Touring the East Austin Studio Tour 2013: The Art Post

Foster Talge at The Art Post EAST 2013
Foster Talge at The Art Post EAST 2014

The East Austin Studio Tour is one of my favorite events of the year. Some years, I open my studio to the public, and other years I don’t. In the years when I open my studio, it’s great to see visitors’ reactions to my own work, to meet new people, visit with friends who come by and sell a little work.

During the years when I take a break from opening my studio, like this year, it is fantastic to be able to get out and see so much good art in just two weekends, all on my side of town. I love it all, whether it’s visiting individual artists’ studios, group studios, or galleries. I particularly enjoy just seeing — in the paint, if you will the great variety of excellent work, but it’s also wonderful to meet artists who are new to me, and chat with old friends.

1960 Isetta at The Art Post EAST 2014
1960 Isetta at The Art Post EAST 2014

Last weekend, my husband and I got an early start on day one at The Art Post, a great rambling Quonset hut type compound on East Cesar Chavez.  The first thing we came across was a very tall guy climbing out of a very tiny red 1960 Isetta — a 4-wheeled car that opens on the front — with the steering wheel attached to that front door!  Very cool.

We continued on to a string of small studios to our left, which contained wonderful oil portraits by Sara Vanderbeek, including one of Chuck Close that I absolutely love; some very fun drawings by Carolina Villareal (be sure to read some of the text or titles on her drawings); and ocean paintings covered with painted plexiglass for a different experience by Lucy MacQueen.

I go to the Art Post mainly to see what Court Lurie has been up to lately, and of course, she never disappoints.  I always enjoy her paintings, and I loved seeing her new prints, which truly spoke to me.  But dang me, I forgot to take pictures!  So check out her site, the EAST site, or the Art Post website to see some of her work.

I’ve included a slideshow below of all the non-fuzzy pictures that I remembered to take while I was there.  I didn’t manage to snap pics of all the artists’ work, nor did I even manage to get to see the work or the studios of all the artists (don’t ask me why; I certainly meant to), but of those I saw, here are a few at the Art Post that I highly recommend checking out (visit the Art Post website or the EAST site to see who I missed; you might not want to miss them!):

Tina Schweiger at The Art Post EAST 2014
Tina Schweiger at The Art Post EAST 2014

Tina Schweiger — love her multi-part paintings!

 

 

 

 

Kristy Darnell Battani
Kristy Darnell Battani

Kristy Darnell Battani — large and small encaustics and some very cool large works made from the pages of books.

 

 

 

 

 

Kelsey Jenkinson
Kelsey Jenkinson

Kelsey Jenkinson — very beautifully rendered paintings of bees and other living creatures, and she’s a real sweetheart, too.

 

 

 

Scott Saunders
Scott Saunders

Scott Saunders — gorgeous, intricate, complex-yet-simple(!) sculptures made of thin wood and other materials, with a tech edge to them.

 

 

Foster Talge at The Art Post EAST 2014
Foster Talge at The Art Post EAST 2014

Foster Talge — his constructed trees need to be experienced!!!  I simply love this new one, a willow-like tree sculpture made with lots and lots of hanging chains.

 

 

Jason Webb
Jason Webb

Jason Webb — exquisitely drawn acrylic paintings of collections of things and the detritus of modern city life.  Plus, he had some great beer on offer last weekend.

 

 

 

Nimer Aleck II at The Art Post EAST 2014
Nimer Aleck II at The Art Post EAST 2014

Nimer Aleck II — OK, I’m into tools, so his hand-made hammers really fascinated me: huge hammers, tiny hammers, double-headed hammers, hammer-chuks, a collection of hammers with longer and longer handles.

 

 

 

 

Paul Clarence Oglesby Jr and Casey Warr at The Art Post EAST 2014
Paul Clarence Oglesby Jr and Casey Warr at The Art Post EAST 2014

Paul Clarence Oglesby, Jr. — very cool, totemic white sculptures in the courtyards.

We also made it to Pump Project, Canopy, and Blue Genie on Saturday, all of which I recommend.  On Sunday, we had only a couple hours, so we squeezed in Flatbed Press, which was awesome, Tiny Park Gallery, and the UP Collective.  I hope to blog on these later.  I forgot how long it takes to write these posts!

This weekend, we hope to make it a lot of individual studios of painters, and to some of the artists at the group studios that we missed.

And if you’d like to see all the photos I shot at EAST 2013 so far, here’s a link to a gallery of all the images: EAST-2013.

Kelly O’Connor’s “Last Resort: Color Me”

I tried to make to out to the West Austin Studio Tour this year, and unfortunately, this is as far as I got. One gallery, one show, and I had gone to this gallery for the specific purpose of buying a Catalog for WEST. So I figured, while we’re here, let’s see the show.

Here it is: photos with sparkles and stuff, styrofoam towers, lawn furniture and, my favorite, a hand-built geodesic dome complete with bejeweled wasp nests. I was most intrigued by the fact that the panels in the dome were irregularly shaped pentagons and hexagons. That must have been a bear to figure all the wonky angles and construct!

Anyway, I lament the fact that I missed all the painters, esp. the non-objective ones, but there weren’t too many of them anyway….

Oh, well, there’s always next year. :\