Inspiration for the New Year!
DISTANCE MADE GOOD
A group exhibition and performative event at FADING AD GALLERY

DETAIL: Laura C. Hewitt
El Greco
66"x 36"
computer print & water color on silk

 

distance made good, navig. 1. the distance between a point where an object has been and a point where it is at present, measured along a rhumb line connecting the two points. 2. the wayfarer uses a dead reckoning system to determine her course. 3. inspiration determines the rhumb line and dead reckoning system.

I come from ocean people. People who for generations made a life in, on or next to the sea. Considering this, it’s not surprising that I chose nautical language to describe something as elusive as inspiration. The term distance made good has to do with measuring and reflecting upon one’s course.

The single most extravagant vision I recall from my childhood home was our view of the Atlantic Ocean. Sunset Hill was the name of our perch and each and every night over martini’s and Ray Price my Mother would extol the virtues of our particular location. How lucky we all were to witness such a spectacle as an ocean and all its changing moments of light, pattern and mood. Our proximity to this vision created something deep and lasting inside each of us kids. Something I have come to understand as inspiration. Inspiration is the thing that some simply possess and others spend a lifetime searching for.
--Hawley Hussey, guest co-curator

The Fading Ad Gallery, at 679 Myrtle Avenue, Ft. Greene / Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, presents Distance Made Good, an exhibition exploring inspiration conceived and organized by artist Hawley Hussey. The exhibition opens to the public on Wednesday January 12, 2005, the artists’ reception will be held on January 16, 2005 from 4pm to 6pm.  There will be a special event with readings and live music on Saturday February 5, 2005 from 4pm to 8pm (which was rescheduled from Jan 23 due to the snow storm).  The exhibition has been extended until Sunday, February 27th, 2005.

Hawley Hussey notes: “As distance is the extent or amount of space between two things, the artists in this exhibition traverse (meta) physical distance through years and mediums to realize their inspiration.  Long term collaborative communication, contemplation, moving the image up from the wilderness of the sub-conscious and provoking pen to paper, brain to cyberspace, needle to thread, bone to feather.  In the end when the work arrives to the realm of public viewing and truly inspires another, the artist has at last made good the distance.”
Distance Made Good is a vehicle for collaboration: exhibition, performance, spoken word and small press publication.  It began with a small exhibition and virtual presence at gallerythe.org (on view through January 2005.)   At Fading Ad Gallery the exhibition has grown to include 12 artists and 6 performers. 
Phong Bui’s dreamy paintings evoking the night sky are alight with stars and mysterious writings.  Through a series of brightly colored dots and pins Janice Caswell creates a map of the course she has traveled in particular places and specific times.  Josh Dorman’s delicately painted collages take the viewer into the world of symbolic details, both charming and engaging.  Photographer Greg Fuchs finds inspiration in the unlikely scenarios found in high-end retail windows; through his lens a new tale is made apparent.  Alaska based artist Laura Hewitt’s painted silk “stained glass windows” challenge us to reconsider as seemingly disparate concepts from art history to computer programming; bow hunting to astrology.   Los Angeles based Czech artist Iva Hladis creates layered ephemeral pieces which hearken back to her many travels and life journeys.  Exhibition organizer Hawley Hussey’s layered Plexi relief paintings speak of personal history and memories and serve as a springboard for the inspiration for this project.   Los Angeles based Shari Lee creates collages “derived from gathering, juxtaposing and transforming context and meaning from everyday forms, objects and images in an investigation and meditation into the idea of location.”  Meridith McNeal's aura portraits embroidered on curtains chart the energy between the body and the environment. The layered monoprints of Felix Plaza are filled with images, letters and ephemera from his early childhood Puerto Rico and NYC.  Liz Prescott’s long narrow paintings are at once lovely abstractions and personal cartography.  Ed Rath draws from real life experience to create brightly rendered highly idiosyncratic paintings.

Distance Made Good will include an evening of readings and live music, on Saturday February 5th at 4pm.  The event will include performances by acclaimed blues musicians Robert Ross and Queen Tipsy; the composer/musician Pan Morigan who lends a contemporary vision to traditional Celtic music and singer/spoken word poet Kenya Nairobi-Shakur.  Readings will be by Nelly Reifler (See Through) and Greg Fuchs (Came Like It Went.) The event is free but reservations are encouraged; 718-254-9300

Robert "Bluesman" Ross

Queen Tipsy

Sistah Kenya

Hussey is pictured here at The Hopper House in Nyack, NY with two pieces by Laura C. Hewitt of Alaska, El Greco and Rosetti, computer prints and watercolor on silk which will be featured at the Fading Ad Gallery. Also seated with Hussey is a ghost of the Hopper House in deep discussion over distances made and not. The Hopper House exhibition featured a collaborative exhibition with Hewitt and Meridith McNeal of Brooklyn: SHE MUST HAVE LOOKED LOVELY IN THAT DRESS which can be viewed at I.N.A.E. Enterprises website.

 

photo-collage of Meridith McNeal & Hawley Hussey
by Frank H. Jump (background art by McNeal)

Gallery hours will be from Wed - Fri from 4PM - 6:30PM, Sat from 12PM - 6PM and Sun from 11:30AM - 4:30PM or by appointment (718) 254-9300.  Directions: G train to Bedford/Nostrand or B57 or B44 Bus to Bedford/Nostrand.  Detailed directions available online @ http://www.frankjump.com/fadingadgallery.html

The FADING AD GALLERY, designed and renovated by Vincenzo Aiosa, is located in the eclectic Ft. Greene / Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn. The Gallery is co-founded and run by photographer/teacher Frank Jump.  Jump’s photographs are on view in the Bedford Avenue side of Fading Ad Gallery.

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