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In honor of Valentine’s Day and all things <3 related, the staff, resident artists, and volunteers of AAC want to take this moment to share something about why we love art. Each of us come from different places, and in our lives have had unique experiences with art. Read about some of those experiences below.
If you have a passion for the arts, you’ll be head-over-heels for our 40th anniversary exhibition: CSA: Forty Years of Community-Sourced Art (0pen now through April 13). Likewise, check out our educational offerings for spring and summer!
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Karyn Miller – AAC’s Director of Exhibitions
When I think about Valentine’s Day, my mind immediately turns to the best part: chocolate. One of the things that I love about art is that it engages with so many different topics and materials. So, I decided to consider the intersection of contemporary art and chocolate. I give to you three artworks with chocolate as a primary medium:
1) Janine Antoni’s Lick and Lather
2) Dieter Roth’s Self Tower
3) Ed Rusha’s Chocolate Room
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Lee Gainer – AAC Resident Artist since 2010
Love at first sight? Back in college, I discovered U.S. 10, Post Falls, Idaho by Stephen Shore. This photograph contains an American kitsch-esque vitality scored with brilliant color, solid composition, and a rural, home grown sense of place and comfort. It has all of the aspects that I desire in an artwork and it lead me into the world of photography, a medium I love to this day.
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Michele Colburn – AAC Resident Arts since 2013
I have a favorite quote and it’s by the late actress and acting teacher Stella Adler, “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” That’s it in a nutshell.
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Simply put, I love art because it appeals to me both intellectually and emotionally.
-Michelle D. Williams – AAC Volunteer
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Pam Rogers – AAC Resident Artist since 2011
I have a major Art Crush on Walton Ford! His large scale water based media paintings are done in the style of paintings and prints in the style of Audubon’s naturalist illustrations. I love the way he is so meticulous in his studies in flora and fauna, and yet they are filled with symbols, clues and jokes referencing a multitude of texts from colonial literature and folktales to travel guides. His work is based in complex narratives that critique the history of colonialism, industrialism, politics, natural science, and humanity’s effect on the environment.
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Rachel Schmidt – AAC Resident Artist since 2011
I love the odd moments in life that only art can offer. One time I was at a museum and I saw a man sitting in a chair asleep. I thought it was a piece by the artist Duane Hanson, so I stood staring at this “sculpture” for several minutes. My friend was convinced that it was not a sculpture, just some guy sleeping in a chair. We wagered a bet and I left a pencil sitting on the sculpture’s leg, the idea being that if it was a person, he would remove the pencil, and if it was a sculpture, it would still be there when we came back from seeing the other works. When we returned, the pencil was gone and the man had shifted his position to sleep more comfortably.
Only art can get you to unashamedly stare at a sleeping stranger convinced he is actually a famous sculpture.
– Rachel Schmidt – AAC Resident Artist
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Roxana Geffen – AAC Resident Arts since 2013
When I was about 10 I went to Paris and fell in love with a beautiful, bold, riveting naked lady in a painting: Manet’s Olympia, and since I couldn’t be her, have–in a round about way–spent many years trying to paint her myself.
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Samantha Marques-Mordkofsky – AAC’s Education and Outreach Manager
I’ve always been interested in modern and contemporary art, never religious. Yet, I’m obsessed with the Morgan Picture Bible. I was required to take a class on Medieval art in college, something I dreaded, but I found myself so enamored by this illuminated manuscript. I still do, many years later.
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If you <3 art, stop by the galleries soon, and tell us why. We love to chat with gallery visitors about their experiences in our space – our current exhibition – the 40th anniversary show – was named Editor’s Pick in the Washington Post’s Going Out Guide. Check it out and tell us what you love about it! – Not to mention, AAC is a great date-place where you and your Valentine’s sweetheart will enjoy an afternoon or evening of titillating art.
