WASAA Newsletter Home

Welcome to the third edition of the WASAA Quarterly Newsletter created by and for the Artists of the Western Avenue Studios Artist Association. Each edition will contain a bit of general information, news from your neighbors, reviews, stories, tips and more. So sit back, relax and enjoy.

Frank Casazza, aka: +Eyeformation+
By Margot Stage

Walk into Frank’s world and you’re surrounded by large, lush foliage and strange but friendly creatures. Frank’s world occupies not only a corner of Western Avenue Studios (A-318) but also a niche in an international art scene. Last April he was invited to Belgium to install his City Birds at “Amaze/2008”– a three day extravaganza of exhibitions, installations, performances and workshops. Frank is also part of the global “sticker art” and “live paint” communities, and he loves to collaborate with artists from Japan, Australia and other parts of the world.

“I don’t do just one thing,” Frank says. “I’m into not following boundaries. I’m just an artist, and that allows me to do sculpture one day, painting the next.” He describes his work as ongoing projects -- various concepts that he works on over many years, recycling and warping one image or idea into many different formats. The name, +Eyeformation+ is an umbrella for all of Frank’s projects, referring to the idea that his work keeps forming and changing for the eye.
Street art is where Frank first found inspiration in the mid-1980s. He began his public art career by wheat pasting his “Did You Know” posters on plywood barriers at construction sites around Lowell. “I was placing stuff in public places but also informing people,” Frank says. (Did You Know Bette Davis was born in Lowell? Did You Know Ed McMann lived in Lowell?) “While graffiti is often about people trying to get their names up, street art is more artistic, more subtle,” Frank explains. “It’s art for the people, and there’s a certain guerilla element to it. And now street art is moving into galleries.”

Again, no boundaries for Frank Casazza. His work appears inside galleries and out. He recently painted a mural on the outside wall of Gallery 119 in Lowell, and his work fills walls on the Western Avenue Studios Loading Dock and outside his A-Mill studio. With three years of art school (New England School of Art and Design and Butera School of Art), Frank has worked as an illustrator for years, at Tower Records and for many magazines and newspapers.
Lately, Frank has been creating time lapse videos, filmed while he’s painting murals. The videos are a speeded-up variation of Live Paint events, where people can watch Frank in action. He began doing Live Paint events in 1994 and continues to do it whenever the opportunity presents itself. “Seeing the process from start to finish is the ultimate experience of an artist,” he says. It’s a delight to watch Frank (live or on video), take markers and paint to a blank wall, transforming it into another landscape in Frank’s world.

You can learn more about +EYEFORMATION+ at www.eyeformation.net

Sketches of Frank Gehry
Directed by Sydney Pollack
DVD review by Corni Forster

Every day I’m at work in Cambridge I at some point glance out of the window and see the Frank Gehry designed MIT building. I find it fascinating. It reminds me most of the architecture and architectural decorations of Friedrich Hundertwasser and the secular architecture of Antoni Gaudi, while differing significantly from both. Gehry uses the same curves and non-rectilinear angles, but in his work they seem less inspired by nature than by geometry, cubist rather than organic. And while I can imagine larger areas of a city built along the lines of Gaudi or Hundertwasser still retaining their character, Gehry’s work almost requires “boring” buildings to set it off.

Frank Gehry, since the opening of his iconic, stunning and extensively photographed and publisized Guggenheim Bilbao museum, has become one of the few architects known by name to a broader public, as Frank Lloyd Wright was in earlier years. [Challenging myself while typing to come up with other name (no googling allowed!) :Contemporary: Daniel Libeskind and Santiago Colatrava; other moderns: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, I. M. Pei and Eero Saarinen (the latter two thanks to crosswords). Far fewer than the number of painters, sculptors, photographers or composers I could come up with from the same time period.] . What is it about Gehry that has captured the imagination?

Is there still a question that architecture is art? I suppose that among those that would deny the label to anything with a utilitarian function…maybe. Otherwise, probably not. But architecture, while sharing certain elements, is more than just supra-monumental sculpture. How does the aesthetic meld with the functional in architectural design? Ideally I suppose through a continuous feedback loop, with one constantly informing the other. But it doesn’t always work out that way. Was it Gehry’s Disney symphony hall in LA thatdespite wonderful acoustics and stunning appearance led to the street’s asphalt softening due to sun reflections off the metal façade? And din’t I read that the MIT building with its theoretically innovative open plan was almost immediately modified by those who moved in and actually had to work there. A Gehry designed bank building has glass floors, which does wonders for allowing in natural light, but did he not consider that women would be working there? (And Frank Lloyd Wright famously designed Falling Water residence without a kitchen.)

These questions are not addressed in the dvd. Which I enjoyed. Immensely. It consists of Frank Gehry and his old friend Sidney Pollack in a series of conversations about his work and life, intercut with beautiful shots of his architecture (I wanted to see more of each one), scenes in the design workshop with his partners, model builders, and computer imagers, and with various clients and friends. And lovely close-ups of the sketches Gehry uses to approach his designs. One or two “nay-sayers” were included pro forma, but the worst they came up with was….not everything Gehry desins is beautiful.
The design process with the models was fascinating. Looked like just eye-balling what would or wouldn’t work aesthetically, cutting and changing with abandon. But scant discussion of functionality. So. Definitely not a critical appraisal. But an interesting look at how the artist wants to be seen to work and a survey of the work in question.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this film, it is available here.

PopcornPopcorn
by Jack Holmes

The warm comforting aroma. I first associated it with the movie theater from when I was a whippersnapper at the Saturday afternoon "20 Cartoons in Color". Now it is an evening snack for a soccer match or DVD movie.

I was surprised to find it accompanying meals in Peru and Ecuador. Maize originated in the Americas, traveled to Europe and then back to the Americas. There are hundreds of varieties in the Andes. Some corn is dried and ground into four, other is roasted over coals on street corners. Some with grape sized kernels is boiled, de-kernelled and served with potatoes and vegetables, and a bit of meat.

Popcorn on your dinner plate; a revelation. I wondered how they made it. But I never had the opportunity to question a local regarding their methods. I use the famous Holmes Method. This method is endorsed by many who are almost as famous as Jack Holmes.

Moisture in the kernel is quickly converted to steam by high heat. Steam cooks the corn. The steam pressure inside the shell builds until it ruptures the shell and the large tender pop is formed. Low temperature pop will be tough and small. Too long in the pot and the pop can burn.

OK get your things together.

1. A pot with a flat bottom and cover. It needs to have some height so the pop can explode and bounce off the cover before falling back on top of the uncooked kernels.

2. A couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil to cover the pot bottom.

3. Enough popcorn kernels JUST to cover the bottom one layer deep. Each kernel MUST have the room to fly high when it explodes. If the pop stays on the bottom it will burn. Unused kernels are stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container so that none of the moisture inside the kernel has the chance to evaporate. The moisture is the explosive agent.

4. Salt the uncooked kernels and swirl the pot so that all the kernels are coated with the room temperature oil.

Fire up the stove to medium high with the cover on. Now stand back and wait for the explosions of flavor to happen. No need to shake or lift the pot. [Note: no three testers to see when the oil is hot enough. The early pops will burn for sure.]

ClangBangBang they explode to the cover. When there is a pause in the explosions and you think that the kernels are mostly popped, lower the heat to warm for a minute or so to be sure no lingerers are left. Remove from the heat so that there are no BlackBottoms. Open the cover and sample the escaping aroma. ColorCartoons!

Taste a kernel for the proper salt level. Add more salt if desired while the kernels are hot and moist. There will be no Klunkers or BlackBottoms in the bowl.

Visit Jack's website.
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Centennial Quilt
by Lowell Fiber Studio and Friends Fabric Art

The panels here are of the work in progress.

In the spring of 2008, the Lowell Visiting Nurses Association received a grant to commission a quilt honoring their centennial. The Lowell Fiber Studio and Friends Fabric Art agreed to produce this quilt. The completed quilt was delivered to the VNA this fall.

The quilt’s design began with interviews of current patients and their families about their experiences with the VNA. Themes emerged from these interviews: growth, support, gratitude, and love.

After working out measurements, we developed a rough template for the design, then divided the work into panels. Names were drawn from a hat and two artists assigned to each panel. Because two artists had to drop out of the process, the middle panel became a cooperative piece. We dyed fabric to share and also brought in supplies. We trade ideas and regularly meet to critique progress.

Because the quilt was to hang in a small, windowless conference room, we felt the overall image should “open a window” onto Lowell. Images represent the VNA’s work in the Lowell community:

•    At the bottom, you see lush plants intertwining with a vine’s roots. The roots symbolize the VNA’s history.
•    The plants represent the new relationships that grow with the VNA’s work.
•    A wisteria vine twines up a porch column. Like the VNA, wisteria is strong and offers both beauty and shelter.
•    Blossoming branches reach across the top of the quilt, celebrating the hope that VNA’s work brings to patients.
•    In the distance are the homes of Lowell: the community the VNA serves.
•    The sky moves from night to day, to illustrate VNA support through hard times and healing.
•    Look carefully, and throughout the quilt you will see words, quotes from current patients.

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by Liz Smith, Studio A305

I put together this demo to show an overview of making felt beads. It gives an example of how this simple technique can make beautiful components for jewelery and other artwork. I love answering questions and discussing techniques so feel free to stop by and have a chat sometime!

See more of Liz Smith's work and technique here.

Poems by Anna Harrison

MOLLY BEAN

My funny alarmist
won't you quit barking?
Manga eyes
on tiny face
At once silly
and full of grace
Who is in charge here?

THE PAINTING

You make me remember
someone I never knew

What is this strange distemper?

Almost handsome in your rumpled suit

Are you the hard times
my grandfather knew?

Or were you a drunk like your creator,
painted on the Hill
Surrounded by self-proclaimed friends
Accepting your gifts as they foreclosed
on the walls where you hung

Distilled life, framed.

DESSERT FIRST

Once upon a time
that hasn't happened yet
I will live in a tarpaper mansion
in Vermont.
I will call it the Cocofinger Palace Hotel
after Ludwig Bemelmans.

There will be mint growing beside the front door
and raspberries tangled in the back.

I will paint horrible nudes, self-portraits
and stilted still-lifes
floating strangely in their frames
with contradictory light sources

My godmother's children will come over for tea
and we will eat cakes with pink frosting,
and my cats and dogs will dance to the tune
from my plinkety-plunk ukulele.

Poem by Mac Morganfield

WEST'RN AVE JIVEBOYZ

They too young
inside

They too dollar bound to be
real art mans

They too good, upright
They too bad, downherebelow
They too gray to know what it is, what it is.

They be how father looks at me now... sad...
They too smart for art, too artsy for sake of art, too bent for business, too near death
to bring my soul along.

In their coffins... no one can see... I took their shoes away with me.