How long does it take before you receive recognition for lifetime achievement? For Detroit sculptor Lois Teicher, it was nearly thirty years. In 2008 she received the Michigan Artist Lifetime Achievement Award from The Governor’s Awards for Arts & Culture, produced by ArtServe Michigan. It is the longest running Michigan program recognizing statewide and international leaders in the arts and is Michigan’s largest statewide celebration of arts, culture and creativity.

Teicher was also nominated (anonymously) as a candidate for the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. More than 50 of her works, including major fabricated metal sculptures and small models of planned sculptures, were featured in “Lois Teicher: A Sculptural Retrospective, 1979-2008” in June at the Saginaw Art Museum. She is one of five public artist finalists of which the Kansas City area Transportation Authority will contract three for project sites along the Troost Ave. corridor. The project is funded in part by the Federal Transit Administration.

Lois Teicher grew up in the 1950’s when women couldn’t do too many things considered relevant or important, much less build large scale public art. During the 1960’s the feminist movement gained momentum as it actively questioned gender norms and confronted oppressive stereotypes. In the 1970’s, women changed the way art was made and talked about forever, and Lois was in the vanguard. Feminism influenced her identity as a woman. She raised three children, went back to school to earn a master’s degree in sculpture from Eastern Michigan University, and after nine more years of dedicated work, received her first major commission.

The site specific “Paper Airplane Series with Deep Groove” was commissioned in 1996 by Bishop International Airport in Flint Michigan. Three of them (14 feet long, 10 feet wide and 7 feet high) were completed, with just one weighing 3,000 pounds. Lois was selected from 300 finalists.

Paper Airplane Series with Deep Groove

Teicher says of her own work: “Visual art is a language. Through form my ideas are expressed. My intention is to recognize and understand what the natural world has provided, and present these ideas to the viewer via the poetry of three-dimensional form.”

“One recurring theme in my work is the idea of Time/Space, and the idea of pairs of opposites held in dynamic tension. For example - we exist in a magnetic field where opposing forces are constantly at play.”

“Bench with Three Deep Seats”, Aluminum, 8’ high x 8′ long x 42″ deep; Ferris State University, Big Rapids, MI

Her work is often spoken of as “spiritual”. Teicher is known for taking on the challenge of creating site-specific installation art and won a statewide competition for sculpting the Curved Form with Rectangle and Space, created for installation in Hudson’s Art Park. She has had public sculptures on view throughout Michigan, including in the Detroit Institute of Arts, downtown’s Boll Family YMCA, and Grand Blanc Bus Terminal. Teicher has received many awards, including the Pollock-Krasner International Award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in New York City and the Michigan Arts and Patrons Award from the Arts Foundation of Michigan. Teicher’s work also has been featured in prominent national print media and profiles in books, such as Contemporary American Women Sculptors, Detroit Art in Public Places, and The Detroit Institute of Arts, a Brief History.

Evie Wheat, a former Board of Directors member for ArtServe Michigan said, “Her work shows that she has been consistently thoughtful in her beliefs, ideas and passions and in the high quality of her work as well. Her sculpture comes alive as poetry set in motion with a spiritual quality.”

‘The Sculptor’ A Video Documentary

Joshua Teicher

Lois Teicher’s son Joshua produced a short video documentary about his mother the artist. ”It is a story about what it take to be a true artist; Focus, determination and just plain drive. ‘The Sculptor’ depicts my mothers life from the everyday struggle to keep it going to the women’s movement and marching on Washington DC. It is a story for anybody who ever wanted to be or is an artist” he said. ‘The Sculptor’ is a semifinalist in the 3rd annual Show Off Your Shorts Film Festival in Beverly Hills CA. The film will screen at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, California

Joshua Teicher grew up in the suburbs of Detroit until around 1989. He lived part time with his mother at her Studio across from Eastern Market .

The film was shot over a span of about 8 years. He used to live in San Francisco and I would bring his digital camera every time he visited for the holidays. He moved to NY about 6 years ago and continued to shoot interviews when he visited. Lois had some old footage that she had shot of her working in the 80’s that really helped the piece.

“I think my mom works in Detroit because she has lived there all her life and she likes to be around her family. I would also say my mom is a real Detroit person, as in she reflects the city into her work”, said Joshua.

“I really enjoyed creating this short film for my mother because I watched her continue to push forward in a very stubborn way. (Meaning that she had a lot of “no” before any “Yes"). We would both send brain waves to grant committees to try and force the outcome of the process.”

Thedetroiter.com is proud to present Mr. Teicher’s film here.

Part I.

Part II.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 7 p.m.

Held at the College for Creative Studies, Wendell W. Anderson Jr. Auditorium, Walter B. Ford II Building. Information Sessions provide an overview of the application process, an opportunity for questions and answers, and information about customized Professional Development opportunities offered to awarded Fellows by ArtServe Michigan.

Please RSVP at www.kresgeartsindetroit.org to reserve your space at the Information Session.
 
Kresge Arts in Detroit, funded by The Kresge Foundation and administered by the College for Creative Studies, is providing significant financial support for eighteen (18) Kresge Artist Fellowships annually, each consisting of a $25,000 award and customized Professional Development opportunities for Metropolitan Detroit artists in the Visual, Performing, and Literary Arts.  Fellowship applications are only available
online. For more information on guidelines and application requirements, please visit our website.

Deadline For Applications:

February 27, 2009 - Fellowships in the Visual Arts

February 26, 2010 - Fellowships in the Performing and Literary Arts

The Ann Arbor Art Center
The Ann Arbor Art Center is currently accepting artist submissions for their 2010 exhibition schedule. Artists working in any medium are invited to send their portfolio. Interested artists should send their artist statement, resume, a checklist with each work‚s title, dimensions and medium and a CD with jpeg images of their work to: Exhibitions Director, Ann Arbor Art Center, 117 W. Liberty, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Please contact Irene Gelbord at 734.994.8004 x110 or igelbord@annarborartcenter.org

Art … On The Move
Call For Entry Dates – January 14, 15,16, 17, 2009, Exhibition Dates – January 23 to February 21 At the Grosse Pointe Art Center 16900 Kercheval, Grosse Pointe,IN “THE VILLAGE” between Cadieux & Notre Dame. Art … On The Move is an un-themed, all media exhibition and open to all artists. Please join us with your best moving piece for this special exhibition in our new 3,600 sq ft contemporary gallery space, in the heart of The Village in Grosse Pointe. Contact the Grosse Pointe Art Center at 313.821.1848 www.grossepointeartcenter.org

Art Contest being held by the Arts League of Michigan and the Detroit International Jazz Festival
The Arts League of Michigan and the Detroit International Jazz Festival, working in tandem to preserve and nurture the Jazz legacy, will hold a Fine Arts Competition using the theme; “A Great Day in Detroit”. For more information on the theme “A Great Day In Detroit” visit, http://detroitjazzfest.com/greatday.html or to learn more about the Detroit International Jazz Festival visit, http://detroitjazzfest.com/about.htm.

All local artists are encouraged to participate. For visual inspiration, artists are asked to use the architecture and history of the Guardian Building. The Guardian Building’s design merges Aztec, exotic modern, American Indian, Jazz age elegance, Dutch, French and American arts and crafts in a luscious, unique harmony, much like a jazz composition. Built in 1929, the Guardian building is a bold example of the Art Deco design age with its inspiring architecture and ornamentation.

The Guardian Building – where it is, how it looks and what it represents – parallels the JAZZ spirit, melding varied colors and cultures, as well as the skill and self expression of individuals who contribute to the creation of the greater whole.

The grand prize for this competition will be:
$300.00 Cash Award
2 VIP Passes for the entire Festival weekend (September 4-7, 2009)
National and International exposure as the official artist of the 30th
Anniversary commemorative poster
Opportunity to autograph posters on site
Official recognition/introduction to the community at the official press conference in April
Visibility on both the website and official festival program

2nd and 3rd place winners:
2 VIP passes for the entire festival
Artwork will be displayed as Second and Third placed winners in an exhibition of selected entries that will be in the Arts League of Michigan’s Gallery Tent at the Detroit Jazz Festival 2009
Exhibition will tour public places May thru August 2009. The tour will end at the Detroit International Jazz Festival 2009 in the Arts League of Michigan’s Gallery Tent.
All exhibited artworks are for sale

Deadline: February 2, 2009

Eligibility:
Open to all artists 18 years of age and older
The final entries must be original works. After the winning artwork is selected, the original work will be transferred to a poster at DJF’s expense.
Works submitted must not have been previously exhibited by the Arts League of Michigan.
Artwork must have a width shorter than the length.
No more than 2 works per artist will be accepted, however; 1 additional detail shot for each will be accepted.
All selected artwork for the exhibition must be framed or gallery wrapped and wired for hanging.

Entry Procedure:

1.Enter by visiting, www.artsleague.com, click the link “Detroit Jazz Festival’s 30th Anniversary” in the upper right hand corner, or visit, http://www.artsleague.com/poster_competition.htm, and submit an entry form.

2.Mail CD’s to:
Arts League of Michigan
Detroit Jazz Fest Poster Contest 2009
7700 Second Ave., 6th Floor
Detroit, MI 48202

3.Email to Faye Carrothers (faye@artsleague.com) (If submitting via email the file size of the images should be no more than 2MB each and the total size of the attachments should be less than 5M

By Vince Carducci

This was a really tough year for Detroit, economically and politically. But you couldn’t tell that by the art scene, which overflowed with good stuff. Here are some standouts from 2008:

1.“Broadcast,” “Becoming,” and “Business as Usual,” Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. With this trio of concurrent shows, MOCAD finally struck a balance between the impulse to fill up its cavernous interior and the need to organize what’s on display. Assembled by different curators and installed in separate galleries, the shows offered divergent takes on common themes of media, identity, and power. Even the Guyton/Walker painting of an Absolut ad, which came off nondescript in the muddle of last year’s Burt Aaron collection show, revealed its heft when seen in the right context.

Broadcast
Siebren Versteeg, CC, 2003

2.“Kenro Izu: Sacred Places,” Detroit Institute of Arts. Forget the suburban-friendly gloss and kid-oriented aesthetic lessons, the DIA’s best art experience came packaged the old-fashioned way: a compelling body of work presented straightforwardly. These photographs documenting the artist’s pilgrimages to sacred sites around the world embodied what great art is all about: an obsessive-compulsive vision quest for creative nirvana.

Sacred Places
Kenro Izu

3.“Lois Teicher: A Sculptural Retrospective, 1979-2008,” Saginaw Art Museum. This retrospective of work by the winner of the 2008 ArtServe Michigan Governor’s Award for lifetime achievement traced the artist’s development from her early Cass-Corridor-wannabe, feminist-consciousness-raising days to her present status as a maker of some of the region’s most refined meditations on three-dimensional space and form. The only complaint is that no catalog was published to document this significant body of work.

4.“For Better or For Worse: Kathryn Brackett Luchs and Michael Luchs,” CCS Center Galleries. To help mark Michelle Perron’s tenth anniversary as director of Center Galleries (itself a notable event), the reclusive artist-couple came out of their northern Michigan hideaway to kick it out old-school Detroit style. Brackett Luchs presented diptychs in which seriously distressed wood panels on one side were mirrored by heavily worked glassine sheets on the other. Luchs exhibited new untitled drawings featuring cartoonish hands and feet emerging from pink backgrounds, channeling late Phillip Guston but with a raw power all their own.

Small Moth
Kathryn Luchs

5.“Lauren Semivan: Weights and Measures,” David Klein Gallery. The recent Cranbrook MFA made an auspicious debut with her first solo show of large photographs. Semivan combined gauzy theatrical sets, enigmatic hand drawing, and a few well-chosen objects to expose photography’s uncanny side. All photographs are in a sense ghost images, and Semivan’s gothic apparitions were haunting.

6.“Brenda Goodman: New Work,” Paul Kotula Projects. In art school they tell you if you can’t make good make it big. In her first Detroit solo in five years, Goodman gave a lesson in the opposite aesthetic with small oil-on-paper paintings that plumbed the depths of the artist’s psyche. Goodman’s mindscapes opened more doors of perception than the supersized commodities of blowhards like Julian Schnabel ever could.

Daredevil and Songstress
Brenda Goodman

7.“Michigan Ceramics 2008,” Community Arts Gallery, Wayne State University. Michigan has an outstanding ceramics tradition. This survey marking the Michigan Ceramic Art Association’s 50th anniversary contained many of the usual suspects (Tom Phardel really stood out), but also gave several newbies a chance to shine. The range of expression, from straight-up functionality to conceptual wackiness, demonstrated that the medium’s only limits are the hands and minds at work.

U Vesel
Tom Phardel
Salt fired black- stoneware
Non-Functional Vessel
12 x 17 x 8

8. “Janet Hamrick and Ted Lee Hadfield: Intertwined,” Lemberg Gallery. Two of Detroit’s most respected artists exhibited pieces they either worked on together or in which one incorporated the other’s motifs into their own compositions. Hamrick seemed more game to take on Hadfield’s themes and often with better results, but overall it was a fruitful collaboration.

Intertwined
Janet Hamrick and Ted Lee Hadfield
Sculptures
closed cell high density urethane
12 x 36 in

9. “Dennis Michael Jones: Just the Tip,” CCS Alumni and Faculty Hall. Following up on his breakthrough show at Oakland University Art Gallery a year ago in which he abandoned figuration in favor of hand-scrawled text, Jones filled the narrow exhibition space outside Center Galleries with a floor-to-ceiling installation of charcoal drawings of phrases all starting with “Sometimes I feel…” The drawings recorded random thoughts, from the sublime to the ridiculous, with ambience provided by an audio loop of the artist reading each one aloud.

10.DIA Great Hall (Disco Version). It wasn’t really art and museum curators reportedly despised it, but the installation of reflective silver disks hanging from the Great Hall’s ceiling provided a festive atmosphere to the DIA re-opening that carried into the New Year. It’s good to see them back, however tacky they may be, for the current holiday season.

[Great Hall]

DIA Great Hall

Vince Carducci has written on art and culture for many publications.

After more than forty years of being creative Robert Sestok is still one of the most energetic, prolific and most shown artists ever spawned by Detroit’s Cass Corridor. He draws, paints, sculpts, constructs creates collages transforms space and transports audiences. Sestok acknowledges rules only to reinvent them and then break them. He works big he works small and in the finest corridor tradition uses anything he can find. If you haven’t seen what he has been up to of late you have four exceptional opportunities available right now.

“In, On, And Through” at The Johanson Charles Gallery turns paintings and drawings into a massive installation of large-scale abstract and figurative art. Sestok has created an environment that swallows the audience whole but it is the audience that slowly digests it from the inside.

“Painting is about the edges, surface, content and theory. It’s like a reflection of one’s soul. A good painting will hold your attention for some mysterious reason. I keep painting for more than enjoyment. It’s my way of seeing. It’s my life.”

“Purity is only relevant to the environment in which it exists.” – Robert Sestok

Gilda Snowden, Professor of Fine Art and Interim Chair of the Fine Arts department at the Center for Creative Studies, has provided a brief, tantalizing digital video tour of the gallery but you shouldn’t miss the closing reception Saturday, December 20th from 8pm to late. The Johanson Charles Gallery is located at 1345 Division St. in Detroit’s Eastern Market.

Sestok part 1

Sestok part 2

Sestok’s work will also be featured at the Yes Farm on Friday December 19th during their UnSilent Night celebration (http://www.unsilentnight.com/about.html). The UnSilent Night begins with a 42minute walk with music on boom boxes at 6:30 PM on the nose. The walk will end inside the gallery, with their first show - “In the Beginning” - to follow. The group show will feature work in various mediums from local artists. The show will run from 7:30 to 11:30PM.

The Yes Farm is a group committed to living and creating in Detroit. They believe the arts play an important role in the community and seek to bring art into the lives of the people in the community. The goal is to establish a permanent location for artists to live and work. They also hold a deep commitment to ecology, would like to grow food, and create artistic open spaces in the neighborhood. It is their hope to contribute something positive to the community through art. The Yes Farm is located at 5199 Moran on the corner of Farnsworth and Moran in Detroit and can be contacted at theyesfarm@gmail.com

If you’re hanging out in Ann Arbor stop in at Café Verde where Robert Sestok’s exhibit will be up until January 1. Over 500 current works on paper are on display in a relaxed community atmosphere reminiscent of the Cass Café.

Created out of an expansion of the People’s Food Co-op in 2001, Cafe Verde has very quickly become a Kerrytown staple. For a neighborhood abode, Cafe Verde is very welcoming and friendly to outsiders and its array of dishes can make up a full meal or just an afternoon snack. They provide exhibit space to a new artist each month. The Café is locate at 216 N. Fourth in Ann Arbor and can be contacted at (734) 994-9174, http://www.peoplesfood.coop/cafe

If you’re looking for a party in the arts community, on December 31st , 2008, Elements Gallery is ringing in 2009 with an enormous New Year’s Eve gala to celebrate and support Detroit’s unyielding art and music community. MOTLEY is going to be a versatile showing of both established and emerging Detroit artists: Robert Sestok, Julian Wilson, Brandon Strong, Lynn Spanke, and Izabela Steciuk. Opening reception includes an open bar of beer and wine, hors d’oeuvres, NYE toast and musical performances by Monica Blaire, Dj Dez, milieu and Dj Sicari. MOTLEY is a benefit for the Elements Gallery in Corktown, Detroit.

Please RSVP for this event at detroitreivalsociety@gmail.com. MOTLEY opens to the public at 8:00 p.m Closing reception will be held Thursday January 29 .

Elements Gallery is a multimedia gallery dedicated to enriching the artistic community in Metropolitan Detroit. The gallery currently operates through cross-promotional events aimed at showcasing progressive artists of various mediums from within the local community. Elements Gallery is located at 2125 Michigan Ave. in Detroit and can be contacted at detroitrevivalsociety@gmail.com, mike.woo@peoplemoverproductions.com and kh2695@gmail.com.