Tag Archives: Everson Museum of Art

8th grade art, art, art education, art exhibition, art museum, art resources, Karen Tashkovski, painting

Let’s Be Frank

Image Leave a comment

Of all the art exhibits I have ever viewed, this one is the one I think my students would like the most. It is so easy to understand the complex clarity of this man as he visualizes it all on the page.

Frank Buffalo Hyde was born in 1974. His artwork reflects a Native American heritage with the modern twist of American popular culture imagery to include the ever-evolving role of modern technology as it relates to his 1980s childhood.

Primary colors, bold brushstrokes juxtaposed with more nuanced ones, figures emerging from the canvases as if they’ve been removed from a photo album of memories and planted here – all offering a sense of pride and joy.

I don’t see social (in)justice, like in the work of Jaune “Quick-to-See” Smith. Her retrospective exhibition is currently on view at the Whitney in New York City. For an art lesson, I used her paintings as reference to create mixed-media paintings using collage to link images of horses with personal message text.

Instead, Frank Buffalo Hyde’s work is autobiographical. The paintings are personal and yet, we can identify with them. I admire him for this – that he can tell this intimate story through a visual language that me and eighth graders can understand. I mean, I think we can. There is always that bit of mystery in everyone.

I want to be like Frank.

Native Americana is currently on view in galleries A and B at The Everson Museum of Art. You have plenty of time to see it. The show is up until September 10th, 2023.

401 Harrison Street
Syracuse, NY 13202
(315) 474 6064

Museum Hours
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 11:00am – 5:00pm
Thursday: 11:00am – 8:00pm
Friday: 11:00am – 5:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am – 5:00pm
Sunday: 10:00am – 5:00pm

art, art museum, Karen Tashkovski, painting

Problem Solved

Image 3 Comments

The Partridge Family’s debut was in 1970 on Fridays on ABC. That was about the time I first visited The Everson Museum of Art. We’ve had topsy-turvy weather so far this summer in Syracuse, New York – some air quality issues due to Canadian wildfires then rainy days followed by ninety-three degree heat-wavy stuff.

Currently, Amazon Prime has The Partridge Family series in its entirety available to stream. The weather made me do it. I’ve been inside watching it and now I am at the tail end of it. Some episodes are very memorable, like the one with the Albuquerque runaway, and others not so much (part of the 4th season with a four-year-old guest singer is pretty excruciating). But I am sticking with it. The jokes are so much funnier from my adult perspective. In some respects, the show is dated, specifically as they are handling issues such as women’s rights and race relations. But in other ways, such as Danny’s behavior issues – wow! And the maxi skirt for day looks worn by Shirley and Laurie are timeless perfection. Nostalgia timey-wimey at its finest.

The Everson has offered me something similar. Many of the paintings hanging in the Off the Rack exhibition housed in galleries C and D were hanging on the museum’s walls in the 1970s.

Now the old are juxtaposed with newer pieces, all harmonizing well via color and proportion just as the set decoration and costumes worn by the Partridges had a mix and matchy thing. Although, truth-be-told, David Cassidy and Shirley Jones were the only harmonious singers of the flock. The rest were just posers.

There is no reason to harvest a collection of visual valuables if you don’t take the time to look at them. The Everson Museum of Art has created this salon style cacophony of artwork to solve a storage issue. They are renovating the storage space. Off the Rack is a walk-in closet posing as an art show. But so what? It’s still pretty great!

And what do you know? It’s Friday, it’s cloudy and the museum is open until 5:00pm. It’s a timeless time-traveler’s dream.

art exhibition, art museum, Karen Tashkovski, photography, portraits

Muir-ing

Image Leave a comment

You can find Coming Home, a photography collection by Doug Muir, in the Robineau Gallery (first floor) at the Everson Museum of Art. Muir passed away in 2016 just as the San Francisco Museum had aquired several dozens of his work for their permanent collection.

Muir grew up in Syracuse but spent his adult life in California. The photographs depict images taken on both coasts, some of family and others not, but all articulating the American slice-of-life experience through the decades.

His daughter helped curate this show, sorting through journals documenting the artist’s journey, some of which are displayed alongside images from newspaper clippings and baseball-style trading cards (showcasing photographers), and other paraphernalia that helps us discover the inner dialogue of this new-to-me photographer.

His nephew took this iPhone photo of me, because these days we are all photographers. Doug Muir’s equipment was more the Brownie ilk.

Doug Muir – Coming Home will be on display through September 3, 2023. Visit the Everson’s web-site for more information including hours of operation.

https://www.localsyr.com/community/the-conversation/the-conversation-david-and-heather-muir/

art, art education, art exhibition, Karen Tashkovski, student artwork

Gala for the Arts

Image Leave a comment

On Wednesday, June 21, 2023, I attended Gala for the Arts at the Everson. I blondified for the occasion. Thank you, Amanda LoSecco!

The event was organized by CITI Arts in Education and was intended as a celebration of art education honoring students, teachers, administrators and friends of the arts.

We dressed in formal attire as we viewed student artwork, listened to student musical medleys and noshed on light hors d’oeuvres from The Red Sun Fire Roasting Company.

LeMoyne College has started a Visual & Performing Arts program. They were both sponsors and honorees.

I believe this was a first-timey event. Not sure if it will become an annual thingy. Would be nice!

So fun! <3

#ullajohnson #tashkovski #coach #stuartweitzman
art and sports, art museum, Karen Tashkovski, museum, painting, sculpture

Hoop Madness

Image Leave a comment

Every year about this time, I assign a sketchbook assignment called March Madness, which is a drawing of people playing basketball. Not the hoop or a ball, or an aerial view of a basketball court.

But that is pretty much what I get. So frustrating. Basketball isn’t a successful theme for art.

As per this art exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art, I can only surmise that the curator thought – give the city what it loves, and for Syracuse, that is basketball. Art as secondary to the sport. Basketball players posing as contemporary artists.

Shoelaces as art. Basketballs as art. Sneakers as art. Trading cards as art.

And a room of basketball hoops and balls to actually play the game.

I wish I could be positive and open minded about this. Like in the vortex happy. But I was all – this is dumb.

Hoop Dreams: Basketball and Contemporary Art continues through May 21, 2023. Not sure if it is open today because of the blizzard, but you can make your own judgment during regular museum hours listed below.

Everson Museum of Art

401 Harrison Street
Syracuse, NY 13202
Tel (315) 474 6064

Museum Hours
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 11:00am – 5:00pm
Thursday: 11:00am – 8:00pm
Friday: 11:00am – 5:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am – 5:00pm
Sunday: 10:00am – 5:00pm
abstract, art, art exhibition, art museum, ceramics, found object, Karen Tashkovski, sculpture

The Harmony in Dissonance

Image Leave a comment

Raymon Elozua: Structure/Dissonance is currently on view at the Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York 13202. The show continues through December 31, 2022.

These are large additive sculptures featuring ceramics, glass, steel and found objects, which culminate in an explosion of color and beautiful junk that satisfies the artist’s intellectual philosophy of “decaying industrial landscapes.”

This is not just a new series of work that takes a theme and runs with it. It is more like a half-century career retrospective. The bauble-rich sculptures make more sense in multiple because they sort of announce the concern of global waste.

Included in this show is Elozua’s personal collection of rusty enamelware. This is the part of the experience I loved best because I spent my entire summer doing something that was in the making for about seventeen years.

I bought a metal detector and searched the yard of my 1900s era home. There was so much there. The videos are on my YouTube channel. Now I just need to intellectualize these finds and incorporate them into art. The meaning? Unearthing the treasures that are right beneath you on your path. Most of it was garbage because back in the early 20th century people buried their trash in their own backyards. Isn’t that ironic?

We are always burying our hearts under the mask of reality. Making art is about building dreams. I want to build mine with all that garbage. And so does Elozua with his. I’d say that is harmony, not dissonance.

art, art gallery, art museum, drawing, flowers, painting, papier mache, sculpture

Big Bulbous Thingys

Image Leave a comment

Experimenting with a technique has its rewards, just ask Rebecca Hutchinson. And you can ask her yourself tomorrow – Saturday, September 10, 2022 during her gallery walk (the work is in the Robineau and Malzman Galleries) from 11:00 am – noon at the Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York 13202.

I met her last night at the art reception and I was delighted to make the acquaintance of such a spirited human being. She spoke of developing a technique where her large scale vessels are hand built upside-down using a series of paper strips dipped in clay slip, which is surprisingly strong. The pieces are not kiln fired and yet ,not fragile, which is intriguing.

Some of these enormous pods are decorated in botanical gestural paintings and drawings, like those on the long strips of rice paper located in the adjacent gallery. They are meant to represent the ebb and flow resilience of nature. This mark-making is what elevates this work from experimentally friendly bulbous thingys to big bulbous thingys with a meaningful message.

So cool!

Professor Hutchinson teaches ceramics at the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth in addition to her role as a working professional artist and all-around art trailblazer .

Rebecca Hutchinson – Regeneration will be up through December 31, 2022. There will also be a workshop scheduled to learn her techniques. Call the Everson at (315) 474-6064 for more information or visit their web-site. www.everson.org

art for sale, art museum, museum, store

The Thirty Dollar Ridlon

Image Leave a comment

Jim Ridlon has donated these amazing prints to the Everson Museum of Art. They are located in the museum gift shoppe – for sale – and they are priced between $30 and $50. They are embossed. I’m not sure if this is true but the young man at the sales desk said he’d created them when he was a student and since he is not known for etchings or prints he decided to price them low.

I mean, they are a steal, really. They are created on a thick archival paper, probably Arches, not sure. You’d have to get them framed, but wow!

This is incredibly cool.

art, art education, art exhibition, art museum, Karen Tashkovski, museum

In Scale

Image 1 Comment

I’ve been reminiscing about Dawn Dolls. They were manufactured for only three years in the early ’70s by Topper. Dawn, Angie, Gary, and company. they were only six-and-a-half inches tall, so they were incompatible with Barbies because they were so small. But they were so pretty with silky long hair and “real” eyelashes, and of course, with very awesome 1970s fashions. I loved them and I love them still.

I’ve been stalking them on the Internet – Ebay, Etsy and Mercari mainly. I don’t really want to buy them, do I? I want to be the Dawn doll. Haven’t I always? So funny that my hair resembles hers now. All I need is an Alice & Olivia dress and I am good to go.

What struck me as I viewed Sharif Bey’s art exhibit at the Everson Museum of Art is that he too seems to be enamored with doll collections albeit his are quite large scale especially the necklaces!

Like Vanessa German’s work and Vanessa Johnson’s too, Bey has added his take on the African experience by way of the doll.

This show is housed in two of the four upstairs galleries and spans the artist’s thirty-year career. I mean, he’s only forty-eight, which indicates that some of the pieces in this collection of works were created when he was only eighteen. It is a lot of work – from functional ceramics to these large figurative pieces and finally the accessory wall. It is incredibly impressive for sure.

These necklaces in particular are really something. In the accompanying pamphlet prepared for a Junteenth visitation, it is revealed that he used toilet paper over glaze in the kiln to manifest the charred pattern on the “beadwork”. It is genius.

The scale speaks volumes about who this man is as an artist and as a human. It is a combo of continued visual exploration and ethnic pride coupled with a desire to both learn and teach.

Bey is a professor at Syracuse University in the Art Education department. The brochure professes to take children on a journey to discover themselves as he serves to explore ideas to carry him on his own path.

The exhibition is titled “Facets”. It works so well here because the Everson has always been first and foremost a ceramics museum. Knowing that these massive pieces are also fragile lends itself well to that idea that we are all fragile beings in a way, always seeking that strength of character in our true identities while harboring thoughts of doubt, worry and stupid fears that can easily break our spirits.

I wonder if that thought crossed his mind? No matter what doll one identifies with – big or small, black or white, etc., etc., we are all that creative spirit looking for a way to connect and feel that blessed feeling of validation as we develop our crafts/psyches in order to continue the ascent through life.

The Everson Museum of Art is located at 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, NY, 13202. Call (315) 474-6064 for more information or find them at www.everson.org.

Sharif Bey: Facets continues through August 14, 2022.

abstract, figurative, Karen Tashkovski, sculpture

Arlene’s Moment

Image Leave a comment

She was resolute in her determination to create art on her own terms.

I have known Syracuse artist Arlene Abend for thirty years. We met when I joined the now defunct Visual Arts Committee at the Civic Center. We held juried exhibitions and installed the work of local artists on the walls of the space – a captive audience situation, which lead to several sales. My sister even bought someone’s art from there and I met my first patron who ended up buying several of my paintings over the years.

I left the program after about four years. I wanted to do member exhibitions and everyone felt that was self-serving. Later, they moved the exhibitions to the PBS building (was it? I don’t really remember) but they did start having those member’s shows.

I have always felt the same way about the Everson Museum of Art. They would bring in these out of state artists who’d get recognition from our less established museum subsequently gaining the confidence to go on to illustrious careers. I couldn’t understand why the Everson didn’t cultivate from within. That seemed the perfect opportunity – to big up our talented local artists and catapult us towards successful art careers nationally. It would be a win-win as it would generate interest and revenue for the museum because there would be so many wealthy and amazing artists who would give back. I guess I was never thinking universally, but selfishly (my vortex contains the dream of showcasing my art in all four of the upper galleries – I can 100% fill them), The idea that we are an art community that helps and supports each other – is that too daft?

Well, it’s finally happening. Elizabeth Dunbar has begun this trajectory and we can currently see this manifestation in the form of a feisty little ninety-year-old woman who is currently showing her sculptures in the Robineau Gallery at the Everson Museum of Art.

We create our own realities and Arlene Abend’s road has been one primarily of family and deep-rooted friendships combined with the solitude of her artistry. Every one of us has stated a collective “it’s about time” in reference to this exhibition!

The bumpy amorphous shapes in her metal wall sculptures sort of mirror the curves in her path/emotions in her path – health issues, worry, relationship heart break, disappointment, money struggles, fears…and yet, the tiny humanoid figurines showcase her whimsy and humor, her belief in the human spirit even while the resin pieces indicate a sort of trapped suffering.

This exhibition has always been in Arlene Abend’s vortex – of that I am certain. It’s almost as though the resolution was in lowering the resistance. Lessening the struggle in favor of the resiliency of the human condition. Here she is at the apex of her career, all ragged edges, highs and lows, structures and voids, liquids solidifying inside her mind for all of us to witness – a life lived with an expectation to share it in all its incarnations.

It really does not matter how much time it takes for a dream to come true. That’s the beauty of it.

Arlene Abend – RESOLUTE is on display through April 17, 2022. Visit the www.everson.org for information regarding hours of operation and admission price or call (315) 474-6064.

The Everson Museum of Art

401 Harrison Street

Syracuse, NY 13202

#amicale hat #kesnyc face mask #tashkovski bracelet #frame leather shirt #joesjeans leather pants #ragandbone boots