Unless you attend a Dr. Sketchy’s event in another city. What began in Brooklyn in 2005 by illustrator Molly Crabapple has spread to 80 cities worldwide, reaching 4 continents with over 100 participating branches. Once a nude model herself, Crabapple hoped to offer a spicy and affordable alternative to the usual sterile atmosphere she tired of during formal drawing sessions. This February’s event, Tandem Tootsies or Babes on Bikes, saw New Haven into its eighth edition of Dr. Sketchy, which, aside from a brief hiatus, has been running every month for a year. And who, you might ask, do we have to thank?

Polly Sonic recalls bringing Dr. Sketchy to New Haven after she was unable to find affordable life drawing opportunities in town. Also an illustrator, Polly points to Crabapple as a real inspiration. Sonic explains that her “main mission is to get more participatory events in New Haven for artists and non-artists” and she has certainly spearheaded quite a few. Between working in Yale Drama School’s costume department, illustrating children’s books and being a puppeteer, Polly Sonic, a.k.a. Linda Wingerter, somehow finds the time to organize a go-go dancing troupe, roller durance club, circus/fire eating happenings, street performances and of course, monthly Dr. Sketchys. Polly’s hope is that the event will be a place for artists, and those who don’t think they are, to come together and socialize. Virtually all art forms and skill levels are welcomed and artists come equipped with anything from charcoal to Crayola crayons to pencils to watercolors and even Wacom tablets.

This February’s models, Linda Loo and Sarah Burntheart are members of the Pink Cycle Skirt Team and posed to raise money for their 50K bike ride for Multiple Sclerosis in May. In charge of both costumes and scenery, the duo put on quite a show. “It’s a theatrical production,” commented Loo. From the half eaten plastic chicken and classic coco cola bottles to the fake butterflies pinned to a blue sheet sky, every detail added to the 50’s pin-up girl theme of the evening. Past Sketchy events include themes such as New World Old World: a Thanksgiving extravaganza, Holiday Breakout: a jailhouse rock holiday and Queen of the Night: Dot Mitzvah posing 7 months pregnant.

Whether an artist or not, you will surely find Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School entertaining to say the least. Polly Sonic and her team which includes Tony Baloney Juliano, Dot Mitzvah, Phil Matz, Mike Franzman and Rev Al Mighty encourage fun above all else. A painter from New Britain expressed, “It’s a good time. How many other places do you get to draw and drink at the same time?” And who knows? You may even create a masterpiece by the end of the evening! Dr. Sketchy’s is certainly a unique experience. One that should not be missed and one that this artist looks forward to attending again in the future.

To find out more about Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School, please visit sketchynewhaven.blogspot.com

Sarah’s knowledge of both fields resulted from a combination of her schooling and work experiences. Paolucci remembered her years at the University of Hartford fondly, pointing to her teacher, Bill Thompson, as someone who ”always pushed [her] to be better.” Sarah graduated with a degree in Illustration and her training proved to be formative:

“I’m not a very spontaneous artist. I plan it out – because of my training, I think. They teach you to take reference shots and now I take that into account whenever I do anything.”

Paolucci continued her studies in the real world. She worked in a print shop for two years where she “learned everything [she] needed to know.” Sarah then took a job as lead graphic designer in New Jersey based company. While stating she did very well in this position, Sarah quickly realized that corporate life was not for her. She then decided to move back home to build her own business.

Sarah explained the growth of Paolucci Illustration and Design as a process that took place over time through acquiring the necessary connections and compiling a portfolio. Paolucci attested that her business sees equal parts design and illustration, but then admitted, “I do a lot of design work. It pays the bills and it’s easier to find.” While most of her clients are Connecticut locals, she also has a few international connections, which she acquired through her shop on etsy.com (www.sarahpaolucci.etsy.com). Paolucci grew up in Tolland Connecticut where she remembers discovering her love of drawing at an early age:
“When I was young and annoying and I would say to my mom, ‘I don’t know what to do, I’m bored,’ she would tell me to go draw. And so I would. I would go into the kitchen and I would draw the dog. That’s where I got my start.”

Sarah is also a portrait artist, offering realistic renderings of both humans and animals. She commented that portrait orders roll in during the holiday season and December is her busiest month. Colored pencils are her medium of choice, but “it all depends on the piece and what it calls for.” She also uses watercolors, graphite and pastels to capture her subject matter.

While work can often override pleasure, Sarah always tries to have personal projects going as well. Currently, she is working on Escher-esque inspired drawings and points to M.C. as someone who “is always in my brain. He’s always sitting back there somewhere.” Sarah’s current work-related projects include designing wedding invitations for a Bristol-based company, an Emerson Theater program as well as the promotional postcard for our very own Connecticut Creative Online. Sarah does everything from greeting cards to portraits to promotional posters to brochures and more; Paolucci Illustration and Design truly does it all!

For more information, please visit, www.sarahpaolucci.com.

From afar, the viewer makes out a mass of circular shapes that appear to expand and contract. Closer inspection reveals eyes peeking out from intricate swirls reminiscent of muscle tissue. These shapes appear like a pulsating cellular being floating in a sea of computer chips or wire grids. Faces begin to emerge, bending and turning upon one another. Daniel would later explain to me that he prefers his audience not think too much about what his drawings ‘mean’: “I want to provoke sensation in the individual. It’s not about seeing my work, it’s about feeling it.” True to his intention, Flesh Sensation pulls the viewer in and one almost feels the expansion and contraction in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps though, the mind’s interpretations serve only to deepen the bodily reactions the artist so hopes to inspire.

Daniel Kaminski’s solo exhibition, Streams of Subconscious, is a series of pen and ink drawings that explore the mind’s inner thoughts. Daniel explains his process as “my own meditation, my own contemplation.” Daniel says his “body takes over physically” when drawing, and his “mind is almost totally disengaged, like a trance.” One can draw parallels to stream of conscious writing as the cognizant mind takes a backseat to access otherwise unknown thoughts. Daniel said with a smile, “It’s a fascinating thing to start drawing without intention – it’s mysterious!”

Daniel states that drawing has always been part of his life, but points to recent experiences as critically influential to his artistic development. Kaminski spent the summer at Tasha Hill, a Provincetown artist community. Daniel remembers interactions with fellow artists as both inspirational and educational, mentioning his author roommate as particularly encouraging. Kaminski points to his reading during this time as influential as well noting authors such as Joseph Campbell, Henry Miller and psychiatrist Carl Jung. Daniel also visited many Provincetown galleries and began to think about how each work of art made him feel:

“It is not good enough to be technically proficient. It’s like in singing. Some people are technically great, but it doesn’t move you, there’s no power of expression. When the individual is poured into it, the piece of art radiates and has a greater effect.”

Even in some of his more abstract works, one feels the individual radiating through.

For instance, in Self Portrait, Daniel posits a uniquely abstract sense of self. Repeating and interlocking petal fans, varying in size, but similar in shape, fill the page. The pattern of shape and line repeats in black and white, continuing into four small squares of color toward the bottom. When considering the title, the piece comes to resemble a two dimensional layout of the brain; the conservative bursts of color could then represent the few parts in use: our conscious thoughts. From afar, the red and orange stand out, while the blue and green are near invisible. Up close, all four squares sink back, giving way to the more dominant bold black lines. With this subtle difference, perhaps Kaminski is leading us to understand the necessity to look more closely, more deeply, in order to discover the power and beauty of the subconscious mind.

Daniel Kaminski is an explorer concerned more with what lies below than what floats on the surface. Through his work, he hopes to inspire a kind of automatic reaction, a physical sensation. In this way, Kaminski seems to struggle to reach his audience’s subconscious through an expression of his own, to provoke feelings we ourselves are unaware exist. Whether or not we feel our subconscious rise to the surface, one thing is for sure: Daniel Kaminski’s drawings move his audience to think on a deeper level, one that for most might well be hidden below the conscious plane.






Daniel Kaminski’s work may be viewed at Koffee? on Audubon in New Haven, Connecticut for the rest of February 2010.

104 Audubon Street
New Haven, CT
06511

I met the members of Rums and Bumbletons in the dimly lit bar at Torrington’s Yankee Pedlar Inn one Wednesday evening. We ordered our pints and gathered in close as I asked the group to explain exactly how they came to be.

The band began in 1993 with singer Stone Catcherye and guitarist Dick Syn playing open mics and coffeehouses. After jamming together for some time, the pair parted ways for a few years: “Syn was living on the other side of the state, doing his own thing and I was doing my own thing,” remembered Stone. Syn and Delphi then reminisced about the night, three years ago, when they bumped into Stone at a Tool show, reconnecting the original Rums duo after their brief hiatus: “We realized that our own things were incomplete without each other,” Stone recalled, producing an all around “awww” from the table. After some debate, it was decided that the group took on its current amalgamation “Spring-ish 2007,” this time including both drummer Delphi Finn (whom Syn played with in B-Side) and bassist Kramwell Ellavalled (Stone’s cousin and former Zamboni bandmate).

When asked to describe their music, Delphi explained it as “definitely original, but if you had to add some flavors to it, probably Blind Melon-ish, Led Zepplin-ish.” Kramwell noted that people have told him the band “should’ve started way back in the nineties.” One can definitely hear these influences while listening to such songs as The Perfect Oz, Rats and Head Tax. Heavy on the electric guitar, one track you might involuntarily bang your head to the beat, while the next produces a swaying motion of the shoulders and neck. Syn explained that their music is “hard to define. One week we might write a song that’s like one thing and the next week it will be something totally different.” Stone then said half kidding that between the four of them, their tastes are so different, “sometimes we write like, a polka song.” Syn concurred, “Yeah, we’ll do a free form polka.” All jokes aside, the group listed influences such as Tool, Muse, The Beatles, Mars Volta, Rush, Sound Garden, Jay Z, Primus, ACDC, Guns and Roses and Alice and Chains. In fact, Rums and Bumbletons is to be featured in a book coming out about the recording history of Alice and Chains.

While influenced by many, Rums and Bumbletons write their own music and describe it as a collaborative effort. Syn explained: “I don’t think you can write a complete song by yourself; I don’t think it can really come alive until everyone puts their two cents in.” Kramwell noted that there is never any shortage of material as “Stone’s got like years of lyrics written down.” Stone then shrugged humbly and admitted to being a “wannabe poet.”

In fact, their lyrics are often quite poetic and on several tracks, strong imagery is enhanced by the accompanying music. For instance, in Rats, the music and lyrics work together to create an overall feeling of being lost at sea. As the lyrics in each verse repeat with subtle changes, the music plays in circular patterns. Stone’s haunting voice pulls us in, “Rats can’t swim the sea that you swam for me,” and the track itself seems to build like the gradually rising swells of a misty ocean tide.

While discussing how they write their songs, Syn noted, “You never know where you can pull inspiration from”:
“One time I was gonna be late for practice… I had car trouble, let’s put it that way. I called Dave and I was giving him an excuse for why I wasn’t showing up and Chris ended up recording it and putting it into a song.”
Stone then added, “That’s actually called The Sinner’s Excuse.” Their songs touch on a variety of themes, including, but not limited to, love and apocalypse, friendship and violence.

After having recently finished their first EP, the self produced Ahrenbe, the band plans to start booking gigs soon. While Stone bemoaned Connecticut’s lack of enthusiasm for its musicians, the band has nonetheless already played at several local venues such as New Haven’s Toad’s Place, Hartford’s Webster and Webster Underground, Cheshire’s CJ Sparrows and more. Rums has also been featured on WCCC Homegrown, 106.9 The Rock. Syn announced with a smile: “2010 is gonna be a big year for the Rums and Bumbletons!”

As I sat around the table with this charismatic foursome, it was impossible to miss the brotherly kind of friendships shared between them. Syn put it well: “The bottom line is we have a great time. We love to make the music and we love hanging out with each other,” which sent up a teasing chorus of “I love you mans,” joking hugs and loud back pats. Keep your eyes open Connecticut, for we will surely see more of both the Rums and the Bumbletons this year!

To find learn, see and hear more, please visit: www.rumsandbumbletons.com

As we sat on the floor of his artist loft in Westville, Connecticut, I asked Kwadwo to describe how he works:

The first part is to choose a few colors that I want to see together, colors that I’m craving at the time. I’ll start with an idea of form and I will establish a non-objective rule that is the law in the piece. For example, purple hyperbolic squares only or yellow green triangles or squares.

Kwadwo went on to explain that he layers color and forms in ways that “interfere with the first design or form,” adding a “contrasting” element. And then the final step:

It’s math, so you have two variables that you’ve got and you want to add a third to make them complete so that’s when I add thicker parts and I add a color family that will balance the piece until it’s visually silent.

While speaking with Kwadwo, I took “visually silent” to mean the moment in which the artist reaches a balance and harmony within the piece, the moment the work ceases to tug on your coattails, ceases to demand more. However, to those who have viewed Kwadwo’s work, his pieces are anything but silent.

In all of his works, a kind of conversation seems to exist between the various levels of paint. In XXX, for instance, the brilliant blacks and navies might seem to tease the overlapping lighter shades of purple, pink and blue as they weave in, out and around this design. One might view this relationship as antagonistic, the points poking at the pattern below. Or perhaps the swirls are not teasing at all, but caring and loving as they nestle up to their brighter counterparts. Then, with the addition of a third dimension, the piece becomes even more vibrant, more alive. Golden worms, dewdrops, leaves, stripes, cheerios, squids seep into the purple blues and playfully overlap the dark waves. I asked Kwadwo to explain how he creates this third dimension to his works:

I’ll take a tube and squeeze it right on top and then I’ll play with it using knitting needles, staples, swizzle sticks, palette knives, my finger, regular brushes – whatever it takes to get the desired shape. And the rule for the textures is that they cannot repeat themselves. I want to make sure there is enough variation, that there are enough forms unique to just that painting.

Kwadwo explained with a smile that he has been working on his thesis for years and is still excited by each piece: “I never know what [the paintings are] going to look like until they’re done so it’s exciting to keep making them.”

As well as working on his own paintings, Adae now teaches at Adae Fine Art Academy on Chapel Street in New Haven. Beginning as a way to pay for the studio space, the Adae Academy opened with six students in 2005 and has now grown to twenty: “Students are taught on an individual basis, pursuing their own specific artistic interests. There is no set curriculum and students are encouraged to create with a variety of media, subject matter and technique.” Kwadwo founded the school after earning a Master in Painting at New York University; it was there that he traveled down the path ultimately leading to his current series:

I was making abstract figures that were faceless – rather, they were minimally featured, identity-less more than anything else. I got bad feedback, which led me to creating landscapes in the same style but with no people. I was trying to figure out where the people who were in my paintings would be hanging out. I did four landscapes and the last one [of dead trees] was awful. I hated it so much that I got mad and painted over it recklessly. I put in soft pink forms, then hard dark violets and blues over the trees. It led me to the non-objective pieces … Thirty-two paintings later, I’m still trying to define what non-objective means and how it can be conveyed.

With each piece, Adae’s overarching goal is always the same: to make a truly non-objective piece, one that transcends any sole objective association. Kwadwo explained that “making things objective is a lot easier than you realize! You have to work to make something non-objective.” Adae’s hope is that each of us will not only see something different from one another in his works, but also that each of us will see multiple interpretations within each painting as well: “If I have a group looking at one piece all seeing the same objective thing then that means I failed. Or if I see only one objective thing then that means I have to change it.”

Adae’s paintings call to the viewer and lead us around in a fantastical world that changes as much as we allow it. Virtually every time I look at one of his works, new shapes, images, relationships and ideas spring to mind. Take XXIX for example. At first, I see a gloomy cityscape infested with parasitic insects. On second look, rows of pink Gumbys waver in a murky coral reef waters. As I stare longer, rock sculptures at Monument Valley studded with gold sequins and lace emerge. The list continues.

Adae is now in the midst of developing a new way to display his work: The Cube Route. With the help of a good friend, Kwadwo has constructed a giant 58” by 58” by 40” deep cube, weighing approximately 120 lbs, on which his paintings will be displayed. As presented in his solo exhibition at New Haven’s Artspace in February 2009, Kwadwo sees his pieces as part of a larger grid:

All of the paintings are squares. I was playing around with the fact that you can make more squares exponentially by adding them to each other; they make grids. But a 15 foot square is tough to install, so I began thinking of other formats to hang the squares. I was looking at dice and thinking it would be cool to make a cube of paintings. I began thinking about other cubes, like the Astor Place Cube or the Bienecke Cube and all of them stand on one of its vertices. I decided to suspend the cube from the ceiling so the viewer could walk around the paintings; the viewer will have to interact with them. You can only see a maximum of three paintings at once. The more cubes there are in an exhibition, the more walking you would have to do. The idea is paintings as kinetic sculptures instead of just paintings.

In this sense, the cube seems to be an extension of an idea already present in Kwadwo’s work. Just as each piece pulls the viewer in and the paint moves about within (and outside of) the canvas, the viewer will now be forced to actively interact with the pieces themselves, to walk around the cube to view each work. Moving perhaps like a swirl present on one square or a slither present on another: a movement that will potentially compliment the movement within each piece. The new associations and ideas that promise to arise from such a display are endless and I look forward to watching Adae’s work continue to transform and take on new life.

To view more of Kwadwo Adae’s work, please visit: kwadrants.blogspot.com