Last night Alice and I were invited to have dinner with Betsy Alexander and Burnell YOW! at the Smile Cafe. They are both artists recognized in their own right for their work, but at this present time they are probably known better as Nora the piano playing cat’s parents. http://www.ravenswingstudio.com/NoraWeb/nora_home.html
After dinner we attended an opening of a show of assemblages and collage at the Smiles Gallery which is on the second floor of the smiles Restaurant (22nd street off of Chestnut). If I am not mistaken it is a satellite of the DaVinci Art Alliance. The three artists on exhibit are Burnell YOW!, Carl B. Johnson and Carol Wisker. The curator was Deb Miller. Each artist with their own approach, materials and style were distinct from and complimentary to each other. If you are interested in assemblage and collage this is a must see show.
The dinner at The Smile cafe was delicious and plentiful, enough to share. Alice and I eat Thai and Loatian cuisine often. We wanted to compare this restaurant to what we were used to. We ordered a cabbage salad and Pad Thai. We also tasted Burnell’s pineapple fried rice. The food was a bit sweeter and less spicy than what we are used to, which was refreshing. It is definitely one of the better Thai restaurants at reasonable prices. We spent about $10 each including tip.
Something happened at the opening that illustrated the importance of the viewer, and the audience for art work.
While looking at a particular piece I noticed that it had what I thought were the bristles of an old shaving brush. I misread the artist’s name as Carl Wisker. I thought it was clever to include this shaving brush, which was actually a piece of fur, with the last name of Wisker. I eventually met the artist, Carol Wisker not Carl ( gender specific shaving brush) and told her about my observation that most of her pieces had “wiskers” incorporated into them. To both of our surprise she was unaware of this.
This reaffirmed my belief in the importance of the viewer and what they experience.
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