echo.. echo... echo.... part 2

Here continues my report on the echo: Art Fair, hosted last weekend by Frits Abell and Dean Brounrout. More of the same alphabetical tour:

Richard Huntington. A Buffalo favorite, and an old friend from my past. Back in the 70’s when I was but a young curator at the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, Richard spent a year as the artist-in-residence there. We had good times in our youths.

Indigo Art showed quite a potpourri from artists Jozef Bajus, Nancy Belfer, Ani Hoover, Bill Stewart.

Felice Koenig. Wow. This woman has good eyes and remarkable control. Look close.

Here’s Diane standing in one of Mark Lavatelli’s forests. 

Birch Libralato exhibited several artists from his Tecumseth Street gallery.

Dennis Maher and Gary Sczerbaniewicz from Buffalo.

Meibohm Fine Arts, a third-generation gallery in East Aurora, New York.

Esther Neisen displayed her psychological insect constructions. Creepy until you listen to her reasons for making them. Then, well, creepier.

Now we come to OGRE. I didn’t learn OGRE’s real name, and his art is not really my favorite genre, but… it’s well crafted and very popular. His booth sported a higher percentage of red dots than all the others. Keep up the good work, OGRE.

PDX Contemporary were our art fair neighbors all weekend, across the aisle from each other. Some of the regional artists took umbrage at the “out-of-town” nature of some participants. Yes, PDX is based in Portland, but they’re a Buffalo family that is large and goes way back. They showed some challenging work by Nick Blosser, Johannes Girardoni, and Masoa Yamamoto.

Jean-Michel Reed from Buffalo.

I like these paintings by Karen Sardisco from Rochester.

Georgia Scherman Projects offered a selection from gallery artists. Another of the Tecumseth Steet crowd.

Katherine Sehr goes home at night, sits down, and makes tiny marks on paper with pen and ink to create these reductive, poetic masterpieces.

Hey! Here I am. Finally! I feel very fortunate to have been offered a place in this prestigious art fair. No red dots for me. Not this year, but I enjoyed two days of elation. I watched our guests walk slowly down our aisle with their critical eyes carefully scanning the offerings. When they spied my booth, their faces widened into beaming grins, sometimes laughter. What a treat for me! Great conversations. I hope I offered inspiration for some. Thanks for allowing this Southern Tier boy into your Western NY show.

Here’s some challenging, in-your-face fine art photography by Shasti O’Leary Soudant from Buffalo. I saw at least one red dot on a self-portrait. Powerful stuff.

I’m not sure whose gallery this is, but it’s listed in the floor plan as “Tecumseth Street Galleries. If you know who, please let me know.

In conclusion, here are a couple of shots of the ends of the aisles and the SAMPLE Restaurant area. (Real good chicken and hummus wraps. We got hungry.) 

And a final out of focus shot of the sound board from the artist who created the driving beat of the event. There were moments when I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice, but he did a great job without forcing me to listen to any classic rock (thank you very much).

So that’s it. Can they pull it together again next year? Where might it be? How about some more controversy?

Thanks again to Frits and Dean. What a great show.