inklings

I stopped into the Ink Shop this afternoon to check out the their latest shows. Both opened just a week ago. For those who don't know, the local printmakers collective has the strongest exhibitions program of any non-museum in town. No other local gallery so consistently avoids the taint of provincialism. (I say this in all sincerity, and not just because they ply me with wine and delicious hors d’œuvre at their openings.) They have two concurrent exhibits up: one a show of etchings by Ella Sadza-Loinaz and the other the Ink Shop Associates' Summer Show.

Sadza-Loinaz's show is strong. Her monochrome prints are full of delicate line-work, rich and varied textures, and idiosyncratic uses of perspective—ambiguous spaces somewhat reminiscent of Bonnard. Typical subject-matter: one or more naked women standing in an exotic indoor or outdoor setting. The figures are formally posed, mannered, and seem oddly detached from their backgrounds and from each other. A pair of pieces featuring orchids are also memorable; in one, the flowers are lined up along the bottom edge looking like soldiers wielding swords or polearms. (See the bottom three images at the link posted above for show samples). The show will be up through the end of August and the artist will be giving a talk next Thursday, starting at seven in the evening.

The associates show is more uneven, but the best pieces are impressive. Highlights include Irina Kassabova's intricate etchings of sea creature skeletons and a paper cutout diorama by Craig Mains. The latter, with Ed Ruscha-like deadpan wit, shows a trailer home sprouting little cartoon flames (the printing was done via gum-transfer).

They are also holding an "Annual Fine Art Silent Print Auction," which runs through the 27th of this month. The proceeds go to support the Shop's annual Kahn Family Fellowship.

UPDATE (07/18): The above mentioned lecture will take place on the 9th of August, from 7 to 8:30 pm.

intimation of grace

On a more serious note, Perec on the phenomenology of puzzles (from pages 338-339):

Fortunately, it was more usual for Bartlebooth, at the end of such hours of waiting, having gone through every stage of controlled anxiety and exasperation, to reach a kind of ecstasy, a stasis, a sort of utterly oriental stupor, akin, perhaps, to the state archers strive to reach: profound oblivion of the body and the target, a mental void, a completely blank, receptive, and flexible mind, an attentiveness that remained total, but which was disengaged from the vicissitudes of being, from the contingient details of the puzzle and its maker's snares. In moments like that Bartlebooth could see without looking how the delicate outlines of the jigsawed wood slotted very precisely into each other, and taking two pieces which he had ignored until then or which perhaps he had sworn could not possibly join, he was able to fit them together in one go.

The intimation of grace would sometimes last for several minutes, which made Bartlebooth feel as if he had second sight: he could perceive everything, understand everything, he could have seen grass grow, lightning strike a tree, erosion grind down a mountain like a pyramid very gradually worn away by the gentle brushing of a bird's wing: he would juxtapose the pieces at full speed, without error, espying, beneath all the details and subterfuges intended to obscure them, this minute claw or that inperceptable red thread or a black-edged notch, which ought to have indicated the solution from the start, had he but the eyes to see: in a few instants, borne along by such exalted and heady self-assurance, a situation that hadn't shifted for hours or days, a situation that he could no longer even imagine untying, would be altered beyond recognition: whole areas would join up, sky and sea would recover their correct locations, tree trunks would turn back into branches, vague birds back into the shadows of seaweed.

These privileged instants were as rare as they were intoxicating, as fleeting as they were seemingly effective. Bartlebooth would soon revert to being a sandbag, a lifeless lump chained to his worktable , a blank-eyed subnormal, unable to see, waiting hours without knowing what he was waiting for.