City’s Six at One Art Space. Reception August 1, 6-9pm

City’s Six

City College MFA Group Show

August 1 through 22nd, 2013

One Art Space Gallery
23 Warren Street (between Church and Broadway)

Opening Reception August 1, 6-9 pm.

One Art Space is pleased to present the 2013 City College MFA graduates in an exhibition that showcases their artwork publicly together for the first time. The exhibition is organized by curators Blake Ruehrwein and Stephanie Crawford, and by One Art Space Gallery.  

 

The artists included in the exhibition are: Sasha Cohen, Andrea Coronil, Gayla Martin, Shannon McBride, Katie Simpson Spain, and Alison White. The artists attended The City College of New York Studio Art MFA program, graduating in the spring of 2013. Each artist manipulates environment and media differently, but when combined together, their work creates a dialogue based on viewer interaction and exploration of environments.

Sasha Cohen, Gayla Martin and Alison White play with the idea of hanging and draping in unique ways to explore space. Cohen’s paintings become three dimensional objects with the inclusion of fabric and her manipulation of the surface, while Martin’s hanging thread sculptures act more like simple line drawings that portray an intimate attention to detail. White’s fabric sculptures create complex compositions that evoke a sense of beautiful, yet ordered chaos.

 

Shannon McBride, Katie Simpson Spain, and Andrea Coronil utilize space in order to invite the viewer to interact with their work. McBride creates sculptures that at first seem familiar, and later reveal themselves to be oddly unexpected. It is only with close inspection that the viewer is able to notice their distortions of reality. Simpson Spain, on the other hand, creates invitingly warm spaces that remind the viewer of past experiences: camping trips, Girl Scout troops, late nights, and explorations.  Coronil’s work creates iconic images, such as that of a boxer, and imbues them with personal meaning that is both transparent and layered.

Through exploration and interaction with the work, the artists hope to provide the viewer with a sense of playful inquisitiveness, a reminder of past experiences, and an intimate attention to detail.

 

The curators celebrate and admire each of the artists and their work. This exhibition is a launching pad for both the artists’ and the curators’ at this stage in their careers. The curators have graduated and are working on Masters in Art History at the City College of New York.

Visit One Art Space at: http://www.oneartspace.com/

CITY’S SIX AT ONE ART SPACE, RECEPTION AUGUST 1, 2013

Open Studio Info!

Open Studios

Studio Art and DIAP MFA Programs

The City College of New York, CUNY

Thursday May 9, 6-9 pm

Saturday May 11, 12-6 pm

Compton-Goethals Hall and Shepard Hall

160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031

Join MFA students at the City College of New York for two days as their studios are open to the public. The Studio Art and DIAP (Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice) MFA Programs will both have their studios open, in Compton-Goethals and Shepard Halls on W 140th and Convent Avenue, in Hamilton Heights.

Please visit http://mfaccny.blogspot.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/events/240315986115262/ for more information. Also visit https://www.facebook.com/events/465883886824474/ to learn more about the group show curated by the DIAP program, which will be open during the Open Studio event.

Come to The City College of New York to see lots of great art this coming week!

Compton-Goethals Gallery is having an awesome Photography exhibition with an opening Thursday evening from 5-9 pm!

Also join us for an art history event focusing on CCNY’s art collection (including work by Keith Haring, Romare Bearden, and Edward Curtis) Saturday from 12:30 to 3 pm in Compton-Goethals Hall room 252. Speakers include Tricia Laughlin Bloom, Rocio Arnanda and Elizabeth Hutchinson.

See you at City College!

Sashes and baby plants

Heyyy!

Here are some new pics!
Stay tuned for more!

K

Thesis Show Coming! (Recreation)

March 18th to 22nd. Reception Wednesday March 20th from 5 to 8 pm.

Working title: Recreation.

With a focus on different ways humanity navigates in and works with nature, this interactive installation combines recycled materials, fabrics, live plants, painting, sculpture and printmaking to create a strange situation involving outdoor activities. You are invited to experience this version of nature, recreations of natural environments and recreational activities, from the safety of Compton-Goethals Gallery.

Travel Directions:

You can take either the 1 train, or the A,B,C, or D. The 1 has a stop at 137 (which says City College on it), and you just walk east (the stop is on broadway), walk through a little park right away, then keep going to Amsterdam Ave, and up to Compton-Goethals Hall between 139th and 140th. The A train is really fast, and the 145th stop is great, and if you take a train on that line head west once you get out of the train. The stop lets you out at St. Nicholas and 145th, so walk uphill toward Convent Ave, and west on that street (turn left onto Convent, it’s beautiful) until you get down to the campus at 140th, the first building on the right once you go through that metal gate thing is Compton-Goethals but you have to go up some stairs to get to the entrance because there is another building sort of stuck in the corner of it (weird, you’ll see) which is not the right one.

CCNY MFA Blog!

Ummm, did I already post about my mfa program’s blog?

Probably. But yesterday I just wrote a post on it, which is kind of exciting (just overall, yeah), and actually might describe my internship better than I have described it on here. Or just differently. More.

Here is a little bit of the post – which has a lot more information than this. Fun! Art! More more more! Below I am quoting myself, which is weird, but seems like the best way to show you a piece of the other blog. Also this is time sensitive information – the show is coming down soon – so you’ve got to hurry and come see it if you’re interested.

“Sylvia Netzer’s show, Whorl, is currently up at A.I.R.! Please come see it this weekend or next week, as it’s only up for a short time – and closes on September 30th. Netzer is a ceramics professor at City College, and has been instrumental in the graduate program for a long time. Her sculptural work at A.I.R. is wonderful and you totally have to see it in person! It’s bright, energetic, fantastic, and in the back gallery space at A.I.R. Come over!”

http://mfaccny.blogspot.com/2012/09/visit-air-gallery-to-see-professor.html

Please check it out, and check back on the programs blog for more posts about our upcoming show, city college rad times, and other fun new york stuff.

Thank you!

Katie

‘in between’ show highlights work of CCNY mfa class of 2013!

Hi!

Check it out! I’m going to have work in a new group show super soon! Come to the CCNY Gallery, on the 1st floor of Compton-Goethals Hall, from september 24th to October 5th. The shows reception will be on Thursday October 4th, from 5 to 8 pm. Come check out the awesome work the artists in my program have been making in the past few months, in between our 1st and 2nd years of gradschool!

At the reception I will be selling a limited number of my brand new chapbook – Pigeon Manifesto! I just finished binding them today! I’ve included a picture…

My programs blog is up and running as well! It was dark for a few years, but passwords have been recovered and we’re excited to share what we’re up to, and fun stuff that happens in our program and such.
Please check it out! Look for updates about the exciting things we’re doing over at city college! http://mfaccny.blogspot.com/?m=1

Also here’s a fun video:
Laurel and Hardy ‘Tree in a Test Tube’ from 1943… Forest Service stuff… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MUx247xAUY&feature=youtu.be

Fall Update Thing

I just woke from a dream about a teaching relay race type course, where I was running through the dark with some people I know. Right before I woke up I had aced the competition involving catching, cooking and eating a rattlesnake, and was moving on to the part with jumproping over big metal pieces tall as bike racks. The idea behind the relay course was to prove that you were good enough to be a professor, and prove that you’d do specific things even if they were dangerous or self destructive – for the sake of something bigger than you. This made me realize that I should check in on this blog, and relate my actual life to that dreamworld – as I keep up this educational journey, which is fun, and dangerous to my bank and relationships. Yay!!! Rattlesnakes!!!

My first week of school was great. The new year of students started, and they seem nice, interesting and variously talented (there are just 6, like my year). I have some awesome professors, and I am thankful for them. And am doing some more screen printing, and less sculpture – but still some of course. And I’m still working on video and books. I’ll show you when I get something finished… almost done with a new book. I’m going over to the studio pretty soon – even though it’s my last saturday off until it’s snowy and I’m living in my parka. I need to make stuff! And start working on my thesis!

And yeah, what I said is true, today is my last saturday off until December. I’m starting an internship next week! At the awesome AIR Gallery, which is now located in DUMBO (that’s ‘down under manhattan bridge overpass’, kind of far from here, but the first stop into brooklyn – which is kitty-corner and down more from west harlem). I’ll be there on fridays and saturdays working on exhibition stuff. I’ll be a point person for artists and I’ll help organize exhibition related information. I’ll learn all kinds of stuff about gallery management and I am excited! Also I will be at the openings, which will totally be fun. Come over!

AIR is super rad! It’s a feminist gallery, with a membership, but I don’t think it’s run like a co-op. I actually need to start before I really know about it’s mechanics. So I will update soon with more! The gallery started just about 40 years ago, a group venture of and for women artists. There wasn’t (still isn’t but it’s way way better) equal representation or opportunity in the art world for women artists so they made that happen themselves. This is totally my kind of thing! I’m super excited.

This is the AIR website, check it out! If you study feminist art you will find many familiar names who have been involved with the gallery through the years. Pretty revolutionary. And I am honored to be able to help out this coming term. And to learn how to be that kind of awesome as I shape my artworld career.

I will be very busy. And I will be at the studio most of my evenings and early mornings, and some daytimes without classes. I will try to figure out the internet there, but mostly I will be offline. Another change I’m looking forward to, though I do really like the internet. It’s time to focus again. Summer is over.

Take good care, you!

Love, K

PS Here are a few pictures of the studio, as it changes…

New Studio! (& New Museum.)

Hello!

Well I’m all moved into my new studio!

I am in love with it. Yesterday I was there for 9 hours and feel like I got pretty settled. Today I was there for another few and I actually got to work on art! It feels really different, more calm, more light (vs heavy, as well as more direct morning sun), and honestly its more fun (so far i want to be there in my every waking moment, that’s a good sign). It’s also a better shape for me, it has nooks, which i LOVE and feels more magical somehow. The windows are so dreamy. I have 3! They open so I get breeze!

The new space is going to help me start my last year of grad school in a more kickass way, instead of being overwhelmed by moving across the country I am going to make so much true awesome work and intern in a revolutionary oldschool feminist gallery (more on that later) and learn about teaching. And I am going to win!

Today (before the bulk of the thunderstorm which is rattling my windows now) I went to the studio in the morning then down to the New Museum in the early afternoon to see Nathalie Djurberg‘s show – and also saw a group show called Ghosts in the Machine (arts relationship to technology w psychological/edelic surprises) and Carlos Motta‘s work, which were all also very good. That link stuff will help you see more, very worth it! Click!

I went to the museum with Gayla Martin and Shannon McBride, who are super awesome artists that go to school with me. We got to visit with Peter Fankhauser, who is a City College MFA alumni one of the best artists I have met. I am really lucky to be here now, I’ve been able to study with some phenomenal artists (as professors and peers). And I’m only halfway done! There’s more to come…

But for now here are some pictures of my new studio! I will update soon again, because you will notice my empty walls in these pictures – and they will be full of artwork very soon!

Love,
Katie

i found this cicada in the studio the day i moved in, so put it on the sill and away it flew.

this was before i got organized. Hmm.

look at that dreamy light! and the windows! swoon! I wish I was there not at home procrastinating scrubbing the floors.

workstations, with future work on paper and stop motion action planned.

empty walls. drawing station.

more empty walls, with some mossy fun in the works. i have a nice plant station finally. i blame my mom for my wanting things to always be so organized. thank you sweet mom!

moving studios

Hi there!

Um, so I’m moving my studio from CCNY’s Shepard Hall to Compton-Goethals Hall. Across Convent Avenue, into the heart of the old schools small art department. Very different feelings in the different spaces. Before I finish moving over I wanted to post a few pictures of Shepard.

I really will miss it, but I am excited to move as well. I’m moving into a huge divided up room, so it will have more of a community feeling. My studio will be about the same size. Shepard Hall was a little lonely, and I have enough of that already, so it was time for a change. I’ll still be a lone wolf, just in a new way. Though, if you know me you’ll remember my years in faux co-op studios. I do well with community, it’s what I like.

From these pictures you’ll see, the building is just gorgeous. My studio was a little haunted, but not in a bad way. I will miss the skylight and the green tiles. It was like working in a turret. I’ll post pictures of my new space soon. It is awesome in a different way. Very exciting.

Shepard Hall!

open studio fun!

Hi!

Please excuse the late posting of this – the event was like a month ago! Whoops! I forgot. Huh. This grad school thing is distracting.

Open Studio was fun. It was kind of weird, and I have had crowd/people anxiety for a long time, so it can get pretty intense now that I’ve moved here and barely hang out with anyone. There were a ton of people there (the eye twitch that I developed as soon as we decided to move finally stopped! I don’t recommend 4 months of eye twitch, fyi, yikes). Anyhow, the studio is usually very quiet, if you saw those photos of the space in earlier posts you can imagine… not so much traffic up there. I usually only see a few people in my program, mostly my studio mate, and professors up there.

Anyhow, it was really fun, through whatever personal weirdness that I have.

Lots of people came, many of my awesome professors were there, and my friends Mark and Lauren came all the way from different parts of Queens. THANK YOU GUYS! It was fun to hang out with people from the school some more too. I feel like I am a little too focused on working sometimes, and don’t get to hang out with many of the awesome people I am going to school with.

It was good, overall. It’s always great to hear feedback from the public. And I met some wonderful people, and I got some ideas. And it was really fun to hear how people interacted and reacted to my new work. It is always good to talk about the work, or try to explain it. It really helps me, it seems like I am always figuring out what the heck I’m doing through talking about it. Grad school is great for that. I am learning a lot about myself and the work I do. Opening up the studio to people I don’t know helps me get a fresh perspective too. I’ve had a great studio visit and some wonderful critiques since then, but that open studio really opened up my studio heart.

Awesome! Love, Katie

one of the guys in my program said he was glad there were girls around to do stuff like this! yay girls!