CURRENT EXHIBIt
Commuting. Community. Collage.
Melinda Rittenhouse
A visual celebration of public transportation and the invaluable service it provides connecting us to our communities.
ARTIST STATEMENT
"This show is a celebration of public transportation and the invaluable service it provides in connecting us to our communities. I love these little bus passes and the journeys they represent— my trips to work where I found people I adore, to art days with friends, to the Duke Cancer Center for treatments and checkups with my amazing care team, to shopping marathons with my sister or thrifting afternoons with soulmates, to movie screenings at my beloved Carolina Theatre. Hundreds of trips from one end of the Triangle to the other since 2011.
From the beginning, I planned to use these passes as a foundation for a collage series about travel. About independence. About people. I thought I might create these collages on the bus. (In hindsight, cutting and gluing small pieces of paper while on a moving bus was not a very practical idea.) It wasn’t until 2019 after I was diagnosed with Metastatic Breast Cancer, that I began my Bus Pass Series. It was a time when I needed something to give me purpose and joy. I found both in creating these and many other collages over the past five years."
CURATOR’S STATEMENT
These works are impeccably presented by Melinda with a custom graph paper background and oak frames fashioned by Bill Neville (with offcuts from his furniture projects). No glass, so the three dimensionality and ephemeral nature is provided a strong stage to engage viewers.
There will be other gems at the reception including a chapbook about the journey and these works, on which Melinda collaborated with designer Janet Guertin.
RECEPTION: Saturday, March 29, 4-6pm.
HOURS: M-F, 8:30 to 4ish and by appt.
Exhibit runs through April 30.
Big thanks to Nathan Rittenhouse for his help with custom graphics, install help from Betty Haskin, and to Martha Petty for assistance with framing the work. It is appreciated.
Below please see some other works that can be found in the gallery, and can be purchased at the click of a button.
We always have new works rotating in to complement the main exhibit, and the gallery is a fun resource when you need just the right piece for a spot in your home, or a special gift for a loved one.
This Birdhouses fine art broadside was created to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Rob McDonald’s Birdhouses fine press book. It features a photograph by Rob (printed with archival inks at Through This Lens) and a poem by Cynthia Rylant that I “shaped” in a typographic manner and was letterpress printed on a watercoloresque fine art paper.
Edition of 54, signed and numbered.
17 x 22 inches. Normally $145. Only $120 during this exhibition.
The 23 x 30 inch framed version (ebony stained wood, museum glass, 4ply archival mat) is $475.
Community. Photograph by Rob McD;onald. Fine art print from film negative (Holga camera) 10 inch square print centered on 13 x 19 fine art paper, with embossed stamp of authentication. Limited edition of 25, signed and numbered.
Normally $200. Currently $175.
Or $475 on the 18 inch square espresso stained hardwood frame, museum glass, black burlap matboard.
Engravings by Henryk Fantazos from Song of the Line. The hardcover fine press book features poems written over a twenty year period by Jack Gilbert along with a body of copperplate engravings created by Henryk in response to the reading of his longtime friend’s manuscript.
Images are appx. 4.5 x 7 inches and printed on a range of printmaking papers. $200 each
Broadside featuring a drawing by Allan Gurganus along with a quote from a talk he gave when honored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network. Digitally printed on heavyweight cover stock.
$30. 12 x 15 inches
Prints by Lauri Daughtry. 11 x 14 inches. $75 each
The Dictionary Art Series- a response to Covid19
On March 8, I randomly flipped open a long-forgotten and water- damaged dictionary (circa 1962 – my birth year) from the bowels of an antiquated desk at my high school, where I teach.
Each day of this pandemic, I’ve had a focus, creating over 50 images so far. The feel and smell of an old book page, nostalgia and words from a time past, images familiar to many…
During this time of isolation, over 18 dictionaries have kept me company and kept me productive. Right before the local used book store shut down, I bought 2 boxes of dictionaries and I haven’t stopped yet; the more I look through the books, each with its own feel and smell, the more I want to sketch. The more people are impacted. I’ve also learned some things along the way about myself and the world including “Pandemic” is not a word in the 1962 Webster’s dictionary. I found “epidemic” and “panic.”however. No one really wants an illustration of the corona virus right now but I sketched it anyway. There are many words I still don’t know, but want to learn. The unabridged 1968 Webster’s has over 2,000 fine, fragile pages.
Pop up book by John Davis celebrates the work of David Ellis and the Barnstormers. Appx 8 x 11 inches when closed.
"Some say we need more bombs to protect our way of life. I think we need more artists who bomb with their creativity, constantly reinventing the way we experience life, keeping us fresh, awake, inspired."—David Ellis
$125
Paddle vase collaboration between glassblower John Geci and Justin Rothshank. Justin creates decal imagery, then John blows glass, then a third layer of imagery is added to the piece.
14 inches tall, 10 inches wide, 5 inches deep.
Normally $450. Now $300.
Claire Ashby. Sandcast pendant, bronze alloy. Custom 16 inch sterling silver chain.
$175.
This broadside was created at the time of publishing Catharine Carter’s 112 page fine press book Journey which featured her photomontage work alongside texts by Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. 17 x 23 inches. Mix of letterpress and giclee printing on 190g William Turner printmaking paper.
Edition of 38, signed and numbered.
$120 unframed, or $475 framed as shown with museum glass..
Maji Moto broadsides were created to accompany Courtney Fitzpatrick’s fine press book of the same name. The photographs were made during a 17 month sojourn to the Amboseli region where Courtney was working on field biology research as part of her PhD research. Courtney took to keeping a journal, filled with lyrical prose, and making photographs of the flora and fauna to keep sane while she lived in isolation and experienced the worst drought cycle in living memory. Combination of letterpress and giclee imagery. Signed and numbered editions of 28 (dual text) and 17 (Paternal Care). 17 x 23 inches
Normally $120. $100 during this exhibit.
$475 for the framed versions. 23 x 29 inches. Museum glass, sustainably harvested African hardwood.
Searching for Home. John McWilliams. Wood engraving framed with UV glass.
Print only. $100 (6 x 8 inches on gampi paper).
Black metal frame with UV glass. 12 x 14 inches. $250.
Wood engravings by John McWilliams from his fine press monograph Sons and Father which was produced as part of his exhibit at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina. This work celebrates the coastal environment where John resides (McClellanville, South Carolina). Images hand-printed on cream paper.
5 x 7 inches. $75 each.
$275 for framed versions of Self Portrait and Ghost (holding big fish) (see installation shots at top of page, stained hardwood frames, grey mats).
Broadside celebrating the Rubenstein Library dedication. The background is a digitally printed, two image collage (created from a photograph I made of the interior and a detail of the exterior elevation drawing dug up from the archives), and then the text was letterpress printed.
$30. 12 x 16 inches
Heart. Painting with Light by JP Trostle. Mounted on metal. 24 x 30 inches.
$275.
Also. Smaller unframed print. 8 x 12 inches. $80
Artist Book by John Davis. Trick or Treat. Folds down or can be expanded into a row or set up “in the round” as a star. $100
Work a Day Series by Lisa Creed. Framed with museum glass. Appx 8 inch square image. 12 inch square wood frame. Min Bid $275
Please know you can make an appt to view the hundreds of works in her flat file drawer. One piece for $90, two for $150, three for $225.
Noah Saterstrom. Faces. Virginia Woolf. Emily Dickinson. I.M.Pei
$700. Now Reduced to $425.
12 x 12 inches. Oil on canvas.
I met Noah in 1998 when he was teaching at Warren Wilson and I was a visiting artist. Upholding the strictest WW code of conduct, I met with three groups of students, never once setting foot in a classroom. We met under an oak tree, around his wood stove, and in the gallery. Noah is approaching the fourth year of making his Faces paintings and has made over 200 paintings of heros and sheros, many of them made immediately, in one extended sitting, upon learning of their death
Photos of writers working habitat by Rob McDonald from the Hub City Press Book Carolina Writers at Home. Digitally printed from film negatives, edition of 10. Matted in Vintage frames with UV glass.
Allan Gurganus Foyer. appx 12 x 15 inches. $225
Daniel Wallace. Lost. appx 13 inches square. $225
Michael Parker. Cacti. appx 13 x 15 inches. $225
The Four Humours interactive artist book by Mary Yordy.
9 x 12.5 inches when closed, opening to 12.5 x 18 inches. $100