Nancy Charak studied photography and design at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and painting and drawing at Northern Illinois University, where she received her MFA in 1979. Her work has been shown in several significant juried exhibitions, including the Chicago and Vicinity Show at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Davidson National Print and Drawing Competition in NC. She was awarded a purchase prize from the Chattahoochee Valley Art Association in GA. Charak’s work has also been represented by several galleries, including Van Straaten and Bernal in Chicago and Genesis in New York.

She recently juried the Drawing on Experience show at Woman Made Gallery, 685 North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago. The exhibition is June 27 through July 24, 2008, with an opening reception on June 27th from 6 to 9 p.m.

Nancy Charak. Field No. 1077. 2007. Oil, pencil on linen canvas,
height 30″ x 40″.

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Today is Earth Day and the first-year anniversary of ArtStyle Blog. The year I spent publishing and editing the blog has been a rewarding and eventful one. I would like to thank the Contributing Bloggers, subscribers, and supportive friends for helping to make this blog successful.

As some of you know, I will be taking a leave for a month after April for recuperation, some R&R, and to work on my children’s book. During the interim, we will be informally posting and uploading images at Flickr.com, a photo sharing site, under the name ArtStyle Blog Group. The website is www.flickr.com/groups/artstylebloggroup.

Thanks again, and we hope you visit our Flickr.com site.

Amy Rudberg

Alan Lerner, a Chicago-based musician, screen printer and conceptual artist who makes sculptural and installation works, has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work deals with personal imagery, war, fashion, and political events that shape and define the individual psyche and mass psychology. He has an upcoming show in May at Art on Armitage, a window gallery in Chicago dedicated to exhibitions and installations that redefine street art.

ArtStyle: When did the “intellectual” component of your work begin to develop in your art?

Alan Lerner (AL): In the 1970s, as an undergrad, I started making drawings of actions I would fantasize about but not necessarily accomplish. Many of these planned actions would involve bad manners and behavior on the group level, leaving behind evidence in the form of dirty suburban interiors as a comment on the sterility and purity of the impossibly neurotic standards of daily life. I worked in ceramics for many years, and also designed and built furniture. These activities helped form my ideas of how objects function as art separate from the functional craft object. At the time I did a stint at security at the MCA and used the library there to help form my early experiences as an artist.

Alan Lerner. An Ocean Of Drink. Acrylic clipboards, paper,
screenprint ink, neoprene, 15' x 15'.

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Technorati Tags: musician, screen printer, conceptual artist, street art

Pat Otto. Reclining Head. 2004. Beeswax and oil paint on wood,
height 6.5″ x 9.5″ x 4″.

Patricia Otto's house in Edgewater is a gallery, a studio space and a home shared with her husband, painter Kristopher Dodd. At the entrance, beneath a large mirror, there is a tray with what looks like bones of a human spine. The walls are filled with small, detailed paintings in decorated old frames. Kimonos made out of paper, fabric and painted canvas, hang on large walls. Resting on shelves are ceramic sculptures of nude figures with horses. Miniature vessels with painted parts of anatomy are scattered around like some relics used in sacred rituals. Three-dimensional encaustic portraits hang on smaller walls.
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Bradford Hansen-Smith has been an illustrator, jewelry maker, sculptor, filmmaker, author, toy maker, and educator. His website, www.wholemovement.com, focuses on the wonders of geometry through sculptures created from paper plates.

Bradford Hansen-Smith. Extended Spiral (side view). Chicago. 2008.
Folded paper circles. Approx height 12” x 12” x 9”. Each unit is
a circle folded in the same way using diameters from 7″ to 3/4″.
The change in curve is how they fit one into the other. A computer
image was printed on 20 lb paper, then cut into various diameter
circles, folded and joined by tying with thread.

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Technorati Tags: geometry, sculpture, paper plates