Bill Radawec
May 31, 2008
Repeated analysis of proteins from a Tyrannosaurus rex found new evidence of a link between dinosaurs and birds: Of the seven reconstructed protein sequences, three were closely related to chickens. In a retrieval once thought unattainable, scientists have recovered and identified proteins in a bone of a well-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex that lived and died and was fossilized 68 million years ago. The scientists say the success, with advanced research techniques, opens the door for the first time to the exploration of molecular-level relationships of ancient, extinct animals, instead of just relying on their skeletal remains. Dinosaur fossil hunters are planning nine expeditions this summer to search wide and deep for more specimens as promising candidates for similar tests. A few large dinosaur bones already in laboratories may be examined for surviving traces of organic matter.
The earliest previously identified ancient proteins were from mammoths that died about 300,000 years ago. The oldest confirmed samples of DNA, a more direct bearer of information of molecular evolution, but more degradable, have come from Neanderthals that lived 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. The extraction of DNA would be necessary for studies in dinosaur genetics and for cloning experiments. Repeated analysis of the T-rex proteins, the researchers said, uncovered new evidence of a link between dinosaurs and birds, a widely held but contentious hypothesis. Three of the seven reconstructed protein sequences were closely related to chickens. The scientists resisted being drawn into speculation on the likely taste of a T-rex drumstick.
Two research teams are reporting the findings in todays issue of the journal Science. The principal investigators discussed the results with reporters in a teleconference on Wednesday. Speaking of the doubts she had had going into the work, Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University, leader of one of the groups, said, We had always assumed that preservation does not extend to the cellular level in ancient fossils. Dr. Schweitzer described several tests conducted on soft tissues found deep inside the tyrannosaurs femur, or thighbone, excavated in eastern Montana. She reported the surprising tissue discovery two years ago. Though barely detectable, proteins of collagen 1, the main organic component of bone, were separated and examined. Fragments, or peptides, of the protein were pieced together into strands of the seven sequences. Three of these reacted with antibodies to chicken collagen. Two others appeared possibly related to living creatures: a frog and a newt. The findings, Dr. Schweitzer and her colleagues wrote, suggested that, under certain conditions, remnant organic constituents may persist across geological time.
The second team, headed by John M. Asara of the Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said its independent tests had confirmed the presence of proteins in the tissue. The researchers subjected samples of the material extracted by Dr. Schweitzer to an examination by mass spectroscopy, which breaks down material to its component parts to determine its mass and chemical makeup. The technology is applied in medical research to analyzing more precisely the nature of disease-causing agents. Dr. Asara said the most difficult part of the research had been making sure that all the brown gritty contaminants were separated out of the specimen. After several steps in the purification process, the protein fragments were separated from one another, measured for mass and joined in seven separate strings of amino acid. Lewis C. Cantley, a Harvard biology professor on the team, said he was satisfied that the findings were unlikely due to contamination. In a press release from Harvard, Dr. Cantley said, Basically, this is the breakthrough that says its possible to get sequences beyond one million years, which had been thought of as the absolute time barrier for the preservation of organic matter in animal remains. In the fossilization process, minerals replace the constituents of bones, turning them to stone.
Similar tests by Dr. Asaras team also isolated and pieced together more than 70 protein fragments from a mastodon estimated to be 160,000 to 600,000 years old. The researchers said this provided further evidence of the staying power of ancient protein. We can now start to create relationships between extinct and living organisms, Dr. Asara said, adding that the T-rex tests supported the idea that birds are derived from dinosaurs or are closely related. Mark A. Norell, a dinosaur expert at the American Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the research, said the importance of the findings was in showing that biomolecules could be stable over this long period of time. The evidence for a dinosaur connection with chickens is less significant, he said, contending that all the data already confirm the dinosaur-bird relationship.
The huge tyrannosaur thigh was discovered in 2003 by Jack Horner of Montana State University, a longtime dinosaur paleontologist. It was excavated at a depth of 60 feet in the Hell Creek Formation, a dinosaur-rich bed of sedimentary rock underlying much of Montana and Wyoming. Dr. Schweitzer, a biologist affiliated with Montana State as well as North Carolina State, cut into the thick bone and recovered the soft tissues, including blood vessels and possibly cells that, she said at the time, retain some of their original flexibility, elasticity and resilience. This had never been found in a dinosaur before and prompted the investigations into the nature of the organic matter. Mr. Horner suggested that the size of the bone and the depth of its entombment accounted for the unusual preservation of the tissues. Thick bones, he said, afford interior matter more protection from environmental degradation. Another factor was that this particular dinosaur was buried in a virtually oxygen-free setting very soon after death. The depth may also have insulated it over time. Mr. Horner said paleontologists should look for other candidates for soft tissue retrieval among remains of the largest dinosaurs resting under tens of feet of rock. Such excavations, he conceded, will not be easy. But this will be the quest of more than 100 fossil hunters fanning out this summer in the American West and as far away as the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.
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May 30, 2008
MOCA presents Jean Luc Mylayne's Work
www.mocacleveland.org/exhibition_details
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May 29, 2008
One of the New Works from the Novella Series
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I see you
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May 28, 2008
One of the New Works called a little laugh from the Novella Series
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The new works from the Novella series consist of drawings and paintings using the language as it's subject. Words like smile, laugh, sing/sing, are placed on the surface of paper or canvas.
A fake camera is located on the same wall as the drawings and paintings. The camera is just looking and blinking at the audience. Similar to a taping of a TV show the signs dictating the audience's emotions like applauding on cue. When you look at the word laugh are you supposed to laugh when you have a blinking camera projected on you? These kinds of methodologies are so common in every fiber of our society. For example, is big brother forcing you to act on sight?
Does a "friendly" blinking camera change the perspective of looking at artworks? We have cameras everywhere even in art shows. Details of the exhibition will be announced in the near future.
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May 27, 2008
Phoenix Makes a Grand Landing!
According to Nasa's website, Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is the first time that a spacecraft has imaged the final descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body.
More information can be found at www.nasa.gov/mission
May 26, 2008
Wishing you a Happy Memorial Day!
Memorial Day From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who perished while in military service to their country. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War, it was expanded after World War I to include casualties of any war or military action.
History
Following the end of the Civil War, many communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war or as a memorial to those who had died. Some of the places creating an early memorial day include Charleston, South Carolina; Boalsburg, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Virginia; Carbondale, Illinois; Columbus, Mississippi; many communities in Vermont; and some two dozen other cities and towns. These observances eventually coalesced around Decoration Day, honoring the Union dead, and the several Confederate Memorial Days.
According to Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic race track in Charleston. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who had died while captive. The freed slaves reinterred the dead Union soldiers from the mass grave to individual graves, fenced in the graveyard & built an entry arch declaring it a Union graveyard; a very daring thing to do in the South shortly after North's victory.On May 30 1868 the freed slaves returned to the graveyard with flowers they'd picked from the countryside & decorated the individual gravesites, thereby creating the 1st Decoration Day. A parade with thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers was followed by patriotic singing and a picnic.
The official birthplace of Memorial Day is Waterloo, New York. The village was credited with being the birthplace because it observed the day on May 5, 1866, and each year thereafter, and because it is likely that the friendship of General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A. Logan, who led the call for the day to be observed each year and helped spread the event nationwide, was a key factor in its growth. General Logan had been impressed by the way the South honored their dead with a special day and decided the Union needed a similar day. Reportedly, Logan said that it was most fitting; that the ancients, especially the Greeks, had honored their dead, particularly their heroes, by chaplets of laurel and flowers, and that he intended to issue an order designating a day for decorating the grave of every soldier in the land, and if he could he would have made it a holiday. Logan had been the principal speaker in a citywide memorial observation on April 29, 1866, at a cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois, an event that likely gave him the idea to make it a national holiday.
On May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans' organization, Logan issued a proclamation that "Decoration Day" be observed nationwide. It was observed for the first time on May 30 of the same year; the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of a battle. The tombs of fallen Union soldiers were decorated in remembrance of this day. Many of the states of the U.S. South refused to celebrate Decoration Day, due to lingering hostility towards the Union Army and also because there were very few veterans of the Union Army who lived in the South. A notable exception was Columbus, Mississippi, which on April 25, 1866 at its Decoration Day commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery. Troops at the Washington, D.C. Memorial Day parade, 1942. Troops at the Washington, D.C. Memorial Day parade, 1942.
The alternative name of "Memorial Day" was first used in 1882, but did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967 . On June 28, 1968, the United States Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved three holidays from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend and for the first time recognized Columbus Day as a federal holiday. The holidays included Washington's Birthday (which evolved into Presidents' Day), Veterans Day, and Memorial Day. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971 . After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply at the state level, all fifty states adopted the measure within a few years, although Veterans Day was eventually changed back to its traditional date. Ironically, most corporate businesses no longer close on Columbus Day or Veterans Day, and an increasing number are staying open on President's Day as well. Memorial Day, however, has endured as one holiday during which most businesses stay closed because it marks the beginning of the "summer vacation season," as does neighboring Canada's Victoria Day, which occurs just before, on the third Monday in May.
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May 25, 2008
Touchdown-Phoenix landed on Mars!
May 24, 2008
Phoenix on Mars coming soon!
May 23, 2008
Solway Jones in LA is exhibiting the work of HK Zamani
June 14 - July 19, 2008
HK Zamani
Stella #8
2008
oil on canvas
28 x 36 inches
HK Zamani's website: www.hkzamani.uber.com
H.K. Zamani: Shelter from the Storm opens Saturday, June 14th, with a reception for the artist 6 8 pm. This exhibition continues through July 19, 2008. H.K. (Habib Kheradyar) Zamanis new paintings, sculpture and video continue the artists investigations of material, substance, form and function that began with his Fabric and Armature paintings and objects from 1993 through 2003.
Shelter from the Storm will include several new paintings that use as their subject a geodesic dome surrounded by planetary eclipses, densely painted with a mirror-like silver chrome surface. Starting with the installation/performance from 2003, EDIFICE/OEDIPUS (fabric covered dome), Zamanis long personal interest with Buckminster Fullers signature architectural invention becomes a metaphor for tent-like references for private space and pays homage to the 1960s when alternative life styles sought out alternative means for shelter. These forms were first used for performative interactions, and in late 2004 became the subject matter for contemplations in a variety of traditional media.
With the new works in Shelter from the Storm, H.K. Zamani instigates the necessity of returning to Buckminster Fuller's visionary concept of Spaceship Earth, questioning humanitys progress so far and initiating Fullers futurist ideas once again in a world filled with conflict. Shelter from the Storm brings together works that explore the artists return to traditional painting utilizing two and three-dimensional forms to convey both the exterior and interior space that occupy the need and desire for relief and transcendence.
This is the artists first solo exhibition with SolwayJones. H.K. Zamani has exhibited at Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten, Austria, Hohenthal und Bergen, Germany, Pierogi Gallery, New York, Kampa Museum, Czech Republic, and LINC, San Francisco. He was awarded a C.O.L.A. grant in 2004 and a California Foundation Grant in 2005. H.K. (Habib Kheradyar) Zamani was born in Tehran, Iran. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
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May 22, 2008
Contrail Painting with functioning fake video security camera
The Out the Blue, the Turn Around, 2008, painting was donated by Bill Radawec to MOCA's 40th Anniversary Art Auction.
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On September 11, 2001, United Flight 93 was hijacked, turned from its original flight plan to San Francisco, and subsequently crashed near Shanksville, PA. The plane was above Cleveland when it drastically changed directions. Bill Radawec considers this moment in his series, Out of the Blue, the Turn Around, in which he portrays a vibrant blue sky stippled with a line of sparse white clouds. Read in context, this line represents the vapor trail of United Flight 93 as it turned toward Washington D. C. The functioning fake video security camera that flashes its red light accompanies the painting adds to its political implications and protection.
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Noted Cleveland artist Scott Miller dead at 52 by Steven Litt / Plain Dealer Art Critic
Scott Miller at his Cleveland studio in 2004.
Art dealer William Busta called Miller "certainly one of the most important artists in Cleveland in the late 20th century."
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May 21, 2008
Social Saturday at Pocket Utopia, 4 - 6pm, come walk a visionary crosswalk
As part of Pocket Utopia's ongoing "Social Saturday" series, Graham Coriel-Allen will screen video documentation of his interactive crosswalks on May 24th from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. The "Visionary Crosswalks Social Saturday" will be an opportunity to watch videos, hang-out, and foster discourse on the Bushwick experience.
Pocket Utopia is an away-from center, off-center, exhibition, salon and social space run by artist Austin Thomas.
Pocket Utopia 1037 Flushing Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11237
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May 20, 2008
Side Street Project's Phantom Ball
An announcement from Side Street Projects, instead of coming to the Phantom Ball, we invite you to pick a time, pick a place, pick something you want to do, but havent and do that, instead! Just buy a ticket to Side Street Projects 15th Annual Phantom Ball and well send you a party favor made for this infamous non-event: a signed, limited-edition print by a wel-known contemporary artist created exclusively for the Phantom Ball.
What does this years print look like? Well, thats the big secret until June 1st. Buy your ticket right now, sight un-seen, for only $100. Once we reveal the image on June 1st, the ticket price doubles to $200. On january 1st, 2009, any remaining prints will be sold for $400 each. See how this works?
As always, well understand if you cannot make it, because nobody ever has. Nobody ever does. Not in 15 years. And on that note, this years souvenir print is by Pasadenas own Edgar Arceneaux.
I highly recommend investing in the work of this artist. His work is represented in the Whitney Biennial 2008.
Edgar Arceneaux
For more information visit 
at www.sidestreet.org
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May 19, 2008
Galerie Califia Exhibiting the Color Chip Series in Czech Republic
If you are lucky, you can travel to Horazdovice in Czech Republic to view my Color Chip work. The exhibition is at Galerie Califia. The color chip colors were inspired by Dunn-Edwards paint titles. You can check out their color chip names at www.dunnedwards.com To view my color chip series go to www.billradawec.com
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May 18, 2008
The Prague Post presented a review of the Galerie Califia exhibition in Czech Republic.
Good vibrations
A contemporary take on Color Field painting
Gallery Review | Search restaurants | Archives
By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
April 16th, 2008 issue
An excursion to Galerie Califia in Horazdovice, south Bohemia, offers a different kind of landscape: works inspired by the original Color Field painters of the 1950s and '60s. Six artists from the Czech Republic and five from the United States are featured in the exhibition, with an even mix of established and young talent.
"Color Field" is a term that was first used in the 1950s to describe Abstract Expressionist painters whose works were dominated by large areas of solid color, such as Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still. In the mid-'60s, a second group of artists emerged whose works expanded the definition of Color Field, such as Frank Stella, Brice Marden and Helen Frankenthaler.
While this exhibition showcases paintings, it also includes sculptures and installations.
At the entrance to the exhibit, Katerina Stenclov (born in 1959), who is the exhibition's only true Color Field descendent and, in that respect, a rarity on the Czech scene has four monochrome paintings in waves of red tones. In a catalog of her works from 1994, Stenclov writes, "I'm concerned with the weight of the emanation of light, its warmth, vibrations, brightness and lighting capacity. The quality of the emanated color assigns the way I deal with the particular material."
Stenclov's works in this show are hard to miss or ignore as a collective unit. Moreover, they serve as a guiding light for the other artists on display. Vladimr Kokolia, the most widely known Czech artist in the show, has shown his works in numerous Czech and international exhibitions since the 1980s. Kokolia, who is not typically identified with Color Field painting, tends to strip his imagery down to the bone. His paintingSunset (2005), which fully dominates a single wall of the main gallery space, is a bombed-out Gothic cathedral of shadows and light, a labyrinth of vortexes in black and colored shadows.
Monika Drbkov holds down the other side of the main room with canvases that are a more rustic take on Stenclov's monochromatic fields. Drbkov's colors combine as if they were enlarged amoeba cultures, or multihued pockets of farmland. The paintings are heavy in tones of red, green, black and brown, like the colors of fields and forests.
Whereas Stenclov is almost reinventing color in her contrasting and overlapping of hues, Drbkov more easily relents to vibrations of nature. The show includes a couple of nature-inspired sculptural installations that are well-suited to their outdoor setting. Appropriately placed in the garden courtyard of the gallery are Alena Krauseov's huge ceramic pods with natural tree branches extending out like contorted limbs. Krauseov (born in 1978) is also exhibiting some curious little men in swimming trunks, hung from the ceiling in the main hallway so that they swim just above the heads of visitors.
Another man-nature dichotomy is a huge papier-mach onion lantern, glowing gold in a dimly lit room. Its creator, Jane Heaton, was inspired to make Cibulova Lucerna by Czech farmers, seamstresses and traditional Czech lantern processions. She constructed it last fall in the fields near Galerie Califia while studying with the American artist Barbara Benish, the founder and director of the gallery.
Benish's former professor, Roland Reiss, is also in the show. He is a well-established painter and sculptor who studied at the storied Black Mountain College in North Carolina, then went on to chair the MFA program at Claremont Colleges in California, where Benish completed her graduate work. Reiss has six small, thin glass paintings in the main exhibition space, made with fine, light colors. They are ultralight counterparts to the heavier works of Kokolia and Drbkov.
The heaviest piece in the show, both in weight and color density, is by American artist Jon McCafferty. His untitled sculpture from 1998 is a large block of wood with layers of brown paint, glossed over with transparent varnish to give an effect of full depth and saturation. There are also thin horizontal stripes of other colors on the sides of the wood block, which look like colored layers of bark.
Bill Radawec, based in New York City, parodies Minimalist and Conceptual artists working in monochrome with his canvases that resemble color chips from a paint store. The paintings are composed of flat blocks of contrasting colors, such as a square of pink over blue, or a square of gray over beige. He gives each hue ironic names like "Fidelity" or "Rhythm."
However, only the young Czech artist Jitka Petrsov strived for real rhythm in her work. At the opening for the show, Petrsov played recorded jazz in the room devoted to her paintings, a series titled "Nadraz" (Train Station). The works are essentially jazz paintings with no identifiable imagery, dominated by dark and light blues with heavy lines in red. Her paintings get to the roots of jazz.
With her contribution, Petrsov makes a proper nod to "bohemians" of another sort, reinforcing the core mission of Galerie Califia: to bring together Bohemians of all stripes for cross-cultural dialogue and all that jazz.
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May 17, 2008
Color Chip Drawings at Galerie Califia in Czech Republic.
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May 16, 2008
Images of Color Chip Painting Installation at Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery
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May 15, 2008
Color Chip Work
Chin-Up
Breathless
Boy Blue
Brother's Green
Since the Color Field exhibition in Czech Republic, the Color Chip series have been very popular again. As a result, I am revisiting my past emotions. It is comical that these past emotions have been immortalized through paintings. However, these experiences are universal. The emotional content of some of the works are named Sweet Touch/Olive Branch, Promise Me/Romance, Solitary/Delusion, Knock/Out/Punch, Quietly/Whisper/Remember Me. Additional images are presented on my website at www.billradawec.com
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May 14, 2008
Bill Radawec's Soul Patch and Design Within Reach's What is Green?, April 2008 Catalog
Take a look at Design Within Reachs What Is Green?, April 2008 catalog to view their version of a grass patch. My soul patch is made from fake grass while theirs is a photographed square of real grass. In 1996, my green patch came into being while DWRs grass patch photograph just arrived in the mail today. Thanks DWR for your homage to my little green soul patch series. To view more soul patches please visit www.billradawec.com
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May 13, 2008
Soul Patch series inspired by Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood's Grave
My Soul Patches series were inspired by fondness of cemeteries and the many walks through them. Although Marilyns grave could easily be found, it was always a frustrating experience when I could never find Natalie Woods grave. As a result, of looking at the grass for long periods of time inspired me to create the Soul Patch paintings and then bury it under fake grass. Playing with the idea that painting is dead, I thought it should have a proper burial.
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May 12, 2008
Paul Yanko's Work is on view at the Greenville County Museum
DartArrowDart
Acrylic paint and acrylic
mediums on canvas, 2007
24" x 24"
Paul Yanko: Member Showcase April 10June 1, 2008 Greenville artist Paul Yanko teaches painting at the South Carolina Governors School for the Arts and Humanities. This Member Showcase offers a sampling of his intensely structured and tactile paintings.
Visit Artist's Website: www.paulyanko.net
Artist Biography:
Youngstown, Ohio, native Paul Yanko teaches at the South Carolina Governors School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville, South Carolina. He received an M.F.A. in painting from Kent State University in 1995 and a B.F.A in illustration from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1991. While residing in Ohio, Yanko exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions at institutions including the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art and the McDonough Museum of Art.
In 2002 he was the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. His work is included in private and public collections including the Cleveland Clinic.
About the Work:
My work reflects a desire to reconcile formal painterly concerns with process-derived imagery. I remain equally influenced by emblems of Modernist geometric abstraction, such as the stripe and triangle, in addition to the characteristically intense, saturated hues found in commercial sign painting and toy construction sets. I develop my paintings systematically through an additive process of layering paint mixed with various mediums onto masked areas. The resulting imagery of my compositions evolves from a matrix of vertical, horizontal, and curvilinear bands. This matrix serves as a foundation from which I use to isolate a vocabulary of shapes. Using masking techniques, I apply paint in increasingly heavy films with a palette knife, gradually allowing tactile qualities to develop as I register progressively smaller shapes over larger forms.
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May 11, 2008
The Nature of LA
Samantha Fields
Portia Hein
Stas Orlovski
Andre Yi
When:
April 13 - June 28, 2008
Where:
895 Colusa Ave
Berkeley, CA 94707
How:
Thursday - Saturday, 10 - 4, by appointment
Call 510-527-1214
View images from the exhibition
Traywick Contemporary is pleased to present The Nature of LA, an exhibition featuring four Los Angeles-based painters whose work is brimming with social and environmental awareness. As a group, the work reflects an enchantment with the life of the natural world while addressing the paradoxical experience of the contemporary American landscape.
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May 10, 2008
A Home in the Czech Mountains
By BARBARA FRYE
Nearly a century ago, a handsome, well-to-do miller in a rural Czechoslovak village proposed to a young woman. Unexpectedly, she turned him down to marry a musician from a neighboring town. Today, that young womans grandson lives at the mill and, along with his wife and two daughters, has embarked on a project to make it a home, art gallery, museum and international art camp. We feel like its kind of meant to be, that were here in the end, said Barbara Benish, whose husband, Petr Kalny, is the grandson. Ms. Benish, 48, is an artist and self-described surfer girl from Orange County in California. Mr. Kalny, 45, is an architect, the son of Czechs who fled the country in the 1980s. He returned permanently in the 1990s after meeting Ms. Benish at an art opening in Prague and falling in love.
They have made the mill complex, which Ms. Benish says dates back 400 or 500 years theyre not sure into their lives work. Situated in the gentle Sumava mountains of southern Bohemia in the Czech Republic, on the border with Germany, it sits across a narrow country lane from a lake. In the distance is the grand house that once was the country home of a Hapsburg-era prime minister. The nearest town, Horazdovice, is a 10-minute drive away. The region is about two hours from Prague and three hours from Munich.
The complex is a hodgepodge of structures, including the mill, a barn, former stables and various outbuildings, totaling about 7,000 square meters, or 75,350 square feet. The family has converted the stables into its quarters, creating a living room, kitchen and pantry, library, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The mill itself is a labyrinthine three-story affair of grain chutes and ladders that houses Mr. Kalnys summer studio. (During the winter he alternates between the mill and Prague, where he commutes to his office from an apartment that he and Ms. Benish keep.) The mill is also used to display Ms. Benishs artwork, which ranges from tiny etched postcards to large canvas hangings she gives modern twists to traditional forms, and is heavily influenced by the 16th century German artist Albrecht Drer. She had used a former barn as her studio, but the couple adopted a former racehorse last fall. Forced to make way for the animal, she now works in a former pigsty.
The couple have kept the buildings, which are mostly stone or brick covered with stucco, as close to their original state as possible. In Ms. Benishs studio, the pillars that probably demarcated the pig stalls still stand. In the mill, the couple closed off a small area upstairs and leave the windows open to give the areas swallows somewhere to roost. Reflecting its utilitarian past, the kitchen has shelving of ash and industrial steel, welded on the premises by a master welder who works with the couple. They do most of their cooking on a circa 1920s flat-topped wood-fired oven that requires deft placement of pots and pans. It took me years to get to know it, Ms. Benish said, but now I know every square millimeter of it. The renovation materials and furnishings were all found locally, and most were inexpensive. The steel for the kitchen shelves came from the local ironmonger, and a pair of early 20th-century chairs in the kitchen were bought at a secondhand shop and reupholstered in gold velvet by a local man who specializes in tractor seats.
Ms. Benish came to the Czech Republic on a Fulbright grant in 1993, just after the countrys split from Slovakia. At an art opening soon afterward, she met Mr. Kalny, who was living and working as an architect in Switzerland. Today they have two daughters, Gabriela, 11 and Natalia, 7. While Ms. Benish was pregnant with Gabriela, the couple, who were living in Prague at the time, began looking for a country cottage. Many Czechs have weekend places, some dating from the communist era, when few people were allowed to travel outside of the country. The places serve as a respite from the grim apartment blocks with concrete-panel facades that still house most urban dwellers.
One day, Ms. Benish recalled, they got a call from Mr. Kalnys mother, who had returned to the country in the late 90s: She said, Ugh, theres this horrible old mill out at Sumava, but you might like it, Barbara; its on the lake. Because I grew up in California and they know I love the water. The place was a roofless, nettle-ridden mess, Ms. Benish said, but she and Mr. Kalny fell in love with it. They paid about $12,000 for the two-acre site in 1996 and moved in five years later. Ms. Benish estimates that they have spent $150,000 on repairs and renovations.
These days a buyer would pay considerably more. For example, it would cost about $140,000 to buy a shack with no electricity or plumbing on a 1,000-square-meter, or almost 10,765-square-foot, plot that a private owner is selling within one of the Sumava regions national park and reserve areas. (There is privately owned land within the park and reserve areas, and owners are free to sell it.) And the price would be about the same for a comfortable house on an 11,000-square-meter, or 118,400-square-foot, plot elsewhere in the region, according to Jana Schwarz, a broker who sells property in Prague and Sumava.
Ms. Benish and Mr. Kalny established their art camp for children in 2004 after getting repeated requests from friends and neighbors for art lessons. It has accommodated 40 children for two weeks each summer, although it will be closed for renovations this summer, and the demand has been so great that they are planning on expanding it next summer. During the rest of the year Ms. Benish sits on the Fulbright board in Prague and teaches English to her neighbors on Fridays. Generally, she said, the mill is isolated enough to help her concentrate on her artwork. Its many spaces also have given Mr. Kalny opportunities for architectural experiments, like his horizontal division of a soaring three-story space in the mill that created a loft for additional art display space. Several brokers, including Ms. Schwarz, said most of the prospective buyers looking in Sumava are Czechs who live in Prague, but even so, Ms. Benish predicted that her family was on the forward edge of a trend. She said expatriate friends in Prague had asked her to scout property in the region. I think its going to be the trend, she said, because its still somewhat affordable.
Email your comments to Bill Radawec at bill@billradawec.com
May 9, 2008
Ring Dance
Ring Dance from the Bird Series
Ring Dance video which describes the ideas behind the birds series has been posted on YouTube. Ring Dance is the second one of many more to come. Go to youtube.com/billradawec to view the Richard Serra inspired work. Please post your comments.
Email your comments to Bill Radawec at bill@billradawec.com
May 8, 2008
Stuck Again, the Sequel
The art works from the early 90s have been based on sequels. It is produced after the completed works such as the bird sculptures, walking sticks, and soul patches. The sequels come in form of drawings revisiting the events of the original art works. It continues the events of the original story by using the same characters. For example, the birds instead of going into extinction continue finding ways to reinvent themselves through drawings.
Email your comments to Bill Radawec at bill@billradawec.com
May 7, 2008
The Suburban
THE SUBURBAN
FUTURE
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Lars Wolter / Dan Walsh /
Andrea Zittel and the Smockshop Opening: Sunday, April 27, 2:00 BBQ
through June 5, 2008
David Robbins
May 16 and 17: Milwaukee International, Milwaukee Fair (link)
Stephen Berens / Shana Lutker
Opening: Sunday, June 8, 2:00 BBQ
through July 10, 2008
Cip Contreras / Matthew Rich
Opening: Sunday, July 13, 2:00 BBQ
through August 28
THE SUBURBAN is hosting a smockshop sale from April 25 - June 5, 2008
smockshop hours:
April 25 - 27, 10 - 6pm
and through June 5 by appointment
244 West Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois 60302 - Telephone: (708) 763-8554
Email your comments to Bill Radawec at bill@billradawec.com
May 6, 2008
The Art Star and I
Which one of us has more hair? The latest addition to our family is our 7 month old, hairless, Sphynx kitten named rt.
Email your comments to Bill Radawec at bill@billradawec.com
May 5, 2008
My Heroes
The Beatles and William Claude Harper have been the biggest influences in the beginning of my art career. The Beatles came from Liverpool, England which is a place similar to Cleveland, Ohio an industrial, seaport town. At a young age I figured if they can make it as artists, I can make it too. William Claude Harper was my high school art teacher. I looked at him not as a teacher but as a practicing artist. He would work on his own projects while we, as students were working on our creative assignments.
Email your comments to Bill Radawec at bill@billradawec.com
May 4, 2008
Parma Senior High
After many years, I called up my high school art teacher, William Harper. It was great experience to talk to him after all those years. Both of us being practicing artists had a lot to share about our art careers and upcoming art exhibitions. Time is funny, it seemed just like yesterday that I was in William Harpers art class in Parma High School. Sharing a conversation with him today over the phone brought back many memories and reminded me of why I am an artist today. Due to his artistic influence, I chose an artistic career.
Email your comments to Bill Radawec at bill@billradawec.com
May 3, 2008
Incognito
Exhibition Detail
Incognito: Exhibition and Art Sale
Santa Monica Museum of Art
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90404
May 3rd 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM One of the most highly anticipated art events in Southern California returns on Saturday, May 3, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., when the Santa Monica Museum of Art hosts its fourth annual INCOGNITO, a unique exhibition and art sale of works in an 8" x 10" format, created by hundreds of acclaimed artists from Los Angeles and across the globe. All the works in INCOGNITO are on sale for $300 each, and signed on the back. "Trust Your Instincts" to guide your selections, as artist identities are revealed only after purchase.
INCOGNITO reflects the valiant spirit of revelation and exploration that inspires SMMoA's exhibitions, education, and outreach programs. Proceeds directly support the Museum, which this year celebrates two decades of creative achievement. The logo for INCOGNITO 2008 is designed by renowned artist Barbara Kruger.
Participating artists in INCOGNITO are:
Luciana Abait, Kim Abeles, Gerardo Yepiz Acamonchi, Lisa Adams, Simone Adels, Nick Agid, Cynthia Alexander, Rachel Allen, Terry Allen, Jami Allen-Snyder, Sophia Allison, Marcos Alvarez, Fumiko Amano, Eleanor Antin, Kevin Appel, Carolyn Applegate, Edgar Arceneaux, Skip Arnold, Charles Arnoldi, Chad Attie, Don Bachardy, Hilary Baker, John Baldessari, Glen Baldridge, Devendra Banhart, Ray Barrie, Slater Barron, Gary Baseman, Chris Beas, Martin Beck, Tina Beebe, Quinton Bemiller, Tom Benedek, Billy Al Bengston, Sharon Ben-Tal, Jodie Berry, Guillermo Bert, Mariella Bettineschi, Joe Biel, Sanford Biggers, Enid Baxter Blader, Lauren Bon, Jill Bonovitz, Katy Bowen, Andrea Bowers, Mark Bradford, Leonardo Bravo, William Brice, Edgar Bryan, Elizabeth Bryant, David Bunn, Jeremy Burleson, Bruce Busby, Luke Butler, Eugenia Butler, Matty Byloos, Huguette Caland, Louis Cameron, Clayton Campbell, Barbara Carrasco, Karen Carson, Jamison Carter, Richard Carter, Cole Case, Alida Cervantes, Exene Cervenka, Mary Christiansen, John Clendening, Xavier Czares Cortz, Norman Cowie, Steve Craig, Meg Cranston, Thomas Alan Cronk, Raoul De la Sota, Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Tony de los Reyes, Mara De Luca, Steve DeGroodt, Ann Diener, Guy Dill, Laddie John Dill, Abby Donovan, Roy Dowell, Mimi Drop, Barry Dukoff, Sam Durant, Anna Dusi, Mark Dutcher, Mari Eastman, Ashley McLean Emenegger, Elizabeth Enders, Samuel Erenberg, Merion Estes, Vidal Pinto Estrada, Ned Evans, Kota Ezawa, Carolyn Fernandez, Bruria Finkel, Chris Finley, Caio Fonseca, Kianga Ford, Andrew Foster, Bryan Freeny, Eliza French and Jeff Charbonneau, Caroline Furr, Joe Fyfe, Francesca Gabbiani, Charles Gaines, Steve Galloway, Harry Gamboa, Jr., Corina Gamma, Rico Gatson, Jordan Gaunce, Megan Geckler, Ana Marini Genzon, Milton Glaser, Marcelino Gonalves, Yolanda Gonzalez, Joe Goode, Jorge Gracia, Tim Granlund, Cameron Gray, Phyllis Green, Mark Steven Greenfield, Kojo Griffin, Margaret Griffith, Iva Gueorguieva, Shane Guffogg, Jody Guralnick, Mary Addison Hackett, Lynn Hanson, Willie Harris, Kira Lynn Harris, Karen Harter, Deborah Hede, Matthew Heller, Roger Herman, George Herms, Pixie Herms, Carlos Hernandez, Juan Carlos Muoz Hernandez, Gustavo Herrera, Lynn Hershman, Katie Herzog, Gilah Yelin Hirsch, Thomas Hirschhorn, Asuka Hisa, Loren Holland, Cadillac Holmes, Violet Hopkins, Channa Horwitz, Brad Howe, James Howell,
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Salomn Huerta, Sara Hunsucker, Charles Irvin, Max Jansons, Ellen Jantzen, Michael Jantzen, Amparo Jelsma, Robert Johnson, Vincent Galen Johnson, Michael Joo, Sharon Kagan, Glenn Kaino, Yoichi Kawamura, Szajna Kellman, Kristi Kent, Sandrine Kern, Martin Kersels, Ellina Kevorkian, Linda King, Katlin Kirker, Bill Kleiman, Patricia Knop, Thomas Kovachevich, Joyce Kozloff, Barbara Kruger, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, Alan Kupchick, Robert Kushner, Suzy Lake, Julia Latan, Tom Leeser, Mark Lere, Les Levine, Joyce Lightbody, Annabel Livermore, Jay Lizo, Karen Lofgren, Bill Longhauser, Lasse Ernlund Lorentzen, Jean Lowe, Heriberto Luna, Mela M., Kim MacConnel, Daniel Maltzman, Daniel Marlos, Hudson Marquez, Luigia Martelloni, Virgil Marti, Kim McCarty, Robin McCauley, Michael C. McMillen, Rodney McMillian, Christina McPhee, Blue McRight, Adrian Meraz, Robin Mitchell, Nancy Monk, Lester Monzon, Mary More, Angeles Moreno, Jim Morphesis, Rebecca Morris, Aaron Morse, Andy Moses, Ed Moses, Joshua Mosley, Martin Mull, Carter Mull, Thomas Mller, Matt Mullican, Hillary Mushkin, Tucker Neel, Geraldine Neuwirth, Leonard Nimoy, Yarg Noremac, Laurie Nye, Lorcan O'Herlihy, Chris Oliveria, Michael O'Malley, Michelle O'Marah, Pat O'Neill, Ed Osborn, Ruby Osorio, Simon Ouwerkerk, Laura Owens, Edward Carlo Pacio, Liga Pang, Rosieta Pardo, Jeanne Patterson, Renee Petropoulos, Raymond Pettibon, Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, Francis Pezza, Paul Pitsker, Bruce Pollock, William Pope.L, Carol Powell, Nancy Goslee Power, Vanessa Prager, Alex Prager, Lori Precious, Astrid Preston, Stephen Prina, Stephanie Pryor, Rosamond Purcell, Bill Radawec, Lucas J. Reiner, Retna, Martha Rich, Marco Rios, Elwood T. Risk, John Robertson, Steve Roden, Frank Romero, Sharon Romero, Michael Rosenfeld, Rachel Rosenthal, Melanie Rothschild, Allen Ruppersberg, Ed Ruscha, Eddie Ruscha, Jr., Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Shirley Sacks, Gwen Mayer Samuels, Ruth San Pietro, Saber, Eduardo Sarabia, Larry Scharf, Lothar Schmitz, Michael Schnorr, Allison Schulnik, Josh Schweitzer, Peter Shire, Justin Siegel, Elena Mary Siff, Pasqual Sisto, Alvaro Siza, Keith Sklar, Barbara T. Smith, Alexis Smith, Joe Sola, Mariangeles Soto-Diaz, Brad Spence, Zackary Stadel, Randi Steinberger, Coleen Sterritt, May Sun, Carl Swallow, Katherine Sweetman, Henry Taylor, Stefon Taylor, Anita Thacher, Mark Todd, IM Toth, David Trulli, Robert Twomey, Carrie Ungerman, Miller Updegraff, Alison Van Pelt, Jennifer Vanderpool, Tyler Vlahovich, Gary Ward, Ester Pearl Watson, Mary K. Weatherford, Marnie Weber, Ruth Weisberg, Brett Westfall, Stephen Westfall, Benjamin White, Pae White, Brian Wills, Millie Wilson, Fred Wilson, Steven Wolkoff, Eve Wood, Leslie Yagar, Rosha Yaghmai, Hiro Yamagata, Bruce Yonemoto, Buzz Yudell, Christina Zelinsky, Bari Ziperstein, and Sarah Zwerling.
INCOGNITO Benefit Committee Members:
Price Latimer Agah, Cynthia Alexander, Jami Allen-Snyder, Janine Arbelaez, Janine and Lyndon Barrois, Mark S. Bradford, Chase Carter, Richard Carter, Mary Chancellor, Amy Coane, Laura Donnelley, Barbara J. Dunn, Andrea Feldman Falcione, Charles Gaines, Lisa Gelber, Clinton H. Hodges, Heather Harmon, Salomn Huerta, Maggie Kayne, Carla Kirkeby, Kim McCarty, Rebecca Morris, Kori Newkirk, David Nochimson, Lorcan O'Herlihy, Rose Ors, Nancy Goslee Power, Pamela Robinson, Colette Shelton, V. Joy Simmons, M.D., Eve Steele and Peter A. Gelles, Mary K. Weatherford, and Jenisa Washington.
Generous Support for INCOGNITO is Provided by:
Badoit, Chase Carter, Richard Carter, Crescent Cardboard Company, L.L.C., Green Truck Print and Graphics, IZZE, 89.9 KCRW, Barbara Kruger, Laetitia Vineyards & Winery, William Longhauser, Pico Party Rents, Tito's Handmade Vodka, Quick Draw!, Volvic, and Wally's Wine & Spirits.
-more-
About the Santa Monica Museum of Art
Through its exhibitions, education, and outreach programs, SMMoA fosters diversity, innovation, and discovery in contemporary art-local, national, and international. The Museum celebrates: expanding boundaries; exploring individual differences; enhancing public knowledge of art; and broadening the art experience. SMMoA is a collection of ideas.
GRACIE: at the Santa Monica Museum of Art
GRACIE is SMMoA's museum store. A multifunctional shop/storage/installation conceived by artist and architect Allan Wexler, GRACIE offers an inspired selection of books and merchandise that reflects the Museum's unique mission. GRACIE is named in honor of Board President Laura Donnelley (a.k.a. Gracie), a visionary patron of the arts and SMMoA muse.
Santa Monica Museum of Art 1988-2008