Today, we feature Todd Camp. Todd was kind enough to share his art and write a statement, which is reprinted below. The art you see in this post can be found at the Hayley Gallery in New Albany, Ohio.

Artist Statement

Four miles off the main road, over several hills and nestled in a valley sits a small farm I call home. There, a quiet and profound landscape unfolds and inspires the soul. “Landscape at the farm” is a new series of paintings that is inspired by the farm and a welcomed departure from my strictly abstract work of recent years. The influence of my surroundings on my work is apparent since moving to rural Eastern Ohio one year ago. I am reacting to the qualities of light & shadow, color & atmosphere that have presented themselves to me and are directing my eye toward the landscape.

Interestingly, these paintings are about the act of painting more than ever before. Use of an intentional color pallet in a conscious manner is quite different for me. In other works, the act of creating emotion through non-objective shape or color intuitively was of most importance. In comparison, my current work allows me to closely observe the immediate surroundings at the farm where I live and work and catalog those daily visions qualifying the observations as my subject matter. Previous work has been dependent upon memories from travel and scattered recollections and impressions of scenes, colors, sights and smells that were then interpreted into art long after the return from the journey without much use of photography.

Now, photography has found it’s way back in to my work. I capture a moment in time with the camera and then rely on my memory of the scene to embellish it considerably from the resulting photograph. Instead of setting up my easel in the field and painting rapidly and directly from nature I choose to use the photograph to provide me information back in the studio to work from.

The photograph is enlarged and collaged in an integrating fashion to become the focal point of the painting because of its inherent realistic qualities. Thus, I strive to create visual tension between what is real and what is painted and challenge the viewer to seek it out. The use of the photograph in these works isn’t purely documentary and so the resulting painting is an expressive interpretation of an existing landscape. The resulting paintings are several steps from reality but are a reflection of how I see the land. They exude a warm peacefulness that I have found here at the farm. The color pallet I’ve chosen for this series is that of winter hues. Seasonal changes, weather and times of day affect the entire emotional feel of each piece.

The March/April 2008 issue of C-Bus Magazine (PDF) is now available online and throughout the city.  The270 and Fine Repast Artist Spotlight (Matt Barnes) is on page 52.

The270 and FineRepast are proud to present our third artist spotlight with a free ad in C-Bus Magazine. For the March/April 2008 issue, we spotlight artist Matt Barnes.

Matt grew up across the United States in his early youth afforded me a keen eye for observation. He spent many days and nights drawing and photographing the things in his environment and filling pages with his imagination from his very American experiences. After finally settling in Columbus, Ohio with his family at the age of 14, Matt began to expand his explorations with writing, performance, events, collecting, and collage while maintaining his sketch books and photographic images.

Matt graduated High School and was looking towards a career in performance but opted out for a, what he thought, more realistic degree in Fine Art. While in college Matt appeared on ‘As the World Turns’ in a principal role. He also organized a huge senior exhibition filling a 10,000 sq. ft. warehouse with over 120 of his own original works with the help of many friends and family.

Matt graduated with a BFA from The Ohio State University with a specialization in Photography and minor in Film Studies and Art History.

Since graduation Matt has increasingly continued to create. He jump started, with the help of many other individuals, an event entitled SHOWcolumbus which aimed to highlight all facets of creative outlet here in Columbus. Matt wrote a 400+ page book of short stories, poems, and one liners of which has yet to be published. He has exhibited bi-monthly, on average, since graduation featuring his photographs, drawings, and found object combinations.

Currently Matt is involved in a Co-op Gallery in the Short North called 772. It is a hidden gem in the middle of the Short North located at the Northeast corner of Warren and High St. It has amazing wall space and an inviting ramp in the middle of the main area. The gallery has been featured in the Columbus Alive, The Columbus Dispatch, and UWeekly. 772 is now having huge openings on Gallery Hop with an average attendance of 500 or more people through the doors.

Matt is deeply committed to the growth and expansion of art history, especially in the United States, by using and manipulating ideas and works from the past to move forward. He feel it is one the things we do best here. In his works Matt tries to represent the strengths of what America stands for and also to represent an era of time spanning our collective past to our present, rather than to represent a specific date. He is not limited in the display of his work. Rather, Matt prefer to show his art in the form of a collection show. Matt was heavily influenced by an exhibition arranged by the Wexner Center which displayed the Sonnabend Collection entitled ‘From Pop to Now.’

If you are interested in seeing more of Matt’s work, you may contact him at (614) 638-3714 or parasynthetic [at] gmail [dot] com.

Contact me through the270 contact page if interested.

If I don’t hear from anyone, I’ll just have to spotlight my flashlight painting series.

Now, we don’t want that. Do we?

Seriously. Drop me a line. Because I truly want to give Columbus artist some publicity.

Amy Neiwirth received her BFA in Painting & Drawing from Ohio State in 2003 and completed OSU’s Licensure program in Art Education in 2005. While substitute teaching and searching for full-time jobs, Amy began crafting to satisfy her need to create. Making gifts for friends and family members and selling the occasional polymer clay creation on Ebay whet her appetite for more. She spent lots of time working on her craft skills (i.e. making things that didn’t break or fall apart), gathering new ideas, and getting her mom to model jewelry at the office to lure in new customers (it worked!). In November 2006, Amy started Sweet Stella Designs and made the leap from “just a hobby” to “hobby with benefits”.

Amy enjoys working with materials such as beads, wire, polymer clay, glass, buttons, decoupage and collage, charms, chain, vintage items, cabochons, and felt. She is attracted to the quirky, funky, colorful, and shiny. Amy’s inspirations include vintage jewelry, pastries, wood grain, telephone poles, birds, toile, graphic design, Lucite, damask, Pop Art, gemstones, citrus fruit, candy, and handwriting.

Amy currently lives in the Short North and teaches visual art at a private school to students in grades K-12.

In her spare time, Amy enjoys visiting museums, galleries, and art shows; listening to music; people-watching; riding bikes; shoe shopping; collecting things; hanging out with other creative and crafty folks; and lying in sunny patches with her muse, a sweet little cat named Stella.

If you wish to buy Amy’s art for a Christmas gift, you can find her work at the following stores:

What The Rock?!
1116 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43201
614-294-WHAT
Tues-Sat 11-7 Sun 12-5

Tigertree
17 E. Brickel St.
Columbus, OH 43201
614-223-2136
Open 11-8 daily.

Wholly Craft!
3169 N. High St
Columbus, OH 43202
614-447-3445
Hours: 1-8pm Daily! Closed Tuesdays.

Amy’s got an online shop, but as her note states, it may be too late to order in time for Christmas. But Valentine’s day is just around the corner. ; ) Oh, and don’t forget to check out her blog for more pictures and commentary.

Who’s next? Well, we’ve got an artist lined up for March / April. You’ll just have to wait and see. And remember artist, the spotlight and ad is free to you. So contact us through our contact page above if you wish to be involved in this great program.

Last month, this blog and the Fine Repast blog launched our Artist Spotlight advertisements in C-Bus Magazine. Our first spotlight was glass blower Daniel Schreiber. Daniel informs us that he’ll soon have a new site at danielschreiber.com.

Anyways, our first ad is reproduced above. I must apologize to Daniel for getting his spotlight up after the ad came out. Actually, I didn’t do it, Andy from the Fine Repast did. It came out at a time I started a new job and my focus on the 270 wained. So for our next spotlight, I vow to be on top of things. Actually, after I finish this post, I will be posting the January / February spotlight.

Shofar chandelier commissioned by Zion Global Ministries in Cincinnati, Ohio

photo by Jennifer Dunlap

“The shofar chandelier was a real challenge. The individual horns, before being cut and finished, were four and a half feet long and were about the biggest things my studio’s equipment can accommodate. LED ropelight was chosen because the spots alluded to similar ones on animal horns and for the more pragmatic need to pass electrical inspection. The finished chandelier is about eight feet in diameter. Mark Lagergren of Tork Incorporated fabricated the complex metal components of the chandelier.”

Reliquary with a torus stopper

photo by Mark Cheadle

“Like many glass blowers, I am fascinated by the vessel. Reliquary vessels are designed to evoke some feeling of curiosity or fascination with the contents.”

danielschreiber.com is in progress but unavailable as yet.

Q&A with Daniel Schreiber

Do you currently have your own gallery or plans for one?

I have always thought that a nice gallery space would be a good idea for a studio artist, even if just for special events and by appointment. Someday I will have one.

When was your last exhibit and what are the upcoming ones?

In the last few years I’ve participated in exhibitions at the Schumacher Gallery, the Springfield Museum of Art, the High Road gallery, the New Orleans School of Glass gallery and many others.

What are your current projects?

The projects on my plate right now are mostly marketing ones: mailings, print materials, photography and websites. There are always custom technical glass projects to be executed, I’m starting an architectural job or two, and I’m beginning to make work for the winter holiday season.

Are you still instructing at Glass Axis - if so, can you tell us about your instruction there - private or public classes - availability, cost, etc.

I cannot overemphasize what a great place Glass Axis is. We offer several one day workshops starting at $25, and also six session classes for $435. After Glass Blowing II, members can come in and use the facility on their own or with others. Experienced members also give lessons in the studio.

I teach a variety of glass blowing classes for Glass Axis.

Can you talk about some of your influences be it other artists, teachers, professors, people, etc., and how they may have influenced you?

When I started blowing glass in 1992, the studio glass field was a rapidly changing and exciting place to be. I learned my trade from the many artists working in the Ohio glass community.

How would you define art? Some people adhere to the belief that art must stand the test of time to be considered art - any thoughts on that notion?

I can define art for you definitively: art is any thing that anyone says is art, and other things besides.

The difficulty with this simple idea arises from our culture’s having somehow decided that the word art, or even Art, has some sort of hierarchy over other nouns, in the same way that the words God or Truth or Good or Evil do, and that “art” is a lofty label that things must somehow qualify for in order to wear. I see no evidence that this is so.

Or for that matter, some claim that an artist must show the ability to produce something that has some tie or roots in what has come before that artist before the artist can be accepted for work that may seem to be completely different than anything that the public is familiar with - any thoughts on that?

A) every art object is the sum of the artist’s personal history and culture. Even the most derivative art objects speak volumes about the artist and their cultural environment. I find that purposeful content is typically heavy-handed.

B) art that is truly original (an unlikely thing indeed) would merely alienate. There needs to be some commonality between the art object and the consumer.

Can you tell us about any awards that you have received concerning your artwork?

I have only won minor awards lately, like at craft fairs and other small events.

Where do you see yourself/your artwork 5 years from now?

With a strong, stable, interesting business and personal life.