Artebella On The Radio: September 10

Art in the Time of COVID-19 is an on-line exhibit for the Portland Museum curated by Bailey 0'Leary and featuring the work of Jeribai Andrew-Jaja, Rachel Singel, & Erica Lewis. All four join us for an interview on this week's show. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.comThursday mornings at 10:00am to listen to LVA's Artebella on the Radio.

Art in the Time of COVID-19, a digital exhibition now being featured on Facebook and Instagram social media platforms.

Art in the Time of COVID-19 details three artists' experience of the novel coronavirus pandemic; 

Bailey O’ Leary, the Curator, is an MFA candidate in Curatorial Studies at the University of Kentucky.

Jeribai Andrew-Jaja is a Nigerian-born artist but currently;y living in Louisville, Kentucky.

Rachel Singel is an Associate Professor at Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville. She has participated in residencies in Italy, Spain, New Zealand.

Erica Lewis is an MFA candidate and graduate teaching assistant at the Hite Art Institute at the University of Louisville.

Artebella On The Radio: April 23, 2020

The Fund for the Arts is redirecting their efforts into a $10 million Cultural Lou Recovery Campaign to combat the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our cultural sector. Thursday morning Fund President & CEO Christen Boone will talk with us about this important shift. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com at 10am each Thursday to hear Keith Waits talk with artists and cultural leaders.

(this is the pre-recorded only and lasts about 18 minutes)

Artebella On The Radio: March 12, 2020

Skylar Smith has curated an exhibit for Metro Hall working with LVA and other partners called Ballot Box. She will join us this week along with two of the artists, Taylor Sanders and Sandra Charles. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists. https://www.facebook.com/events/543396966382799/

Skylar Smith is an artist, educator, and entrepreneur. She is a founding member of Kentucky College of Art + Design (KyCAD), and helped build the school from the seed of an idea to a living and evolving entity. Smith has taught college-level studio and art history courses for over ten years, in addition to teaching in non-profits and alternative-education venues. Her artwork deals with micro and macro perceptions of the natural world, and human-scale politics that influence perception.

Sandra Charles is an oil painter who believes you should never give up on your dreams.  Her work focuses on the culture, history and social issues that affect African American women.  Sandra has painted all her life but began her career as a batik fiber artist.  She returned to school in 2011 and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree in painting from the University of Louisville.  After graduation she realized painting is her passion and retired to concentrate on her art.

Taylor Sanders is a upcoming artist from Louisville, Ky. She studied at Spalding University earning a BFA degree in Interdisciplinary Sculpture with a minor in African American Studies. With no specific medium, her main focus is integrating found three-d objects with multiple sculptural processes, techniques and materials while addressing relevant topics in history and in today’s society. 

Public Art Spotlight: Hogan's Fountain by Enid Yandell

Photo: Metro Louisville Commission on Public Art

 We call attention to Enid Yandell at the end of 2019, which was her 150th birthday, and as we move into 2020, which is the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. Yandell was an ardent member of the suffragist movement and an internationally recognized artist who studied with Frederick MacMonnies and Auguste Rodin in Paris. In 1898 she became the first woman inducted into the National Sculpture Society.

Yandell created some of Louisville’s most venerable and familiar public sculptures and her birthday was recognized with seven exhibits at various locations throughout the year, and in March her Hometown Hero banner, one of the last of that series, was installed on the Harbison Condominiums building near Fort Nelson Park, located at Seventh and Main streets in Louisville Kentucky.

The Metro Louisville Committee on Public Art (COPA) website relates the history of Hogan’s Fountain:

“In 1903, not long after the completion of Ruff Memorial Fountain and Wheelman's Bench, Yandell was approached by General John Breckinridge Castleman (1841—1918), founder of the Louisville Parks Department and a close friend of the Yandell family, to design a fountain for Cherokee Park. Hogan's Fountain was commissioned by prominent merchant William J. Hogan and his wife, who actively collaborated with Yandell about the choice of subject matter. By that time, Yandell was living and working from her studio in Paris, where she created the Louisville work and had it shipped to the States for construction.” 

“Hogan's Fountain, which was originally intended as a watering fountain for horses and dogs, is topped with a small bronze figure of the mythical Pan, god of nature, the wild, shepherds, flocks, and goats, among other things. Pan, who has the body of a human but the hindquarters and legs of a goat, appears to dance in a patch of lily pads and cattails, holding his famous lute above his head, presumably having just used it to call the animals of the nearby park. Yandell represents Pan's "flock" below, where bronze turtles spout water into the large basin and, located underneath at the base of the fountain, several small dog heads act as water fountains for park—goers' leashed dogs. Yandell, always intent to capture her subjects accurately, is said to have modeled the bronze turtles from live turtles she found near Louisville.” (KTF)

For many who came of age in Louisville, the fountain was a touchstone for after school gatherings and family events, the broad, open space surrounded by trees with its nearby pavilion comprising arguably the most welcoming spot in Cherokee Park.  

And, not surprisingly, Hogan’s Fountain is the subject of an urban legend that allows that, at every full moon the statue of Pan comes down from the perch to wander the park, creating mischief for innocent passers by.

Hogan’s Fountain
1905
Bronze/Vermont Granite

Scroll down for more images

Hogan's Fountain/Pan, c. 1906-1916

Hogan’s Fountain at Cherokee Park, 1905. Historic photo provided by the University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections, Claude C. Matlack Collection.

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2019 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville. 

Legacy: Marvin Finn (1913-2007)

“A Flock of Finns” at the Louisville Waterfront

When I was a student at the long ago-defunct Louisville School of Art, the school gallery in the Cloisters building hosted an early exhibition of the work of Marvin Finn. I remember the gallery being filled with a menagerie of wooden animals (I purchased a small bull for $11), but also intricately tooled machines: monolithic cranes, personable bulldozers, and magnificent biplanes hung from the ceiling at daredevil angles. The retired African American gentleman making all of this within the confines of his tiny Shelby Street home in the Clarksdale housing “projects” was the talk of the town, and his work was collected by the wealthy and powerful.  

Finn embodies the meaning of the Folk Art aesthetic. His love of carving wood came from watching his sharecropper father whittle as a young boy in Clio, Alabama, and his lack of any formal art education and adherence to simple forms fits the concept perfectly. He spent many years making wooden toys for his children and grandchildren so that there was also a purity in the motivation.

Marvin Finn photographed by Geoff Carr.

“There were ten boys and two girls in my family, and most of them older than I was, so I didn’t have toys except I made them,” said Finn when recalling his childhood on the farm in Clio. “I thought my old man was everything. When I was little I stood right up under him when he was whittling, and I learned it from him. I always tried to make my own toys when I was coming up as a kid. Anything that looked like a toy I would go into the woods and find me a tree and make it. But I remember a lot of Christmases when I never even seen me a toy.” (1)

After first exhibiting at the Kentuckiana Hobby and Gift Show in 1972, Finn’s profile rose over the next ten years, even though his prices did not. In the 1980’s the show at LSA and attention from the newly formed Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation (now KMAC) cemented Finn’s status as one of the most beloved and respected artists in Louisville.

Eighteen years ago, Louisville Mayor David Armstrong and an advisory committee developed the concept for the use of Marvin Finn’s work as the inspiration for a major public art initiative.

“Public art is more than an amenity in the streetscapes and open spaces in our city,” said Mayor Armstrong. “It evokes pride and awe in our city from passers-by, and it is a gift to every citizen.”

Photo: Kentucky Museum of Art & Craft

Thus, the idea for the flock of Finn’s was hatched. Dozens of owners of Finn’s art presented their originals to the Mayor’s advisory committee and 32 pieces were selected as models for the public art project. Colorful steel renditions, some as tall as nine feet, were cut out of half-inch thick steel and painted with graffiti proof paint by a cadre of artists mimicking the unique colors and patterns of Finn’s work. In April of 2001, the “Flock of Finns” landed in Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville.(2)

Finn’s work bridges traditional distinctions between craft and art. Although there is little functionality in the work, they began as toys but were almost never vessels or implements, it always expressed the naivete often associated with folk art, with a balance of rustic imagery and polished finish that enabled him to be embraced as easily by the fine art culture. The bright patterns of color were also seen as evocative of West African art, a connection to ancestry that is another important thread found in most Folk Art.

Today, Finn’s inspiration continues unabated, as many Louisville art teachers’ curriculum includes a ”Marvin Finn” project, most often in which children make their own brightly painted cut out birds.

Louisville Visual Art Summer Camp - 2017

Wooden Rooster by Marvin Finn, private collection

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(1) (2) marvinfinnweebly.com

Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

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