Dead Man in my House

Rosemary Ponnekanti wrote a very nice article about the Telephone Room Gallery and our Art + Ice + Beer event with Jeremy Mangan in The Tacoma News Tribune today:

"From small art gallery, big ideas"
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Rosemary Ponnekanti
www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/840897.html

Also published in the Seattle Times, "Tiny Tacoma art gallery makes big splash":
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2009708623_tinygallery23.html





Photos courtesy of the Tacoma News Tribune.

A Small Army of Buddhas

"The Badman is the first reductive sculpture I’ve ever made that wasn’t ice. I learned to carve ice mostly from Takeo Okamoto, a man whose generosity in teaching is matched only by his skill. But I also learned from a small army of Buddhas. One of our first clients at Okamoto Studio was a restaurant for whom we carved a life-sized seated Buddha six days a week. My first real contribution as a carver at Okamoto Studio was to make those figures. I was still a grad student at the time, so I would come in two days a week and cut three Buddhas a day. In all I carved well over 300, more likely 400. I liked to joke with the Okamotos that there actually was no restaurant, that they just loaded those Buddhas up in the van, drove to some vacant lot in Queens, and kicked them out the back – sort of a ‘Karate Kid’ type thing, and once I reached 1000 they’d finally let me carve something else, like a majestic winged unicorn or a gorilla wearing boxing gloves.

So if not for Takeo and the Buddhas, this painter would never have ventured into the 3D world of The Badman. Nor would we be carving ice mugs on Friday, a favorite at our summer BBQs at the ice studio. Hard to say if the best part is drinking the ice-cold suds or smashing the mug on the sidewalk once it springs a leak. You decide."
—Jeremy Mangan.

Copyright Okamoto Studio, 2009.

Jeremy Mangan, The Badman (detail), 2009. Photo courtesy The Telephone Room.

Join us for an evening featuring Jeremy Mangan's art + ice carving + beer on July 24, 2009. Please RSVP at thetelephoneroom@gmail.com.

The Badman by Jeremy Mangan is on view from June 17 - July 31, 2009 in the Telephone Room Gallery. Viewable by appointment—please email us. Don't be shy.

The Badman and some bad men

Our current exhibit The Badman by Jeremy Mangan finds the Telephone Room occupied by a dead gunslinger: life-size, and in a pine box to boot!

The Badman effect has us watching season after season of Deadwood—and also got us wondering:

Was the Old West really full of the sort of gun battles that ricochet across the silver screen?
How did most of the westward settlers of the shoot-'em-up variety truly meet their end?

From Wikipedia:
"Often, a gunfight was spur-of-the-moment, with one drawing his pistol, and the other reacting. Often it would develop into a shootout where both men bolted for cover. Other times, one or both were drunk and missed several normally easy shots. Many times the shootout was little more than one taking advantage of the other's looking away at an opportune moment...

Gunfighters King Fisher, John Wesley Hardin, Ben Thompson, Billy the Kid, and Wild Bill Hickok all died as a result of an ambush, killed by men who feared them because of their reputation. Famed gunman Clay Allison died in a wagon accident. Gunmen Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Commodore Perry Owens, and Luke Short all died of natural causes, living out their lives on reputation and avoiding conflict in secluded retirement."

Secluded retirement? No! Just the thought makes us crave some good old fashioned... Reenactments! Every year the town of Northfield, Minnesota celebrates it's heroic place in outlaw history with Defeat of Jesse James Days. The festival, held the weekend after Labor Day, marks the anniversary of Northfield's brave stand against the James/Younger gang's attempt to rob the First National Bank.
If you'd like to learn more about this true tale of outlaws and gunfighters, the festival website has a historical account of that fateful September 7th.
Or, if you fancy yourself an expert on Jesse James, or on Northfield, Minnesota you can test your knowledge with the Raid Trivia Quiz.
If reenactments aren't your thing, check out some Mutton Bustin' instead.

Join us for an evening featuring Jeremy Mangan's art + ice carving + beer on July 24, 2009. Please RSVP at thetelephoneroom@gmail.com.

The Badman by Jeremy Mangan is on view from June 17 - July 31, 2009 in the Telephone Room Gallery. Viewable by appointment—please email us. Don't be shy.

Two For the Show

Jeremy Mangan is a painter and ice sculptor who lives in Fife.
www.jeremymangan.com


Jeremy Mangan, Two For the Show, acrylic and graphite on non-buckling board, 9½ x 12 inches, 2008.

“Two For the Show brings a new element into an ongoing series of drawings and paintings. For some time I’ve been creating and exploring a world of oversized and overbuilt house, barn, and shed structures. Building practices of the early American West are certainly a primary source for this imagery. There’s a haunting but attractive quality to old dilapidated wooden buildings. There’s also a particular logic—they were built to serve a specific and necessary function, with little or no attention paid to aesthetics. They were 'just good enough.' But they’re beautiful in spite of this, and because of it. I’ve taken this logic and expanded it to the point where it becomes, hopefully, a compelling visual experience and a useful metaphor. In that order.

Two For the Show adds a mural depicting two dead gunfighters to the side of one of these buildings. For me it’s something like an elegy, a monument, to a particular type of legend, at once heroic and villainous. Photos of corpses displayed as trophies are fascinating and horrible. Like the weathered barns, this is rich imagery.

It’s also fairly dark imagery, which is something unusual for me. In any case, I do see myself continuing to engage it and Two For the Show directly foreshadows my plans for the Telephone Room in June."
—Jeremy Mangan.

Jeremy Mangan is a part of the Telephone Room Gallery's Hello! show, on view from February 18 to April 30, 2009. Viewable by appointment—please email us. Don't be shy.

Congratulations to...

Matt Johnson – for receiving one of seventeen 2009-2010 Tacoma Artists Initiative Program (TAIP) grants.

Started in 1999, the Tacoma Artists Initiative Program (TAIP) is a biennial program to support individual artists who reside in Tacoma in their creation of new artwork.
...details at www.tacomaculture.org/arts/funding.asp

Jeremy Mangan – who currently has a show at The Helm gallery in Tacoma and an upcoming solo show at the Telephone Room in June.

March 19 - April 9, 2009 at The Helm
"...my current work is a series of drawings and paintings of barn or shed-like structures elevated and supported by stilts. I hope these images allude to the strength, usefulness, and beauty, but also the hubris, precariousness, and ridiculousness, of human ambition."
...more at www.thehelmgallery.com/?page_id=155

Nicholas Nyland – who currently has a show at the brand new OHGE Ltd. gallery in Seattle.

Nowhere, Anywhere, Everywhere
New work by Nicholas Nyland
March 21 - May 9, 2009
"Nowhere, Anywhere, Everywhere includes works in a range of media (painting, works on paper, paper mache and ceramics) that are a world apart."
...read and see more at www.ohgeltd.com/Ohge_Ltd/Past/Entries/2009/3/26.html

Elise Richman – who currently has a show with four other artists at SOIL in Seattle.

Forces and Formations
Kevin Bernstein, Jonathan Bucci, Claire Johnson, Chauney Peck, Elise Richman
April 1 - May 2, 2009
"Natural forces and formations provide a jumping off point, a reference that inspires each artist’s highly personal visual logic and evocative manipulation of materials."
...read and see more at http://soilart.org/archives/apr2009

Gala Bent – who currently has a show at Gallery4Culture in Seattle for the month of April.

Overgrown
April 2 – May 1, 2009
"In a dozen or so works on paper, Bent has produced an enchanting primer on the role of imagination in our understanding of reality."
...more at www.4culture.org/publicart/gallery/2008_2009/bent.htm

Shannon Eakins and Marc Dombrosky – who have an upcoming show at Fulcrum Gallery in Tacoma.

Phantasm Chasm
April 23 – May 31, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 23rd 6-10 pm
Fulcrum Social/Artist Talk: Sunday, May 10th 6 pm
"Phantasm Chasm uneasily unites some of the failed opportunities, tragic events, and myths in Tacoma’s past."
...more at www.fulcrum.oliverdoriss.com

All of these artists were nice enough to be a part of the Telephone Room's Hello! show (February 18 - April 30, 2009).
Viewable by appointment at thetelephoneroom@gmail.com.