Member Spotlight: Kelley Donovan & Dancers showing work in NYC!!‏

International Women Artists' Salon is happy to share the good news that Salon Member Kelley Donovan and Dancers will be in New York City on September 17th with "In a World" and "What is Stable Shifts, What is Solid Slips."

Kelley Donovan and Dancers present

In a World
and
What is Stable Shifts, What is Solid Slips

Guest Choreographers:  David Parker,
Jessica Parks and Sharon Montella 


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH AT 8:00pm

UPDATE:
CHANGE OF VENUE!
We are now performing at PEARL STUDIOS!
500 8th Ave., 12th Floor, room 1204

For tickets go to:  http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/186602
(if you cannot attend the show but want to contribute please go to the link above and purchase a ticket)

for directions WWW.PMTHOUSEOFDANCE.COM
Monthly Series Continues:  October 8, Nov. 12th, December 10th

“…a noticeably personal style…gorgeously fluid,
strongly rooted movement.  -The New York Times

$20.00 GENERAL ADMISSION,
$12.00 STUDENTS/SENIORS

Performed By:   David Parker, Jessica Parks, Sharon Montella, Samantha Wilson, Michael West Jr., Sasha Peterson, Kelley Donovan, Nordica Holton, Lucy Considine, Laura Murphy,  Tiffany Ballinger, Stephanie  Reeves

for information call 617-388-3247 or e-mail kddcompany@yahoo.com   

  

Bio

Kelley Donovan splits her time between Boston and New York City, teaching in both cities and has performed work by Ann Carlson and Liz Lerman.   She currently teaches modern dance at UMass Boston, Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre in Cambridge and Third Life Studios in Somerville.  She received her training in choreography from Mark Morris and Bessie Schonberg and her work has been called “vibrant, imaginative...with a rare feeling for stage space” by the New York Times.  She has shown work in numerous Boston venues and at the Merce Cunningham Studio, Joyce SoHo, Movement Research, The Rover and the 92nd St. Y in New York City.  She has been selected as a Choreography Fellow at Summerstages Dance at Concord Academy this summer.  Starting in September she will produce a monthly Salon Series in New York City this fall at PMT House of Dance.  You can find information at kddcompany.wordpress.com.

Kelley Donovan & Dancers classes
http://kddcompany.wordpress.com/classes

Blog, about our process & recent work
http://kddcompany.wordpress.com/

Member Spotlight: Nicole Zaray's One Woman Musical Show "A Woman Alone" in New York City on Sept 9th

International Women Artists' Salon is thrilled to announce member Nicole Zaray's performance in her One Woman Musical Show "A Woman Alone," Friday, September 9th at 7:30pm at The Dixon Place Lounge, NYC. Admission is FREE!

Welcome the FALL

with a night of music with

NICOLE ZARAY

FRIDAY SEPT 9th

7:30 pm

A WOMAN ALONE

a one woman musical show

by

Nicole Zaray

Get ready to challenge your preconceptions of pop and American Songbook. Nicole Zaray guarantees you some bizarre hooks tonight. This is a musical journey through various existential modalities of solitude in the city. Within her set of quirky, feminist, jazz-influenced experimental songs, Nicole delivers catchy choruses and weird piano phrasings (while dancing) and illustrates the particular loneliness of the urban environment of our time, while providing brief analyses on how it makes perfect sense that we have all arrived here. This is funny, memorable, and definitely a new form of one-woman-cabaret. Think Almodovar meets Laurie Anderson. Loneliness never seemed so interesting.

Photo: Eva Mueller

At

The DIXON PLACE LOUNGE

161A Chrystie Street NY NY 10002 212-219-0736

F R E E.

Music, vocals, keyboards and music production by Nicole Zaray.

Visuals by Eva Mueller and Nicole Zaray.

Nicole Zaray Brief Bio:

Nicole Zaray is a vocalist, songwriter and producer. She was born on the LES, was raised in Brooklyn and studied at Barnard College. She studied classical piano for 10 years, but was greatly influenced by stride piano players Fats Waller and James P. Johnson when no one was looking. Her solo music work has been presented at PS 122, the Roulette Concert Series, and the SuperCoda music series. Dedicated to studying the evolution of ‘The American Songbook’, she was commissioned by The American Music Center to write about American film music history. She was featured vocalist on Moby’s CDs “Feeling So Real” and “Next is the E” (Mute/Elektra); and starred in the eclectic scifi flick “The Sticky Fingers of Time” which premiered at the Venice Biennale, played over forty other festivals, and was released worldwide.

More information:

info@nicolezaray.com

http://www.nicolezaray.com

Member Spotlight: Sharine Mohamed, filmmaker, announces fundraising campaign for "I am not Virgin" film teaser

International Women Artists' Salon is honored to support filmmaker member Sharine Mohamed's fund-raising campaign for her 'I am not Virgin' film teaser.  We invite you to learn about her film project and support her effort in any way.  She will hold a fundraiser event August 3rd in conjunction with an IndieGoGo online fund-raising campaign through November 18th, 2011.

 

 

 

 

Sharine invites you to join her Wednesday, August 3rd, 7pm through the evening.  Enjoy an Egyptian Homemade Dinner. Drink Mediterranean Fig Flavored Vodka. See the Live Monologues. Win Raffle Prizes. All monies raised will be used for I am not VIRGIN's five minute film teaser.

Please see event details at these two links and to reserve your ticket (please reserve by August 1st ,or contact Heidi Russell or Sharine if interested and past reservation deadline).

 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=205868529463414

 

SHARINE A. MOHAMED

F I L M    D I R E C T O R

I am not Virgin Movie. INC

     

 

Note from the Filmmaker:

I love filmmaking. I am obsessed. I just want to be on set all day, all night, directing. I really believe that I was born in this life just to make movies. I come from an art background, and love colors, lighting, scenes; the beauty of the creative process obsesses me! But aside from that, throughout my life, I have always thought critically, and fought against what I felt was wrong. Due to activism DNA in me, what better idea could I have than to mix both my passions?

My mission as an Egyptian filmmaker is to be a voice for women on women’s issues in my country, Egypt where it can be an example to all other countries. As an American, my mission as a filmmaker is to show how even here in America we can still find social conflict, and that in the end, a city is only a city and becomes labeled by its people.  Hopefully my films can beautifully and artistically emphasize fundamental human rights on a global level, and to be a bridge to link different cultures so that it would broaden and highlight the similarities that unite us as a people on this one same planet that we all share.
 
The Project: Stage in Development: 

Log Line: Egyptian feature film based on true events about victimized women accused of not being virgins. The double standards between women and men on the topic of virginity and hymen restoration procedures with a backdrop of the current revolution in Egypt and the outcome of vile acts towards women involving their virginity while protesting. 

Why this Topic?
The topic is important because it’s a twisted old fashion tradition. It’s dreadful and serious, painful, astonishing, unfair and brutal. These atrocities are still happening to women, women I personally knew and still know till this day, my friends, family, even myself and it needs to end.


What is virginity? What does it mean to be a virgin? Does the hymen need to be intact? What is the significance of a hymen in terms of biological, traditional, physical? How many types of hymens are there? Religious people have one answer, while doctors have another, different from what some Egyptian men think, different from what Egyptian women think even amongst other Egyptian women, different from what non-Egyptian men and women think… 

How sad is it to know that a father would let his daughter die rather than permit her to have necessary cervical surgery, believing that she would no longer be a virgin and therefore not die with honor. 

How crazy is it to know that after seven years of a loving marriage, the wife is divorced because the husband suspects she was never a virgin after she gifts him with a hymen restoration procedure on their seventh wedding anniversary.
How sad is it to know that most women end up marrying their rapist, since the rapist has the luxury to choose between being in prison for a few months or marrying the victim in order to not press charges against him thereby preserving her and her family’s’ honor. 

How strange is it to learn that some women, between the ages of twenty and forty, are so depressed that they refuse to engage in sexual intercourse with their husbands because of fear and paranoia. 

How sad is it for a woman to be accused of not being a virgin, brutally threatened, mentally and physically abused, all because she did not bleed? 

Synopsis:
A young woman Azraa (popular Egyptian name meaning Virgin), in her early 20s, admitted by the lead scholarship to study Psychology, Western Philosophy, Anthropology, Sociology, and the Arts at the AUC: American University in Cairo. Although she is obedient at home amongst her parents (in a slum like area called Boolak in Cairo) and abides by the Eastern traditional ways, she has a Westernized and unaccepted (by Egyptian Society standards) lifestyle when away from home; and even though she wishes to be accepted, she has a dreadful fear and expresses her desperate desire to never reveal her secret “but preferred” life-style to her parents. An American professor at AUC makes an announcement in class about a study-abroad contest, where the student contestants are assigned to research a conflicted cultural topic to win a sponsored trip to New York City and attend The International Cultural Convention at the UN where the student will represent Egypt with a public speech on the researched topic. Azraa is interested and applies. However, Ahmed, Azraas’ jealous, controlling boyfriend threatens to tell her family that she is not a virgin unless she drops the assignment and stops spending so much time with the American Professor. After seeing Ahmed’s true colors, she decides to end the relationship. She is heartbroken and crushed with confusions, fears and regrets. Azraa is drenched in fear and decides to go to one of those illegal clinics to find a cosmetic surgeon to stitch her hymen. Azraa cannot afford the procedure but begs the doctor to work in exchange and he agrees. During her working hours she shares chats with a few women who attend the clinic and learns so much about virginity and all matters involved. She takes an interest in the subject and starts to research the topic for the AUC competition assignment. The relationship with her professor becomes deeper as they work together, and although its platonic, students and faculty see them together often, start to gossip and assume it’s more. Ahmed, her ex-boyfriend, continues to follow her and harass her with his threats. Meanwhile, her parents are aware it’s her last year in college and they keep telling her about potential husbands who are visiting to propose, but she avoids them by creating excuses to not show up, and her parents start to suspect something is wrong. Political turmoil results in new uprising and protests start to take place in Tahrir square. Azraa joins one morning after seeing a group of women shouting for freedom and democracy. Masses of people are protesting to get rid of the President. She and a few other women get arrested by the authorities and are forced to undergo virginity examinations. As her family finds out and her ex-boyfriend confirms this news by spreading rumors in the town where she lives, Azraa is brutally beaten by her brother and father, her family disowns her, and she is a popular subject for gossip, exaggerative rumors and an outcast in her neighborhood. After rejections from family members and friends for a place to stay, she can think of no one to go to but the American Professor. He takes her in and tries to encourage her to finish the research she’s started, but she is too hurt, depressed and distracted as everything else in her life falling apart. Rumors from faculty and students intensify. After a long time of almost giving up, she than realizes it’s all she has left. After seeing people who die to free Egypt, Azraa realizes the importance of voice and insists on struggling against all odds to achieve her only serious desire to win the contest. She presents her project proposal to the dean and wins. The film ends with Azraa in New York City at the International Cultural Convention. She starts the long public speech revealing her entire research on the virginity issue with women in Egypt. The crowd comes to tears, laughs, and claps. 

What is Needed:
Right now I am working on producing a 5 minute teaser and have 4 months between Aug 15th and December 15th for Pre-production and Production in Cairo then post here in New York once I get back December 15th. In general I probably need to raise about $150,000.00 or above only for development and still figuring it out. Some examples for why I need this amount... 

1-      5 min Teaser ($50 thousand) Deadline December15th
2-      Website www.iamnotvirginmovie.com
3-      Script
4-      Logo & other stationeries
5-      Critiquing and proof reading
6-      Entertainment Lawyer/ drafting Contracts and Agreements
7-      Casting
8-      Locations & Permits 

The list goes on, but this was just to give you an idea… What I am really focusing on now is producing the 5 minute teaser. I have been working on research in Cairo for the past year, attending film festivals to network and working on the development. I just registered the project as an S-corporation, and all of this preliminary work is expensive, so I need support.
  
For any questions please email me at info@iamnotvirginmovie.com
Thank you!

Sharine

--

SHARINE A. MOHAMED

F I L M    D I R E C T O R

I am not Virgin Movie. INC

+1 917 703 8244  USA

+2 019 718 1 718  EGYPT

+33 6 197479 23  FRANCE 

 

     

 

 

About the Director:
New York and Cairo based emerging filmmaker Sharine Mohamed intends to create fictional films based on true stories about issues that women face, relationships, cultural clashes, and social stigmas. The daughter of an Egyptian father and American mother, Sharine Mohamed has lived half her life in each country always feeling torn between two very different cultures and having difficulty adapting to both and being accepted in each. Currently, she shifts between living in New York and Cairo and tries to mix the best from both cities which mold her to be who she is today no matter where she goes.

Member Spotlight: Silvana D'Mikos, visual artist, participates in the Show: CART, Baltimore, MD, USA - July 9 - Sept 4, 2011‏

International Women Artists' Salon is thrilled to announce visual artist member Silvana D'Mikos is participating in the exhibition C A R T at Current Gallery in Baltimore, MD, USA, July 9th through September 4th, 2011, with opening reception on July 9th.  

"Soap Series"

Silvana D’Mikos participates in 

C A R T  

July 9 - September 4, 2011

Opening Saturday July 9, 7-10pm

Current Gallery

421 N Howard, Baltimore, MD 21201

http://www.currentspace.com/ 

Opening coinciding with  30^th Annual Artscape

http://www.artscape.org/about

"Soap Series"

  

C A R T

The average American makes two trips to buy groceries each week, making supermarkets, mini-marts, and corner stores essential and incredibly influential parts of our everyday lives. All items are bought and sold at these stores using money. Money is earned through labor, and labor comes in countless different packages, much like our food. Through our labor we are inspired and we are exploited. We progress and we are repressed. We survive.

Art is created through labor, but unlike some of the more negative forms labor takes, art stimulates our minds, challenges our imaginations, and expands our vision for the world. Art is at the center of humanity’s continuous evolution, but it remains extraordinarily undervalued by mainstream American society, which is almost solely focused on the seemingly endless cycle of labor and consumption. This limited view of life is slowly eliminating our ability to imagine, dream, and think freely.

Through C A R T, Current Gallery is positing that art is not optional, but essential. It affects all of us internally, whether we are aware of it or not, and it should therefore be considered as fundamental to our daily lives as the products we purchase at grocery stores every week. Therefore, Current Space will be transformed into a fully functional mini-supermarket, complete with aisles, window displays, shopping baskets, and cash registers in an attempt to explore the exchange of artists’ labor for profit in a familiar, everyday setting.

Curators: Michael Benevento, Monique Crabb and Andrew Liang

  

Silvana D’Mikos is an interdisciplinary installation artist from Uruguay. Her installations are characterized by a variety of aesthetic languages; sculptures, digital images, sound and animation, also through the use of different materials. D’Mikos’s work explores social conflicts derived from human feelings, emotions and relationships.

In 2004, she obtained a Bachelor in fine Arts degree from the Fine Arts School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There, she taught art history to high school student in deprived neighborhoods, worked in carnival as a sculptor, and participated in urban art, community and recycling art projects.

In 2005 she moved to Miami, Florida, where her work began to change direction by the incorporation of new media elements.   She also worked as a graphic designer, and, as an art teacher with at-risk high school students at the Young Men's Academy at MacArthur South. 

D’Mikos’s work has been exhibit internationally.  In 2007 she moved to France to participate in the international curatorial program of L’ecole du Magasin, Centre National d’Art Contemporain de Grenoble.  At the L’ecole, she researched and studied contemporary art collections, focusing on the Belgium collection of Annick and Anton Herbert.  Research that originated the exhibition “Hypothèse pour une Histoire”, a selection of documents from the collection archives, from 1989 and 1990 emphasizing the relationship between the collection and the socio-political events of that period. Also, the publication, “Access to documents/ Access through document”, magazine Hors d’Œuvre, on the access of documents in contemporary art practices and researches.

The following year, she has attended an international summer program in New Media at Transart Institute, Danube University, Berlin, Germany. There she participated in workshops and seminaries about Identity, Sensory perception and Newness. 

"Soap Series"

 

Artist Statement

My training as a sculptor began at the Universidad Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After graduation in 2004, I worked as an interdisciplinary artist, and produced a number of works reflecting my views on the controversial aspects of society. The Invisible Blood Sucker, my instillation that exposes the economic crisis of 2008 exemplifies this idea. 

I see art as an experimental process originating from daily human interactions, and use a variety of media; sculptures, sounds, digital images and motion to express it. My work, I Cannot Understand, which focuses on the problems of communication between people of diverse ethnicity, is a good example.

At present, I am working with a variety of materials and to uncover and hope to uncover a new meaning and potential to highlight life’s transformations and impermanence.  My recycled paper installation and soap sculpture project are based on this idea.

www.demikosart.com

Member Spotlight: Marye Lobb, musician - announcing her fundraiser for her second album‏

International Women Artists' Salon is thrilled to announce singer/songwriter member Marye Lobb is working on her second album and is asking for your help in making it come to fruition.  Please join us in supporting her goal to share her creative gifts with the world.

"An artist has a responsibility.

to listen to the world around him or herself.

to take it in and comprehend the complexity to the best of his or her ability.

An artist has a responsibility.

to be honest.

art, in its truest form, has no hidden agenda - it is there to breathe, to speak, to merely exist.

An artist has a responsibility.

to create a positive message.

to propose a solution, radical or simple as it may be - to serve the greater good."

-Marye Lobb 2011

What this is all about:

I released my first album Finding Home (which you can find on itunes) in 2008 and now it is time to record album number 2.

The songs on my second album are intimate stories from the heart about living in New York City as an artist for the past three years.

I have selected the best professionals, studios and material so that you can enjoy this album in your living room with a glass of wine or cup of tea and hopefully it will make your life better.

The plan:

My good friend and colleague George Saenz will be producing the album. (Cumbiagra, Mic the Robot, Jarana Beat, Son Tostáo).  George has shared the stage with: Ruben Blades, Juan Luis Guerra, Eddie Palmieri, Maria Schneider, Gloria Estefan and has performed at Carnegie Hall, The Montreal Jazz Festival with McCoy Tyner as well as clubs and venues throughout New York City and North America.  George is hot!
 

We have selected the best studios, the best engineers and the most talented musicians to record with us.  We have photographers and designers on board to make the album not only sound good, but look good.

What the money will go towards:

Recording an album is a big project that requires a lot of love and a substantial amount of money.  We for sure have the love part down.  Just need to get that budget together!

The budget will pay the producers, engineers, studios and musicians.  It also covers the photographers, designers, manufactures and publicists. Hard working, talented professionals will be compensated for their excellent work.

You can be a part of this production as it's only possible with the participation of fans, friends and family.

How to Support Me:

My friends’ love and support greatly contributed to the success of my first album and I'm striving to make this one even better! Unfortunately, to do it well requires more resources then I currently have; therefore, I am using Kickstarter (a groundbreaking resource for independent artists) and am working to raise $6,000 by July 20th.  That money will go to studio time, mixing, duplication, registration fees, cover art, and a very talented producer. I'm sending you this message in hopes that you would be able to help me reach my goal.

Here is the link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928568145/be-part-of-the-production-for-mary-e-lobbs-2nd-alb?ref=live 

When you check out the site you will notice that there are different rewards for each denomination.  For example, if you contribute $10 you will get a digital download of the album before it is released.  If you contribute $25 you will get a copy of the album signed and sent to your home.  So, if you contribute you are essentially pre ordering the album - pretty cool, right?

The program is set up in a way that if I do not reach my goal I won't receive the money, and for that reason I have set my budget at the bare minimum amount I need to complete this project.

I totally understand if you can't pitch in right now, money is tight for everyone so please don't even give it a second thought if this isn't doable for you right now - I completely understand.

Either way, if you feel comfortable, it would mean the world to me if you can forward this information on to three people you know who might want to be a patron to the arts. I'm trying to get the word out however I can.

If you'd like to be a patron of the arts to an artist who you believe can go somewhere, now is your chance!  Every little bit helps, I promise.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU in advance for your consideration, time and generosity.

Thank you for believing in me.

Marye

www.maryelobb.com

Born in the Midwest and raised in Rochester, NY, Marye trotted the globe in search for inspiration and purpose. After listening to sounds and taking in the culture of Ireland, Norway, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, she found herself singing songs and playing guitar in New York City clubs. With her Quaker and Buddhist ideals at heart, she put herself through school at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. Upon graduation, she released Finding Home in response to her travels. Now in New York City she teaches, writes and performs and is working on her second album.

Member Spotlight: Lanie Zipoy, Producer and Orietta Crispino, founder of Theaterlab, collaborate with "Voices from a Kentucky Prison" project. Benefit reading in NYC, May 23rd

International Women Artists' Salon is honored to announce the participation of members Lanie Zipoy (producer) and Orietta Crispino (founder of Theaterlab) in the collaborative project, Voices from a Kentucky Prison.

On Monday, May 23rd, Theaterlab in association with AMZ Creative, LLC present Northpoint: Voices from a Kentucky Prison, a benefit reading of short plays written by prisoners at Northpoint in Burgin, Kentucky. This exciting, one-night only event will support the 2011 playwriting program at Northpoint as well as seed a two-week playwright residency at the prison.

Details:

Monday, May 23, 2011 at 7:00 pm

at Baruch Performing Arts Center
25th St. between Lexington Ave. & Third Ave.

Here's what the prisoners said about the playwriting program:

"This opportunity encourages us to learn about subjects that can benefit us not only while we are incarcerated, but when we rejoin society. Many of us only have what we have learned prior to prison, or in prison. So any opportunity to learn and grow is tremendously beneficial and appreciated!” -- Denny Holder

“ After just two classes I have been really inspired to follow my dream of becoming a writer.” -- Jack Cook

“With art in our lives it allows us to be creative, which opens up an opportunity to think, which opens doors to see what is going on inside of us. It’s a wonderful chance to better ourselves.” -- Nicklaus Murrell

 

The performance will feature:

The Lie and the Cover by Nicklaus Murrell, directed by Daniel Talbott
Screen Warriors by Denny Holder, directed by Jeremy Dobrish
Convictions by Rob Daughenbaugh, directed by Melanie Sutherland
Lunker by Jack Cook, directed by Carlo Altomare
The Innocent Man by Calvin Sturgill, directed by Erma Duricko
Reflections from Behind the Wire by Rick Cavins, directed by Padraic Lillis

and live music by Doug Wamble.

Production Team:

Synge Maher (Artistic Director)

Lanie Zipoy (Producer)

Montserrat Mendez (Producer/Technical Director)

Destiny Lilly (Casting Director)

Theaterlab (Producing Organization), co-founder Orietta Crispino

The performance will last 80 minutes and be followed by a reception.

Website: http://www.northpointplays.com 
Tickets: $30 at https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/827135
Donations: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/store/28175/donate/14585

Lanie Zipoy

Lanie Zipoy (Producer) is a producer with AMZ Creative, LLC and public relations consultant for the arts. Her producer credits include Universal Robots by Mac Rogers (2009 ITBA Best Off-Off Broadway Play, Four New York Innovative Theatre Awards nominations); 7 Sins in 60 Minutes (HERE and Philly Fringe); The Riverside Symphony (Planet Connections Festivity, 7 Award nominations) and The Battle of Spanktown (2010 FringeNYC). She is producing 23 Feet in 12 Minutes in New Orleans May 18 - 21, 2011, sponsored by Credit Suisse. Lanie is a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, TRU’s Producer Development Program and the New York Innovative Theatre Awards Honorary Awards Committee.

Orietta Crispino

Theaterlab (Producing Organization), founded in 2006 by Carlo Altomare and Orietta Crispino, is dedicated to research into the nature of live performance.  In the past five years, Theaterlab has established itself as the premier downtown salon for experimental theatre and performance.  Altomare and Crispino have created experimental theatrical pieces, including Appearance -- A Suspense in Being and Solo Performance Workshop. Crispino also directed La Fricchettona, three monologues by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, and developed Three Sisters Come and Go, drawn from the texts of Chekhov, Beckett and Julia Kristeva.  Altomare teamed with visual artist Naoki Iwakawa for a 13-part action painting cycle, EXCAVATION, which was presented at Theaterlab over two years (2008 - 2010).  The company’s artist residency program has hosted Jef Johnson, renowned principal clown of Slava’s Snowshow; Dutch movement artist Linda Olthof; famed Italian performance artist group Motus and comedian Reno. For more information, visit www.theaterlabnyc.com.

Member Spotlight: Visual Artists Cornelia Jensen and Crystal Gregory showcase their studios at Madarts, Brooklyn, NY, May 14th and 15th‏

International Women Artists' Salon is honored to present visual artist members Cornelia Jensen and Crystal Gregory who invite you to visit their studios at Madarts in Brooklyn, NY, May 14th and 15th, noon to 6pm.  They join over 40 fellow Madarts artists for this open studio tour for the public.  This is a fine opportunity to see artists' finished pieces as well as work-in-progress and to see how they work.  

MOST - Madarts Open Studio Tour

May 14th and 15th 

12 to 6pm

255 18th Street

Brooklyn, NY

between 5th & 6th Avenue

"Sunset Crater Park"
Cornelia Jensen

latex paint on wood
2010
24" x 48" 

"Foot Traffic"
Crystal Gregory

Granny squares on footbridge

2010

5' x 75'

"Dionysus" 

Cornelia Jensen

Styrofoam packing material, plastic grass, fluorescent light

2009

18" x 13" x 9"d

"Foundation"
Crystal Gregory

Crochet incased bricks

2009

5' x 5'

 "Sagres"

Cornelia Jensen

Flattened rusty can, latex paint, butterfly wing, ladybugs, milkweed on wood and canvas

2010

10" x 12"

"Heirloom"
Crystal Gregory

Drywall, wood, and glass

2010

14' x 10' x 10'

Crystal Gregory 

Bio
www.crystalgregory.org
Crystal Gregory is a multi media artist creating works that focus
on urban landscape, home, and handwork. Her materials are domestic,
architectural, and organic. The art operates as both sculpture and
site specific installation. Lace and cloth and their collective
relationships to psychogeographies, domesticity, privacy and personal
space are the tools she uses to communicate within her work. Her
installations and component sculptures are hybridized spaces, fragile
and distressed. Her practice is divided into community outreach
projects, studio practice and public art.
 

Currently living and working in New York Crystal's work has been
written about in New York Magazine, ArtSlant, and Kipton Art. PS 122
Gallery hosted her for in a six week performative installation, On the
Fence. Other shows include Art in Odd Places, public art show, as well
as Giacobetti Paul Gallery Dumbo and Fair Folk & a Goat. She is
currently working with two architectural firms on permanent art
installations and has been given a grant for a public art piece from
the Department of Transit NYC. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts
from the University of Oregon with a focus in Fiber Arts. In the fall
she will attend The School of the Art Institute of Chicago on a Full
Merit Scholarship in the Fiber and Martial Studies MFA program.

Artist Statement

I use lace as the foundation of my work, giving structure to my ideas
and rhythm to my patterns.  Lace draws the eye to negative space,
delicately unveiling, revealing more than it conceals, using it’s own
emptiness as pattern.  Lace and cloth have strong relationships to
domesticity, privacy and personal space and at the same time this
material is incredibly charged with societal associations of class,
femininity, and sex.

As a multi media artist I am using the material ideas of lace to
inspect issues of the urban landscape, the home, and handwork.  My
materials are domestic and architectural and operate as both sculpture
and site specific installation.  I use antique lace and vintage damask
pattern to penetrate building material and create domestic sculpture.

Cornelia Jensen 

Bio

corneliajensen@yahoo.com

www.corneliajensen.com

Cornelia Jensen’s work ranges from figure-ground painting to found-object assemblage, often blurring the boundary between abstract and representational imagery. By juxtaposing natural and recycled objects in a reliquary format, Jensen references the relationship between human-made environment and human unconscious. Jensen has begun incorporating light into some of her assemblages. The added element of illumination, transforms our conception of what is a normal avenue to the sublime.

Jensen received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2009 while living in New York. Prior to 2003, she spent fifteen years in San Francisco where she designed and co-created venues for art and film including the Lola Gallery and the The Werepad. She has curated art and multi-media events, and worked on independent films. In 1988 she began the graduate program in Film/Video Performance at what was then called California College of Arts and Crafts. In 1987, she received a BA in Philosophy from Haverford College. In 1986 she studied at the Syracuse University Studio Art Program in Florence, Italy. She graduated with honors in Art from The Masters School in 1983 and received the Merriam Hewitt Art Award. Jensen started exhibiting her art at the age of four and was fortunate enough to come from a family that encouraged the study and practice of art. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Europe and Korea and is in private collections in the United States and Europe. Jensen was born in 1965 and grew up outside of New York City. She currently lives in Brooklyn.

Artist Statement

 

Ranging from pure painting to stylized found-object assemblage, my work explores the context of the “thing-in-itself” in relation to its environment. I integrate paint and hardware with natural and recycled objects such as ladybugs, milkweed, tin cans and circuit boards. The juxtaposition of seemingly disparate objects and materials emphasizes their formal qualities, severing the association of each part to its own history. This transforms the individual elements into relics laced with a blend of sentiment and irreverence. The relationship between the natural and man-made materials decodes the evidence of the collective unconscious in our fabricated environment, and raises the question of what is meaningful or useless, beautiful or ugly, rare or common.

For my graduate thesis I did a study of James Turrell’s use of light. By creating the illusion of making space appear to have mass, his art distills the experience of our perception down to the moment of “seeing ourselves see”. His subtle yet transformative use of light as a medium inspired me to integrate light into my work to enhance the perceptual response to mundane materials. I create pieces out of found Styrofoam packing material with internally incorporated light. The light pervades the material, illuminating the piece from within, instead of relying on external directional or ambient lighting to make the work visible. This alters our perception of the material by adding a level of intangibility, which transforms our perception of expected avenues to the sublime.