Sunday, February 05, 2012

Starting out on this huge panel is very intimidating, but I gathered my courage and gave it a shot!  I went for a composition with strong diagonals to lead your eye across the panel.  I loosely borrowed building shapes from “View of Cannes, Evening”.  The composition is very simplistic, but I think as we all put in our different style, the simplicity will be an advantage.  If anyone has a more inspiring way to start, I will not be insulted if you want to start over.  Have fun!    Debbie 

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Thanks for the great start Sara.  Since both of our styles are very geometric, it was easy for me to expand on your shapes.  I tried to introduce some depth and more pattern.  I think artists with a softer style will be able to add subtlety once we get into the painting phase.

    

 – Debbie Wallace

Monday, February 06, 2012

I’m a realist painter by nature and so in thinking about what I wanted to add that was personal, I drew my face in a distorted style, so far, just in pencil. If I get to paint it, I think I’d do it in shades of gray to contrast with what I think the rest of the canvas will look like. It’s a little disconcerting to have such a huge canvas facing me. I’m curious to see how everyone’s palettes will blend OR NOT! 

– Joan Mazer

The Collaboration Journal

The Collaboration Journal

Friday, February 3, 2012

It was great fun starting off the collaboration today.  I’m excited to see where we go from here. The evolution of the design will certainly grow to a work of great dimension.  Feel free to enhance the fish realistically or take it out altogether. Enjoy!

- Sara Becker

A Letter from the Organizer

Here we are again!  It’s February, so it’s time for our Yellow Barn Collaboration!  Last year the Yellow Barn Instructors banded together to collaborate on some pretty awesome artworks.  We created three paintings over the month of February in a relay fashion with each instructor adding their personal touch to the artwork.  This time around, I’m leaving it up to my advanced students!  We’ll have two LARGE panels (72x30”) to work on for the month, one incorporating drawing media, the other paint.  The progress will be posted here daily so check back often! 

Our artists will also be keeping a digital journal, writing about their experience with working in collaboration.  They will be writing notes to their comrades explaining their choices, if they do not want anyone changing what they were working on, and if they would like future artists to embellish their work.  This is about community as much as it is about collaboration. 

As collaboration organizer, I will periodically be suggesting themes, approaches and possible directions for our 30 artists to work in, but will no way work on the paintings and drawings. 

If you would like to see the art in person, the Stone Tower 1^st floor will be open daily from 11:00-5:00pm. 

We invite everyone to follow our progress and if you have suggestions for our collaboration, please send an email to Jordan@jjbruns.com.  I’ll pass the suggestions on to our artists and maybe even post them in our digital journal!

Thanks for reading!

-Jordan Bruns

Studio Manager of the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery

Coming Together, Again

“Coming Together, Again”

The Collaboration of 30 Yellow Barn Artists

Chautauqua Tower Studio, Glen Echo Park

7300 MacArthur Blvd

Glen Echo, MD 20812

www.yellowbarnstudio.com

  

For the month of February the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, which boasts 600 members and 40 classes per semester, will be showing off some of its best and brightest advanced level students in the Chautauqua Tower 1^st floor studio.  Starting February 2^nd, the Chautauqua Tower (“Stone Tower”), which usually houses one resident artist for one month, will display the collaboration between 30 Yellow Barn artists.  The artists will be working on one large 72 x 28” painting/drawing in a relay style fashion.  They will each display their unique styles and different approaches to painting.  The artists’ progress will be documented throughout the month with photographs that will be posted on the Yellow Barn blog (http://yellowbarnstudio.blogspot.com/) and Facebook.  These posts will allow each artist to discuss what they are working on as well as their different approaches and impressions of painting.   The Yellow Barn invites the public to visit the space, ask questions of our artists, and see the artists working together.

“I’m trying to show what makes the Yellow Barn one of the premier places to take art classes in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area.  While we have a reputation for great instructors that produce great artists, we also have a great community that enjoys working together.” says J. Jordan Bruns, Yellow Barn Studio Manager and collaboration organizer.  “Last year we did a relay with the instructors, this time I thought it would be fun to see how our members do.”

The Chautauqua Tower Studio will be open to the public daily February 2^nd through February 28^th, 11:00am-5:00pm.

For any additional inquiries please email J. Jordan Bruns, Yellow Barn Studio Manager at Jordan@jjbruns.com.

Now Accepting Applications for the 2012 Stone Tower Residency

Looking for a residency close to home?  The Chautauqua Tower 1st floor is a dream studio!  We taking applications for March, April, May and June now!

Application guidelines:

1) Demonstrate professional artistic credentials, including previous gallery exhibits (include biography and resume of art training)
2) Describe work you would do while resident in the Stone Tower Studio which would be inviting to the public, and enriching to the Yellow Barn community, include demonstrations & lectures. Certify your ability to keep the studio open at least 30 hours a week, including at least 16 weekend hours each week.
3) Explain what your previous experience with the Yellow Barn has meant to you, and how your presence in the Stone Tower studio will serve to introduce the public to the Yellow Barn, encourage new students, and attract potential buyers for art available in the Stone Tower, and at weekend shows in the Yellow Barn Gallery.  (If you have no experience with the Yellow Barn, please explain how and what you know about the Yellow Barn)
4) Submit a portfolio of photographs of recent work as email attachments (6 to 10 paintings/drawings) or provide the url of your website.

Outline of major requirements:

a) The Resident Artist (RA) must have the studio open to the public at least 30 hours a week (including noon to 6 p. m. on Saturdays and Sundays)

b) The RA contributes approximately $690 ($500 for Jan, Feb, and Aug) back to the Friends of the Yellow Barn toward rent and utilities-$200 non-refundable due to reserve a specific month check due prior to the month of residency.

c) The RA handles all sales, is responsible for paying MD state sales tax, and contributes back 30% of all sales to the Friends.

d) The RA must offer at least two events (lectures/demonstrations/reception)  free to members of the Friends, and the public.

e) The RA should be covered by professional or homeowner's liability insurance  ($1 million); may also wish to have personal property insurance, as none can be provided by the Friends or the Yellow Barn.

f) The RA is responsible for publicizing the residency. The Friends will provide wall lettering.

Once an agreement is reached to reserve a month for an artist (they must make a $200 non-refundable deposit before we post their name and month) this is what we need for the Yellow Barn website:

1)     A one-page poster to put up on the Stone Tower page--This should have a heading similar to the ones previously posted

Name

Artist-in-Residence

Yellow Barn Stone Tower

Dates

It should include a picture, preferably of the artist, perhaps in front of a painting, a paragraph describing the residency, and a schedule for open hours, and planned events. This can be posted by our webmaster any time it is ready, preferably one month ahead.

Text for informational box on homepage--this should have about 100 words of text (a brief artist's statement) and a file of an image of a piece of artwork. This should complement, but not be the same as the text on the one-pager, as people can link from it to the one-pager.  This box is posted by our webmaster on the first of the month and may be abbreviated or placed lower on the page, depending on other Yellow Barn information that needs to be included at any given time.

 Please contact Jordan Bruns at Jordan@jjbruns.com with any questions.

An Artistic Triumph Over Cushing's Disease: J. Jordan Bruns

Wonderful interview with the Yellow Barn Studio Manager, J. Jordan Bruns on WAMU 88.5 last Friday.  If you missed it, you can hear his story here.

http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/11/12/09/an_artistic_triumph_over_cushings_disease_j_jordan_bruns#.TuIxCBD4qyJ.facebook

Stone Tower Residency at The Yellow Barn

 

Applications for Stone Tower for 2012--

The Stone Tower studio space, a beautiful place to work and show art,  is available during February through June 2012 for rent to members of the Friends who have shown their work professionally. This can be for a month or more, a single artist, or a team of two. Applications should be submitted to Jordan Bruns at jordan@jjbruns.com by January 15, 2012. Decisions will be announced after the Friends Board meeting on January 23.  Applications must include the following:

1) Resume of education and exhibition history including name, address, e-mail and phone contact information, and the month(s) you would be available to work in the Tower.  

2) Describe work you would do while resident in the Stone Tower Studio which would be inviting to the public, and enriching to the Yellow Barn community, include demonstrations & lectures. Certify your ability to keep the studio open at least 30 hours a week, including at least 16 weekend hours each week.
3) Explain what your previous experience with the Yellow Barn has meant to you, and how your presence in the Stone Tower studio will serve to introduce the public to the Yellow Barn, encourage new students, and attract potential buyers for art available in the Stone Tower, and at weekend shows in the Yellow Barn Gallery.  (If you have no experience with the Yellow Barn, please explain how and what you know about the Yellow Barn)
4) Submit a portfolio of photographs of recent work as email attachments (6 to 10 paintings/drawings) or provide the url of your website.

email "jordan@jjbruns.com" with questions

17th Members Show Reivew

Thanks to the Potomic Patch for promoting the YB Members show!

http://potomac.patch.com/articles/2011-yellow-barn-members-show#photo-8615202

Paint the Park Green!

A “green” landscape painting event with the mission of preserving and protecting America’s national parks to help build better futures for families, children and our planet.  The Paint Out is designed to educate and inspire artists to become more environmentally aware and health conscious with their materials and methods in creating art.

How to dispose of Acrylic Water by Golden Acrylics

Paint the Park Green!

Working our way up to the big event on October 22nd and 23rd, the Yellow Barn Instructors will be working in the Stone Tower Studio and avaliable to answer any questions you may have about the event and plein air painting.  Be sure to stop in and visit!  Here is a tentative list of when they will be working!

Paint the Park Green! October Stone Tower

October 6^th – Thursday- Natasha Karpinskia

October 7^th - Friday- Eric Garner (1:00-4:00pm)

October 8^th – Saturday- Vacant...

October 9^th – Sunday-  J. Jordan Bruns (11:00-3:00pm)

October 10^th – Monday- Walt Bartman (1:00-3:30pm)

October 11^th – Tuesday – Lida Stifel (1:00-4:00pm)

October 12^th - Wednesday- Walt Bartman (1:00-3:30pm)Bonny Lundy (4:00-7:00pm)

October 13^th – Thursday- Martha Spak (1:00-3:00pm)

October 14^th – Friday- Tom Semmes, (10:00-4:00pm), Eric Garner (1:00-4:00pm)

October 15^th – Saturday- Gavin Glakas

October 16^th – Sunday-  

October 17^th – Monday- Walt Bartman (1:00-3:30pm)

October 18^th – Tuesday – Christine Lashley, Lida Stifel (1:00-4:00pm)

October 19^th - Wednesday - Walt Bartman (1:00-3:30pm), Bonny Lundy (4:00-7:00pm)

October 20^th – Thursday- Natasha Karpinskaia

October 21^st - Friday – Set up for event, clean space (no artist)

October 22^nd - Saturday – EVENT, Reception Area (no artist)

October 23^rd – Sunday - EVENT, Reception Area (no artist)

October 24^th – Monday- Walt Bartman (1:00-3:30pm)

October 25^th – Tuesday- Martha Spak (1:30-4:00pm)

October 26^th – Wednesday- Walt Bartman (1:00-3:30pm)

October 27^th – Thursday- Martha Spak (2:00-4:00pm)

ARTOMATIC Frederick!!!!!!

Walt Bartman, Glen Kessler and Evan Goldman, Yellow Barn Instructors will have work in Frederick, Marylands Artomatic, Sept. 28th – Nov. 6th, 2011

Hours:
Wednesdays & Thursdays
11 am - 9 pm
Fridays & Saturdays
11 am - 12 am
Sundays
12 pm - 6 pm

During the 5-week event Artomatic@Frederick
will feature:
Art Exhibits
Musical Performances
Theatrical Performances
Film Screenings
Poetry Readings
Open Mic Events
Student Art & Performances
Dance
and much, much more...

http://www.artomaticfrederick.org/

(e)merge Art Fair

Make sure you go see instructor Eric Garner at (e)merge!
http://www.emergeartfair.com/

Paint the Park Green!

Click the link below to check out the new article on the October 22nd and 23rd event.  Sign up now while spaces still remain!

http://potomac.patch.com/articles/yellow-barn-embraces-environmental-stewardship#photo-7674311

JoAnn Clayton Townsend, September Artist in Resident, Stone Tower 1st Floor

http://gaithersburg.patch.com/articles/a-portrait-of-the-artist-joann-clayton-townsend

Great Review of the First Annual Drawing Exhibition!

http://potomac.patch.com/articles/four-artists-discuss-underrated-medium

J. Jordan Bruns, in cooperation with The Friends of the Yellow Barn, is holding a drawing exhibition open to ALL members of the Friends of the Yellow Barn.  The exhibition will take place on Saturday and Sunday, August 20th and 21st, 2011, from 12:00pm-5:00pm.  An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Saturday from 5:00-7:00pm.

Eligibility Requirements 

·  All work must be created with a drawing medium (no paint!)

·  Artists must have framed drawings, ready to hang

·  Artists must be a "Friends of the Yellow Barn Member"

·  Artists must be willing to share the promotional and reception costs

To Participate:

1-3 drawings can be submitted to the exhibition, no size restrictions

Please send the information: Name, Title, Medium, Price for each piece and make sure that the info is on the back of the drawing upon drop off.

Email J. Jordan Bruns, Yellow Barn Studio Manager, at jordan@jjbruns.com to let him know you would like to exhibit. 

Include a jpg of one of your drawings if you would like to be included in the promotional material.

Please indicate if you are able to 1) help hang the exhibition on Friday night or 2) able to gallery watch while the exhibition is running on Saturday or Sunday, 12-5pm.

You must have your work dropped off at the Yellow Barn on Friday, August 19th at 6:30pm for installation. 

Rachel Collins at Art Space

Ebb & Flow

featuring watercolors by Rachel Collins and sculptures by Jessica Beels

Exhibiting:  July 7th - July 31st

Opening Reception and Gallery Talk:  Saturday, July 9th, 7:30pm-9:30pm

The soft colors and ethereal feel of these paintings and sculptures immediately transport you to the beach.  Shells and bones washed up by the tide, while intriguing enough as pure form, are even more interesting as reflections of what used to surround or inhabit them; their structure wholly revealed only after their original function has ceased. 

Rachel Collins’ watercolors and Jessica Beels’ paper sculptures explore the spaces in and around shells and bones as landscapes and abstracted forms, examining light play and shadows and revealing inner structures and hidden echoes. 

ArtSpace is extremely pleased to be presenting this exhibit by talented local artists.  “This is a wonderful summertime exhibit that will capture the imagination of all viewers and evoke a youthful sense of the wonder of nature and the forms and structures around us,” said Robin Carroll of ArtSpace.  Rachel Collins watercolors are beautiful and Jessica Beels’s sculptures are airy and light.

J. Jordan Bruns on Artistspeak

http://arttistsspeak.blogspot.com/2011/06/jordan-bruns.html

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?

Image a tall stone tower.  Let's say 5-7 stories tall.  It will have a spiral staircase in the center, and at the top of the stair case, a big white cube-shaped room with tons of strategically placed sky lights and very nice track lighting that adjusts with the time of day.  White walls, very clean oak hardwood floors with comfortable benches placed around the hole in the center of the floor where the stair case emerges. Climbing the staircase would make the viewer a bit dizzy, which I think would be kind of fun.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?

Well, I'll answer this question as it applies to painting. Good painting asks questions.  It's at its best when the viewer has to work to connect the dots. This means that not everything is explained at first, and the viewer is forced to ponder, decipher and examine the painting to get the most out of it.  I get very bored when people try and paint a painting just like a photograph. It's equivalent to someone giving you $10,000 for doing nothing; the work would not be worth as much as if you had worked for the $10,000, except for the emotional worth. Good painting asks questions of/for the viewer, and when/if that happens, it is more rewarding and enjoyable.  People grow from art.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?

I don't expect anything, really. However, I do wish that everyone did not just see the post apocalyptic world in my work.  I don't deny that there are elements of destruction, but I still see the rebirth in it too. The themes I explore are akin to a yin and yang. I think everyone is just so depressed about the state of our economy, jobs, wars that everyone just looks for the negative in every situation.  At the same time, I don't want to be known as the guy who is "so cheerful in person, but paints such disturbing subject matter!"

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?

I would say, "Have fun playing chess for the rest of your life!" I remember going to Philadelphia and seeing some of his work.  Duchamp painted a painting for every art movement from Impressionism to Cubism, and Philly had one of his from each - all in a row.  It looked like he mimicked the movement, got all he could out of it, and moved on.  As if all of Cubism could be explained in one painting! This is not to say I don't agree.  I think that there needs to be a balance between retinal and thought-provoking.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?

I think it kind of depends on how artists persevere. When painting first had to deal with photography, everyone said that "painting was dead." Painting evolved, thankfully, and was more interesting, said more, and it truly was better off. Now, photographers have to deal with all the Sunday afternoon digital photographers.  Everyone is a photographer now, and the skill and craft loses some importance.  Not everyone is trained to understand what makes good pictures. I think that when everyone can do art as well as everyone else, art will cease to exist.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.

How about the age old battle between form and content.  Which is more important?