Artist's Studio: Shawn Hall

Shawn Hall from Crunchy Bugs Creative on Vimeo.

Verso is proud to present the first of a new series of short videos by Crunchy Bugs Creative. On Sunday, July 11, 2010, the artist Shawn Hall hosted myself and Crunchy Bugs Creative (Elliott Houston and David Hall) at her studio in the Faubourg Marigny, New Orleans.

New Orleans Free People of Color & Their Legacy

On Saturday, October 3, 2009, Jose Torres-Tama and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, University of New Orleans released New Orleans Free People of Color & Their Legacy: The Artwork of Jose Torres-Tama. This catalogue documents the exhibition of the same name shown at The Ogden Museum and Dillard University's Fine Art Gallery in 2008. Including an introduction by the Ogden's chief curator, David Houston, essays by Torres-Tama and creole historian, Keith Weldon Medley, the catalogue focuses on eighteen pastel drawings of fifteen historical figures belonging to the New Orleans community known as the gens de coleur libres.


Photo by Cheryl Gerber

During the Art for Art's Sake events on Saturday, Torres-Tama and Medley signed copies of the catalogue in a gallery filled with Torres-Tama's pastel portraits of these influential and relevant historical figures, including Marie Laveau, Basile Barres, Edmond Dede, Rose Nicaud and others.

Photo by Cheryl Gerber

Bradley Sumrall, J. Richard Gruber, Jose Torres-Tama and Keith Weldon Medley

Photo by Cheryl Gerber

Jose with wife, Dr. Claudia Copeland, and two sons, Darius and Diego

Photo by Cheryl Gerber.

New Orleans Free People of Color & Their Legacy is available at the Ogden's Museum Shop.

Yee-Haw

©2008 YEE-HAW INDUSTRIAL LETTERPRESS

On Thursday, June 18, the Ogden's Bradley Sumrall and Richard McCabe visited Yee-Haw Industries in Knoxville, Tennessee. Started in 1996 in a Corbin, Kentucky barn by partners Julie Belcher and Kevin Bradley, Yee-Haw is an industrial letterpress and design company now located in a turn-of-the-century Gay Street building in downtown Knoxville. The over-stuffed studio is covered floor to ceiling with examples of their posters, prints, and broadsheets, filled with cards, t-shirts, and some of the funkiest collectibles to be found.

Yee Window and Haw Window, 2009 by Richard McCabe.

The letterpress barn in Corbin was started by Julie and Kevin with antique printing equipment saved from a rusty future, and used to create folk art woodblock prints of country music icons like Hank Williams (last seen alive feet from their current location) and Loretta Lynn, handmade posters of Southern subculture heroes like Cas Walker and Colonel Harlan Sanders. The work turned heads, and before long, the press was commissioned to create album art and promotional posters for contemporary artists including Steve Earle, Buddy Guy, Lucinda Williams and Southern Culture on the Skids.

Yee-Haw Interior, 2009 by Richard McCabe

All Yee-Haw prints are hand-set with original or vintage hand-carved wood blocks and type. Some of the earliest letter blocks date from the early eighteenth century. One vintage cabinet in the studio contains the history of Southern pro-wrestling in printer's photo plates. Drying racks are filled with inked paper at various stages of each color's eight-hour drying schedule. This is a real press in high production, full of activity and creativity.

Kevin Bradley in Studio, 2009 by Richard McCabe

Principal Julie Belcher, hailing from Morgantown, West Virginia, is the force behind building the brand. First introduced to the art world when her high school sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts to fund a trip to New York City, Julie went on to serve as art director and designer for Whittle Communications, Seventeen and Blue Note Records. Principal Kevin Bradley studied painting and graphic design before developing the unique Yee-Haw style. Julie lectures at institutions both academic and commercial. Kevin carves most of the original artwork produced by Yee-Haw.

Intern Christian Cox, 2009 by Richard McCabe

Recent Yee-Haw collaborators include Mississippi artist Sean Star Wars, Brooklyn's Cannonball Press, and Washington D.C.'s National Gallery of Art where they designed and produced a unique line of Dada merchandise for their 2006 Dada exhibition. Yee-Haw was recently commissioned by Jim Flora Art to produce limited edition prints from Flora's original blocks. Flora was an acclaimed and prolific illustrator and designer, best known for his album covers of the 40s and 50s. Of working with this material, Kevin Bradley says, " For us, it's like playing golf with Tiger Woods."

Printing Blocks, 2009 by Richard McCabe

For more on Yee-Haw, visit http://www.yeehawindustries.com/ .

Photographs @ Watercolor

South Miami Beach, 1982-1985. Photograph by Gay Block.

On Friday, June 19, the Ogden Museum @ Watercolor will open Picturing the South: People, Land, Architecture, Cities. Composed from the Ogden's photography collection, this exhibition includes photographs from 1934 to the present. A wide range of processes and styles attempt to represent the South's people and places, from the shrub brushed beaches of northwestern Florida to the dusty fields of the Mississippi Delta, from the color of South Miami's Jewish community to the texture of New Orlean's Vieux Carre at Carnival.

The Ogden's chief preparator, Richard McCabe and I are installing the exhibition in Watercolor before delivering the works of Mississippi artist, William Dunlap, to Banner Elk, North Carolina. After that we are on to the studio of Knoxville's Richard Jolley. Hopefully, along the way we'll record some truly Southern images and experiences to share here at Verso. Below is a view from the Watercolor Inn this afternoon.


Photograph by Bradley Sumrall, 2009.

Nene Humphrey

The Benny Andrews Foundation Gallery, on the fourth floor of the Ogden's Goldring Hall, is a space dedicated to the exhibition of works by Benny Andrews, his late father George Andrews (the Dot Man), and his wife, Nene Humphrey. Currently on display are works by Nene Humphrey as chosen from the Ogden's collection by Collections Manager, Bradley Sumrall.


Nene Humphrey’s work is concerned with the body, as well as issues of domesticity and the female identified world. Born in rural Wisconsin in 1947, Nene grew up in an environment that placed great value on labor and women’s hand-work. Raised Roman Catholic, she was greatly influenced by the church’s symbolism and body imagery. This background enabled her to create a body of work both firmly rooted in the craft traditions passed from mother to daughter, and in a post-minimalist tradition of using process and material as metaphor in a simple, pure aesthetic.


The human hand is central to Humphrey’s symbolism, being both portrait and tool. The hand is the vehicle through which we experience the world, feed ourselves and our loved ones, and create. Even when the hand is not used as the primary symbol, it is inferred through the process of traditional hand-work. The spoon, another major theme in Humphrey’s work, is simply an extension of the hand, used to provide sustenance.



To learn more about this Nene and her work, visit her website, www.nenehumphrey.com.
To see her most recent work, visit http://www.lesleyheller.com/artists/nene_humphrey/index.html.
Photos by Richard McCabe.

Lost Highways

During a January trip to the studios of Jerry Uelsman and Maggie Taylor, the Ogden Museum's Cheif Preparator, Richard McCabe and Collections Manager, Bradley Sumrall, took the back roads of northern Florida to Gainesville. Once main routes to all points South, these forgotten highways are loaded with great old signs, bleached and weathered, some reclaimed by nature, some still advertising the last of the old motels. Richard McCabe shot the two above with a vintage Dianna. Bradley Sumrall captured the ones below with an Argoflex 75.

Tom Young: Painter, Teacher, Fighter Pilot

On August 4, 2008 (just before his 84th birthday), the Ogden Museum opened an exhibition of the works of Tom Young. That night, Tom and his wife, Caroline, were in attendance. Tom is a great storyteller with a wealth of experience to draw from. In WWII, Tom served as a fighter pilot for the Army Air Force. After the war, he became involved in the abstract expressionist movement of 1950's New York. As founding member of the important 10th Street artist's cooperative gallery, between 1953 and 1969 Tom was closely associated with artists such as Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Paul Georges, Roy Lichtenstein, and David Amram. As artist-in-residence at the University of Mississippi in 1960 and 1961, he met a young William Eggleston, becoming a great influence on the development of Eggleston's style. Tom has been department head at Auburn University, and developed the M.F.A. program at the University of New Orleans, of which his student, Margaret Evangeline, was the first graduate. Tom and his wife, Caroline, still live in the New Orleans area. The photo at the top, taken by Bradley Sumrall, shows him in front of his large untitled abstract painting from 1970 as featured in the Ogden exhibition. Below is an image of Tom in his Metairie home taken by David Houston.

A Whole New O

In the month of January, the Ogden Museum has opened five new shows with one still to come. So, in a way, we are offering a whole new O to the public. Steve Kline's sculpture, Running Shadows, Flow Encircled Bits, is a recent acquisition of the Ogden, another whole new O. The work was originally installed in the 1984 World's Fair, and has been generously gifted to the Ogden by Michael Brown and Linda Green of New Orleans. During Katrina, the skylights of the studio it was stored in were lost, and the work suffered greatly from the elements. Steve has diligently restored the ten foot wooden sculpture. The photos below show the installation of the sculpture, giving a new meaning to our well worn phrase, "Support the O." Top photos by Bradley Sumrall. Installation shots by David Houston.

In with the New

Local sculptor and Ogden preparator, Aria Da Cappo, is seen here during the installation of Selections from the Collection of Donna and William Hines. As exhibitions of works by Margaret Evangeline, Sally Mann, Douglas Bourgeois, and Charles and Ethel Hutson close at the Ogden, we are excited to open shows by Jorge Otero and Jack Stewart, as well as an exhibition of recent acquisitions and greatest hits. When she is not hanging artwork for the Ogden, Aria is getting ready to unveil a monumental sculpture in Lafayette Square as part of the Sculpture for New Orleans project. Photo by Bradley Sumrall.

Snow

Richard McCabe, our Chief Preparator, captured these images of a rare occurance, snow in New Orleans. Snow collects on David Bates' Magnolia. Your's truly, Bradley Sumrall, Collections Manager of the Ogden, in the frozen lawn of the Taylor Library. The Ogden's PR Director, Sue Strachan, and our Southern Music Curator, Libra LaGrone, have a snowball fight on the terrace. The lawn around our H. H. Richardson building, the Taylor Library, blanketed in snow.

Hunt's Hats

Publication is set for 2009 of Hunt Slonem: Artist and Collector. This companion book for the 2007 exhibition at the Ogden conveys David Houston's journey through Hunt's three plantations, looking at both his works and collections, to the development and execution of a major exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. This installation of Hunt's collection of 19th and early 20th century top hats was designed by Bradley Sumrall after a consultation with Meyer the Hatter on Canal Street.