Sense of Place: THERE

Song of Myself

Juried Art Exhibition

6.18.2019—9.9.2019

 

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Exhibit Themes

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You are also asking me questions, and I hear you,

I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself

—Walt Whitman Song of Myself 46

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Let Galaudet Gallery take you THERE this summer with their Sense of Place:  THERE Song of Myself art exhibit where you can experience local and global artists exploring questions about politics, rules and self with some invigorating art that answers and sometimes asks more questions! Paintings, drawings, sculptures, jewelry and more in realism, figuration, abstraction, surrealism, conceptualism and other genres are there for the experience and they are for sale so you can take home a Sense of Place: THERE: Song of Myself.   Visit our YouTube channel to see a short video about the exhibit:

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This second year of our four year art series finds inspiration in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass focusing selection and curating on three poems: 

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When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

Memories of President Lincoln

The Political THERE

Do your politics and art intersect?

What does being there politically do to your art?

 

Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,

There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

—Walt Whitman When Lilacs Last.... 16

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The Tower Room holds politically inspired works with Whitman's  When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d Memories of President Lincoln guiding the artists, judges and curators.  Some artists responded to the current state of the United States  by looking into the future to chart a way forward and away from divisiveness and toward a "We the People" idea. Other artists like Craig Jobson determined to point to the reality he is experiencing with the current president.  Besides the literal artworks like Craig's there are also  symbolic and figurative ones.  All the works in the Tower Room range from the presidency to specific legislation, to the 21st Century American Dream, to ideas on how to transform an empire instead of letting it crumble these artworks show local, national and global artists seeing in a similar way.

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Last year the Tower Room held Sense of Place Wilderness artworks which utilized ideas from last year's exhibit muse Ed Abbey by proposing new ways to view place-making and way-finding.  In a sense we are in a democratic wilderness which needs new paths found and place-making made so that we can all navigate the new landscapes before us and come back together as a unified country.

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Whitman ends his poem with a line stating "There in the fragrant pines and cedars… " because it was there at that moment that Whitman found his voice to write the poem and his voice as an artist.  Due to the conflict Whitman experienced in losing a President he believed in and respected, Whitman was able to move his poetry forward into another way of being.  Can the political landscape of today offer such experiences?  Does our government incite artists to create art whether in approval or disapproval?  Whitman created a sense of place in his poetry and most of the time the place was there, not here or everywhere, but a definite there is where this happened or there is where this will happen.  How do the artists in this exhibit create a sense of place in their art? 

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For Him I Sing

The Future THERE

What rules do you follow in making art? 

Do you make your own rules? 

How do those rules help you get where you want to be?

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For him I sing,

I raise the present on the past,

(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)

With time and pace I him dilate and fuse immortal laws,

To make himself by them the law unto himself

--Walt Whitman, For Him I Sing

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The Bay Room holds future oriented artworks with 3-D printed pieces and other clearly 21st Century art alongside works which use the past and present as a firm foundation to stand upon and view what the future could hold.  A part of the conversation about the future is what the rules will be--how will our future selves interpret old and current rules and create new ones.  Art has the power to move culture and society forward and it has the power to show us futures we may not want but in the end the future is what we make it since it happens right after your this...

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Last year the Bay Room held Connecting Places artworks as read in John Hildebrand’s essays about place and belonging.  Artists created works which sought to connect the viewer with self and place, history and identity with the artworks acting as bridges to reach both sides.  And so this year The Bay Room holds artworks which connect us to the future and connect us to an understanding about rules which serve everyone instead of select people.  .

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For Him I Sing looks at THERE as an immediate present based in the past—a present that is just about to happen.  In For Him I Sing, Whitman speaks for every American who knows that sometimes rules need to be changed, broken or followed .  For Him I Sing is an exhortation to make up your own laws, make your own art.  The greatest movements in art come from artists who change the rules and make a new art that has new rules.  The art in the Bay Room of Galaudet Gallery forms laws unto itself which sometimes looks familiar and sometimes not.  

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Song of Myself

The Song of Myself THERE

What art have you made that sings a song of self? 

What does your current art say about where you will be?

What roads have you traveled to get THERE?

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Not I, not anyone-else can travel that road for you,

you must travel it for yourself.

--Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 46

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The Studio Room holds Song of Myself artworks which are not usual self portraits but more a recognition of the connection between self and the world since how what we see in the world is a reflection of who we are to ourselves, others and the world. 

 

Last year the Studio Room displayed Revolutionizing HERE artworks recognizing the revolving traditions connected by artists’ use of studios inspired by The Studio Reader. Traditions like botanical illustration and the process which Picasso showed in how he arrived at an abstraction like Cubism continue this year with artworks that take portraiture into new areas and push the boundaries of where abstraction can go. 

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The Studio Room allows everyone:  artist, judge, curator, guest, viewers to think about the literal and figurative roads we have traveled as artists, as people living our lives-- those roads that have brought us to where we are today and those roads that will take us THERE—where we will be in the future.

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A New Regionalism

We move from HERE to THERE

To Propel Artists into the Future

With a Firm Sense of Place

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my gaze on thee in the west

fronting the west

communining with thee

O comrade lustrous

with silver face in the night

--Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last...16

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The artists in Galaudet Gallery’s Sense of Place: HERE also showed a new type of Regionalism—centered on individuals who transmigrate places, senses, experiences, creative way-findings. Each artwork visioned the future role of HERE which presently is wherever we may be at any given time.  Artists in Sense of Place:  THERE have fine tuned this idea ​by looking at specific places and symbolic ones as they redefine what regionalism is suggesting in some ways that it can now be defined as the region where an artist finds herself just as O'Keefe drew New York City and New Mexico because those were the regions she found herself in--with art critics suggesting throughout her career that each artwork was another sentence in her autobiography--her song of herself.

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It is time to wrest the idea of realist, story telling art away from the propagandists and return it to artists and people who like it.  To depict a regional scene that has inspired is not something low brow!  The New Regionalism seeks to bring realism back into the fold of fine art--even if that realism has tinges of abstraction or surrealism attached to it.  Regional art is not only made by a local artist but by any artist who attaches a place to the artwork, or suggests the inspiration is a specific place.  A Sense of Place widens here to include any place which inspires an artist to create a work of art.

 

 

 

 

And the Fourth Room

With other ideas tagged on

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The clock indicates the moment--

but what does eternity indicate?

--Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 44

 

The Center Shop will be transformed into a Souk to offer products and design ideas that many call the New Bohemian Design.  Products will be brought in throughout the show so stop in to see the wonders of place in a different way than the exhibit shows with jewelry, home decor, fabrics and more for you to curate on yourself and in your home or office.

 

These three Whitman poems will guide you through Galaudet Gallery's Sense of Place:  THERE:  Song of Myself is you choose.  Of just stop in to see some great original art.  You can choose to purchase any of the artworks on view.  If you don’t purchase a piece of art at Galaudet Gallery you can still take the experience with you!

                    

Galaudet Gallery is always free to view and dream, the gallery and artists welcome your support through purchases.  Join us for the opening reception June 21 from 4pm—9pm with a Summer Solstice Sadhana.  So shake that 5 feet of snow off your boots and leave it to the past and stop in to be invigorated by artists who are like you and enjoy a good time.

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Galaudet Gallery’s summer art exhibit Sense of Place:  THERE Song of Myself opens June 18, 2019 with an artist reception and Sadhana event on June 21, 2019 4pm --9pm 

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The galleries are usually open Wed—Sun noon—8pm. 

 

 

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Partnership of Sight

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Who has done his day’s work?

who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

—Walt Whitman Song of Myself 51

 

Sense of Place:  THERE is the second year of a four year art series called Sense of Place.  The first year was called Sense of Place:  HERE:  We Are Here which paraphrased Ed Abbey’s idea of past cultures creating rock art and leaving behind traces of their culture as a way of saying “We were here.”  Sense of Place:  THERE will continue this idea in making this year Sense of Place:  THERE:  Song of Myself in honor of Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday and as a way to focus artist submissions.   Sense of Place:  THERE:  Song of Myself will also be continuing Galaudet Gallery’s work in our Partnership of Sight theory we founded during Sense of Place:  HERE:  We Are Here. 

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In short, the Partnership of Sight is a 21st Century way to view art which has the artist and artwork involving the viewer.  There is a Partnership of Sight when there is a connection made between the artist and the viewer by means of the artwork. The viewer adds another layer to the artwork by infusing their presence into it because the artist creates their artwork receptive to this Partnership of Sight. This does not mean the viewer has to do anything more than view the art but the experience of viewing the art is heightened by the Partnership of Sight.  Whitman asks in Song of Myself "Who wishes to walk with me?"  and that is what each artwork asks of each viewer.  For more information on Partnership of Sight please visit the following link to our art exhibit catalog from Sense of Place:  HERE:  We Are Here:

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NOTES

 

You must habit yourself to the dazzle of light of every moment of your life

—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 46

Leaves of Grass

In Honor of Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday Galaudet Gallery will be seeking inspiration for all their 2019 art exhibits from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.   For Sense of Place:  THERE, Galaudet Gallery will focus on three poems from Whitman’s collection:  When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d Memories of President Lincoln, For Him I Sing and Song of Myself.

                                                  

 

In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement was consulted for the first Sense of Place art exhibit called HERE:  We Are Here.   This tome has a wealth of information about the period before the full blooming of the Arts and Crafts movement in America which is of particular interest to Galaudet Gallery and so it was also consulted for this years Sense of Place:  THERE:  Song of Myself.

 

View an introduction video about the exhibit on Galaudet Gallery’s YouTube channel:   https://youtu.be/s42u6pQlvVw

 

 

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