Mystery Machine

The crowd on opening night of "Otherwise." 

Mr. Ben Clark in front of his work.

Keith Benjamin's tabletop genius, with Richard Emery Nickolson's and Ben Clark's
drawings on the wall behind and adjacent.

Keith Benjamin, Richard Emery Nickolson,and Ben Clark's brother.

Basement fundraiser for human rights happening at the same time.  Thanks to Holly Prochaska.

Keith Benjamin's work, with Ben Clark's on the wall.

"Otherwise."

A mirror piece by Keith Benjamin greets everyone.  Below are other shots and angles of the show:

We just opened a show called "Otherwise" last night, and it was a blast.  Down in the basement was a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and Southern Poverty Law Center.  The joint was packed.  What I want to concentrate on though is the "Otherwise" show, which presented works by Keith Benjamin, Ben Clark, and Richard Emery Nicksolson.  It was so much fun installing and organizing their works together that it felt as through all 3 gentlemen had worked on being in an exhibit together without actually know it, like they'd combined their visions into a perfect puzzle we could solve.  

We stumbled across Ben Clark's work at InsideOut Studio in Hamilton, Ohio, last year; it's a storefront space downtown that houses both a gallery and a studio for artists with developmental disabilities.  As soon as we saw Ben's work we knew we'd need to figure out a show.  I'd seen Keith's work in shows at PAC Gallery and the Carnegie, and Bill had reached out to Richard, who was his drawing professor back in the 80s at John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis.  

Richard's stark, perfect renderings of smokestacks, cranes and sky-wires have such an intense precision they read like imaginary movie stills, cinematic moments frozen into pen-and-ink telepathy. Keith's gorgeously and deceptively simple sculptures pull together tossed-aside materials like torn t-shirts and commercial packaging and rearrange and repurpose those things into objects that feel almost on the edge of utility but somehow find a poetic escape from it. Ben's paintings combine both Richard's intense connection to atmosphere and scenery with Keith's nervy, heightened appropriation of everyday objects; he creates totems from road signs, myth from strip malls and maps.  

Inside "Otherwise," you go from a minimalist, frenetic drawing of the Scooby-Doo gang's "Mystery Machine" to an almost sinister smokestack vibrating against a stark white sky, to a fresh, smooth wooden table covered in what appear to be delicate nostalgic maquettes of dream buildings constructed from stuff you find in your basement on a rainy day.  

All of the art in the show has a classy handmade/homemade aesthetic to it; all three artists have accomplished their missions by paying close attention to what's already there and transforming it all into a beautiful kind of strangeness.     

Why?

 

 

So why do we keep on doing Thunder-Sky, Inc.?  We're 6 years in now, and sometimes it feels like a never-ending cycle of chores -- news releases and Facebook posts and nails into walls and spackle and paint and bathroom cleaner and paper-towels and buying beer and wine and pop and ice, all in the name of curating the best and weirdest and sweetest art shows we can pull together, 6 times a year.  What is it now?  33 shows so far, with maybe about the same number installed in other galleries and places across the region.  God knows we don't do it for the cash.  Thunder-Sky, Inc. is all non-profit, all volunteer, all kind of makeshift and holy and silly and serious and sarcastic simultaneously.  It's about Raymond Thunder-Sky sure, but I think what's evolved from the initial desire to keep Raymond in the mix is this:

 

 

Antonio Adams.  He met Raymond the same time Bill and I did, and he was with us through the whole V+V evolution, and when we had to find an escape and a life-raft from the whole complicated V+V thing he came with us.  The life-raft was that space next to N-Vision, next to the Comet, 4573 Hamilton Avenue, Northside.  And in those six years Antonio has found a voice deeper and more hilarious and smarter and assured than ever before.  He uses the space during the week as a studio.  He calls "Artist's Meetings" to order on Saturdays, whether other artists are there or not.  He creates his own sense of super-stylish chic through costume and custom, always looking forward to next year.  And look at those gloves.  Damn.

 

Last night we opened our 34th in-house gig called "History Channel:  New Art from Old Art," and as usual the opening was joyous, off-kilter, clumsy, sweet, perfect.  I screwed up the wall-text with using the wrong abbreviation for "Price on Request," and Bill had a cow.  But despite that (or perhaps because of it) it was still hilariously what always happens:  lots of people from all kinds of different backgrounds, creeds, classes, etc., hanging out, walking around, making conversation, laughing.  There was a rainbow outside above the joint for a little while too, kind of like the 5:4 decision given its own God-blessed neon light.  Antonio invited his mom and sister and they all showed, and he got costumed and held court awaiting their presence.  Some artists from a studio in Hamilton called InsideOut, a place, like V+V, for artists with developmental disabilities, were there, totally enjoying their little bit of spotlight, and their excitement kind of got to me in the same way seeing Antonio holding court gets me.  They were all excited to see their art-history-inspired art on our humble white walls.  I truly loved the work.  Loved Cassie Sullivan's quilted Warhol "Marilyns" and Alicia Jones' "Frida Kahlo" painting, an astute rendering of the artist as both goddess and cartoon and David Campbell's beautiful and fragile and kind of satiric take on Grant Woods' "American Gothic" sour-pusses...    Hanging with the InsideOut-ers was a flashback to the days when Bill and I were pulling together gigs for the artists with disabilities we'd stumble upon doing out regular work, that sense of discovery and bliss, like art can truly matter when you let everything else go. 

 

The other artists we've gotten to know through Thunder-Sky, Inc., some labeled, some not, were there last night too, hanging out.  Marc Lambert, super-genius painter of sci-fi visions on ceiling tiles, contributed an archive of Styrofoam pharaohs and a couple ceiling-tile Sistine-Chapel fist-bumps to "History Channel," and he came to the opening with his whole extended family all dolled up and pleasant and affable.  Robert McFate did a great Cincy riff on Hopper's "Nighthawks," and Emily Brandehoff came up with some great historical zingers, the best of which combines Goya and the snack-meat product Slim Jim's.  It's to die for.  Scott Carney merged Japanese nautical art with Peter Max.  Alex Bartenberger Rothko'ed it up.  Avril Thurman took on Jenny Holzer in the best teletype kind of way.  Dale Jackson turned Yoko Ono's instructions from Grapefruit into gorgeous recipe cards.  And Antonio took on Da Vinci,  Michelangelo, Thomas Hart Benton, all in a deluxe super-Antonio manner.

 

It's all like that:  arbitrary, heart-felt, odd, but exactly what it should be. 

 

We're not creating anything institutional or pretentious or even practical at Thunder-Sky, Inc.  We are not building it to last, because nothing really does.  Just take a look at Raymond's drawings and you'll get that doom validated and made fun of.  What we do at Thunder-Sky, Inc. is very momentary and slap-happy because it has to be:  we only want what is authentically here, weird enough to tickle us, solidly made, simply presented, but also nutty enough to not be like anything else.  

 

And then everybody gets together and eats potato chips.  And drinks some beer and wine and pop.

 

Last night was such a great example of why we do it.  So thanks to everybody who does it with us. 

 

And then when we got home on CNN President Obama was singing "Amazing Grace."