Inspiring a daydream

Madison Valley artist Heidi Randall may seem a bit omnipresent in the neighborhood over the next few weeks, with her art on display in multiple Madison Park locations during the first two months of the year. (Can one be a bit omnipresent?) Anyway, those, like me, who are big fans of Ireland should check out her current show on the walls of Park Place Deli, which features her paintings of places in Europe. The focus is particularly on the Emerald Isle (that's Ireland's Eye shown above).

In February, Randall moves to Starbuck's, with a month-long show, Quebec: La Ville et La Campagne, featuring her paintings of places in and around the City of Quebec.

She says that her work is inspired by early American Realists, the Impressionists, and 17th Century Flemish and Dutch painters. Her stated goals: to be aesthetically pleasing, and to create a meditative reaction (maybe even a daydream) in those viewing her work.

You can read about her and check out more of her art here.

Tile artists arrive for big show Saturday

Pioneer Hall was packed with art enthusiasts this evening as Artisan Tile Northwest hosted a reception featuring the artists who will be participating in tomorrow's Northwest Handmade Tile Festival.

The show begins at Pioneer Hall at 10 am and continues through 5 pm.

Madison Park's own Barbara Clark (Agapanther Tiles) will be displaying her hand-carved nature tiles, examples of which are shown here. She and the twenty or more other participating tile makers demonstrate a wide range of styles and techniques in their work. Nature, however, is definitely a common theme of many of these Northwest artists. If you like what you see at the Festival, you can bring it home with you. Everything is for sale.

The intimacy of the Park draws tile artisans back to Pioneer Hall

They could have gone anywhere. They'd held their past shows in different locations every year, and they'd already done Madison Park. The plan this year was to move the event to a bigger venue; but when the tile artists came to make a decision, Madison Park won out as the place they'd most like to have host their Fourth Annual Northwest Handmade Tile Festival. Hoping to repeat their success here last year at Pioneer Hall, the tile artisans will be back in the Park next weekend, hot on the heels of MadArt's conclusion this Sunday.

The Festival will run one day, Saturday, October 10, in Pioneer Hall (1642 43rd Avenue E.). Over 25 tile makers, all members of Artisan Tile Northwest (ATN), will be showing their works in two separate shows. One will be a curated show in which each participating artist will submit a work on the theme "Submerged." There will also be a display show, where the tile makers will set up tables and sell their art.

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According to tile artist Marie Root, "we decided to come back to Madison Park because we so enjoyed it last year. There's a certain intimacy there." She says the artists liked the Pioneer Hall venue, appreciated the support of the community, and enjoyed the people in the Park. She noted that there was a high volume of foot traffic last year, and the organizers are hoping for a similar level of interest this time around.

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ATN is a non-profit artist collective consisting of tile artisans from throughout the Pacific Northwest. The group is "dedicated to the creation, promotion and preservation of the art and craft of handmade tile." The annual festival is designed not only to help the artists sell their work but also to raise awareness by the public that handcrafted custom tile work in a wide range of styles is available from artists based right here in the region.

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The Saturday show will begin at 10 am and end at 5 pm. Admission is free. There will also be an artists' preview reception held at Pioneer Hall the previous evening, October 9th, from 5 until 8 pm.

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For information on ATN's artists, visit ArtisanTileNW.org. Not all ATN members will be participating in the Festival, but all of the artists whose works are shown here definitely will be. Madison Park's own Barbara Clark (Agapanther Tiles) will be showing her tiles as well.

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[Upper photo: hand painted tile, Moons, by Bob & Iris Jewett, Wilburton Pottery; Middle photo: nature print tile by Claudia Riedener, Ixia Tiles Tacoma; Lower photo: nature tile by Bellevue Artist Sallie Herling. Photo below: border tiles by Maria Root, Primitiva Pottery & Tile.]

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MadArt wows

If the goal was to showcase artistic talent and bring people to Madison Park, then the organizers of MadArt certainly scored on both points last night. The evening reception at Starbuck’s was packed, and the art walk that followed drew crowds of people, many of whom lingered on Madison well into night. Indeed, those who stayed late benefited from getting to see a different art show from what transpired during the daylight. Most of the art on display in the shop windows took on a whole new aspect when lit from above or behind and viewed from the dark of the street.

MadArt founder Alison Wyckoff Milliman told me she was “thrilled to see these artists prove themselves by rising to the challenge and coming through as they did.” She noted that the response to the art by viewers seemed to be “overwhelmingly positive.” That was certainly my impression as my wife and I made the rounds, starting with Anne Marie Lingerie and ending at Spa Del Lago (the installation there, shown below, is by artist Jen T. Mills and was one of the highlights of the show).
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MadArt Director Bryan Ohno spent the morning today recovering from last night and trolling the Madison Park shops listening to people coming upon the art unawares. He said it was fun to watch “people walking around in their normal way--maybe walking their dog--and then suddenly seeing art in a shop window and reacting.” It’s exactly what the MadArt organizers were looking for, he said, “a lot of interaction between people and the art.”

I’m excited to be able to break a bit of news here on the blog. Based on the success of the artists in creating installations for this event, Ohno reports that the venerable Foster/White Gallery will be featuring the MadArt artists in a special show in February 2010. All in line with what Milliman originally envisioned for the project: helping new artists get to the next level. Obviously, MadArt has given these artists some momentum.

The show here in the Park, meanwhile, continues in the windows of 18 Madison Shops on the north side of Madison through October 4. In particular check out my favorites, which certainly include George Rodriguez’s magnificent ceramic figures at Red Wagon Toys (shown below) and Kinu Watanabe’s inspired clay grouping at Martha E. Harris (shown in the photo at the top of this posting).

For more information on each the 22 artists displayed, visit MadArt’s website.

[Photos courtesy of Bryan Ohno, MadArt, except for the George Rodriguez installation, photographed by Alan Smithee.]

MadArt will accost you

When it arrives on the Madison Park scene next month, MadArt is certainly not going to be anything like a typical “art walk.” No staid galleries, no specially designed and repainted spaces for these works of art. No, this will be art in the public domain. Like literally in the neighborhood hardware store. Not expected. Surprising. Shocking even.

MadArt is designed to shake things up and get people talking art down here in the Park, and there’s no doubt it’s going to have impact. Beginning with an opening event on September 12 and continuing for the next 23 days, 21 emerging Seattle-area artists will have their works displayed in the windows of 18 Madison Park merchants. Each piece of art will have been specially produced by the artist to work in the space in which it appears.

The idea of MadArt is the brainchild of Madison Park resident Alison Wyckoff Milliman, who while living with her family in Melbourne, Australia several years ago was one day confronted by art in an unlikely place: the window of a village shoe store. “It was there to be art,” she said, “not there to sell shoes. It stopped me in my tracks because it was so unexpected.” And it got her thinking both about how people normally get to see art and about how artists might benefit from having their art exposed in a different way.

“We’re used to seeing art in prescribed places,” she told me. “And if you don’t go there, you’re going to miss out.” She reflected on the great job the Australians were doing of encouraging young artists and helping them get their work seen. “I thought to myself: ‘We could do this in Madison Park!’ I literally envisioned walking down the street in Madison Park and seeing art in the shop windows.” Her epiphany, after a couple years of effort, has resulted in MadArt.

Milliman is no stranger to the art world, having graduated from the UW as an art history major, worked in the antique-appraisal business for many years, and served on the Board of the UW’s School of Art. She says she’s always been interested in artists and their process, and she was particularly concerned about how new artists might learn the “business of art,” which is just not part of an artist’s training. MadArt has been designed not only to get exposure for the artists involved but to help them think about their art in a business-like way. Artists were required to go through a bit of a drill, for example, in order to participate in MadArt.

First of all, 200 local artists or so were considered for the project. This initial list was whittled down to about 40 artists, whose studios were then visited. Many of those artists were asked to make proposals for inclusion in the project. “We gave them a challenge,” said Milliman. “Visit the sites, talk to the store owners, and propose a design for a site-specific installation piece.” With 18 merchants agreeing to participate, 21 artists were chosen to fill the spaces (some of the artists are working together on an installation).

Among the emerging artists chosen for MadArt is Tamara Codor, whose untitled painting I used above as a teaser for this story. Here she is in her studio with the actual piece she is working on for MadArt, which will be displayed in the Bank of America branch:

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‘Art is supposed to activate’

Bryan Ohno, who has a long history on the Seattle Art scene, bought into Milliman’s vision and joined MadArt as its director early in the process. He defines the spirit of MadArt as having two principal objectives: “to give a new opportunity to emerging contemporary artists to show their work, and to reactivate Madison Park through art.”

Although art is most often seen in a prestige setting such as a gallery, studio, or even a restaurant, “ultimately it disseminates into our everyday lives,” he told me. “Why not have the art start there? Why not have it happen this way in Madison Park?” So, for a period of almost a month, MadArt will give us our chance to see art as part of our quotidian lives: art at the vets, art at the bank, art in the drug store, and art in the real estate office, among other venues.

MadArt presents an opportunity for new artists to help us “see the endless possibilities of visual creativity,” to quote Milliman. The effort will be a success, she says, if it brings people to Madison Park to see the art and if it gets us all talking about what we’ve seen.

Here’s another artist, Cameron Anne Mason, who is lending her talents to MadArt (her hand dyed and sewn silk vessels will be displayed at Anne Marie Lingerie):

For a complete listing of the participating artists, with links to their websites and pictures of their MadArt installations as works in progress, click here.

The fun begins September 12 with a 6:00pm opening reception at Starbuck’s (4000 E. Madison Street), followed by a walk around the various MadArt installations, beginning at Anne Marie Lingerie and ending at Spa Del Lago. As we get nearer the event I will post another story about MadArt with additional pictures.

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[Tamara Codor art photos courtesy of the artist. Cameron Anne Mason photo courtesy of MadArt. Photos of the artists by Bryan Ohno.]

Artist’s reception at Madison Park Café

Longtime Madison Park artist Art Messer will be presenting some of his current paintings at Madison Park Café this month and will be opening the show with a reception at the restaurant on June 15th at 6pm. The work was inspired by Messer’s trip to Europe this year, where he experienced an April in Paris. Messer, who for several years in the 1980s ran a Madison Park art gallery, has been painting in the Park for 30 years or so.

Entitling his show A Fauvist in Paris, Messer explains his inspiration with this artist’s statement: “Fauvist or wild beast was the establishment’s label for artists like Matisse, Dufy and Cezanne and their bold use of color as expression. This movement is alive and well in the museums and contemporary art galleries in Paris. My current works are influenced by all of these factors. I enjoy painting in this form because it is just fun. Enjoy.”

The show will be on the walls of Madison Park Café (1807 42nd Avenue E.) through the end of June.