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IN THE NEWS Since Monsoon opened its doors in May of 2003 it has amassed quite a collection of articles, photos, editorials, interviews, and appearances:
Feel free to take a chronological tour through our history! (click on the thumbnails to read the articles) Recent News Read the full articles by scrolling below! |
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The Monsoon Gallery Archives for 2008 We've gone through all the media surrounding the gallery and created an archival collection of articles and editorials about the gallery, its artists, and its employees. If there's something in particular that you were looking for and you don't see it here, then please don't hesitate to give us a call or send us an email and let us know. |
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Paper: The Express Times - Easton, PennsylvaniaDate: July 11th, 2008 Artist: Herb Williams "Herb Williams whimsical crayon sculptures stir the senses" It's normal for the smell of wax to be permeating the Nashville studio of Herb Williams. That's because Williams creates colorful, whimsical works of wax using thousands of crayons he orders from Crayola. He gets his crayons individually packed, 3,000 to a case, and cuts them down to desired length using either double guillotine cigar cutters or large-breed dog nail clippers. His crayon sculptures have found their way into national art galleries as well as public and private collections. His creations include animals, household items, and even famous faces - including a portrait of Marilyn Monroe comprised of mostly peach crayons. Williams earned his bachelor's degree in sculpture from Birmingham-Southern College on an art scholarship and apprenticed under several off-campus professional sculptors. He worked at a bronze foundry in West Palm Beach, Fla., casting oversized fruits and vegetables for the artist Popliteo, and the last bronze work by photorealist Duane Hanson. Hometown: Montgomery, Alabama, raised in Prattvillle Influences:H.C. Westermann, Jasper Johns, Jim Dine, Cai Guo-Qiang, Sandy Skoglund, Liza Lu, David Mach, Charles ray, Magritte, Anish Kapoor, Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Robert Rauschenberg, Banksy, Ai Weiwei Style:“I would like to think of myself as a contemporary artist still searching for relevant things to say. I love using the crayons in my work, because there is still so much left to do with the medium. I don’t think I have a particular style yet, other than trying to create the most iconic images I can in the context I want to relay. Maybe post-post-post-pop?” Knows his roots:“I am a very grounded person. I was raised on a pecan orchard in Autauga County, so I feel like I have some very deep roots to keep my feet on the every-changing art market world…I’m always looking for new things in art…always going to galleries and museums wherever I travel to keep my eyes fresh.” | |
Magazine: Art Matters - Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaDate: July 2008 Artist: Herb Williams "More than Child’s Play" The Lehigh Valley is home to Crayola Crayons and a logical choice for a crayon art exhibit. While you might expect to see children’s works on paper, this is a contemporary sculpture show by a young artist from Nashville, Tennessee. Planned for July 11 through September 3, the exhibition is presented by Monsoon Gallery, 11 East Third Street, Bethlehem. Herb Williams is a breakout artist with a recent feature story in the American Airlines in-flight magazine, another five-page spread in the national magazine The Crafts Report and an appearance on network television on the CBS Sunday Morning Show. To top it off, his recent “Wallflowers” series was shown at a prestigious gallery in Washington, D.C. His summer show at Monsoon Gallery will feature a new work commissioned by Crayola Crayons. A giant version of the famous 64-color box, it will help mark the 50th anniversary of this iconic Crayola product package. This sculpture recently debuted on the Fox News network morning show, Fox & Friends. “Herb’s work can best be described as pure of heart,” says Ranjeet Pawar, Art Director at Monsoon Gallery. “His elaborate and colorful crayon sculptures take us back to a time in our lives when laughter was the focus of our days. An amazing sculptor that cannot be missed, Herb Williams is on his way to being the country’s next iconic artisan.” Williams holds the distinction of being the only individual who has a wholesale purchase agreement with Crayola Crayons. He buys about a million crayons a year in bulk, which come in 3,000 count cases that weigh about 60 pounds each. Once he held pizza parties for friends who help him cut the crayons to the required size for various projects, but now he has a custom designed industrial bandsaw to handle the great volume. Williams was born in Montgomery, AL in 1973. He earned a BFA in sculpture from Birmingham-Southern College and worked at a bronze foundry in Florida briefly before moving to Nashville, TN in 1998. In recent years, he has completed life size sculptures of his heroes: Red Grooms, Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Johnny Cash, and Nashville folk artist William Edmondson, each made from thousands of crayons. According to Williams, his work can be humorous and even downright funny, yet still be viable in the midst of what is considered contemporary art. “I was classically trained in sculpture and the traditional mediums – clay, stone, wood, bronze, and steel,” he said, “but I’ve never been satisfied with merely painting an object to achieve a color. I want to see the medium beneath.” Williams began to use crayons after considerable experimentation with various and exotic materials. “Repetition is beauty, to paraphrase Shakespeare,” he said. “I use the simple act of epoxying a cut crayon onto a form I created of fiberglass or other material and repeat it, thousands and thousands of times.” In 2004 Williams created a room size (12 x 8 x 8 ft) sculptural installation that was shown at a Nashville gallery. Titled “The Blues,” it was made from more than 100,000 crayons in multiple shades of blue. He was teaching an art class at a local center for troubled youth, and got his students to assist with cutting crayons and assembling the piece. Viewers could walk into the room and pose with the string bass, tenor sax, electric guitar, or studio microphone, all full size and made of crayons. People could interact with the art on different levels, and with different senses: sight, touch, and scent – crayons have a distinctive smell. The piece was purchased on first sight by a record company executive from Los Angeles, in town for the Country Music Awards. After 9/11, Williams was aware of the many American flags he saw each day around the city and decided to create a red, white, and blue crayon flag. “It’s sort of an homage to artist Jasper Johns,” he said. “The granddaughter of the owner of Nashville’s Coca Cola Bottling Co. saw it and purchased it. It now hangs in the main lobby of the University School of Nashville.” “One thing leads to another,” Williams said. “The Chancellor at Vanderbilt University saw my American flag and got interested in my work. Later he commissioned my crayon figure of country music great Johnny Cash.” Early in 2007, Williams received a commission to create a life-size nude image of Marilyn Monroe, after the famous Playboy Magazine cover pose. “A local woman wanted it for a birthday gift for her husband,” he said. Beginning with a 6 by 6 foot wooden panel, Williams created a three dimensional wall-relief using 23 different colors, predominantly reds, pinks, and flesh-colored crayons. Most recently, Williams has completed a commissioned work for a new boutique hotel in Nashville. A sexy lady’s slip, the used dog toenail clippers to cut the ends of thousands carnation pink crayons to create the sculpture. “The hotel owners had seen my earlier work of men’s boxer shorts,” Williams said, “and wanted something along the same line.” It’s called Pink Slip. The artist enjoys word play. When he first moved to Nashville, Williams worked at home in a basement studio, but after three moves he now has a studio in the rear of a new art gallery where he’s part owner. The Rymer Gallery, 219 Sixth Ave, is the city’s largest at 3,000 square feet. “I’ve been very fortunate to find someone who wanted to invest in my art and partner with me in establishing a contemporary art gallery,” he said. “I like to have studio space where people can visit and see my work in progress. I also like presenting other people’s work.” Williams now employs an artist intern to assist him in building the structural forms needed to support his works and for cutting crayons. As his work has become larger and more complex, the Nashville sculptor realized he needed help in designing the support systems and has secured the services of a structural engineer who works for the U.S. Corps of Engineers. “It really takes a village to accomplish some of the things I want to do,” Williams said There are very few artists who can claim they found their medium in a dream. Williams tells of dreaming one night of attending a gallery show where there were numbers of sculptures of stone, wood, clay, and metal on display. “There was also one piece made of crayons,” he recalls. “When I awakened, I wrote CRAYONS on a notepad, so I wouldn’t forget in the morning.” He’s been working with crayons ever since. | |
Paper: Bethlehem Press - Bethlehem, PennsylvaniaDate: May 28, 2008 Artist: Nava Mentkow, Ann Schlegel, Kate Birch "A Fresh Look at Flowers at Monsoon" Flowers are in bloom, not only outdoors, but indoors at Bethlehem’s Monsoon Gallery, where three artists are taking fresh looks at fresh flowers. Nava Mentkow, a graduate of the Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts who lives in Florida, is displaying large 36 by 36-inch oils of six different colored roses, along with a seventh of a second orange rose. They are close-up, intricate views of the heart of the flowers, showing every fold and shadow of each petal. Mentkow has six other oils at Monsoon with flowers in vases, and one of a gingko tree. The flowers are not brightly colored and do not dominate the pictures, as indicated by the titles “White Vase,” “Blue Vase” and “Green Vase and Candle.” “The environment is more interesting than the flower in many cases,” she said. “I’m trying to understand the environment I created.” These smaller works are studies in subdued colors, shadows and design. Mentkow creates added interest by doing nearly all the work with palette knives, giving a three-dimensional effect that adds to the tactile feel of paintings. “It feels like I’m sculpting,” she said. “I like looking at art were you can see the paint being applied.” She has done other series like the roses at Monsoon and works on projects simultaneously. “When I repeat, I see things I didn’t see before.” Another endeavor has been paintings of Holocaust survivors, which have been shown at the Florida Holocaust Museum. “My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and my grandfather was in a Siberian work camp,” she said. This moved her to provide a visual record. “I was compelled to do something about it. It was my duty as a granddaughter.” Allentown painter Ann Elizabeth Schlegel has nine paintings at Monsoon of flowers in vases, and one portrait. They include sunflowers, forsythia, roses, daffodils, hydrangea, lilacs and daisies. Schlegel struggled to find the right composition for each work, adding, subtracting and changing the size of the petals in her flowers. She used rich colors, matching them for balance and depth. Since the quality of acrylics has improved in the last decade, she uses them as well as oil. Schlegel has been commissioned to design this year’s Musikfest ceramic cup. She also did the 20th anniversary Musikfest poster. Kate Birch, a resident of Salt Lake City, creates what she calls “abstract floral tapestries.” Birch’s six mixed media paintings are reminiscent of art deco, combining pastel flowers and patterns to create a wallpaper effect. Birch studies fabrics, rugs and tiles from all over the world and builds her paintings in layers, never knowing what the final results will be. | |
Paper: Bethlehem Press - Bethlehem, PennsylvaniaDate: April 17, 2008 Artist: Gary Kresge, Peter Krobath, Adriano Farinella, Melissa Bryant "Escape to Pennsylvania Landscape at Monsoon" With landscapes featuring many scenes in or near the Lehigh Valley, four different artists at Monsoon Gallery show you the beauty of Pennsylvania. Gary Kresge lives in the Stroudsburg area. He remembers growing up and taking walks in the woods, and he is lucky enough to still live in a wooded area. “So many of the vistas I have painted are gone – developed and full of houses,” he said. “I find solace in nature. It keeps us grounded.” Kresge’s oils on linen have a nostalgic, dreamlike quality. His outlines are soft and calming, reflecting memory and feelings as much as representation of a scene. He looks for what he calls the “extraordinary in the ordinary,” revealing the effects of light or the discovery of a secluded area. His paintings of water show deep reflections of overhanging trees. Adriano Farinella is fascinated with clouds. They reign over the flat planes of land at the bottom of his oils, painted with brisk brushstrokes to give them movement. “I’ve always related to clouds, since I was a kid,” he said. Farinella began as a figure painter and transferred his skills to clouds, giving them a life and personality of their own. Farinella does like to over-think when painting, which he likened to a “musical improvisation. I see what comes out, for the work to do what it has to do.” Peter Krobath is a photorealist. His large watercolors and oils are incredibly detailed. The waterfalls and farmlands exhibit an amazing precision, rivaling the best photography, while conveying an emotional appeal that a lens cannot duplicate. Melissa Bryant’s impressionist oils are celebrations of color with fantastic spaces of fields and woods. Her daubs of bright hues reflect glorious times of the year. | |
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Paper: The Morning Call - Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Date: March 20, 2008 Artist: Gary Kresge, Peter Krobath, Adriano Farinella, Melissa Bryant “Landscaping at Monsoon” Monsoon is covering the waterfront – and the forest, and the field – in an exhibit of landscapes by four greater Valleyites with similar subjects and dissimilar styles. Adriano Farinella, a resident artist at the Banana Factory, is the show’s resident transcendentalist. The Easton resident’s oils are three-quarter skies with silvery clouds and smoky shafts of light, subtle movement and graceful stillness. Particularly notable is “Santa Fe Evening Study II,” which has mountainous clouds singed by a purple/blue/orange fire storm. Gary Kresge’s creeks percolate with blue reflections. His wheat fields have a creamy saffron radiance, a rippling rush. The wheat in the oil “Early November” is too stiff; it could be mistaken for a hairy, brush cut fence. But the shadows are nicely steeped and seeped. Like Kresge, Peter Krobath can make a field dance. The meadow in “Pine Groves II,” has the sweeping colors of a wildflower quilt. The Austria native is even better at big, lacy waterfalls. His watercolors are better still: lighter and crisper, without that photorealistic, pressed-glass giclee quality. The water in “Headwaters” mimics sun-dappled, murky mushroom soup. Born in the Philippines, Melissa Bryant is the resident impressionist. Her meadows, forests and shorelines are wet with candy hues, thick with firecracker bursts of texture. The scene really pops in “Serene,” a seething jungle of trees with leaves as light, as fizzy, as hydrangea flowers. | |
Magazine: Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist - National DistributionDate: March 2008 Artist: Todd Reed, Thomas Mann, Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths... “Spectacular Benefit Show” It’s really too bad I have a mortgage. I would have bought the Harold O’Connor granulated brooch for sure, and the Todd Reed raw diamond bracelet, and the Marne Ryan fused metal cuff…not to mention the 500 other pieces of stellar jewelry I saw gathered together in early December at “Artfully Elegant.” It was a perfect illustration of what can happen when a hot young gallery joins forces with a long-established group of motivated professional studio jewelers. The Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths (PSG) joined forces with Monsoon Gallery to host the exhibition and gala to raise funds for the Baum School of Art, both located in that state’s Lehigh Valley. There were stunning pieces by metalsmiths well known to readers of Jewelry Artist – Charles Lewton Brain’s newest works in his electroformed cage series, Michael Boyd’s intriguing architectural stone and metal constructions, and the fascinating articulated mechanisms of Chris Darway. I was delighted to see works by many of my fellow PSG members in a gallery setting – Judith Renstrom’s commanding fabricated pieces, Lexi Erickson’s organic “Conversations with Harold” series, and Kirk Kozero’s cuff bracelets and fold formed works – excellent works all; and many others by close friends. One of the oldest art institutions in the region, the Baum School, founded by artist Walter Emerson Baum in 1926, is a non-profit community art school located in center city Allentown. Money raised at the gala will help fund a series of merit-based scholarships, which the school awards to aspiring local artists. The event was the culmination of two months of “Artfully Elegant” exhibits at Monsoon, which included jewelry created by PSG members as well as works by resident and visiting master metalsmiths who have taught workshops for both the group and the Baum School. It also included paintings and fashions by local designer Lara Bly. According to Kirk Kozero, PSG Director of Development, sales “increased by 413.5 percent over our 2006 show. In total, we sold 94 pieces of jewelry, and generated over $4,000 for the Baum and several hundred for PSG. We were also featured in eight different articles and editorials over several months. Not too shabby!” Ann Lalik, Executive Director of the Baum School of Art said, “This was a great collaboration. We all brought our own supporters and unique gifts to the table. Monsoon’s beautiful gallery and financial resources, PSG’s great group of artists, and the Baum School’s mission to teach art to everyone who wants to study. I think the publicity was great for all of us and any amount of dollars raised for scholarship is greatly appreciated.” The bonds between Baum, the local metals community, and the gallery are strong. Lalik, a Tyler School of Art alum, has carefully built a thriving metals department at Baum. “Part of our initial success was that there were no other metals programs around here back in 1984 when I started teaching. That alone gave us an audience – there was a need. We were very small back then. Now, I would not define us as a small school. We have former students who went off to college metals or arts programs coming back to the area, and so the metals community is growing with alum. There are people like Kirk Kozero, and PSG gallery director Karen DeLarco who studied here. They became passionate and are now bringing other community organizations together.” The bonds being created now stretch far from Baum. Thanks to PSG’s busy workshop schedule, visiting master metalsmiths Julie Jerman-Melka, Bruce Metcalf, Judy Hoch, and the others all contributed pieces to the silent auction and for the exhibition. Also included in the show were works by Thomas Mann, who grew up in Allentown, attended classes at Baum, and who teaches an annual early winter workshop there each spring. The inaugural launch of his “Project Object” - a metalsmithing take of reality TV – was held and shot live at Baum last winter and is expected to be released this year on DVD. When he was asked to contribute pieces to the Monsoon show, Mann said, “Anything for Baum. Tell me what you need.” Organizing the 515 pieces in the show and the 39 contributing artists was the overwhelming job of PSG members Karen DeLarco and Kirk Kozero. It took almost a year to bring the show to fruition. There were frames to build, pieces to inventory, forms, letters, signage – thousands of details. PSG president Lexi Erickson, who is an instructor at the Baum metals department, said, “Our members, board, artists who participated and answered questions, each and every one of them deserves special recognition for their spectacular work. We have watched each other’s work grow and chance just over the last 18 months that we have been doing more shows. It was such fun to sit together at the end of the evening, kick off our shoes, and laugh and enjoy each other.” Added Ann Lalik, “Baum School has offered instruction for some of the region’s most noteworthy artists for over 80 years is looking to the future, moving forward to meet the needs of their increasingly diverse student body and the rapidly changing landscape of art in the digital age. Our affiliation with Lehigh Carbon Community College and Penn State Lehigh Valley have added to the number of interested students.” Her advice to other schools looking to build their metals programs? “I think the instructor is everything. In a medium like this, you need instructors who can teach a wide range of techniques and do them well, plus they must be passionate, caring, and encouraging. This is a hard medium, and it takes a lot of time to feel like you’ve accomplished something. Once your students get the bug they will want to keep learning new techniques and want to [return to] study with visiting artists.” | |
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Gallery, 11 East 3rd Street Bethlehem, PA 18015 Located in the heart of Southside Bethlehem's Arts District, the gallery can be easily reached via routes 378 and 412. Phone: 610-866-6600 . Or simply Contact Us © Copyright 2005 Monsoon Gallery All rights reserved. |
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