July 2003

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Northwood show destroyed by crossed wire communications

My most recent E-mail to the seriously dwindled number of artists who had said they would still be interested in being in the proposed Northwood show:

DARts Supporting Members,

Now, it turns out James Martin of Northwood expects us to print our own invitation to the show and says he only expects 20-30 students to show up and that NU has no mailing list of its own.

I don't know about you guys, but this sounds weirder and weirder to me.

I know people who've had shows there before, and nobody from Dallas made the trip. Not that the cost of an invitation would be terribly expensive or anything.

It's just the level of committment from NU seems smaller and more distant every time I try to communicate with them. I've more than half a mind to just scuttle the whole thing. But I don't want to do any such thing until I've heard from you all.

Dean Corbitt and Anita Horton have alredy dropped out. I suspect others might at any time. What say all of you?

Please reply soon.

; j r

 

They did (in order of receipt; earliest responses at top):

The week we are to hang the show is also our first week of the new semester so the timing is difficult for me. If we cancel, that pressure is lifted. If we continue with the exhibition, I'll participate and help. My answer is probably not helping you decide, but I won't be unhappy with any decision made.

Chris Bergquist Fulmer

 

I am still game but will go along with whatever everyone decides.

Sheila

 

It sounds like typical non committal by some in the art community. Do a show at the Artist's expense. I will not be able to participate. Thanks

Robert Berry, Jr.

 

I bet they don't have any insurance for the show and at the rate things are going (down hill) I too feel it is not worth the effort. As we talked at the MAC opening Saturday, the way things can be hung is very limiting.

Also when I looked at the map as to where the place is, far away!!! I'm sure no one from Dallas would bother. So I too am pulling out. There must be some other sites that are better than that one to show in.

I hate to do this but it is a rip off of the artists. They get a free show, free advertising and we get nothing but lot of work. I'm tired of artists being abused.

Susan Leckey

 

James Martin means well, but he seems a rather inexperienced "art director." Whichever way the group wants to go is fine with me. If nothing else I'll be happy to host a party for DallasArtsRevue members. There is enough space to have it either inside or outside the house. Let me know which way it goes.

Elisabeth Schalij

 

Before that:

Thank you so much for your coordination efforts on this. I will not be able to participate in this one as I already am committed on the first date and my daughter's birthday party is scheduled on the second date. I hope all goes well and will look forward to being able to participate next time. Sincerely,

Anita Horton

 

Thanks for the triple O seven reconoitering and posting of Northwood's exhibit space. It is less than ideal. I would like to donate my spot in line for the show to someone else.

Dean Corbitt

 

My withdrawal letter to Northwood

James Martin
Northwood University

I am sorry to inform you that DallasArtsRevue will not be exhibiting at Northwood University this fall.

The primary reasons for our dropping out are Northwood University's minimal committment to the artists — not even providing invitations, no insurance on work exhibited, poor exhibition facilities, only 20-30 expected campus visitors, no NU mailing list — and the great distance from Dallas and consequent minimal likelihood of anyone from here going there for the reception, which itself was never described.

As the details of the proposed exhibition were distributed to the artists who had said they'd be interested, all but two of them dropped out.

Thanks for the invitation.
Sincerely,
JR Compton

 

James Martin's reply:

 

Hi JR,
Sorry to hear the news. I would still like the opportunity to work with any DallasArtsRevue artist who is interested. Just so you know, we can do invitations in house and have done so in the past, I was just working with you and asked if you were going to do them because it seemed to me that you already had something in mind but it would have been no problem for us to do them. We also many times have had more than 20 to 30 visitors for the reception, but because of the size of the space we just find it more conducive to keep our numbers to a certain level.

We also do provide insurance for exhibited pieces. All I needed was a list of the work and the value and that could be taken care of in a matter of 2 days. While the exhibition space is not the best, we are trying to reach out to influence our students and that hallway always has people walking through it. I feel that we have to do something to show our students that life is not only about business but that creativity and beauty and appreciation for culture and art is a strong part of business today.

And yes, we are a little out of the way, but this university was working through a management company before and having art mailed here from all across the country and I felt the need to work with local artist and really show the talent and skill of metroplex artists.

The reception's are always the highlight of our current exhibitions and we always have punch and snacks such as crackers and cheese and fruit and some nice soft jazz or whatever the artist might want in the background with an established time for the reception and some time for the guests to view the work and get a snack, then an introduction of the artist, a brief statement by the artist to the guests, and more time to mingle.

Sorry we won't be working together, JR. I just know that our students would have loved the exhibit. Hope to talk to you again sometime soon.

James P. Martin

 

 

The opening would have been at 7:30-9:30 (or beyond) September 5 and the show will come down Saturday October 4. Hanging is the week before August 30.

I'll design the postcard. Northwood will print and mail them out. If anyone would like to add addresses, they'll include those, too. Or something.

Lots of activities are planned for August 30 there, so they want the show up by then, but the opening is the following week.

It's still not too late to join our merry band for this show, although I've only been sending Latest News Missives to participants (listed below).

 

Kathy and I visited Cedar Hill Wednesday July 30, to get a feel for Northwood University and the gallery space. And to visit the house Kathy's grandmother lived in more than 40 years ago.

We only got to talk with NU Director of Arts and Activities James Martin a minute, since he was off to a meeting, but we knew that already. Mostly we just wanted to wander around and see what we could find.

Our show will hang during the last full week in August, probably on or by August 23 (getting Martin to committ to specifics has been difficult).

The opening is set for August 30 — with an artists' party at Elisabeth Schalij's nearby home after. The work may stay up as long as two months, depending upon your feedback.

We thought two months seemed sorta desperate. (But we want to hear from you about this and anything else about this show.)

The space itself is less than ideal, although significantly better than Tranquilla.

The yellow walls didn't bother JR, but those grid-y racks did. Kathy liked them and thought they broke up the space. JR hopes we'll be able to relocate the racks, furniture and plants from that wide hallway space — and fill it with attention-grabbing art.

As you can see, there are track lights.

Hanging will be via the double horizontal wood strips down both sides of the hallway. We figured maybe 23 large pieces would fit, overall. More than that, if small. But a size mix could really take command in that space. The tiny prints in the current show seem lost in the clutter.

Additional objects might be leaned against the wall beyond the mounting strips.

If you have both large and small pieces, it'd be a good idea to bring some of each. It will be a much better show, if we can choose from a lot more than we think could possibly fit.

As usual now, the Hanging Committee will decide these things. And, of course, any DARts Supporting Member who shows up to do the work can be a HC member.

At the far end in the image above, there's a transom covered with light words on dark paper. Student rules or some such ugliness. Beyond that, on the exit doors, is a nasty bit of colorful poster work. I'd love to tear all that crud down, but I doubt NU would go for it.

We also wandered around the extended campus, much of which was under construction. They have multiple units of on-campus housing, which Kathy characterized as Middle Class Elegance. And they are building more.

Within a stone's throw of the Art Building is the above fake waterfall. There's actually water falling, but it's such a trickle, it's all but invisible near the top. Before it gets to the creek bed, most of the water evaporates.

The creek was empty but may carry more water in other seasons, since the trough of it trailed lengthwise through the entire campus, much of which was thick with trees. At one point there's even a stout metal bridge over it. Although the floor of it is loose boards.

Overall, the campus appeared to be booming.

We looked for, but did not find any obvious art rooms in the Butler "art building," which was a metal slab sided hangar looking thing with a nice porch and window on one side and nothing on the other.

This object seemed appropriate for NU's poximity to all those media towers that interstice the landscape surrounding Cedar Hill. At least we thought it was art. There were no cables dangling from it to prove otherwise.

When we were wandering around the building about 40 feet down the hill from the Butler Building, we asked a coed where the art department was.

She tilted her head, repeating the words "art department" in a sort of quietly stunned question, "Art department?"

I should point out that DARts Member Sheila Cunningham had a show there earlier this year, and she wants to be in this show with us. She also mentioned that few, if any, people came from Dallas to her opening. And that it's always difficult to know, ahead of time, the repercussions from any exhibition of our work.

The campus is pretty far out. (See below for driving instructions.)

Oh, and the people who now live in Kathy's grandma's house saw us photographing, came out to ask what we were doing, then invited us in, which was exactly when JR discovered that his digital camera had stopped taking pictures.

Some of Cedar Hill's media towers

 

Consider this a ramble.

I'd kinda got used to just posting these things online and then telling everybody about them. I forgot, for a while there, that this was supposed to be a benefit of membership.

This time, this is the ramble.

Later, after I've E-mailed it out, I'll [have now] post[ed] it online, maybe find [found] some pictures — 'cause almost every page needs some pictures, but I won't [haven't] publicize it for awhile, just so I can fulfill campaign promises (remember those?) and have something exclusive for you all.

Then I'm gonna keep from promoting it for a couple weeks [original E-mail was sent out 7/23/03, and there've been two more since] before I let just anybody in on our little secret here. That way, they can find out about it, but not right away. For the moment, it's exclusive to subscribers and supporters.

the base of one of Cedar Hill's taller towers

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Speaking of too-well kept secrets, there's a members-only bulletin board on the Members Only Index at www.DallasArtsRevue.com/MO/MO_i.shtml where I post recent info of use to you guys.

It's also the best — and only — page on DARts that still lists and links all the Members-Only (M-O) pages, so you probably ought to Bookmark/Favorites that address, if you haven't already. When this page becomes public, I'll remove the link above.

A little while ago this evening (my gosh, it's well before midnight), after dismaying that I had nothing new to put on the cover, now that the Latino Culture Center has been there well more than its allotted 10 days (counting going up and being taken down to replace it with the info about Mary Iron Eyes' recent death and then her wake, and then going going back up again after that) is now down for the count, although its new address is linked on the cover.

For too long a while, I was popping up new covers every 7 days. Leaving them up ten saves me the hassle, but it also lets me forget those things sometimes...ONE GREAT EXCUSE

My clear thinking borne, no doubt, from my recent (and continuing) bout with pneumonia, including a trip to the hospital for 24 hours observation while they helped me in some ways, but I swear they did many absurd things that seemed obvious to me were aimed toward killing me -- and no, I'm not being paranoid. I've been paranoid, and it's different when they really are trying to kill me. Like traffic, military intelligence or VA hospitals.

Anyway, I probably won't be able to use that excuse much longer. I'm still coughing, but I probably will for months and months if the past is any guide to future performance -- and, of course, it's the only one we got.

I've pretty much stopped hacking up hairballs, my big daily antibiotic pills are all taken, and I've an extensive appointment with my primary care physician (as opposed to all those other bozos) August 1.

Then this afternoon while driving around trying to think of a slightly saner thing to say in the Dallas and Texas Visual Art Groups' review of the Creative Arts Center's various idiocies, I suddenly realized. Hey! I got all those images in the Supporting Member pages!

And within a few minutes I'd gathered just enough interestingly colorful imagery to make a cover that loads in just under 20 seconds.

 

The weberating rule is that net surfers won't wait longer than that for any page, but we all know that we will if we want something or expect something. But, just in case nobody wants anything from DARts, I always make the cover load pretty fast.

Northwood University is at 1114 West FM-1382.
We took I-35 South, forked south west on US-67.
Exited right (north west) on FM-1382.
The campus entrance is on the south
(left)side of the road just past a cliff.

Northwood U Show

A precious few of you responded to my recent plea for supporting member artists to participate in a show at Northwood University in Cedar Hill. Those and anybody else who wants to show there, beginning in latter August is welcome to let me know now.

I don't think it'll cost us anything at all, although I'll probably write and run some PR promoting the show once we have a better idea who'll be in it and what they'll be showing.As James Martin E-mailed me today:

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Hi J R,

Hope all is well...Let me know what you have in mind for the exhibit... My current exhibit will leave the last week of August so how does that week sound for setting up the DARTs member exhibition? I would love to

have it done by that Saturday, August 30 because students will start rolling in...I'm very excited and can't wait to get this exhibition going...talk to you later

James P. Martin
Director of Arts and Activities
Northwood University

In another E-mail Martin described the Northwood space: "My gallery area is essentially a long hallway with track lighting. There is probably 50 ft. of exhibition space on each side with 2 or 3 breaks for door entrances. We have grids that are on the walls and triangular grids which can be moved around to suite our tastes and a lot of artists like to use them to spice up the appearance of their collections and exhibits. We have security cameras to watch the artwork and the building is locked nightly after evening classes (around 9 or so) and is also locked on Sunday and part of the day (the evening) on Saturday."

Basically, the fewer Supporting Members who participate, the more, those of us who do, will be able to show. Despite which, I'd really like to have as many Supporting Members participate in this show as possible.

I'd like to show at least three pieces by each artist -- since that's how many I think it takes to have even the vaguest idea what an artist's work is all about.

But I'd like us to each bring at least five pieces, just in case we have more space to use. From what I understand, basically there's two well-lit hallways for our use, and James Martin says it'd be fine for us to mount them salon style (i.e., not just a single line around the gallery).

FM-1382 west of Cedar Hill

 

I'd love to see a melange of different shapes and sizes, one group per artist, in this space, and let the work develop its own subtext rather than decide ahead of time what the theme might be.

So far, at least, there's no size limits, although the narrow space may be a challenge for sculptors and mobilists. Still, it'd be fabulous to have stuff dangling from the ceiling...

Okay. Who wants to be in the show? E-mail me.

As in the Tranquilla show, whoever wants to can be on the Hanging Committee, but, of course, those people get to decide anything that really needs deciding.

And, naturally, I'll decide for you, if there's any otherwise unstoppable flaps. I like the way that works out. And apparently so did everybody at Tranquilla. Even the one person I felt the need to argue vociferously with, liked the way it worked out.

I'd like to get everything up, on the walls by August 23, if that works for NU. I just shot him an E-mail saying that. We'll see if the universe responds.

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It could be a fun show. They often are when they're in student settings. I know there'll be an opening, but I don't know much more than that now. I'd love to have participating artists at the opening and each talk briefly about their work and answer questions.

It's bound to be different. In fact, each succeeding DARts show hopes to be distinctively different from all the others.

The show after this one will be the Photo-Related Show at Dallas Darkroom next January. I expect to have actual photographs in that show, of course, but I'd also like to see some photo-related paintings, drawings and other art forms.

That photo show continues to be the one DARts show idea that has never got a single piece of feedback about it — yay or nay. Sometimes I wonder if anybody is listening. Maybe everybody thinks it's just a terrible idea. I don't know.

After NU, I'll float a DCCCD gallery proposal — at North Lake or Richland colleges. And then, maybe something else will float to the top.

; j r

DARts guy

The towers visible from the road
up from FM 1382 to the campus

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It hasn't always been, but now, the most recent feedback is on the top. Hello Jr, Just a note for you: That "arty looking" red-orange sculpture at Northwood University is in fact art. It is done by a New York artist, Kenneth Snelson. This exact piece was housed in the Dallas Museum of Art, in their outdoor courtyard. But at that point it was painted a yellowish color, or white turning yellow. My husband Michael was in charge of that installation. Anyway, just some extra info for what ever reason. ELizabeth Zaremba (DARts Subscriber)   One month would be my vote Thanks. Nancy Ferro   Good morning, JR - Thanks for the triple 0 seven reconnoitering and posting of Northwood's exhibit space. It is less than ideal. I would like to donate my spot in line for the show to someone else. Dean   JR- I would like to participate in the Northwood show and would be happy to help hang. I would also be interested in the photography show. Thanks. Sheila www.dallasartsrevue.com/members/C/Cunningham/Sheila-Cunningham.shtml   Hello, JR - I'm good for a few pieces in the Northwood U Show. Let me know as dates firm up to see how I can assist. Dean   I think I wrote you that I am interested in participating in the Northwood exhibition. And, of course, I'll be glad to help hang or do whatever. I enjoyed the connections that I made last year and the people I met. I've marked August 23 on my calendar to hang, but let me know if I am needed at some other time. Chris Bergquist Fulmer http://www.chrisfulmerart.com and Mixed Media Works by Chris Bergquist Fulmer on DARts Note, DARtsers, that Ms. Fulmer includes DARts — and her own web site links — in the signature of all outgoing E-mails. It's a great, simple, cheap and easy way to promote your DARts page to everyone you E-mail.    JR     Thanks for the ramble. When you can pinpoint the dates of receiving art, opening, taking down show at Northwood Univ., I'll be able to commit or not. I don't have any new work but I'd be happy to put some older work in show, if the dates are agreeable with my school calendar. So sorry about your illness. I do hope you're on the mend. Anita Horton   Hi JR, I would be interested in showing in your Northwood show — as things work out let me know dates,etc. Also I just want you to know that your work on Mary's Wake was very fine! and your photos of the Cultural Center are terrific! Susan Lecky   Just when I got tired of the feather print you gave it special attention and Bob Nunn selected it, among about 15-20 other pieces, for a show at NorthLake in October. How long would the Northwood show run (from when to when?) As I am close by, I am still interested. If interested, we could have an after-opening party at my house for the particpating members. I really enjoy and appreciate all the work you are doing for the DallasArtsRevue (This is my first year). Hope you stop coughing soon. Elisabeth Schalij   Rats, JR, would love to be in the members show but I have a show at Irving Arts Center from Aug 16 to Sept 28 and everything except really old work will be there. (I'll send you a news release when I get one done.) Very sorry to miss the show and hope I get another chance sometime. I typically have the worst timing so this figures. Best, Sonia   JR Richard and I will be on vacation thru Aug. 16 in New Mexico (YaHOO) - and once back (for me) school registration week begins (the worst week of the year), then the new semester and classes begin. Richard also has a new project that will take his time during the show set up. So, for this show, we will not participate, but will see it I'm sure and attend the opening if you have one. Thank you for encouraging these group shows. Tranquilla was such a rewarding experience, we will try for a next time if another opportunity comes up. We hope you are feeling much much better too. Marty and Richard   I am interested in participating in the August Show. I'm leaving town August 21 and won't be back until Sept 2 — but I can still do the show, right? I can > >be there in spirit, along with my paintings. Robin Walker

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