Saturday, December 27, 2003

By Mary Thomas, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Big Boys are moving in -- Small farmers movin' on -- They keep taking away my paint sites and plop the McMansions in the middle."

Lyrics from a Farm Aid stage?

	"East Liberty Valley," a watercolor by Pittsburgh artist Frank Webb, is among more than 60 works in the Southwestern Pennsylvania Council for the Arts' 8th Annual Juried Exhibition at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Ligonier Valley. Click photo for larger image.

No. They're comments written on the frame of "Incoming McMansions" by Bedford County resident and plein-air painter Kevin Kutz, one of 60 artists from nine counties exhibiting in the Southwestern Pennsylvania Council for the Arts' 8th Annual Juried Exhibition.

Faint black-and-white cows float like drifting clouds above the rolling hills of a central Pennsylvania farm landscape -- a frequent subject of Kutz's -- that's overlaid with the stark black outlines of contemporary suburban homes and grids that suggest subdivision plots. "Look what they've done to our farm, Maw! Gone Gone Gone Away."

While theoretical discussions of agribusiness and urban sprawl periodically waft about political/intellectual platforms, Kutz draws from his vantage point at fray ground level to tap emotive underpinnings and give the issues visceral form.

This intimacy with the qualitative dimensions of local culture and geography is one of the strengths of artists referred to as regional, sometimes disparagingly. While they may at times be out of sync with the ideological and/or expressive directions of the global high-art market, often by choice, the best are attuned to their locales in a way that surpasses the perceptions of casual onlookers and visitors. It's through their observation -- generally patient and long term -- and presentation that we meet the region and, with luck, gain insight into it.

It's one of the features that's become a standard of these annuals, begun in 1996 and hosted this year by Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Ligonier Valley, where it will also be held in 2004.

For example, in his fine oil painting "Respite for Working Man," William M. Hoffman Jr. pays homage to his everyday subject by infusing him with dignity. Wearing a blue work shirt, his weathered hands and face attesting to his labor, Working Man sits beside a stool that holds a bottle of beer and a glass, his boots, jacket and cap neatly put away in the background.

Sometimes man's traces are the subject, as in E. Harold Boyles' "Pennsylvania Barn #2," Hank Stairs' "The Barn" or Anna Fetkovich's "V-Eight," the chromed front end of a shiny purple automobile sporting the tag "1038 PA V-Eight," all proficient watercolors.

The latter four artists were born in 1934, 1923, 1925 and 1936, respectively, and one assumes that their choice of subject matter reflects not only what's familiar but what speaks to them metaphorically, as well as through its inherent significance.

Dai Morgan, one of the region's most accomplished realist painters, goes a step further, reworking the commonplace into a studio art exercise and clueing the viewer by titling his rich 24-inch-square composition of tractor and barn "Circles, Squares and Rectangles."

From the transcendently suggestive sun-dappling on the ordered fields of Bud Gibbons' sweeping "Isabel's Approach" to the contemplative vignette of water and rock of Cliff McGuire's engaging "Tranquility," a sense of place feeds the mind and eye.

	"Greyscale," a trompe l'oeil painting by Jeff Ridgway of Clearfield County, is at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Ligonier Valley. Click photo for larger image.

Other meritorious works aren't so regionally specific, such as Phyllis Koehler's winsome watercolor "Sea Grapes"; Jolene Joyner's "A Glimpse of the Past," an impressionistic scene of a group of Amish by a fence, one of whom appears to be taking a photograph that is distracting or maybe part of the artist's point; and the wonderfully lighted "Thunder Chicken" by Melinda Myers, with an assertive stance that leaves no doubt about the title's origin. The latter two are oil paintings. Philip Brulia's "Transformation #2" is an exceptional portrait that appears to be a photograph of a woman behind rippled glass done with colored pencil.

Photography is represented, as well as some sculpture and contemporary craft, though this is mostly a painter's show.

John A. Fobes has a command of technique that supports his exploratory approach to photography. For "My Back Door" and "Pittsburgh South Shore," both from this year, he combines the perspective and clarity gained from a pinhole camera with the toning for which he is known to produce mysterious scenes that appear as stills from a dream.

Infrared film and some color overlay impose mood upon Alexis Dillon's intriguing "Beale's Bridge," while George Trimitsis' large abstract digital print, "Rumination on an Old Theme," suggests new directions for the figure.

Of the three-dimensional works, Vanessa German's "Great Grandmother's Hand-Me-Down Mourning Gown" stands out, with its aged-lace bodice, and the skirt comprising rows of clay cowry shells and detached heads of African men, the whole fringed with bones. Her mother, Sandra German, a skilled fiber artist, exhibits a small (29-by-21-inch) mixed media piece, "Premonition."

Stuart Thompson took risks with his ceramic "Zen Landscape I," and while it's a mite fussy for Zen, it's encouraging to see this medium taken beyond functional.

	Southwestern Pennsylvania Council for the Arts' 8th Annual Juried Exhibition Where: Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Ligonier Valley. When: Through Feb. 8. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. (Closed New Year's Day). Admission: Free Information: Call 724-238-6015 or visit www.sama-art.org.

The annual has been held at a number of venues, beginning at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, and including The University Museum of Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Saint Vincent College Gallery of Art. A permanent commitment from one such venue would give the show continuity and free planners to concentrate on developing other aspects of sponsorship. For example, limiting submitted work to that completed within the previous year would ensure freshness while offering artists a goal to work toward. (Some of this year's pieces are two to three years old, or undated.)

The council, admirably, has produced a small catalog that depicts each artwork, and it is free. It's also established a Web site where exhibition art may be seen (www.spcarts. org). Two purchase awards and $2,775 in cash awards were distributed.

Both established and emerging artists are included in the show, and the quality of technique and achievement reflects this by its variability. As the reputation of the annual spreads and submissions increase, that should even out; that is, unless the council consciously decides that opportunity should continue for less mature artists and makes provision for their inclusion.

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