B Square Gallery

Artists and galleries - often a complicated relationship, but what about when an artist is also a gallery owner? Heather Bryson, who runs B Square Gallery on South 9th Street in Philadelphia, shows her own jewelry, paintings, and sculpture, but she also has a mission to support and encourage local artists, many of whom attended her alma mater, Moore College of Art. Heather's enthusiasms show up in exhibits that include skulls painted with flowers - and insects - she loves insects and does an annual group show on the theme. She has some delightful, quirky jewelry pieces that feature carved flies set with silver, gemstones, and rich looking faux stone made of fimo. The central exhibit at B Square at the moment is the work of Dae Rebeck Sanchez - intriguing assembled memory pieces with personal photographs worked with soft colors and textures. Sanchez describes them as "environments of the expected fused with surprise." Heather is doing this right - keeping her heart in her own art while also connecting artists she cares about with the lively neighborhood where she lives, works, and runs her gallery.

Eye Candy for the Holidays

I was New York this week and spent some happy hours wandering through the Met Museum, discovering things and getting ideas. But it's Holiday Time in New York and Eye Candy of the most sparkly, over the top kind is on my mind. I nominate the people behind the Bergdorf Goodman windows as Artists of the Month. I look forward to these windows every year and am never disappointed. The theme is Alice in Wonderland - sort of. In any case it's High Surrealism complete with illusions, misleading reflections, visual tricks, strange proportions and juxtapositions of scale and context. The closer you look the more you see from the story - keys, white rabbits, pocket watches, little doors - they've done a great job of capturing of Lewis Carrol's bizarre vision. Adding to the glorious confusion are the reflections of buildings on Fifth Avenue and other gawking spectators, carrying the theme out past the windows into the street. After leaving 5th Ave I went past a display on 6th Avenue - Claes Oldenburg couldn't have done it better - which comes first? Pop Art or Pop Culture?

Beauty, Order, Pattern

Nature is always one step ahead of art; the wise artist pays close attention. Patterns I've noticed recently in nature have led to thoughts about pattern in art. In Islamic culture pattern is both beauty and prayer - the two are inseparable. In the ordered, mathematical designs of rugs, tiles, and other characteristic forms is endless meditation on the infinite space of God. Celtic patterns are among the most familiar in this category, with or without the weaving in of Christian motifs after the conversion era. Pattern based on nature are the lifeblood of 19th century Arts & Crafts movment, especially in wallpaper and fabric designs of William Morris. Some beautiful patterns can be found in patchwork quilts, with names and motifs that clearly reference nature as a design source. An art movement in the 60's and 70's known as Pattern and Decoration reacted against the dry aesthetics of Minimalism with explosive color and design, often making intentional use of traditional materials and processes as a feminist statement about the association of decorative arts with functional "women's work." The example here is a mosaic by Robert Kusher, installed in the 77th Street stop in the NYC subway. It's a beautiful world, outside and in.