New Art Fair in Madison, WI

We received this information from one of our artist members and thought that some of you, who do exhibit at art fairs, may be interested in this opportunity. ArtWorks: Madison Show is a new event developed by designer Colin Murray. More information on the website: www.ArtWorksMadison.com.

Get involved!

This is a fabulous opportunity to get involved in a project of Milwaukee Gay Arts Center, please consider supporting their fundraising efforts.

Saturday Softball League (SSBL) will be holding an art event on August 19, 2009 to raise funds for the NAGAAAFest 2009 - the Gay Softball World Series.

The event will be held at the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center and across the street at Gravity Marketing - (formerly Don Quixote restaurant).
Promotional partners include; BESTD Clinic; AIDS Resource Center of WI; Milwaukee Gay Arts Center; Challenge Board and Cream City Foundation's Joseph R. Pabst LGBT Infrastructure Fund; to name a few.

The $25.00 event will include a wine/beer tasting, food, entertainment, an art exhibition, and a silent auction with donated pieces from numerous galleries and individual artists.

The names of artists or contacts at galleries that might be interested in donating art to the silent auction, or loaning pieces to the exhibit are needed ASAP. If you know of anyone, please send an e-mail to Mike Kuharske at mkuharske@gravitym.com with the artist’s name, phone number and/or e-mail.

If you are willing to contribute to either the auction or the exhibition, this link explains how you can participate: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=eb_2fd3mR8YkeSij_2b8miKSMQ_3d_3d

For supplying a contact or two, you’ll receive a complimentary invitation to the event!
Also, approximately a dozen volunteers are needed at the event as well. If you’re interested in helping, please contact:

Mike Kuharske, Partner
Gravity Marketing LLC
704 S. 2nd Street
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414.202.5874
414.755.0842 fax

http://www.linkedin.com/in/kuharske

mkuharske@gravitym.com

Getting ready for the new show!

While the kids are happily working on the earthworks in the Menomonee River Valley, we are getting ready for our next exhibition, which promises enticing food for both the eyes and the minds. On Gallery Night (July 24th), we're opening a two-person exhibition by Regan Golden and Jennifer Harris titled "Decorative Directive."

Perhaps in a surprising pairing, the show brings together two artists with seemingly radically disparate backgrounds. Regan Golden received her MFA training in the department of painting and drawing at UW-Milwaukee and has a strong background in art theory and philosophy from her studies at the Grinell College. Today, she works primarily with cut paper. Jennifer Harris, on the other hand, studied industrial design during her undergraduate career and later engrossed herself in jewely and metalsmithing at the MFA program at SUNY-New Paltz. Having taught and maintaining the labs at UWM for a few years, she has recently returned to her roots in industrial design.

Regan Golden, What is yours is mine is yours: Part Three, 2006. Hand cut and wrapped Seamless Photography backdrop paper, dimensions vary.
Jennifer Harris. Etiquette Tray (detail), 2004. Fiberglass tray, original image, 16 1/2 x 12 x 1 inches.

Despite those different backgrounds, both artists share a number of interests that both aesthetically and conceptually bring them together in a refreshing and unexpected duo. While their aesthetics is strongly influenced by postminimalist art movement, they both use processes that are normally asocciated with feminine craft, rather than high- or avant-guarde art. They also both are deeply engaged in the question of what it means to be a female today and how our tumultuous relationship with what we inherited from the past shapes the values we associate with "femininity" today.

Peggy Sue Dunigan previewed the exhibition for The Shepherd Express. You can see her article here.

From our image archives...

We're posting a number of installation shots from the MARN Mentors exhibition. It was a great show and I think it is worth it to feature it here: so many wonderful artists in one place!

Do you know whose work is what? Quiz yourself on the knowledge of the local scene!
If you don't know these artists, you better start polishing your Milwaukee contemporary art vocabulary!

1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.

And we're back!

June was an incredibly busy month at WPCA and it might seem like our online presence has diminished greatly. This is only because the Center itself was bustling with activity. While our Director of Education, Kate, was gearing up for our annual Summer Art Camp, the gallery was filled floor to ceiling with the work by our artist members.

This year the Annual Member Show represented a truly unprecedented number of artists, which did not remain unnoticed by observant Mary Dally-Muenzmaier, of CricketToes. You can see her post about the show here. Yet, as a matter of fact, the exhibition was even larger than Mary had estimated. It featured 73 artists and over 140 works.

As always, the show brought together old and new members; those who had been supporting WPCA for the past 20 years and artists who had just recently joined. The exhibition also put together artists very young, just at the beginning of their education and careers, like Lance Orr, who is heading off to MIAD in the fall to begin his BFA studies there, and artists who had been the most esteemed staples of Milwaukee art community, like Suzanne and Adolph Rosenblatt. In the same gallery space we showed artists who received MFAs from the most prestigious institutions and the artists who did not receive formal training. We were also fortunate to represent all the rich ethnic and cultural diversity of our community.

Our exhibition is also a rare occasion, in which the judgment of what actually makes one an artist is completely suspended and we rely solely on self-identification to determine the participants. This is a rare opportunity for us to reveal different "art worlds" and present them all together in one space. Sometimes these worlds are clashing, sometimes they work in harmony, but one thing for sure, they are many, varied, and often absolutely, rivetingly unexpected.