Galleries are re-opening! (Part III)

Installation view of Willard Boepple show at Pamela Salisbury Gallery

photo by Peter Crabtree

When I heard galleries were starting to emerge from the pandemic darkness and open their doors again to visitors, I beat a path to Hudson, which has the busiest gallery scene in our region. A friend there had made me aware of a large show by Rodney Alan Greenblat at Hudson Hall, and we were able to wangle our way in even though it was early in the week (it's open afternoons on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays by timed entry to avoid overcrowding, with guided group tours at 4 p.m. each day).

Lemon Eye Home Rainbow Device
by Rodney Alan Greenblat

Though I was already a bit familiar with Greenblat's painting, this was a revelation in that the show features several very big sculptural pieces from decades past, along with a profusion of very recent work, most of it in two dimensions. Being highly productive hasn't hurt Greenblat at all - the quality is remarkably consistent - and he is clearly having a whole lot of fun, not surprising from an artist whose greatest success involves creating children's books, cartoon characters, and video games.

Many of Greenblat's pieces include a sort of avatar called Lemon Eye, whose cheerfulness seems undiminished by wisdom. I think we can all use some of that right now, and I absolutely loved the show, which is entitled Something to Look Forward To. It continues through Aug. 23.

Pamela Salisbury Gallery was my other primary target on this mission, because it used to be John Davis Gallery, which was always my favorite in Hudson (not meant as a knock on the many other worthy galleries there!) and which I hadn't seen yet under the new owner's management.

Fence 5.2.20 BB, 2020 - screenprint by Willard Boepple

Pamela proved to be as gracious as her predecessor, and the space is virtually unchanged (phew!). So is the quality of the work on view, in this instance four separate solo shows that maintain a high standard and will satisfy anyone's need for rich colors. I particularly liked the screenprint variations in a show by Willard Boepple that is presented on two floors in the main gallery. Boepple also offers a terrific series of neo-Constructivist sculptures, some of them in small-scale 3D-printed versions that are quite charming. Boepple is a colorist of the first order, and this show is not to be missed.

It Won't Rain, 2020
watercolor on paper by Maud Bryt

In the gallery's rear carriage house, a multi-level barn-like structure, Maud Bryt, Richard Kalina, and Ying Li each have a floor to spread out in. Of those, I was most drawn to Bryt's subtle, suggestive watercolors that reflect actual sites and landscapes, but feel more like interior journeys. All four shows will run through July 26.

I also visited Carrie Haddad Gallery, where Jeri Eisenberg, Louise Laplante, Allyson Levy, and Lori Van Houten are joined in a group show entitled Natural Worlds. Though unified by the theme, this group of four is very disparate in style and media, offering a likely match in taste to a broad range of art lovers. My choice would be Eisenberg's ethereal enlargements of flowers and leaves (see image at end of this post). The show continues through July 26 has been extended through Aug. 9.

Shelter, 2020 - gouache by Jenny Kemp

The Lake George Arts Project's Courthouse Gallery just reopened on Saturday, July 11, with a solo show of paintings by Jenny Kemp, a favorite artist of mine for years, who I recently reviewed as part of a group show at Carrie Haddad. Her Lake George exhibition features a hefty swath of brand-new work, and continues through Aug 14.

The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls has announced it will re-open on Saturday, Aug. 1, by appointment only. Visits will be limited to seniors and high-risk individuals from 10 a.m. to noon, then will allow the general public from 1 to 5 p.m., Thursday through Sunday each week.

The National Bottle Museum in Ballston Spa has re-opened, and its Jan Rutland Artists' Space currently features a show that had just been mounted when the shutdown hit. A is for Abstract in the Adirondacks! is open from 10-4, Tuesday through Saturday, through Aug. 1.

Also in the northern zone of the Capital Region, Schuylerville's Laffer Gallery re-opened on June 13, leading the charge with a typically classy three-person show featuring Robert Moylan, Tracy Helgeson, and Regina Wickham. A Cultivated Vision will continue there through July 26.

Acacia No. 3, 2018, Japanese Kozo paper infused with encaustic by Jeri Eisenberg

Basquiat x Warhol at The School

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol - Eggs, acrylic on canvas, 1985

Summer in the greater Capital Region means blockbuster art exhibitions, and 2019 is no exception. However, despite Renoir being at the Clark, Sloan at the Hyde, and Ritts at the Fenimore (all sure to attract a great deal of worthy attention), this year's top draw surely is Basquiat x Warhol at The School in tiny Kinderhook, a venue that has been a project of the New York City art dealer Jack Shainman for the last five years.

Warhol - Campbell's Soup Box, box constructed
with acrylic, canvas, and silkscreen, 1986

It's a testament to the lucrative NYC art trade that Shainman can afford to offer this tremendous gift to all art lovers within reach of Columbia County. Though the exquisitely renovated former public school is only open on Saturdays from 11 to 6, admission is free, staff are plentiful and professional, and printed checklists are there for the taking. Like other modern spaces (MASS MoCA, for example), The School features many galleries on multiple floors, high ceilings, white walls (except where original pastel paints remain gloriously peeled and layered) and plenty of distance between the artworks and their labels (an approach I like for its lack of intrusiveness).

While previous shows at The School featured gallery artists and the works were generally for sale, this iteration is made up entirely of privately owned pieces which, considering the exalted historical status of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, gives it the aura of a museum exhibition. Though these facts don't guarantee universal appeal, it is a very likable show for anyone who can handle Pop, abstraction, and expressionism, along with a generous dollop of adult content.

Basquiat - installation view of 45 Marker on Ceramic Plates, 1983-84

Per the gallery's press release, the crux of the exhibition lies in the collaborative paintings and interconnected practices of the two artists. Widely criticized when the collaborations took place in 1984-5, this re-examination proves that time passing is the best method for judging the true value of a work of art.

Beautifully installed in the venue's most expansive room, eight large jointly made paintings are augmented by more than 100 individual works, including Warhols from as early as 1964 and Basquiats from 1980 to 1987 (the year Warhol died). A large chunk of the Warhols are Polaroids (many of them quite wonderful), and there are also three Warhol short films and a 2018 PBS documentary on Basquiat running continuously.

Warhol - Installation view of 16 Polaroid Torsos, 1977

Surrounding the centerpiece of the show with so much individually made work has multiple effects: First, it puts the collaborative work in context by presenting many examples of work by both artists from the same period; it offers the opportunity to consider each of the artists on his own; and it invites the viewer to compare the two artists.

Each facet of this process is rewarding. There are rooms where Warhol's or Basquiat's pieces stand alone, as well as spaces where they are intentionally juxtaposed.

Warhol - Ladies and Gentlemen, acrylic and
silkscreen ink on canvas, 1975

In one broad hallway, extended bodies of work on paper by each of the collaborators hang separately but equally in a balance of black and white (see the example by Basquiat at the end of this post). And, now that I said it, one has to consider the aspect of this story that addresses being black or being white. Basquiat, an African American of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, didn't hold back on expressing his rage at racism (even within the highest levels of the art world, to which he was admitted so young, and where some would say he was treated as a very highly paid mascot). Yet Warhol, as white as they come, was also an outsider - gay, with a strangely neutral affect, inhabiting the NYC underworld of gender benders decades before it became popular, he crossed boundaries easily.

This is evident in a number of the works shown here that may surprise people who know Warhol primarily from his factory-made Pop art, in which his masterly hand at drawing is applied to beautifully rendered portraits of drag queens and transvestites - all of them black.

Aside from race, the show delves into another taboo subject - that of death. Indeed, this is its true core. Especially in the collaborative paintings, but elsewhere too, the preoccupation with death is palpable – images of skulls litter the exhibition, along with other direct references to the end we can't escape. The Basquiat that opens the show, a football helmet adorned with human hair that he advised Warhol to wear in order to understand the black experience, is itself a proxy skull.

Basquiat - Il Duce, acrylic, oil stick,
and spray paint on canvas, 1982

Death is also repeatedly referenced in paintings and silkscreens that address the fragility of the human heart. The largest collaborative painting (13 feet long) is titled Heart Attack, and several Warhols in the show directly depict the organ. A small but potent Warhol silkscreen from 1984 re-creates a public health poster that explains How to Tell You're Having a Heart Attack. Basquiat's work, though often humorous and colorful, is nevertheless persistently ghoulish.

Though it's sad to recall both men's deaths, just a year and a half apart (Warhol from complications after gall bladder surgery, and Basquiat of a heroin overdose at age 27), this exhibition shows the lasting legacy of their extraordinarily vital energies, and leaves the visitor uplifted by the joy they clearly took in sharing their artistic pursuits. To paraphrase my friend Margo, who joined me there, we just loved it.

Basquiat x Warhol continues through Sept. 7.

Note: Images reproduced here are © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; or © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat / ADAGP, Paris / ARS, New York 2019

Basquiat - Anatomy, set of 18 framed screenprints on Arches 88, 1982

The Fields at Art Omi

Rob Fischer - Pond House 2016

photo by Bryan Zimmerman, all photos courtesy of Art Omi

It’s been a tough summer, weather-wise, particularly for a venue like Art Omi, which relies on visitors willing to cover significant ground outdoors, typically on foot, to see scattered sculptural installations.

A friend and I took advantage of one of this summer’s few weekend days with no rain and sub-85-degree temperatures to hit The Fields (and woods) of Art Omi and check out some of this season’s offerings. While it was still a bit muddy (and, yes, a bit buggy), we had a great time. Sort of the opposite of golf (you know – “a good walk spoiled”): This was a good walk enhanced.

Among the highlights was the new Benenson Visitors Center. A bright, airy building that clearly takes some cues from the sculptures in the Architecture Field, it also includes an interior gallery space that featured a live electronic violin improvisation just as we arrived, played in tune with a strong collection of small abstract paintings by Thomas Nozkowski (see image at bottom of this post).

Tamar Ettun - Blue Inflatable 2015

While the rest of the folks in the room mostly watched the violinist (David Schulman, whose accompaniment worked well), I enjoyed looking at all the paintings as he played. Nozkowski has technical skills, but his strength is courage – it seems he will try almost anything visually, regardless of whether it looks like the last thing he tried, an adventurous spirit that I really liked for its boldness. Equally, the wandering threads of his imagery somehow held together anyway, imparting a sense of consistency to the body of work as a whole. A good way to start our own wanderings.

Once outside, we experienced a range of pieces both monumental and intimate – from current post-conceptual playfulness to stodgy (but still wonderful) geometric modernism. A lot of the work we saw makes some reference to nature, whether by depicting animals or including local plants, appropriately enough for the setting. Still, much of it was quite urban in flavor, and may have looked better among commercial edifices than among trees and meadows.

Carl D'Alvia - Lith 2016

But it’s a better idea to meander through meadows than city squares on a warm summer day, and Art Omi is an optimal place to do it. In fact, it’s a pretty big park, with miles of trails, so you are unlikely to see it all on a single visit. I’m not a planner, so I will admit I missed some stuff I wish I hadn’t – seeing it on the website afterward made me feel a little silly. Then again, we had some luck – catching Tamar Ettun’s Blue Inflatable on its very last day at the site, and glimpsing a couple of stages of the assembly of one of the park’s newest entries, the futuristic Transfers by Viola Ago and Hans Tursack (officially scheduled to open on Oct. 6, but it looked nearly ready to us).

And that’s part of the fun of The Fields – it is ever-changing. Art Omi is open daily year-round (except major holidays) from dawn to dusk, with free admission, friendly staff, and nice visitors, too. Also, by the way, it’s in a very beautiful corner of the world: rural Columbia County, where nearly every mile of two-lane road features ridiculously gorgeous views. Go when you can!

Installation view of Thomas Nozkowski exhibition

photo by Peter Mauney, courtesy of Art Omi

Shows seen, and to be seen

Luis Molinari Flores Unititled II 1971 screenprint

I'm putting this one first, because it will be the first to end: When We Were Young, Rethinking Abstraction from the University at Albany Art Collection (1967-present) lives up to its two-breath title by presenting a nice, beefy slice of strong, colorful work in various media (mostly prints). It will hang at the University Art Museum only through Saturday, Dec. 16, so get there if you can.

I took the opportunity to glimpse the show after stopping there recently to hear New York City-based art critic and poet John Yau speak, but the show without Yau would also have been worth the trip. The  works include world-famous names such as Josef Albers (a tasty folio screenprint in which ochre confronts gray), and locally famous artists such as Jenny Kemp (a gorgeous gouache that also features gray and yellow) as well as one great untitled print from 1979 by Garo Antreasian, an artist previously unknown to me and a very happy discovery.

Speaking of Yau, he showed slides by a dozen or so painters he has written about, including Williams College professor Barbara Takenaga, who has a retrospective show currently at the Williams College Museum of Art through Jan. 28. I loved the examples of her work that Yau presented, and will make every effort to cross the Berkshires soon to see that exhibition.

An unidentified Civil War officer

Troy's Photo Center of the Capital District, a gloriously or grotesquely cluttered space (depending on your point of view), has quite a different display on view through mid-January, titled Unknown Military. Here are nearly countless pictures of many sizes dating from the Civil War through the Vietnam War, along with related objects and ephemera, as well as examples of the types of cameras that would have taken the pictures, all presented as if in a cabinet of curiosities.

This is not an art exhibition - it will be of interest primarily to history buffs, veterans, students, and so on, in addition to enthusiasts of documentary photography. One word of caution: Unknown Military is intended as an ant-war presentation, and it has some challenging, graphic content. I personally found it overwhelming, but others will surely revel in its excess.

Installation view from The Coffins of Paa Joe and the Pursuit of Happiness 

Almost as overwhelming, though much more spaciously installed, is a museum-scale show featuring well over 100 artists at The School, a project of New York City's Jack Shainman Gallery that sits upstate in Kinderhook. The exhibition, entitled The Coffins of Paa Joe and the Pursuit of Happiness is sprawling, both physically and conceptually, with pointed juxtapositions that crisscross the centuries, and full-wall constellations that mix contemporary photographs with traditional African sculptures, along with just about everything in between.

It's a bit like cracking open the mind of a collector on steroids (and it may be just that, more or less), but the exquisitely renovated former public school building is so pristine and perfectly designed that it softens the impact of what otherwise might seem utterly chaotic. Please note, The School is open only on Saturdays from 11 to 5, and the show is slated to end on Jan. 6.


The last show I'll mention is also a rather vast display, in this case a showcase exhibition of the Albany Institute of History & Art's superbly impressive collection of Hudson River School paintings. I always knew the Institute had a great collection of this movement, featuring the top stars (Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, Asher Durand) and the rest, but that knowledge did not prepare me for this feast of 88 works in one big gallery.

The level of detail and the overall quality of these paintings are both immediately pleasing to the eye and demanding of intense scrutiny. There are many delights to discover, including some views that feature sites within the immediate vicinity of the Capital Region, not to mention the Catskills and the Adirondacks as recurring themes.

The Hudson River show will remain on view for an unspecified (though surely lengthy) period, but I recommend that you go sooner rather than later, because you will want to return. It's that good, and it's that difficult to take it all in at once. I've been twice, so far, and I will be back.

Carrie Haddad and other Hudson galleries

Kahn & Selesnick, Oak-Man Falls 2015, archival inkjet print

I drove over to Hudson last Sunday to meet a friend for a pizza at Baba Louie's (it was delicious) and check out the Photography show at Carrie Haddad Gallery. Haddad typically focuses on painting, but her gallery (the longest-standing in Hudson at 25 years old) has always shown photography as well, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to enjoy a contemporary showcase for the medium.

Gain Peachin,untitled collage 2015

We were not disappointed, as the exhibition featured a wide array of traditional and postmodern styles, ranging from Jerry Freedner's bucolic Catskills landscapes to Newbold Bohemia's tacky domestic dramas and Gail Peachin's clever, tiny cutouts.

K+S, Charlotte - Apricot 2015

The show includes 12 artists but gives the lion's share of space to the duo Kahn & Selesnick, whose elaborately detailed fantasies have evolved from neo-antique sepia prints to richly colored inkjets. Just a few of K&S's new works are monochrome, and those work very well, but here we see mostly color among the 20 images presented and, frankly, it is a bit distracting. That's because the pictures still evoke timelessness, yet the coloration in most of the prints is noticeably 21st-century.

Among the black-and-whites, we get shades of steam-punk macabre (think Joel Peter Witkin), while the color images of various individuals floating in a shallow pond surrounded by flora and ephemera lean more in the direction of a nursery rhyme.

Stephanie Blumenthal, Light Blue Square 2015, archival inkjet

My favorite work in the show is by Stephanie Blumenthal, who alters highly detailed black and white pictures of bare trees and vines by overlaying blocks of color, with solid black highlighting on the naturally calligraphic gesture of the vine forms. This crossing over of media (that digital tools do so well) is a rich vein in contemporary photography, and will offer continued opportunities for artists to innovate for decades to come.

What I particularly like about Blumenthal is the simplicity or her approach, creating a pure marriage of three strong sensibilities: lushly detailed photography, color-centric painting, and calligraphic line. The resulting series of pictures (which augment each other effectively) takes the viewer to a place of deep observation that is at the heart of all the arts.

Eric Lindbloom, Pine Woods #28 2003, gelatin silver print

I also loved seeing several small, square silver prints by Eric Lindbloom, not only for the nostalgia factor but because they are so beautifully seen and crafted. These date back a number of years (from 1999 to 2009), as does with much of the rest of the work in the show, for which I will register a mild complaint. It's one thing to do a retrospective, or to bring out previously unseen art from the past - but in my opinion it's a no-no to present stale art in a feature exhibition.

The other photographers included in Photographs (which has been extended through Feb 14) are Birgit Blyth, Jeri Eisenberg, Lisa Frank, David Halliday, Robert Hite, and Joseph Maresca.

Michael Theise, Safe-Keeping, oil on panel

While in town, we decided to check out a few galleries we hadn't seen before. One of them, Peter Jung Fine Art, is open only by appointment or chance; the lights were on, so we jumped at the chance to stick our noses in. And what a place! Three floors of comfortable, neatly organized space bristling with antique and contemporary paintings (plus a few photographs) of very high quality, warmed by the very personable Jung, another longtime Hudsonian (he arrived in '92). Though he emphasizes 19th-century landscape paintings, Jung was also featuring the recent trompe l'oeil work of Michael Theise, among many other living artists.

We extended our immersion in painting with a stop at Gallery Gris, where a solo exhibition of abstract oils By Kylie Heidenheimer that was scheduled to end on Dec. 21 was still hanging. The gallery specializes in color abstraction, which is a weakness of mine as well, so I greatly enjoyed this new discovery. Heidenheimer and the other gallery artists (whose works we glimpsed in the back room) are first-rate examples of the genre, and co-owner Todd Gribben was a gracious host. I will be back.

Kylie Heidenheimer, Sweep 2015, oil on canvas

Tidbits for 2016

Ellsworth Kelly in his studio in 2012 (photo stolen from the New York Times)

As 2016 yawns and stretches into existence, a few items on the local art scene have caught my attention:

1. The recent death at age 92 of Ellsworth Kelly. Almost universally regarded as a giant of 20th-century art, Kelly lived and worked in our region (Spencertown, Columbia County) for a great many years. I recall one encounter with the man, about 1984, when he stopped in to peruse my modest gallery on Washington Avenue in Albany. We knew he was a client of the hairstylist upstairs, but had never seen him. So, one day a middle-aged gentleman came in from the stairway area and looked around with what seemed to be a very practiced eye. I tried to engage him in conversation - no luck. Then I asked if we could place him on our mailing list (we did that with all visitors), but he demurred. When I more or less forced an introduction, he only gave one name: Kelly. I do recall that he did not seem impressed by what he saw, but neither did he seem disgusted. Personally, I love his work for its purity of form and color, and for its spirit of adventure. I also like the fact that Kelly was a supporter of local ventures, donating a print or two to be sold at Albany Institute fundraisers and employing local artists as assistants. He will be missed.

   

   an early Robert Mapplethorpe Polaroid self-portrait
   from the Jack Shear Collection

2. Jack Shear photography collection donated to the Tang Teaching Museum. Shear was Ellsworth Kelly's longtime partner, and on Feb. 6 the Tang will open an exhibition selected from 500 significant and historical photographs he recently donated. It's a very truncated who's-who of 20th-century photography (with a notably gay-centric twist) that is sure to draw a lot of viewers and perhaps a snippet of controversy. Remember when the political right wing went nuts because the NEA had supported an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe pictures in Philadelphia? This show will definitely make it clear we're over that.
   

   

   Mazing Cave - collage by Michael Oatman

3. This year The Hyde Collection will host the Annual Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region (popularly know as the Regional), and the judge will be a truly local artist for the first time in memory - Michael Oatman. Oatman, a professor at RPI, has shown regularly in prominent venues such as MASS MoCA and the Tang, as well as in New York City galleries for over a decade, so his credentials as a judge pass muster. Yet he also has regularly and recently participated in local juried shows such as the Regional and the Arts Center's Fence Show, which sets him apart from the typical Regional juror. This may bother some people, but I think it's appropriate - and a great choice of juror for this always intensely interesting local showcase.

   

   a photograph by Dan Burkholder

4. The Photography Regional, our other most closely watched local juried show, will be held much earlier than usual this year, as co-host Fulton Street Gallery in Troy has scheduling conflicts for the more usual late-springtime slot. According to a recent announcement from co-host The Photo Center of the Capital District in Troy, the show will open on Jan. 29 as a two-week salon with all entries hung at both locations; then the judge's pared-down selection will be presented more formally at Fulton Street beginning Feb 20. This year's judge is Dan Burkholder, a Palenville-based digital photographer known for lushly detailed and subtly colored imagery.
5. Beyond local: Oscar season is heating up, and I am struggling to catch all the films likely to gain lots of nominations. So far, the best film from 2015 that I've seen is Spotlight. I don't plan to catch the Star Wars film (sorry if you're a fan) - neither have I ever seen Titanic or Avatar, the other highest grossers of our time, so at least I am consistent. Am excited to see Carol as soon as possible, and have heard The Big Short is also very good, though I'm afraid it may give me unpleasant MBA-school flashbacks. More to come on the best films of 2015 in a later post ...

The movie Spotlight deserves special notice for the brilliant ensemble work of its cast.

Richard Garrison at Spencertown Academy

My wife, Karen, and I took advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday and drove along Route 203 through Columbia County (rightly dubbed "the Tuscany of upstate New York") to see Richard Garrison's very handsome solo show at Spencertown Academy http://www.spencertownacademy.org/, on view through May 24.

It's difficult to decide whether Garrison is more a visual artist or a statistician. His works in the show (titled American Color) are colorful, structural, and elegantly handmade, using traditional artistic media (mostly pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper). Yet they are also data sets, strictly speaking, and apparently quite intentionally so.

This is not a true dilemma, but it is an unavoidable and fascinating central feature to Garrison's work and, one assumes, his mind. His method is rigorous and fairly simple - create a scheme by noting the colors of all the structural elements of the drive-thru facility of a specific fast-food restaurant (in one body of work) or by referring to the colors of the items on certain pages of an advertising circular (in another body) and then arrange the colors in a pre-drawn grid of strips or dots.

Garrison does nothing to interpret his data, apart perhaps from the unexplained way he organizes the order of the colors, leaving the viewer to draw his own inferences from the dry presentation. Still, there is a richness in his choice of source material and the information he does provide (such as locations, in the case of the restaurants, and dates, in the case of the circulars).

So, the relatively subdued and limited color palette that we see in Drive-Thru Color Scheme (Starbucks) reveals aspects of the Starbucks marketing philosophy, and these intimations take on more meaning in contrast to the far more diverse and bright coloration found in Drive-Thru Color Scheme (McDonald's). Or, you can just enjoy the colors and layouts of the drawings, without getting into such intellectualization, and you'll find them quite adequate as abstract art (see Drive-Thru Color Scheme [Taco Bell/Kentucky Fried Chicken] above).

The Weekly Ad Color Scheme drawings offer more information and more opportunity to interpret - they also look a bit more like actual statistical graphs or scatter charts than the other series, which is constructed of rectilinear strips and more closely resembles art of the Constructivist era. Still, they're sort of pretty (and I mean that in a nice way).

It's fun to glimpse the weekly ad drawings at a natural viewing distance (from where the tiny pencil notations on the source material are illegible) and try to guess where they're from just based on the colors. For example, Karen immediately caught the red/green holiday theme that dominates Weekly Ad Color Scheme (Joann Fabric and Craft Stores), which was dated Nov. 2-8 and on closer scrutiny showed that the items selected were quite specific to Christmas. I had a similar "a-ha!" experience with a camo-colored drawing that was sourced to a Dick's Sporting Goods flyer published at the height of hunting season.

Again, comparisons among the drawings in the group led to other ideas and insights, as the primaries and pastels of Weekly Ad Color Scheme (Toys "R" Us) play against the soft brights and sober blacks and grays of Weekly Ad Color Scheme (Office Max) and so on. With these, and all the drawings, one is also continually impressed with Garrison's skill and consistency in executing these precise works.

Two other works in the show are collages, made of squares of paper or cardboard cut from product packages found at the Garrison household; another pair of works, derived from a relentless application of the Spirograph toy (detail shown at right), represent a different direction that is more purely visual as well as more purely process-oriented than the rest of the work.

One of the collages, very large and bright, is a joyous constellation of color and shape that greets visitors from across the room and fairly dominates it. It shows a more playful side of Garrison, while remaining within the realm of his other methods, and fairly well settles the question - the statistician really is more of an artist.