Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Meg Canfield (Imogene)



Meg Canfield (Imogene)
Necklace
Peruvian opals and Japanese pearl (chain is gold-plate over brass)
Value: $800

Faceted briolettes of Peruvian opals create an ombré effect with spectacular color culminating in the center. Created by Meg Canfield of Imogen, the newest jewelry and bead shop in Shelburne, Vermont. Meg is a designer, with a keen eye for new and unusual gemstones and findings. Her shop is a beehive of activity whether you are a beginning beader or an aficionado of fine gemstones.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Tove Ohlander & Richard Arentzen (AO! Glass)


Tove Ohlander & Richard Arentzen (AO! Glass)
Untitled (Graal vase)*
2011
glass
17"x6"
Value $650
(*Image is representative of the vase in the auction.)

The Swedish Graal technique was developed in 1917 by artist Simon Gats and glass blower Knut Berquist at the renowned Orrefors glass factory in the heart of the Swedish glass region. Graal sits at the crossroads of visual art and glass blowing, where it frees the image from a two-dimensional canvas and gives it new life in the walls of a fine hand-blown vessel.

The Graal piece begins as a colored glass egg. AO! Glass's husband and wife design team of Rich Arentzen and Tove Ohlander work on matching the color and form of the piece with Tove's conceptual sketchs. After they decide on what form the piece will take the egg is covered with protective matting, this matting is the medium with which Tove works. After sketching her design for the piece she uses cutting tools to carve the matting. The next step is sandblasting the egg. Here the matting protects the colored glass, creating forms through positive and negative visual space. After Tove removes the matting and inspects the image she and Rich make the final decisions on size and shape before Rich creates the final piece. Reheating the egg, Rich begins blowing the piece into its final form. Under his experienced hand the egg will hatch, forming a bowl, vase, or plate. The finished Graal is a unique fusion of both artists' visions and a testament to mastery of their mediums.

Rich Arentzen, from the USA, and Tove Ohlander, from Sweden have a Glass Blowing Studio in the South End Arts District at 416 Pine Street in Burlington (behind the new SEABA office). They met at the Orrefors Glass School in Sweden in 1994 and have since lived together in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the USA.

“We live and work together, creating art glass and raising three kids in Burlington’s South End. Coming from different cultures requires us to be conscious of the power of symbols in order to communicate thoughts and feelings. In our work we employ these symbols to connect with others and to bring to consciousness issues that often remain buried beneath the hectic routine of daily life.”

Monday, July 11, 2011

Sara Katz


Sara Katz
Rhode Island Harbor
2010
oil on board
24"x24”
Value: $750

Sara Katz’s paintings are characterized by wide-open spaces punctuated by vertical and often repetitious suggestions of human presence. She uses a paint quality that may reflect back on a fleeting memory of passing a less than ordinary scene and uses bright colors to turn the desolate or banal into the nostalgic or magnificent--whether a simple, barren agricultural field or an urban scene viewed from the window of a moving train or car. The persistent use of the square format suggests a quest for systemization and unifies her approach to painting. Sara Katz received her B.S. from Skidmore College. She is the Assistant Director of Burlington City Arts and lives and practices art in North Ferrisburgh, Vermont.

Lewis Rubenstein


Lewis Rubenstein (1908-2003)
Fall
oil on watercolor paper
15"x22" (image size)
Value: $1,200

Lewis Rubenstein's career spanned eight decades, starting in the 1930's as a young fresco painter, and documenting through sketches and watercolors the lives and struggles of the ordinary working class during the Depression and throughout WWII. His later Creation series made innovative use of the Japanese sumi-e style of ink drawing and he originated his own unique artistic form, which he called "Time Painting", a type of framed continuous scroll painting.

During his career, Rubenstein's drawings, paintings and lithographs were exhibited in such institutions as the Fogg Art Museum, Boston, the Whitney Museum, New York, the Corcoran Museum, Philadelphia, the National Academy of Design, and the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, as well as with the Society of American Graphic Artists and the American Watercolor Society. Rubenstein also held the post of professor of painting at Vassar College from 1939 to 1974.

A current retrospective of his work is being held at the BCA Center (2nd floor Gallery) through August 13th.

Sheila Hollender

Sheila Hollender
Milkweed
silver gelatin print
15.25"x14" (image size)
Value: $600

Sheila Hollender served as the Director of Giving for Vermont-based company, Seventh Generation from 1993-2011. She currently sits on the Board of Recycle North and volunteers her time and talents to King Street Youth Center, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, and Burlington City Arts. A professional photographer, Hollender was also a partner in various law firms from 1988-1994, including most recently Rudd, Rosenberg & Hollender. Wife of Seventh Generation co-founder, Jeffrey Hollender, and mother of three, Sheila resides with her family in Charlotte, Vermont. Her photography is held in numerous private and corporate collections and she has participated in solo and group exhibitions throughout Vermont.

Janet Ballantyne & David Sokol



Janet Ballantyne & David Sokol
Cold Summer Soup
mixed media artist book with woodblock prints (ed. 1/10)
8"x6.5" (12' fully extended and includes a "kitchen-friendly" copy!)
Value: $500

This lovely handmade artist book of cold summer soup recipes features original woodblock prints by David Sokol created in collaboration with original recipes by Janet Ballantyne. David discovered a love of printmaking at Burlington City Arts and has shown in group shows in Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, Vermont and California. His work is included in the special collections at UVM and at the deCordova Museum in Massachusetts. Janet is a cook, culinary artist and founding member of the Book Arts Guild of Vermont. She teaches workshops in bookmaking, papermaking and cooking.

Birdseye Low Table


Birdseye
Hand-Crafted Custom Low Table*
2011
wrought iron & figured Vermont sugar maple
20”x 40”x 16”
Value: $1,800
Birdseye has donated a custom low table with a top and lower shelf made from figured Vermont sugar maple. The table frame has flared legs made of hand-forged iron with a waxed finish.
Figuring refers to the appearance or pattern of the wood as seen on a longitudinal surface or side-grain and can include patterns created by burls, spalting, burrs, etc. The figure of a piece of wood is due, in part, to its grain and due to the cut or to innate properties of the wood. This particular piece was harvested from a fallen tree found in Richmond, Vermont.

Birdseye specializes in Vermont architecture and design-build custom homes. Since 1984 they have focused on the creation of artfully crafted homes incorporating a sustainable design ethic. Birdseye maintains woodworking, metal and glass workshops dedicated to the fabrication of custom design work. Birdseye is the recipient of numerous awards for their design projects. Their projects have also been the subject of several articles in major shelter and architectural publications.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Casey Blanchard


Casey Blanchard
Fall Memory 1
2008
12"x7" (image size)
mixed media monoprint
Value: $445

Primarily a self-taught artist, Casey explores her experiences through the engaging and often unpredictable print medium of monoprinting. She is most interested in the spiritual aspects that emerge in the image, particularly relating to how we live in the world and how the world lives in us. In the beginning the work may be about a search for answers, but in the end it's more about being here without them.

Casey was born in Greenwich, Connecticut and now lives in Shelburne, Vermont with her husband and her daughter. Her artwork is shown locally and in Florida and is in numerous corporate and private collections.

Don Nice


Don Nice
Lion
1977
lithograph on paper (ed. 144 sold out)
39"x44" (image)
Value: $1,100

In his work Lion, Nice depicts a highly detailed lion on a white background with four objects arranged along the bottom. Nice’s treatment of these grouped objects, which are de-contextualized and, therefore, become subjectively symbolic, relates to his other works, in which objects are grouped to create a schema or memory of the place they represent. Nice’s meticulous treatment of the lion connects this work to his early animal portraits and his enduring interest in the natural world. The lion itself is representative of Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The significance of the lion may connect to Nice’s Jewish roots or represent the pride and strength of the Jewish people. The objects themselves hold little objective symbolism for the specific holiday of Rosh Hashanah, but they collectively represent the identity of the Jewish people. The candles, which are commonly used for many Jewish rituals, symbolize faith, hope, or tradition; the matzah, an unleavened bread eaten at the Passover meal, or seder, represents the metaphorical struggle and plight through the desert; the parsley, which is dipped in salt water and eaten on Passover, embodies the bitterness of Jewish slavery in Egypt; and the lemon-like etrog is smelled and used in rituals on Sukkot, a festival of booths immediately following Yom Kippur.

This lithograph was created as part of a special graphics program by Vera List exclusively for the Jewish Museum in NYC.

Richard Texier


Richard Texier
Islands (ed. 19/44)
2006
aquatint & etching
11.5"x9.5"
Value: $1,100

Richard Texier, who lives and works in Paris, France, is a painter, printmaker and sculptor of monumental works. He started to paint when he was very young, his passion for history and astronomy inspires in him a personal cosmography fed with ancient schemes of celestial mechanics, sky atlases and wide concepts of outer space. Texier's monoprints were the subject of a 2009 exhibition at the BCA Center.

Jennifer Koch


Jennifer Koch
Specimen #55
2007
mixed media box construction
35"x56"x10"
Value: $1,600

"Specimen is an ongoing series of box constructions that contains one or more insects. Much of my work is embedded with a Victorian sensibility, and pays homage to a systematic tradition of natural history of collection, classification and display. I am inspired by a variety of collections; from entomological specimens and archaeological artifacts, to the vernacular iconography of religious symbols and packaging on supermarket shelves. In method, my tendency toward collecting paired with my occupation and trade as a custom frame-maker provides a natural formula for the box construction. My initial inspiration towards assemblages came from Joseph Cornell, the seminal American box artist. In his work, as in mine, the panorama of illusions contained within each box chronicles an experience as both collector and creator, which is then hermetically sealed to form an immaculate, self-contained reality."

Specimen #55 was exhibited at the Firehouse Gallery in 2007 for the exhibition "Specimen & Marriages of Reason".

Philip Hagopian

Philip Hagopian
Church Street II
oil on canvas
18” x 18” (framed)
Value: $1,500

Born in Massachusetts, Philip Hagopian grew up in Vermont and studied under master painter Frank Mason in Stowe. He attended the Art Institute of Boston and has shown his work nationally and internationally in more than thirty five exhibitions.

David Sokol

David Sokol
One (Circles & Squares series)
2011
oil-based monoprint
18.25"x10.5 " (image size)
Value: $400

David Sokol discovered a love of printmaking at Burlington City Arts and has shown in group shows in Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, Vermont and California. His work is included in the special collections at UVM and at the deCordova Museum in Massachusetts.

Ogden M. Pleissner

Ogden M. Pleissner (1905–1983)
Honfleur
watercolor on paper
 15”x18" (framed)
Value: $8,000

Ogden Pleissner was considered a Realist unimpeded by sentimentality. Pleissner’s contentment in his surroundings, interest in the world around him, and his satisfaction with his craft are evident in the masterful use of light and color that pervades his paintings. 

World War II brought about a major turning point in Pleissner's career. His post-war subjects became concerned with urban life in France, Italy and Spain. Pleissner's work exhibits precision and clarity in his use of light. This, combined with his selection of only pictorial elements that contribute to an overall composition, characterize his work.

Large collections of Ogden M. Pleissner’s work can be found in the collections of the Pentagon (war work) and in the Shelburne Museum’s Pleissner Gallery (his personal collection).

Salvatore Caci

Salvatore Caci (b. Italy, 1907 -- d. United States, 1991)
Landscape with Horse
oil on canvas
29”x25" (framed)
Value: $500

Salvatore Caci

Salvatore Caci (b. Italy, 1907 -- d. United States, 1991)
Tuscan Cottage
oil on canvas
20”x26" (framed)
Value: $500

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)
The Englishman at the Moulin Rouge (1892)
lithograph ed. 115/275 (published by Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi, certified embossed edition)
34”x27" (framed)
Value: $900

The Englishman at the Moulin Rouge demonstrates Toulouse-Lautrec's complete mastery of the lithographic medium. This lithograph was commissioned by the world famous Albi Museum Toulouse-Lautrec and is a certified reproduction of the original print as it has the blind stamp of the museum in the lower left corner, as well as the official rubber-stamped Lautrec signature in the bottom right. This authentic, limited edition reproduction of the original lithograph by Lautrec has been authenticated by the museum as being faithful to the original print in lithographic quality.

Trey Anastasio


Trey Anastasio
Untitled (Bar 17 album cover art)
2002
limited edition lithograph, 65/200
24”x17"
Value: $700

This lithograph is the last one available for sale by BCA and is hand-signed by artist. The original painting was created for a Burlington City Arts’ benefit in 2002.

Since 2006, Trey has focused his philanthropic efforts on the Seven Below Arts Initiative, donating a portion of concert proceeds and full use of The Barn to Burlington City Arts' artist-in-residency program. Seven Below is grounded in a partnership with BCA, a relationship that began in 2001, when Trey created a series of prints to help BCA raise money to support the visual arts in Burlington. Limited edition lithographs, such as the one being auctioned here, were later made of the prints and sold to benefit BCA when Trey performed at Burlington's Memorial Auditorium as part of the annual Discover Jazz Festival. (These prints are also featured on the cover of Trey's recent studio work, Bar 17 and the bonus album 18 Steps).

Beginning in 2006, The Barn was transformed from a commercial recording facility into a studio environment providing accommodations and work space for artists participating in the Seven Below residency program. Drawing from the talent and expertise of its resident artists, Seven Below is working with BCA to sponsor arts education activities for audiences of all ages.

Jeanette Chupack


Jeanette Chupack
Bid for a Commission!*
acrylic on canvas
33"x45" (max. size)

Value: $5,000

*Image is representative of the artist's work only. The winning bidder will work with the artist to create a one-of-a-kind original painting. The subject of the windowscape/still life may be of the bidder's choosing and a series of sketches will be created by the artist during the collaboration.

Artist Statement:
"I like to think of my work as being firmly rooted in the American Realist tradition. Some of my favorite artists include Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer and Charles Sheeler. Going back in time, the early Flemish painters such as Van Eyck and the painters of the German Renaissance such as Durer have deep roots in my artistic background as well. My paintings are most successful for me when the composition of the painting, its color, and its light come together to create the mood I have in mind.

In my ‘signature’ paintings I have placed an emphasis on gardens and views from windows, usually with a related still life in the foreground. This has led also to a series of paintings of gardens by the sea, and windows by the sea. It also allows me to express the contrasts of a cultivated world of gardens, interiors and architecture with the natural landscape."

Jeanette Chupack is a beloved Vermont artist, who now resides in Florida. Her paintings can be found in corporate and private collections across the country.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Carol Boucher



Carol Boucher
Something Golden
2008
monoprint with etching ink and oil paint
9.5” x 11.75” (image)
Value: $625

Carol has painted since childhood. She describes her art practice in this way, “I always enjoyed art projects, in school and at home. Public school teachers encouraged me to pursue art. In high school, my teacher urged me to put together a portfolio and to apply to art schools. I went to art school but switched my major and graduated cum laude with a degree in English Literature. I became more serious about art in 1986 once I moved to Vermont. For the next ten years, I worked full time managing an art gallery and picture framing shop while I painted in my spare time. Once I had a body of work, I began showing locally. Gradually, I tapered off to working part time, then when I was 35, I decided to become a full-time artist. I found a gallery to represent me and I began showing nationally at juried art festivals. In 2003, I exhibited at 12 juried art festivals, winning awards at three of them.”

Carol writes this about the monotype process,”To create a monotype, the artist paints or rolls ink directly onto a printing plate. Most often, plates are made of zinc or plexiglass, though I often create my own plates using mat board. A damp printmaking paper is placed onto the plate and the assembly is run through a manually operated etching press. The paper is then gently pulled away from the plate. The monotype will be a mirror image of what was on the plate.

With the monotype process, no image is permanently fixed onto the plate. If I wish to pull a second print, it will be very faint (also known as a ghost). Often times I will leave the image on the plate and continue to work in a series of similar images. I can re-paint, change shapes, add to what is there and so on. No toxic solvents are necessary, which is a plus. Most often, I work in oil and etching ink, but I also use acrylic ink and fluid acrylic paint sometimes.

If the artist wishes to work on a print once it is pulled, the monotype may be allowed to dry, but it can also be printed on immediately if desired. Sometimes I draw or paint on the piece once it is dry.”

Thomas Curtin



Thomas Curtin (1899-1977)
Apple Blossoms
oil on board
10”x14" (image)
Value: $3,800

Thomas R. Curtin was born in 1899 in Pittsfield, Masachusetts. He studied in New York City at the Art Students League and at the National Academy of Design. He moved to Vermont in 1943 with fellow landscape artists John F. Carlson, Emile Gruppe and Aldro Hibbard. Vermont’s landscape provided him with the subject matter of his most celebrated work. His art can be found in countless public and private collections throughout the Northeast.

Thomas Curtin



Thomas Curtin (1899-1977)
Autumn Farm with Stream
oil on canvas
24”x32.5"
Value: $8,500

Thomas R. Curtin was born in 1899 in Pittsfield, Masachusetts. He studied in New York City at the Art Students League and at the National Academy of Design. He moved to Vermont in 1943 with fellow landscape artists John F. Carlson, Emile Gruppe and Aldro Hibbard. Vermont’s landscape provided him with the subject matter of his most celebrated work. His art can be found in countless public and private collections throughout the Northeast.

Walt Scheffley



Walt Scheffley
May the Road Always Rise (St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Church Street)
1989
house paint on masonite
15.5"x48" (image)
Value: $2,800

Now living in Minnesota to be near his son, Walt Scheffley spent many years in Underhill, Vermont. A self-taught painter, he trained as an industrial designer and worked for many years as a draftsman for a landscape architect. While caring for his ailing wife, Scheffley began painting, mostly family portraits and Vermont scenes on the side of his barn and on the backs of circular slabs cut from tree trunks. After his retirement, Scheffley began to paint more prolifically. Using house paint and masonite board, he created meticulous, witty scenes of everyday life; blending the old with the new and frequently offering his own political or social commentary in the otherwise benign scenes. Scheffley was represented locally by the former Webb & Parsons Gallery in Burlington.

Cheryl Appe


Cheryl Appe
Waterfront
2010
oil on canvas
18”x18” (image)
Value: $1,200

Cheryl Appe has been painting in oil for over two decades. Initially her subjects involved the landscape with works that were personal and intimate in scale. Evolving into abstraction, her painting has become non-representational. In these paintings many layers are applied, taken away, and reapplied, and in the process colors change, and forms develop volume and weight. Painting outdoors or "en plein air" for many years has influenced the visual language of her current work.

Cheryl Appe has exhibited extensively throughout Vermont and most recently at the National Academy of Art in New York. Her works are held in many private collections.

Tom Cullins



Tom Cullins
Vermont Barns
2010
watercolor on paper
9.75” x 9.75" (image)
Value: $400


“My childhood passion for painting, drawing, and photography led me to the profession of architecture, which I practiced for over 40 years, both in the United States and overseas. Throughout this career, painting and photography continued to be integral to my exploration of form, light, detail, and composition. My aesthetic direction in both of these pursuits has always ranged from representational to purely abstract, responding to the light and character of each location and culture. The joy of painting in Greece for over 30 years, mainly as a watercolorist, has allowed me to explore negative space and cubistic composition through its extraordinary light. Lately, I have used my background as an architect to explore more abstract composition, color, and complexity in my painting and photography. Finally, there is often the thrill of an unanticipated image that develops magically during the creative process of painting or shooting a photograph.”

Kari Meyer



Kari Meyer
September Song
2010
acrylic on canvas
10"x20"
Value: $300

Kari Meyer was born and raised in Vermont and the landscape is an integral part of her artistic inspiration. The Japanese ideals of wabi-sabi, a prominent philosophy of Japanese aesthetics, also play a role in inspiring her work.

As an artist, Meyer views art as a form of communication that has a power beyond that of words. Through imagery she attempts to portray ideas that words cannot, like the archetypal beauty that connects all things. Her work attempts to create a positive experience for the viewer, while also making a positive commentary on the world. She believes that the preservation of nature is what will allow for the survival of humanity and the more we ignore the natural beauty around us the further we are from our natural state of being. Meyer views wabi-sabi as an ideal that connects humanity to nature.

“To me, wabi-sabi changes the worldview of western civilization. Things we normally view as negative become beautiful. Loneliness, old age, and death become beautiful because they are inevitable and represent the constant flux of the universe.” Meyer attempts to address this idea of the movement of eternity through her landscapes. The constant change of the seasons, the cycles within nature, to her, represents an imminent relationship between all things that exist. Her work urges the viewer to contemplate the relationship between oneself, nature, and the universe.

Kit Donnelly




Kit Donnelly
Untitled
watercolor on paper
9.75"x11"
Value: $350

Kit Donnelly was born in Freeport, Long Island and grew up in North Carolina and New Jersey. Her first love of art came from copying children's book illustrations for hours when she was seven years old. As a teenager, Kit took her first art classes and attended the Rhode Island School of Design while a high school student. She went on to the Portland School of Art (now Maine College of Art) and got a degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited regionally at the Helen Day Art Center, the Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery and with Burlington City Arts.

Luigi Lucioni



Luigi Lucioni (1900-1988)
New England Landscape
(unsigned, but with authentication)
oil on masonite
7.5”x12" (unframed)
Value: $7,000

Luigi Lucioni was born in Malnate, Italy, in 1900 and became one of America's well-known landscape painters, whose work has been noted for its heightened realism and photographic attention to detail. Beginning in 1929, Luigi Lucioni spent part of each year in Manchester Depot township in Vermont, where he painted still lifes and landscapes of the hills and barns. In the 1930s, while European Modernism was gaining momentum in the United States, Luigi Lucioni remained committed to Realism. Lucioni is particularly known for his paintings and prints depicting the bucolic splendor of the Stowe area of central Vermont. Lucioni’s work can be found in numerous public and private collections throughout the United States.

Susan Larkin


Susan Larkin
Non-Conformist
2010
oil on canvas
12”x16"
Value: $400

Susan Larkin makes oil and pastel paintings from her home and studio in Isle La Motte, Vermont. Her subject is Lake Champlain and the land that defines this island community and her experience of it. Larkin’s paintings are the result of her dialogue with the natural world. As she goes about her life on the island—walking the dog or running errands—the beauty of the land and her mood come together in a visceral moment that she documents with a quick sketch or a photograph. In her studio, she recreates these moments; her goal is not accurate rendition, but to capture the veracity of the moment.

Larkin has been making art for over twenty-five years. Originally a ceramist, she took up painting in 2001. Her work has been exhibited in North Bennington, South Hero, Isle La Motte, and Cambridge, NY, and she has participated in group shows at the Bryan Gallery in Jeffersonville, and the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester. She received a Bachelors of Fine Art in Ceramics from the Maine College of Art in 1977 and a Masters in Teaching from Bennington College in 2003. Her work is in numerous corporate and private collections throughout the region.