Hot Glass Blower Produces Cool Art

What’s Starts Out Hotter Than Fire But Ends Looking Cooler Than Ice?

Here’s a riddle for you:

“I am fascinated by the transformation of properties in nature. I am part of the process, moving a solid to a molten and aqueous state, and arriving at a solid form again.”

Who am I?

If you said David Van Noppen, a new glass blowing artist in Pasadena, you’re right.

Van Noppen Glass Gallery and Studio, located just steps north of the Pasadena Playhouse, is a very cool place to view solid glass objects that have already passed through the molten and aqueous state and now sit in his shop. The gallery and studio is scheduled to open to the public in mid-August.

“I’m a glass blower primarily,” states Van Noppen. “I’ll be selling my own work, as well as the work of other glass artists, and eventually other art craft media: ceramic, woodwork, metal work, jewelry, but the emphasis is on blown glass.

“My parents always had glass around the house, glass objects that I was intrigued by,” says Van Noppen. “I couldn’t figure out how they made them. In college, I dabbled in all the different mediums, but glass really captured my attention.”

Born in the western, mountainous region of North Carolina, Van Noppen says he developed skills in rock climbing and hang gliding at an early age. A graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, he broadened his skills with post-graduate work at the Penland School of Crafts with hot glass, the PilchuckSchool with neon, and the Corning Studio with Venetian glassblowing.

“I was an art major, but the school I attended didn’t have a glass program,” explains Van Noppen. “After college, I was sort of stalling the inevitable job world and went to a craft school and took glass blowing. I had blown one simple vase at a workshop once and the lifestyle of the teacher really captivated me.

“There is also a fascination of working with the fire,” Van Noppen says. “Once you start a piece, you have to work it to completion. You can’t just put it aside and come back to it at a later time, so it’s the spontaneity of it. You might start with the end result in mind, but you might have to change course midway so you have to adapt.”

Van Noppen admits his career as a glass artist echoes his comfort with interacting with natural elements to achieve an outcome. His glass art, ranging from functional to sculptural, is not laden with heavy meaning or metaphor. Similar to his passion for the environment, the artist says his glass creations are “simply pleasing to view and to touch.”

A recent resident to Southern California, Van Noppen had a studio in Rhode Island for more than 20 years. His wife was offered a faculty position at USC and the couple is delighted to be living in Southern California.

His studio and gallery with feature a variety of glass floral arrangements, glass vegetables, goblets, paper weights, Christmas ornaments, perfume bottles, vases and freeform sculptures. He also sells items from his website and is available for commission pieces.

For more information about Van Noppen Glass Gallery and Studio, call 626-808-8389 or visit his website at www.vannoppenglass.com.

Copyright 2012 by S. R. Morris

3 Artists Featured in 3 Settings

3 Artists Featured in 3 Settings In Pasadena 

If three is your lucky number, you’re in luck. Three different artists with three different views of art will have their opening receptions at three settings (in two separate locations) in Pasadena on Saturday, July 7.

The three artists are David Askevold, Gregory Michael Hernandez, and Nate Page. The settings and locations are Caldwell Gallery of the ArmoryCenter for the Arts, The Artist Studio @ Colorado One, and the Armory’s Main Stairwell (respectively). The views will be on display for Pasadena art lovers to appreciate in the months ahead.

David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East

Armory Center for the Arts will host David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East, a traveling retrospective exhibition organized by David Diviney, Curator of Exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. The exhibition features works that consider the four strains of Askevold’s exploratory journey: sculpture/installation, film and video, photo-text works, and late digital images.

It includes key pieces from each stage of the artist’s career. David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East will be on display in the Armory’s Caldwell Gallery and Mezzanine Galleries from July 8 through September 15, 2012. A reception, free and open to the public, will take place from 7-9 p.m.

“It is very exciting to be bringing this show to the Los Angeles area – aside from some small works the recent group exhibition She Accepts the Proposition, David’s work hasn’t been seen in LA since its inclusion in the Getty’s California Video show in 2008,” notes Armory Chief Curator Irene Tsatsos, “and not on a large scale since the show at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) in 2002. There is considerable enthusiasm for this exhibition, identified by Artforum as one of the top 50 shows of the year.”

Born and educated in the United States, Askevold (1940-2008) spent much of his career in Nova Scotia. Recognized as a pioneer in the development of conceptual video and photo-based art, he broke into the international art scene in 1970 when his work was included in the seminal exhibition Information at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Askevold made his way to Southern California, teaching at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, and the University of California, Irvine, and participated in exhibitions at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), and Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (LAICA). He had a rich career in Southern California as an artist and teacher.

Once Upon a Time in the East begins with Askevold’s early, ground-breaking video works from the early 1970s, considered to be the first conceptual video art ever made in Canada. It includes The Nova Scotia Project, a large-scale, multi-disciplinary work from the mid-‘90s in which Askevold systematically documented the thousands of harbors along the rocky coast of Nova Scotia.

This epic project comprises four elements: Once Upon a Time in the East, a series of aerial photographs of small craft harbors taken by the provincial department of fisheries and oceans; The Road Journal, photographs taken at road level on the way into the harbors; the End of the Road Matrix, photographs of structures such as fishing sheds from each harbor; and, Don’t Eat Crow, a garden shed housing a video installation.

The exhibition also offers a mix of later pieces, primarily photo-based, and a video installation entitled Two Beasts, which was to be his last work. Askevold was collaborating on Two Beasts with his former student and New York artist Tony Oursler when he died in 2008; Oursler completed the project in 2010.

Gregory Michael Hernandez: A Bridge Between Landscapes

ArmoryCenter for the Arts and One Colorado present Los Angeles-based artist Gregory Michael Hernandez as the Artist-in-Residence at The Artist Studio @ One Colorado. The residency will run from July 2 through October 27, 2012. The Artist Studio, located at 24 Smith Alley in Pasadena’s One Colorado complex, is an interactive artist space in which visitors are invited to engage with artists as they work. His reception is on Saturday, July 7, from 6 to 9 p.m.

While in residence, Hernandez will maintain open studio hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 10am-5pm, and on Saturdays from 11am-5pm. Studio visits are free and open to the public. Armory and One Colorado are continuing their over ten-year collaboration presenting innovative programs that introduce the arts and artists into daily life.

In his residency entitled A Bridge Between Landscapes, Hernandez will create hybrid forms, images, and projects that metaphorically bridge two or more locations, combining his working materials and influences and mingling images from both desert wilderness and urban built environments. While at work in The Artist Studio, Hernandez will be preparing a solo exhibition at Roberts and Tilton Gallery, Culver City in 2013.

Hernandez considers his work to be an ongoing, slow evolution from one body of work to the next, using preceding projects as conceptual stepping stones for those in the future. In accordance with his mission to construct a grander, hybrid art form, visitors will have the opportunity to both experience and witness this interactive process. Therefore, The Artist Studio will be used as an intersection between a gallery, a workshop, and a think-tank for the germination of future projects. Hernandez invites discussions with other artists and the public in order to cultivate inspiration for future work.

In conjunction with his residency Hernandez will make his signature Captive Universe pieces available to visitors.  These photographic collages are comprised of 26 individual photographs that, when assembled, offer a panoramic, three-dimensional expansion of Renaissance one-point perspective. Visitors will be provided materials to cut, fold, and shape these photo-globes, which may then be taken home or given to the artist to be integrated into a future exhibition.

A graduate of BiolaUniversity, Hernandez lives and works in Los Angeles and has had solo shows at LAX Art and Emma Gray Headquarters, both in Culver City. He has participated in group exhibitions at the TorranceArt Museum, Gallery 727, and the L.A. Municipal Gallery. The artist is a 2011 recipient of the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists and received a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department for a project at LAX Airport. He is preparing for an upcoming solo exhibition at Roberts and Tilton Gallery, Culver City, in 2013.

One Colorado is an outdoor shopping and dining destination on one city block in the heart of Old Pasadena. The property unites 17 individual historical buildings. In addition to its retailers and restaurants, One Colorado offers public art programs, cultural events, and entertainment. For more information please visit www.onecolorado.com.

Nate Page: Instituted Angles of Path and Display

The Armory’s Main Stairwell will feature Nate Page: Instituted Angles of Path and Display from July 8, 2012 through June 30, 2013. The opening reception will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, July 7.

Considering the ultra functional and prescriptive design of the Armory’s main staircase, the artist has created an installation that challenges the authority of the existing architecture and also encourages users to re-examine their passage through this transient space.

The ArmoryCenter for the Arts is located at 145 North Raymond Avenue, Pasadena. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Admission is free with a $5 suggested donation. Armory members, students, and seniors are free. For information about Armory exhibitions and events, call 626-792-5101 x122 or visit the Armory online at www.armoryarts.org.

Copyright 2012 by S. R. Morris

Riderless Horse Sculpture Moved

Artist’s Riderless Horse Sculpture Moves to Pasadena Neighborhood

The ArmoryCenter for the Arts has announced that the “Eighteenth Brumaire,” a large-scale sculpture by Los Angeles-based artist Steven Bankhead, has been temporarily moved to the garden of the Madison Neighborhood Casita, 805 N. Madison Ave. in Pasadena.

Bankhead’s monumental sculpture, which utilizes the materials of billboard construction, will be on display through May, 2013. A public reception at the Casita, was held featuring refreshments, music by DJ Tailspin, and free pulled-pork barbecue — prepared by the artist.

“It was a lot fun,” states Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne, Gallery Manager and Assistant Curator of the ArmoryCenter for the Arts. “Some people just drove by and don’t know what it was all about. We want to educate people, invite them to meet the artist and enjoy the piece. It’s a community-building opportunity.”

The sculpture first appeared on the rooftop of Steven Turner Contemporary on Wilshire Boulevard, across from Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Bankhead meant to elicit a dialogue about the Getty’s opulence during its Pacific Standard Time campaign throughout Southern California in 2010, following the global financial crisis.

“He has strong political views, but his work has definitely got some tongue-in-cheek,” explains Pyne. “He’s interested in these kinds of social environments in which he engages the public and it’s part of his art practice.”

By relocating the work to Pasadena’s Madison Neighborhood Casita in 2012, Bankhead wants to once again challenge the viewer to question how location, in this case, can enlighten the potential for new meaning.

“This riderless horse piece was once on a rooftop on Wilshire Boulevard, but now it’s at La Casita, a small house directly across the street from MadisonSchool,” says Pyne. “He likes to move to get a new look and a new perspective.”

La Casita serves the MadisonSchool community with after school programs and a computer lab. It’s an environment where students can come and get there homework done and get tutoring services.

“The house is owned by the PasadenaUnifiedSchool District, but the Armory has a contract for a specific amount of time,” Pyne says. “We thought it would be interesting to launch a temporary public arts program there. We’ve been doing it now at La Casita for quite awhile.”

Born in 1971 in Augusta, Georgia, Bankhead earned a BFA at AuburnUniversity and an MFA at OtisCollege of Art and Design (2001). His project-based work is guided by an interest in signs and sign processes. It is his belief that all paintings are signs; forms of communication between the artist and the viewer.

For more information about “Eighteenth Brumaire,” artist Steven Bankhead, and the ArmoryCenter for the Arts, visit the website www.armoryarts.org.

Copyright 2012 by S. R. Morris

Nude But Not Rude

Nude But Not Rude Art Exhibit Opened in Pasadena

e. e. cummings once wrote “A pretty girl who is naked is worth a million statues.” Residents of Pasadena who agree are now enjoying Linus Galleries’ art exhibit titled “The Nude But Not Rude.” The exhibit began June 15, 2012 and all artwork will be available for sale.

“We had an amazing amount of nude art to choose from,” states Gallery Owner Linnea Lenkus. “It’s inspiring always. We are so excited because this art show will bring in so many talents from all over the world portraying one of my favorite subjects.”

Nude But Not Rude is a collection of nude portraits that go beyond the physicality and obvious nakedness of the body. Featuring artwork by renowned artists such as Dan Pyle, Eric Pederson, Jeff Outlaw, Steve Rude, Loreal Prystaj, Randal Barbera, Ekaterina Bykhovskaya, Grace Modla, and more, Linus Galleries attempts to bring sophisticated and compelling artwork to their audiences.

During the opening reception, Linus Artist Steve Rude presented a live demonstration painting of a nude model. Gallery owner Linnea Lenkus, herself a popular fine art nude photographer, announced the last art exhibit’s winners.

Shown in April, Linus Galleries’ last art show was called the Lonely Planet. It was a collective art exhibition which encompassed the themes Landscapes, Abstracts, Portraits, and Green. Part of a community of local, national and international contemporary artists Linus Galleries states their mission is to bring these artists together and present them to a broader audience of art lovers.

LinusArtGalleries is located at 545 S. Raymond Ave. in Pasadena. The gallery is owned and curated by fine art photographer, Linnea Lenkus. It features two dimensional art from all over the world. Its two locations are Pasadena and Long Beach, California.

Copyright 2012 by S. R. Morris