Artworks by Jamie Miller. Click all works to enlarge.

__________
SOUR: Anything else that’s good on display or late?
SWEET: Yeah, Jamie Miller’s one-person show at Taylor Books was impressive. She’s really coming along and making it to the next level. She has progressively improved. Advanced and refined herself, her technique, her imagery. Jamie Miller deserves the “Most Improved” artist of the year, “(of course, that is meant as a compliment!)

In the works at Taylor’s, childlike imagery meets the horrors and trauma of life in this realm. Miller captures the interesting dance of innocence encountering tragedy, and both extremes of that experience informing the other. Neither tragedy nor innocence escapes transformation, neither eradicates the other entirely. Like looking at the aftermath of a cartoon-deadly tornado. Nice effect.
__________
Sour: “Next, we take up a lot of so called weird or semi-hard to see art. Stay tuned.”

Artworks below by Jamie Miller. Click to enlarge.

Barry Vance (1946- ) “Hevener’s Cemetery” Oil on panel, 10 by 20 inches, 1979 Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Frank Mairs to the Clay Center, 1979

“Our Art” is an occasional feature in the Sunday Gazette-Mail, devoted to artwork found in mjaor collections around the state.

Barry Vance’s paintings invite the viewer to look closely at the minute details - small sheep, electric poles, cemetery headstones - of small-town rural America.

“Barry likes to travel the real West Virginia,” said Denise Deegan, the Clay Center’s associate curator. “He has a sense of place. These are the back-road scenes, things we don’t see anymore because now we go on interstates.”

Born in Baltimore, Vance lived in West Virginia from 1976 to 1988, when he and his wife moved to Winchester, Va. They divide their time between Winchester and a summer place in Pendleton County.

Vance works with a very fine brush, reducing sheep to dots, a process that has intensified as his paintings have gotten ever smaller since he made this 10- by 20-inch piece in 1979, Deegan said. A 2006 show at the Capitol Complex’s Cultural Center consisted entirely of 9- by 7-inch landscapes. (more…)

Harold Edwards has given up — at least for a while — three-dimensional work, but his paintings play on the same mathematical themes.

IF YOU GO: See Harold Edwards’ latest work and other artwork at The Art Store, 1013 Bridge Road, through march 29, 2008.

RELATED: Read Bob Schwarz’ profile of Harold Edwards in the post below or click here.

__________
SOUR: Well, do you think he achieved it? Are his 2- paintings as good as his previously acclaimed 3-D pieces? Harold has a medical problem with his working manshardship on his 3-d works. Did he present something as good, with his physical problems?”
SWEET: Yeah, I do, think so, these paintings are, all in all, really great. As good if not better than his 3-d pieces.”
__________
SOUR: “I think some of them are better than others. Well, but that’s the case for about every show…”
SWEET: These 2-D pieces of Harold’s are great. Actually, I think they are better than some of his earlier “high maintenance” 3-D works. (more…)

Harold Edwards No. 2. See The Art Store for more artworks.

This story is reprinted from the March 2, 2008 Sunday Gazette-Mail

By Bob Schwarz

Harold Edwards has hit a rough patch since a one-man show of his sculptural constructs went on exhibit a year ago at the Clay Center.

First, his marriage ended. Then he had some problems with his left hand, forcing him to give up making those complex constructs Charleston art lovers knew him best for.

“I don’t know if it’s from overwork or not,” he said. “I’m losing cartilage in my hand, just bones rubbing on bones. The doctor wanted me to give it some rest.” (more…)