What is The Future Is Now?

"Untitled' by Lauren Hirsch (Mentor), 19x30in, mixed media, $600 | BUY NOW — *"Untitled' by Lauren Hirsch* *(Mentor), 19x30in, mixed media, $600 | BUY NOW*

The word itself has its origins in Greek Mythology, Mentor being the name of a friend of Odysseus entrusted with the education of Odysseus' son Telemachus. Like so many things that have weathered the passage of time, the concept of mentorship in contemporary society has taken on a variety of nuanced shadings, but the essential idea remains the same: for an older, more experienced individual to guide or instruct a person who has less experience.

But isn’t that a teacher? We seem to have a greater expectation now that a mentor also provides an example beyond formal instruction. A teacher in a classroom setting might be a mentor, but a mentor need not be teacher in a classroom.

The Future Is Now is a program that pairs aspiring young artists with an adult, working artist so that they might provide that example by working together on projects that will be exhibited at the end of the process. Born in the mind of Daniel Pfalzgraf, now Curator at the Carnegie Center for Art & History, and facilitated by LVA Director of Education and Outreach Jackie Pallesen, the program selects students through an application process each year. Pallesen gathers a pool of prospective mentors for the students to choose from - working artists whose work and/or studio practice will complement the young artist’s creative talents.

"Healer" by Dominic Guarnaschelli (Mentor), 47x35x6in, UV print, acrylic, steel, and electric cord on panel (2017), $800 | BUY NOW — *"Healer" by Dominic Guarnaschelli* *(Mentor), 47x35x6in, UV print, acrylic, steel, and electric cord on panel (2017), $800 | BUY NOW*

The program is executed in conjunction with Kentucky College of Art + Design at Spalding University (KyCAD). Andrew Cozzens, KyCAD Assistant Professor and manager of the school’s 849 Gallery, was a mentor in the first year, and the experience motivated him to work with Pallesen to forge a formal collaboration on the program. Now many of the combined meetings, which began on May 30, take place in KyCAD studios, with all the efforts culminating in an exhibit that opens July 20 in the 849 Gallery.

Those meetings follow a structure designed to give shape to the creative dynamic and demand communications etiquette between everyone involved. “Things can get off track so easily if accountability to the members of the team is not emphasized,” states Pallesen, who facilitates the early stages of the process. “There is certainly structure, but at some point the relationship between mentor and mentee takes over.”

That relationship is given a foundation of introductions and icebreaking exercises, formal presentations by each artist of their work, and some attention to art history. A series of critiques led by KyCAD faculty allow each pair to present their respective projects to the group and receive feedback.

"While You Wait (detail)" by Deb Whistler (Mentor), pen & ink, cut paper & plexiglass — *"While You Wait (detail)" by Deb Whistler* *(Mentor), pen & ink, cut paper & plexiglass*

The Future Is Now looks for student artists who have substantial ambition to pursue art or design in their college choices. Most are thinking about fine art programs, but this year includes a fashion designer, Ballard High School student Nicole Scott, who Pallesen lined up with Jake Ford. “Nicole wanted a fashion professional, naturally enough, but I encouraged her to work with Jake, whose sculpture is so conceptual. I hoped it would help her develop the idea of concept and narrative in clothing and challenge her more.”

Eventually the pairings broke down this way:

Bobby Barbour, multi-media artist - Brittney Sharpe, Eastern High School
Deb Whistler, 2-D artist - Rashad Sullivan, Western High School
Dominic Guarneschelli, multi-media artist - Hannah Lyle, Ballard High School
Jake Ford, multi-media artist - Nicole Scott, Ballard High School
Lauren Hirsch, 2-D artist - Sunny Podbelsek, duPont Manual High School
Linda Erzinger, multi-media artist - Heavenly Tanner, Academy @ Shawnee

Brittney Sharp’s chosen mediums are colored pencil, markers, or acrylic paint. This year she won an honorable mention from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Last year she was a part of her schools Vans Custom Culture team and the team ending up winning in their region. The Eastern Vans team tied for 4th place after moving on to national voting.

Rashad Sullivan excels in the fine arts department and is an excellent draftsman. He free hands all of his artwork, which is often detailed drawings of animals and objects. He especially likes to use value in his artwork.

Hannah Lyle currently attends Ballard High School. They enjoy oil painting, and they are a member of NAHS (National Artist Honors Society) at their school.

Nicole Scott is busy developing her own website "uNique Styles" and her fashions have been featured in the local Sew Much Fun e-Newsletter. In October 2016, Nicole won second place in the University of Louisville Youth Pitch Fest.

Sunny Rae Podbelsek loves to draw and create comics and characters. She mostly uses pen, marker, and watercolor but also loves paint and printing. Podbelsek has won many awards, including a total of 4 regional Silver keys, 5 regional Gold keys, 8 regional honorable mentions, and 1 National Silver key in the Scholastic art and writing awards. She is a 2017 Governor’s Scholar.

Heavenly Tanner's chosen medium is drawing, which includes graphite pencil, sharpie pens, and markers. Her accomplishments include winning the Kentucky Derby Art Contest when she was in elementary school, she also received a scholarship to the University of Louisville for art by winning an art contest put on by the university.

Tomorrow, Part 2: Critiques and Results

This Feature article was written by Keith Waits.
In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, www.Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more. — *Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.*

Painting

Vignette: Gretchen Treitz

Josh Jenkins · July 11, 2017

“Trees for me are a symbol of strength, a metaphor of hope.” – Gretchen Treitz

*"Sycamore" by Gretchen Treitz, 8x8in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016)*

Trees are important in the work of Gretchen Treitz, the form providing compositional structure while also expressing a highly spiritual theme. Everyone has heard of druids, but Treitz is following a longer, more complicated tradition of using the tree as a religious symbol; their endless cycle of renewal allows an easy metaphor for life, and the evergreen has often represented the eternal or divine for precisely its lack of a cycle of change. No death or renewal, but constant and unending life.

“I am amazed how trees seem to personify a perfect being in adversity. My current series of trees is an attempt to explore a reality beyond appearances. Like many artists from the past, I use nature, light, and celestial luminosity to search for the divine. Painting trees with silver leaf not only highlights their shape but also calls forth the universal tension between matter and spirit. I engage trees to approach the spiritual realms of the wilderness, the cosmos, and the mysteries of the soul. Trees for me are a symbol of strength, a metaphor of hope. Silver leaf, white gold leaf, and aluminum leaf emulate a kind of ethereal light. I utilize these materials to represent the delicate vulnerability of sky, wind, atmosphere, and other environmental factors. Other times I manipulate these metal leaves and watercolor to embody the wonder of the life energy of a tree’s progression against these forces.”

*"Light on Broken Places II" by Gretchen Treitz, 15x15in, watercolor, silverleaf (2017)*

Treitz was just a part of Painting Exhibition #1 at Galerie Hertz in Louisville, and in 2016 participated in Aqueous, Kentucky Watercolor Society, Actor’s Theater, Louisville, and in Horizon: Contemporary Landscape, Community Arts Center, Danville, KY.

Permanent Collections:
The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn New York
National Westminster Bank, New York, New York
Hilliard-Lyons Collection, Louisville, KY
Holcomb Farm Permanent Collection, Granby, CT
Private Collections in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Michigan

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: BFA, Stephens College, Columbia, MO; MFA, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Website: http://www.gretchentreitz.com/

*"Kentucky's State Champion Swamp Chestnut Oak" by Gretchen Treitz, 14x14in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016)*

"Good Fruit II" by Gretchen Treitz, 25x25in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016), $2000 | BUY NOW — *"Good Fruit II" by Gretchen Treitz, 25x25in, watercolor, silverleaf (2016), $2000 | BUY NOW*

*"Rose on Gerardia" by Gretchen Treitz, 10x12in, watercolor, silverleaf (2015)*

*"Study for In the Shadows" by Gretchen Treitz, 8x10in, watercolor, silverleaf (2015)*

Painting

Vignette: William Pichette

Josh Jenkins · July 7, 2017

What portions of our self do we edit, manipulate, and hide from view for the greater good of likes and followers? – William Pichette

"Under Control" by William Pichette, 8x20in, acrylic on printed canvas (2016), $210 | BUY NOW — *"Under Control" by William Pichette, 8x20in, acrylic on printed canvas (2016), $210 | BUY NOW*

William Pichette is a painter who sees the inherent qualities of his medium as integral to expressing the themes in the imagery. In his own words: “The thrill of the acrylic paint medium comes from how quick you must work to create. The paint dries very fast but each attempt at progress easily hides the previous attempts. Hiding ourselves proves more difficult. Once we reveal our truths through action and speech, it is not so easily undone. In a world where compliance and filtering our daily expression is the norm, muting the brilliance of our emotion is preferred, and it would be an outrageous offense to demonstrate weakness, vulnerability, honesty—humanity—I cherish in sight of visibility.”

Pichette often sets his figures against patterned backgrounds, the human a silhouette initiating a conversation with negative space, full of emotional suggestion, signs and portents.

“My pieces are inspired both by how we see and how we are seen. How do we see ourselves behind closed doors, looking in vanity mirrors, and through the lenses of our Instagram and Snapchat feed? What portions of our self do we edit, manipulate, and hide from view for the greater good of likes and followers? Those raw bits; the understanding of ourselves we hold so true that we would hate for others to see. Those nuances draw my focus; typically not blemishes and physical flaws of our outward appearance, but parts of our body none-the-less. They are the fights with mental illness and turmoil of thought, our agitation and need for direction, the imprints of the souls of others and the scars of love lost.”

Pichette just participated in 2017 Group Exhibition, Queer Voices, at Open Community Arts Center, Louisville, KY.

Age: 25
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Education: Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Ethnic Studies (Asian-American Studies), University of Texas
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Shquiggles/

"Impressionable Young Minds - Christine" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW — *"Impressionable Young Minds - Christine" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW*

"Wanderlust" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW — *"Wanderlust" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW*

"Impressionable Young Minds - Will" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW — *"Impressionable Young Minds - Will" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2016), $140 | BUY NOW*

"See and Be Seen" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2015), $110 | BUY NOW — *"See and Be Seen" by William Pichette, 8x10in, acrylic and ink on canvas (2015), $110 | BUY NOW*

"Turbulent Thought" by William Pichette, 18x18in, acrylic on wood board (2016), $375 | BUY NOW — *"Turbulent Thought" by William Pichette, 18x18in, acrylic on wood board (2016), $375 |* *BUY NOW*

Painting, Print Making

Vignette: Adrienne Miller

Josh Jenkins · June 28, 2017

The Community Foundation of Louisville, in partnership with Louisville Visual Art, has presented Louisville-based artist and printmaker, Adrienne Miller, with the fifth annual Mary Alice Hadley Prize for Visual Art. The $5,000 award is an opportunity for local artists to enhance their careers through a targeted enrichment experience.

Miller will use the prize to research the landscape and art historical influence of the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. The two week trip will cover close to 2,000 miles in a loop through the Four Corners region and will include a variety of stops, including several different pueblo ruin sites, printmaking studios in Albuquerque, The Georgia O’Keefe museum and archives, several National Parks, energy vortexes in Sedona, and several large earth works in the region.

"Keep Out/ Stay In" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016), $600 | BUY NOW — *"Keep Out/ Stay In" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016), $600 | BUY NOW*

“I want the experience to be transformative and immersive so that I come away feeling as though the experience really was a tipping point for me,” said Miller of the Hadley Prize enrichment experience. “I want to return to Louisville renewed to create a whole new body of work.”

*"Come With Me Into The Void" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016)*

Miller’s images are hybrids of the representational and abstract that explore the human experience of constructed space. “Within the tradition of landscape art, the term picturesque refers to a view where the human presence is apparent,” states Miller. “We are often presented with a view or vista for our consideration. When viewing a landscape we are allowed to be objective, but when viewing ourselves, does that perspective change?”

“Within the delicacy of the Mylar drawings, I am beginning to break apart the environments into tiny details such as potted plants, ladder rungs, or the tilt of a roof line. For me, the landscape I embody on a daily basis is the idea of the home, an interior and much more intimate space. In some, the details explain a building interior while in others it appears to be just outside, similar to a residential yard space. The fluttering of the Mylar layers serves to remind the viewer of the constant state of change these sort of psychologically charged places experience. Through changes in perspective and unrealistic coexistence, the work encourages the viewer to address their own environments as well as themselves.”

"Man Made Islands" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW — *"Man Made Islands" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW*

The $5,000 M.A. Hadley Prize is awarded from the George and Mary Alice Hadley Fund at the Community Foundation of Louisville. The endowment was established in 1991, and it supports the arts and humanities, particularly visual arts, crafts, theater and the Louisville Free Public Library. The award is a partnership between the Community Foundation of Louisville and Louisville Visual Art, which managed the application process.

Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee
Education: BFA, Studio Art with an emphasis in Photography, Murray State University / MFA, Studio Art with an emphasis in Printmaking, Northern Illinois University
Website: http://www.adrienne-miller.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ay_dree_un/

*"Man Made Islands (detail)" by Adrienne Miller,*

"Maintaining the Overgrowth" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW — *"Maintaining the Overgrowth" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW*

Drawing, Painting, Sculpture

Vignette: Bailey Roman

Josh Jenkins · June 27, 2017

“I understand the rules that have been presented to me, take the previous results into account, then more-or-less throw them out.” – Bailey Roman

Looking at the work of Bailey Roman raises a question: are these faces, with their contorted, lopsided visage, a deliberate deconstruction of conventional beauty? They are certainly distinctive and full of character, personalities that feel pulled from the fringe of society, malformed outcasts demanding our compassion.

Roman juxtaposes self-awareness and subconscious feelings against modern societal standards. “I also tend to take a lot of idioms way more seriously than their original intent; for example, in the past I have used the phrase ‘the lights are on but nobody’s home’ and used it as commentary for society’s various criticisms and standards for intelligence.”

*"It's Only The Second Semester and I'm Already Emotionally Exhausted; Maybe I Should Eat a Burrito" by Bailey Roman, 24x24in, oil on canvas (2017)*

“I draw influence from German Expressionism, Post Impressionism, contemporary media and, most importantly, the greats from stop motion puppet fabricators such as Francesca Berlingieri Maxwell and Henry Selick. More recently, I have been stretching the boundaries of what my chosen mediums. I understand the rules that have been presented to me, take the previous results into account, then more-or-less throw them out to see what new two dimensional effects, tactical textures, and interactions the viewer can have with my work.”

“In ‘Logan’, I use the polygons as a tool to highlight the first things the viewer would typically notice from the piece. I also take the liberty of using influences from both Pop Art and Golden Age comic book art. I use the two periods and place them into a more contemporary anatomical study.”

*"Anubis, The Dragonfly and the Warrior" by Bailey Roman, 15x7x10in, ceramic and glaze (2017)*

Roman is featured in From the Sculptures That Look Like Drawings series at The Tim Faulkner Gallery, and she will be included in Louisville Artisan Guild's 44th annual exhibit From the Soul of the Artist that will be held at Kore Gallery July 5 through July 30. There will be an Artist Reception July 13th, 6 – 8 pm.

Age: 19
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: Ballard High School (honors program graduated 2016) Murray State University (Studio Art major, currently working on my Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in art history)
Gallery Representation: The Tim Faulkner Gallery
Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/RamRenard/

"Touch Of Death" by Bailey Roman, 14x14x14in, ceramic, acrylic, plaster (2015), $315 | BUY NOW — *"Touch Of Death" by Bailey Roman, 14x14x14in, ceramic, acrylic, plaster (2015), $315 | BUY NOW*

*"Logan" by Bailey Roman, 22x28in, ceramic and glaze (2016)*

*"GPF" by Bailey Roman, 9x9.5x11in, ceramic and glaze (2017)*

*"Day N Night" by Bailey Roman, 11x14in, ink on paper (2017)*

Painting

Feature: The Future Is Now, Part 1 of 2

Tomorrow, Part 2: Critiques and Results

Vignette: Gretchen Treitz

“Trees for me are a symbol of strength, a metaphor of hope.” – Gretchen Treitz

Vignette: William Pichette

What portions of our self do we edit, manipulate, and hide from view for the greater good of likes and followers? – William Pichette

Vignette: Adrienne Miller

Vignette: Bailey Roman

“I understand the rules that have been presented to me, take the previous results into account, then more-or-less throw them out.” – Bailey Roman