Everybody... yeah, yeah. Rock That Body... yeah, yeah

I've got some catching up to do. This isn't abnormal. Don't be surprised. I have pics of Jill Lanza's show. I have pics of Rick Von Holdt's show. Right now, right now we need to talk about the near future.

and that near future is...

Sarah Vogel!!! (theremin music, it's time to start a'playing)

That's right, our next Bakery Gallery exhibition will be a collection of this delightful Chicago-based artist.

Sarah is an art star when it comes to all things letterpress, design and relief. In fact I don't think I'd hesitate to say that she has one of the best registration techniques I have ever seen. I should rephrase that... I haven't actually seen her registration technique, I've just seen the prints that she makes that have NO error in it. It's humbling.

Let's take a look at a few things she has done.

(Martin Luther - 3-color linocut with letterpress) 

 (Henry VIII three-color linocut and letterpress)

 (Squid Joe vs. Tag Team three-color linocut and letterpress)

(A bunch of stuff [ not the title, just a statement])

She'll be showing at the Bakery very soon and even plans on being present for the Opening itself. This means (man-oh-man) you should pop on over. Let's get some of the details.


Title:  Rogues
Artist: Sarah Vogel
Opening Reception: December 6th, 2013 2013; 6 pm - 8 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, December 6th - Saturday, January 25th
The Place: The Bakery Gallery-1330 E. 12th Street Davenport, Ia
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 7 am - 5 pm

For more of Sarah's work please check out these two put together and well kept sites.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/slowindustries

https://www.etsy.com/shop/slowindustries

(just in case it wasn't obvious, her press is Slow Industries)

Talk to you soon (relatively)

The Power Is Inside of You!!!

Jill Lanza.

Jill Lanza...

Jill Lanza!

Here is the thing, Jill is an astounding artist. An amazing artist. I don't know how many comic book adjectives you want me to place in front of her name, but I can continue. Uncanny, tremendous, etc... At this point in time you might be saying "Joseph?" I urge you to check out her website. To see what she has accomplished in the past 8 years. If you disagree with me...well, it happened and we'll have to have slightly awkward facial ticks against each other in the future. 

I don't think you will though. Jill is an artist and a professor (Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design). She's a thinker and a parent and a significant other and a presence and she exists in a big way in this wacky world of ours - living in Chicago and traveling where she needs to (wait a minute... you mentioned super hero before, is she... could she be?!?!?! ) 

Let's look at a tiny, little bit of her work. 

Scape (exterior)

Scape (Interior)

Jill is an interdisciplinary artist. This phrase can take on a multitude of meanings... and that is perfectly fine. We, as humans, want to judge and desire clarification and to that response I will say this. She deals in fiber arts, papermaking, book arts, visual narratives, photo (digital and analog) and installation art. In fact, and this is a great HOORAH to me, she is coming to install the show so that ever thing falls in its place. Rare, not unheard of (see Jen Thomas, Adam Beadel, Angela Wilson and Matthew Hoffman) but certainly exciting.

                        

Beyond A Blanket (details) 

Oh hey, does anyone want to read her artist's statement (rhetorical question and not up for debate. Read it :)  )

In my work, I absorb my surroundings while conducting a constant exploration of word play and definitions. From consumed topics such as: my daily digital life, vulnerability, and neighborhood histories; each study allows for me to develop a new space for the viewer to consider. Working interdisciplinary, allows me to challenge the viewer in their space. I cross from a shared spaced into an intimate space—from installation to book to new media. My work begins with a moment had, a phrase said, or a task taken to create my narratives. I gather and reference the textures and topography that surround myself as I test my research through process with fibers, papermaking, and installation. The laborious actions and collaborations to create my details intertwine with my research–as I take a moment had, or phrases heard, and combine them with histories and data. A community audience is mandatory in my work and research. I seek to make a small change, to fuel a discussion, and bring lost stories to attention. Thread is a common medium throughout my work. It is a drawing tool to bind each layer or a structural element to build an installation. The delicacy and strength of thread holds meaning as a domestic material that I challenge in process and strength. Whether in the confines of a loom, frame, a book, or an installation space, I seek to construct artificial spaces for the viewer to discover new narratives. In Power Down, Pixel Study I specifically step back to analyze the pixels in my life and my community with engagement and collaboration from creation to audience activation.

Bubbly Creek

Jill, and most likely her adorable child, will be popping about in the Quad Cities next week ( Thursday and Friday) She has graciously offered to host a presentation of her artwork. This will be showcased at St. Ambrose University. Specifics man, specifics!!??!! Ok, calm down

Jill Lanza talks on Friday, Sept. 20th from 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm in Rm. 141 of Galvin Fine Art Center, located in the fine city of Davenport, Ia.

Cross Stitch Keyboard

This means that she will also be present during the opening at the Bakery Gallery. There is rarely a person more... personable to talk to. Ask her questions, look at her work, maker her think, make your head explode!!!

So...

Who: Jill Lanza – click here to view Jill’s website

What: Power Down, Pixel Study: an exhibition of fiber arts, handmade paper, and installation techniques

When: 1) Friday, September 20^th 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm. Jill will host an hour long

            presentation discussing her current body of work and its multiple meanings.

2) Friday, September 20^th 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm. Opening Reception and

artist visit.

3) Friday, September 20^th – Saturday, October 19^th Exhibition. Tues-Sat 7:00 am-6:00 pm

Where: The Bakery Gallery. 1330 East 12^th Street Davenport, Ia 52803

Why: Community, art, interaction, baked goods

To What Extent: dialed to 11

Hello Rock

Play

Questions? You know who to ask. (hint... it's me)

Comments? Please give us feedback as to how we are doing. 

Wanna come but are still confused? Don't be. Get ahold of me. We're pretty nice folk. 

There Ain't Nothin' Wrong

Okay... so this is part two of a small series of posts that represents the re-opening of the Bakery Gallery.

This particular talky-too is about our next artist who will be exhibiting...

JEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNN   THHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMAAAASS

or for those of you NOT use to bullet-time - Jen Thomas. 

So you might be thinking "Joseph. there are many J.T.'s in the world" (not Justin Timberlake) how do I know which one you are talking about. My answer would be "The important, cool one" She's not the one rock climbing in the picture or wearing an entirely too small bikini or twerking. She is the one from Chicago...the one that makes pretty stellar art, whether it be a drawing, a print or a book (or other multi-pollinated things) 

(this is her pulp-painting... taken from happyfaceschicago.blogspot.com)

Here is a bitty-bio about her:

Jen Thomas is an educator, book artist, printmaker, and writer based in Chicago, Illinois. She earned her B.F.A. in Communication Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University; studied printmaking at Plymouth University, Exeter, England; and completed her M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago. When she’s not drawing medical anomalies and taxidermied animals on handmade paper, she spends her time editioning etchings of trailer parks under her own imprint, Veronica Press, and running her new exhibition and workshop space, werkspace. Jen teaches illustration and graphic design at the American Academy of Art and Illinois Institute of Art, in addition to community book arts workshops across Chicago. Her writing has appeared such publications as little bang, The Bonefolder, Punk Planet, Afterimage, and Blister Packs; her artist’s books are featured in 1000 Artists’ Books: Exploring the Book as Art.

You may have noticed that bit about her running her own gallery that hosts exhibitions as well as workshops. Welllllllll... you should check out the site too. If you are in Chicago or visiti it with any sense of frequency I would also like to speak very highly of its offerings. 

WERKSPACE

The intrepid collector can also find her work for sale at a little site (maybe you've heard of it) called ETSY. 

Veronica Press

Ok, ok get on with it. What is this artist all about? Well, how about this:

Spinster

or perhaps just a little bit of this...

Corset 6

I'm not even opposed to show just a tiny bit of, this...

divine mandate

Alright, so we've seen the work, but what the heck does it mean?!?!?! Well, it just so happens that we have an answer for that too: 

Over the last ten years, one by one, I have watched nearly all of my friends succumb to their urges to have children, an urge that I feel pretty certain that I have never felt. Their lives have changed, presumably for the better, and mine has, too. Now, instead of discussing our careers, world events, or pop culture, those moms and I discuss the finer points of spit-up, eating habits, and poop color. I’m fascinated and repulsed simultaneously, certain now that I need not ever have a child of my own. I can just play with their babies and return them when their diapers are full, their stomachs are empty, and I need to get back to work. As a woman, does that make me selfish? Unfulfilled? Inadequate? Incomplete? We should all want to have children, right?

The work in Nullipara explores the societal ramifications of a woman’s choice not to have children, as well as the greater historical evolution of pregnancy’s impact on women, both physically and emotionally. I’ve juxtaposed derogatory words like “spinster” and “old maid,” originally relatively benign in their meanings, with imagery of now archaic medical practices. Vice-like maternity corsets, forceps, dead rabbits and mice have all been replaced by organic cotton and pregnancy tests that require a potential mother-to-be only to urinate on a plastic stick and wait five minutes. In rethinking both changing medical practices and ideas about women’s roles, I created pastel drawings on handmade paper sewn with traditional embroidery stitches—women’s work to pass the time while carrying a child. These quilted drawings serve to fill that imaginary void in a woman’s life—a void that doesn’t necessarily need filling. 

I think we should end this with the pertinent information that you all so desire. 

The Who: Jen Thomas

The What: Nullipara

The When: July 26th - August 30th... The actual Opening will take place on the 26th from 6 pm - 8pm. Lots of food and great dj'ing will accompany. 

The Where: The Bakery Gallery: Conveniently located at 1330 E. 12th Street. Davenport, Ia 52803

The Why: To Start it back up. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/timothy-barrett-papermaker.html?_r=2

Are We Back? I Think We Are Back!!

Hello dear reader.

It's been awhile, right? Many of you probably thought we were dead, but as a wise man once said... "It is only a flesh wound"

The Bakery Gallery is taking steps to return to what it was promising to become/had taken steps to already become which is (duh, duh, DUHHHHHHHHH) the premiere Printmaking and Book Arts Gallery in the Quad Cities and the immediate surroundings.

So, you may not be asking yourself, where have you been for the past year? Well, there is a multi-faceted answer to that question that is equally boring and pedestrian. I'll sum it up quickly, but it goes along these lines.

A.P.R. and I had a goddamn baby!

(this is him at his happiest.) 

I don't want to waste your time with talking about how difficult it has been to adjust or how he woke up  12 times a night for the first year causing me to only sleep in 45 minute increments - thus creating a shell of my former self (granted a shell that had gained some... ahem... baby weight) I don't want to gnaw on your ear about how it becomes easy to NOT do something you love after you haven't done it for a few months because it involves (should I include a "gasp") work. I don't want to restate how we thought we were moving to the downtown area where are presence would (surely) be lauded and met with ticker tape parades, only to find out that a casino was WAY more important. 

No, no don't worry about those things. They're in the past. We're talking about the present and if you can sci-fi with me (hover cars optional) the future...queue uplifting music. 

We have two years worth of shows set up. TWO YEARS. I want to make up for lost time. I want to see you again. I want to see the Eastside Bakery (the humble hosts of our gallery space) succeed in ways previously unthinkable. 

So there's that. I'm going to set up a few more posts (lets not call it a bombardment) because I don't want to mix this news/apology/return up with the great news of the upcoming shows. They both deserve equal footing. 

I hope we can provide you with some of your best art viewing experiences.