Monday, February 06, 2006

ARTSPACE WOMEN!

ARLENE COX TEAL is a mixed media powerhouse. Her attention-grabbing work has been executed with technical aplomb, and her color-full art dominates the walls at Northwood ArtSpace thru February 2006.

Cox Teal is not only an imaginative artist, she is an expert collagist, seamstress, and "maker" who can combine textiles, stitchery, weaving, metalwork, porcelain, doilies, glass objects, painting--yes, even saucers from a doll's tea set -- with consummate skill. Indeed, her art has shown at the noted Dairy Barn at Athens, Ohio, as well as at Columbus City Hall and the Ohio State Fair.

Arlene loves her one woman shows upstairs at the Columbus Cultural Art Center. She makes art continuously, which is a good thing, because work by Arlene Cox Teal is well crafted, appealing, and sells!

THE HAWAIIAN AND HIS FRIENDS

Cox Teal's iconic Hawaiian is around 36 inches tall and 16 inches wide. He is a duality: a-mask-as-a-dark-man set against darkness, a black midnight blue. His face, painted metal, is scarred and grooved; it's a found object. His creator knows design and composition. Portrayed from the collar bone up, he IS his own composition and nearly fills up his own background. He glares at us, with encircled red glass eyes. His royal collars and his headress consist of thick crochet-lace dyed orange and arranged in tridents. Batik helps to form his face and his portrait. His adornments, his visage, and his background, create a single powerful design. He speaks with shamanic power thru time and location.

Arlene Cox Teal began At My Kitchen Table at Arrowmont, the noted craft center in in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. --She does, indeed, make most of her art at "my great grandfather's kitchen table. I ate off it, he did too."

Indeed, Arlene was busy making art on that very kitchen table when I called! At My Kitchen Table, a wall hanging, is about the size of a luncheon cloth. On it the artist has affixed six small dainty china dishes to a linen matting that appears handwoven. "They're a gift, very very old, but not from the family" she said of the dishes "they used to hold salt." (And they're not really doll dishes, they're just that small.)

The "table" has been spread with a painted-on pastelly quilt. On it : uneven blue green blocks. And the centerpiece is a small bright applique rooster nested against tan braid on a wine hued plate that contains white linen stitches! Edges curl. At my Kitchen Table is a delightful and original piece that speaks volumes.

The actual Cox Homestead which stood a hundred years or so in Madison county, burned twenty years ago, and is memorialized in a simple, poignant construct of thin, charred boards.

Leopard Arrangement is a blast and contains a leopard tail! (decorative, not real)

Cox Teal's Vintage Roses were formed by "feeding melting crayons into an old soldering iron!--It's a difficult process," she said. "It took awhile for me to figure out how to do it ." To call this painting "textural" would be an oxymoron. Each of the thick brazenly red roses blooms on a stem with three pronged leaves. The sun casts a rich strawberry gold in the background.--Yes, the Roses have already sold.

MARILYN GRAY JONES, printmaker and painter, has shown at Northwood and various venues in the Short North. For the current Northwood show with Cox Teal she has created styrofoam wall constructions in white. They are dreamy, earth resonant. Luckily for us, Gray is in love with the sea and the shore. For her foamy box-like wall sculptures she uses shell and plant imprints, convex shell forms, tiny creatures, glass and pebbles, wood bits, various embeddings. One sculpture seems to include cobwebs and/or spidery dirt!

In a not so dreamy mode Gray Jones has created True Colors, an adorable wall piece. It includes one thick, pudgy scalloped bright BLUE paper plate and one thick, pudgy scalloped bright RED paper plate. Each plate has plastic game chips for eyes and mouths. Each plate seems about to leap out of its bright yellow styrofoam background. --Is Marilyn trying to say something about the plate of the nation? Yes, or no, her True Colors is a blast, and her styrofoam constructions provide a much needed winter's dream.

The exhibit and its work by the two differing artists, hangs beautifully together as one show .
Northwood ArtSpace, under the talented and enduring curation of Diane Efsic, is a gem of a gallery with ample parking out back. On High Street it's just north of the Ohio State University. In fact, it's an O.S.U. outreach, at the corner of Northwood and High. If the building is open, the ArtSpace is open.