Booth 510 at artMRKT San Francisco!

Hello out there,

This weekend Marisa is out repping Like the Spice at the artMRKT show in San Francisco. If you're in town, you can go check out the booth and meet Marisa Sage herself!

The show is being held in the Concourse Exhibition Center on 620 7th street (at Brannan) - only 9 blocks away from SFMOMA.

We are exhibiting in BOOTH 510 and are featuring work by Jenny Morgan, Jason Bryant, Jason Bard Yarmosky, Eric LoPresti and Treasure Frey.

Here is some information on the show for all you eager art-goers provided by the artMRKT website:

HOURS:

Thursday, May 19

UCSF Benefit Preview Party 5:30pm - 7:30pm (details)

VIP Preview Party 7:30pm - 10:30pm (details)

Friday, May 20 - 11:00am to 7:00pm

Saturday, May 21 - 11:00am to 7:00pm

Sunday, May 22 - 11:00am to 6:00pm

PARKING:

There are over 800 parking spaces within a 2 block walk from the Concourse Exhibition Center including 300 spots in the adjacent parking lot. Another 400 spots are located in two parking garages on the opposite side of the block (Townsend Street).

TICKETS:

1 Day Ticket - good for Friday, Saturday OR Sunday - $20 online / $25 at the door

3 Day Ticket - good for Friday, Saturday AND Sunday - $40 online / $45 at the door

UCSF Benefit Preview Party Ticket - $100 online / $110 at the door

Thursday Night Benefit Preview Party + Thursday Night VIP Preview Party + all day Fri., Sat. AND Sun. (details)

Note: UCSF Benefit and VIP Preview Party are catered events with complimentary food and beverage including sparkling wine, wine, tequila and beer. Non-alcoholic beverages available. Cocktail dress.

Student Ticket - good for Friday, Saturday OR Sunday - $10 at the door

But, Like the Spice is offering complimentary 1-day passes! Click here for more on that.

See some of the pieces that will be up at the show!

Eric LoPresti:

Sky Drawing A (Tempest)

Graphite and india ink on paper

14" x 11", 2010

Burst / Rattlestar

Oil and india ink on linen

72" x 40", 2011

Fact (Anatomy Frontier Day)

Oil, india ink and flache on linen

40" x 30"

Jason Bryant:

A Labor of Love and Love's Labor Lost

(both) Oil on canvas

24" x 30", 2o11

Jason Bard Yarmosky:

Irv

Oil on canvas

17" x 14", 2011

Kinderlove

Oil on linen

36" x 48", 2011

Jenny Morgan:

Sisterhood
Oil on canvas
45" x 34.5", 2010

From the Valley to the Stars
Oil on canvas

51" x 30", 2010

Inner Island

Oil on canvas

43" x 28", 2010

Middle Ground
Oil on canvas

25" x 19", 2010

Trendsetter
Oil on canvas

23" x 20", 2010

Treasure Frey:

My Way Home

Gouache, acrylic, varnish watercolor on walnut ink stained paper

20" x 24", 2011

Internal

Gouache, acrylic, varnish watercolor on walnut ink stained paper

30" x 40", 2011

The Stairway

Gouache, acrylic, varnish and gold watercolor on walnut ink stained paper

11" x 14", 2010

Looking forward to seeing you at the show!

Learn to Collect / 2:ND Fridays / You could have won a smart phone / Jenny Morgan Press!

As some of you may know, this past Friday, May 13th, Like the Spice teamed up with AT&T to create the event Learn to Collect.

Participants of the event had the opportunity to win an HTC Inspire 4G smartphone provided by AT&T. In order to win this awesome (and oh-so-functional) trophy, one had to 'create personal art collections' of the works displayed at participating 2nd Friday galleries in Williamsburg by photographing them and posting them to the event's Facebook page. The uploader with the most photos will win the smartphone, and we'll be announcing the winner later on this week.

The gallery crawl was a great success and the twelve participating galleries had hundreds of visitors over the course of the night. Hal Lenox, AT&T's New York State President said, "We were thrilled to sponsor the event which connects galleries with art enthusiasts in this thriving artistic community." You're a pal, Hal.

The galleries that participated in Learn to Collect this past Friday were Art 101, Black & White Gallery, Camel Art Space, Causey Contemporary, Figureworks, Front Room, Gitana Rosa, K&K, Parker's Box, Pierogi, Ventana 244, and of course, yours truly.

Check out some of the shout-outs we got from Tusk Strategies, Art Online Galleries and Near Brooklyn!

Check out art blogger Heidi Alamanda's great photos of Jenny Morgan's One and the Many opening here!

Eyes Towards the Dove also has some great things to say about our current exhibit!

Be sure to RSVP to our monthly dinner series for this month's A Layered Menu and an opportunity to speak with artist Jenny Morgan about her latest series of work!

One and the Many, Many, Many

Best Friday the 13th ever! Last night was the opening for Jenny Morgan's fabulous show, One and the Many.

The almost surreal subjects of Jenny's paintings (many of whom were in attendance - in the flesh) gazed wistfully out at the excited attendees who stared right back, trying to determine exactly what the figures were saying with their eyes. Everyone was utterly blown away with the magnitude and subtle depth of Jenny's most recent body of work. Guests mingled and sipped one and many glasses of wine, but it was difficult to lose focus on the artwork itself.

It was great to see the art-hungry crowd and the look of pride on the artist's parents faces (they were visiting from Utah!).

Anyone look familiar?

We were able to see the models of the portraits right next to their painted depictions and realize just how talented an artist Jenny Morgan is.

Last night we unveiled a set of unique silkscreen prints (50 editions) of Mimic, which are available for purchase. They are beautifully printed on Canson printmaking paper and are available framed and unframed. Some of the editions were sold last night and they are continuing to head off to their new homes - so get one while you can!

We had a fantastic turnout (and so much fun!) and we'd like to thank everyone for coming. Make sure to RSVP for our monthly artist's dinner series, A Layered Menu, for an opportunity to have a scrumptious dinner with Jenny Morgan and hear about her artistic process and inspirations.

Jenny Morgan Press!!

For those of you who have not been watching my facebook page like a hawk, here is your chance to see and read up on all of the amazing press Jenny Morgan and "One and the Many" has received the last few days...


"Working with people from my own life as subject matter allows me to hone in on specifics of their character and present their personalities as I experience them."- Jenny Morgan, Village Voice article , 'ABOUT FACE: Capturing inner beauty one hair strand at a time,' by Araceli Cruz


"I do generally build up the figure in two coats and then sand specific areas. So I have to kind of wait and see what parts to paint according to what I sand, so it goes in different layers. But I do like to build it up and then just tear it down again."- Jenny Morgan for 'Inside the Artist's studio,' for L Magazine, by Benjamin Sutton...L Magazine's wonderful Benjamin Sutton did a feature article on Jenny in which he asks the artist about her specific processes where her titles come from, and what drives her scraping and sanding layers away. It's a really fantastic article, and online you get the full interview which gives such amazing insight to Jenny's work. Definitely a great read!

“This body of work finally had my undivided attention. I was able to work consistently everyday which allowed for this body of work to feel more like a family to me. They are all interconnected.” - Jenny Morgan for Milkmade. This super awesome website is run by the peeps over at Milkstudios in Chelsea; they feature written editorial and blog posts, exclusive photo commissions, cell phone content, and an interactive events calendar. Pretty cool stuff!

Current has re-posted Jenny's feature in this week's L Magazine on their home page!

And just to give ourselves our own little pat on the back, The Guardian included us in their New York City Guide naming us one of the top 10 best art galleries in Brooklyn and Queens! It is an honor to be listed with the Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, P.S. 1, and other greats!

"All things come out of the one, and the one out of all things."-Heraclitus

That's right folks, we are all connected within this big giant universe of ours, and you know what? This is GREAT news because who wouldn't want to be connected to the beautiful and incredibly talented Jenny Morgan? Or at least that is what you will be asking yourself when you attend the opening for Jenny's latest solo exhibition, "One and the Many," tomorrow from 6:30-9:00pm here at Like the Spice. Jenny's newest portraits are filled with life and spirit; stare at one long enough (it's difficult not to) and you honestly feel as though you may be communing with another soul. Through her work it seems that Jenny is able to facilitate these correspondences effortlessly, but we all know that it takes much more to finish a piece. Fragile layers upon layers of paint are laid down with care and then roughed away to create multiple dimensions of depth and color; this pushes and pulls the viewer and the subject from a present reality to a past one. Who are these people? Where do they come from? Why do I feel like the see me? And these are just a few of the questions you might have for Jenny when you see the hauntingly beautiful faces that make up "One and the Many."

"Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another." -Leibniz


Jenny Morgan: One and the Many May 13-June 19 2011
Opening Reception: Friday May 13th 6:30-9:00pm
Artist Dinner: Friday June 3rd 8pm RSVP only

Eric LoPresti, plutonium, mac n' cheese, oh my?!

Well, I am still full from last night's amazing "Different Cuisine," dinner (the artist dinner for Eric LoPresti's current show "Different Country"). Eric did a fantastic job discussing this new body of work and just how much where he came from factors in.

Growing up in the desert steppe of eastern Washington state near the Hanford plutonium production site seemed completely normal in his early years; his parents, as well as all of his friends' parents, worked at the famed Hanford sites developing many notable technological achievements during a period where Nuclear technology was growing rapidly. As a young boy playing in the school yard Eric never really thought about how notorious that region was; established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the Hanford site was home to the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first nuclear bomb tested at the Trinity site, and in Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan.


Above is a photograph taken in 1960 of the Hanford site; the historic B Reactor, the world's first plutonium production reactor, is visible in the distance. It wasn't until later that Eric became interested in this world history that happened to be so closely tied to his own family history. He started reading and researching everything about the area and as well as the Cold War, fascinated by the dichotomy posed by the atom bomb and how it was the "ultimate success of theoretical science" but also its "ultimate moral failure."


Growing up in this shadow, surrounded by the aftermath of that era and remembering how is dad and his friends' dads did work they were not allowed to talk about speaks to what he refers to as a "dark center." Still fascinated by this dark center LoPresti created his new landscape paintings to reflect it; maintaining his established focus on the physical and psychological aftermath of the Cold War, the physical pock marks of nuclear testing, and subsequent environmental clean-up campaigns (today, Hanford is still the most contaminated nuclear site in the country). Cool, right? I love impromptu history lessons! Now that we have the historical and geographical background for Eric's dinner, let's talk about the food...


Famed Williamsburg soul-food mecca, Pies and Thighs, did an amazing job catering for us. I never thought a kale salad could win me over (I LOVE MEAT) but it did! We also had a delicious black-eyed pea salad that was just the right amount of spice and sweet (fresh jalapenos and chopped sweet pickles do the trick). We then had entree plates piled with Pies and Thighs' signature fried chicken (so good that even Martha Stewart needed to get a piece), smoked beef brisket with homemade bbq sauce, and black pepper and cheddar macaroni and cheese. Needless to say, it was all irresistible. For those of you who could not join us I would definitely recommend making a trip and tasting the food for yourself (plus, Like the Spice is in walking distance and you could come see us too!) Eric's show is open until May 8th so get to planning your Pies and Thighs/Like the Spice adventure!


A huge thank you to all who were able to join us, and to the rest of you I hope you will join us for Jenny Morgan's dinner for One and the Many in June!

Isn't it swell to be different?

Another second Friday gone and another successful opening achieved, and we barely even broke a sweat! Eric LoPresti's newest body of work, "Different Country," transforms the gallery into a sort of battle-zone where hazy aerial views of once decimated nuclear test sites and environmental clean up facilities collide with dark solid vectors that appear to target specific points on the canvas. I love the softer color gradients of the oil landscapes themselves juxtaposed with the sharp and probing vectors. The viewers' attention is immediately drawn to the mountains and crags and yet at the same time the gaze is redirected to follow and map out the targets and line-scapes overlaid in india ink. I almost feel like a military strategist tracing paths and drawing diagrams for possible maneuvers. Sigh, but I digress...What I mean to be focusing on is the opening itself (the works of course you will just have to come to Like the Spice and see for yourself)!
In spite of the foggy haze and the damp side walks people from all over attended the opening reception of "Different Country"; we had members of Eric's family, droves of his friends, and then all of those wonderful visitors and passerby-ers who either planned to come or just happened to see some bright lights, smiling strangers, and some really beautiful art work and decided to check it out."Different Country," Eric LoPresti's third solo show here at Like the Spice, will be up through May 8th and with all of this sunshine going around there is little excuse to not come to Williamsburg and check out some of the shops, shops, fine food, and the artwork at Like the Spice!

In other exciting (and mouthwatering) news, Pies and Thighs will be catering our "Different Cuisine" dinner on Friday, April 22nd. Eric will of course be in attendance, as should you to see the show, meet the artist, and chow down on some amazing food. Our dinners are RSVP only, click here to reserve your tickets today!