ANGELS SING AT O.S.U. AIRPORT

ANGELS SING AT O.S.U. AIRPORT HANGAR

It really IS a cold, cold, world. In it, photographs of tortured detainees mingle with TV images of bombed civilians, and a scantily clad Paris Hilton on a spree! And the polar ice is melting --- yes, I'm a believer. --- Yet, amidst all of this very real negativity, I can testify: I have heard the angels sing. I've seen Them too.

They wear long black evening dresses with airy white stoles. Most of Them possess dark hair which they wear long, like angels do. THEY are the Dublin Kauffman High School Women's Symphonic Choir under the fabulous and generous direction of Cyndi Brewer.

I heard Them! They sang Silent Night, The Night Before Christmas, Rachmaninoff's Carol of the Bells, and other classical and semi classical offerings. They included their favorite Rag Time/ Jazz Age song, Ma He's Makin' Eyes at Me, --- with choreography! Some of the young women --- I mean angels, --- came in late, inobtrusively, from a swim meet! But the ensemble never missed a jingle or a beat!

The scene of this concert was the vast Ohio State University Airport Hangar at a holiday party given by the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 9 on December 16. The atmosphere was gala, and the acoustics resembled those in a European cathedral. The angelic voices rose angelically, on pitch and pure, to the rafters and the beams, which one US AirForce veteran, age 90, speculated "are wood beams, not metal, so there's a different echo, and this building goes back to the twenties or thirties."

The esteemed poet T.S. Eliot once wrote that he had "heard the mermaids singing, each to each." In similar fashion I can testify that I've heard the angels sing to a twenties beat, and They sound absolutely. . . celestial.

For 2007 the motto for LizJames ArtScene is: If I experience art that is in some way exceptional, I'll try to write about it.

WEXNER SHINES: HANNAH DANCES WITH ANDY

Sugarplums at Wexner: Hannah Dances with Andy: Hannah is three. Her hair is as pale as tinsel. She loves to visit Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, because the best art is ageless. She loves Jeff Koons huge stainless steel Balloon Dog -- She loves the big shiny TeaPot she can step into but "don't shut the door." She loves the camels and fish that wander thru Hiraki Sawa's film, The Box. Best of all she loves Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds, just the right holiday treat! The big helium filled pillows dance, drift and dangle and kids of all ages can play with them! The nice security guard predicted it: "She won't want to leave the pillows. They never do" Andy lives, and never more so. SHINEY continues at Wexner Center for the Arts to December 31.

VANISHING LANDSCAPES at MORPC

VANISHING LANDSCAPES AT MORPC: This is the first time I've ever reviewed an exhibit without visiting the actual gallery site! On line, Linda Wesner's Vanishing Landscapes of Central Ohio appears so well crafted, so pertinent, that I decided to write about it. The exhibit will show at the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission's Art in the Halls to December 29.
Delaware Crossing #I, colored pencil on paper, 18 x 34 inches, presents an austere Ohio landscape that should be familiar to all of us. --The scene may be, increasingly, No Where, except in memory, which is a pretty exciting place. The hour is, possibly, a cold dawn.
We recognize that gray Ohio "bland", the flatness that seems to have no vanishing point.
We know that pale blue milk glass sky. It's as heart wrenching as stained silk. We recognize the big two storey white frame, its two chimneys, the racky front porch.--Yes, people used to carry their cold coffee out there and watch cars go by!--At one time horses and wagons passed, and farm kids waved to the trains which really existed and carried trucks and pigs and rich people in lit dining cars. Yes, we note the inexorable crux of railroad tracks to the right.
Wesner's skill at colored pencil is photographic! Yet, she manages to be lyrical. Her "eye, " the places she chooses to "take,"--is what makes her "paintings" so evocative.
SOME OF HER VANISHING LANDSCAPES WILL BE FEATURED IN The January 2007 Issue of AMERICAN ARTIST, and that's quite an honor.
Over the past fifteen years, approximately, there has been a resurgence of colored pencil art and a proliferation of Colored Pencil Societies . I've enjoyed the re emergence of the lively representational art that the Societies foster. Linda Wesner is a signature member,and a charter member, of The National Colored Pencil Society, and also of the Ohio CPS and the Columbus CPS.--Bit by bit, there has been a Colored Pencil revolution, and I'm glad.
FEBRUARY SKIES
is a cool-toned colored pencil on paper, 18 x 27 inches. From an unseen winter sky the sun hits a white frame store front and the cement sidewalk in front of it. Light filters shadows to the correct weathered spaces, forms a strong composition. Wesner possesses an eagle eye and an eagle lense. The lidded trash can casts a shadow. An elderly woman, bundled up, leans into the wind, yet we see nothing blowing. Perhaps she's on the way to the church rummage sale or the miniscule U.S. Post Office. She wears stout shoes. I think they are my grandmother's shoes, maybe my own. I find myself recalling images of Kansas, Ohio.--That's in northern Ohio, near Bettsville, in case you didn't know, and extra ordinary life does continue in these villages, but you have to look for it, and Wesner does, while she drives the fast commute to work.
Linda Wesner grew up on a farm in upstate New York . An earth lover by nature and an Ohioan by adoption, she describes herself as "in a race to capture my impressions of landscapes before they disappear in the face of rapid urban development." In only one year, 2005 , Wesner was juried into , and won awards in, five national shows. Quite recently she won Best of Show at the I Can't Believe It's Colored Pencil show in Akron, for Delaware county Crossing #3.
Linda Wesner's Vanishing Landscapes of Central Ohio will show at the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) at Art in the Halls Gallery, 285 East Main St. Columbus, Ohio. to December 29. Hours are 8 to 5. Call 613-228-2663 or 800-886-6722, to be sure the gallery is available. If you feel that you can't make the trek, visit www.lawesner.com, and be sure to check out the January 2007 issue of American Artist.