Best of 2016 Space Gallery Denver, Nancy Charak

New Exhibition for Nancy Charak! Get yourselves to Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe Drive, Denver for THE BEST OF 2016 Artists Reception & Holiday Party: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15TH, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Exhibition runs: December 15th, 2016 - January 7th, 2017, featuring work by these many fine artists. . .
FEATURING WORK BY: MARKS AARDSMA, PATRICIA AARON, MONICA AIELLO, TYLER AIELLO, STEVEN BARIS, KATE BECK, TONIA BONNELL, MICHAEL BURNETT, JUDY CAMPBELL, TAIKO CHANDLER, NANCY CHARAK, DIANE CIONNI, JODIE ROTH COOPER, JEFF CURRY, LEOPOLDO CUSPINERA, HAZE DIEDRICH, PAUL ECKE, MIGUEL EDWARDS, MARCUS FITZGIBBONS, CARLENE FRANCES, KAREN FREEDMAN, MICHAEL GADLIN, AMBER GEORGE, JASON LEE GIMBEL, JANE GUTHRIDGE, HOWARD HERSH, MONROE HODDER, SCOTT HOLDERMAN, JEFF JUHLIN, NANCY KOENIGSBERG, WENDY KOWYNIA, JOANNE MATTERA, MICHAEL MCCLUNG, SKYLER MCGEE, DIANE MCGREGOR, LEWIS MCINNIS, IAN MCLAUGHLIN, YIANNI MELLIOS, CONOR O'DONNELL, REGULA ONSTAD, COREY POSTIGLIONE, LISA PURDY, MIKE RAND, LYNDA RAY, SANGEETA REDDY, KAREN SCHARER, STEPHEN SHACHTMAN, BETSY STEWART, WILLIAM STOEHR, KRISTA SVALBONAS, SHARON SWIDLER, PHILIP TARLOW, SARAH WINKLER, JOHN WOOD, ANYA ZUCKERBERG

Fiona Shaw Reciting John Donne, Poet of the Day

Please take the time to listen.

The Sun Rising

John Donne, 1572 - 1631

        Busy old fool, unruly Sun, 
        Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? 
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run? 
        Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide 
        Late school-boys and sour prentices, 
    Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, 
    Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, 
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 

        Thy beams so reverend, and strong 
        Why shouldst thou think? 
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, 
But that I would not lose her sight so long. 
        If her eyes have not blinded thine, 
        Look, and to-morrow late tell me, 
    Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine 
    Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me. 
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday, 
And thou shalt hear, “All here in one bed lay.” 

        She’s all states, and all princes I;
        Nothing else is; 
Princes do but play us; compared to this, 
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy. 
        Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, 
        In that the world’s contracted thus; 
    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be 
    To warm the world, that’s done in warming us. 
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; 
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Nancy Charak in Tucson Weekly for Tucson Artists' Open Studios

A Terrible Beauty, Nancy Charak artist, 8"x8" watercolor graphite on clayboard.

Margaret Regan of Tucson Weekly has an article "Art About Town" about the 11th Tucson Artists' Open Studio Tour. I am participating with Greta Ward in our studio space in the historic Steinfeld Warehouse, 101 W. 6th Street at 9th Avenue, Saturday-Sunday, May 14-15 and 21-22 from 11-5. Please come on by.

How to Understand Picasso

DIANE McGREGOR : : STUDIO NEWS: Transitions

DIANE McGREGOR : : STUDIO NEWS: Transitions

Artist of the Day: Bridget Riley, Greatest Living British Artist

Bridget Riley in 2012

Bridget Riley, the greatest living British artist, discusses her processes of working and making art, "At the End of My Pencil." At the end of this statement from the LRB (London Review of Books), she ends with this. . .(this essay is dated October 8, 2009). Here's another link to her discussions of her processes. . .

You cannot deal with thought directly outside practice as a painter: ‘doing’ is essential in order to find out what form your thought takes. The ‘new curves’ that I started in 1998 grew directly out of paintings such as Shimmered Shade. The latent visual arcs and sweeping movements came to the fore in Painting with Verticals 1 (2006) and Red with Red 1 (2007). Retaining the diagonals and verticals of the earlier group of paintings, I introduced a curve that connected to the existing structure. This is the underpinning of my new curvilinear work. The vertical is still there, acting like a break in the movement across the canvas. The cut collage pieces define the various contours that arise from combining and recombining the slender curve with its diagonal accents. This has developed into a layering technique that allows me to weave forms and colours together in a supple plastic space. I have reduced the number of colours and increased the scale of the imagery. Would it be possible to once again build up a repertoire of these invented forms, a repertoire that might gradually acquire sufficient momentum to put itself at risk, to precipitate its own kind of hazard? It is only through the experience of working that answers may be discovered within the inner logic of an invented reality such as the art of painting.

Bridget Riley, artist, Red with Red (2007)

She begins the essay with:

For me, drawing is an inquiry, a way of finding out – the first thing that I discover is that I do not know. This is alarming even to the point of momentary panic. Only experience reassures me that this encounter with my own ignorance – with the unknown – is my chosen and particular task, and provided I can make the required effort the rewards may reach the unimaginable. It is as though there is an eye at the end of my pencil, which tries, independently of my personal general-purpose eye, to penetrate a kind of obscuring veil or thickness. To break down this thickness, this deadening opacity, to elicit some particle of clarity or insight, is what I want to do.
The strange thing is that the information I am looking for is, of course, there all the time and as present to one’s naked eye, so to speak, as it ever will be. But to get the essentials down there on my sheet of paper so that I can recover and see again what I have just seen, that is what I have to push towards. What it amounts to is that while drawing I am watching and simultaneously recording myself looking, discovering things that on the one hand are staring me in the face and on the other I have not yet really seen. It is this effort ‘to clarify’ that makes drawing particularly useful and it is in this way that I assimilate experience and find new ground.

Bridget Riley, artist, Movement in Squares (1961)

Rounder Studio has Moved to Historic Steinfeld Warehouse Tucson

Together with Greta Ward, I have set up Rounder Studio's workspace in the historic Steinfeld Warehouse at 101 W. 6th Street (at 9th Avenue) in Tucson, Arizona. We will be showing our work at the Tucson Artists' Open Studios May 14-15 and 21-22 from 11:00a--5:00p. Please come on by.

From a new series "A Terrible Beauty," Nancy Charak artist, 8"x8" watercolor, graphite on clayboard.

I am working on a number of projects for exhibition and sale near and far, in Chicago at The Nevica Project, a commission for a local Tucson collector, work for the Tucson Artists' Open Studios (Saturday and Sunday May 14-15 and May 21-22, 11:00a--5:00p), and for an art consultant to the hospitality industry.

You can find more of my work at rounderstudio.com and follow this blog as well at Rounder Studio Stuff.

--Thank you, Nancy Charak

Artist of the Day: Emily Rapport

My artist of the day is Emily Rapport. She makes paint reflect light. Her work is part of the reason I miss Chicago and my old neighborhood of Ravenswood.

Emily Rapport artist, Addison El Stop.

Emily Rapport artist, After the Storm

Mark Your Calendars; Tucson Artists' Open Studios Spring '16

Together with Greta Ward at her studio in Barrio Viejo in Tucson, we will be co-hosting Tucson Artists' Open Studio visits at the historic Steinfeld Warehouse, 101 W. 6th Street (at 9th Avenue) Tucson, AZ, May 14-15 and 21-22 from 11a to 5p. Please come on by. Proof that oil and water do mix.

Greta Ward artist, oil & cold wax on panel, 10"x10"

Nancy Charak artist, watercolor, graphite marks on clayboard panel, 8"x8", from the Caput Mortuum series.

Artist of the Day: Diane McGregor

It is always a pleasure to see Diane McGregor's work. It was a pleasant shock, nonetheless, to see her new direction. I had always thought of Diane as a master of grids. We have corresponded about her fascination with and the philosophical underpinning of hers and Agnes Martin's work.

Diane took a leap into the unknown, which is what we artists must always do. Diane, like my friend, Greta Ward, learned about working with cold wax from Rebecca Crowell.

You can read further how Diane McGregor came to these new images and direction.

Boreas 1, oil and cold wax on panel, 12 x 6 x 2 inches, Diane McGregor Artist

Boreas 2, oil and cold wax on panel, 12 x 6 x 2 inches, Diane McGregor Artist

Hesperia, diptych, oil and cold wax on panel, 6 x 8 x 2 inches each panel, Diane McGregor artist

Artist of the Day: Deborah Rubin

My artist of the day: Deborah Rubin. Clearly a master of watercolor.

Pop-Up Exhibit, Contemporary Artists of Tucson

Cri de Coeur, Nancy Charak, artist, watercolor and marks on 24"x18" birchwood panel

Together with Greta Ward, Jack McLain, Nancy Drigotas and Kathryn Wilde, I am exhibiting at Plaza Palomino in Tucson AZ.
It's a pop-up in Unit 119, Friday and Saturday, February 26th and 27th, from 10a to 9p. We'll have an Opening Reception on Friday from 6p to 9p, and a Closing Reception on Saturday from 6p to 9p.

Plaza Palomino is at the SE corner of Swan and Fort Lowell, Tucson AZ.




You can find more of my work here http://www.rounderstudio.com/

Contemporary Artists of Tucson

With Greta Ward, Kathryn Wilde, Jack McLain, Nancy Drigotas, and myself Nancy Charak, we are Contemporary Artists of Tucson. Announcements will be coming shortly re a pop-up exhibit at Plaza Palomino, at Swan and Fort Lowell in Tucson the last weekend of February 2016.

A big thank you to Fred Soto for helping us make the connection.