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Art Fri Dec 06 2013
The Collectors at The Franklin
The thing about reproduction in our world today is it is part of the language. It is presented so haphazardly, almost without regard to its origin. I write these words, which have been reproduced so many times and I don't even care if I spell them right because that is a detail that will be auto-corrected. Appropriation, in the arts, is new but just as haphazardly utilized today as reproduction. I cannot say nor would I attempt to judge whether this is good or bad, but it is interesting. With Instagram and Pinterest we just get in there and tell ourselves we have the talent to gather a bunch of stuff from the internet or choose the right filter for that moment in our lives, but that brings up a host of questions about craft and how we relate to craft. What is craft today?
And that brings me to a small outdoor venue on the west side called The Franklin. Run by husband and wife team Dan Sullivan and Edra Soto The Franklin is a uniquely designed space that allows artists, curators, and designers to engage with their community.
This Saturday, Dec. 7, opens two exhibitions, The Collectors and Visitation Rites II. The Collectors are artists Corinne Halbert, Ryan Richey and Chris Lin, who have all spent a significant amount of time creating reproductions for this exhibit. In the shows announcement it states that "Once it was a prerequisite to copy the old masters... now you usually just need a degree." And that unfortunately may be increasingly true, but bravo to these three "Collectors" for looking back and seeing the value and the level of craft of the artists that they admire.
The Franklin will also host Visitation Rites II by Chris Smith and E. Aaron Ross that Chris assured me will be "rad" because the documentation of this show will be recorded by a dog, and there will be fire. So there's that.
All in all, the Franklin is a wonderful space owned and run by artists who open their space because they love the arts. This is not common, but it is the cornerstone of what we as artists want to have as support.
