Tag: Memphis artists

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Art Art Feature

Jeanne Seagle in “Of This Moment”

Photo: Abigail Morici

If you’re even the most casual reader of the Memphis Flyer, you’ve seen Jeanne Seagle’s work. Just turn to the weekly “News of the Weird” column every now and then, and you’ll see one of her quirky illustrations. But this week, if you head to the Medicine Factory, you’ll find the work she’s proudest of — her drawings and her watercolors of Dacus Lake, across the Mississippi River in Arkansas.

Seagle has been fascinated by this area for years now. After all, it’s where she started to get to know her husband Fletcher Golden, who lived at a fishing camp in the area at the time. “We would just wander all over that land while we were dating,” she says. “It was so much fun.”

Often, she returns there — to hike, to paint with watercolors, and to let her surroundings wash over her as she takes photographs to reference later in her drawings. She thrives in nature, she knows.

“I just love going over there. I love these scenes. I love these landscapes. That’s my spot,” Seagle said in an interview with Memphis Magazine last year.

Jeanne Seagle (Photo: Courtesy Jeanne Seagle)

Today when we speak about the Medicine Factory show, “Of This Moment,” which features new works, she notes how she hasn’t tired of the subject, especially with its ever-changing qualities. “In this show, I have a picture called Fallen Tree, and I have drawn that tree several times in other pictures when it was still standing,” she says. “That’s the thing about drawing landscapes, you can just focus on one spot and nature takes over and changes things constantly. … I find it endlessly fascinating.”

For three or four hours a day, she draws scenes of nature from photographs she’s taken at Dacus Lake, just a drive across the river from her Midtown studio. Sometimes, she’ll play blues CDs to fill the space with the rhythms of the Delta as she stills her focus on rendering the smallest of details — grooves in tree bark and wisps of grass — with careful marks in charcoal and pencil.

These black-and-white drawings take weeks to complete, sometimes up to two months. She’ll fold over the Xerox copies of photos she’s taken in some places, making entirely new compositions, adjusting the wilderness to her aesthetic liking. From these gritty images printed on copy paper, Seagle gleans details that an untrained eye would not recognize. She knows this art, inside and out, just like she knows these woods, harvesting their most innate qualities from her memories.

Unlike her illustrations that favor stylization, Seagle renders these images realistically, leaving no detail spared. The scenes are still, out of time. A sense of wonder remains in her drawings, inviting the viewer to slip into nature’s serenity, only a few miles from the grit and grind of Memphis.

After decades of working as an artist, Seagle has slipped into a serenity of her own, as if all her prior artistic endeavors have led to this moment. She’s experimented with styles and challenged herself many times over, she says, and now she’s found a subject that is uniquely hers — one that she’s emotionally attached to, that she’s excited to render in a style and medium that feels right, not like one she’s trying on.

“I have always liked to draw more than paint, and I just feel so much more comfortable doing that,” she says. “When I was a little girl, I was not exposed to paint media. When I was a little kid, I just colored with crayons, and I kind of just kept on doing that.”

Even as she continues in this phase of her life and art with these landscapes, Seagle can’t help but think of her childhood. “Just thinking how ironic it is that my parents were all about trees, too. My father worked with trees at his job as a forest ranger and my mother loved to take photographs of trees. It’s just kind of natural that I’ve just kind of slipped unintentionally into this little niche here.”

But it’s a niche Seagle plans to stay in, perhaps one that’s been in her genes all along. “I have spent most of my career doing color pictures for illustrations magazine and book illustrations,” she adds. “And now I’m doing what I want to do.”

“Of This Moment” is on display at the Medicine Factory. It features drawings and watercolors by Jeanne Seagle and paintings by Annabelle Meacham, plus works by Matthew Hasty, Jimpsie Ayres, Alisa Free, Claudia Tullos-Leonard, Anton Weiss, and others. Hours are Thursday, June 6th, noon to 6 p.m.; Friday, June 7th, noon to 6 p.m.; Saturday, June 8th, noon to 4 p.m.; and Sunday, June 9th, by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, email art@sylvanfinearts.com. Seagle will give an artist talk on Saturday, June 8th, at 1 p.m.

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We Recommend We Recommend

WinterArts Holiday Artists Market Kicks Off this Weekend

CREDIT: Facebook/WinterArts

If you think winter is coming, Jon Snow, you’re wrong. It’s here. You are going to need a dragon, or whatever crazy creature that artist Becky Zee has imagined into existence from her Pots with Personality studio. I hear she’s got a new one named Gordo that might be ready for the 2020 WinterArts holiday artists market.

This curated show and sale highlights some of the finest artists, makers, and craftspeople in our region.

Artists like Michael Talbot, who will be showcasing his Shaker Boxes, work tirelessly at their craft in preparation for the show. The boxes are made of thin, curved wood sheets and fitted with tops. The antique painted poplar wood boxes will be sold individually and in stacks.

Facebook/WinterArts

All I want for Christmas is Gordo the dragon.

“After being cut in a strip, the wood goes in for a 14-minute steam bath. Then it is wrapped to the drying form. Santa’s shop is really a mess during this busy time,” says Talbot.

Look for fiber wearable art, too. Vickie Vipperman is part of a movement called “slow cloth” that promotes sustainable practices and values high quality over large quantity. She weaves and dyes from her home studio using mostly silk, cotton, bamboo, and hemp yarns. Like many of the artists at the market, due to the custom aspects of her work, she only sells at shows like WinterArts.

Find these and many other exceptional and unique handcrafted works in glass, metal, wood, fiber, and clay, plus jewelry and more.

WinterArts, Shops of Saddle Creek, 7509 Poplar in former Sur La Table location, starts Saturday, Nov. 28, and continues through Friday, Dec. 25, free entry.

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News News Blog

Call for Artists: Memphis Flyer Coloring Book Fundraiser

The Memphis Flyer, like too many other local businesses, has suffered a financial blow during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. We know talented local creatives are also facing a precarious economic future.

Also, just about everyone we know is in need of a fun, relaxing activity to pass the time at home.

So we are planning to produce a quick turnaround Memphis Flyer coloring book, filled with work by local artists and illustrators. We encourage artists to submit work that looks and feels like Memphis. We will split the proceeds with the creators whose work we include.

We will make the coloring book available as a downloadable PDF to those who purchase it. We are also looking into short-run and on-demand printing options.

We will charge $35 per printed coloring book and $20 for a printable PDF version. Proceeds will be split 50/50 between the Flyer and the artists. We will pay out monthly through July, and quarterly through the end of 2020; the project split will end at the close of 2020. We will promote the coloring book through all our channels, and the artists are invited to do the same.

DETAILS:
• Deadline: Thursday, April 30, at 5 p.m.
• Email to: anna@memphisflyer.com
• Size: 8 inches wide and 10 inches tall
• Hi-res PDF, 300 DPI, black-and-white artwork only. 100 black (not CMYK) ink.
• Please provide the name you would like to have as a credit, plus your website, social handles, and anything else you would like to include for folks to reach you.
• Also please provide a two-sentence bio.

Thank you all, and please stay safe and healthy.

Anna Traverse Fogle
CEO, Contemporary Media, Inc.
anna@memphisflyer.com

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Opinion Viewpoint

Here vs. There

Troy Wiggins said it beautifully in a recent Memphis Flyer column: “Artists set the tone for their cities’ cultural presence.” I couldn’t agree more, but I’m not here to present this issue to you again. I want to address the idea that there is some kind of irreconcilable divide between local and non-local art.

Lauren Kennedy

In my two years now at the helm of the UrbanArt Commission (UAC), I have heard many a frustration expressed about public art commissions being awarded to out-of-town artists. These frustrations are often coupled with concerns over scarcity of resources (similar to a competitive vibe you can find between nonprofit organizations sometimes) or assumptions that out-of-town commissions mean a lack of confidence or interest in local artists. I would like to share a different point of view.

Working with out-of-town artists does not have to happen at the expense of supporting the local art community. And it certainly doesn’t mean that Memphis is lacking in creative talent or ideas. It just means that we aren’t the only city making art.

I believe it in my bones that exposure to work made in different contexts and places creates a more dynamic and challenging art environment at home — an art scene that continues to grow and has conversations outside of itself. I also firmly believe that out-of-town artists working in Memphis grow from their time here and take something of this magical, weird place back home with them — a place about which I care very deeply. We are selling ourselves short to think that we can’t draw inspiration from and inspire others in such vital work.

Just a few points about our work through the city’s percent-for-art program that might be helpful:

• All of our calls are open to local artists.

• UAC maintains a commitment that 60 percent of city-funded projects are devoted to local artists.

• If you have never worked on a public art project or fabricated something large-scale, we encourage artists to partner with someone who does have that experience or skillset. Ask us how!

• UAC is not a voting entity on artist selection committees.

Beyond what we do through the city’s percent-for-art program — an important municipal investment in our public spaces — we are constantly asking ourselves how else we can support local artists. We are proud to work alongside ArtsMemphis and Crosstown Arts to offer free, monthly professional development workshops for artists to enable local folks to be successful in this field — in Memphis and across the country. In the same way that we want to engage nationally in the art world, we want to see Memphis-based artists taking on opportunities in other cities. But we have a lot of room to grow to help facilitate this.

UAC is committed to identifying new ways to support local artists through offering training opportunities, bringing local and national investors and their dollars into this work, and recognizing that there will always be room to do more and better. UAC, as well as other organizations, can also work more deliberately to make sure that local artists get opportunities to spend real time with people coming into our city. Asking folks with different expertise and practices to share with people while they are here will create an ongoing exchange that will, in turn, lift us all up.

In our current political climate — with our entire federal investment in the arts on the chopping block — it is counterproductive to pick apart any available arts funding or to isolate ourselves from dynamic and imaginative people and places. This is a moment to continue rallying together across the country to support every art community that could suffer from the defunding of the NEA and NEH.

Eileen Townsend wrote a column for the Flyer in 2015 called “Is Loving Local the Wrong Approach?” She punctuated her cheeky but thoughtful feature as follows: “We can love our Memphis roots without limiting the reach of our arts. The best way to choose 901, as far as contemporary art is concerned, is to know that the sphere of creativity is not delimited by I-240.”

It’s true. We need to support local art and non-local art, but we need to prioritize the work more than we do these lines of division.


Lauren Kennedy is the executive director of the UrbanArt Commission.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Renaissance and Resistance

Toni Morrison said that art must be beautiful and political. Nina Simone said that the responsibility of an artist is to reflect the times. James Baldwin said that artists exist to disturb the peace.

Artists set the tone for their cities’ cultural presence, and their work creates a lens for citizens to engage with tough issues facing their cities and their worlds. Memphis has never been a city devoid of amazing public art and talented artists, but I can’t be alone in feeling like we are beyond lucky to be witnessing Memphis’ arts renaissance — and the attendant art/artist resistance movements — right now.

We all know that Memphis is music. Music is protest and power, and our city’s musicians are producing some extraordinary sounds. My own musical predilections trend toward hip-hop, R&B, and soul, all genres that my ancestors used to reason and reckon with their realities. Marco Pavé’s Welcome to Grc Lnd promises to be a soul-stirring, historical look at resistance and existence in Memphis. IMAKEMADBEATS and his Unapologetic crew have been working for years to provide some nextwave musicology to the Memphis scene, and his work is without peer. Collectives like the PRIZM Ensemble not only craft moving works of musical art, but give us a glimpse of an inclusive musical revolution. The Soulsville Festival and Memphis Slim House serve as incubators of new, grassroots celebrations of Memphis’ eternal musical spirit and the communities that bear that spirit. Angel Street, the Memphis Music Initiative, and the Stax Music Academy ensure that Memphis’ children will carry that spirit of musical reckoning and resistance onward.

Art of resistance

Memphians’ artistic commitment to resistance goes beyond music. A beautifully hued photo of dancers from the Collage Dance Collective recently went viral and showcases Collage’s commitment to inclusivity in their troupe. This photo, alongside their RISE performance, show us what dance as an inclusive form of artistic resistance truly looks like.

The Baobab Filmhouse and Hattiloo Theatre show the complexity of existence for people of color throughout history and dare to imagine stories for them that do not rely solely on their pain.

The Indie Memphis Film Festival brings a diverse array of films and filmmakers to our city every year. Spaces and collectives that focus on multidisciplinary works of art — like the CLTV, Centro Cultural, the Memphis Black Arts Alliance, Young Arts Patrons, and story booth — provide space for Memphians to engage critically with art that challenges their perceptions of their place in the world and of art itself. The events that these collaboratives present, such as the Young Arts Patrons’ Young Collectors event, Centro Cultural’s Tamale Fest, and the CLTV’s Black in Amurica, spotlight collective cultural resistance to forces that would erase or oppress not just artistic production, but the rights and personhood of these community members. Each of these spaces spotlights talented local creators.

Gallery spaces like the Orange Mound Gallery, Memphis Slim House, Crosstown Arts, and the Memphis College of Art allow for public consumption of paradigm-challenging work from artists like Fidencio Fifield-Perez, Kong Wee Pang, Vanessa González, and Darlene Newman.

Andrea Morales’ photography gives us an unabashed glimpse at what Memphis-style grit actually looks like, and Ziggy Mack’s ephemeral shots provide a vision of Memphis’ best people and our alternative futures.

Joseph Boyd’s “It’s Beautiful Where You Are” and Vitus Shell’s “Protect Her” center black women as subjects of and inspiration for our collective struggle (94 percent of black women voted against our current political quagmire). Siphne Sylve’s art graces various areas of the city and proclaims a deep sense of love and pride for Memphis. Jamond Bullock’s murals provide much needed whimsy and color to everything they touch. Michael Roy’s engrossing work can be found from downtown high-rises to coffeehouse bathrooms and grants his unique complexity to a wide range of subjects.

The written and spoken word is important in determining what resistance looks, reads, and sounds like. Dr. Zandria Robinson’s “Listening for the Country,” featured in the Oxford American, invited readers to take a trip into an emotive space that helps citizens remember their essential humanity as they struggle with systems.

Public readings like the recent Writers Resist event, The Word, and Impossible Language reinforce that Memphis is full of revolutionary writers. Jamey Hatley and Sheree Renée Thomas are award-winning authors who dare us to address our pasts and consider our roots. The works of Memphis authors and poets like Courtney Miller Santo, Margaret Skinner, David Williams, Ashley Roach-Freiman, and Aaron Brame help us discover how deeply our shared experiences and histories connect us. And the work of those who balance writing with community building, writers like Richard Alley and Nat Akin, help us to see a way forward.

During times like these, when every day feels like an assault on our rational sensibilities, art helps us make sense of the swamp. It is only right that we, as Memphians, do our part to support these folks whose works help us right ourselves, mentally and emotionally. Artists, and the organizations that support them, need your help. Pay artists what they are worth. There is no reason why our city’s most talented and dedicated creatives and the organizations that support them should face so many financial roadblocks, given how much they contribute to our city’s well-being. If your resistance does not account for our artists and their art, then you should reconsider your resistance.

Troy L. Wiggins is a Memphian and writer whose work has appeared in Memphis Noir anthology, Make Memphis magazine and The Memphis Flyer.

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Art Art Feature

“Unchained II” at Rozelle Warehouse

“Unchained II” sounds like a gore/horror film. It would be set on a remote California mountain and be about crazed starlets, who, after escaping a cult kidnapping, go on a chainsaw rampage and exact revenge on those who wronged them. Unchained II would be a ’90s remake of the original Unchained, which would have been made in the ’80s, and have the Van Halen track “Unchained” (David Lee Roth sings: “Unchained! Ya, you hit the ground running!”) as its theme song.

Unfortunately for Black Lodge customers, “Unchained II” is not (at least, probably not) a ’90s gore flick. It is the name of a new group art exhibition at the Rozelle Warehouse, featuring work by eight local female artists. The artist Mary Jo Karimnia organized the exhibition by inviting one artist, who in turn invited another artist, who invited another, until a collaborative chain of participating artists curated the show in grassroots fashion. The exhibition, the second of its kind in Memphis, is “unchained,” then, because it is off the hook (cool) or because it is a collaborative effort in an artist-run space and therefore unchained from usual gallery strictures.

Chandler Pritchett, and Stepahnie Cosby in “Unchained II”

Karimnia says that one of the interesting things about the “Unchained” shows is discovering accidental synchronicities between the artists’ work. Accordingly, this year’s exhibition features a lot of material-heavy, collage-based works. The work in the show varies in quality but all of it is warmly and carefully presented, a hard quality to come by in too many traditional galleries.

Stephanie Crosby’s digital black-and-white photography is drawn from “Empty the Cache,” a series of forest landscapes interrupted by blacked-out shapes. Smoke Break shows an angular vine interrupted by a clean black triangle. In For the Afternoon, two black squares create mini-voids against the backdrop of an eroded hill. Crosby says that she hopes the interruption of these void shapes will allow the viewers to see the image without understanding it as a clichéd landscape — to proverbially empty their mental cache.

Works by Meredith Wilson and Chandler Pritchett

Crosby is partially successful. One way of dealing with clichéd images is to negate them, override them, or deconstruct them with anti-images (a black triangle, a black flag), and she does that. But put beside her earlier work — meticulous color series such as “Cosmos” and “Primitive Plants” — “Empty the Cache” falls flat. Crosby is capable of making landscape photographs that have a painterly depth, that the viewer cannot help but encounter slowly. Her traditional work doesn’t risk cliché, so why try to disrupt it?

Elizabeth Owen’s “Hand of God Series” also plays with worked-over images. Her colored-pencil and laminate paper collages of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph reference a very identifiable Medieval aesthetic and are surrounded with cheap-o glitter and cut paper. Pieces like Holy Family are getting at something interesting but could go further. Owen’s methods could be pushed into a realm of glittery saints and neo-folk altars. (The transcendent shiny collage work of Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt comes to mind.)

Mars Science Lab Heatshield/Gale Crator #12 by Kerri Dugan

Two different artists, Meghan Vaziri and Kerri Dugan, use light boxes to high effect. Dugan’s fetchingly named Mars Science Lab Heatshield/Gale Crater #12 is a strange radial, planetary collage that looks like both a crater and a color wheel. It is a mysterious piece, radiant with either cosmic or chemical interior light.  

Vaziri’s Susanna & the Elders, a tableau of a woman bathing in a glade while a man looks on, is stitched from wool, silk, cotton, and tulle and backed with a lightbox. Vaziri uses the tulle (a French-originated fabric used to make tutus, wedding veils, and lingerie) expertly. Vaziri is a painter, and Susanna is a painting without paint, in that it captures the artist’s painstaking gesture and holds it. Vaziri perhaps takes cues from artists such as Elizabeth Gower, whose ethereal but heady 1970s works on fabric were taken up by the Women’s Art Movement. Susanna is especially un-photographable and should be seen in person.

Karimnia says it was an accident that “Unchained II” is an all-female exhibition, but much of the work in the “Unchained” exhibit shares an attention to traditional women’s-work materials (beads, fabric, beeswax). This influence may stem from Karimnia’s paintings. Karimnia’s Catrina depicts a contemporary man with his arm around a woman in elaborate historical costume and dressed with “seed beads,” those infinitesimally small plastic beads that are dangerous to children and animals. Karimnia makes her paintings from photographs that she takes at anime and cosplay conventions that she attends with her daughter.

Like many of the works in the exhibition, Karimnia’s works are colorful and likable but laboriously made and unexpectedly heavy, both in material and content.