Seen at the Artbook II Launch

The Launch party for Artbook Volume II was held at Johnny Reno's, a bar at The Pier on May 25th. This version has seventy artists in it, plus ten museums. The cost for the Artbooks I & II is now half of what the first one was offered at, initially.

Sean Carey, President and owner of HD Interactive, who puts the Artbooks together, brought the 70 artists together. I ran into B.C.Woo, Derek Donnelly, Jen Chandley, and many others.

Work by Derek Donnelly

I've been watching the progress on this painting by Derek Donnelly for a while. Note the highly stylized form, how the left half of the painting is basically an abstract.

Junior Polo, "Funny Song"

This mixed media work is "Funny Song", by Junior Polo, who heads an arts program for children in Haiti. I will be doing a blog post about him soon. The knotted guitar neck makes it explicitly figurative. There's small berry or fruit like round forms on the viewer's right of the instrument. The lines in the background are diaristic, about the sound, too.







This small sculpture caught my eye. The artist I now know, thanks to a kind reader, is Boo Ehrsam.

Deb Raguso, "911, 2001"

The 9/11, 2001 attacks are still a very delicate and painful subject subject in the US. Wars are still being fought because of it, and people still dying, eleven years later. Deb Raguso dramatically rendered the towers in a near-abstract manner. The figures at the bottom are around an aparently dead fireman, looking like Christ at the foot of the Cross, arms splayed out. On the lower left, the Hokusai Wave. abstract lines, like tossed yarrow stalks, fall.

Bill Correira Woo

Congratulations to all the artists and HD Interactive.