Monday, December 13, 2010

Holiday Happenings at Loop Gallery


Holiday Small Works Salon Show
loop members & invited guest artists

December 17 - January 16, 2010
Reception: Friday, December 17th, 6 - 9 pm
  
loop Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition by loop members and invited guest artists. 

Local and regional artists will be on view in this group show of new and small-scale artwork. The work in this exhibition represents the diverse range of styles and media of loop's extended community of artists. Over 85 works will be hung, including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, mixed-media and 3-dimensional works.

Participating loop members include Mark Adair, Elizabeth Babyn, Yael Brotman, Heather Carey, Gary Clement, Tara Cooper, Elizabeth D'Agostino, Sheryl Dudley, Martha Eleen, Eric Farache, Charles Hackbarth, Libby Hague, Linda Heffernan, David Holt, Sung Ja Kim, JJ Lee, Jane LowBeer, Ingrid Mida, Suzanne Nacha, Mary Catherine Newcomb, Barbara Rehus, Rochelle Rubinstein, Lanny Shereck and Adrienne Trent.

Invited guest artists include Ruth Adler, Marilyn Bercovich, Diana Birkenheier, Jillian Booth, David Brown, Betsy Canfield, Chari Cohen, Gary Michael Dault, Teri Donovan, Nomi Drory, Richelle Forsey, Fran Freeman, Michael Gerry, Margaret Glew, Lauren Goldman, David Griffin, Jeff Harrison, Shauna Havgen, Julie Jenkinson, Anne Kaye, Margie Kelk, Henna Kim, Valerie Knapp, Rudolf Kurz, Kyung Min Lee, Zavi Lerman, Alex Liros, Christine Lynett, Alistair Magee, Patrick Joseph Mifsud, Heather Nicol, Nancy Oakes, Stan Olthuis, Teodora Pica, James Ridyard, Emily Schaefer, Lois Schklar, Jerry Silverberg, Camilla Singh & Walter Willems, Ilona Staples, Michael Stoeber, Harry Tiefenbach, Alex Turner, Jennifer Wardle, Patti Waterfield, Lyn Westfall, Elaine Whittaker, Phillip Woolf, Shirley Yanover, and others.

 Join us for the opening celebrations on Friday, December 17, 6-9 pm, just in time for the holidays!

loop Holidays: The gallery will be closed December 24th through January 4th for the holidays. The Holiday Small Works Salon Show will re-open on January 5th, and run until January 16th. 


Friday, December 10, 2010

Last Chance to See Kelly Cade and Sheryl Dudley's work at Loop

This weekend is your last chance to see the work of Kelly Cade and Sheryl Dudley at Loop gallery. Hours this weekend are 12-5 pm Friday and Saturday and 1-4 pm on Sunday.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Rolling the Bones by Leo Kamen

There are only two days left to enter the Akimbo contest to win a copy of gallery owner Leo Kamen's witty and captivating memoir called Rolling the Bones.



Like many creative types, Leo Kamen had a difficult childhood, but there is no bitterness or rancour in his memoir. Leo writes about his experiences with a degree of detachment and humour, allowing readers to laugh along with him and his fighting spirit and joie de vive make me wish I knew him better. His direct style and deft touch with the pen moves the story along and his descriptions of people and places are vivid and amusing. For example:

"Mrs. Fluck, our grade eight art teacher, was as thin as a stalk of asparagus. She dressed in long sweaters and grey skirts. Whenever she spoke, she sounded as if she had cotton gauze stuck up her nose. I had vague ideas about what artists were like, but Mrs. Fluck didn't fit the bill. I assumed she went straight home every day after school, wrapped herself up in a housecoat and crawled into a can of sardines for dinner. Only her name, cursed as it was with one too many consonants, gave her a racy reputation she didn't deserve. I never created anything of artistic note in her classes, though towards the end of the year I managed a ceramic lion that bore a striking resemblance to our family cat. I glazed it bright spinach green and placed it on top of our television set at home, where it remained for years." 

The best part of this book for me are the chapters about Leo's experiences as an art dealer which really are worthy of another book unto itself. In this part I gained a new appreciation of how difficult it is to make a living as an art dealer. It seems to have been a labour of love to a large extent as Leo faced bankruptcy more than once. And the parts where he muses about the changes in the art scene are particularly erudite. For instance, on page 226, Leo writes "An artist's studio, which had always been a place to work, became a "site" where artists did as much thinking as painting. Gone were the days when a besotted gallery-goer was abandoned to his reveries in front of a painting. Now a third party mediated the relationship with catalogues, didactic labels and sound bites. Irony in art began to flourish less as a result of French intellectual diatribes and more in response to the gulf introduced by such mediation. Since writers did much to obscure a work's meaning as to elucidate it, the irony was enhanced. This suited the intelligentsia and the cultural elite. Their claim to exclusivity was ennobled by the opaque prose. Especially opaque writers thrived and were hailed as the new emperors of the contemporary art scene by virtue of their opacity's brilliance."


Rolling the Bones is available at the Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto and in e-book format at www.leokamenauthor.com.

Title: Rolling the Bones, a memoir
Author: Leo Kamen
Publisher: General Karma, Toronto
Category: Non-fiction, Memoir
Number of Pages: 248

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Installation Shots: Sheryl Dudley and Kelly Cade

There is a zen-like quality to the current show at loop Gallery which features the artwork of Kelly Cade and Sheryl Dudley. If you need a dose of tranquility during this hectic holiday season (is it December already?),  step inside the gallery and the haunting beauty of this work will leave you feeling refreshed and restored.

Loop Gallery Installation Shot - Kelly Cade and Sheryl Dudley
Kelly Cade

Kelly Cade

Sheryl Dudley
Sheryl Dudley
Photo credits: Ingrid Mida

Gallery hours are Wednesday - Saturday from noon to 5 pm and Sunday from 1-4 pm