Newport Art Museum and Art Association News
March 20, 2008 Providence Journal
Bill Van Siclen
Most artists, I suspect, have a love-hate relationship with juried exhibitions.
On the one hand, there's always a chance that the "jury" (typically composed of one or more well-known artists, critics or academics) will take a liking to your work and decide to include it in the exhibit. In that sense, juried shows represent the art world at its most democratic. On the other hand, if the jury doesn't like your work, you're out — no explanations given. In that sense, juried exhibits are closer to a benign form of artistic dictatorship.
In Newport, the "2008 Newport Annual Members' Juried Exhibition" features works by more 70 artists, mainly from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The show was juried by Michael Rush, a well-known writer and critic and director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.
Though it's nearly twice the size of the Art Club exhibit, the NAM show features a similar mix of prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures and other artworks. And it, too, has a pronounced photographic streak, although here the effects are more likely to show up in other disciplines.
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March 12, 2008 Newport Mercury
Lisa Utman Randall
When Brenda Levasseur was 10 years old her mother gave her a drawing book. "There were five of us kids, four girls and one boy, so my mother knew to keep us busy," she said. Levasseur soon realized that she could copy just about anything she put her mind to and by 12 she had begun making wax figures and had fallen in love with art.
A stunning charcoal drawing by the 54-year-old resident of North Dartmouth, Mass., was this year's choice for Best in Show at the Newport Art Museum's annual juried members' show, the Newport Annual. The exhibit, open to artists working in a variety of mediums, was juried by Michael Rush, Director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.
Of the 254 art works submitted, Rush selected 84 for the show. Levasseur wins a $200 cash prize and will have a solo exhibit at the Newport Art Museum at a later date.
Her entry, "Windows to Our Soul" (2007), is a large scale — 37 ¼ ” by 27 ¼ "— close-up portrait expertly rendered in charcoal.
From across the room it appears photographic, but upon closer inspection the visual effect of charcoal on paper is more evident. As the title suggests, Levasseur has paid particular attention to her subject's eyes and the result is both deeply moving and arresting. "I always go for the eyes," she explained. "I do the eyes first, there's just something about them…."
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February 24, 2008 Providence Journal
Bill Van Siclen
NEWPORT Painter Roger Kirby happily admits that he leads a charmed life. For three months each year, he lives and works at his summer house on the coast of Maine. He spends another six months in Newport, where his studio overlooks a quiet street off Bellevue Avenue. And the final three months?
"That's for sailing," he says. "I'm afraid I'm really a bit of a fanatic about it."
It's an idyllic existence — or at least it was until three years ago, when Kirby made what he calls a "life-altering discovery." While attending his father's funeral, Kirby found a logbook detailing more than two dozen bombing missions that his father, a former British RAF pilot, had flown during World War II. The discovery was especially surprising, Kirby says, because his father rarely talked about his wartime experiences.
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January 13, 2008 Providence Journal
Bill Van Siclen
NEWPORT Growing up, Wendy Wahl remembers using the Encyclopedia Britannica to gather information for her school papers and homework.
"It was the place to go when you really needed an in-depth explanation or analysis," she says. "Some of the entries went on for pages and pages."
Nowadays, Wahl, a South County artist who specializes in all-natural materials such as paper and fabric, is more likely to do her research online. But in Uncovered Grove, a room-filling installation at the Newport Art Museum, Wahl has found a new use for old encyclopedias: turn them into art.
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November 25, 2007 Providence Journal
By Bill Van Siclen
NEWPORT Say the word "Impressionism" and most art lovers' faces will light up faster than a plastic Santa at Christmas. Say the word "Barbizon" and the reaction is more often "Ho-hum" than "Ho, ho, ho!"
That's a shame for several reasons. Without Barbizon's example to build on, French Impressionism might well have developed along very different lines — or not at all. Indeed, Impressionist hallmarks such as dappled brushwork and plein-air painting (painting outdoors rather than in a studio) actually originated a decade or two earlier with Barbizon painters such as Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau and Charles-François Daubigny.
The big difference between Barbizon and Impressionism is color: while Monet & Company liked theirs bold and bright, Barbizon painters typically favored a palette of earthy browns, greens and ochers.
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November 4, 2007 Providence Journal
Bill Van Siclen
When a deadly tsunami slammed into the coast of Thailand in December 2004, many Americans rushed to respond. Some donated money to international relief agencies. Others collected food and clothing to send to victims of the disaster. Judith Larzelere, an award-winning Westerly quiltmaker whose work is on display now at the Newport Art Museum, reached for a needle and thread.
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November 1, 2007 The Jamestown Press
Michaela Kennedy
Islanders who showed up for pastries and punch at the town hall open house Monday evening witnessed the rededication of a painting that was donated to the town years ago.
Local relatives of late nineteenth century American artist John Austin Sands Monks were on hand Oct. 29 to see the classic landscape picture assume a prominent place in the new council chambers on Narragansett Avenue.
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August 17, 2007 Providence Journal
Richard Salit
"Wet Paint" is usually a warning.
But in Newport, it's also an invitation.
Once a year, for a brief specified time, amateur and professional artists are invited to quickly create original pieces of art. Then, before the paint is even dry, they submit their works to be auctioned off — all in one evening — to benefit the Newport Art Museum.
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July 26, 2007 Providence Journal Bulletin
Bill Van Siclen
To her well-heeled friends, the Dallas-based art collector and socialite Elizabeth "Betty" Brooke Blake is known by a decidedly non-serious nickname: Betty Boop. But when it comes to collecting, especially in the challenging realms of modern and contemporary art, Blake is about as serious as they come.
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April 12, 2007 Newport This Week
Charles Avenengo
When Nancy Grinnell became curator at the Newport Art Museum nine years ago, she never thought she would wear so many hats. Recently, in preparation for the current "Annual Members' Juried Show", there were last-minute changes, and she was drafted to hang the exhibit herself.
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January 3, 2007 Connect For Kids
Gayle Hargreaves
Before heading off to university this fall, Diana Boyadjian has a big project to complete. ?I?m re-doing my room completely?I feel like a curator!? That?s a shift in self-perception for Diana, who admits she didn?t fully understand the meaning of the word ?curator? until she enrolled in MUSE: Introduction to Museum Studies, during her last semester at high school. Now she?s using many of the applied learning skills she honed through MUSE in real-world situations ranging from re-decorating her room to making choices about higher education and a career.
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