Carrying the Fire

Carrying the Fire, an exhibition by Fran Knapp, SOU Art Senior Student and Printmaker

“Carrying the Fire” is a lantern installation made from linoleum block prints. Fran Knapp interprets the concept through an illustrative narrative that ties together several stories from fiction and mythology, including her own symbolic interpretation. “Carrying the Fire” is about perseverance, survival, self-preservation, finding one’s intuition and gaining strength by working through fear.

Join Fran during her opening reception on Thursday, Nov 21st from 5:00-7:00pm.

Fran Knapp, Carrying the Fire, detail, 2013

To view more art by Fran Knapp visit her portfolio page here.

Anti-Artist Statement

Anti-Artist Statement, A New Perspective

The Artist Entrepreneur:

How Technology is Transforming the Art World

This article is written by Veronika Sonsev, CEO Founder of inSparq.com, an ecommerce technology company. She is also a co-founder of Women Innovate Mobile, a technology accelerator focused on female founders. 

Seth Godin says, “All artists are entrepreneurs. All entrepreneurs are artists.” With the advent of new technology startups like Kickstarter, Eventbrite and Artsicle, Godin’s vision is getting elevated to the next level enabling artists to take their career into their own hands.

For centuries, artists have relied on individuals and institutions to patronize their work.  To put together a solo show, artists would have to have gallery representation, which required a lot of luck and connections. Or, if they had money, the artist could pay a mediocre gallery to show their work, a luxury that very few artists could afford.

Now, new technologies are disrupting the art world in ways that were never imagined, allowing artists to fund, promote and create their own shows.

Erick Sanchez, a visual artist living in New York City, is a great example of an artist who has embraced new technologies to take his career to the next level. “I had excellent representation in New York City at the William Bennett Gallery in Soho,” says Sanchez. “When they shut down, I no longer had a place to show my work. I got frustrated trying to connect with other galleries and finally, I decided to take my career in my own hands.”

Erick was determined to be the creator of his own destiny. He had an ambitious project in mind, but limited resources on hand. Erick reached out to his network and found a unique free space for a solo show — a church in Times Square. Getting the free space was good, but he still needed money for art supplies, invitations and programs. So he turned to Kickstarter, a new startup that lets individuals leverage social networks to fund projects. To create his Kickstarter campaign, Erick had to make a video explaining the project, so he taught himself how to use Sony Vegas video editing software. After he created the Kickstarter page, he then marketed and promoted the project using his WordPress website, email list of over two thousand artists and collectors, and Facebook where he has over three thousand friends.

Erick was able to successfully fund his Kickstarter project and raise $3,800 — enough to fund the out of pocket costs for his solo show.

Erick then created his printed invitations on InDesign (which he taught himself using Youtube) and digital invitations on Eventbrite. Erick is now using social media and blogs, such as Artefuse, to market his show.

All of this effort is culminating with a show called Genesis: Creation and Decadence on November 1st at 7pm at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Times Square. Genesis means a new beginning. In many ways, this name of Erick’s show not only refers to the subject of his work, but also the fact that he is now using technology tools to seek his own destiny.

Erick is a pioneer in the artists’ community, but he’s not the only one disrupting the old-school industry. And in the future, we will see more artists, who are feeling frustrated and limited, embrace their own fate by making their art careers in the cloud. This is the genesis of a new art world.

To read the original article or visit webpage please follow this link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/elmirabayrasli/2012/10/22/the-artist-entrepreneur-how-technology-is-transforming-the-art-world/

Lyle Matoush, Professor Emeritus of Art at Southern Oregon University, Brings in the New Year with an Amazing Exhibition

Print by Lyle Matoush on Exhibition in the Thorndike Gallery at SOU January 2013

Lyle Matoush, Professor Emeritus of Art at Southern Oregon University, is a Master printmaker and artist. Though printmaking was his chosen medium, when the physical aspects of the process became too rigorous for him, Matoush began working with chalk pastels. This medium allows Matoush to explore his fascination with color and reflected light in works ranging in style from abstraction to realism. Matoush’s subject matter is often his immediate environment and he enjoys working from photographs he has taken. 

Pastel Painting by Lyle Matoush

Matoush earned his BA in 1957 from Colorado State College and his MA in 1960 from San Francisco State College. In 1965, he joined the art faculty at what was then Southern Oregon College. Though Matoush taught printmaking for over 30 years, he also taught drawing, ceramics, jewelry-making and color theory. Matoush retired from SOU in 1991.  

During a sabbatical leave from teaching in 1972, Matoush worked in a professional print shop in San Francisco. To become a master lithographer he studied alongside Master Lithographer Ernesto de Sota. At this time there were fewer than 50 master printers in the country. On another sabbatical in 1979, Matoush went to the University of California at Fullerton to learn photo-processes for printmaking and electro-forming techniques for making jewelry.  

Before Matoush retired from SOU, then President Joe Cox asked him to travel to the University of Guanajuato to teach printmaking for a few months. Juan Carlos, University President and soon to be Governor of the state of Guanajuato, who earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration at SOU, introduced Matoush to a young man named Miguel Rivera. Rivera became Matoush’s interpreter and good friend.  

When Matoush left Guanajuato he invited Rivera to attend SOU and negotiated with Juan Carlos to help Rivera receive a scholarship. Matoush and his wife, Jime, invited Rivera to stay with them until he finished his degree. When Rivera returned to Guanajuato, Matoush gave him all his printing equipment. At the same time, the SOU Art Department gave the Guanajuato Art Department all their looms and the first lithographic press that Matoush had bought for the SOU Art Department. Rivera joined the University of Guanajuato in 1998 as Chair of the Art Department and also served as an Associate Professor of Printmaking and Computers in Art. In the fall of 2008, Rivera moved to the Kansas City Art Institute to serve as Chair of the Printmaking Program. 

In 1997, Matoush saw a film on pastels at the Degas: Beyond Impressionism exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago. Seeing this film led Matoush to try pastels, a material with which he had never worked. Switching from printmaking to pastels, Matoush started making about 10 to 12 pastel drawings a year, but as he progressed with the medium, his output increased to a piece every 8 to 10 days. Matoush continues to work daily and continues to be prolific. Matoush’s prints are mostly non-objective; his pastels are both objective and non-objective. Matoush is often inspired by what appears to be the ordinary. His new pastel drawings range in style and demonstrate the play of light and shadow on various subjects.

Lyle Matoush in studio with one of 35 pastels from the “Hidden Pines” series.

Matoush is one of the founders of the Northwest Print Council, which includes members from Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. He and his wife Jime have donated many prints to the collection of the Schneider Museum of Art. To support printmaking students and the museum’s print collection, Matoush and his wife Jime have started the Jime and Lyle Matoush Fund for Printmaking at SOU. To support this fund, all prints and pastels are offered for sale at a greatly reduced price for the duration of this exhibition.

Fifty percent of the proceeds on all artworks sold will be donated to the Jime and Lyle Matoush Fund for Printmaking at Southern Oregon University. This fund supports printmaking students in their artistic endeavors and enables the Schneider Museum of Art to augment its print collection. To purchase a print, please contact Schneider Museum of Art. 

This bio courtesy from all at Schneider Museum of Art