AUGUST 2023 Newsletter
Photo by Alyssa Ki
Dear Readers,
Thank you for your smile-producing, uplifting comments and responses to my newsletter. I appreciate the comments, insights, compliments, and connections that come after the newsletters arrive in your inbox. I am grateful this platform allows me to keep you up to date about my creative life, and I appreciate the opportunities and doors it opens for me. This happy and relaxed photo, taken by Alyssa Ki, was captured during the last Jersey City Art Crawl for the Jersey City Times. This is an evening when the surrounding community visits our art spaces in my neighborhood, which is still filled with Creatives.
MONO PRINTS at CSM
I am sitting at my studio work table, sorting through 16 x 20” mono prints I unearthed from my archive. Eleven have been consigned to Caryn Krueger at CSM Art & Frame. She has been a wonderful vendor of my works on paper and also has my Glyphs on Pages of a 1957 Encyclopedia. So, reach out to her or Emily to learn which prints are still available. I posted them on my Instagram @cherylrriley, so don’t wait too long to contact them.
CSM Art & Frame
295 Main Street, Carriage House, Chatham, NJ 07928
(973) 457-7705
SEAMLESS GROUP EXHIBIT
I so enjoyed being included with fellow ART150 studio cohorts in the collage/mixed media, 'Seamless' exhibit held from July 1-30 in our ART150 Gallery. It was curated by Bryant Small, who was recently appointed by the Board of Directors of the Jersey City Arts Council (JCAC) as the Executive Director. In the exhibit, my 'Afro/Belin I' and 'African Angels,' both 2006 Appropriation Bags, were showcased (shown here front and back). This series was birthed during a summer in East Hampton. Away from my studio and not being a sunbather, I began gluing Chinese Funerary Paper and images from art magazines, textbooks, and photocopies that I had been saving for so long on some of the bags from shopping sprees without any idea why. As they piled up in the corner of the dining room, friends sometimes laughed at what became, for me, a political discourse on consumerism, beauty, values, mythology, religion, history, and world cultures. When Peg Alston Gallery in NYC offered me a one-person show, they were displayed in custom plexiglass boxes and sold out.
Belin/Modigliani (Side 1) African Angels
BROOKLYN MUSEUM COMMISSION
I am happy to report that I have been awarded a commission for a unique furniture design for the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum. I am grateful to the Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, Catherine Futter, for this honor and important opportunity. I will have more to share about the design in upcoming newsletters. My concept for "World History I (Drum), 2023," has been approved, and I am visiting the shops of Makers who will fabricate the work. I have been ably supported in the endeavors by a team of wonderful and generous talents, and I am so excited to be experiencing new technologies and meeting new Makers. Photos and more information about the design concept will come in future newsletters.
SCHEHERAZADE BED, NIGHT & DAY SIDE TABLES
To Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art (LACMA)
I am re-entering my furniture design oeuvre, and as the Brooklyn Museum entry above attests, I am experiencing some success. There is more to come in future newsletters as details become more concrete. Though I definitely welcome custom and production commissions, my focus is on museums. My goal is to inspire females, peoples of color, and with some works, to also educate about World and American History. History was my favorite subject during my school days, and now with so much that was hidden and erased being brought forward, I intend to do my part to present it in 3-D form. I have reached out, and am doing so here, to Collectors and Curators to aid me in this mission by making introductions for me.
I am thrilled to report that one of my major Collectors during my years in San Francisco is downsizing and generously donating some of my works to institutions. She has begun with this bedroom suite that will be joining the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). I congratulate Curator Bobbye Tigerman, who beat out some august institutions, including one that already owns one of my tables.
Scheherazade Bed & Night Side Table Day Side Table
ARTIST OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA CHERYL’S ARTIST PICK OF THE MONTH
LAUREN HALSEY AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Do not miss the Los Angeles-based Lauren Halsey (born 1987) site-specific installation commissioned for the roof of the Museum. It is SPECTACULAR, and the faces depicted are all members of her family!
An excerpt from the wall text: 'Influenced by her neighborhood of South Central (where her family has lived for generations), as well as Afrofuturism and funk, Halsey addresses critical issues around gentrification and social disenfranchisement, especially those that impact Black, queer, and working-class communities.'
The installation will be open until October 22.