Cassady (Happy Birthday), Joey Lester, Submission and payment are done online: Danny Lester (Happy Birthday), Debbie & Richard Vancil Ryan (Happy Birthday), Corbin & Georgie, www.artaccess.com/submitprintad Madeline, James, Cayden & Alder ArtAccess.com © May • June 2018 3 4 ArtAccess.com © May • June 2018 ArtAccess.com © May • June 2018 5 artist George Rodriguez artist Kathryn Thibault art writer John Boylon artist Dorothy Bainbridge Island Museum of Art with her installation with artist Buster Simpson with her 4Culture Gallery • Seattle, WA Greg Kucera Gallery • Seattle, WA Island Gallery • (L-R) Spike Mafford and Michael Spafford artist Kurt Solmssen with his paintings “We’re All Gonna Die” Davidson Galleries • Seattle, WA Bainbridge Island Museum of Art Greg Kucera artist Anne Siems with her paining artist Jenny Fillius with her art artist David Haughton Patricia Rovzar Gallery • Seattle, WA Bainbridge Island Museum of Art Gallery 110 artist Rachel Campbell with her painting artist Chase Langford with his painting Zinc Contemporary • Seattle, WA Foster/White Gallery • Seattle, WA artist Diane Haddon with her art artist Jan Hoy artist Amanda Adams with her painting Bainbridge Island Museum of Art with her sculpture Schack Art Center in Everett, WA 6 ArtAccess.comSmith & Vallee • ©Edison, May WA • June 2018 McGuinness artist Gregory Blackstock artist Rebecca Woodhouse artist Kenny Harris art basketry with his drawings with her painting with his painting Bainbridge Is, WA Greg Kucera Gallery • Seattle, WA Core Gallery • Seattle, WA Prographica / KDR • Seattle, WA by artist Joey Veltkamp artist Kate Harkins with her paintings Core Gallery • artist Steve Wilson with his photos Gallery • Seattle, WA Seattle, WA Bainbridge Island Museum of Art with his paintings (L-R) artist Max Grover & Teresa Verraes artist Jodi Waltier with her art • Seattle, WA Bainbridge Island Museum of Art Shift Gallery • Seattle, WA (L-R) beloveds artist Steve Parmelee and Melissa Dennis stand artist Amanda Kirkhuff with her painting with Parmelee’s sculpture at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art 4Culture Gallery • Seattle, WA artist Ricardo Duque with his art artist Matthew X Curry artist Yael Zahavy-Mittlelman with her painting Michael Birawer Gallery • Seattle, WA with his artworks Gallery 110 • Seattle, WA ArtAccess.comBainbridge Island © Museum May of Art • June 2018 7 Michael C. Spafford • “Death of Chimera,” 1984, oil on canvas, 85.5 x 262.5 inches Photo credit: Zocalo Studios/Spike Mafford Greg Kucera Gallery • Seattle, WA Michael C. Spafford: Epic Works What does it mean to separate a artist of ancient myths. He interprets the tales from his work? Is it truly possible to in a variety of mediums, each more view art in a vacuum, separate from any nuanced than the one before. In oils, he outside historical context or influence? is bold and sometimes even primal in his Are the stories behind the art separate expressions. If you look closely at the Michael C. Spafford: Epic Works from the stories within it? paintings, you can occasionally find where his fingertips traced the tales These are all questions that were into the canvas. In watercolor, he is more percolating as I went to witness the subtle, but by no means subdued, carrying colossal collection of Michael Spafford’s ancient archetypes and his strong linear work that is currently on display at forms across each expression. The Greg Kucera, Woodside/Braseth, and collection goes on to include works Davidson Galleries. While I arrived in charcoal, collage, and sketches to full of questions, I left with a profound form an immense array spanning nearly respect for both the depth of Spafford’s six decades that proves that Spafford is work and the ideas he is trying to unravel impactful in any medium. within it. The work is as intense as it is expansive. At its heart, Spafford’s work is about While some collections of this scale storytelling. Not his own stories per say, might contain only a few pieces that truly but rather the retelling and depicting captivate, each piece of Spafford’s does its part to draw you in. This is not to say that all of the pieces are all particularly inviting. Many of the canvases come off as eerie, while others feel more bold and visceral, largely in part to the artist’s affinity for the color red. They are all however, consuming in some capacity, bringing each story they contain to life in a variety of renditions and sizes. In fact, it is Spafford’s unique use of both canvas and scale, and the way in which some works are cut, peeled away from the surface, or designed in obtuse shapes and pieced together, that makes the work feel as if you could climb inside and suddenly find yourself within the artist’s mythical world. Some of the pieces are striking simply because of their size, while others are because of subject they contain. All of the work shares a common thread in the depiction of Greek myths, many of which containing characters both human Michael C. Spafford • “Europa & the Bull, Three Stages, #6” and animal. Half man, half bird, Icarus 1986, oil on paper, 42.5 x 26.5 inches Photo credit: Zocalo Studios/Spike Mafford takes a spiraled flight. In bold blues, red, Woodside/Braseth Gallery • Seattle, WA and black, the chimera meets its fateful 8 ArtAccess.com © May • June 2018 end. Men battling serpents, Leda laying with the swan, Europa and the bull, the mighty minotaur waiting in the maze... so many of these pieces trace the lines and connections between man and beast. Looking at them, one starts to wonder, what is it that brings Spafford back to these stories time and again. On the surface, mythology appears to be the common thread, and yet, I found myself questioning: Where does Spafford see himself in these stories and struggles? Michael C. Spafford • “Birth of Athena #3” 2011, oil on paper, 43 x 32 inches Photo credit: Zocalo Studios/Spike Mafford Woodside/Braseth Gallery • Seattle, WA thread that binds us to our most visceral self, and in turn these stories from the past. It is this questioning that makes this work continue to have a profound and primal way of pulling one in during the present day. Perhaps that is why Spafford and his paints return to these tales again and again, ever blurring and building Michael C. Spafford the connections between the man and the “XII Kidnapping the three-headed hound myths that came before. of Hell, Cerberus, or Confronting Death” Series: The 12 Labors of Hercules 2001, oil based woodblock print on paper Madeline Reeves 26 x 25.25 inches Madeline Reeves is a Pacific Northwest Davidson Galleries • Seattle, WA writer and consultant. For more As I continued through the collection, I information about her and her work, came to realize it isn’t just the artist that visit www.fearlessintraining.com.