Artistic Stuff Page
While valuing functionality with artistic flair, and seeing myself primarily as a craftsman, I do spend time (when I have it) thinking about and making "art" objects (read, useless except to look at), hence this page. This is not to say that some of the objects pictured below CANNOT be functional; indeed some are usable vessels and some are jewelry, i.e., "wearable art." Many have been exhibited at local and regional galleries; all have long since been sold or given away.
I am proud to be a member of Jefferson County's Over The Mountain Studio Tour, and to have my work displayed at these fine arts and craft locations:
Tamarack: West Virginia's Artisan Retail Center - One Tamarack Park, Beckley, WV
The Bridge Gallery - 8566 Shepherdstown Pike, Shepherdstown, WV
Dickinson & Wait Craft Gallery - downtown Shepherdstown, WV
Lost River Trading Post - 295 E. Main St., Wardensville., WV
Washington County Arts Council Gallery Shop, 34 South Potomac Street, Suite 100, Hagerstown, MD 21740
Gifts Inn Boonsboro - 16 N Main St, Boonsboro, MD
I am proud to be a member of Jefferson County's Over The Mountain Studio Tour, and to have my work displayed at these fine arts and craft locations:
Tamarack: West Virginia's Artisan Retail Center - One Tamarack Park, Beckley, WV
The Bridge Gallery - 8566 Shepherdstown Pike, Shepherdstown, WV
Dickinson & Wait Craft Gallery - downtown Shepherdstown, WV
Lost River Trading Post - 295 E. Main St., Wardensville., WV
Washington County Arts Council Gallery Shop, 34 South Potomac Street, Suite 100, Hagerstown, MD 21740
Gifts Inn Boonsboro - 16 N Main St, Boonsboro, MD
My Art Exhibition History:
Celebrating Four Years Of Joint Exhibits With Susan Carney & Assorted Friends In Shepherdstown, During the Contemporary American Theater Festival!
July, 2018
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July, 2016
"The Company We Keep: An Exhibition of Paintings, Prints, Photographs & Turned Wood"
By Susan Carney, Sarah Huntington, Dave Kiser, and Neil Super
July, 2015
"Local Color: An Exhibition Of Paintings, Prints, And Turned Wood By Susan Carney, Rhonda Smith, And Neil Super" -
"Local Color: An Exhibition Of Paintings, Prints, And Turned Wood By Susan Carney, Rhonda Smith, And Neil Super" -
In 2016 I Took A Turn As A Curator...
"Into The Woods: The Art and Vision of the Woodworker" As the Curator of this exhibit at the Ice House Gallery, Morgan Arts Council, Berkeley Springs, WV, Sept 30-Nov 13th. Opening Reception Friday, Sept 30th, I was able to bring together work by more than 20 woodworkers in diverse woodworking disciplines...
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Other Juried Art Exhibits
3rd Annual Eastern West Virginia Juried Exhibit - - Berkeley Art Works, Martinsburg. This piece, "Boydville Series No. 015," was selected by juror Judith Dieruf, Professor, Painting and Drawing, at Frostburg State University, for a Merit Award.
2nd Annual Eastern West Virginia Juried Exhibit - Berkeley Art Works, Martinsburg. This piece, "Cherry Burl Bowl" was one of 33 works by 25 artists selected by juror Diane Sibbison, Exhibit Manager for the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center in Frederick, Maryland. It received a Merit Award.
82nd Annual Cumberland Artists Exhibition, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. The piece at right, renamed "Chinese Rail Laborer - 1868", was one of 68 (out of 217) submissions selected for this show, which ran from October 4th through early January, 2015. Curated by Dow Benedict. Scroll down for complete backstory on this piece....
Fourth Annual Art and Earth Juried Exhibit, Berkeley Arts Council . The piece at left, "Old and In The Way: Homage to a Gratuitously Felled 375-year-old White Oak," (see detailed backstory at "Historic Wood Series" was selected by Juror Lauren Schell Dickens, Assistant Curator of Contempory Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. (I eventually gifted this piece to the person who "saved" some of the wood when the tree was felled)
Arts Barn Gallery Exhibit, City of Gaithersburg, MD - I had several pieces in this 2014 exhibit as an invited artist, including "Food Chain," at right, which eventually sold at the Bridge Gallery in Shepherdstown.
Berkeley Arts Council Members Exhibit
The First Berkeley Arts Council Members’ Exhibit brought together a wide range of styles and techniques by the local arts community.
The First Berkeley Arts Council Members’ Exhibit brought together a wide range of styles and techniques by the local arts community.
Eco-Art Gallery Exhibit
My six pieces in this exhibit included "nested sphere" at right, which was purchased by a nice gentleman at the exhibition's opening. at Shepherdstown's Bridge Gallery
First Eastern West Virginia Juried Art Exhibit - The Results Are In...
...On Sept. 7, 2013, my turned hollow form, Dream Fragment I, was awarded "Best in Show" at the Eastern West Virginia Juried Art Exhibit, hosted by the Berkeley Arts Council in Martinsburg. It was made from a piece of spalted white ash from my yard, has a black painted base and a lacquer finish. Curated by Kathryn Burns.
Some Artistic Turnings...
...with a few other pretty things thrown in
"A Railroad On His Back: Cantonese Laborer, 1868"
A multi-axis turning of Sugar Maple and Heart Pine. Wax and lacquer finish. 2014.
Tentative experimentation with offset spindle turning has yielded some simple stylized forms suggestive (to me, anyway) of human figures in various postures/movements/moods. Having recently read some history of the transcontinental railroad building era in the U.S., I was particularly taken with the yeoman efforts of Chinese (and Irish) laborers in the face of racism and discrimination. Of note was the famous"Ten-Mile Day," to wit, April 28, 1868, when Chinese and Irish crews of the Central Pacific Railroad laid 10 miles of track in a single work day. When Irish stone masons struck at one point and a foreman objected to the suggestion that Chinese laborers lay stone, he was famously reminded who had built the Great Wall. Meanwhile, Chinese workers were typically paid less than other groups (between $26 - 30 per month), and would eventually become the target of shameful federal legislation intended to prevent the "yellow peril" from emigrating to the U.S. Another instance of immigrant labor shoring up the backbone of this land only to be rewarded with mistrust and inequality. At any rate, for me (in an "aha" moment) that history and this figure came together under the unmistakeable symbol of the hat.
A multi-axis turning of Sugar Maple and Heart Pine. Wax and lacquer finish. 2014.
Tentative experimentation with offset spindle turning has yielded some simple stylized forms suggestive (to me, anyway) of human figures in various postures/movements/moods. Having recently read some history of the transcontinental railroad building era in the U.S., I was particularly taken with the yeoman efforts of Chinese (and Irish) laborers in the face of racism and discrimination. Of note was the famous"Ten-Mile Day," to wit, April 28, 1868, when Chinese and Irish crews of the Central Pacific Railroad laid 10 miles of track in a single work day. When Irish stone masons struck at one point and a foreman objected to the suggestion that Chinese laborers lay stone, he was famously reminded who had built the Great Wall. Meanwhile, Chinese workers were typically paid less than other groups (between $26 - 30 per month), and would eventually become the target of shameful federal legislation intended to prevent the "yellow peril" from emigrating to the U.S. Another instance of immigrant labor shoring up the backbone of this land only to be rewarded with mistrust and inequality. At any rate, for me (in an "aha" moment) that history and this figure came together under the unmistakeable symbol of the hat.
"A Day In The Life"
My first experience with hollow forms - in 2013 - was a wild ride. The wood is a stabilized burl of spalted Red Oak, which I found attached to a stump that had been used for the past eight years as an employee smoker's chair out back of an eatery that just happens to be next to Woodcraft in Leesburg, VA, where I myself often sneaked a quick smoke. It's cheerful gifting to me by a confused dishwasher of said eatery only reinforces my deep seated belief that beautiful wood can be found in the most amazing places if one just cares to notice. This is the first piece that I named; not a quirky tribute to the Beatle's but an accurate description of the quality time I spent with it, from chainsaw to the last coat of lacquer. The missing wood was punky beyond salvage, so I got to turn a sizable piece of "air" once every rotation of the lathe. The overall effect is, to me, mindful of something a lucky archaeologist might dig up. Red Oak Burl, lacquer finish, 6" x 6". Sold at Street Fest 2013
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A New Start: Circa 2012 or thereabouts
As happens with many of my endeavors that have involved new knowledge, techniques, skills and even ways of thinking, there came a moment several years back when I stopped concentrating on mechanics and "the rules" of turning vessels just long enough to catch a whiff of a more artistic sensibility wafting through my humble shop. In that moment preoccupation with the physical manipulation of turning tools became a secondary concern, and, almost in spite of myself, I gave over my trust to the beauty of form, color, and texture that was unfolding before my eyes in this genius piece of wood (Osage Orange from a downed giant in the Boydville Historic District in Martinsburg, WV). I reckon even with this late in life career start that I will make plenty of hopefully well-formed bowls in my time, and I'm pretty sure that with experience at least some will please me more than this one does. But only once - just this once - will I be able to point to a specific piece and say "that's where I began asking at least some of the right questions," and, I fancy, began learning to surrender to the whispered voices locked away within a piece of wood.
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