The Torpedo Factory: Alexandria, VA

Painting by Tory Cowles, © the artist

Last Sunday Robin, I and our friend Deedra toured the Torpedo Factory in the Old town section of Alexandria, VA.

It had probably been 10 years since I'd last been there and it was a bit of a disappointment.

The premise is: tour and old torpedo factory that has been converted to artists' studios, see them work, meet the artist and hopefully make arrangements to purchase work.

Now the "studios" are little more than boutiques with an easel set up in one corner (if your lucky).

Most of the work now was very commercial with most of the abstraction little more than faux finishing and the rest hack figurative work.

One bright spot was Susan Finsen's work and some of the work by Tory Cowles.

I had a better time at Murphy's Irish Pub where they actually had Bulmer's (Magner's in the U.S.) cider on tap! There was also a great chipper across the street where you could by Jelly Babies for dessert.

Abstraction in Lambertville: Ravenna Taylor

Louder Than Words, 2002, ©the artist

I've met another abstract painter that has a studio near us.

Her name is Ravenna Taylor. Check out her work here.

Look At This Guy: Robert Irwin

"My art has never been about ideas… My interest in art has never been about abstraction; it has always been about experience… My pieces were never meant to be dealt with intellectually as ideas, but to be considered experientially." - Robert Irwin, Reshaping the Shape of ThingsRobert Irwin ('50) was born in Long Beach, California, in 1928, and has exhibited widely in museums and galleries in North America and abroad since his first solo exhibition in 1957. In 1984, Irwin received a MacArthur Fellowship. In 1993, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles initiated a major retrospective of his work, which traveled to Paris, Madrid, and Cologne.
Among his numerous public projects, the most recent is the monumental garden he designed for the Getty Center in Los Angeles, which opened in 1997. He also consulted on the master plan for Dia:Beacon in N.Y. He currently lives and works in San Diego.As Los Angles County Museum of Art Director Michael Govan explains, "Irwin's early development moves along a reductive trajectory, from Abstract Expressionist painting in the late 1950s, to more rigorously optical hand-painted line and dot paintings, to metal and plastic circular discs and prismatic columns that nearly dissolve visually at the same time that they channel and shape the light and space around them. Finally, in the early 1970s, Irwin eschewed the discrete object entirely in favor of totally environmental works that involved modifying and augmenting indoor and outdoor spaces themselves."

Irwin's biography.

Mile Update

Robin ran 18, that's EIGHTEEN #$&%ing, miles today!*

*oh, and I rode my bike 18 miles in between stopping to move catapillers off the trail, stopping for drinks of gatorade, stopping to sit on every bench that lines the trail, and just plain stopping for periodic rests.

Amélie:The Real Nature of the Fantastic Ice Cream Car

Take a listen to this cd by french folk singer Amélie.

It's titled The Real Nature of the Fantastic Ice Cream Car.

Available on itunes now or here in about a week.

Band website here.

New Link: Dana Herbert's Inside Artist

Hey---I've added a new blog to my links.

Check out Dana Herbert's blog, Inside Artist here.
See her design work at Interior Paint by Design, here.

Dana is a talented and busy Interior Design Artist and an environmental and political activist so give her a look...

Hamlett Dobbins @ David Lusk Gallery

UNTITLED (for S.M.R.M.) © the artist

Hamlett Dobbins

every one, every day

@ the David Lusk Gallery

4540 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, TN

Opening: Friday, October, 5

6-8 PM