“But why on earth,” you may ask, “should it be necessary for man to achieve, by hook or by crook, a higher level of consciousness? This is truly the crucial question, and I do not find the answer easy. Instead… I can only make a confession of faith: I believe that, after thousands and millions of years, someone had to realize that this wonderful world of mountains and oceans, suns and moons, galaxies and nebulae, plants and animals, exists. From a low hill in the Athi plains of East Africa I once watched the vast herds of wild animals grazing in soundless stillness, as they had done from time immemorial, touched only by the breath of the primeval world. I felt then as if I were the first man, the first creature, to know that all this is. The entire world round me was still in its primeval state; it did not know that it was. And then, in that one moment in which I came to know, the world sprang into being; without that moment it would never have been. All Nature seeks this goal and finds it fulfilled in man, but only in the most highly developed and most fully conscious man.
- C.G. Jung (CW 9i, #177)
Friday: Art Shows/Openings
1. Art Opening - Coni Minneci "A to Z: An Historical Survey of Women Artists: Art by Coni Minneci "
Friday, January 8th, 7:00 PM at 408 Franklin Street
Using a pear (fruit) as metaphor for the work and life of each artist, created after years of research and using intuitive impulses, 26 images were painted. This series hopes to educate, entertain and honor these women artists, from the 1500's to the present day, some with WNY connections.
Coni Minneci is an award-winning artist known for her creative concepts in various painting and collage series. She earned bachelors degrees in Graphic Design at Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY and Studio Art/Concentration in Painting from Empire College SUNY. Her works are in the permanent collections of Roswell-Park Cancer Institute, Women And Children’s Hospital, Buffalo NY, Empire College, Cheektowaga, NY. Coni was past President of the Buffalo Society of Artists, where she was instrumental in the formation of the Art Park Gallery in Lewiston NY and served as President of the Board of the Carnegie Art Center, N. Tonawanda, NY. In addition, she is an arts lecturer, art instructor in oil painting and acrylic at Partners-in-Art Complex, N. Tonawanda, NY, and an art juror and judge.
2. Art Opening – Tim Raymond "Invisible Cities/Churning of the Milky Ocean" by Tim Raymond
Friday, March 5th, 7:00 PM at 408 Franklin Street
"Churning the Milky Ocean” is from Hindu mythology. While traveling on his elephant, Indra met a sage named Durvasa, who offered him a garland. Indra accepted the garland, and placed it on the trunk of his elephant. The elephant, irritated by its smell, threw it to the ground. This enraged Durvasa, who cursed the gods, draining their strength and energy until eventually they were defeated by demons who took control of the universe. The gods sought help from Vishnu, who advised them to form an alliance with the demons to churn the ocean together in order to obtain the nectar of immortality and share it amongst themselves. The churning of the Ocean of Milk was an elaborate process. Mount Mandaranchal was used as the churning tool, and the king of serpents became the churning rope: the gods held his tail while the demons held his head. As they pulled back and forth, the mountain rotated and churned the ocean, some say for a thousand years. When the mountain began to sink, Vishnu, incarnated as a turtle, supported it on his back.
"Invisible Cities” is a book by the Italian writer Italo Calvino that explores the realm of the imaginal through Marco Polo’s descriptions of cities he has visited in conversation with the aged emperor Kublai Khan. The book consists of poems describing the cities and dialogues discussing ideas presented by the cities, such as linguistics and human nature. Invisible Cities, because of its approach to the imaginative potentialities of cities, has been used by architects to visualize how human imagination is not necessarily limited by the laws of physics or the limitations of modern urban theory. It offers an alternative approach to thinking about cities, how they are formed and how they function.
Materials: Monotype ink, conte crayon, charcoal, oil pastel on matte board and watercolor paper, cardstock and metal plate. The images are derived from recollections of relationships (human) and places (physical) where moments of definition occurred -- where the intent of both parties found conjunction, rapture, disconnection and rupture. These musings were further distilled by the need to illuminate what happened over time to change abiding interest from fanciful intrigues to brittle intransigence.
J. Tim Raymond J. Tim Raymond, educated at the Cooper Union in New York City, has been working and showing since the 1970s. His work has been included in the collections of several Fortune 500 companies, and major galleries throughout the east coast. He writes regularly for ArtVoice.
3. Art Opening – Laurie Tanner “un raveled” by Laurie Tanner
Friday, May 7th, 7:00 PM at 408 Franklin Street
Most of Laurie Tanner’s work consists of self-expressive mixed media collage and expressive oil painting. She describes her artwork as possessing an ethereal and often visceral quality which is partly inspired by the music she obsessively enjoys and refers to her oil paintings as ‘wavescapes’ that are often motivated by her love of sailing.
Tanner has a BA in Fine Art from SUNY at Buffalo State College. She collaborated & established an independent art gallery and multi-media arts space, The Plant, on Broadway located on Buffalo’s East Side.
She has volunteered artistic experience with Gallery 164 on Allen Street in Buffalo, NY and acted as Artistic Director and Gallery Director/Curator of B West Studio on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, NY. For more information on artwork and upcoming exhibits, please feel free to email: laurie@etherealpainting.com or view my website, www.etherealpainting.com.
4. Art Opening - Joshua Nickerson "Strata – Art by Joshua Nickerson "
Friday, July 9th, 7:00 PM at 408 Franklin Street
“My work draws heavily on Jung’s concept of the reconciliation of opposites: just as a person must reconcile the seemingly opposite parts of the mind—the masculine with the feminine, the self with the shadow, and the conscious with the unconscious—through my work I seek to bring into dialogue two diametrically opposed systems of compositional organization. These are the organic process-driven forms of Abstract Expressionism with the rigidly geometric manufactured structures of Minimalism. Through this fusion I seek to achieve works that appear to be in a state of flux, where either a decrease or increase in order seems equally possible.”
Joshua Nickerson works primarily in acrylic on canvas. His work has been exhibited at the College Street and Art Dialogue Galleries. He lives in Hamburg, New York with his wife Leslie, their cat Gustav, and their rabbit Dervish.