Let's Go Fly A Kite - Heather and Ivan Morrison at Open Satellite

On Tuesday Joey and I checked out the reception for Frost King at Open Satellite, here's some photos of the piece and be sure to check out my full write-up and more photos on Peer Review for the CAB  (City Arts Blog)  HERE. 

Right-O!

KAC Spring Party and SOIL in Residence reception (Photos by the Molorazzi)

Greg Lundgren to re-open Vitos (semi-art-related news)

Artist, Curator, Arbitrary Grant-Awarder, Art Bar creator and all-around great guy Greg Lundgren (The Hideout, Vital 5 Productions, Lundgren Monuments, PDL, etc) Greg Lundgren has done this city another great service - he's reopening Vito's - with his business partner Jeff Scott!  Read his letter to the First-Hill Neighborhood Association here.  Greg told me they are planning on an August reopening and in his letter he said they have "purchased a beautiful grand piano for live performance...[we will] offer quality food, service and entertainment, and reach out to three generations of Seattlittes that hold fond memories there


I count myself amongst those 3 generations.  I have fond memories of mozzarella sticks, $2.50 happy hour wells, and, of course, the famous men's room mural (pictured on the left, photo by L. Hammond, The Stranger), which Greg has assured me they are keeping.  I can't wait till August!


Meanwhile, be sure to stop by The Hideout this Saturday night for the 5-year anniversary party of the only bar I've been to which was conceived of as a 5-year Art-Installation!  (Thankfully the Greg and Jeff decided to extend their Art-Installation Bar for several more years)  It's going to be one hell of a party!

Molorazzi Strikes Again - Cap Hill Art Walk: Ghost Gallery Grand Opening + Erin Frost @ Square Room

Curator Laurie Kearney has staked out a permanent location for her formally roaming Ghost Gallery at the old Crawl Space (RIP) spot with gallerist partners Cait Willis and Justin Smith.  They hosted a lively grand opening exhibition during the BLITZ (still a horrible name for an art walk) of 30-odd artists who have shown with GG over the last few years.  It was THE PLACE TO BE.  How do I know?  because the Sleeping Lady was there and she always hits the best art shows.  (if you don't know what I'm talking about see this) 

Check it out-

 Sculptor Trevor Johnson and The Sleeping Lady admiring some art/jewelry 

 Anita Snax posing next to Kelly O's portraits of him

Who is The Sleeping Lady, really?


Some mysteries are best left unsolved...

Writers Johnny Horton and Greg B. with Trevor, I think Greg was using his pen as a sword.

Curator Cait Willis posing in front of one of her roller-derby paintings

Video Artist/Filmmaker Matthew Witschonke

After hanging at Ghost, we headed over to Square Room to check out Erin Frost's saucy self-portraits!  Square Room has re-invented itself as proper gallery as oppose to the more art-boutique retail space of the past, check it out!

That's Erin enjoying a good laugh in the foreground, with Shaun K.'s head poking out of hers!

Jaminson and Kara enjoying a cold one, with Erin's photos in the background.

Trend Watch - Fuschia and Fluorescent Lightbulbs

A couple blogs ago I wrote, well mostly just provided pics, about the excellent Portland Biennial 2010.  Thinking about the works since then, I have several lingering questions and I'm especially wondering:  What's up with all the fuschia and fluorescent lightbulbs?

One of the locations in the Biennial, Rocksbox, featured work by a collective known as Ditch Projects called Are You Ready for the Country?  There was a ton of video, and objects that seemed to relate greatly to consumer culture...shiny object, with, yes much fake lightening.  Very clean forms, with a manufactured look.  Often at odds with something more natural, such as a rope-suspended crystal or video footage of a small interior car fire.  Lots of fluorescent lights and fuschia was the big punch color.  Take a look at these images:

I didn't think too much about it, this show, overall was far less interesting than what I had come from at the Disjecta Kenton space, until I went to the next stop at the Templeton building and saw a large work by Jenene Nagy  called Destroyer.

 Destroyer is a bit hard to see from my images here, sorry, but it's got exactly the same shade of fuschia and all these fluorescent lights.  What's up with that?

Do these artists work together, or are influenced by each other, or is there some sort of trend out there with fuschia and fluorescents?  Certainly there has been no shortage of either of those in contemporary art of late.  Certainly they are used to different effect, but still, it's quite an overwhelmingly similar choice of color/material.  Was this chosen intentionally by the curator? 

Come to think of it, 2 different works in this Biennial also used suspended crystals.  Hmmm....

Molorazzi Strikes First Thursday

Last night I escaped the studio and hit up a bunch of great shows around the square! And I brought my camera!


I recommend seeing all these shows this month: Chauney Peck @ Soil, Jennifer Campbell @ 4Culture, You're So Cool @ OHGE, and, of course, Meet Greet Rinse Repeat @ Monarch Contemporary


Sharon Arnold and friend in front of one of Chauney Pecks work at SOIL

Troy Gua and the Collaborati's work at Monarch




Troy Gua and Collaborati Robert Hardgrave


Collaborati Cristin Ford posing coyly next to her work


Collaborati Chris Sheridan "posing" next to his glyph






I caught Joey Veltkamp as he bounced between shows gathering nominees for the City Arts Art Walk Awards later at the Hideout

OHGE was packed. Also, I had about 5 conversations of how to pronounce the name of the gallery...which I think is really a sign that their rep is building! (I think it's Ohhhh-geeee)

Joey announcing the winner of The Best of Artwalk: Margot Quan Knight.