Dylan Strzynski- These bas relief sculptures are the result of a decades long attempt to synthesize a specific process that is both natural and human. The knotted, wiggly channels that meander across these pieces resemble the work of wood boring insects. But their form and technique are derived from the repairing of cracked road surfaces. These surfaces expand in summer heat and contract in winter freeze. At first, small cracks allow moisture to penetrate surfaces. The moisture freezes and expands. This drives the small cracks apart growing them into fissures that spread out across the driving surface. Eventually road crews fill the cracks by hand, applying hot tar with a large brush.
The spiderweb-like cracking of black top is a natural process induced by seasonal extremes. The application of tar is a human process that highlights and defines that natural process. The resulting marks are unusual because, although highlighting them is a deliberate act, the paths are predetermined by naturally occurring cracks. (The entire process can be further inverted when one considers that the cracking is partially caused by inconsistencies in the industrial application of a natural material processed by man.) However, it is not necessary to look beyond what results from the simple combination of natural cracks and the deliberate application of tar; strange pathways that are neither strictly deliberate nor solely natural.
At the same time, this is an opportunity to view a deep time process on a micro scale. The seasonal modulations that breakup roads are the same as those that carve canyons and erode the Sphinx. The act of mirroring these processes and transferring them into human size objects is a spiritual exercise.
Guiding a router across a piece of plywood layered with paint, glue and other post industrial accretions one is reminded of the slow forces of melting glaciers that formed our rivers and lakes 20,000 years ago. Drifting even further back, the Grand Canyon is believed to have begun forming 70 million years. At this scale one rotation of the spinning bit lasts longer than an empire.
A geological history of the American Southwest occupies a few square feet of wall in a room where plywood and power tools lead to a blissful loss of self.
Helen Gotlib- The rules of printmaking have been defined by the medium’s masters and the limitations of its tools. Helen Gotlib pushes the boundaries of printmaking in terms of scale, presentation and process, proving that there are no rules, only spaces within which to innovate. Gotlib uses a small press and raw commercial materials to render uncommonly large print based images. The creation of her work is followed through with a style of presentation that brings it out of the 1600s and into today’s white wall art spaces.
Gotlib’s unorthodox approach to a traditional medium is balanced by adhering closely to her subject. Mystified by the gradual changes in terrain and flora that occur across seasons and agricultural zones, she is inspired by interactions with nature that occur during her frequent travels and daily adventures in the Michigan woods. She patiently and unvaryingly transfers her impressions of these encounters on to the blocks and plates that add up to the contemporary print based work she produces.
My studio is a refuge where I delight in the immediacy and messy, visceral process of making marks – working with color, line and form using a variety of media and methods. Each composition takes shape through a kind of spontaneous call and response – an intimate conversation between the canvas and the materials I work into it: bold and opaque shapes and colors; drips and watery washes; scribbles and scratches; fragments of discarded paintings; ticket stubs, receipts, messages left on the kitchen counter as well as written words and graphic elements taken from journals, sketchbooks and the detritus of daily life.
Hope Olson is a painter and mixed-media artist based in Holland, Michigan. Her art celebrates home, community, and slow, old-fashioned living. The compositions and colors of Hope’s abstracted still life and landscape paintings are inspired by her long-held affection for interior decorating, historic architecture, old country villages, and early 20th century art. Hope particularly borrows from the sensibilities of the Fauvist art movement, which emphasizes strong marks and colors that magnify mood and compel curiosity. She earned a B.S. in Interior Design from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and also focused her college coursework in studio art and marketing.
A duo of abstract and expressionism, movement and energy.
Kay Cassill, IWS, NWWS, MWCS
While Kay Cassill received a B.A. from University of Iowa with Honors in English in the `Writer’s Workshop’, her focus quickly changed to the visual arts when she found herself in Greenwich Village among the avant-garde painters of the era. From there she moved to Paris taking postgraduate work at the Academe de la Grande Chaumiere. She continued traveling and moved on to Bandol on the Riviera. Eventually she traveled to Carrara, Florence and Rome – for the art – and marriage to artist and writer R.V. Cassill. Returning to New York, Cassill continued postgraduate work at the New School with artist Julian Levi. Moving back to Iowa she took up postgraduate work with famed print maker Mauricio Lasansky and painter James Lechay. While there she became a member of the Iowa Print Group. She has also taken workshops with Karen Blackwood, Donna Zagotta and Mel Stabin. Eventually she settled in Providence, RI and Cape Cod. Cassill currently winters in Michigan but maintains a home and studio in Truro, MA. where she spends some months each year. She continues today creating paintings in oil and watermedia.
Style
Over her long career Kay has approached her subject matter with intensity whether it was while carving into copper plates, painting in water media or oil on various substrates or drawing with pen and ink. Her most recent concentration has been painting with water media on Yupo and oils on canvas and linen. As for her approach to painting she feels closest to the Figurative Expressionists. Her favorite subjects include figures interpreting her story-telling ideas but she sometimes side-steps when taken by a particular land or seascape.
Rachael Van Dyke
Rachael Van Dyke is a mid-career artist creating abstract landscape work inspired by living off the grid in the Blue Ridge mountains. Van Dyke is an avid traveler as an artist-in-residence and has participated in numerous national and international residencies. These residencies, particularly ones abroad, create boundaries that she is forced to work with and cause her to alter her technique. Most of these obstacles are related to traveling abroad; adjusting to new studio space constraints, change of temperature, lack or loss of art materials, poor foreign language skills, and shipping limitations. These boundaries also create stimulation for Rachael as an artist as she is forced to understand and come to terms with her limitations to see what can be created. Being open to a new color palette or a new visual language to express the land is necessary. She chooses to explore the region through walking or bicycling, visiting museums and historic sites, and trying her hand at engaging with local residents. Each body of work is influenced by place and tells a story of the people and land that she’s encountered.
Hope Olson is a painter and mixed-media artist based in Holland, Michigan. Her art celebrates home, community, and slow, old-fashioned living. The compositions and colors of Hope’s abstracted still life and landscape paintings are inspired by her long-held affection for interior decorating, historic architecture, old country villages, and early 20th century art. Hope particularly borrows from the sensibilities of the Fauvist art movement, which emphasizes strong marks and colors that magnify mood and compel curiosity. She earned a B.S. in Interior Design from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and also focused her college coursework in studio art and marketing.
Wear it, share it, – speak your song. In this workshop, you will make your very own one-of-a-kind reusable canvas bag. You will learn simple bleaching and inking techniques to achieve a creative “artsy” bag with your expression and words. Stamp it, speak it – say it. Dani will demonstrate sample pieces and give examples of different uses to achieve fun designs. Each bag is a 14X17X7 sized carrier, with 23 inches handles and bottom gusset, ideal for shopping, groceries, supplies, and just about anything needed for transportation.
**Bleaching can be intense. Masks will be provided with the doors open, but If you are sensitive to smells, this may not be the class for you. **
Our March exhibit features 5 pastel artists known throughout the region and on a national level. Artists Anne Kindl, Ed Kennedy, Jill Wagner, Vianna Szabo and local artist, Deb Buchanan are exhibiting. Our first all pastel exhibit, Fuller Art House is honored to bring this talented group together. Many in this group have been recognized and awarded high honors throughout the country. Most notably, the International Association of Pastel Societies and Pastel Society of America. Join us in welcoming them all together from 5:30pm to 8pm at the art house on Friday, March 6th. This show will extended through June 3rd. Click on any artist to see their current work at fuller art house.
In this intro to acrylic painting course, you will learn how to start painting with acrylics. Follow along with fun instruction to complete a vibrant still life in a step-by-step style used by illustrator and painter, Dani Fuller. This class is style specific- aiming to inspire a new technique in painting. This is a 3 week course, meeting Tuesday evenings from 6-8:30p. You will be shown composition and layout design, color blocking with style, and end with a finished piece you can be proud of. The third week, we will end with open critique – and my favorite – confidence building. This class is meant to be fun. If you are an advanced painter, come to learn a new style or different form of expression. If you are a beginner, this class is designed to bring out your inner artist and give you the tools necessary for continuing your creative path. Come hungry – leave happy!
with Helen Gotlib, Jill Wagner, and Dylan Stryzinski
Our February exhibit features a mix of modern, traditional and fun. Join us this Friday during the Red Bird Art Walk from 5-8p. While covid has us still taking good care of ourselves, we are still rotating in our amazing artists and bringing you new works.
Helen Gotlib
My primary visual concern has always been to document nature by focusing on its strengths rather beauty. Simultaneously subtle and overwhelming, it confounds us with its infinite system of outwardly chaotic patterns within patterns and uncannily expressive forms.
Biology produces striking color combinations. Recently I have been moved by the dazzling flowers of ice plants on the rugged shores of the Pacific Northwest. The waxy pink blossoms of these plants are electric against the blanket of succulent dark green leaves spread over ancient rocks and dunes heaving up against the ocean. My large scale mixed media print pieces are an attempt to evoke the intensity of this breathtaking encounter with the seaside.
Patterns of nature yield compelling results when filtered through subjective experience. Concurrent to my expansive beach scapes I have shifted and narrowed my focus to the abstract possibilities of wood grain. By changing the context of the interior of a tree, the connection to the original object nearly disappears. What remains evokes the movement of water and reveals a hidden but familiar aquatic landscape like the pond near my home in the Michigan woods. Some beaches are public and some beaches are secret.
Jill Wagner
As a contemporary impressionist painter, I’m obsessed with capturing light. Plein air painting is my passion, but during the colder months I work on larger pieces in my studio. I paint in both pastel and oil, two mediums which complement each other nicely.
My subjects are varied, ranging from country landscapes to inner city architecture, from portraits to casual nudes, from seascapes to interiors. I love to travel and sometimes work from photos I’ve taken on the road, but when weather permits, my first choice is always to paint outdoors (en plein air), especially in my beloved Italy.
The consistent theme that attracts me is light and shadow. I aim for realism with a painterly twist, but sometimes I allow the rich hues and textures of a scene to dominate. Oil and pastel are exhilarating mediums that lead to endless adventures… and sometimes I’m just happy to follow their lead.
Dylan Stryzinski
Producing artwork, image making in particular is a continuum. Ideas reoccur; images repeat, transform, take on new meaning and develop in unexpected ways. Sometimes older ideas wait for the next discovery that points to a new project.
I tend to see myself as more a drawer than a painter and therefore, even when working in tightly rendered modes, as a sort of cartoon expressionist. Matching media and content is important. Energy is the ultimate concern and I try to work in ways that encourage spontaneity and deliberate mark making. Many of my pieces take on the raw appearance of the outsider. Yet my themes are not entirely clear. My pieces are filled with self-referential meta-subjects whose meaning lies somewhere near the edge of direct understanding. This complexity places my work squarely in the realm of highbrow, so called “fine art.” Yet surface and material suggest a visionary spirit. As a result I have come to occupy an odd space that is neither entirely reserved for academics nor primitives.
Ultimately I am a postindustrial cave painter gathering the tribe together in the warm stinking glow of the scrap lumber fire to recount the exploits of the pre apocalyptic man.
