More art from North Carolina — Lichtenbergianism

During our trip to North Carolina last week, we spent a day in Asheville, one of our favorite cities, and we went to Blue Spiral 1, one of my favorite galleries. The artists there are big-timers: huge canvases, specific strategies, amazing skills, and impressive prices. Here are some I really liked.

slate / andrew hayes / fabricated steel and book paper

Normally, non-objective pieces like this don’t jump out at me, but once I realized how Hayes used books in his work, I was fascinated. Here’s a close-up:

Here’s another of his.

scild / Andrew hayes / fabricated steel and book paper

Some of the most astonishing pieces were glass.

large stone portal / alex gabriel bernstein / cast and cut glass, fused steel

I think the toughest part about buying this piece — other than not having won the lottery to buy it — would be finding a window that complements its vision.

The gallery’s small exhibit space featured two artists, one of them a glass artist, and his work was mind-blowing, as in how on earth did he do that?

teal splash veronese / kenny piper / blown glass

The technique is reticello, a glassmaking technique involving a lattice-work of canes: Go read about it here.

The other artist in that space did highly textured multimedia paintings.

city series #6 / lainard bush / acrylic on canvas

As mind-boggling as it is to think that Bush painted something this complex, the reality is even moreso.

Bush has made who-knows-how-many other abstract canvases, then cut them into strips and reassembled them into this massive (54” x 66”) piece.

If I had won the lottery, I easily could have spent a quarter of a million dollars that day. And where would I have put all that art, most of it very large, in a home whose walls are already full of art? I would have bought a building downtown — maybe in that new development on the old Brown Steel property on E. Broad that the city is sure is not going to be a developer’s dream and a thriving downtown’s nightmare — and have a rotating exhibit of my collection.

A man can dream, right?

What did I buy in Asheville/Black Mountain?

Not a great photo, but you get the idea. Handblown, from the North Carolina Glass Center in Black Mountain. Each glass is of course unique. I think they’re meant to be wine glasses — there was a decanter as well — but I’ll be using them as old-fashioneds for cocktails, and only for sedate occasions. They are extremely delicate. I’d note the artist, but somehow that information failed to make it home with me. (I’ve mailed — mailed — the Center for that info.)

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Lichtenbergianism