HLOVE-WORD

Interview with HLOVE-The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards 2012

2012-02-21T02:20:00.002-08:00

Here's the link:

http://blog.artandwriting.org/2012/01/31/harrison-love-the-art-nomad/

HARRISON LOVE: THE ART NOMAD

January 31, 2012

Harrison Love was recently awarded Best in Show at The Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. He will be working in the gallery’s residency program through March and will have his first New York solo exhibition there in April. He is also a participating artist innow on paper, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers’ annual fundraiser and art auction on March 7^th.

In the following interview, Harrison talks about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, his work, and his artistic goals.

What is your connection to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards?

In 2004, during my senior year in high school, I was fortunate enough to earn five different Scholastic Art Awards at both the state (Connecticut) and national levels. You could say that the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards really gave me my start in art.

How did winning a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards affect you?

Before winning a Gold Key award, I had little confidence in my work. I was actually more confident in applying to liberal arts schools at the time. But when I won an American Visions Award as well as a Silver Medal for my Art Portfolio I was really taken by surprise. If I had not become acquainted with such success at that moment in my artistic career, I probably would not have pursued my passion with as much drive.

What are your long-term goals as an artist?

I am a freelance Art Director in New York City. Most recently, I was the Creative Director of Citi Pond at Bryant Park for the 2011 Holiday Season where I was responsible for designing the collateral materials as well as graphic elements for Bryant Park’s ice skating rink. In collaboration with my brother, Mac Love, I was also able to design unique artworks for the Park’s Celsius restaurant. My goal is to continue to design and direct art for event and retail spaces throughout the world. I will also continue to advance my artistic techniques, which foster my creative expertise and design discipline.

When did you first become interested in art?

I became interested in art at a very young age. My mother and father are both artistic and my older brother is an artist as well. Growing up, my passion for art was nurtured and really developed from their inspiration.

What inspires you to make art?

I am continually inspired by the way that we as a society create and digest information. Much of my recent work reflects how I consume data as an artist. My recent work has transitioned into the abstract because I have become increasingly fascinated by what a painting does rather than what it is.

I still utilize my skills as an illustrator of both realism and fantasy, which is the type of work that helped me win my Scholastic awards. I think that as our world becomes increasingly complex, our culture is starting to appreciate simplicity more and more. My recent work reflects my attempt to translate the complex into simplicity as well as the translation of paint into motion and emotion.

What advice can you offer to young artists and writers?

My advice for any young artist and/or writer is to learn to recognize distractions and focus on what you want out of each day. Every day brings a new challenge. The hardest thing about keeping yourself busy as an artist is finding the motivation to begin something new. Learn to self motivate and you will succeed.

Beautiful Later, a Love Brothers' Collaboration at Bryant Park's Celsius at Citi Pond 2011.

***

Harrison Love is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. While attending RISD, he worked in advertising abroad, in Tokyo, Japan and in Shanghai, China. After graduation, he traveled to Peru to study the cultural heritage of the Ashaninka, Warani, and Shipibo tribes of the Eastern Amazonas. He is currently working on an illustrated book about the mythologies of the Shamanic Cultures he was living with. Proceeds from this book will go to supporting the land rights of these indigenous tribes. To keep up to date on all of Harrison’s artistic efforts, please visit www.harrisonlove.com. You can also connect with him on Facebook!

Rally to Restore Sanity

2011-01-10T23:25:00.000-08:00

I just returned to CT from the Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington DC. An estimated 215,000+ people were in attendance. We went to the rally early enough to see the stage and hear The Roots open up for the show.

The rally was less political than I think most people were hoping for. There was something in the air for the 20-30ers that this was going to be our generations Woodstock, which I believe was an unfair expectation to begin with. However, the Rally was a complete success, not merely because of Jon Stewarts message at the end of the Rally but primarily for the number of hopeful moderate "SANE" people in attendance. The Rally stood as more of an action than an event, the main thrust of which was targeted at sensationalist media and the demonizing of candidates beliefs in the upcoming election by mainstream media.

"A house divided cannot stand."- Lincoln

America is a melting pot of ideas and conflicting philosophies. The one message that I came away from the rally believing is that we all need to listen to one another and educate one another about one we hold to be true. This is the only way that we will ever be able to ascertain the "truth" at the heart of every political debate. We need to listen to everyone to understand our nations common interest. We cannot exclude radicals, liberals, independents, republicans, or democrats; we cannot let our "house" be divided by fear.

HLOVE Featured in a New Book , "The Late Work"

2010-08-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

HLOVE Featured in a New Book , "The Late Work": "'The Late Work,' is a collection of artwork from several artists creating a dialog on the future of art."

Art Critic Greg Cook Reviews: "New Life"- at the Spot on Thayer

2010-04-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

http://thePhoenix.com/Boston/arts/101012-making-the-rounds/

Slideshow: ''The Beast In Me - Johnny Cash''

See all in Museum And Gallery

Museum And Gallery

Making the rounds

New exhibits at the Spot and AS220

By GREG COOK | April 21, 2010

DELICATE LINES Hames’s “Town of Monhegan.”

For some time, the founders of the Spot — Josh Fulford (now technical director), Kevin Blanchette (director of operations), and Nick Cardi (gallery director) — weren’t sure what to call the venue they were creating in a roomy second floor space at 286 Thayer Street. Talking on the phone, they’d say things like, “I’m over at the spot.” Finally they realized they could just call it that.

Part of the difficulty in deciding on a name was the range of activities they aimed to offer. They began with yoga classes in April 2007; that August, they presented their first art show. That fall they brought in Josh Willis (artistic director) and Spogga (music director). These days they also offer comedy, dance classes, poetry slams, and the occasional rock opera. The Spot’s MySpace page announces: “More than just a building, a gallery, a school, a home. It is a Force of Nature. It is an Engine of Kinetic Energy.”

As far as visual art is concerned, you can feel that moxie, though the art itself is still developing. The Spot offers a pair of quirky halls that sprout smaller nooks and crannies. Windows and architectural details divide up the walls and can cramp 2D work, but the large rooms flatter sculptures and installations.

Cranston sculptor Michael Green takes advantage of this, installing an arc of tall wide strips of heavy, ribbed translucent plastic — the sort of stuff they use for loading docks — that cascade down from the ceiling and curl across the floor. A light inside, near the ceiling, makes it shine blue, purple, orange, yellow — echoing the Spot’s funky nightclub vibe. The sculpture looks sort of like a giant plastic jellyfish or a waterfall. In a particularly lovely touch, the sculpture hides a fountain built into the wall behind, and you can hear the unseen water trickling.

Through mid-May, Green’s sculptures are paired with prints by Harrison Love. After earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in illustration from RISD in 2008, Love spent a year in Peru, including, he says, four months living with the Shipibo, Warani, and Ashaninca tribes in the Amazon. Now living in Stonington, Connecticut, he is illustrating a book he is writing inspired by the old myths of these tribes. In his linocuts, visionary scenes are rendered in workmanlike compositions. Birds soar over a clearing in a forest. A person perches in a tree filled with birds. Men with spears gaze into the mouth of a large dark cave and the walls inside resemble a pile of rocky skulls.

Green and Love are the focus this month, but works from previous shows linger, like an installation Brooke Mullin Doherty of New Bedford, Massachusetts, put up last year. She fills the ceiling of a lounge-nook at the end of one room with gold fabric that drapes down from a red wire armature. It’s luxurious and consuming, and seems like the frilly gold train of an evening gown grown out of control. New Bedford artist Jeremy Rudd’s sculpture Concentric is a six-foot-tall ball of wooden pieces that seem to interlock like gears. Giselle Corre of Providence turns shallow reliefs of polymer clay into depictions of sunny psychedelic childlike dream gardens.

Meanwhile at AS220’s Main Gallery (115 Empire Street, through April 24), Mary Snowden and Lauraberth Lima offer chickens and risqué vegetables.

Snowden’s photo-realist paintings of chickens bring out the ruddy details — a Spanish chicken, with its black body, white face, and fleshy red comb and cheeks. The birds could feel more alive, but Snowden nails their threatening alien stare.

Lima makes mixed media montages from photos and magazine fashion shots, sometimes finished off with patterned mask-like drawings on top. Her best work is witty and surprising, likeAnatomy, which shows an arrangement of vegetables, including a twinned carrot that, looked at with the right frame of mind, resemble a pair of orange legs with a root growing between.

While you’re there, check out the back room at AS220’s Project Space (93 Mathewson Street), where Seamus Hames presents a series of small delicate black-and-white pen drawings. With fine lines shaded by hazes of tiny dots and hatching, he envisions folksy cartoony landscapes: a town nestled in a verdant valley or great cliffs rising above an ocean shore and a little boat steadfastly chugging out to sea.

Read Greg Cook’s blog at gregcookland.com/journal.

Related: Ghost stories, Wanting more, Photos: Boston expressionism at Danforth Museum, More

Topics: Museum And Gallery , Entertainment, Visual Arts, Arts, More

Collaborative Art Project with David Black

2010-03-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

LE TEMPS, TUNIS, 3.23.10

ENGLISH

On Saturday February 20 2010, three groups of artists of the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in New York (sic) have created the paintings shown as Tunisian Style Collaborative Paintings. This event was reported by several New York media sources as well as numerous American artists’ blogs. The meetings of the collaborative paintings were brought under the direction of the artist David Black who about a year ago became a kind of ambassador to the USA for Tunisian Style Collaborative Painting. Black discovered this concept during his visit to Tunisia en November 2008, participating with a group of Tunisian artists in the creation of a large painting in the work space of the ‘Espace Bouabana.” The title of the painting, which was given by himself, is none other than “A Night in Tunisia” in a wink to the Jazz namesake by Dizzy Gillespie. This event was also covered by the magazine Allemand Aufbay which devoted a four-page article to him in November 2008.

The concept of collaborative painting was developed by Hechmi Ghachem in the late 1980s. It’s a concept with simple rules and carried the generic name of BIP (Brigades d’Intervention Plastiques) in reference to the artists who composed the paintings. A great number of Tunisian Painters had already participated in various acts by the BIP; Nejib Belkhoja (who had participated in a monumental work in company with Zied Lasram, Najet Ghrissi, Hechmi Ghachem and Mourad Zerai), Faozi Chetuti, Lamine Sassi, Bessma Haddaoui, Halem Karabibine, Mohamed Chalbi, Hamadi ben Saad, Olfa Jegham, Omar Bey, Mustapha ben Attia and I am surely forgetting more.

The BIP created in the last eight years, for example, no less than twenty large paintings (around 4x2 meters) sent to various regions of Tunisie in Douz, Tazarka, Hammamet and Tunis.

The experience of the BIP is in my opinion a major contribution to the young history of Tunisian painting. And this for several reasons opens the concept to all types of artists and their universality.

This concept has been celebrated in numerous articles in print, electronic news and radio, especially in Switzerland, Canada, the US and England. The concept has also spread in the Arab world thanks to a documentary on the subject prepared by the company El Arabiya. The only country where this concept is concealed is . . . Tunisia. There are many clan rivalries of artists and it’s too bad! No less strange is that the schools of fine arts in the USA (particularly South Carolina, Philadelphia and New York) experimenting with this concept call it “Tunisian Style Collaborative Paintings”, and that the country that saw its emergence has not given it the interest it deserves.

The story of the young Tunisian painter is doubtlessly to be written one day, and the BIP to find a place of distinction for what they brought to the Tunisian fine arts.

Back in New York, (sic) on February 20 2010, I call on the words of Paula Billups, artist of Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in New York who relates on her blog the story of the experience of Black in Tunis:

“He felt and saw how art transcends the boundaries of culture and language in collaborating in the creation of a painting. The desire to share this cosmic connection drove Black, on his return to the United States, to introduce the concept of Collaborative Painting to groups of American artists to organize one of these events. Yesterday was the first event of its kind in the United States. In November, an even more important collaboration will take place in Manhattan under the auspices of the Art Students league in company with Tunisian artists.”

Further on in her blog, Paula Billups relates the experience of painting in a group under the rules of the BIPs.

“After the paintings were completed, David Black talked to the artists about what had just happened. This dialog was enhanced by the presence and participation of Ira Goldberg, director of the Art Students League of New York. Looking at the paintings, it is clear that none of us could have done that alone, not only because of logistical constraints, but also because none of us would have produced or conceived of these images. David Black did not neglect to underline the harmony of this collective work. He next asked the question, “If you saw one of these paintings on the wall of a gallery, how many people would you say had painted it?”

“One!” was the response from all corners of the room. That is nothing less than a miracle!

David Black then discussed the influences of the painting approaches of the BIP and showed how it affected his own work, allowing him to be more audacious in his choices and less reluctant to change or erase his mistakes.

This experience of collective painting was not without moments of tension, but not as much as one would fear. A big thank-you to David Black for sharing this with us all!”

Studio L

2010-02-21T22:11:00.000-08:00

Collaborative Art Project

2010-02-21T13:19:00.001-08:00

February 21, 2010

Team effort

Abigail Pheiffer/The Day

Harrison Love, left, and Karen Krogseng, a Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts alumna, discuss the collaborative painting they are creating with three other artists on Saturday at the academy in Old Lyme. The art form was invented in the African country of Tunisia and David Black, an artist and Stonington resident, first witnessed the practice when he traveled there in November 2008. Black is sharing the collaborative painting technique with artists in America. He led Saturday's meeting that included three groups, each with five painters contributing to one piece. According to the rules of the process, one member of the group begins the painting and determines when it is complete. Black will paint in collaboration with six artists from Tunisia at the Art Students League in New York City on Nov. 1 and 16.

Abigail Pheiffer/The Day

Matthew Muturi, Rick Lacey, Eleanor Tamsky, and Sue Joffray, left to right, collaboratively paint a canvas on Sat. Feb. 20, 2010 at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme.

David Black
212 620 0078 www.davidblacknyc.com
davidblacknyc@aol.com

Old Press From Hartford Current

2010-02-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

Pilgrim of the Peruvian Pogrom

2009-10-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

Feb. 2009: Walking down the road divider, a 5am sunrise, on the way into town. Dust kicking up from the moto-taxis passing by with wide eyed drivers, gawking at the sore thumb caught in the light of the rising sun. Long shadows from the early flight of horned vultures stretch across the wet tire tracks. There is the sound of the world coming alive all about the dead concrete, barreling through the ancient jungles of Peru, in line with Ucayali River gulping cold water from the melting snowcaps of the Andes. Pucallpa, is a dangerous town; stories of hostage taking terrorists and drug smugglers. Peddlers and pushers with calloused knuckles who prefer to dine upon backpackers with big "take me" signs fastened to themselves, weighing them down, bulging from their backs; like a meaty drum stick dancing in front of starved hounds. But in fact it is more dangerous to trust a foreigner in this place, because most come for a reason; one with many prepackaged explanations. The natives are happy and proud, fully aware and accepting of their neighbors and fully accustomed to lending a hand where it is needed. Only from the relatively recent influence of consumer culture have their hands sought the feel of money in exchange for kindness. But there are still many who know virtue in their blood. I was lucky enough to find such kindness, a CT townie with a pocket full of lucky charms and a knife securely fastened to the hip, a walking contradiction in a place where people come to never be found. I wanted this kind of solitude, for it is only in the places where man ceases to be a man that he truly knows himself. Four hours by taxi down a white sand and red clay road, to catch a boat, two hours down river, then one hour walking up and down hills, deeper and deeper into the hot breast of the Amazon. Going to meet a hidden teacher; the student seeks words with a sort of infinite; greater than an echo, an incongruous conversation with the id.

Oct. 2005: It was my second year in art college. I'm at Borders looking through the art section for books that might fit under my shirt or in my bag. I come upon a book, "The Cosmic Serpent," by Jeremy Narby, shelved incorrectly, wedged between Lucian Freud and Art Through the Ages. I would buy this book and it would lead me to ask questions, to shrug off the predictable, and embrace the implausible. A confection of curiosity and wonder would take over my cerebellum and cause me to finger through every article I could find about Peruvian mythology and cultural heritage. It became a hobby to be anthropologic, a hidden love shared only in passing fancy with those of an elite knowing. First priorities: painting, graduating, finding a job, besting my friends and their summer and after school plans. All else eclipsed by the need to learn the things that are not taught in common institutional circles.

Sept. 2006: An isolated tribe, never previously contacted, is discovered in the Eastern Peruvian Amazon by a helicopter crew surveying a newly purchased area of rainforest, now under the ownership of Peruanco Oil (French owned, Peruvian sounding). No permission, nor discussion of sale took place between the indigenous peoples of the area and the oil company, which was trying its damnedest to hide the news of the uncontacted tribe from the global public. Claiming that the tribe was nomadic and often went back and forth between Brazil and Peru, this was a cunning attempt to avoid governmental interference, and to skirt the issue of the tribes presence and importance. However, due to national exposure the issue went global. Peruanco, along with several other oil companies discovered oil in the Amazon; it is the biggest discovery in the region in the past 30 years. Still untapped, no one can be sure exactly what is under the soil. It should be common knowledge, that in the presence of any major commodity (diamonds, gold, oil, etc.) cultural preservation, the preservation of life, all of morality itself falls in the wake of progress.

There are many examples of this but my favorite comes from Lima, Peru itself, in the early 20th century when the president of Peru, searching for hidden treasures to boost the national economy, dynamited the temple of Pachacamac, the great temple of the earthquake god, (the biggest temple nearest to Lima). Nothing was found and, once he stepped down, the government spent millions of dollars repairing the damage. This is an example of cultural pluralism, which occurs when one culture adopts some of the traits of another culture because they see benefit in their inclusion. Unfortunately the insidious trait absorbed by Peru through years of suffering, betrayal and genocide, was that of greed.

Oct. 2006: I am convinced that the indigenous population of the Eastern Peruvian Amazon will meet with an unfortunate demise at the hands of an obese oil-consuming culture. Fear for the livelihood of the shimmering virtuous cultures I had come to love gripped me in a moment of clear moral choice. No one I knew, cared enough, knew enough, nor had the determination or grit to explore this road. I would make my plans through restless nights, trying to tongue the borders of the path ahead.

More details came in, the uncontacted tribe is perhaps 100 souls or fewer. The oil company had settled with the Peruvian government on buying a 2 million dollar plane to scan for heat signatures in the jungle tracking the tribes movement. The sole responsibility of monitoring the tribe is set upon the oil company and the lobbyists breeding in the local bureaucracy. It seemed inevitable that the tribe would be lost. I would seek only to learn more about tribes like these so that I could somehow preserve some fragment of their cultural heritage before the double tailed coin toss that would decide their future for them.

March 2008: Made contact with an advertising agency in Lima which will help me build my living from the $1000 I have left in my bank account. For the next 6 months I will learn Spanish from nothing but a knowledge of the pronunciation of numerals. I will lend a fraction of my soul to the Devil so that my better nature can keep track of what we ad men feed the public; I would rather it be me than someone who values money over what exactly goes into baby formula. I do the job well but after Christmas I leave to pursue a deeper understanding of my fate. I travel one hour north by plane to the only accessible landing strip on the border of the Amazon, then three days by boat. With my Spanish I speak to many wise men, tribal leaders that have grown weary of the outside world's encroaching duality and corruption. In me they seem to find a renewed confidence in the good nature of the human spirit, even though I am not the first idealist gringo to cross their paths, a 23 year old six foot american is certainly something new.

April 2009- Road blocks have been set up by some of the locals to hinder the transportation of drill equipment into the jungle. Although it hardly makes much difference to a road battered and broken by the summer storms. Whole cliff faces ride the landslide damming rivers that provide water to smaller villages miles away. Juan Flores (A Tribal Leader of the Shipibo)-"But what else can we do? Those bastards never even asked us if they could use our land. They never came to any of us to tell us what they found and they sure as Hell weren't going to share the profits with poorer residents. They just came and found the oil and immediately, production of the rig and drills began. It isn't just the oil companies, it is our own government that is stepping on its people, turning their backs on the very thing that makes this country great. They are taking away that last untouched piece of wonder. One of the last places where anything is sure to happen." As I observed Flores, the rain poured down the sides of the thatched hut. The sound of the overflowing hot water spring running down the mountain. The flames of the oil lamps describing the shape of a man from a different world, peering out through the dark night into my eyes and feeling a deep respect from my colloquial silence. He brushes the brightly colored feathers of the Macaw laid out on the floor to one side to get within personal distance. He extends his leathery hands out into the lamp light requesting my hands in response. I give over both and feel the surprising softness and gentle nature of the man. "Do you have any questions for me?" And although I wanted to ask him about how he came to be in this place far from the sound of people; of how he came to be. I simply said, "I have nothing to ask for nothing is owed me. I have only my thanks to give along with an apology, reserved for whomever may wrong you or cause wrong without giving reason or cause. I give this to you so that you may more easily forgive. A wise man (Ghandi) once said, 'the seeker of truth must be humbler than the dust.'"

Juan folded my hands together and slipped his right hand between mine and with as much honor as can be shared between men, he firmly shook my hand. I would not say goodbye to him when I would leave for town in the morning. I would only be told by the man driving the boat up river that Juan had requested that I return whenever I felt that I had to, an invitation only given to those of the most amiable quality.

May 2009- There are now three oil companies moving to occupy sections of the Amazon where their rigs will drink the blood of the land. When one takes a stone from the ground, there is a whole that remains; a cavity that can be filled with dirt, fashioned so as to make believe that there was nothing absent. But the fact remains that once there was a rock that need not be disturbed, where our eyes can forget but our mind remembers. I think to myself, when this is done the value of that culture that stands in the way of progress may be quantified in mathematical terms. Suffice to say that I will feel an emptiness when they are gone. I will have wished to recognize to another the great value found within the meek.

June 2009- Returning home to Connecticut, where my stomach cries patriotic tears of joy as I enjoy two bottles of Cottrell while wolfing down my first hamburger in more than a year. News of Peru has hit the global circuit: The road blocks that have persisted in the northern territories of Peru have provoked the local government to violence. Twenty five civilians are shot and killed by the local police, 10 policemen are taken hostage by the angered mob. Unconfirmed reports of the several tribal leaders under attack. Juan's name is among the list. The President of Peru has issued a statement calling the people that are preventing the transportation of supplies to the oil rigs, "terrorists," and has called for immediate action to resolve the now public issue regarding indigenous land rights. Days later, the government of Peru, under international duress changed its rhetoric and for now has checked its action.

Late June 2009: I have recollected my routine in the world of the clock that divides my life into quarters and halves. Walking down the still streets of New London catching stray glances at the bar rabble let out from the dry saloons. Following the rain run off down the hill to a two hour parking spot wedged between the alley and a tilted building. I look over at the train platform and see four people under the cover of a canopy speaking familiar Spanish. They see me and quiet themselves, giving worried glances. I yell, "habla pe!" Shocked for a moment they then return to comfort. I ask them where they are from and they say that they are from Leoncio Prado and Campo Serio. Two relatively remote villages in the Amazon near the areas where the riots have occurred. One man does not respond. He hangs his head and shakes his wet coat up from his shoulders. There is a shared look then the group all adopt the man's posture. It seems the memory of that once better place disrupted the momentary pleasure of reconnecting to a bit of home. I say goodnight, turn and leave. I pass them on route to the highway once more and nod goodbye. I catch the on ramp to 95N and wonder if my life in Peru was all fiction, and then I think that maybe someday it will be easier to think that it was.

I am only an artist. But I believe that the purpose of art has changed many times throughout history as art has become more commoditized. Originally art was our first language, it was our first and greatest tool for teaching and guiding our culture. Its inherent value has followed us through our entire evolution. We must not forget this function. Artists must take responsibility again and guide our culture by questioning the foundation of those systems that have governed us so far in the direction of greed, and self destruction. And we must preserve our sources of inspiration as much as we seek to inspire.

-written by Harrison Love

"The Last Hit" on exhibit in New London CT

2009-10-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

Harrison Love Lecturing at the Expressiones Gallery (Oct 15-2009)

2009-10-11T20:00:00.000-07:00