Show us your books

One of the amazing things about technology these days, is the evolution of the d.i.y. photo book. Many are geared toward regular folks making photo albums, however the art community has found an amazing way to make no-overhead books for show catalogs, portfolios, and anything else dreamed up. There are many sites like Blurb and Lulu where an artist can make a book and have it distributed on the Web.

So... have you made one of your own artwork/photographs? If so, we'd love to see, so leave a link in the comments or email me at lysbeth[at]stillrivereditions.com (replace [at] with the @ symbol)
Custom books are shockingly easy to put together if you use ready-made layouts. They can become more labor-intensive projects if custom page layouts are needed (we know this from personal experience), but the reward is having a book that is 100% your expression.

A couple of years ago, Mark and I put together a book of Cathy's photographs from Boston in the late '70s/early '80s. We auditioned several services before committing, however, quality changes from time to time, so it's good to shop around periodically. The experience of designing it 100% from cover to interior was challenging, but we are happy with the end result.

Show us your stuff!

~Lys

Eddie Adams: Vietnam at Bethel Woods Arts Center through July 11

Fifty black and white photographs from Eddie Adams: Vietnam are being exhibited at Museum at Bethel Woods in Bethel, NY until July 11, 2010. Still River Editions printed work for this exhibition which highlights the photojournalist's coverage of the Vietnam War, including the controversial image for which he was awarded the 1968 Pulitzer Prize. Adams' images were not published outside of their use for the Associated Press until after his death, when a book and exhibition were put together titled Eddie Adams: Vietnam by Adams' wife Alyssa.

Also notable is that the museum is offering free admission for U.S. military veterans, active duty, retired, or reserve troops with an ID at sign in during the Eddie Adams exhibition.

Bethel Woods Art Center is located at 200 Hurd Road, Bethel, NY at the site of the original 1969 Woodstock Festival. The museum's focus is the Woodstock era in art, culture and politics. In addition to the museum, the Art Center holds concerts, craft and other festivals, and country fair-type events.

~Lys

Tatiana Golovnya-Miller at 25CPW in New York City











©Tatiana Golovnya-Miller

Tatiana Golovnya-Miller will be exhibiting giclée prints of her drawings at 25CPW in "Images: Six Perception" from June 16-19, 2010. The opening reception will be June 16 from 6-8 PM. 25 CPW is located at 25 Central Park West, NYC. The show is presented in collaboration with Grant Gallery.

Golovnya-Miller's drawings are colorful and lively, and straddle the border between folk costume design and fine art. The drawings are part of a book project that has a seasonal focus, and pieces from each season will be exhibited. These are not simple fashion illustrations. Ms. Golovnya-Miller's artist statement grounds the costumes in the context of their role as documents; Russian costume reflects the influence of surrounding and far-flung nations over hundreds of years while remaining "Russian".

Golovnya-Miller was born and educated in Moscow, having achieved degrees in both piano and screenwriting, and worked in the Russian film industry.  When she moved to New York City nearly thirty years ago, she attended FIT and the School of Visual Arts while working in advertising and fashion design. She began making drawings and writing while absorbing and mastering the English language. She continues to work in both mediums.

Others in the multiple-discipline show include Natalia A. Kram, Udita Leberg-Shapiro, Tatiana Migdal, Edina Seleskovic, and Natasha Zyablova.

~Lys

Added 6/17/10 at 4:36 pm
Below are a few photos from the opening of the show (click for larger images)
























Michael Elsden: Pogonophora at Westport Arts Center's SOLOS 2010










matt g. #1
© Michael Elsden


Photographer Michael Elsden will be exhibiting at Westport Arts Center's SOLOS 2010 from June 11 to July 25, 2010. Elsden's body of work is called Pogonophora (the beard bearers), and features monumental photographs whose light and feel resemble old master paintings. In each, a solitary man with a beard stands out against a dark background. There is a great richness of detail, as Elsden shot the portraits with a large-format camera. Any prior associations with beards and hyper-masculine gruffness (a "mountain man" preconception) are set aside, and instead there is beauty. Elsden says of the work, "In these images I was looking for a feeling of the reflective, classical, even 'monastic' quality seen in renaissance period portrait painting."

SOLOS 2010 is Westport Arts Center's annual juried members exhibition. Other artists included are Harriet Diamond, Michele Gage, Claire Watson Garcia, Mary Jo Lombardo, Barbara Salinas, Forrest Solis, and Megan Youngquist. The juror was Richard Klein, artist and Exhibition Director at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, CT.

The opening reception is on Friday, June 11, from 6:30-8:30 pm. Westport Arts Center is located at 51 Riverside Avenue, Westport, CT.

~Lys

Ruth Newquist featured in Hospice Art Show Friday, June 11







"National Arts Club"
© Ruth Newquist

Watercolorist and painter Ruth Newquist of Newtown is the featured artist at this year's The Art of Caring, the Regional Hospice Art Show. The annual event benefits Regional Hospice of Western Connecticut, and takes place at 7 pm on Friday, June 11 at Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation, 900 Ridgebury Rd., Ridgefield, CT.

Newquist's work often depicts New York cityscapes, and New England scenes. Her work takes those sunny afternoons walking down the street in SoHo, and freezes their light in time.

Clients who are among the over 100 participating include watercolorists Betty Clark and Vicki Stevens, and photographer Kyle Riordan of Danbury, and others (if you are included, please let me know asap, and I will add your name here.)

Hospice serves almost everyone in some way, and has a huge, positive impact on patients and families during extremely difficult times. This is the 25th anniversary of The Art of Caring. The Danbury News-Times did a story which can be read here.

~Lys

Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism Announces 2010 Artist Fellowship Recipients






"Fried doe, just a buck"
© Mark Savoia

The Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism has announced 2010 recipients of artist fellowships from the state. The fellowships are awarded on an alternating annual basis, and applicants are judged solely on artistic merit.  This year's categories were craft, new media, painting, photography, sculpture/installation and works on paper. Alternating years recognize choreography, fiction, film/video, music composition, playwriting and poetry.

Among this year's 37 recipients is Mark Savoia, co-owner of Connecticut Photographics and Still River Editions. Mark submitted a portfolio of black and white images that highlight his wry observations of unusual nooks and crannies of American culture. In addition to the award, recipients usually have the opportunity to participate in a group exhibition in Hartford.

If you are a Connecticut resident, keep the CCT's website bookmarked, and check back periodically for application materials. The website features numerous resources for state artists of all disciplines. New York residents, you have a great resource in the New York Foundation for the Arts website.

~Lys

Making Art in Connecticut

Last week, I heard an interview with The Gallery at Black Rock director Eileen Walsh on WPKN, 89.5 Bridgeport. It's a hard thing, talking about art on the radio, but Terry Hopper interviewed her well. Walsh is one of a coterie of dedicated folks who are pulling Bridgeport up by the bootstraps and encouraging artistic growth in the area. Glad to hear an art-related success story.

On a sad note, unfortunately, we got word that the Brookfield Craft Center has ceased operations. Director Richard Herrmann sent a press release earlier this week detailing the dire state of financial affairs at the Craft Center and expressed regret over the decision to shut the doors. The Craft Center had been in operation since 1954.

If you've got shows or events happening in the near future, please drop an email and I will post about them.

~Lys

Loft Artists Association gets "Big, Bigger, Biggest"

The Loft Artists Association in Stamford is now hosting a members' show titled "Big, Bigger, Biggest" featuring art larger than 36"x48".  Their press release calls it "a rare opportunity to see how LAA artists are experimenting with size and scale".

The Loft Artists Association is located at 845 Canal Street in Stamford, CT. Gallery hours are Friday through Sunday, 12-5 pm

Though we missed the opening, it looks like a good show. It's up until June 20.

~Lys

Upcoming events: Pat Gullett in Crafts at Lyndhurst, Lys Guillorn at the Connecticut Film Festival

Metals artist Pat Gullett will be exhibiting her jewelry at Crafts at Lyndhurst, 635 S. Broadway, Tarrytown this weekend, April 30 to May 2. Gullett's work looks at once ancient and contemporary, and often uses precious metal clay with stones, fossils and found objects to create a sense of history in her work. In addition to being an exhibiting jeweler, Gullett also teaches jewelry privately and at the Brookfield Craft Center in Brookfield, Connecticut.


Connecticut Film Festival

The opening movie and reception for the Connecticut Film Festival takes place at 6:30 pm on May 4 at the Palace Theater in Danbury. The film that will be featured is a documentary about "The Wrecking Crew", who were the stellar LA session musicians who played on just about every major hit in the 60s.

Speaking of music, in the shy self-promotion department, I, Lys Guillorn, will be performing next Saturday, May 8 at 6:20 pm at the Danbury Library Plaza as part of the CTFFs sister music festival. I'm playing a half hour set with my band. The library plaza is at the intersection of Main and West St. in Danbury.

Be well,
Lys

"What if? 60x60x60"







Still from "Duck and Coverup"
©Mark Savoia



Still River Editions/Connecticut Photographics co-owner Mark Savoia has contributed a film titled "Duck and Coverup" to "What If? 60x60x60", to take place April 29, 7:30 pm AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media, 141 Green St., Jamaica Plain, MA.

The project was created by media artist Gene Gort and composer Ken Steen, both of New Media New Music New England. The project is a participatory experiment in audio and video that uses 60 video clips and 60 audio clips that are 60 seconds long. Contributors to the project are notable New England media and sound artists. Audience members will select one audio and one video clip, and the resulting combination is played back together. The selections will dictate the evening's performance, resulting in an hour-long event.

Savoia is a master printer, video artist and photographer.

"What If? 60x60x60" may be viewed online here. I've found by playing around with the web version, that pairing the same video with different audio often changes its meaning/mood/feeling, and vice versa.

~Lys

Banjie Nicholas in Litchfield County Times









"Butterfly Sunday"
© Banjie Nicholas

The Litchfield Times wrote a nice piece on the egg tempera painting process and artist Banjie Nicholas. Egg tempera is an extremely old and long-lived natural process, used by Michaelangelo, and Botticelli, and has hooked Nicholas ever since she first tried it.

In addition to being an egg tempera and silverpoint artist, Nicholas is a certified bird rehabilitator, and chicken coop-keeper. Along with the article is a video of her mixing powdered pigments with egg yolks from her coop to create the painting medium. (Anyone who has accidentally broken a yolk while trying to make eggs over easy will admire Nicholas' delicate touch as she gently pinches a yolk with her fingers, and drops it into a cup, unbroken.) Paintings are developed slowly, building up color in small, cross-hatched brush strokes.

In her recent work, Nicholas has used a recurrent motif of paper dolls in addition to nests, landscapes, butterflies, and still life. There is a dream-like naturalism to the paintings--at once mysterious and familiar.

Banjie Nicholas will be participating in the Annual Northeast Juried Exhibition, which features 27 artists, from May 8 to June 13 at the Washington Art Association in Washington, CT.  She will also be exhibiting at the Norfolk Library in Norfolk, CT from April 30 to June 3, and at the Minor Library in Roxbury, CT from June 19 to July 28.

~Lys

RSS feed for our blog now available

Still River Editions blog is now available as an RSS Feed. What is that you say? RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the websites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually.

There are many RSS feed readers out there but more and more web browsers now support them directly. You can also add an RSS feed to MacMail so when you receive your e-mails you will also see if any new content has been added to the websites you are following.


Mark

Jim Rohan featured on Holga Jen









"Vernal Pool"
©Jim Rohan


Jim Rohan's beautiful black-and-white Holga images were profiled on the blog, Holga Jen, earlier this week.

Rohan uses the Holga to balance out his work of painstaking exactitude as a digital printmaker. His technical and professional experience in photography and printmaking inform his artistic choices, but he has found the Holga is particularly well-suited to capture a certain type of visual magic occuring constantly in front of our eyes, that sometimes goes unnoticed. Now Rohan carries at least one of his plastic cameras wherever he goes.

The recent surge in the popularity of film and lower-tech cameras like the Holga are proof that art is in the eye of the creator; it doesn't take a lot of fancy, new digital gear to create beautiful images. Someone with a great eye, like Rohan, could use anything at his disposal.

More images from Jim can be found on his Flickr stream.

~Lys

"Durante / Fucigna" at 22 Haviland Street in Norwalk

"Durante / Fucigna" is an exhibition of collaborative and individual works by Chris Durante and Joe Fucigna at 22 Haviland Street Gallery in South Norwalk, CT.

Both Durante and Fucigna are art professors at Norwalk Community College, and have exhibited extensively. Fucigna's work is mainly sculpture, and his drawings seem to hold volume. Durante's eye is informed by graffiti, comic book art, and found marks, and his line is pure and confident. Their abstract drawings on Claybord feature similar shifting shapes, and the feel is almost juicy. As the works were passed back and forth several times, Durante said that the individual contributions became less recognizable, even to the artists themselves. The distinction between the artists may not always be obvious, but watching the resulting conversation play out on the wall is total eye candy.

The exhibition runs from April 16 to May 30, and there will be an opening reception on Friday, April 16 from 6-9 pm. A talk with the artists will be held on Sunday May 2 at 2 pm.