Thursday, January 11, 2007

Where's Waldo's Ass

The Artists were back to work today. Mr. Harrison Jenkins finally got off his own keister and showed up to the studio. Unfortunately, all he did all night was watch Ricky work and take this picture.

Rick suffers every day as any starving artist does. Working as a shop teacher provides him with free scrap wood left over from projects that his students seem to never finish. Being a farmer by birth, Rick has learned to be a scrounger and a recycler of any thing that doesn't crawl. this found material has provider creative fodder for creative visions. but the wood sculptures are really an excuse for he and his buddy and art collaborator to get together every tuesday night to basically share a beer, share some glory day stories and have rick's wife cook the two boys a glorious meal of left over meat loaf and on special occasions, cream corn.
the studio, which is a small section of a cold basement, seems at time to be Grand Central Station with his five boys walking through and constantly offering opinion on how to make better art without any of them ever doing anything artistic more than spelling obscene expressions on their frosted windows on their tractors or trucks. and even then, they can't spell the words correctly. the photo below shows Rick trying to figure out how to take a four foot toothpick [ which he carved ] into something credible and something worth discussion. this is not an easy task.


the story, if anyone is interested, will continue at some point in time.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Good Wood


Held at the Hans Weiss New Space Gallery from February 9th to March 8th, 2006, the exhibit "GOOD WOOD" created a buzz among attendees. Whitey Jenkins and Rick Eddinger displayed their collaborative work with a theme of wooden ellipses, spherical two sided cylinders. The two artists have worked together for several years, creating expressive art through painted wood.

The Opening Reception was hosted by the two artists. Guests of the gallery were treated to a lively dialogue with the artists, discussing themes, inspirations, creation of the pieces, and the history behind their collaboration.


Photos of select pieces are included below:

Torture, 1997, painted wood


Walden, 1998, painted wood


LIfE, 1998, painted wood


exile, 1998, painted wood

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Art For Art's Sake

Whitey and Ricky have been friends and art collaborators for over 25 years. They met at Central Connecticut State University, where Whitey was a teacher, and Ricky was a graduate student. While the artists began their collaboration with the design of functional sculptures, their work has spanned from life size maze designs to their current work with wooden elipses to create "Good Wood." Over the years they have gotten together regularly to enjoy each other's company and to create "Art For Arts Sake." These two artists meet and create for friendship sake and for art's sake.