24 years and 1 day of art

December 5th I drove out to Buffalo, NY to visit a few art galleries.

First stop was the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. Works of two very different artists adorned the walls: AJ Fries Ignoring The Sirens and Jon Haddock Vintage Mouse Porn. With AJ’s work I couldn’t help but think “that has to be a photograph”, alas…all paintings. As for Jon’s work, it was one of those experiences where I didn’t really want to look at them because of the crude content, but at the same time I couldn’t stop myself looking at them. Also what was really amusing was looking at “porn” in an art space that is in the back of a church!

Behind my car to the left is the Arts Center.

Next stop was the Burchfield Penney Art Center.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Craft Art Western New York 2009 exhibition.

Being the coffee-lover that I am I really appreciated Alicia Eggert’s piece Coffee Cup Conveyor Belt Calendar. I love the concept.

Another ceramics piece which caught my eye was Kala Stein’s piece Convivium.

Lastly was the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

I never tire of viewing works of artists such as Andy Warhol, Piet Mondrian, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet in person.

After traveling upstairs I remember walking around the corner and literally doing a double-take. This is what I was confronted with:

No title (folding table and chairs, beige) by Robert Therrien. Come on, this is just really cool!

Also upstairs was the exhibit Fletcher Benton: The Alphabet.

“M” is for Megan. I couldn’t resist!

Overall the day was a success.

December 5, 2009 was also my 24th birthday. Happy Birthday to me.

Featured Artist @ Tap & Mallet

Last Thursday (October 29, 2009) was the opening of a show I am in at Tap & Mallet in Rochester, NY. Seven pieces from my Constructed Landscapes series will be hanging through February 2010. This winter show consists of four female local artists. With me, the work of Stacey Mrva, Sarah Rutherford, and Mariah Essom adorn the walls.

The above picture was taken right after I hung the work, before the opening that night. [from left to right: Field, Gazebo, Cornfields, Chairs, Lighthouse, Barn, and Bridge]

My friend Rachelle took some pics at the opening and when I get them from her I will post them here as well.

The same friend, Rachelle, took this shot with her iPhone. It’s a little blurb about the opening that was on one of the menus at the pub I believe.

It was a really fun time, great turn-out, stimulating art, what more could a girl ask for?

As I mentioned before, the show is up through February 2010 so you have plenty of time to go check it out if you’re in the ROC area!!

You can check out the Tap & Mallet website to view the profiles of all of the artists involved, both past and present. Enjoy!

Below are some screenshots of the website:

Paint Made Flesh @ MAG

Last Saturday I went to the opening party at the Memorial Art Gallery for the exhibition Paint Made Flesh. The show was great.

*I blacked out the gallery in respect of MAG’s policy of not photographing in the Grand Gallery.

A couple of quotes from the gallery walls I kinda fell in love with:

“To paint, to write, to teach in the most dedicated sincere way, is the most intimate affirmation of creative life we possess in these despairing years.” -Philip Gustom

“Arists today are…attuned to the sadness, terror, and the ecstasy of history, They understand that the present is history and that all art is contemporary art.” -Jerry Saltz

3 NEW Constructed Landscapes pieces!!

SO EXCITED to announce the completion of 3 new pieces in my Constructed Landscapes series!!

Road. © 2009 by Megan Charland.

Wall. © 2009 by Megan Charland.

Boat. © 2009 by Megan Charland.

OK, so maybe this last one (Boat) is not 100% new, I re-worked Lake from 2007.

sometimes, I like to draw

Just a little something I drew this afternoon. Enjoy.

MAG-Clothesline Festival

This past Sunday (09/13/09) I volunteered at the Memorial Art Gallery M&T BANK Clothesline Festival and there was a great turnout.

The clouds eventually went away and it was a beautiful sunny day…at this point I was way too distracted by the artists’ booths to take any pictures

Perhaps next year you will see me in a booth!!

I was pleasantly surprised to run into Two Halves Gallery. Founded by Olivia Davis and Emma Vann, both University of Rochester students, Two Halves Gallery is an art gallery in the making.

I first met both Olivia and Emma this past spring while they were interns at Rochester Contemporary Art Center. They are both very charming and talented young ladies. I am very excited to see what comes of THG.

Just a little info. about THG taken from their pamphlet from the festival:

Two Halves Gallery is a “University and Community Cooperative Art Gallery.”

Mission and Purpose:
“Two Halves Gallery is a student and community based pre-professional cooperative art gallery whose purpose is to bring more arts resources to the Westside community of Rochester. Two Halves looks to facilitate community and student interaction in order to create a mutually beneficial relationship between these two communities.”

They hope to soon be a not for profit organization. Also, they have already secured endorsement from Southwest, Sector 4 Community Council (October 2008) and received official endorsement from University of Rochester Department of Art and Art History (November 2008.)

I have no doubt that this will be a success. Good luck Two Halves Gallery!!

art in 1.5 hours

About two weeks ago now, a friend and I marked our calendars for a day of art. When August 12th finally came around it seemed our schedules and the schedules of the art institutions we planned on visiting were not one in the same. We ended up with about 1.5 hours to run around and see the current exhibits. So, we decided to hit up the main 3 (according to me, I am a member at all 3): George Eastman House, Memorial Art Gallery, and Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

First stop was the George Eastman House and it was a very short trip. I was looking forward to viewing Nature as Artifice: New Dutch Landscape in Photography and Video Art and The New Topographics exhibits, but ended up being followed by 2 security officers the entire time and decided to just leave. I have been a member at GEH for almost 4 years now and have never had such a horrible experience. Very disappointing.

*I blacked out the gallery in respect of MAG’s policy of not photographing in the Grand Gallery.

Next was the Memorial Art Gallery. I love walking around here, I always feel so comfortable and the security guards are NOT intrusive.

My mission, while at MAG was to view the 62nd Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition. This year was a really great collection of work with a few surprises! Before I even entered the gallery I could hear this creepy breathing noise that sent chills up my spine. After entering the Grand Gallery I found “Box of Sighs”, 2008 by Anne Havens. It was a box made out of concrete and stone with an MP3 player that played breathing noises. The breathing noises were recordings of Anne in her studio. I do not personally know Anne, but I have met her during my time interning/volunteering at Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

On the other side of the gallery I came across 2 pieces by Scott Vahan Tavitian. I worked with Scott at the Imaging Systems Lab at Rochester Institute of Technology for 2 years while we were in school. Scott graduated from RIT this past May with a BFA. I hadn’t seen any of his work in over a year now so it was nice to see his photographs “Willow Ridge Subdivision”, 2009 and “Winners Circle Subdivision”, 2008 in the show.

My favorite piece in the show, by far, was Kim Waale’s “Re-inventing Nature”, 2007. A tree made out of knitted wire and branches was mirrored on the wall by an inverted tree drawn from pen and pencil. I really wish I had a picture of this! Kim was awarded the “Harris Popular Vote Award” and the “Louis D’Amanda Memorial Award.”

Very nice experience.

We ran into Rochester Contemporary Art Center about 10 mins before closing. I had seen State of the City before, I volunteered at the opening August 7th but my friend hadn’t had the pleasure of viewing it yet. The photographic work of Lesley Horowitz and the graffiti art of FUA Krew were on show.

Overall an interesting show, it brought up a lot of questions. I also volunteered at the artist talk on August 8th and it seemed members of the community shared my curiosity.

I think it is interesting that the graffiti in the gallery will be painted over in about a month, so in reality the graffiti out on the streets is safer. This fact, is what makes this next point so interesting.

Artists from FUA Krew painted on canvases and then blended them into the marks on the wall. These canvases were for sale. So in a way, part of the marks will survive.

Viewing this work reminded me instantly of Jean-Michel Basquiat and how he was first known as “SAMO.” It should be known right now that I am a HUGE Basquiat fan. From buildings to canvasses…it should be interesting to see what the future will hold for FUA Krew.

Personas | Metropath(ologies) | An installation by Aaron Zinman

I came across Personas | Metropath(ologies) | An installation by Aaron Zinman today and decided to test it out. From watching the site in action, what I understand is that it gathers up a ton on information on my name from the internet and then categorizes it using different pretty colors.

Above are my results. Don’t even ask me what the green “illegal” means…I haven’t got a clue!

This project however interesting, certainly has its flaws. In .58 seconds after doing a search in Google for Megan Charland there are about 84,300 results, which is just crazy and irrelevant at the moment. The first 24 results are all about me: my website, Facebook account, Twitter account, LinkedIn, my blogs, other networking accounts, etc… Then result #25 comes along and it’s about a Megan Charland who lives in Arizona…not me. See the problem? These results aren’t that accurate, they can’t be. There would need to be a more detailed search in order to separate me, from the other Megan Charland. Result #26 goes back to me and then it’s pretty random after that…and who knows how many other Megan Charlands are out there? If you want to search through the 84,300 results on Google, you can get back to me!! Kidding!!

So, I’m out there on the web, I already knew that. So much of my time and energy goes towards networking myself and I would say 95% of that is done on-line. What did I get out of this installation then? …pretty colors

society6- my first studio is created!!

I finally got around to creating my first “Studio” on my society6 account. Check it out HERE.

With my first post I decided to add some of my earlier Constructed Landscapes work. I am working on a few new pieces for this series and I am VERY excited to share my new work with you!!

art vs technology

I would like to share with you a couple of quotes from Art History after Modernism by Hans Belting:

“The very loss of a binding definintion of art prevents us from holding a well-founded position on media art. The question is not whether the media arts are capapble of being art but whether artists are willing to create art with the new technologies.” (p. 4)

“Art is still bound to an artist who uses it for his or her personal expression, and to a viewer under this spell. That makes it the secret opponent of technology, whose raison d’être is functionality and whose information is geared not toward a spectator but toward a user. This is why technology has always been indifferent to every personal worldview as it had always been mirrored in art. Put in extreme terms, technology does not interpret the given world but invents a technological world in which all physical and spatial reality is suspended. It thus dramatizes the crisis of individualism that has emerged in modernism and since the exhaustion of bourgeois culture.” (p. 4-5)

I have been working on an essay for a few weeks now, and after reading this first chapter in Art History after Modernism by Hans Belting last night I feel like I am going in the right direction.

I feel really good about this.