Thursday, January 31, 2013

Dorothy Schartz's Evolution for your Mind


This is Gallery Talk WMPG's window into the world of Art with your host Lars.

Charles Darwin's ideas are his legacy.  To publish his concepts on evolution required one part understand and two parts bravery.  Furthermore to developing the concept of the origins of man required a life's worth of examination and steely resolve.

Daedalus & Icarus 1957
Maine artist Dorothy Schwartz's current exhibition is titled  Evolution of a Printmaker  and cascades the gallery in Portland's Maine Jewish Museum with visual history that as with a species, so with an artist,  evolution is eminent.

  The woodcut print is her primary medium but this show allows the viewer to trace back the origin of originality & idea within her collagraphs, collages, pen & paintings.  Who knows when the seed of an artist was planted but it's apparent it blossomed for Schwartz while she was an undergraduate at Smith college.  It was there that artist and educator Lenard Baskin broke trail and shared with her the power of the woodcut print.  Bold of line the woodcut is not shy in its ability to summon emotion.  From her early work at age 19 "Daedalus and Icarus"  to more recent cuts the exhibit the Evolution of a Printmaker stands the test of time, providing a legacy of learning, morality and vision. Proving to me that ink has power and that as a means of communication it is bounded only by ones imagination.


Why Go see the EVOLUTION of a PRINTMAKER?
Go because your good mind needs good art! 
PS: The Maine Jewish Museum is a treasure in it's own right and worth spending a some time touring. It boasts a cozy warmth and proud history.  Exploration of the upper levels is worth it just for the views of the colorful stained glass.

The Gallery Talk is made possible by the generosity of the WMPG Radio listening community.  The blog is the text version of the art rant heard every Thursday at 7am, 5 & 9:30pm on WMPG college and community radio Broadcasting from the University of Southern Maine
90.9 , 104.1 and streaming on the web at http://www.wmpg.org/